Blue Card Is A Safety System

This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart and John Vance

We argue that firefighter safety on the fireground works best as a built-in system, not a lone safety officer trying to play catch-up outside the hazard zone. We connect real injury and fatality patterns to supervision, accountability, communications, and command decisions that match conditions in both residential and commercial buildings. 

In this episode:
• Strategic Decision-Making Workshop overview and how it builds repeatable decision reps 
• New continuing education module on the eight functions of command for technical rescue 
• New first responder firefighter online module for non-IC roles and better scene communications 
• Why “safety is a system” and why a single roaming safety officer cannot prevent all bad outcomes 
• Residential fire threats including collapse and severe thermal events 
• Commercial fire threats including disorientation, getting lost, and air management failures 
• How Blue Card embeds safety through task, tactical, and strategic supervision 
• Division boss and support officer pairing for accountability, work-rest cycles, and resource control 
• SOPs, training, and performance monitoring as the foundation of incident safety 
• NIOSH top contributing factors and why incident command owns the fix 
• Recommended next steps, including Fire Command, Command Safety, and division ops training 

Order the 3rd Edition of Fire Command here: https://bshifter.myshopify.com/products/new-fire-command-3rd-edition

For Waldorf University Blue Card credit and discounts: https://www.waldorf.edu/blue-card/

For free command and leadership support, check out bshifter.com

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Transcript

Welcome And Quick Updates

SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hello and welcome to the Beat Shifter Podcast. John Vance here today, along with Chris Stewart and Josh Bloom, and we will be talking about incident safety in just a moment. I'm coming to you from the AVB CTC. Josh is in suburban Cincinnati, and Chris Stewart is in Wooster, Massachusetts. I know I didn't Worcester, Massachusetts. Then you're doing a strategic decision-making workshop out there.

Strategic Decision-Making Workshop Breakdown

SPEAKER_00 0:31

Yeah, we're actually doing two. We had the first group the last two days, and we started uh session number two with another group here. And we've got the vast majority are Worcester firemen, and then there, but there's a couple from from surrounding agencies in the class as well. So it's been been great group.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

Uh give a an elevator speech, if you will, on what that class is all about for those who are not familiar with our strategic decision making workshop.

Booking Workshops And Getting Seats

SPEAKER_00 0:59

So I think the the best way to describe that is we're going to take some very specific elements that we teach in the day one. Well, we teach in the online, and then we teach in the day one part of the curriculum. Very specifically, that slide that everybody's familiar with, the strategic decision making slide, but we kind of surround that with the standard conditions, standard actions, standard outcomes slide. We talk about the deep a deeper meaning of that, and then we really get into the application of uh the performance improvement model, right? So we bring all those three elements kind of together and then talk about how we use the strategic decision-making model as our decision-making process on the fire ground, right? And we center and talk about very specifically how do we actually do size up? How do we do size up to actually help us determine critical fire ground factors and then connect every other decision that we make on the fire ground to that initial and ongoing assessment of the incident conditions and the critical fire ground factors, and so that allows us to actually make a reasonable risk management decision that connects the most appropriate strategy, and then we come up with a plan that actually matches the conditions. And maybe, maybe one of the one of the critical elements is that it gives the IC one or IC2, but oftentimes it's IC2 has it from a more prolonged standpoint of ensuring that we are working in the right strategy throughout the entirety of the incident and that we're actually paying attention to the incident conditions. And if if we actually need to change that incident strategy based on the critical factors, things may not be going the way we want them to, that we're able to do that. So we use some case studies from across the United States on firefighter injuries and firefighter fatalities, kind of help drive this home. We evaluate it, you know, kind of a post-mortem, I guess if you will, like for lack of a better term, utilizing strategic decision making. If we had this incident to run on tonight, how would we make our decisions based on what we know now? And so we end the overall workshop with sets and reps, is leaving them with a tool, uh a trainable, repeatable system to be able to actually practice decision making, utilizing the strategic decision-making model as part of their training program. Excellent.

New Technical Rescue Command CE

SPEAKER_01 3:27

And we have a number of those on our workshop calendar right now. Some of them have openings, so you can go to bShifter.com and go over to where our workshops are and you'll be able to see those dates and either uh contact Josh if you want to have one hosted at your department. They're booking way out right now, or you can find an open one possibly uh on our calendar right now. So check that out. Josh, it's been a big week at Blue Card too. A couple of brand new things. We have a brand new CE that's out there.

SPEAKER_02 3:57

What is that all about? Yeah, so Chris can jump in on this, but he was the he did a lion's share of the work on building it out along with Grant Light. But yeah, we released and pushed out that eight functions of command for technical rescue. So it's similar to anybody who's done the hazmat program, it's similar to that. And it's really just how do you apply the all hazards blue card system to TRT events? And it is not for the tech rescue specialist or somebody riding on a squad or heavy rescue or any of that really. It's more about people who are not necessarily, you know, trained in the command component and making good decisions on the front end. So, how do you apply the system we use to manage the fire ground to we use to manage hazmat for everything, right? Blue card is a all hazards management system. So yeah, we pushed that out earlier this week. It's in the CE section for both anybody who has full access license. So the regular blue card users, as well as well as it's also in the RCE section, because so many, I mean, airports, really 90-something percent of probably what they do for responses would would would or could line up with that you know TRT, you know, component. And then all of everywhere they you know cover on the airport and off of the airport. So Chris, you want to just give a little overview of like the nuts and bolts of it?

SPEAKER_00 5:22

Yeah, so really it is it's taking and breaking down the functions of command with regards to technical rescue incidents. I think the most important parts are number one, talking about sizing up an incident, doing some form of risk management evaluation, determining strategy, and coming up with a plan that is safe and effective for the level of capability and qualifications and training for the people who are initially arriving, and then trying to do an effective job of setting up an incident and incident organization when or for when the technical rescue resources and elements show up. And so we talk a little bit about the decision making that you know non-technical rescue companies should be making on the front end to keep themselves safe, but also to be able to do, you know, a few set of things that could actually be helpful at a at a technical rescue incident, and then and then how we're going to organize and connect those technical rescue resources in into an incident organization using tactical level bosses to accomplish the work. There's a little bit of discussion in there on technical rescue events that end up being longer than more, you know, more of a fire ground standard operational period. We'll say 12 hours. So if a rescue event's going to extend past that 12-hour period, how do we integrate the the NIMS uh larger scale incident command system like as overhead into this so that there's actually a planning function and you're able to do the resource exchanges at all levels, strategic, tactical, and task, uh in that if for for pro for easy for me to say, prolonged incidents, right? So it really is a holistic view, it really is an overarching view. As Josh said, we're not uh teaching anybody how to do a mounter hitch or you know, rig up a uh a rope system. No, this is about the incident command system, keeping folks safe, trying to do some uh effective things on the front end, and then better supporting the uh whole technical rescue operation.

New Firefighter First Responder Module

SPEAKER_01 7:36

Excellent. Well, that I've been through it already, and it it it's a it's a great module. So get on there and check out our new continuing education module on TRT for command. And then also rolling out this week was the new first responder firefighter module. Let us know what that is, Josh, and who who the audience is uh for that particular new program that we just rolled out.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

Yeah, so we launched earlier in the week a four to five hour online module focused on people who are not gonna be the incident commander. So firefighters, apparatus operators. Really, we built it so that we have some organizations that we ran at pass that are going to use it in their recruit academy, actually, for some of the firefighters I think 1010 now, I think they've pushed it all together. There's no more 1001. I guess they've pushed it all under, you know, one thing, but the communications and command component for that firefighter two professional qualification. So it meets, you know, a whole bunch of those, you know, parts and pieces, as well as you know, consideration for people who run with EMS only personnel. Or I had a phone call today from somebody, would it be valuable for us to put our police officers to it so that they have a better understanding of what we're of what we're doing? And you know, I think I think the more we can connect everybody that's on the scene and keep them on the same page, the better. So again, it's it's a it's a nuts and bolts of the blue card system. What do you need to know as a non-incident commander? But everybody else in the fire ground plays a key role in everything that happens there, right? Uh, the capability of our response is the entire response system, not any one person or one company. So this just brings people up to speed at at their level where they would operate, if you will. So it's not it's not so much about making tactical or strategic decisions, but it's the understanding of what is going on, why the system is the way that it is, why we communicate the way we communicate, best practice for communications, using the emergency alert button. And we we got some of that right from NIOSH from some of the stuff that they the bulletin that NIOS pushed out, as well as some of the other events. As recent as what, two days ago when they released the Buffalo incident, the what the May Day was missed four times, and it's like, well, that's if your system is capable of it, you know, that that might be a good use for the emergency alert button. So it goes through all those parts and pieces. And it it I think it's it helps all the responders fit into the system because they have a better understanding of it. And you know, far too often we hear, oh, we don't want our firemen talking on the radio at all. And it's like, well, there's a time and a place for that, you know, and you know, some of the some basic things. It's you know, you leave a guy at a hydrant to hit the water supply, and you told him don't talk on the radio, but the hydrant's dead. Well, I don't know how you're gonna find out that it's dead until you're somebody screaming that you don't have any water. Or we already hit on this with Chris talking about the the critical thinking and decision-making class, but we want firefighters to make decisions too and give input when appropriate. So there's some parts and pieces and components in there about that as well, is using can reports and making sure that they just don't everybody's on the same page and nobody's cutting anybody else off, following communications best practice and fitting into the command system. So we launched it two days ago, announced it yesterday, and at 10 o'clock yesterday morning, the office was calling me saying, hey, we're we're getting we're we're bulk loading people into the system for this firefighter module. So I've already and I've already had some feedback from some people that have gone through it, as well as all of our folks that went through it. And uh yeah, it's just getting everybody on the same page at every level, like we talk about task, tactical and strategic level.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

So what's the best way to sign people up for that? If there's a training officer or somebody out there that wants to get their department signed up and and they and they have a number of people they want to do that, what's the best way to contact us for that?

SPEAKER_02 11:40

Yeah, if you're signing up multiple people for anything that we have for online, for workshops, for this class, our anything, the best thing with that is contact the office. And then if you can send it, typically they'll just ask you to send it in like an Excel form or whatever with just names and emails. And that way they can, you know, upload all of those. You can purchase everything we have online, you know, kind of one at a time individually if you put the information into there. But if you're buying or putting multiple people online or renewing multiple people, yeah, you can call the office or email the office and and I always every chance I get give them kudos because I think we're one of the only ones left standing that answers the phone and returns emails rapidly. So yeah, the people in the office do a great job with the customer service part of it and taking care of the customer.

SPEAKER_01 12:32

So we're not bots. There's not a bot here. He's an actual person. So that that is refreshing because it you can hardly find a real person when you're trying to get customer service now.

SPEAKER_02 12:42

Please please leave a message and we will get back to you in seven to ten business days. Yeah, yeah. And we don't work on Friday, so that that'll be like three weeks.

Safety Is A System

SPEAKER_01 12:51

You've heard that about a major SCBA manufacturer saying that, didn't you? Yeah. So it's it uh somebody's spending six figures and more on SCBAs or even getting that from certain companies. So it's it's it's nice to actually have customer service. All right, that's exciting. New stuff on on V Shifter and Blue Card. So check that out. Today we are going to talk about incident safety. And today was our Mayday day at the ABBCTC, and a conversation happened here where so many of the things that we do and did in the fire service, and we were talking about some of our past practices, it's based on theory. It sounded like a good idea. It was a fix for a problem that we had, but no one really actually measured the way that it worked, and we just kept doing it. When the Tarver incident happened in Phoenix and they went through an extensive recovery period, one of the things they realized is having the safety officer program, the way that they were administering it and deploying it, really didn't work for fire ground safety. Having one lone safety officer do laps around the building and having the authority to you know basically usurp whatever the the IC said really was looked at as a safety system back then. And really, Chris's point and what we wanted to talk about here today is safety is a system, not a position on the fire ground. Expand what you mean by that, Chris, and and really what this topic is going to mean for us today.

Real Threats In Residential Fires

Commercial Fires And Getting Lost

Why The Lone Safety Officer Fails

SPEAKER_00 14:19

Well, I think we kind of have to start with some fundamental, you know, knowledge or expectations about what's safe, what we're talking about with regards to safety. I think it's important to understand exactly what safety is, right? It's some format of protection from harm, right? If we're going to talk about like the formal definition of safety. And then if we're going to talk about the application of that in a in any work that's happening in an IDLH environment and that could be looked at as you know, a dangerous type of job, in order to have some effective form of safety, we have to know and understand what we're actually trying to protect people from, right? And so we get a lot of that information, we get a lot of that knowledge from you know, from from make mistakes, from from tragedy, from bad outcomes, from you know, things that may have not even ended in tragedy, but it was it was certainly like, whoo man, that that wasn't good. Thankfully it didn't hurt anybody, but we probably should learn from it. So when we start doing that and we start evaluating information from line of duty deaths and maydays and those types of things, then we can start to look at, all right, what are the ways that firefighters are typically getting hurt or injured on these calls? And what is the process, system, and you know, kind of behaviors that help us start to manage those things. And if we want to take the fire ground and break it down even a little bit farther, we can say, all right, what in if we say, you know, the vast majority of our fires are either commercial or residential, right? And uh, we I think everybody would agree we do a vast, a significant amount more work in residential structures than we do commercial buildings. And I and that the evidence and the statistics bear that, right? So when we start talking about residential fires, what are the things currently that are the most dangerous or pose the greatest threat to us at these fires based on this information we have? And I think it's clear right now, the information we have about residential fires is some type of structural collapse or firefighters falling through or falling off of something. So falling off the roof, falling through the roof, falling through a floor, um, or some type of collapse in the structure, right? So some type of structural instability in there. And then and then right next to it in this in this order is severe thermal events. Firefighters getting caught in flashover conditions, in a flow path, or some other high heat event that's directly impacting these firefighters. So if we're able to kind of recognize that in a in a residential environment, then it's pretty clear that the safety system should be built to make an impact on protecting or increasing the protection for firefighters in those cases. If we look at commercial fires, right, Project Mayday, again, the same reporting systems outside of or for line of duty deaths and serious injuries, start to paint a different picture in commercial buildings. When we look at that information, we know that in commercial buildings, getting lost, getting disoriented, running out of air are typically the greatest threats to us in those environments. So then the safety system should be built around those elements as how do we try and protect firefighters from making those decisions or getting caught in those situations? So we have to ask ourselves is the the this historically traditional idea of a safety officer or safety officers showing up external to the incident command system and operating typically on the outside of buildings, are they best suited to make an impact in the safety of the things that are truly hurting and killing our firefighters? And I'm gonna argue that I don't think it is. I'm gonna, when we look at what are the things that cause us to get in trouble in residential structures, who's most in in directly in control of that? Well, the IC should be paying attention to the incident conditions and the conditions of the structure and ensuring that the actions that we're putting in place kind of are matching that and they're and that we're managing the accountability of our folks in there. That's all the incident commander's responsibility to manage proactively and to do an effective way. And implementing or inserting somebody else that is supposed to somehow make those that those risk management and safety decisions for the IC and then tell the IC what to do, that's not an effective system, right? That's not a that doesn't that doesn't make things simpler. And then when we talk about it in the commercial occupancy, is there is no way a safety officer in the exterior of the building can control and improve the safety and behaviors of firefighters inside the building from an external exterior position. That's just not going to happen. So who does? Well, first and foremost, the firefighters themselves and the company officer supervising them in the hazard zone. Then in the next layer is a division boss who's managing the work that could should be going on in there, and they're they're paired up with a support officer who's managing accountability, work rest cycles, and resources and tactical reserve through on deck and all those other things, and having having external uh uh rescue resources for Mayday firefighters. And then that last layer is the strategic layer with this with the with the incident commander actually managing the overall incident strategy based on the conditions and keeping firefighters from working in those offensive positions during defensive fire conditions. So when we start talking about a system that's actually proactive, working on prevention, and then maybe reaction and response if need be, that tends to create a way safer environment for us than what I think traditionally we've attempted to do. Because I have a I have a strong sense that the that the safety system and planning process for that has become outdated and it's not matching the fire ground and not matching the hazard zones that we're that we're working in. We can look at line of duty deaths and reports, and you know, they identify the lack of safety or lack of safety officers. But when you look at, when you start look at all the other factors that they're pointing to, they're things that the incident commander in the incident command system and the other supervisory positions in the incident command system should be managing proactively and not have this separate system or or or uh you know some designated adult on the fire ground telling everybody else how to behave. So it has to be a coordinated process and system throughout the entire incident command organization, all the way down to the line level firefighter of knowing and understanding how can I, how am I supposed to behave and perform in the fire ground so that I'm not getting myself in trouble. I still need to be able to do the work. And some days we need to actually really do the work, right? When we're when we're when we're faced with challenging environments in that I or situations in in serious environments, right? But I don't think that that external system is doing the service that we we that we really think it should or we think it is. Doing right. And then I'm I think I'd like to challenge the fire service in saying, let's look at the data. Let's let's look at what actually that that individual or or or maybe a group of safety officers is actually doing. What are they actually preventing? Because I don't think they are outperforming effective ICs, effective tactical level supervision, and effective task level supervision.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

Yeah, so a couple things on that, Chris. You know, just like we talk about with the blue card system, no one level can outperform the other, right? So I think that's a key part of it. And and and Chris, you said it starting with the firefighters being on the same page and having an understanding of what does safety mean to them. And we're not talking about the don't run with scissors and all of that. We're talking about, you know, before you get to work, what does it look like? When you get to work, what does it look like? Making sure your stuff is ready to go, what does that look like? Making sure that you're trained to do your job, all of that, right? And then their boss at the task level, what is their responsibility in the accountability system? And it just keeps on going. Like you said, the tactical level, you know, there's there's a different level of responsibilities there. But the people inside can't control outside, the people outside can't control inside. But it comes down back to that system thing of everybody having to be on the same page and have the same expectations and trained the same way, then not a traditional reactive, hey, there's a power line down in the backyard. Well, everybody who's here saw that, right? And and everybody should have a responsibility to, you know, identify it maybe initially, but then everybody knows that it's there. This isn't a I'm just here to call out, you know, you know, safety issues. And then I think in the third edition of Fire Command, I want to bring this up so that everybody uh hears it now and then they can read it themselves when it when it's when it's when they get their hands on it. But you know, there's the the new edition of the third edition of Fire Command, there's two chapters of one of them's a whole safety chapter that like breaks all of this down in detail, which didn't really exist before. Um there were some parts and pieces of it when it came to tactical level supervision and maybe very large expanded command operations where you end up with a a safety officer in the command post that's kind of working for or reporting to the senior advisor in a command post when you get to something that big. And then maybe those safety officers that are assigned to a division officer are reporting back. But the the third edition really breaks it down to I think a usable system that we, you know, teach and deliver in training, and it has been in place now for well, we'll just say since 2004 or five, you know, where where it came from when, you know, right after command safety, the book from the Brett Tarver incident. So I think that's a key thing. So there's the safety chapter and a Mayday chapter. And the Mayday chapter isn't a re isn't as much of a reactive component as it is a prevention component. So it's pretty exciting that both of those things are are in this book and how it ties to the system. Because when we really look at it, and I'm not gonna get into the weeds, but command function one deployment is that part of the safety system? And it's like, absolutely it is, because everybody has to realize what's the limitations and capabilities of the people on the response, and how many do you even have to solve the problem? Do you have enough people to to to to do the work or do you not have enough people to do the work? So when you look at all eight functions, you know, safety fits into really every single one of those things. This it isn't it isn't this evil word that some people make it out to be of safety, and we're gonna we're gonna put pads down everywhere in case you fall so you don't get a bump or a bruise, and you know, and so on, right? It it's it's it it is the entire system capability. So I think that's a important thing to put out there that it it is it is the blue card system, and really the blue card system is a command system, but it also has safety embedded throughout it if you really understand it.

SPEAKER_01 26:13

We we see uh NIOSH reports, recommendations from consultants, after action reviews after there's a serious injury or death with a fire department, and we see a recommendation that they need to have an incident safety officer on the scene. And what you guys are saying is simply checking that box and just naming somebody a safety officer, which is done in a lot of jurisdictions because nothing really changes once they get that safety officer. If that safety isn't integrated into our command decisions and the way that the command team is operating on the fire ground, it's just going to be somebody playing catch up, or to Josh's point, trying to stop you from running with scissors. So that this is an overall integration of the safety. And it's different, right, than a health and safety officer, somebody who might be a 40 hour that that's running safety programs for the department. We're talking specifically about safety on on fire scenes. Yeah, yeah, go.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

Yeah, so I think an important part is people say well, well, Blue Cart doesn't have safety officers. And it's like, well, we absolutely do have safety officers, but we actually have a safety system, and we don't have a safety officer. Really, our our in all of our system, the safety officer or support officer is tied in with a division as an example, and as as is written in the book, it's it's like the it's like a pilot and co-pilot. The division boss is the pilot, and the the the safety officer or support officer is the co-pilot, and they're working together. And you know, both of them are listening to the radio, and they both have a list of job duties and responsibilities. The support officers, they're helping the the division boss make, you know, make make better decisions and organize safety in that particular division or that geographic area, but they also have a list of responsibilities that they're just going to take care of themselves and they'll just report to the division boss if they need to. And if we have alpha and Charlie, or if we had Alpha Bravo Charlie, or if we had divisions one, two, three, and four, or or whatever, every one of those people would be partnered up. And that support officer is the safety officer. And, you know, the math is simple. Two is better than one, right? They're both, they're working together. And and really, one person can't do a short list of the 17 or 18 things that happen in a in a division that they're responsible for. One person is not going to make that happen. So that that safety officer or support officer works with the division boss in that geographic area. And and in the bigger picture is that as an incident would escalate, you know, the incident safety officer, overall safety officer, would likely end up in a car or in the command post as like the fourth or fifth person. And they could, on a separate frequency, you know, communicate, you know, safety or logistics things on that channel back to the command post for the division while the division's worried about or taking care of, you know, tactical level things. So that that that I hope clarifies that a bit that we don't have one safety officer. We're gonna likely have multiple safety officers, or there's gonna be a safety officer assigned or support officer, safety officer, support officer assigned in every single geographic division. So I think it's important to put that out there because people say, well, blue car doesn't have safety officers, and we're not gonna do it because we you guys don't have safety officers. And it's like, well, we have a safety system, and really everybody's the safety officer because they're all responsible for themselves, lieutenants are responsible for the company, division bosses are responsible for the companies, and commands got overall responsibility, right? So just to clarify that. And if if if people have if people have questions, ask the question, right? And I think that's oftentimes the thing, is they just don't know. So people just say whatever.

SPEAKER_01 30:26

And it would take us a while to go through all the responsibilities of our embedded safety officer, but they're actually anchored to a location monitoring who's coming and going, the air management, the accountability, and making sure that people are following safety protocol with their PPE and everything else. So we we don't ignore it at all and we will attach a resource to it. Nick always says you got to fight, you got to know sin to fight it. And I know back when I was assigned a safety officer position prior to Blue Card, that was just a license for me to freelance. And I know other safety officers felt the same way. We would get to the scene, do what we needed to do to make sure that people were operating safely, and then we would try to find a tactical position to get into. So I'd end up on the Charlie side of a building. Hey, send me a line over here. And before you knew it, safety was now becoming the Charlie division, or safety was now supervising a crew with a line and I was no longer doing safety. I think from your experiences, because I've talked to both of you about this, I think that's how it was done at a lot of places. So this actually anchors safety in a position where it is part of the system and part of the overall decision making on that incident.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

I think it's important to think about and and recognize here what creates a safest environment for us to work in. And I'm not talking about we're gonna hide under the bed and we're not gonna go, we're not gonna go to work in a hazard zone. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is what is the true true things that impact safety the most? I think it's pretty clear that effective standards and procedures directly impact safety. It's very clear that training and exercise of those standards, best practices, is critical, right, to performance. And then the kind of the last component of it is monitoring how we're actually doing out there. How well are we executing the expectations that we're supposed to perform? The other thing the the the the other part of that system, those three things do for us, is they create effective decision making. When we are clearly understand, capable at all levels of the incident organization, firefighters up to the IC, are able to size up appropriately what's going on in and around them based on their organizational position and the expectation of the work that they're gonna be doing on the fire ground. If I expect if firefighters are showing up at whatever point, the initial arrivers or otherwise, right, and they're getting off the rig knowing they're gonna stretch a line or they're getting ready to throw a ladder and do whatever it is that they've got to do, right? I have the expectation that they're evaluating the fire ground, especially the area in which they're gonna work, and they're starting to size that up and making sure that what they're being asked to do is gonna fit what's going on there. And then they're able to actually start to make good decisions. One of the safest things we can do on the fire ground is have a really smart firefighter knowing to open the nozzle and to actually be able to put water on the fire, control it, slow things down, improve the interior uh conditions for both potential victims and us to be able to move to the inside of the building, right? Company officers need to be making similar decisions. And if you're playing the role of IC number one, you're in charge of that for the entire incident. So you've got to know and understand how to connect the incident critical factors and the conditions to all the other decisions that you have to make for the action on the fire ground, right? So if we actually thoroughly start to understand the elements of what's going on on the fire ground, we are better at sizing things up and we're putting the right work tactics, positions in place, that makes the fire ground safer inherently, right? When we control the problem and the threat as quickly and as overwhelmingly and as early as possible on the front end of the incident, uh there isn't a safer act than that, typically, right? And that impacts the safety of not only the community, but us. So that part of that that's not managed by a safety officer. That's managed by the supervision and the people doing the work on the fire ground, right? So we've got to connect a bunch of things together that aren't reactive, that aren't secondary from the system, that it's our performance, our behavior on the fire ground that ultimately is going to make that. And we're working inside an incident command decision with a or incident command system with a decision-making process connected to it.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Josh said it earlier in a way, but what and I'm just thinking of it like this one well-intentioned safety officer who's well trained isn't gonna be able to outperform 40 firefighters that are operating unsafely. There's no way that you're gonna be able to have one person fix that on the fly during an incident. It's gotta, it's gotta be baked in to the way that you're operating before through a system that we're talking about right now.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

In fact, some of the firefighters that I've worked with are gonna actively try and counteract anything that that safety officer could possibly do on the fire ground.

unknown 36:06

Yeah.

NIOSH Top Five And IC Ownership

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Well, I mean, we like John, you said it. We I mean we could talk about this for three days because I mean the there's like 17 pages just on task level responsibilities for accountability or for safety, right? So, and then the same for tactical and the same for strategic, and the same for when you expand it beyond, you know, uh an everyday like type incident, what that looks like when you really blow it up all of their roles, duties, responsibilities, and and and how everybody supports each other. So, you know, uh just as an example, the task level, the company officer who keys up the radio and says, you know, priority traffic, we're we're having a difficult time finding the fire. Well, that's a tactical, that's a tactical thing, right? And a challenge on the fire ground and the fires in void space. And we know that that leads to oftentimes one more transmission like that, and that's like when things start to get a little sideways, right? And if a company officer is trained and keys up for the right reason and says that, for example, like we got zero visibility and we are are having a hard time locating the fire, that's telling everybody on the fire ground, right? Like, hey, this the fire is hidden, it's not showing itself. The incident commander can start to you know think about like what does this really look like and what are we gonna do about that transmission? But then other people on the fire ground are also thinking about that, like, okay, well, this fire is likely in void spaces, and like how are we gonna operate there? And then at the tactical level, then that safety officer that's working, safety officer, support officer is working for that division boss, you know, what's that accountability, you know, look like for them? How long have they been inside that space? And and then is there a resource to support, you know, that position just based off of that one single radio transmission and the strategic I see is obviously at the 30,000-foot view, like looking at all of those things and listen listening to other radio transmissions and then looking at what else is going on on the fire ground. So I I think I think the blue card system is actually a better safety system, like on steroids, compared to having one person that is just meandering around on the fire ground. And in my experience, there was a list of names of people who you knew were going to be assigned in the old school way of safety or accountability. And you know, oftentimes when they got assigned accountability in the old system of they're gonna stand there with a board, it was because we didn't want them to do anything else. And oftentimes the safety thing was the same thing because they just didn't have authority, power, or you know, sometimes the gumption to say anything. And like Chris said, the firemen were gonna outperform that single safety officer all day, every day, anyway, right? So like we talk about in the blue card system, there's a there's a there's a there's an organization, and our organization on the fire ground is based, is oftentimes well, is based on on rank, right? And and that's how that oftentimes goes. So I've seen it before where safety officers are don't necessarily have a rank connected to them, but you know, they went to school when they said, well, you have ultimate control on the fire ground. And it's like, well, you don't have ultimate control of nothing because if you're not operating within the system, they're gonna buck the system. They're gonna do what they want to do anyway. So the best thing to do with safety is like everything else. We could talk about Mayday management. Well, we manage Maydays the same way we manage the rest of the incident. We manage safety on the fire ground from the before the tones drop until after we leave there, right? And we have all of these safety things that are in place, and it's and it's not the safety police. Really, it's what Chris said earlier, those three or four things SOPs, SOGs. This is our best practice. Here's the expectation on it. We're gonna train you on it. And then is it working or do we need to update it, modify it, tweak it, whatever? But that that is how the whole bigger picture system thing all comes together. And not to get on an airline thing real quick, but like it's just like this the pilot saying the staff that's in the back of the plane have ultimate control in the back of that plane, right? So, and everybody knows, like, no, you don't cross them because they're gonna the next thing's gonna be they're gonna land the plane, and then we're gonna have you're gonna have a whole nother problem. But yeah, the pilot owns it, but those people are responsible to enforce it, and they go over these safety things so that we who are using it understand the safety parts, pieces, and components of the plane that we're riding on, right? So, I mean, it's it's it's it's a system, it's not one person. So, an example, if the pilot was the safety officer, they can't do shit sitting in front of the airplane.

SPEAKER_00 41:04

So, I think one part of this or one angle to take a look at is the NIOSH top five, right? And we start to look at the five things, you know, that the fire service really has identified that the consistencies and the most common issues that we that we see in line of duty death reports that NIOSH has has been producing. And we, if we look at them, look at those five things, right? Lack of uh uh risk assessment, ineffective or inadequate incident command, inadequate or poorly executed communication, and the inability or the lack of SOPs or the lack of actually following those SOPs, right? Who's responsible for managing those on the fire ground? That's the incident commander. The incident commander has ultimately responsibility for the execution of those things on the fire ground, not somebody external of the incident command system. The IC does it through an incident organization, the IC does it through assigning position and roles of supervision on the fire ground, whether it's company officers managing companies, division officers managing tactical locations, and and then coordinating and managing and training on the communications component that goes along with that. And then the SOP part of that, and maybe the normalization of deviance that goes on with with regards to the SOPs, oftentimes that's that's most effectively dealt with in between the incidents, but it can it can show up on the incident, but it has to be recognized and directly managed in the moment. Is no, these are the things we want to do. If it's something simple as wearing your PP, buckling your SCBA strap, and and and operating your equipment uh effectively and wearing your mask when you're supposed to, all those things. Supervision of those firefighters and those company officers should be managing that. It shouldn't be anybody else that needs to be able to do that. That that should happen that way. And then the IC can manage the strategic levels of following the SOPs and standards. And if you're not gonna follow them or you're gonna freelance or you're gonna do whatever those, you ain't gonna work on the fire ground, right? So the looking at the problems that we're having and what are the systems and positions and processes that are supposed to fix them or prevent them, oftentimes it falls to the incident command system, it falls to the supervisor's role, and then there's an individual firefighter expectation that I need to manage certain things for myself in order to be able to be safe. And a lot of that has to do with the performance of my work and Behavior. So it's it's a it is a it's a system process, as we've been saying, that's got to be IC centric. It can't be the IC and all the firefighters running full steam ahead, and then we have some external system that starts nudging them in the right direction or stopping them when they have to, because we we can we're operating without thinking. That's just not uh we are going to we're gonna go to way more funerals if that's the way we're gonna persist in the fire service.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Well said. I I don't know what else we can say about the system, other than if someone wants to learn more about this or they're struggling with this component of blue card, what resources can we offer to to folks who have to answer those questions and and and try to make it work?

SPEAKER_00 44:55

Read fire command. Start there. And when you're done with fire command, go back and read command safety. And when you're when and when you're done there, go to a division ops workshop. Oftentimes we get asked, hey, do you guys have a safety officer workshop? No, but we have a division boss workshop, right? Because the best set of supervision that we can put in is tactical level bosses with that support officer to manage the work and the safety and welfare uh elements that go along with that is and when you know and you understand that and you can implement that more effectively, you are creating a safer fireground. So, but in essence, that is the safety officer component of the of at least the tactical level of the incident command system. And then train strategic level ICs to make better decisions, utilizing strategic decision making, connecting risk management strategy and action decisions on critical factors. That's how we're gonna actually impact that and that the all the elements of our system can actually help them do that.

SPEAKER_01 46:12

All right, folks, before we go, Timeless Tactical Truth. All right, Timeless Tactical Truth from Alan Brunicini and the Timeless Tactical Truths book, which is available at bshifter.com. Forget the fancy stuff and the kitchen table bullshit. Performance is best judged at the finish line.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

I can hear his voice actually saying that. To me, it's fire ground performance, I think is the finish line he's talking about. Let's look at it the at the incident. How did we perform at the incident? How safe, how effective, how how much did we take care of the community or Mrs. Smith at the end, right? And then when we identify what we did right, let's reinforce it. Let's explain why that was right. If we did something right by accident, let's identify it. We did it by accident, and then say, all right, these are the things we can do to actually do that again and and and mean it for real and not have it be dumb luck. And then when we don't do well, identify what we don't do well and go back to the policy and/or the training of the policy to reinforce it and to help us. And so it's the performance evaluation piece, I think, is the finish line that he's talking about in this instance. And the rest of it kind of is bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

Yeah, I think I agree with what Chris everything he said. I don't have anything to add to that.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Well, guys, thanks for uh taking time to be on the B Shifter podcast today. Always good to uh get your takes on the way that we operate with Blue Card and Fire Command. A really good episode, and thanks for being here with us today.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

And order your third edition of Fire Command. It's available now. Everybody's doing it.

SPEAKER_01 48:09

And that's gonna wrap up this B Shifter podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in and spending time with us today. Remember to subscribe and tell your friends, and we'll see you next week and talk to you next week on the B Shifter Podcast.