Aggressive is not reckless with Battalion Chief Chris Slayer

Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
All right, welcome back everybody.
This is Copper State Fireman Podcast.
I have the privilege to sit downhere with Battalion Chief Chris
Slayer. He has 26 years of the American
fire service as 17 years as a suppression captain.
He has been lead instructor withFire by Trade and it's taught
numerous fire conferences. He's collaborated with David
Rose and fire engineering for the book of Andy.

(00:23):
More importantly, he is about nine months away from
retirement, and that's probably the most important thing about
his career right now. So anyway, welcome.
Thank you for your time. Thanks for coming out, Chief.
And really why I wanted to get you on this show is we want to
talk about the fools. But before I do that, is there
anything that you want the audience to know about you
before we get going? And other than, you know, like

(00:45):
you, like you said, I've got to about 26 years on the job.
It'll be 27 when I retire. I started on my birthday in
1999, January 11th, 1999 and I'mgoing to end January 11th 2026.
So that'll be my last shift. I've got 2 beautiful girls.
Mackenzie's 20 and a junior at Grand Canyon studying

(01:07):
psychology. So she's smarter than her dad as
long as she doesn't try to get in my head.
And then I got a 13 year old Blakely.
She might pop her head in, usually she does here so but
she's my little pride and joy. She's into everything, loves the
public speak so which is super cool.
I I don't know how she or where she even gets that.
And then I got 22 bonus kids from the relationship I'm in

(01:30):
right now. Jenna is 19 and she's studying
nursing and Chase, he's he's older, 24.
So that's, that's my family life.
My girlfriend Joanna, we've beentogether for a little while and
it's been awesome, man, life is good.
No complaints. Yeah, it sounds like you're
you're living your best life right now, so.
That is a fact right now. Perfect well, well deserved.

(01:52):
So that's kind of what I'm hoping we're we're going to get
into today. So this podcast exists because
of copper state fireman pot or if copper state fireman fools.
And with that said, we our claimto fame is we're the 1st chapter
in the state. And that's a total lie because
as we find out later, so you hadactually started a fools
chapter. So let's just pivot off of

(02:13):
there. What year was it?
Why did you start the chapter? What was the name and kind of
what was the progression of yourfools chapter while you're while
you guys were active? So I was actually the second
there was another Mesa dude thatstarted it years ago.
His name was, we call him Root, but his name was Rick Shaw.
It was kind of short lived, but that was the first chapter.
Man, I probably started mine in 16 right around that name, right

(02:36):
around that year. And I, I called it the departed
ones because Hohokam and Mesa, you know, that's where where I
work, the city of Mesa is translation is the departed
ones. So I used it for the that fools
and the website still up and everything.
Then I've got involved with fireNuggets right around the same
time. So I used the five O 1C3

(02:58):
umbrella of the fire Nuggets to do most of our our fools
meetings. I called it tactics on tap.
I don't know if you're a member of that on on Facebook, you
know, so that and we started thefire training toolbox, which is
was probably one of the largest,you know, training things the
fire service had, which is whichis cool.
You know, Fire Nuggets is, is giant now.

(03:20):
We host probably 100 classes a year and several major
conferences. So it's it's been good, man.
It all started for me in about 2014.
I started doing modern fire behavior stuff with a guy from
Peoria called named Tom Penley. And back then, Steve Kerber had

(03:44):
just started it with Derek Alcones, called the Weekend
Firefighter. So we developed in Mesa a whole,
that whole transitional attack thing.
In 2014 is when we started to develop that.
And you may know her, her name'sMegan Bauman.
She works for Peoria, used to beCooley back in the day when she
worked with me and Mesa. But her and I sat there and made

(04:07):
a PowerPoint right after I did this old rapid intervention
PowerPoint. We got crew of the year for this
rapid intervention thing we did at a task level.
We were just crushing it, man. The statistics on that was were
awesome. But when I was developing that
program for our city, I started reading about flow path and fire
behavior and stuff like that, heat release rate.

(04:29):
And I'm like, man, I got to get into this.
So Megan and I did a PowerPoint in 2014 called Preventing the
Mayday and all we did is talk about flow paths and fire
behavior and, and then my careerjust kind of took off from
there. You know, in 99, I, I was all
about the TRT, you know, and didtechnical rescue.
We had the squads 2001, you know, rolled around with 911.

(04:52):
We're doing white powder calls, all kinds of stuff.
So TRT was and hazmat was kind of my wheelhouse back in the
day, you know, and I, I was young and just having fun
probably 2000 and right around that 1516 mark, I started really
getting into nozzle work, understanding fire behavior,

(05:14):
reading a lot. And then I started down that
path of the Copper State Fire Conference, you know what I
mean? And then we did that.
And then we started teaching stuff at Arizona State Fire
School in 2017 called tactical hose management where we brought
in nozzle forward and 2 1/2 techniques from gaining relative
support superiority in the exponential engine.
And two years later, I think 2000, it was maybe 2019, we

(05:37):
changed it to zip and you guys still teach that today.
So it was good. So what was the what made you
decide that? Hey, you're starting to
obviously branch out at this point in your career and really
expand your knowledge as a progressive, efficient,
effective fireman. But with that said, what was
what was when? When did Chris say like man

(05:58):
fools, the fools chapter would be cool.
Like what? What?
What? Why'd you pull that trigger?
Dude, that was super early on. It was before I heard about fire
Nuggets. I wanted to take off, get some
like minded firemen together. You know, the Fool's grassroots
used to be like more beer drinking than anything else.
And then we finally got some structure to it around that, you
know, around the country. But yeah, I just needed to get

(06:19):
some guys together so we, we canpreach against that.
That mediocrity, man, we embraceit way too much.
It's crazy so and we don't know what we don't know, which is
even crazier to me. So to not get out and and train
and do stuff. So yeah, man, I pulled the
trigger on the on the fools. And like I said, that branched
right into tactics on tap right until about COVID hit and then

(06:40):
everything kind of slowed way down.
So that was that was kind of thedeath of the Fool's chapter,
COVID. Yeah, and at least the medians,
right. So we couldn't meet at the bars
anymore because we were literally pulling hose through
bars. We had forcible entry classes in
the bar. It started off super small and
maybe 5-10 people and then we were it.
But there was a lot to learn back then, right?

(07:01):
We we had to learn about bi directional and unidirectional
flow path. We had to learn about door
control. We had to learn about low
pressure nozzles and low pressure hose.
We had to learn about interior firefighting and gas cooling and
surface cooling, what the difference is.
So as that started the preach, it got bigger and bigger and
bigger to where I had to find a bar with a projector.

(07:23):
So and I would end up doing it twice a month because one of
them would just be jam packed with dudes and the other one and
kind of be a little bit slower because the two shifts or
whatever would come on one day. But we'd have 50-60 people in
the bar at least. And like I said, we're doing
basically hot classes in there after we're running through a
presentation which is on training.

(07:45):
But yeah, it's a lot of fun. And once COVID hit, the meetings
just stopped, unfortunately so all.
Right. So from so from the fools, you
kind of said you, you're talkingabout the fire Nuggets.
So let's transition into the fire Nuggets.
So the fools is kind of dying down a little bit.
Fire Nuggets, obviously your involvement is ramping up.
So, So what, what was your role with the fire Nuggets?

(08:07):
What are you proud of, kind of or tell the audience really what
you were involved with and then what you took away or what you
were able to help influence the American Fire service from from
that opportunity? Wow man, there's so much.
And 2000 and probably 15, I started to bring in key players
from around the country, notablylike Brian Brush came out.

(08:29):
We just solely worked on 2 1/2 inch and medium diameter hand
line stuff. We did it out in superstition.
I brought in Mark von Auppen andDoctor David Griffin for
leadership classes. And I'm thinking you don't know
who those guys are. You know Mark is.
So he would always talk about the importance of a senior man
and mentorship. So I was like, man, people got
to know about this. We don't put enough emphasis on

(08:50):
our senior firefighters here in Arizona.
I need to blast that out. You know, Doctor David Griffin
was the pump operator of the Charleston 9 tragedy in the
Super Sofa store. So to listen to what he has to
say about, you know, and I listen to your podcast and
you're on the same page as me. You know, the way we always done

(09:11):
it, phrase is the most dangerousphrase in the American fire
service. And if you haven't seen Doctor
David Griffin, he'll just solidify that for you because
they they lost the nine guys. And then, well, that's the way
we've always done it to the point where afterwards they
said, well, we wouldn't change athing until they needed to
answer questions and change. So I brought those guys in.

(09:32):
That was important. I brought in Peter Van Dort from
ISFSI, the International Societyfor fire service instructors.
Right. Awesome deal.
Peter Van Dort broke out like all the fire behavior stuff, the
new studies of the flow path. So we're rocking 2016, 1718
right now. And then like I said, in state

(09:53):
fire school, everybody is watching this nozzle forward
stuff and going, what the hell is going on?
I've got, you know, tiny, tiny people flowing 2 1/2 at, you
know, 327 gallons a minute, 326 gallons a minute, gallons a
second. And they're £100 female in gear
and they're moving it better than most dudes, right?

(10:15):
So that took off like wildfire and you.
So I got to give a shout out to Dave Coulson, which is again is
on your department. I've got two people that I
invited to teach with me, but I love so many guys on Glendale
Fireman. I can't express it enough.
But Dave Coulson, Tammy, I'm going to mess up her new last
night, right? So Tammy, Dan Lafond and a

(10:38):
couple other guys, they come to take my class the second year,
right? So not 2017, 2018, I'm sold out
both years in a row at state fire school.
And Dave tells me like a year later he goes hey bro I'm
driving to the class with Dan Lafond and he goes man I'm as
open minded as the next guy but I feel like we're about to waste

(10:59):
3 days of our life. Right?
So that's what Dave tells me andhe goes, dude, 30 minutes into
your class, I wondered what I did with 14 years of my career,
Right. So that's a cool statement.
And, you know, I've heard it a couple times, which is super
humbling to me. And I know the information is
getting out there. I'm sharing it.
Sometimes I, you know, I delivered it a little wrong and

(11:20):
we can get into that too. But you know, it took off.
So now I walked through, you know, the Hall of Flame and I
see dudes in the clamp. I see him doing the clamp slide.
I see him doing the camela or the lock off.
You know, Jay Camela is a friendof mine.
He's like Slayer. It's not the Camela.
I'm like, well, bro, I learned it from you.
So I give credit where credit's due.
It's like camela. So it's it's always going to be

(11:41):
the Camela lock. But you know, he, it just took
off. So it's cool to see all these
departments doing some form of it, you know, doing an accordion
forward and some actually got out and took the nozzle forward
class, you know, and some, I don't know if anybody's actually
taking a class from like Brian Brush themselves or Brumley, but

(12:03):
you know, some of the techniquesare from there.
I blended them at State Fire school.
It all gets lumped into, hey, it's the nozzle forward.
It's not really, but it was cool.
You know what, we can get into alot of details with that, but to
to know that I had a little piece of it and then a couple
guys like Coulson and Tammy and Lafond and you know, guys from

(12:24):
Gilbert that that believed what into what what I had to say was
really cool to to think that I had a little piece to do with
that. And guys that guys took it to
heart and went, man, I want to be better, a better fireman, you
know, a better firefighter and, and they ran with it.
So a year later, I invited Dave and Tammy to come teach with me.

(12:45):
And then so and they're still embracing it and teaching it in
Glendale and Zip. So the zero impact period stuff.
So I changed it three years later, I think after we did
tactical hose management for three years, I said, hey, let's
do zip. And they're like, well, what's
that? I'm like, well, I want to
identify our shortcomings. And those 3 shortcomings are we

(13:06):
have shitty nozzle work and hosedeployments.
We have down ladder culture and we can talk about culture later
at we got a crappier search culture, right?
And then we got shitty force military techniques.
So we're we're JV, may be varsity, but certainly not a
professional level at any of those on any organization.

(13:28):
From what I've seen. You know, there's the one
percenters, but I still walk in departments and their balance
points aren't marked on their ladders.
You know, a 24 foot ladder is a is a single person throw.
It's a perfectly balanced ladder.
Do you know the difference between a duo safety ladder and
an alkali? Do you know you can use it fly
in, fly out? What's going to separate you

(13:48):
from a professional firefighter to somebody that's just
collecting a paycheck? And dude, I can get into all of
that, you know, with the just nozzle work and knowing your
weapons. So that's how the fools took off
anyways. That's how I mean, that's a long
story, but we had so many shortcomings that we identified
in the valley. I I just wanted to start fixing

(14:08):
those at the most fundamental level.
And that that Ave. fortunately for me was the fools tactics on
tap. And I told my chiefs, I'm like,
Hey, do you get this? They're like, why?
I'm like, because I'm going to do it at a bar.
I'm going to do it on my days off and you guys can't control
any of it. So it's awesome, but do me a
favor at the end of all of your stuff, put these are the views

(14:32):
of Chris Slayer and my experience and not the views of
my department done so. But so that's how that journey
started and that's why I wanted to start the fools and went into
the the transition was fire Nuggets has a wallet, right, If
the fools is membership dues andconnections, right.
So you need to know other fools that will come in and do it for

(14:53):
your fools chapter, which is, you know, for those who don't
know the Fraternal Order of Leatherheads society, which is
the fools. But you know, when fire Nuggets
they have the wallet and the ability for me to make these
connections and network to bringthese people out to Arizona.
So the first Copper State, you know, it's funny, when I heard
your podcast, I was like, yes, they're not only doing zip as

(15:16):
they're calling their shit Copper State, which, you know,
I'm like, it is funny for me because I'm trying to think of
the name of the conference. I'm like, what is it?
You know, because we're the Grand Canyon State, we're not
really the Copper State. So I'm like, I'm just going to
call it Copper State because it's my initials.
So I'm just going to put my spinon it.
So that's why I called it. That's why I called it the

(15:38):
copper state fire conference. You know, the first one was
freaking amazing. Chandler hosted it and we did
brothers in battle. We did 10 hot classes that that
go around and guys complained. Man, you guys are searching off
hose lines. Yeah, we're searching off hose
lines, bro. It says it in volume 2 and I'll
get into I'm so sick of hearing it's not in volume to crap.

(16:01):
It's blows me away. You know, it's like this is,
this is bigger than our departments.
There's been 100 people here from all over the country,
right? I've got guys from Sweden,
Hawaii, you know, some of those guys search off hose lines, bro.
If you don't want to either elevate your game and get

(16:22):
proficient at that or don't takethat with you.
But let the other dudes that do that absolutely do it because
there's cities and and states that still do that all the time.
A lot of them with truck work, they're very proficient at that
and if you train then it's not abig deal because risk is managed
by competence. Well, I'll tell you what, Chief,

(16:45):
I'm just in awe like now listening because myself and our
organization, we wholeheartedly believe in everything you just
said, searching off those lines,right?
Being effective forward thinkingfiremen be able to adapt to
every situation that you come onand not be punched and held by.
You cannot ventilate on a towel roof search without a hose line.
Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit right all the way through.

(17:06):
Instead of hey, let's empower our firemen and give them the
options and the training. And then if they feel like it's
deemed necessary for that situation, since that's what we
operate in a Gray, then they were able to utilize that and
we're comfortable because they are well trained because we
support them. Or we have the exact opposite,
which is what we're used to of absolutely not.

(17:28):
That's a outside the risk management profile, insert
whatever negative, it's too dangerous, yada, yada, yada.
I mean, I remember when I, when I first came out here, I was a
fireman back east for 11 years, went through the ranks all the
way up to Lieutenant and it was a very common practice.
I remember when I first got hired, I had asked the question,
Hey, do we do we, why don't we search through windows and

(17:49):
immediately, I mean between the looks and then like I go, what
it's like, why? What do you mean?
What? And they're like, bro, that's
too dangerous. I'm like, it's too dangerous.
I said it's one of the most simple technique is actually
safer, you know, and we're goingthrough the entire process and I
then I would stop and be like, OK, hold on, since this is so

(18:10):
unsafe, go back and tell me, find me how many line of duty
desks came from van and researchisolate because we already know
zero. Yeah, 1400, not a single one.
And of course that shuts them up, but they still walk away and
like, oh, well, we'll never do that, right?
Well, guess what? Like this is where we're
starting to teach. Now we just rebrand it under a
different name called targeted search.

(18:31):
Same idea. Targeted search.
It is funny because you know that came about from that first
copper state fire conference andI got man, we don't do that.
It's not in volume to said it isabsolutely in volume 2.
And whoever's telling you that either hasn't read it or they're
just naive because volume to says that the incident commander

(18:55):
shall, not, should, shall directa primary search into all and
all is underlined, involved and exposed occupancies that can be
entered. That falls in with our risk
management plan. And again, risk is managed by
competence. If you train and you're very
aware of your time frame, from the minute you break that window

(19:17):
to clear the sash to sweep the floor before you sound right,
the minute you go in, the next guy comes up.
He's got you an oriented search with your thermal imager.
You go to try to isolate that door, check behind the bed,
under the bed, in the toy. We are searching for any place
your kids, nephews, nieces play hide and seek.

(19:38):
That's what we're searching for,right?
Just don't do a blanketed search.
Any place your kids or their friends would play hide and
seek. You better open the washer and
dryer. You better open the towel
closet. You better open the kitchen
cabinets because God forbid you miss one of them, right?
So due to, you know, it's we need to embrace different things

(20:00):
like that. And honestly, people just want
to be dicked because when I got hired, we had a minimum company
standard that was a 35 foot ladder stand to a third story
window with a victim removal. Well, guess what that is bro,
It's VES. Right.

(20:20):
We just put a name to it and then you want me to tie a stupid
IFS to knot or something around the victim before I get him out
the window? I can do that too.
But 20 years later, we're going,hey, man, maybe we should shut
the door because this thing called flow path and you know,
or gradient or air track, whatever you want to call it,
right? James Braidwood in 1856 wrote a

(20:42):
book about it, right? If you want it, I got a copy.
You know, it's, you know, if youwant to learn something new,
open an old book. You we could search off those
lines, but it's, it's condition dependent and skill level
dependent, right? So there are things that I am
willing to do being a captain for 17 years that I probably

(21:05):
would not ask a younger captain to do until they get that
experience level right. Yeah, we completely understood
and, and I wholeheartedly agree.It's, it's it's like we're
saying case by case individual and kind of sparked something
that Captain Noah Cat says worship city of Phoenix, super
freaking hard charger, great guy, right.

(21:25):
So he always says with this company and he teaches what is
the question is always, what is searchable space, you know, and
everyone tries to put a volume on it or the amount of fire or
Btus or square footage, blah, blah, blah.
And I like how he prioritizes itand I, I hope I'm not, but
you're not too much for, for Noah here.
But he basically says, do you have the equipment or do you

(21:45):
have the training and do you have the personnel?
If you say yes to all three, then there's searchable space
period at the end. And I love that because it's
putting it on us now saying are because you're searchable space
and my searchable space are going to be different.
And that, that just sums it up right there.
But the fact that like he marches it out, it's kind of it
puts it on the member, which I believe is is the best option

(22:07):
because they're the ones currently on scene try to make
those hard decisions. That's what they they pay us to
do as as we're in that right front seat.
Dude, I I love you know, my battalion right now is just
crushing it. I think I I posted some ladder
work and engine work they did the other day, you know,
two-story condo fire blown out the window when we got there.

(22:28):
I balanced it to a first alarm and but by the time they
dispatched the first alarm, theyhad initial knock down of the
fire. The ladder company was to the
roof and I didn't even get more many more units on scene before
I had all my tactical objectivesmet.
You know, these guys are just they're they are getting it, you
know, and every three months I bring them in.
I'm like, OK, we got we're goingto go over weapon selection

(22:50):
today. We're going to talk about
gallons per second. You know, we're going to talk
about surface cooling in versus gas cooling.
We're going to talk about, you know, when to use what, which
weapon, and more importantly, why.
So I'm not developing habits in the Academy.
We develop habits, right? Your, your hose line is going to
reach every time. It's never going to be short.
And we're giving them a false sense of security.

(23:11):
The instant 3/4 going to put outevery single fire they get in
the Academy, right? So there's no reason to to tell
them when, when to use a bigger line.
There's no reason to tell them, you know, what's the difference
between the three fire flow formulas, right?
The Roy or Nelson or the Iowa State University flow formula
versus the National Fire Academyflow formula or the spin off

(23:33):
that right? These guys aren't making
choices. They're they're developing
habits. They might as well be
crackheads, right? So I need these firefighters to
start making choices when they step off the rig.
When those choices begin with what line am I taking and why?
Do I have a nozzle tip that I can make adjustments or not?
Or do I have to pick a bigger line, right?

(23:54):
Where's the most advantageous place for me to fight this fire
from the flow path versus the inlet or exhaust, right?
The fastest way to put water on that fire is the correct way.
I don't care how you do it. Interior or exterior.
And then, you know, am I using interior door control and
exterior door control and, and all kinds of just little things

(24:16):
like that. And it's cool to watch my guys.
Now years ago, I still have all the recordings because one of my
chiefs told me I don't even knowwhat a bi directional flow path
is. So I'm like, well, you should
bro, like, because that tells you a lot about how I'm going to
handle this fire. It's going to tell you what my
nozzle work is and what positions I'm going to try to to
move these products of combustion to right.

(24:36):
And if it's a unidirectional flow path, then you're going to
know that I'm going to address that fire before I make my way
above it. And that's good.
From our our three 60s, you knowthat that exponential size up.
So your firefighter size up is going to be your line length and
location, right? So how long does this line need
to be to get to my objective? Because the preconnects killed
the ability to estimate a stretch.

(24:57):
And that allows me to sit back now as a company officer.
And now I'm weighing my tacticalobjectives, looking at my risk
management plan, I'm looking at my critical fire ground factors.
I'm picking those top three thatare going to kill me while my
firefighters are making a decision of which line to pull.
And then I can get into my strategy and develop my IP,

(25:17):
right? I can look at that big picture
while they're looking at the firefight itself.
So we got to train our guys. We got to take the time to tell
them the why. Yeah.
I mean the why. The why is the why is huge and
we've been preaching the why fora while.
And if I feel like for some reason the why is fairly new

(25:39):
because it was the same, the same system when I came up as
you did, it was more shut the fuck up and listen to what I
have to say. And it's gospel no matter what
it is good information, bad information.
I don't know because I'm too green right now kind of thing.
Where now the kids have computers, you know, in their
hands and they can access information immediately and they

(26:00):
Fact Check you, which they should, you know, they should.
Yeah. I tell the kids, hey, Fact Check
everything I teach you. And even better, if you come
across something that seems easier or better, show me and
then if it works, teach me. That'd be amazing.
But I just I just don't know whywe why we haven't emphasized on
the why before, but I'm I'm gladthat we're finally doing it.

(26:21):
So when you're bringing all thisnew so you're involved in fire
Nuggets full chapter, everything's going.
Obviously your passion is for training the fire service just
to be the baddest mofo out there.
How hard was it to bring all that information back to your
department? And did they buy off on it?
Was was it like trying to pull hairs or was it a pretty easy

(26:42):
process? Walk the listeners through how
that was for you, Sir. So there was so much change.
I think, you know, people were tired about, tired of what Chris
Layer had to say. Yeah.
To to be honest, right or wrong,I approached it poorly, right?
I am still not allowed to train my department at training.
So I was told I teach dangerous stuff and and I can go on and

(27:06):
on, right. So I'm like, well, you mean the
stuff that's published and now taught in all 5 regional
academies, right? My training division wouldn't
allow me to train our training staff.
So I'll just put it like this. I was invited to go to Gold
Golden Ranch and my training staff and Gilbert's training
staff sent their guys to Golden Ranch, which is down by Tucson,

(27:26):
2-2 hours away plus, right company cars, overtime, hotel
rooms. When I could have done it for
free at one of our academies, I'd have done it for him, right?
But I can't teach you that I'm not allowed.
So when I started Tactics on Tap, thankfully I had some
really good supportive battalionchiefs that gave me the whole,

(27:49):
you know, hey, write a disclaimer.
You're right, we can't do anything about it, right?
As long as you put that, we're good.
So, and then, so I host the first fire state fire
conference, right, Or the CopperState Fire Conference.
And then we do another one at Gilbert, which again was
awesome. And then we did another one and
a woman's conference, you know what I mean?

(28:11):
So that one was cool. Noah came to me.
I don't know, gosh, we've been friends for a while now.
He's been making a good push andhe gets it.
So we, we've been collaborating for a bit and I know he's in the
same boat with his agency at some point.
And I, and I honestly tried to warn them.

(28:31):
I'm like, be careful. Like we're still not ready for
some of the stuff out there. Like there are people that I
would love to bring in because their message is on point.
But our chiefs would, if there was a lump of coal in their ass,
it would be a diamond after those guys got done right,
because they wouldn't know what to do with the information.
So believe it or not, I'm careful with with who I pick.

(28:55):
When Noah wanted to bring those guys out again, I'm like, hey,
man, I, I did that already at the first copper state and I
almost didn't have a second copper state.
So, so when we did the first Phoenix conference out here, we
had to, we had to be very selective.
And they still got mad at something one of the guys said,
you know what I mean? So something about our risk

(29:17):
management plan. He's like, well, you'll risk a
lot, but what does that mean? He's right.
What does that mean? Risking a lot.
To me, it's like saying big fire, big water.
What is that, right? We're supposed to be a
professional organization. But if I ask a group of 20
people what big fire, big water is, I'm going to get 20
different answers, right? I'm just going to So what is it,

(29:39):
right? So what is risk?
A lot? It's going to be different for
me that it is for a brand new firefighter or a brand new
captain that hasn't been put into these situations where they
have to make critical making decisions and they they just
don't have the same recognition,private decision making, the
Rolodex to draw from, right? So it is subjective and it

(30:03):
should be, you know, just like our most of our SOP's, you know
what I mean? Saying that, you know, either we
don't believe in your message orwe don't believe in the risk
they inherit risk, whatever the case might be.
How did you continue to plug away and not get discouraged and
either, hey, I'm going to go to a different department or I'm
going to just mind my own business and, you know, finish

(30:24):
out my career quietly? How did how did you just keep
going through all that negativity from from those guys?
You know, I don't know, it just wasn't that hard, you know, like
I just figured, you know, my, mymessage is sound.
I believe in and what I'm saying, you know, when I go
teach and learn from conferences, you know, and bring
it back. This is, you know, this isn't my

(30:46):
opinion. This is scientifically backed
data, you know, that I'm bringing back through all the UL
studies, through all the NIST studies, through the ATFI
research lab. I'm not making this shit up,
right? And so at some point, I just
wanted to say scrum, right? But really I wanted to say, you

(31:06):
know what, the rules are never more important than the mission.
My job is to bring my guys home safe and not at the end of the
day, the end of a 25 year career.
So I gotta share this information with them, make them
a thinking firefighter all the way through, give them the skill
levels they need, pull from their strengths and weaknesses,

(31:29):
and put it all together as an organization.
And my vision went beyond that is because I knew I couldn't
just hold it in Mesa, right? I just couldn't keep this and be
like, we know all this shit and you guys don't.
So I grab a bunch of dudes from Gilbert and I grab a bunch of
dudes from Glendale and say, hey, I need you to come with me

(31:49):
and share this message because now it's in all the regional
academies, right? So some took longer than others,
but it's there. I remember getting a text from
Chief Lafond and watching guys like on twister dots with an
over pumped nozzle trying to hold it straight out and play
like whack a mole on your on theburn rooms.

(32:11):
Tempe was doing the same stuff. I'm like what the what are you
doing like that? You're not teaching them
anything productive like so, butDan texted me that and he's
like, only if there's a better way, you know?
And now we're teaching people tofloat a 2 1/2 at 300 gallons a
minute using their feet and maskup, you know what I mean?

(32:31):
So it's cool to see. It's cool to get the text
messages and say, dude, I see this.
But you know, and sometimes I still get discouraged.
Like, you know, one of our organizations a year ago missed
4 kids in a bedroom. You know, we missed a search
opportunity the other day. You know, we, we, the guy
operating the drone of all things said, hey, man, it looks

(32:54):
like you got a isolated bedroom in the back that has searchable
space. So we missed that opportunity,
you know, and sometimes that eats me up a little bit.
I'm like, man, I hear my guys onthe radio.
There's a couple phrases that I hate. 1 is it's fully involved.
Hate it until you get around that structure.
It is not. You don't get to declare that

(33:15):
right there. There's going to be searchable
space. And I love the term searchable
space that that we're trying to preach.
So some of my guys are on the radio.
Hey chief, this is heavily involved, but I've got
searchable space in the back. OK, do it.
I'm going to pull it. You need a, you know, pull a
hose line back there. Have another crew to come just
in case, you know, but yeah, search it.
If we can occupy that space and put our turnouts in between Mrs.

(33:39):
Smith and the problem, then that's your job, right.
So and survivable space is up toGod.
And remind me in a minute and I'll I'll tell tell you that
another story of a rescue we didbecause we just had to grabs
podcast. But yeah, we missed that
opportunity the other day. And like I said, the drone pilot
said, hey, we got an isolated bedroom in the back.
I think you could you get it. So the guys went in and sure

(34:00):
enough, there there was a body in there.
We missed that opportunity. I think I was talking, talking
to you earlier. I'm not sure.
I've been talking to so many different people, but my friend
Grant, I was talking to him and he's like years ago, I was
trying to search a vacant house,right?

(34:21):
It was a sold sign in the front yard came out as vacant.
No furniture in when it when I went in smoke down to the floor.
It was a kitchen fire. We didn't search it because
there's no formal pair sold signin the yard.
Figured it was vacant. Sure enough body in the house
right. The sun stayed for an extra
couple days. So he goes dude, that call ate

(34:45):
me up for years. He goes now I kind of forgive
myself. He goes and I don't know if I
would have changed the outcome, but we missed an opportunity.
We didn't give Missus Smith her,you know, patient X, the best
opportunity of survival because we wrote it off as a vacant
house. We we wrote it off as you know,
there's nobody alive in there. That's not your call, bro.

(35:07):
That's that's up to God. And so if we can occupy the
space, we should. And he brought up an interesting
point. He goes, hey, line of duty
deaths are way down. The firefighter suicides are way
up. So is there a correlation
between how this pendulum swung and a culture of safety versus a

(35:28):
culture of suppression? Because if you have the culture
of extinguishment, by definitionyou have a culture of safety.
It's safer for you and it's safer for the the occupants
inside. Well.
It it, it's funny because I preach, I preach to the kids
this and I mean even even firemen in general.
It's when we start talking aboutthe safety culture and

(35:50):
aggressive firemen and and how I'm a firm believer that
aggressive firemen is a safer fireman.
I always tell them the same thing.
If we are uberly aggressive fromthe get go in the very
beginning, we deem the scene safe.
It makes it better for everybody, the civilians, us
surroundings of the environment,everything under the sun.
But it's when the when we get introuble is when we decide to be

(36:11):
uberly aggressive way late into the game, that 2025 minute time
stamp and and that's when we getinto trouble.
But the problem is is people then associate that as
aggressive firefighting that what led to either a line of
duty or injury or even just a close call or a near miss.
But that's why I always like to preach no being aggressive from
the get go will deem everything safe.

(36:33):
So if you want to be a safety minded individual you should be
aggressive efficient environmentwhich is the opposite of what
most people think I believe. I don't know.
For sure, aggressive is not reckless, right?
Aggressive is rapidly changing your risk management plan for
the better, right? Going through those tactical

(36:54):
objectives. So, so we can change into a
defensive strategy if we need to, but most of the time things
get better, right? So aggressive isn't reckless.
I'm not saying make stupid decisions.
I need to educate you. And that starts from the very
beginning. Hey, let's talk about fire

(37:14):
behavior. Let's talk about the way we spec
our rigs, right? Are you, you know, is your
bumper line an inch and three quarter at 1:50 and you got 2
cross lays inch and three quarter at 1:50?
And then you have a load that maybe be a 2 1/2 to a gated Y
with a pre connected line of an inch and three quarter with 150.

(37:34):
And now the majority of your weapons on your you know, 1500
gallon or plus a minute pumper that comes with 500 to 750
gallons. Are you pigeonholing your
firefighters to a line that's 150, you know, or do you have a
pre connected 2 inch or 2 1/2? Or you can go big water, right?

(37:54):
So let them know like, Hey, thisis your fire flow formulas,
right? So if you take your, your
National Fire Academy formulas, you take your, your Royer Nelson
formulas and, and our Iowa StateUniversity formulas and you get
into some of that stuff and whata boy the National Fire Academy

(38:15):
formula boils down to and with some caveats.
When you get to bigger water GPMtimes 3, right?
So if you have, what is it 75 foot by 50 foot square, you
know, square foot place with 12 foot ceilings, I think it's
45,000 square feet. You divide that by 100 according
to the National Fire Academy, ifyou take 150 gallons per minute,

(38:41):
right? Multiply that by three, right,
You've got 450 gallons or 450 square feet of fire your inch
and 3/4 can put out anything beyond that.
Now is is big fire, right? So when I tell them, if I take
one picture, your picture, your kids bedroom, it's probably 10

(39:02):
by 12120 square feet. You multiply that by 4, you get
480 square feet. So if you can picture those
rooms in any configuration, anyone you want 4 high, two by
two and think of that volume of fire.
That's a lot of fire, right? So now I could pull my inch and

(39:23):
three quarter and say, hey, I can get this with 150 gallons a
minute, which is a lot of our fog nozzles.
Now if I have that much fire, what are my choices?
Can I go 2 inch or 2 1/2 inch? Or does my fog nozzle have a
breakaway 7/8 and I can get, youknow, different flow through
that, right? Or or 15 sixteenths.
And God, for God's sake, does your firefighter even know the

(39:45):
difference, right? Because if I'm a cop, I know if
I have a Taser, I know if I havea beanbag gun, I know if I have
less lethal, I know if I have, Iknow I have Mace.
I know I have a 556 and maybe a 9mm, a 40 Cal or a 45 on my hip.
I know I have those weapons. I know where I keep my
magazines, but I asked the firefighter what that 7/8 does.

(40:08):
They don't know the freaking difference, right?
So if I can drop, drop the tip off that 7/8 and go.
Now I'm going from the top of myhead and I'm not that smart, but
you know, at 40 PSI at the tip, I'm getting 145 GPM.
At 50 at the tip, I'm getting 161 GPM. 60 at the tip, I'm

(40:28):
getting 174 GPM if I have a 15 sixteenths I'm getting 165 at
4185 at 50 and 2O2 at 60. Find the sweet spot.
We're fighting fire, not hose. But if I can educate my
firefighters on just that, right, why are you pulling this
hose line? Because that I can get with this

(40:49):
and if I don't get it, I can drop the nozzle.
It's over pumped like this and Ican still get it with this.
I still meet my fire flow formulas and I can get it with
this weapon. Now I have a thinking
firefighter. That's amazing.
You know, it's it's and with allthat math, it's like, I hope if
anybody takes anything away fromthis podcast, podcast is just
that formula alone because it breaks it down.

(41:10):
I mean, that'll help you on so many different levels of like
you said, what weapon do you choose?
That's a verbage you're using, right?
Yeah, what what weapon did you take?
You know if you're taking your PW can is 2.5 gallons, right,
right. You got to hold it a certain way
to get the bubble just right, toget, you know, the maximum flow
out of this line. But your inch and three quarter
is 2.5 gallons a second, right? So it's one PW can every second.

(41:36):
Your 2 1/2 is with it within thecorrect nozzle is roughly 5
gallons a second. So it's two PW cans every second
that you're throwing out this fire A5 gallon Home Depot paint
bucket every second, right? And a 55 gallon drum in 11

(41:56):
seconds, that's how much water you're putting on this fire.
And I'll get into that in a second where where we started
the change and I started to makesome waves in Mesa.
And then, you know, when we're talking about our debt gun, you
put your inch and a half tip, you get 600 GPMS, which is 10
gallons a second. It's exponential 2.5510 right
now. I can go rumor rooms on fire,

(42:17):
residential floors on fire, commercial fires and buildings
on fire. There's a generality of of your
weapon slack. Yeah, simplify.
You know, simplicity is the ultimate sophistication, so.
Outside of that, when it comes down to is there anything else
that's like your bare basics? So you want to make sure you're
suppression officers know or you're firemen know really,

(42:38):
especially being on the engine. Sure.
Yeah. I mean, that's just getting
there, right? You know, that's that's not even
that's just knowing your weaponsand where to take.
You know, when we talk about opening the door and doing your
360, you know when you're doing your 360, you're looking for the
stuff that's going to kill you, right?

(43:00):
You're looking for that bi directional unidirectional flow
path. You're looking for the best
access to the fire. You're looking for, you know,
multiple points of origin where this can be arson.
You're looking for a 30 mile an hour wind from the Charlie side.
If you're going to go in throughalpha, you know, you're betting
your butt on a pane of glass, right?
You're putting yourselves at theend of a blowtorch.

(43:22):
So what are we teaching our guysand how are we, you're teaching
them to do it just for the 360. Then we open the door.
You're looking at your, your Lifelift location layout.
You're listening for screams of help.
You're looking at the neutral plane.
Where is it right? If you have a neutral plane, the
fire's probably on the the levelyou're on, if it's from ceiling

(43:43):
to floor or I mean, it is probably below you.
And if it's above the threshold of the door, it's probably above
you, right? So just a little size up like
that. What's your air track doing?
Do I have little tornadoes pulling in because this is event
limited fire. So now my firefighters can make
choices, right? They're looking behind the door,
they're getting their nozzle ready.

(44:04):
They're checking their air volume and pattern, right?
They're using purposeful water once they check their air volume
and pattern because if you're inmy class, you bet your butt I'm
putting a glove in your hose at some point and making you do a
jamming drill with your nozzle. Hey, what's your choices here?
You know what I mean? Because I don't want you to find
out you have debris in your nozzle at the seat of the fire.

(44:26):
That is not a good time to find out that you didn't check your
you know it's this is not about bleeding the air.
I don't know why we still teach that right.
Water should flow through your hose about 22 feet per second.
If you have a 200 foot hose, youwe need to be flowing that for a
minimum of 10 seconds to clear the debris from that pump to
your nozzle and make sure it's flowing well, right.

(44:47):
So when when am I firefighters understand that now I'm like,
OK, now we're picking the right weapons.
We're making the right choices. Now let's talk about interior
and exterior attack. Let's talk about are we shutting
these interior doors to buy people time?
Are we shutting the interior doors?
Because if this gets sporty, I have a point of refuge is my

(45:09):
nozzleman. And I'll say nozzleman, sorry to
offend anybody, but is my nozzleman wetting those doors?
So I can look back with my thermal imager and see a black
cool door that I know is going to buy me 5 minutes of time if I
need to take refuge behind that door or pull a victim back to
that point. If I can get people to close
interior doors and then go search them, awesome, right?

(45:32):
We should be taking the time to do it.
We're buying time, thorough primary search, showing us a
better space to occupy. So are we teaching our
firefighters that? So once you wet the door, you
know, you can give yourself a point of refuge so we can do a
more thorough, you know, search for that primary.
If we're isolating interior doors, we're saving property.

(45:55):
If we miss somebody on a primary, they're better off on a
secondary. Potentially it's buying US time
on a primary to get to these doors that might be further down
the search area. And if it gets sporty, we've got
a point of refuge. We need to start teaching our
firefighters. This days of we're not going to
squirt smoke are long gone, right?

(46:17):
We're we're done with that, right?
We talked about gas. I bet you if I asked any of your
rookies right now how much gas expands in it, you know, with a
droplet of water, they can all tell me 1700 times.
But are we actually talking about contraction, right?
We're talking about not upsetting the thermal layer,

(46:37):
right? And if steam is so bad, why do
they have it at the gym? I get in the steam room right
now, right? So exactly 0 firefighters have
died from steam burns too, right?
So sometimes steam is good. It's very, you know, it's very
good suppression agent steam, right?
When we talk about humidity, so moisture, right?

(46:59):
So and that expands. So now I can get into, hey,
let's make an educated choice about what you're doing with
your nozzle, right? So let's talk about wetting the
surfaces, how that your turnoutsabsorb energy.
If I go in and I hear high heat,low visibility, I'm going to

(47:20):
lose my mind. That is another blanket
statement just like fully involved that I absolutely hate,
right? What does that mean to me?
High heat, low visibility. Are you standing up?
Are you flowing water? Are you flowing low?
Is the high heat at the ceiling or is the high heat at your
hips, right? What does that mean to me?

(47:41):
Because if you're not flowing water, your turnouts are
absorbing energy like a convective air current.
It's holding that energy in you.And so are the walls, right?
You're, you're in a cooker, you need to start relieving that by
using a wall ceiling wall technique or an O technique,

(48:01):
depending on on your pattern. And you know, I want to do the
wall, ceiling wall, but you start with the leading edge.
Paint it back as best you can, right?
Your job as a nozzleman is to create and maintain survivable
space. We're maintaining that now, so
we own it. We're taking it back.
Once I teach them that they needto wet that space, the wetter

(48:23):
the better. They'll isolate those those
areas, how we can talk about what we're doing with air track
and air entrainment with our nozzles and where do I want to
move those products to combustion to?
Because if I'm rotating my nozzle too fast or using some
type of fog pattern, eventually that's going to have to come
back on me because there's no opening.
And now we need to talk about coordinated ventilation, right?

(48:46):
But when I talk about interior nozzle work, you've got to
understand the benefits between surface cooling and gas cooling
and steam and more importantly gas contraction, because you may
get lift, but once you start cooling that space below 212,
now you get massive contraction.It makes it better for
everybody. All right, so we, we know how

(49:07):
you feel about flow pass. We know how you feel about
picking, picking, choosing the character a weapon.
So you, you were kind of segwaying already.
So we're talking about coordinated ventilation.
So ventilation across the American Fire Service right now
is a super hot topic. Typically vertical ventilation
is really what they're talking about.
But I want to hear Chief Slayer's opinion on just
ventilation completely. So let's start with the

(49:30):
coordinated ventilation because I already kind of know that you
agree with this. But obviously I believe
ventilation is a very important part of the suppression
techniques. But just walk us down your
modalities on ventilation, coordination and and everything
under the sun if you don't mind when it comes down to just the
ventilation and then the ladder work when it goes into the
windows. I think you need to be really

(49:52):
versed at ventilation. Nothing should go away.
So back in the day when when, you know, we got hired 30 years
ago and we still watch it on UL today.
If we put the pieces together right, we have Modern furniture
and legacy furniture and the legacy furniture.
You know, when I walk into my grandma's house and lay a cold
drink on her coffee table, she'sgoing to give me something

(50:16):
called the coaster. For those of you who are
younger, right, it's, you know, little like the size of a, a
cookie or a 45 record. Look that up on Google, do you?
And and that coaster protects her wood coffee table from the
condensation and moisture, right?
Because that old furniture is going to absorb it.
The new furniture is hydrophobic, right?

(50:38):
It's, it's made with plastics and wood and glues and laminate.
So the heat release rate on those are faster, right?
So we can watch them, you know flashover times with an opening
and say hey, flashover with Modern furniture is it is 3 to 4
minutes. Flashover in the old legacy
furniture is almost 30. So back then with you know

(51:02):
response times and deployment standards, vertical ventilation
was on point. We had a lot of time to release
that buoyancy driven smoke out, right and that time is limited
now for us. So vertical ventilation, I think
it is important if you have a good ladder captain, they also

(51:25):
know when horizontal ventilationis going to be more beneficial.
And horizontal ventilation, there's only two types of
ventilation, horizontal and vertical.
They're either, and each of those are enhanced by hydraulics
or mechanics. You're either going to take a
fan and blow it out or you're going to hydraulically

(51:46):
ventilate. So there's there's only
horizontal and vertical. And if we know the tools that we
have to enhance those, then we can understand whether we want
PPV or hydraulic ventilation. So I'll never tell somebody that
we should never vertically ventilate because there are
times where I need that lift right now.

(52:06):
That being said, I need to communicate very well on the
interior. Is that hole going to be big
enough to lift that volume of smoke out?
And where is it? Like we had a fire the other day
and we never, and I'll share this, one of my captains did.
He did a good job. They couldn't find the seat of
the fire. It was on the second story in a
closet arson fire. They couldn't find it, right?

(52:29):
He looked and said it. The walls are all the same color
with the tick, right? All of a sudden they, they start
pulling some ceiling. They're looking for the fire.
The safety officers around the Charlie side and says you got
increased smoke production on the Charlie side.
And then seconds later they say the hey, we're the hottest we've
ever been and I've got fire blowing out the alpha side

(52:52):
window. When these guys are retreating
down the stairs, they end up doing a good transitional attack
from the exterior to allow them back in.
I said, OK, let's talk about what happened, right?
So I said you had a fire on the 2nd floor and that fire was
smoke was floor to ceiling. So what stage is that fire in?

(53:13):
I was like, it's vent limited and probably going into decay
because once the flames, the smoke reach flame height, it
starts to go vent limited. It's drawing all the air it can.
Once it goes below that, now you've got a vent limited fire
that's going into decay, right? I said you couldn't find the
fire. So what did you do?

(53:36):
He pulled ceiling in a sense. He vertically ventilated, right?
The fire was in a box, the smokewas in a box and now they just
gave it access to, you know, another 1000 cubic feet of
space. So this buoyancy driven gas is
now going up through the hole that they popped in the ceiling.

(53:56):
And so what's the interior conditions doing?
Right? The interior conditions are
getting a little better because all of that smoke is now going
up through a vertical ventilation hole.
But what's the fire doing? It's going back into growth,
back into fully developed. And since they didn't open their
nozzle and cool that space, right, they're not squirting

(54:20):
smoke, but the walls have all now absorbed that energy.
So they're all the same color inthe tick.
Right now that energy has nowhere to go.
So all the sudden this gets really hot really fast and I got
fired blowing out that alpha side window, right you.
So your actions, interior and exterior have consequences.

(54:42):
So vertical ventilations on point, horizontal ventilations
on point. We did, we did a grab.
Well, I just did the grabs podcast.
I think he gets released next month.
But it was when I was a captain.So it was a bit ago, but they
just asked us to do it. Lady was inside, cops tried to
get in before us. She is handicapped.
And one of those chairs that youknow, sit you up, it's so you

(55:03):
know, those recliners, heavy content conditions inside, not
quite hoarder, but heavy contentconditions.
And she's sitting there and rollover down the hallway.
I go in without a hose line and search one way.
The other crew goes in with the hose line and I hear the lady
scream. So I start going over towards
her. And I was like, man, you got to
roll over down the hallway. You can't go out the front door.

(55:24):
So they ended up doing a Denver drill to get her out the door on
the window on the Charlie side. So it went super smooth.
But that Lady is sitting there and she has COPD, right?
So what do people with COPD haveright next to him all the time?
Oxygen and cigarettes, right? So she's got her oxygen mask on,
right? She's got a water bottle dumping
over her head. And she's sitting there

(55:46):
breathing clean air just like weare in an environment where
they're like, there's nobody alive in there.
Like, yeah, she's alive, bro. She's yelling.
So I guess that's the thing, youknow, once we understand the
little things, weapon selection,when we're searching off the
hose line, when we're getting aggressive with fire attack,
when we're ventilating, when we're pulling ceiling, Did those

(56:09):
actions have negative consequences on the firefight
and surface cooling and isolating bedrooms?
Man, we're winning. We're just winning.
But we're we're not there yet. Some dudes are they're on point
and some dudes, I'm like, dude, I've watched guys throw ladders
and forcible entry and I'm like you're you're JV at best.

(56:32):
I mean, take your professional firefighter sticker off, take
your get rid of your Dragon Tattoo and your your sticker and
go, go take a class, bro. Yeah, I mean, you got to take
some pride and ownership. The Maltese cross is the most
trusted symbol in the United States of America, if not the
world, right? And that is earned through our

(56:53):
older generations trust and training.
And you know what they should orwhat we should take pride in in
the future. Yeah, I love you said that
because I've heard that a coupledifferent times.
And it's it's it's not the individual, it's exactly what
you said. It's that cross.
It's a tradition that our brothers and the old timers

(57:16):
charge Ford. And it's it's our our job now to
pass on those traditions and keep that alive and keep that
Maltese cross what it is. So since we're on traditions,
let's talk about, I always like to kind of break down your
department for each guest. So what you, you kind of in the
beginning, we're like our traditions with search ladder
sucks. So, but what are your traditions

(57:36):
in your department when it comesdown to your search, your ladder
and your engine company functions?
Because I know all departments are strong and typically one and
weak and most. But where do you guys pride
yourself? And then obviously, where would
you like to see your department in the future?
But it's not the same battalion to battalion, shift to shift,
right? I don't know if I'm a good

(57:57):
leader or you know what I mean. I'm a student of leadership.
I've, I've been asked to take itor teach a couple leadership
classes. And so I put something together
for the future here. I'm going to Idaho and Colorado
to do a leadership class. But I know what I'm not, and
that's a micromanager. So what what I am is somebody
that gives you intent. Here's here's my intent.

(58:20):
My intent is for you to go rescue misses Smith and solve
her problem. Now I'm going to give you the
tools to make some decisions to do that.
If we make a poor decision, that's OK, right?
That is OK. We're going to talk about it
later. You have permission to screw up
and we're we'll get past this, right?

(58:42):
When do you prioritize and de prioritize a water supply?
Right? When are you going in on tank
water? So all of that stuff we discuss
and I never give them a hard fast.
You will never lay a water supply.
You will always lay a water supply.
That's that's not me. Here's the intent.
If you can solve this problem with X with what you came with,

(59:05):
please solve that problem. The longer you delay this, the
more reliant I am going to become on my my resources,
right? And you know, I approach every
fire as on defense, right? I look at it and go, OK, the
fire's the quarterback. It's called the shots.
It's running the play, right? Where are my guys going to

(59:25):
position themselves? It's fourth and one bitch,
right? We're getting off the rig.
We got our weapon selection, we're coming up and now we're
winning. We're going for it.
But man, if you pull a line that's too short, if you pull a
line that's inadequate, if you don't go in on tank water and
waste 3 minutes and let them runthat play, guess what?
We just lost, right? And that goes all the way to

(59:48):
specking equipment. So it's fourth and one, I line
up my defense and that first will say offensive line, but
it's defense, right? I'm stopping that fire in its
tracks. Now I have the ball and I'm
running with it done. So traditionally I, I think I've
got some Chiefs that are super micro managers.

(01:00:09):
Like, and I don't agree with them, you know what I mean?
I mean we're, I'll go to the matwith that.
I've got chiefs that say hey, stay on the truck until I call
you. Well, guess what?
We got clean cabs now, which I think suck, but now my reflex
time is slowing down. I guarantee you if you're the
1st 4 engines or apparatus on myfire scene, your job is not

(01:00:32):
going to be to stay in the freaking truck.
Put your sheet on, get ready to work, right?
But I've got chiefs like that. Don't do it until I tell you
that's not the firemen I want onmy my scene.
So I want those firefighters to to be able to be equipped with
those decisions. So I can't say we have a good
tradition in any of those. I can tell you our search

(01:00:55):
culture needs to be more aggressive.
Everybody will tell you life safety is our priority, but
we're not looking for searchablespace before we say fully
involved. We're not looking for searchable
space before we say high heat, low visibility, right?
Is your, is your nozzle open? We need to change our search

(01:01:15):
culture to allow us to win and and act like it's your family
inside. So our ground ladder culture is
freaking terrible right? I don't even have a full
complemental ladders on my my ladder trucks.
We should be throwing ladders until we run out of windows or
run out of ladders. Your balance point should be
marked. That is non negotiable, right?

(01:01:38):
You should know how to throw most of your ladders, one or two
people. You should know that if you put
a halogen or some ladder chalks in that little 3rd hole, if you
put the pick in there, that you can offset that about 14 inches
at least one rung. So if you're a little shorter,
you can pop that ladder up, right?
I'm vertically challenged. I needed to learn some of those

(01:01:58):
tricks. So there's a lot of little
things that we need to get better at, I tell you.
But you just said it. What did you teach your Academy
today? You said you're doing a ladder
bailout. Yeah, yeah.
They were doing fire ground survival, so they're doing all
the ladder bailouts today. OK, so let me ask you a question
because I don't know if we're mutually exclusive.
Your ladder companies, how many means of egress do they get off

(01:02:20):
a roof? 2.
Two opposite ends load bearing walls.
Right engine company third storyapartment complex.
You throwing ladders to the Charlie side windows all the
time. They should be, but they're
absolutely not. My OK my my world, yes.
In the real world, no they're not.
Perfect. My world, yes too.
So why in our SO PS is the latter company afforded a

(01:02:44):
different safety margin than a lit engine company?
That's a good question. Yeah.
So you just did bailouts with all your recruits?
Yes, Sir. Me as an IC, if I don't do my
due diligence now and I know we got training scars, right?
We're teaching firefighter bailouts or window hangs with
one firefighter. You ever tried it with two or

(01:03:05):
four or a crew hanging out of a window?
That sucks. You ever tried to get a ladder
up underneath them? That's even harder, right?
But if we're throwing ladders diligently and change that
ladder culture, I tell you what,if me and you, we got to hang
out of a window together and wait for a ground ladder when
there's an available ladder on every one of those trucks parked

(01:03:26):
outside. If I lived through this, bro,
we're having words. So there, there should be a
standard to where we know our weapons, our firefighters have
to know their weapons, our crewshave to do ladder stands and we
have to get a better search culture.

(01:03:47):
You know, I, I felt bad for I think it was Phoenix guys, they
posted something on like Chief Miller using the Halligan
backwards the other day. And I'm like, Oh my God, like,
no, I had to be rolling over. You know, honestly, I look at
that and I, I laugh, I go, that's it published in the
Hipsta book like that. The fulcrum was totally
illustrated wrong. But you know, that's they're not

(01:04:08):
mutually exclusive. I've watched companies do that
and we just don't put emphasis on those three things and those,
our bread and butter. That's why I did the zip class
at state Fire School. I wanted to address the
shortcomings we had in the Valley and those were the three
things, right? Yeah, so that's, that's huge.
And I, I know the video we're talking about with Phoenix

(01:04:29):
because I, it's funny, I saw it and then thought the same thing
immediately, like, oh, he's gonna be pissed, right?
Because of course that is 3 dudes out of a 2000 member
department and it's a bunch of hard chargers, right?
But that's all it takes, becausenow.
And it's a mistake. Right, That was a mistake.
I'm telling you right now. I tell when we teach forcible

(01:04:50):
entry. I say, hey man, I guarantee you
you will. And I probably might before the
end of the day, too. We'll attempt to force it wrong
at least once, right? And, and guess what?
The trick though is you do it once and you go wait a second,
think of where my forces are applied.
Shit, dumb ass, flip it around or let me go forward instead of
pry backwards. And then guess what, Problem

(01:05:12):
solved. No big deal, we all make
mistakes. And honestly, they're probably,
that's probably our standard, right?
I don't want to knock anybody, but forcible entry, we just
don't focus on a lot, right? I I've got a Maximus Rex and a
Probar and you tell them me the difference in the mechanical
advantage, right? It's math, right?

(01:05:33):
The mechanical advantage of the halogen math.
Where's the crotch on this? At 5 inches?
How long are your forks? Are you using a Maximix Rex with
2K tools? Is it 11 to one or five to one
mechanical advantage? Now we can get into why you gap
set force, right? Are you using a 8 LB sledge for
that? Because that's not what your
ladder crew should have on the roof.

(01:05:54):
They should have a blunt head pig or fox axe or something like
that, right? It's different.
You're not buying a Home Depot axe that doesn't have a slanted
heel on the handle because when you're using forcible entry,
that axe should slide into that gap, right?
That's why that little cut outs on the bottom of your axe at a
45° angle, so it falls into those slots.

(01:06:17):
If you don't know that, your JV,if you don't know bar to bar
techniques and those difference in your weapons get better.
There's more information out there.
The problem is, is we don't knowwhat we don't know, right?
So gaps at force, you know, hit drive, stop is the basics of the

(01:06:37):
basics, but we never grow on that.
There's a dude from his name, Sam Hittle in Kansas.
Dude, that guy's a stud. Like, oh, I wanted to give
credit where credit was due to Chris Bloom.
He used to be a Tucson BattalionChief.
He's he's the chief of Meridian,ID right now.
He wrote an amazing article called Fire Service branding and

(01:06:59):
that he talked deep about the the Maltese cross.
So I wanted to give him a shout out now I forgot.
So when we did the zip anyways, I realized we had some
shortcomings and a lot of those is because I didn't know what I
didn't know right when I got outand started taking these nozzle
classes going what? You know what I mean?

(01:07:20):
And then I was blessed enough tostart the network through fire
Nuggets, reaching out to some old school dudes getting
involved. Like in 2016, I went to six
different states in two different countries and trained
with some of the best firefighters that that I know to
date. And they've forgotten more than
I know about tactics and strategy.

(01:07:43):
You know what I mean? They're just that good.
I can bring back I, I think I bring back what's important.
And I try to bring out an outside influence because here
we're really good at training the trainer and being super
inbred. But again, you don't know what
you don't know until you start getting outside, taking off
those blinders. I go to or teach at the majority

(01:08:04):
of FIRE conferences around, you know what I mean?
And through fire Nuggets, I've got friends that teach it,
almost every one of them. Dude, I can count on one hand
how many Phoenix, Mesa, Chandler, Gilbert and Glendale
dudes. And I got to give a shout out to
Glendale at and Gilbert. I see more of you at conferences

(01:08:25):
outside of Arizona at Water on the fire, H Rock firemanship,
all of those than anybody else, right?
It wasn't till recently and Noahand his dudes from Phoenix, you
know, that I that I saw anybody from there and I never see guys,
you know, from from Mesa unless there's part of my cadre or
whatever. So we need to get outside the

(01:08:46):
box more. Our organizations really need to
step up. If you have tuition
reimbursement, maybe the unions can be like, Hey, some of this
money should be used for conferences, you know, not just
school, you know, but let's let's get these guys out to go
to some of these major conferences and learn from the
guys that have been here forever.

(01:09:07):
The fire service is evolving andit's evolving quickly.
So to stay up on that, it's impossible for us to do it
inbred. We have to go out and search for
these for these answers. You know, I'm doing a mid rise
class for the Copper State Foolscoming up here again.
I sat down with my Buddy Clark Lamping and Jimmy Davis and they
blew my mind. You know, I teach high rise at

(01:09:29):
the operations conference in Pensacola with these guys.
And you know, mid rise is a whole different animal.
I had no idea. I was completely unaware, you
know, you know, and, and that's your typical firefighter.
You right, there's three U's in the fire service.
You're unaware, unwilling or unable, one or the other.
Once we get to the bottom of which one that is, we can, we
can try to fix it, right. So I'm unaware.

(01:09:51):
And so I'm like, oh man, I need to, I need to fix this.
Time to go back to the, the drawing board and share this,
you know what I mean? So, but yeah, that's that's me
on my high horse. Well, that's, that's where I
need to keep you right now. I'm trying to keep on your high
horse because we've been going for over an hour.
So I want to stay there because it's been so good.
I love asking this question because people listen to the

(01:10:12):
podcast across the country rightnow.
So everybody does it different. And I know for a fact you guys
do it different than we do. So tell the listeners, let's
transition just to the fun stuff.
Let's talk about a fire, right? So your bread and butter 99.9%
of the time, bread and butter, two-story house fire.
What is your guys's box assignment, running assignment,

(01:10:33):
whatever it's called in your system, What do you get?
And then how are the assignmentstypically sent out?
Is it AIC one IC 2? Is it predetermined running
assignments? Just breakdown for listeners how
you guys run it in Mesa for a just a normal house fire working
house fire? It's it's pretty fluid but our
our initial dispatch is 3 in one.

(01:10:54):
So 3 engines, one ladder, 1 BC, and then in Mesa we'll do what
we call a working fire. From what I understand, I don't
think most people do that. We don't have what used to be
when we were bigot like rapid intervention teams or rapid
intervention crews, that third in unit would always be ripped.
Now it's not like that, right? We just use them as far as

(01:11:14):
tactical objectives. But you know, it's when we do a
working fire, we just get one more, one more engine for extra
stuff, rehab or whatever. And then we balance to a first
alarm. And that's a whole nother 3 in
one assignment, 3 engines, another ladder, another BC stuff
like that. So we, we have that 3 deep order

(01:11:34):
model that we shoot for, right? We've got the work cycle, we've
got a relief cycle and then we've got the backup cycle.
And so we've got that three deepcommand presence, the battalion
chiefs. Dude, there's some confusion in
the valley right now about what that forward BC is supposed to
do. We had a structure collapse in
June with ten of our guys in a 4000 square foot house, and they

(01:11:55):
all had to bail out different areas of the house, some out of
a window, some made of it out ofArcadia door.
The Battalion Chief was assignedto interior, unable to manage
that essentially a Mayday which never got called right. 10
people trapped, crews divided, people exiting out of both
places. We just never got a really good
grasp on accountability. But so that Battalion Chief,

(01:12:18):
that second Battalion Chief is Ihandle that a little bit
differently than some. I usually try to keep
accountability and outside that IDLH and manage resources.
But you know, the 1st in engine goes in for search rescue or
fire control, right? Those are three very distinctly
different things, but I hear it all the time.
I'm going inside for search, rescue, fire control.

(01:12:39):
No, you're not. You're going to do one or the
other, but I don't care which one you do just get it done
right and and give me that primary.
So once they go into to, I'll probably, you know, they're
either hand jacking a water supply, which I can get into the
nuances of that. I don't like to do it if it's
far because it elevates your heart rate that's already
elevated when you're hypoxic andyou're doing stuff.

(01:13:01):
Your math isn't right. So I would like that second or
third in unit to lay in that supply line.
I'm not I don't care if that first unit runs out of water as
long as they're not interior. But so there's a lot of that
which where am I going to prioritize my water supplies
that are de prioritize water supplies.
And then the third in unit is either going to be evacuation or

(01:13:22):
writ right. So it's whatever those tactical
objectives are again, to aggressively lower my risk
management plan if I can get it all evacuated in a primary all
clear. I just went into the yellow with
my risk management plan. Now I'm only protecting property
right? I can make better decisions.
Now in your system, does that first and officer, do they take

(01:13:43):
command, do they pass it? How's that work?
And then when the Battalion Chief does show up, how's that
transition? Is it always, is it to the
officer? Just breakdown the listeners how
you guys run it. So there's not an always or
never again, I'm a little different.
There are battalion chiefs that will take it right away.
I have taken it right away in some situations.

(01:14:04):
But the the first thing company officer was is going to assume
command. I like that company officer to
go mobile. There are some chiefs that like
them to say stationary. I disagree with that in a lot of
these scenarios. I'm not going to say that
there's an always, right. There is a time where that
company officer may stay out andtake a stationary command to set

(01:14:27):
this up and not pass me a turd as IC2.
We don't refer to it as IC2, right?
We'll have you know the initial command officer will be the
engine company captain and then I'll be BC Battalion and then
I'll assume what would be IC 2. We do that all different ways as
well. Sometimes they pass it,
sometimes I'll assume it and give that you know that

(01:14:50):
confirmation or assumption confirmation and position of
command later on. So personally, I like my company
officer to assign their first 3 units.
Being an engine captain, there is nothing I hated more than
getting out. You know, we didn't weren't
always clean cab. But once we are pulling our hose

(01:15:12):
line, getting it to the front door and a BC comes on scene,
I'm trying to tell my crews I'm doing a 360 this and that and
they'll go battalion 2O four to command.
And I'm literally looking at himin the BC ride going, you know,
as much as I do, you know. So unless you're just going to
take it, which so like, give me a minute to work.

(01:15:35):
Well, I personally, if I can, ifit works out, I really like my
first in engine officer or ladder officer to do the initial
assumption confirmation and position of command.
And once they do the initial size up right, then they can
assign their units as needed andthen pass command to me.

(01:16:00):
And that stemmed from another, honestly another rescue and
double fatality that I had as a young captain.
Went in my firefighter VES solo through a window.
My other firefighter and I went into the front door.
We found two dead people, a dad and and a three-year old baby
next to him. They tried to get out the the
wrong door. My firefighter made it to the

(01:16:21):
back bedroom where there was nine people inside.
He opened the Arcadia door, let everybody out.
But I had two severely burned patients with no recognizable
features on the interior. Right.
So that kind of changed the way like the chief is calling me on
the radio, calling me on the radio, calling me on the radio.
And for me, I should have been like, Chief, stand by, right?

(01:16:42):
Like I hear you, but I know you're going to assign these
next units this and they can't do that.
I need my third in engine now tobe treatment because I got nine
people coming out the back with smoke inhalation.
I've got a missing baby that they're telling me is in here,
you know, firefighter to the VESthat room.
And I got 2 dead patients here that I'll probably leave in

(01:17:04):
place because of their extent oftheir injuries, right.
So stop calling me on the radio.Let me make those initial
assignments and and pass commandto you.
I have more information than youLet me do my job.
So I I've taken that with me to where I, I really try to let my

(01:17:25):
first team company officers and I empower them to make those
decisions, right? That's what I want them to do.
And then pass me, me the scene with a full picture.
How can I support you now, right?
So I like to do that again. There are chiefs that get on
scene and just want to take it. So if I can empower my captains

(01:17:47):
to do that and make those decisions, they're going to pass
me a better plate of how I can support them during the rest of
this incident, right? What other resources do you
need? How can I support you?
Where do those resources need tobe allocated?
If I just take it, I'd lose a couple things.
I'd lose the information they have and I'd lose the trust,

(01:18:09):
because trust has to work both ways between your your
operational crews and your ICS, right?
And if I don't empower them to make decisions, they're not
going to help me on the fire ground.
So again, I give them the intent, let them try to manage
this and then we talked about pros and cons later.
Hey, what was your plan up there?
Like? Why did you think you needed to

(01:18:30):
vertically ventilate over a commercial Public Storage?
Did you know you were over the fire or did you really know that
you were six, you know, cubicle storage units back and you did
absolutely no good, right? You just wasted our time and a
resource. So, you know, we'll, we talk
about those decisions later. Again, it's OK.

(01:18:53):
You know what, we'll get throughit.
But that's how we're going to get better is empower our
captains. I don't believe in always taking
stationary command. I think that's silly because
we're a young fire department. There's a chance that I have a a
firefighter with six months in the back seat with a firefighter

(01:19:14):
with a year ish on. There is no scenario that those
two are going interior by themselves.
None unless that trust level andwe're training all the time.
So we have those expectations lined out.

(01:19:34):
They're using their heads up display tactically inside that
fire where they're going. Hey, I got 1 green copy that.
I got 1 amber copy that, you know, interior to command.
I need an on debt crew to come or leave us with one Amber.
Now I can transfer that sector effectively.
Are they using all that information, including knowing
their weapons, where we're doingit, the surface cooling versus

(01:19:57):
gas cooling, isolating those points of refuge for you and the
civilians and using their mask and air management?
If you're not doing that efficiently, then there is no
scenario that I am letting you in there by yourself.
Those are my expectations of my senior firefighters.
So, so with that said, what do you say to the guys that as

(01:20:17):
battalions that will take it immediately when they get on
scene because of their reasoningbehind it would be how can you
effectively run command while you're interior attempting to
work? Because let's say that scenario
2 very junior members and you'reit's, it's that short leash day.
It's that long leash. It's short leash.
You're hey, you're on my freaking hip pretty much this
entire call. So how do you feel about in that

(01:20:39):
situation where those battalionsare like, hey bro, I'm going to
take it every time. Not because I don't trust you,
because I I'm trying to empower you to go to work with your
crew. What do you think?
And, and that's fine too, right?So it's not a hard and fast
rule. Like I said at the beginning,
there are times where I've takenit to where you know, and most
of my captains know, like, hey, I'm probably not going to do

(01:21:02):
that. Take it from you, however, if
you need me to do it because of that scenario, pass it.
So I don't want to take it. I have before because an on
scene report got cut off. I didn't get the information.
I can see they're busy, you knowwhat I mean?
Then I can do that with part of the scene size up.

(01:21:23):
So again, I'm just, there's a hard and fast rule.
You're reading the situation. If we can let allow them to do
it with forward info. That's why we put ABC forward so
they can see and and give us information back.
Well, those captains have that same opportunity, but we need to
invest time in them and tell them what we want.

(01:21:44):
So there are absolutely times where where I'll tell my guys
I'm like, hey, sometimes I mighttake it.
I don't want to, but if you wantme to have it, absolutely pass
it, right. So there's there's three
scenarios there that I'm giving my guys, you know, again, think
about what you have. If it's overwhelming or you're
behind the 8 ball or you got units stacking up and you don't

(01:22:06):
know which units to deploy, passit.
I got you. If you want to hold it, assign
your, you know what I mean? There's a couple things that you
know, I think we got into like we're sharing all this stuff.
I hate the chiefs that tell me it's not in volume to it is in
volume to whatever it is. It is the volume to gives us the
autonomy to do our job. That is the way it's written,

(01:22:28):
right? Explain the listeners real quick
what volume 2 is for the ones that don't know.
So we are blessed in the Valley.We regionally the I think the
city of Mesa has its own dispatch center.
We're about 139 square miles. We dispatch for shoot, I don't
just in Mesa, we have you know, 54 units or something like that,

(01:22:51):
20 something stations. So, but we dispatch for multiple
agencies in the East Valley. Phoenix Fire has their own
dispatch center, our dispatch center in Mason and Phoenix's
communicate almost seamlessly. So we dispatch 26 jurisdictions
combined, probably over 1000 units and there's no city
boundaries. So the other reason why we're

(01:23:13):
blessed in our system, which is the gold standard, it's the the
linchpin of the the response model.
We work off one set of SOP's called Phoenix Regional Volume 2
and when I go into some of thoseVES is not in volume to.
We don't do it. It's on volume to.

(01:23:34):
OK, can you please open that andshow me where standard search
is? Can you please open that and
tell me where oriented search isor team search or split search?
Can you, can you please show me where those are in volume to
because they're not there either.
Bro how am I supposed to search this?
Or is it written to say, hey just search it and you can use

(01:23:54):
the technique that you're trained on and the most
efficient at right? So it doesn't tell me when to
pull a 2 1/2. It doesn't tell me a flat fire
flow formula in volume 2 when toselect those weapons?
Cut your shit with. It's not in volume to.
It is in volume to. It allows me, it's a
departmental expectation of how an emergency scene should be

(01:24:15):
operated on and it allows me theautonomy to do most things.
There is not very many times in these SO PS that they say shall.
The one that is notable says theone I quoted earlier, the
incident commander shall direct a primary search into all
involved in exposed occupancies that can be entered within that

(01:24:37):
risk management plan. And again, risk is managed by
competence and that's managed bytraining, right?
So if you're not willing to train, step aside before you get
somebody hurt, right? And that's the bottom line.
And you know, I think you, the other quote is, you know,
there's several that I love. Let no man's ghost return to say
it's training, Let him down. Train with a sense of urgency so

(01:24:59):
you don't perform in a sense of panic.
All of those little, little things that I'm like, oh, let's
take that with me. The the best 1 though, sits
over. I think it's Dem.
I think it's, Denver says. The rules are never more
important than the mission. Some rules are never more
important than the mission. Get it done.
Save the life, make the grab, put the fire out.

(01:25:21):
Yeah. So you, yeah, if you're, if
you're telling me that if it's not in volume to you can't do
it. Then in that case, you have a
commercial structure and you have a victim that's 167 feet
away. You can't get them because
you're only allowed to enter thestructure 150 foot.
You know, like, like I, I point stuff like that out to people
all the time. It's like, no, you are empowered

(01:25:41):
to make the correct decision in the correct call to save
property in life, period. The end, right?
You're here to do the right thing.
We're here for the public. That's that's it, right.
And like you said before, we have a guideline that's supposed
to be able to help us or educateus to make those property
decisions, but it always falls on the suppression officer.
My my personal opinion. For sure you know, there's the

(01:26:02):
rule of threes, everything is right there's three flow
formulas that we discussed earlier there's three hand line
stretches, right? You're stretching from a rig
appliance or like stamp pipe type of thing right off a
system. You consider three things as far
as equipment operations and deployment, right.
So and you know your, your flow formulas and really if we go

(01:26:25):
into all the scenarios and you'll hear me talk about this
when we talk about mid rise stuff, you just use the acronym
PACE. Are you familiar with that?
I'm not. No, Sir.
You look at that and go to primary plan, an alternative
plan and then a contingency planand an emergency plan.
I tell my captains, I said you're, you're responsible for

(01:26:45):
the 1st 2:00. You give me the primary, an
alternative. Think about those water supply
options, think about the attack line options, think about your
search and, and rescue approach options, Right.
I'll come up with a contingency and an emergency plan.
I'm going to come up with where I'm going to do an additional
standpipe where I'm going to do flying standpipes for, for these

(01:27:07):
other things, because the hallways are 400 feet long with
what, you know, with standpipes on the fire floor, right?
We've mid rises in some of thesehallways.
We have to hook up to the fire floor, not the floor below
because of the, the NFPA standard in the International
Building Code. So, you know, we don't get into
little nuances like that. We don't even get into guys

(01:27:29):
that, that know how to adjust oreven identify pressure
restricting versus pressure reducing valves or devices.
You know, like, dude, the, the, the way we embrace mediocrity is
crazy and we just don't know. We don't what we don't know.
I love it so well. We've, we've talked for a long
time, right? We've covered a lot.

(01:27:50):
Of people are done hearing me talk again, see they're like I'm
done here in Slater because. If you're going on a podcast
journey right now, you're like hit.
You're hitting them. Also, before we go to the
questions for Season 2, besides thanking you so much for your
time and all the knowledge that you're spending out there, I
mean, guys are going to love this episode.
Is there anything that you want to make sure that you get across

(01:28:10):
today before we start wrapping it up?
You just train, go, go out and train, seek something outside
the valley, get away from our inbred mindset.
And then when you do that, please don't do what I did right
because no one cares how smart you are if you're an asshole.

(01:28:33):
So, and that's me, right? So I started to be like, I'm
going to shove this down your throat and we need to know it.
We need to make this change. We need to change.
Like why is our 2 1/2 inch line have a gated Y on it?
You know, that's the stupidest thing I've ever seen in my life.
Like all of my nozzles are flow 150.
So you know, I put a nozzle on my 2 1/2 and my chief was like,

(01:28:54):
dude, you can't do that. And I go, why not?
It's my rig, right? He's like, well, no one knows
what you're doing. I don't give a shit.
Catch him up. I had somebody tell me, you
know, your IC is worried about what you're doing on the
fireground. So now I'm going to do my job.
You just tell me what you want strategy wise, you know, And the
other thing was I can't even remember what they were saying.
Chris, I'm going to have to ask you.

(01:29:15):
This is a quote. I'm going to have to ask you to
stop training with your crew because you're getting too
advanced and the department needs to catch up, right.
Oh, so anyways, I put this nozzle on my truck and I'll
finish the story and then I'll get back into it.
So I asked him. I said, hey chief, I said let's
let's go out and figure this outright?
The gated Y is stupid. So I know we're getting back

(01:29:37):
into this horizontal standpipe thing, but it it's we can't use
it regionally because Glendale uses a 50PSI nozzle.
Phoenix's uses to 75 to 100. We're already 25 PSI at the tip
off. Not to mention they use a 1.88
hose or 1.91 hose. Your friction loss is already
off, right? Your firefighters are going to

(01:30:00):
compensate that with the nozzle.It's dumb.
Do an extended lay. It's safer.
I'm not saying get rid of it alltogether.
Again, I'm not saying get rid ofit all together, but your
primary attack line should be uninterrupted and uncompromised,
period. Uninterrupted and uncompromised
attack line. So I asked my chief, I'm like,
hey, you pull your gated Y and I'm going to pull my 2 1/2.

(01:30:23):
We've got a second story apartment fire.
Your kids are trapped up there, Chief.
We get to our destination at thesame time we get water to your
gated Y and my 2 1/2 at the exact same time.
I'm going to clamp pin Camella, whatever I choose, I'm going to
open my nozzle and I'm going to start knocking this down at 60

(01:30:44):
PSI at the tip. It's going to give me 326 GPM.
That's 5.5 gallons a second. How long do you think it's going
to take you, Chief, to either extend that 100 feet of inch and
three quarter attack package if it's connected, or do you got to
make that connection? How long is it going to take you
to do that? Realistically, 30 seconds.

(01:31:06):
You're the best damn chief I've ever seen.
I'm going to say 30 seconds, right?
30 seconds. In that 30 seconds at 5.5
gallons a second, I have delivered 150 gallons of water
to that fire. You have not even opened your
nozzle and it's going to take you another minute to catch me.
Who's more effective on the fireground and who do you want their
first chief if your kids are trapped on the balcony?

(01:31:28):
This was a real conversation. He went leave the nozzle, but we
got to go through the committee.So now we have this freaking
nozzle on our truck, right? But I'm like, dude, we
organizationally we are failing each other to not give us the
right weapon selection and then we don't even teach it right.
I had a firefighter tell me the other day, I'm like, hey, how

(01:31:48):
much does this float? 100 gallons.
Try again, 500. Oh, no, it doesn't.
So let's talk about this, right?So, But yeah, so there's a lot,
just the fundamentals, the fundamentals, the fundamentals,
the fundamentals of being a goodfirefighter.

(01:32:10):
Understanding those little, little things can make you more
effective on the fire ground to where people go, man, they're
aggressive. No, they just know their job,
right? Get out and do it.
So Chief St. train get out, do it right, know the basics in and
out. Pretty much what I'm catching
from that to Yep. OK, good.

(01:32:31):
All right, brother. Well, listen, let's get into
let's get into the questions forthe season, right.
So we do we always ask the why. We ask the why when it comes
down to hiring a brand new employee.
We ask the why when we're tryingto promote through the fire
service or even take another job.
But this is your why. So why did Chris Slayer become a
fireman? Did you get bit by the bugs of
those little kid? What brought you down this path

(01:32:52):
back before 1999? You're not going to like this
answer. So I wanted to be a cop, right?
So I started to volunteer with Central Arizona Mountain Rescue
Association, which is a branch off Maricopa County Sheriff's,
right. So when I started doing that, I
was pretty avid rock climber, pretty avid Mountaineer, high
altitude mountaineering. And so some of the guys I

(01:33:13):
volunteered were were guys that were on Phoenix and Story of
fire. So blame them.
They went, dude, we get paid forthis in TRT.
And I'm like, you guys do this like legit like, OK, I don't
think I want to be a fireman, right?
And then plus, you know, back then it was a little different
now, right? There's like 3000, you know,
people for 30 spots. I'm like, bro, chicks dig it and

(01:33:37):
I'm going to get more ass in thetoilet seat.
Done right, done. So that's why I wanted to be a
fireman, right? At first, right?
And then I finally realized I had cranial rectal inversion,
right? My head was so far up my ass and
said, man, I bet I better, I better be good at my job, right?
So I always tried to do really good at TRT and hazmat stuff.

(01:34:01):
And then I started becoming, youknow, the interior nozzle.
What can we do for Mrs. Smith that's better than what we
currently do? Firefighter?
So that's why I wanted to be a fireman.
I love it. So that's amazing.
You know, that's the best, that's the best answer to date,
I guarantee, on why you're supposed to want to get to the
chicks. Take this right.

(01:34:23):
Yeah, now I'm old, so I could say that stuff.
I'm in shape, but it's round, right?
Yeah, yeah, everything's a shapenow.
You're ears died. Everyone knows that.
All right, so we we know the why.
So we talked a little bit about traditions where it's one of my
favorite topics. So what is your favorite fire
department tradition? But more importantly, why?
Why is it your favorite? That dude.

(01:34:45):
So when you asked me that, I waslike, there's a lot of great
traditions, right? We have a lot of great
traditions in the fire service, but I got to tell you, and I
think we overlooked this one, iseating together at the kitchen
table. If I'm going to get a tattoo
with a fire service, it's probably not going to be a
Maltese cross. It's not going to be my badge.
It's not going to be some awesome dragon dude.
We should all get a kitchen table because that's where the

(01:35:07):
love and the magic of the fire service happens, right?
When you can cook a meal together and laugh about how
good or shitty it is and talk about the cause and decompress
and take those opportunities to get to know each other on that
level, dude, that's one thing I didn't want to lose when I was a
Chief, right? I always want to be invited back

(01:35:29):
to the kitchen table. The kitchen table is by far the
best tradition. Cooking together is the best
tradition the fire service has in the United States.
I love it. It's, it's funny because a lot
of people won't give that answer, but every answer is
different, if that makes any sense.

(01:35:49):
Their why is different. It's a kitchen table or it's a
Firehouse kitchen. But the why is different, which
is what I love it so much and just proves over and over and
over again. It is so important.
I mean, any fire department, anything, documentary, movie,
whatever the case might be, their boys are always at the
table. And it's for a reason.
Because again, it is church, right?

(01:36:10):
It is family, it is therapy, it is everything.
So it's. It embodies the fire service.
And when I retire, a lot of people ask me what I'm going to
miss and, and I tell them, I said I'm going to miss the
kitchen table. I'm going to miss the clowns,
not the circus, right? So that's what I'm going to
miss. I love it.
All right, well, Chief, great answer.
So this is this is a new question for the season and

(01:36:33):
we're asking it for a valid reason.
So across the United States right now, 50% of all fire
departments are five years and less right now.
It's the latest or sad out there.
So if you had a chance to tell aguy with five years on or less
one thing only, what would it beto help him get through his 25

(01:36:53):
to 30 year career? It's not negotiable.
OK. Find something to embrace.
It doesn't have to be everything, right?
For, for me, like I said, my, myjob is, was to bring guys home
at the end of their 25 year career.
And I'm in a position with it, with the network that, that I've
had to bring a lot of information back.

(01:37:15):
It's not that I'm passionate about all that stuff, you know,
but I, if I can make a better firefighter and dude, I get text
all the time. Hey man, I know you taught me
about gas cooling. And we did this while I was in a
hoarder house and I used that technique and I saved a life.
Hey, man, I did this and this was a direct result of your
class. And I didn't learn it here.

(01:37:37):
I didn't learn it in my 27 yearsin the city of Mesa.
I could live the first year overagain, right?
Because we're inbred. The first year for 26 years is
all I would ever know. Got to get out, seek
information, seek the guys that are passionate about it and and
think, Mahata, I'm going to butcher this quote by Mahatma
Gandhi. But it's something like live as

(01:38:00):
if you're going to die tomorrow and learn as if you're going to
live forever. So always, always train and be
better through your career. Don't sit stagnant.
I love it, you know, and that's,that's that's a great single
word answer that resonates, you know, so deep.
So train, that's it, right? Train because that's going to

(01:38:23):
benefit you, the civilians, yourdepartment for the rest of your
career. Last question, if you could snap
your fingers is one of my favorites.
No sweat equity, insta gratification for the ADHD years
like myself and you would changesomething in the American fire
service doesn't even have to do with your city.
Change one thing in the Americanfire service.
What would it be? But more importantly, why are

(01:38:44):
you changing this? So I thought about this one for
a little while, man, and it, it really stems from me not knowing
when I started getting out, you know, and going to firemanship
in Portland and everybody's preaching them, them, they don't
have the same response model as we do.
It's mutual aid, not automatic aid.
They're requesting assistance. They stop at city boundaries.

(01:39:05):
They have different SOP's and it's ego, ego, ego.
We can't do this because our taxpayers do this.
They don't have the same servicemodel as we do here.
And Bruno's vision back in the day.
So I guess if I could snap my fingers and change the American
Fire Service, it would be the same, same or very similar

(01:39:27):
response plan as we have here. No city boundaries.
We all talk the same language cities.
And you know that respective state and their organizations
work off similar SOP's. So we can do what's right for
the civilians that we took an oath to protect collectively in

(01:39:48):
the American Fire Service. We can't do that unless you're
responding like we do in the Phoenix system.
There's always a shortcoming in the service delivery model if
that doesn't happen. So if I could snap my finger
today and change it there, thereare several.
But I would do what's best for Misses Smith and that would be

(01:40:10):
everybody works off, no city boundaries, automatic aid
response plans and similar or the same SLPS.
I love it. It's funny because the system
that I cut my teeth in back eastis completely different.
It's mutual aid, exactly what you explained.
And I, I can count on probably 2hands on a couple house fires I

(01:40:32):
watched burn across the city border because that's just they
were not going to request help and that's just how it was back
in the day. But with that said, so why don't
you think that isn't a thing? Because how successful it is out
here, the public, Mrs. Smith, Grandma Shmurkins, I always
refer to her as when they call #1 how it works here in this

(01:40:55):
region is how everyone across the country believes it actually
works. But as as firemen, we all know
and the guys listening, you know, that's, that's not the
truth. So I'm just curious, just
personally, why does Chris Layerthink that doesn't happen?
Man, again, it goes back to our city does it better.
I don't want to I don't want to do it like that.
He goes in the way budget. You know you've got to get it.

(01:41:17):
It's a bigger deal than just a agreen on it at the street level.
Your resources have to be the same or similar.
I know we, we had a big deal back in the day where all of
Mesa's engine or four person, there were always 2 ALS
including our ladder companies. But Tempe was not.
So at 2:00 in the morning and Ladder 4 would get a call from

(01:41:38):
Ladder 273 and go here's our patient because we don't have a
medic. So now I'm taking a, a resource
and a ladder truck at that, not,not something I have a lot of.
So I'm taking a resource out of my city that my taxpayers have
agreed to purchase for our protection to go into your city
and transport a patient that you're not capable of because of

(01:42:02):
one thing or another, right? So there are those growing pains
that we need to wrap our head around.
And the guys in the street, it'sabove us, right?
We just need to run the play. Like, I can call you a jerk all
day because of this and get mad at you, but it's not your, it's,
it's not your choice. Just like my guys did this thing
the other day. They crushed it.
And some of the comments online were clean clap slows you down.

(01:42:26):
I don't, I don't disagree with you.
I am not sure I buy into clean cab altogether because there
there is no data to support it. You know, Phoenix has had their
packs out for 30 years. Their cancer level seems to be
and I'm not data informed, but that seems to be no different

(01:42:46):
than the rest of ours collectively around the the
state. So is it the packs that are
actually a problem? I don't know.
I'm, I'm unaware, right? But we need to do some more
stuff to, to, to do what's rightfor Mrs. Smith.
So all of these little things I think that people are unwilling
to overcome to make these big gigantic changes to do what we

(01:43:08):
know is right. Listen, Chief, thank you first
of all for sitting down with us a pre Thank you.
Because by the time this airs, you're already going to be at
the meeting. You're going to have a killer
class. I can't wait to attend.
A lot of guys are super stoked about it.
There's a buzz on the street. So everyone's been asking, hey,
when's the meeting? April 22nd.
This will be well past that. I really want to thank you for

(01:43:31):
your time. I know you're a busy man.
You're doing your, you have, what, 8 months left now?
Nine months left. Nine months.
I'm shooting forward. So like I said, I got hired on
January 11th, 1999, which was my25th birthday.
I started the Academy. I'm shooting for my last shift
to be January 11th, 2026, so I'll be leaving on my 53rd

(01:43:53):
birthday 27 years later. Amazing.
Then any plans for retirement? So I'm kind of hoping to get a
job with MES municipal emergencyservices.
So the whole part of that is because I think we're spec in
our apparatus poorly. If I you know, there's a lot of

(01:44:14):
things that we could do better. We're we're letting the pendulum
swing too far when we're putting, are the zippers on our
coach slowing us down? We've got clean cab so we can't
mask up or we might be fogged updepending on time of the year.
It's slowing us down. Do we need to pull a step out to
get our hoses off, slowing us down, right?
How are our hose loads done? Do we have the right nozzles

(01:44:37):
with our hoses? What type of equipment?
So, so I'm just transferring my passion for the job.
What I know of our shortcomings are into an area where that can
hopefully help people overcome those hurdles and the
shortcomings that we know in thefire service exist.
So work within the city's budgetconstraints, figure out what's

(01:44:58):
best for them to do. As far as SCBA turn out coats,
you know, where is it slowing usdown in our response model?
What's going to help us out on the fire ground as far as
necessary pressures and unnecessary pressures?
What's going to expedite the process with extended lays and
stuff like that? How can I help from the
fundamental level specking engines, apparatus and equipment

(01:45:20):
now to make our firefighters jobeasier?
So I'm going to try to make thattransition.
So hopefully I may ask for sure sales will hire me.
We'll see. Well, they would they would be
idiots if they don't. So that's great news.
So you're going to still make positive effects for the
fireman, at least in this region, which is amazing.
So appreciate that. Appreciate your time, Chief, and

(01:45:42):
we're getting ready to sign off here, but thank you for your
time. Congrats on a freaking amazing
career and again, your stud in the Valley, your stud across the
country. So thank you for taking time to
sit down with us. And then more importantly, thank
you ahead of time for being ableto go to our meeting and and be
able to pass on that additional knowledge to the go getters, the

(01:46:03):
hard chargers that come out. Thank you so much.
So we appreciate my. Pleasure, man, and yeah, you're,
you're, you're going to make me blush on to I don't think of it
like that again. But you know, I, like I said, I
I try to do what's right for forthe the guys that I care about,
but I look forward to the mid rise class.
It's going to be super cool. And like I said, I didn't know
what I didn't know. So there'll be a lot of

(01:46:25):
information. I'll probably talk your ear off
there too, but I'm going to try to keep it to the hour and a
half. But there's some stuff our guys
got to know to be safe. So all right, man, I'll see you
there. See you buddy.
Thank you for listening. Remember, this podcast is for
informational use only. All the information, opinions
are of the guest and the host ofthe show and are not affiliated

(01:46:45):
or endorsed by the fire departments, organizations or
companies they work for or with.We are here to spread the
knowledge, make each other better, and keep the love and
traditions of the American Fire Service alive.
Thanks for listening. We'll be back in another two
weeks. Remember to like, share, review
if you can. Helps drive traffic to our

(01:47:06):
podcast. Remember, let's leave our ego
out of the fire service. It's amazing what we can
accomplish when no one's lookingfor credit.
Much love. Let's stop eating our own and
become better fireman. Catch you next time.

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