Assigning a Division Boss

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This episode features Josh Blum, Chris Stewart and John Vance.

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We sit down at the Blue Card Hazard Zone Conference to discuss how division bosses actually make the fireground safer and calmer. We draw a hard line between tactical and strategic roles, explain NFPA 1700 updates, and show how to fix oversaturated divisions before they fail.

• purpose of a division boss in type 4/5 incidents
• triggers for standing up a division boss
• NFPA 1700 size‑up and search insights
• difference between tactical and strategic roles
• why “Operations” isn’t a house‑fire shortcut
• span of control limits and real thresholds
• pairing a division boss with a support officer
• TLO assignments that reduce radio noise
• managing Mayday and victim removals
• splitting floors and sides to prevent overload
• training company officers to think, not just do
• calm, professional radio traffic and decision models

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_02 (00:18):
Welcome to the Bee Shifter Podcast.
John Vance, Josh Bloom, andChris Stewart.
We are coming at you from theSharonville Convention Center in
Sharonville, Ohio, right outsideof Cincinnati.
We're here this week for theBlue Cart Hazard Zone
Conference.
We have uh probably well over400 all involved uh in this this

(00:38):
week.
Uh incident commanders, firedepartment leaders, people
aspiring toward those roles.
So we are um kind of gearing upfor it.
We're we're here getting ready,and we thought it would be a
good time to sit down and getour podcast on.

SPEAKER_00 (00:52):
How are you guys doing?
I'm doing fantastic.
I'm glad the week's here.
Looking forward to hanging outwith everybody.
Got a bunch of full classes,cert lab today, a bunch of
workshops starting tomorrow.
Chris and Eric are doing thecritical thinking class.
We got a Mayday management classwith Chief Lester and Chief
Fleischer and expanded command.

(01:13):
Kind of a not it's not new.
Well, it is a new new really,it's uh all of the same tools,
parts and pieces, but it's uhrepackaged expanded command
class.
Tim Schauel, Kevin Alexanderfrom Houston are doing that.
Really, like how do you makethat trans transition as the
incident escalates without uhwithout overdoing it or

(01:35):
overcomplicating it, just usingthe same system we really use
for everything else, just addinga few layers to it.
So looking forward to that, andthen the general session
Thursday and Friday with Danfrom FSRI.
We're looking forward to that,especially with the summit
wrapping up last week and someof the stuff hopefully he talks
about this week with that.
Captain Sorillo, now tiredretired Captain Sorillo.

SPEAKER_01 (01:58):
He does have a retirement beard.

SPEAKER_00 (02:00):
Yeah, from uh FDNY talking about what he does so
well with the wind-driven firesand so on.
He's gonna spend a little timewith us, but he's got to get out
of here to get back to the NewYork high-rise conference.
I think starts Thursday orFriday.
So, but he still was able tomake it join us.
Yeah, so all good.
Good.
It's all coming together.

(02:20):
And what are you doing here,Chris?

SPEAKER_02 (02:22):
What what what are your classes this week?

SPEAKER_01 (02:23):
First and foremost, I'm here to feel the buzz.

SPEAKER_02 (02:26):
Well, there is a buzz.

SPEAKER_01 (02:27):
Yeah, there is a buzz, certainly moving around
the convention center here at uhSharonville.
Yeah, Josh said Eric and I areteaching the strategic
decision-making criticalthinking workshop the next two
days, Tuesday and Wednesday.
And then my breakout session ison practical application of NFPA
1700 with the new new seven NFPA1700 coming out in uh January

(02:50):
and the guide to structuralfirefighting.
It really is the NFPA's onlystructural firefighting standard
that you know we're gonna we'regonna talk about the application
of that and how it all connectsand where it all comes from and
and really what the what the newand improved information in it
is.

SPEAKER_02 (03:08):
What what uh if you can give us a sneak peek, what
do you think uh a few of thehighlights that we might hear
this week?

SPEAKER_01 (03:14):
So I think two two things I'll focus on.
Number one is the strategicconsiderations chapter, chapter
nine of uh 1700 is really aboutsize up, risk management,
strategy, and incident actionplanning.
I don't know where that all thatstuff came from, but that's what

(03:34):
we you know it's is really inthe in that uh document.
And then chapter 13 is actuallyan all-new chapter, and that is
uh tactical considerations forsearch and rescue.
And that is essentially based onall the data that came out of
FSRI's uh size up and searchstudy and the practical

(03:54):
application of that.
And a critical part of that issize up and size up with regards
and perspective of life safety.
And what does that look likefrom an exterior size up?
Well, how do you how do youconnect all that doing a 360?
And then lastly, that you know,that interior size up component,
what does that actually looklike?

(04:15):
And and then the the you know,the the task level, you know,
what does the work look like,whether it's a door-initiated
search or a or a windowinitiated search?
It really is all the sameconsiderations.
And you know, we just need to besmart about that.
So whether we're we're doing thework or the incident commander,
we we we need to have a clueabout what that is, what we're

(04:37):
asking them to do, and what theoutcomes and the expected
outcomes should be of thatstuff.
So yeah, we'll spend a littlebit of time wrestling with that
uh as much as we can in an hourand 15 minutes, which is uh you
know, plenty of time to have adecent conversation.
So it looks like there was muchto my surprise, you know, quite
a few people signed up for forthat.
So I'm looking forward to totalking with them.

SPEAKER_02 (04:58):
I'm looking forward to popping into your classes
this week.
Uh that's gonna be great.
So if you're hearing this onThursday, uh things are well
underway, you can make it heremaybe for a half half day or a
half day Thursday and a fullday, but we we still do have
seats if you happen to hear thisand you're in the neighborhood.
We'd welcome you to to come by.
Today, let's get into our topic.

(05:20):
We we want to talk aboutassigning a division boss.
And sometimes we hear radiotraffic where the division boss
is just saturated with resourcesand or tasks or both.
But let's talk about thecriteria first, assigning a
division boss, what that soundslike, why you do it, when you do

(05:42):
it.
What are what are the let'sstart with the trigger for
assigning a division boss at anincident.

SPEAKER_00 (05:49):
Yeah, so John, before I jump to that, the we we
see a lot of they're calling itsomething different, but really
it's the old operationsposition.
Like somebody ends up in frontof the building on the alpha
side and they call itoperations, and but now they're
calling it, you know, alpha, oryou know, some recent things

(06:09):
that we got from some folks washow does a division boss manage
11 companies?
And it's like they don't.
We have a span of control, youknow, for a reason.
So that kind of leads into this.
That there's decision goes,there's some a bunch of
decisions and parts and piecesgo into assigning a division.
One, it really starts with theback to the critical factors
thing of what is going on, howmuch work needs to take place,

(06:32):
and how much resources are gonnabe in that position.
And then location of it.
Uh location of the work isalways a factor, right?
Like how far away is the worktaking place, how long are we
gonna work in that space, youknow, is another, you know, uh
potential piece for assigningthe division.
I always tell people, you know,command function one is

(06:56):
deployment and assigning adivision boss, regardless of you
know, their rank, if they'regonna operate in that warm zone
as a true division boss with asupport officer and manage that
position and the work that'shappening there, we need to
understand their capabilitiesand limitations, no different
than if you've got an enginecompany with two on it, or an

(07:17):
engine company with three on it,or an engine company with four
on it.
You can only assign them to dothe work that they're really
capable of doing.
So just because a chief hasarrived doesn't mean that
they're probably potentially thebest person to throw into that
position.
So it comes back to that.
The deployment piece is reallyimportant.
And that whole deployment piecestarts off with what do you have

(07:37):
and what can you do with whatyou have?
And the the the chief officerassignment, that division
officer assignment is is nodifferent at all.
Chris, a little bit on the the1550 stuff that's written now
with expanding command is reallywhat it comes down to, but they
kind of focus on a little bit onthe division ops, the three or

(07:58):
more companies assigned to anygeographic space for any period
of time.

SPEAKER_01 (08:02):
Yeah, I think they're they're really defining
some critical benchmarks ortriggers of actual effective
supervision, right?
So if in if you have more thanthree companies working in a in
a in any given tacticalposition, the consideration for
a supervisor to best support thework and the safety aspects of

(08:24):
what they have going on in thattactical position, then the the
need to assign a division bossbecomes fairly apparent.
And or it it can or shouldbecome fairly apparent.
And that division boss should behelped by having a support
officer of some kind, and we canput whatever label we want on
that, and and it can be donemultiple different ways, but it

(08:46):
it's a supervisory piece, right?
And so the backup to theoriginal question is when should
we assign a division?
Well, let's let's take a stepback even from that.
When should the first arrivingchief officer take command?
The first arriving chief officershould take command when they
can make the incident commandsystem better, when they can

(09:07):
make the incident moreeffective, when they can make
the incident uh more safe,right, for the firefighters
doing the work.
So now you're dealing withwhat's best for the customer and
what's best for thefirefighters.
The same should be true for anIC and assigning a division boss
whenever I have where I'mgetting enough complication on
the fire ground where putting adivision in is actually going to

(09:28):
make the incident organizationand the work that's happening on
the incident more effective andsafer, then I should assign a
division boss when I have oneavailable to me and put them in
that role with a cleardelineation of responsibility
for the division boss and thenthe safety element that you know
really should be done by asupport officer.

(09:49):
But a lot of in a lot ofsystems, the chief's responsible
for that until they get pairedup with a support officer, you
know, depending on how they dothat in their in their system.
So that ties directly to thestandard, right?
The standard is built on bestsupporting the work that's
actually happening on the fireground so that we can account
for the people doing the work.

(10:10):
We can rotate them in and out ofthe hazard zone while doing the
work.
And that tends to make us waymore effective at actually doing
the work.
And the work is the same workthat we've defined everywhere,
all clear, under control, lawstopped, right?
Those are the objectives of thework we're doing from any given
position.
And so that division bossbecomes really, really important

(10:32):
to actually manage that.
The other part of that is thesafety element that goes along
with that division boss and who,how does that safety best get
managed is when it isindependent from the tactical
level boss part of the job, itbecomes ineffective, it becomes
competitive, it becomes all theyou know, these problems that we

(10:52):
can, I'm sure we can talk aboutat a later point here.
But it it it the standardconnects directly to the work
and and what effectivesupervision in that tactical
position should look like.

SPEAKER_02 (11:14):
And that that's the correlation between operations
and this division boss.
Why don't we do operations inblue card?
Let's explain that, you know, intype them four and five
incidents.
Why aren't we using anoperations boss?

SPEAKER_00 (11:29):
Yeah, so our our entire system is designed around
you know, type four and fiveincidents that in generally we
solve, you know, very quickly.
And we assign resources topositions quickly to solve
problems.
And when we talk aboutoperations on large-scale
incidents, that position doesn'tget set up for you know a long a

(11:53):
pretty pretty extended period oftime.
Like it's it's not the 15-minutework cycle, you know, piece.
And you know growing up, myfirst 20 years in the fire
service before Blue Card,operations happened all the
time.
And really it was on the housefire, they would call it

(12:14):
operations, but really theperson was alpha.
They weren't filling out allthose job roles and
responsibilities, they justcalled them operations, and
really they weren't operationsbecause there was work happening
in other geographic areas, theyjust didn't call them you know
alpha as as that division boss,and they really didn't have a
job description, and you know,far too often it was race

(12:37):
basically a passing of command.
You know, I grew up in a systemwhere the Chiefs have been
sitting in cars for my entirecareer as a strategic IC, which
is fantastic, but then they'dmake operations that was
standing in the front yardsometimes with a cigarette in
their mouth and a radio in theirback pocket halfway in the front
door, you know, talking to youwith their eyes watered and

(12:57):
saying, How's it going?
And it's like that that was thatoperations thing, but everybody
was talking to that person andthey really weren't managing
anything, right?
It was it was a glorifiedcompany officer position, quite
frankly.

(13:21):
And I think we need to go backto that to the assignment piece
is just like just like assigninga company, we assign a division
boss who's arriving with maybetheir driver or not the same
way.
They get a task location andobjective.
And that that transfer, we cantalk about that more.
That that goes a little bitdifferent when we're assigning
those people the resources andhow do we get to that point in

(13:43):
the accountability part of it,but the that that it really
comes back to that work cycle.
We're trying to get somebodythere to make a difference
because we have three or morecompanies in a geographic area
that's doing a significantamount of work, and probably
companies working in other areasso that we can better manage the
span of control component.

(14:06):
And when we assign operations,that's just another error coming
down from command, and theystill got all these resources.
So you're not helping your spanof control one bit.

SPEAKER_02 (14:14):
Well, I think you and I came up in the in the very
same time period in similarsystems.
Yours was a little bigger thanthe one I came up in, but it
always felt to me likeoperations was freelance
command.
I mean, it just it was somebodywho was usually the hot dog
officer who was running aroundthe building and oftentimes
usurping what the other orderswere.

(14:37):
I mean, that that's that's whatit felt like to me, and and it
and it and it really doesn'tseem very well organized.
So when when we do put, say, analpha division or another
division boss in place, we weretalking about not
over-assigning.
So, you know, we start off withtask location objective.
What what does that sound likewith the TLO that you're going
to give a division boss?

(14:58):
And really what should that TLOencompass?

SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Well, we can kind of we can we can kind of Chris and
I can kind of play that out ofwhat a division boss assigned
arriving and being assigned, youknow, sounds like.
But everybody being on the sametactical frequency, the division
boss responding into theincident.
We did a we released a coupleCEs earlier in the year that we
talked about this of assigning adivision boss and where do they

(15:24):
go.
Again, they're no different thanany other company.
They're responding into thisincident.
They probably have a pretty goodidea of where the work's taking
place.
They probably have a pretty goodidea of what it sounded like on
arrival.
They know where companies havebeen assigned.
They probably can judge progressof the incident.
They can get there and see, evenfrom a distance, kind of what's
going on, so that they're in thebest place to make you know some

(15:47):
decisions.
They don't self-assign, butthey're listening to all this
and gathering information sothat if they do get assigned,
that that they know what's goingon, right?
So it it helps with the it helpswith everybody just being on the
same page when everybody's usingthe same system, right?
And assigning using tasklocation objective comes back to
the same system.
Everybody evaluating criticalfire ground comes back to the

(16:10):
the same, you know, systempiece.
They heard all the assignments,so it's like that's where the
most work is taking place.
There was priority traffic fromthis location.
There's not a division in thatplace.
They got two lines in operation.
You know, it's it's it's prettyeasy when you have a system to
figure out where you're likelygoing to be assigned when you're
coming in, if you're gonna beassigned as a division boss on

(16:30):
an incident.

SPEAKER_01 (16:32):
Yeah, so I think this whole operation thing comes
from the lack of understandingabout NIMS, right?
Everybody wants to point to awell, we're doing NIMS.
No, you're not.
You are not doing NIMS for typefour and type five incidents
because it doesn't exist.
It was not ever designed forthat.
So they took this type three,type two, type one incident uh

(16:54):
management position, which isoperations, and they're plugging
it into hazard zone management,and it doesn't work effectively
because one of two thingshappens is the IC, if you're
assigning operations, you'reessentially handing the entire
incident and all the resourcesand accountability and work uh
objectives that come with it.
And you're and and and you nowas the IC are really no longer

(17:16):
responsible for anything becausethere's very little for you to
actually communicate or do.
And then uh so they either haveeverything and they just they
gave they passed the strategiclevel responsibilities of the
incident to off to somebodywho's in a less effective
position to be able to do it, orthey put them into a position in
operations much like JV wasdescribing, where I am

(17:39):
responsible for the incidentaction plan, but I don't have to
do any of the other nonsense.
I'm not sizing anything up, I'mnot applying risk.
We are just it, we are I'm gonnamanage the the crews to get it
on.
And that's an equallyineffective position, right?
So it gets confused there.
And if you are in a tacticalposition, your job is to manage

(18:02):
the tactical levelresponsibilities of companies
doing work in the hazard zone.
If you're in a strategic levelposition, your job is to manage
the strategic position andincident action plan for
everyone on the fire ground.
And you can't do that from atactical position, a tactical
level position.
And so that's the thatconfusion.

(18:23):
That's that's where I think it'sbeen created from and
perpetuated, and and it's well,this is just the way we've done
it.
Well, it it's not working.
It's not working as effectively,I think, as you would like.
And if you continue to do itthat way, that you're you're
there will be gaps in yourability to actually manage the

(18:43):
fire ground.

SPEAKER_00 (18:44):
Yeah.
And I think just to take whatChris was saying one step
further with going the otherdirection with the strategic
level and tactical level, justso to clarify for everybody, the
the tactical level boss works inthe warm zone, sometimes in the
cold zone, even, but they do notwork in the hot zone inside of
the IDLH.

(19:05):
And we hear that a lot too,right?
That a lot of organizations thatare we do ICS, and I don't know
what that means either, becausethere's no system to train you
on ICS, but they I'm gonna I'mgonna you're Chief 301, I'm
making you in charge of searchoperations on the second floor.
And it's like now you got achief in there inside the
building with companies, andthey're they're working with

(19:28):
company officers.
And to me, that just sends themessage of you don't trust your
company officers to makedecisions inside the building.
Or, and maybe both, you don'ttrust yourself to let them work
because maybe you're notcomfortable in the position that
you're in.
So, you know, that we're talkingabout division operations.
Well, division operations, it'sit's it's it there's a there's a

(19:51):
lot of latitude there, but it'sinside of this box.
You're in the warm zone, you'renot in the hot zone.
It doesn't mean you can't peekyour head in there, it doesn't
mean you can't take a uh catchup what's going on for a minute,
whatever, but you don't continueto work in that area because
then you're no you can't do yourjob inside of the IDLH.
You're no better than no betterthan they are.
And we hear that a lot.

(20:12):
Like 301's now division one.
And the next thing you know,they're on a mask inside of a
building, given all thesereports, and they all want to
talk about the radio and allthis talking on the radio.
And every time I hear that,there's there is no more talking
on the radio than that, becausethey don't I don't know if they
need to hear themselves talk orwhat, but it's 301, I got truck
seven, engine 11, and enginenine, we're making good

(20:34):
progress.
We're this, that, and that it'slike nobody cares, dude.
Like you, and you shouldn't bein there anyway.
If the companies had somethingto say, they would say
something, right?
But all of that comes back tothere's no system and there's no
training that that goes with it.
So it's just what we've alwaysdone.
And then they then they hangtheir hat back on it.
It's just ICS, and it's like,well, okay, what well, what is

(20:56):
that?

SPEAKER_02 (20:56):
I don't I don't understand what what is what
what I mean is is there ananswer to what is ICS?

SPEAKER_01 (21:02):
Well, it's one of two things.
It's either fire ground command,writ you know, that was written
in 1985 from Alan Bernassini, orit's what became NIMS.
And NIMS has nothing to do withthe hazard zone.
And and whether it's one-eyedNIMS, two-eyed NIMS, fire scope,

(21:22):
any of that other stuff, it didnot deal with that.
It was how they dealt withlarge-scale, complex,
multi-operational periodincidents.
It wasn't work-rest cycles, itwasn't accountability, it it it
was not how do I develop anincident action plan at the
tactical level for me and thecrews that we're working on.

(21:44):
If you're trying to do that froma position inside the hazard
zone, your ability to doaccountability, your ability to
develop an incident action planin an environment where you
can't see what anybody has goingon or what the bigger picture
actually is, it doesn't work.
It absolutely doesn't work.
So I think the that ICS thing,it's it's become a, you know,

(22:07):
uh, well, there's a there's athere's a term we use in our
strategic decision making class,the uh the illusion of
explanatory depth.
We tend to think we know moreabout things than we actually
do.
And then when you stop and youlook back and really investigate
and define what it actually is,we figure out is you know, holy
shit, I really had no clue whatthis actually was.

(22:30):
And uh and when so when you havethat illusion, it tends to form
really, really strong bias,biased perspectives on how we do
it.
And those biases can be reallyextreme.
And so that we're uh there's nodoubt in my mind that there's a
lot of this illusion going onwith what incident command is,

(22:50):
because I've just heard theseterms, so I just start throwing
them around.
I have no clue what theyactually mean until you actually
start talking to people whoreally know what incident
command actually looks like,what NIMS actually looks like,
it matters, by the way, and whathazard zone management incident
command and for for type four,type five incidents really looks
like.

SPEAKER_02 (23:10):
And this is a much simple, simpler version than any
of those.
It's not it's not a two-weekclass to learn it.
We're not filling out formsother than if you're IC number
two and you're you're trackingcompanies on your tactical
worksheet.
But everything else is really onthe fly, 10, 15-minute work
periods and and much different.

(23:32):
And uh, you know, I shame on mefor ever reading comments on
social media.
We've talked about that before,but I I saw one this week.
It's like, why do we need bluecard?
We already have NIMS.
And I didn't answer the person,but it was like because NIMS
isn't intended for the kind ofwork that we do every day.

(23:52):
It really isn't.
I mean, it's what it's thatescalating incident.

SPEAKER_01 (23:55):
That's a tantamount to writing on the internet.
I have no idea what I'm talkingabout, and I'm gonna prove it.

SPEAKER_02 (24:01):
Yeah, yeah.
So wait, I just don't answerthat.
Yeah.
So let's get back to the reallythe advantages of putting, and
then we'll get to thelimitations.
Let's talk advantage of having adivision boss and why we do it,
and then what some of thoselimitations are.
So let's start with theadvantage.

SPEAKER_00 (24:19):
Yeah.
So I mean the advantages are ithelps us with the whole span of
control thing.
And span of control was reallyindividualized.
I mean, even if everybody's onthe same system has the same
training, you know, noteverybody has the same
experience.
So what Chris feels comfortableas his span of control might be
different than mine, right?
So we've all heard this three tofive, five to seven, and it's

(24:40):
like, well, that's different atalmost every fire, too, because
like how much risk are we takingin the division?
Who's in the and risk has toline back up to what work are we
doing there?
What is the exposure, and thenwho is going to do the work,
right?
So I mean there's there's awhole lot of parts and pieces
that go into it, but theadvantage is an advantage of

(25:01):
that is is a strategic IC, youget somebody that's a little bit
closer to it, and I don't meanthis literally, but it's what we
what we say, you know, that cankind of feel it, taste it, touch
it.
They're not inside of it, butthey're just a little bit closer
to manage the work in thatgeographic area.
And it lets the strategic ICthen do their job because

(25:23):
everybody has a job list ofthings they need to do.
Well, it's really hard, it'sreally hard to do my job, your
job, and his job, right?
So as the incident escalates,you know, we just grow the
system.
So the the advantage is we cando work more effectively and
efficiently when we assign adivision boss when the work is
there to take place, at lest thestrategic IC do their job, at

(25:46):
lest the task level people be alittle bit more comfortable that
somebody's there managing thebench, if you will, in that
geographic area, that there'sresource right there.
It definitely helps us, shouldsomebody say Mayday, Mayday,
Mayday, and we have an incident,that I have somebody in that
geographic area, if the Maydayhappened there, that they can
manage that and the strategicISC can continue to do, continue

(26:10):
to do their job.
So I mean there's there's wecould talk about this for two
days probably, of the advantagesof almost like we could do a
workshop on it.
Yeah.
Yeah, we got a two-day workshop.
Yeah, the whole division office,two days, yeah.
And then when you when you addthat layer of support officer,
right?
The what Chris already said, airmanagement, accountability,
making sure our on thatcompanies are actually engaged.

(26:34):
Managing everything that happensin that geographic area.
The a division boss goes throughall eight functions of command
and uses a strategicdecision-making model in the
same way that the strategic ICdoes.
They're just doing it in theirgeographic area while paying
attention to what strategy theIC has declared for the incident

(26:55):
and following the IC's biggerincident action plan.

SPEAKER_01 (27:00):
Yeah.
But really, when you boil itdown, that's a hundred percent
it.
And and uh we should probably,you know, just in general,
always be working to simplify itrather than complicate it.
I think that the the advantagesof having a division boss in
place.
Well, let me say this.

(27:20):
I I can honestly and truly saythat well over 95% of the of the
residential single family,two-family homes that fires that
I ran in my entire career as afire, as a firefighter, as a
captain, and as a as a chiefofficer, we did not put any
division bosses or sector bossesin the Phoenix system into

(27:42):
place.
We we just didn't.
Looking back on it, I weprobably should have done it
more in time in those times thatthat required it.
So a lot of times I see focusfrom blue card, especially newer
blue card agencies, of trying toutilize it as much as they can,
and that's great, and trying toutilize it on single-family

(28:02):
homes and utilize it in lesscomplicated incidents.
And it can work, but it doesn't,it isn't always necessary when
we've put it in.
But I'm gonna come back to that.
Where I see division bosses asthe absolute dire strength of
division bosses in places wherethere are multiple tactical

(28:23):
positions, where we're enteringa building or entering the
hazard zone from two or threedifferent spots.
We're trying to coordinate workhappening either inside the
hazard zone or even on adefensive fire where we have
very clear geographicalpositions that we're trying to
protect exposures from thosepositions.
That's where it becomeseffective, super effective

(28:44):
because you have you can havesix, seven, eight, I've had as
many 12 companies assigned to bein a division on a defensive
fire.
And that is a way differentenvironment than people being in
the hazard zone.
So then the IC now only has totalk to two or three divisions,
and you can manage a huge amountof resources and actually
working inside those divisions.

(29:05):
When we start talking aboutoffensive fires, it's when when
I want to put tactical bossesand division bosses in place
when I'm actually really worriedabout firefighters getting lost
in the in the hazard zone, of usnot being able to uh put put the
fire out and being able to saythat as quickly as possible.

(29:26):
And a lot of times a tacticaldivision boss supporting crews
working on the inside is a waymore effective to make decisions
about whether we should continuein an offensive strategy or we
need to go to a defensivestrategy and having them in
there early.
The last part of this, I'll sayin the strength, is when you
have the two most importanttrans or critical transmissions

(29:48):
that you can have on the fireground.
Uh, priority traffic, we havevictims, and mayday, mayday,
made a is having a division bossin place and either one of
those, and I'll look talk aboutthem separately.
So when you have Victims.
Now you have somebody on theoutside that can coordinate.
All right, victims are comingout.
Who else is going to continuethe work if we haven't completed
the searches yet?

(30:08):
Because if we find one, it'slikely that we find more.
And then how are we going totake care of those victims on
the outside with treatment,transportation, and all that?
And then how do I get peopleback to work that are actually
ready to go back to work?
They're not going back in with ahalf a bottle.
They're not, you know, puttingthemselves in a bad position
because they're amped up becausethey want to keep searching.

(30:30):
So a tactical level boss there.
And then on Mayday, Mayday,Mayday, that tactical level
boss, that division boss becomesa linchpin of managing that
Mayday and managing theeffectiveness of the response to
the Mayday, both inside thehazard zone and outside the
hazard zone.
What additional resources do weneed there?
And how do I best control thepeople going into the hazard
zone from outside of the hazardzone?

(30:52):
So I have the bestaccountability and the best
possibility of impacting and alegitimate removal of a downed
firefighter inside there andminimize the amount of
extracurricular May Days thatwe're going to have because of
our operations.
So that division of thestrengths line up there, and we
have real-world experiencetalking about uh the successes

(31:16):
and failures because this systemwas built on the failures at big
incidents like SouthwestSupermarket, and that's why we
know it works.
And now we have the laundry listof successful incidents where we
employed that position.
So yeah, that's that's where Isee the strengths of this.

SPEAKER_02 (31:34):
And we know of incidents where that division
boss becomes a gatekeeper andstops people from going in to a
situation that we've alreadylost firefighters, and it's been
documented that those divisionbosses have saved lives of
firefighters by keeping themfrom, you know, at the time it
seemed like, well, they'restopping the rescue.

(31:55):
Well, there was nobody torescue, and the building was
gone.
But but in the heat of themoment and the emotions running
high, people will still get intothose situations.
I I don't like the termdesignated adult, although we
use that with with the divisionboss.
What what does that mean to uswhen we say designated adult,
especially in thosecircumstances where they're

(32:17):
they're stopping people fromgoing in or they're they're
making sure they actually have aTLO before they pass the
threshold?

SPEAKER_00 (32:24):
It's it's that it's the process, it's that thinking
process, is what it is.
So I want I want every firetruckto pull up with a bunch of
firemen that are thinking thatwant to do work and want to do
as much work as they canpossibly do.
With that said, their focus ison the work, which is good.

(32:48):
But they don't always seefiremen and company officers at
the task level.
We don't we don't always trainthem, I don't think, to make
decisions, which is why thecritical thinking class is is so
powerful.
Because people leave that.
I've seen 30-year people thatwork at very large, very busy
fire departments leave that andthey're like, I'm gonna this

(33:09):
this changed my mindset at thenext fire.
I'm not just gonna run throughthe front door like I always
have.
We we have to have somebody inplace that isn't gonna be as
emotionally connected to it andis gonna make decisions based
off of some kind of a process,and that they have a job to do

(33:30):
in that place.
And you know, designated adultis just that, you know, it's
that term that just floated outthere as the person that's
responsible for that geographicarea, and that hopefully that
they're hopefully that they'reusing a system and trained and
educated and have the experienceto to do the job, and they're
going through a process, notjust the that didn't work, we're

(33:54):
just gonna do it harder.
Task level mentality that we allhave probably lived through at
some point or another.
This isn't working, we're gonnareinforce it again.
Oh, it still didn't work, andwe're gonna reinforce it again.
And it's like, no, somebody hasto be there to say, no, it's
over.
Like we're we're not gonna dothis anymore.
But while we're talking aboutthat, I'm gonna put it out there
of a of a benefit of a divisionboss.

(34:17):
And we have audio of this onefrom a podcast in in Georgia
where the strategic IC said,we're gonna three-story
apartment building, burning ontwo floors.
It was still pretty early on inan incident.
They did not have all clears.
The strategic IC wasn't feelinggood about conditions they were

(34:37):
seeing and some of the reports,but there was a division boss in
place, and the division boss hadthe information and said, if
you'll just give me, just giveme a couple minutes.
I have companies in place on thesecond floor.
I just want to get an all-clearof that.
That's the last place.
And the strategic IC acceptedthat because they're in the same
plane, they were on the sameplan, same system, you know,

(34:59):
whatever.
It wasn't it wasn't Joe Firemaninside who didn't know exactly
what was going on that said,give me a couple more minutes.
It was another layer, layer ofleadership on the fire ground
that was doing their job, hadbeen trained to do the job.
They were on the same page.
The strategic IC knows who thedivision boss is, he knows that

(35:20):
what their capability is, butmade it very clear as soon as
you get those all clears, we'rechanging strategies.
Well, we we heard that same typeof audio.
We hear that audio quite a bit,but we heard that same type of
audio from 25 years ago from aPhoenix fire, where they said,
you know, we're gonna changestrategies.
But it was we're gonna changestrategies as soon as you get an

(35:41):
all clear.
And just kind of put that outthere, just letting everybody
know that two division bosseswere assigned.
As soon as we get all clears ofapartment three and apartment
four, we're going defensive.
Well, the division bosses weremanaging those companies in
those locations a little bitcloser.
So the strategic IC felt okaywith letting that work continue

(36:03):
to happen, and that when theysaid we're going defensive, that
those companies were going tocome out and that the division
bosses were gonna do their jobto make sure that the companies
came out.
So that was that was just abenefit of having the division.
Two different things, I think,on the benefit of the division
boss there, and a little pieceon you know the designated

(36:26):
adult.

SPEAKER_02 (36:27):
So, what are the limitations of having that
division boss?
And as the IC, what do we needto be aware of in our role so we
don't oversaturate the divisionboss either with tasks or units
or or anything else, or or evenyou know, overbuilding the
objectives on an incident?
How how do we balance that out?

SPEAKER_00 (36:46):
Well, what what Chris said before, the we have
to know you have to know yourcapabilities and limitations,
clearly, and that we shouldn'tassign a division boss if it's
not going to make it better.
And if we assign a divisionboss, but then we overload them,
it is not making it bettereither.

SPEAKER_01 (37:06):
Or we put them in a disadvantageous position.
He don't want you to manageeverybody from the front front
yard in alpha.
No, that's a less that's adisadvantageous position
compared to having maybemultiple divisions or just the
IC running it from uh with abetter perspective.

SPEAKER_00 (37:23):
Yes.
The so we we've had a few, youknow, correspondence via email
about division boss tools,right?
And you know, we have we have amodel with passports and tags
and a division board that weteach, but that's not the only
system, right?
I mean, you you can use otherwhatever you use is what you
use.
And one of those correspondencewas about the this the this

(37:46):
board that Blue Cart has isn'tbig enough for me to be the
division boss and manage thesecompanies.
And it's like, well, we we putsome thought into that and had
it out in the field and hadhundreds of them out at pretty
busy fire departments before weput that out.
And it kept on coming back tothis board of the board's not
big enough.
And I finally said, How how manypeople were you talking about?

(38:06):
And they're like, Well, I wasthey made me outfit a
three-story apartment building,and I had 11 companies assigned.
And I was like, Well, it ain'tgot nothing to do with the
board.
It has nothing to do, I don'tcare how big the board is.
Your brain, the biggest tool youhave available to use in the
division is your brain.
And your brain, I don't carewhat tool you got, cannot manage

(38:27):
11 companies inside of the IDLH,which is different than what
Chris was talking about.
Chris is managing Delta at adefensive fire with ladder pipes
and ground monitors, just makingsure that we don't burn down
another city block.
Well, that's way different thanthey're crossing the threshold
operating on three differentfloors at an apartment building.
And so that that was that's anincident commander's problem,

(38:51):
right?
The incident commanderinappropriately assigned a
division as alpha, but then gavethem every basically they
assigned operations, right?
And it's like, well, no, youcould have designed you could
have assigned division three.
You could have assigned themdivision two and three.
You could have made them alphaand said, you're only
responsible for the first floor.
If that was the case, I wouldjust make them division.

(39:13):
You're in charge of the firstfloor, you're division one.
But understanding thatcapability and limitations is is
a big deal, right?
So we talked about three or morecompanies operating in that
geographic area.
So really, if you have more thanyou shouldn't have more than
five companies operating acrossthe threshold as a division boss

(39:35):
and still and be in a positionof managing that.
You're you're gonna you'reyou're gonna get out of balance.
Even with a support officer,you're gonna get out of balance
in that position because whatyou still have that the support
officer is managing is in thatcase, if you had five companies
inside of a building, youprobably got two or three behind
you on deck, which they're notas they're not a they're not in

(39:56):
any hazard, but they still haveto be managed, right?
Your support officer's talkingto them, hey, these guys are
getting ready to come out, we'regonna have to rotate you around,
all you guys got to go to rehab,that whole, that whole process,
right?
So when we look at all of thejob description for a division
boss support officer, I thinkit's 14 different, 15 different
things, I think that's that's inthe list when you put the two

(40:16):
together, it it becomes a lot.
So if you take that list of 15things and then think that
you're gonna manage more thanfive companies inside of a
hazard zone, it it's just notgonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 (40:30):
So if you put somebody in a tactical position
and give them the responsibilityof managing the accountability,
work objectives, and and theincident overall and the
incident action plan for all ofthose companies, you've just
made a strategic level boss.
You have not you have not made atactical level boss that has a

(40:52):
piece or a portion or a or apercentage of the incident.
And so, and you've made them atactical level boss in a less
effective position, right?
So that doesn't make sense.
So if you make them that, so adisadvantage would be to
ineffectively utilizing andassigning the position with
unreal expectations and and andthen following through on it,

(41:14):
well, it didn't, nothing badhappened this time, so it must
be okay.
So we're just gonna keep doingit.
And that's not that's notreality.
I would say that one of theother disadvantages to the
system is and it's not adisadvantage of the system
necessarily, but it can be ahuge disadvantage in the
training, is if you don't trustthe people that you're putting

(41:36):
in key positions to actuallygive you in good information and
be able to act on thatinformation, then you might as
well not have a system, right?
Because you your system can'toutperform the people doing the
work.
And so you need to raise the baron the people that are actually
going into those positions.
And if you if you run over themor you ignore them every time

(41:56):
you put them in the position,then you you have a
disadvantageous uh process goingon there that you that you have
to fix in other ways.
You're not fixing it on the fireground.

SPEAKER_00 (42:07):
I always have to wrap sports into this, right?
You can have the bestquarterback out there in the
world, but if the rest of theteam around them sucks, they're
gonna suck.
And you can have the best teamon the field and they're gonna
make some shit happen.
But if your coaching staffsucks, you're gonna suck, right?
And vice versa.
You can have the best coachingstaff in the world, and if the

(42:28):
players suck, they suck, right?
Yeah, so you know, a piece ofthat is what our duty is as
bosses, as chiefs, instructors,officers, is to make sure that
they can do their job, right?
That we can't complain aboutthem and throw them under the

(42:49):
bus.
And we hear this all the time.
Chris and I have done a fewclasses this year and then talk
randomness to other people, andwell, one of it was we just
don't.
I I gotta be right there.
I don't trust my companyofficers.
And it's like, well, why not?
And it really all circles backto a a training issue of not

(43:10):
getting them up to the pointwhere you really need them to
be.
Well, you Chris said it, youstill can't outperform that.
When they cross that threshold,they're gonna make they're gonna
be making decisions inside.
You're not there to help them.
So you you have to train them todo the job, and everybody has to
be in the system.

SPEAKER_01 (43:30):
So you have to know and understand what to train
them on, right?

SPEAKER_00 (43:33):
Well, yeah, you have to have, yeah, you have to have
you have to have a standarddocument to have a train any
kind of training system, right?
I mean, that's the and andtraining has to be if they're I
mean, if they're a companyofficer, they have to be trained
on decision making, not justglorified firemen.
They're there because they werethe best guy that can stretch a
hand line and search or getdressed or force a door or
whatever.
It's like no, like they theypromoted out of that spot.

(43:56):
They're there to be the boss.
And yet a lot of organizationswith staffing they have to help,
but they're there to makedecisions.
And if they're if if we'remissing that piece and we don't
trust the people who arearriving there to provide
service to the community, thenit is on the organization to
make sure that we do whatever weneed to do to train them to get
them up to speed and caught up.

(44:18):
And Chris and I have thisconversation quite a bit.
I think it already came uptoday.
Is it you don't trust the thepeople that are in those
positions, or is it that youaren't comfortable and you don't
trust yourself?
And that's you have to look inthe mirror, right?
Like I don't feel comfortablewith this.
Well, why don't you feelcomfortable with it?
Is it them or is it you?
And all of it is a potentially atraining component piece, right?

(44:42):
Like you don't have to do thework harder.
Maybe you should train harderand put more time and commitment
into that, right?
It's that it's that 10,000hours, if you will, in the
position to be a trueprofessional.

SPEAKER_01 (44:56):
Yeah, training of the brain.
This isn't this isn't forcing adoor.
This isn't uh a single person24-foot ladder raise.
This isn't, you know, all theunique things that we see going
on right now at the task leveltraining.
And I'm not and I'm notbelittling them at all.
They actually can make it.
We have to have it.
Yeah, 100%.
But I actually have to trainpeople to think as much as I

(45:18):
train people to actually doskills.
And if we're not thinking likeICs, thinking like division
boss, thinking like supportofficers, thinking at strategic
tactical tasks, then we are notgoing to be effective at
managing any of that.
That's just the way it's gonnabe.

SPEAKER_02 (45:38):
Guys, have any other thoughts on division bosses
before we wrap up thatconversation?
I think I, you know, that thisis the second podcast that we've
done on it.
And and I I know the reason whywe came back and talked about it
today is because exactly whatJosh was saying is we're we're
hearing of these incidents wherethey are putting way too many

(46:00):
resources into that divisionboss and really overloading it.
So you you started to get intoit, Josh.
And I think just let's let'scircle back and reiterate.
If you're a senior advisor,you're getting into the command
post and and you hear this goingon, what is going to be your
advice to that IC to start topare that down so there aren't

(46:22):
so many resources within onedivision.
And you and you started talkingabout splitting up floors or
whatever, but how how do we dothat?

SPEAKER_00 (46:30):
Yeah, I mean, just because of an just because of an
incident started with you were Ihad a division in one place
doesn't mean I can't keep addinglayers and put divisions in
other places.
So, I mean, if if we weretalking about a big box and I've
started to make my fire attackon Alpha at uh Sam's Club, and I
realize this ain't gonna work.

(46:51):
I'm more than 170 feet insidethe front door, I'm gonna have
to reassign a new position andgo from the Charlie side.
Well, then I'm just gonna end upwith Alpha and Charlie.
But it that's alpha's not gonnarun the whole thing, right?
We're gonna divide it up.
We assign companies based off ofcritical factors.
A critical factor in that casewas I couldn't reach the seat of
the fire, we're going to a newposition.

(47:12):
We don't just go there justbecause we started with this,
we're gonna reinforce that, andif it then then we'll figure
that out.
We'll just say uh we're at awe're at the Drury Inn, you
know, two blocks away from here,eight-story hotel.
And I started out and I'm on thefifth floor, and I assign a
division boss to be in charge ofthe fifth floor.

(47:33):
Well, if I end up with a bunchof companies on six and seven
because it was a runningvertical fire in a stack or
whatever, I might end up withdivision six and seven or or or
whatever, right?
If the pit I assign the divisionbased off of how much work is
taking place there, is it gonnamake it better, and how many
companies are working in thatgeographic area to solve the

(47:55):
problem.
I'm at uh a three-storyapartment building.
I'm not calling it alpha.
I'm gonna assign it to a it'sgonna be a floor.
I'm gonna make your the fire'son the second floor, I'm making
you division two.
That's where the most work'sgonna take place.
In our three-story apartmentbuilding, when the fire gets

(48:15):
into the attic, we end upassigning division three.
Fire start on the first floor,runs to the second, and to the
third, exterior fire gets intothe attic, typical thing.
We see it every day all acrossthe country.
Well, I assign division threethere.
Well, if we realize that thefire's running on division two
and I'm gonna have a bunch ofcompanies there, then maybe I'll
end up with a division bossthere too.

(48:36):
So, like, is the senior advisorrole or the support officer and
and and getting in the car withsomebody, wherever somebody,
everybody should be makingdecisions, right?
So I I never have had a problemin my career saying something
like, Did we think about this?
Should we think about this?
Do we know that we got alpha inplace and they have 11 companies

(48:57):
right now?
And clearly that we they can'tmanage it.
Like it's not good for thesystem, it's not good for them.
Like we're making it worse.
What can we break this up andmake division three's got four
companies?
Well, we're gonna assign anotherchief and make it division
three.
Alpha, you're responsible forthe first and second floor car

(49:17):
301, you're gonna be divisionthree.
Let me know when you're inplace.
I'll give you a rundown of yourcompanies.
Everybody's got to be on thesame page.
We got to communicate that.
Ideally, we wouldn't putourselves in that position from
the get-go of making alpha wherethey're gonna be in charge of
three floors like that.
But I mean, it can happen,right?
But I think you can have adiscussion to not end up in that

(49:40):
position by just not makingalpha at a three or four-story
apartment building where you'regonna be operating on multiple
floors.
And we hear that, you know, allover the place from different
organizations.
And I was throw out a couple ofother ones.
So the Lincoln, Nebraska that wewe did uh we did a podcast on.
So they end up with uh strategicIC and two, in the end,

(50:02):
actually, three division bosses.
And the division bosses wereresponsible for different
buildings.
So it started out in onebuilding, defensive, spread to
another building, ends up goingdefensive, they were offensive
or operating inside of a ofanother exposure building.
And command broke that upbecause I think they ended up
having 23 companies there, andthey managed it with strategic

(50:23):
IC, three division bosses, andthen there were still companies
that were staged.
So they they kept that 3Ddeployment.
So that was several houses onfire.
Yeah, that that was half theneighborhood is on fire.
Big homes.
A lot of 1100 square foot slabhouses.
These were wood frame withbasement, three and a half story

(50:43):
big houses, right?
With in a snowstorm, right?
So kind of kind of a note toleave it with, I think, on the
division stuff is you haveeverybody you have to have a
policy, you have to train on it,everybody's got to be on the
same page, you have to exerciseit, and then you have to be
willing to talk about it when itdidn't work.
And look at the real problem,not look for for other problems,

(51:09):
right?
So just because there's aconnection, an example, there's
a connection with thisaccountability piece to this
board, the causation problem wasthat person was signed too many
people.
It ain't got nothing to do withthe board.
It was just a connection betweenthose two pieces.

SPEAKER_01 (51:26):
So yeah, and I think you know, we should probably
come back at another point andtalk about the components within
a division and really what ondeck is in a division, and and
because I've had a coupleclasses lately where they've
confused the the purpose of ondeck in in a division and and
all that, but that is acomponent of a division boss

(51:49):
managing on deck companies.
And and and when you're on deck,you're assigned to a particular
tactical position as an on-deckcompany.
And so, yeah, well, we can wecan hammer on on deck another
day.

SPEAKER_02 (52:02):
Well, great conversation.
I appreciate what you guysbrought to this today.
I hopefully we answered some ofthose questions that folks have
about either uh oversaturating adivision with resources, how to
manage it, how to troubleshootit if it does happen and break
it up.
And as always, our emailinformation in the show notes.
You can get a hold of one of theguys and uh we'll we'll get you

(52:25):
more information and answerquestions further.
Before we go, Timeless TacticalTruth.
You know it.
It's a Timeless Tactical Truthfrom Alan Brunacini.
By the way, we have the brandnew Timeless Tactical Truth
books available, the reprint, Ishould say.
Uh it's the same times, but wereprint it.

(52:46):
So uh it is now available at theB Shifter store.
And this one, oh God, I lovethis one.
If a fire is an emergency to thefire department, who would you
call?
We see people who, you know,they're they they run systems
that are based on luck and theluck runs out, and then it's a

(53:08):
huge emergency.
Who would we call?
You know, there there is I thinkanother one that uh Chief
Rutesini used to say there is no912.
You know, it's like, oh, we needthe super firefighters here.
They're you know, the 911 guysaren't getting it.

SPEAKER_01 (53:24):
Yeah.
So having a system that isclear, has clear expectations,
training on that system, andthen evaluating how you actually
do in the real world tends tobring a level of competence and
it tends to bring a level ofintegrity to the system and the
process and how you runincidents.

(53:46):
When you have that competencyand when you have that
integrity, people tend not toget crazy on the radio.
They tend not to lose their mindand yell and do all that other
stuff.
And one of my favorite parts ofteaching train the trainers for
us is when we get to day fourand we set everything up with
the Mayday operation stuff, andthen we actually engage in

(54:09):
Mayday simulations, is being inthe middle of those simulations
and looking at the people thatare running it and going, hey,
how come we aren't screaming andyelling on the radio right now?
We're having a Mayday.
Like, isn't it okay to screamand yell on the radio?
No, it never is, right?
It never, ever, ever is to aprofessional.
And so when you are practicedand you have a system and a

(54:32):
process and you're comfortableand you exercise it and you do
all the right things, the thedoing everything right before
something goes wrong pieces,then you tend to have people
that perform that way.
And regardless of what ishappening in the in the hazard
zone, is you they they appear asif they their their heart rate

(54:55):
is barely above 60.
And and that's a fantastic way.
And it's not, it's not I it'snot a lack of care, and it's not
I don't give a shit, and it's uhit's not it's not any of that.
It's actually theprofessionalism, allowing people
to do the things they need to,communicating effectively, and
and then dealing with problemswhen they come or when they

(55:16):
arise, utilizing the samesystem.

SPEAKER_00 (55:20):
Yeah, so we're we're professionals, right?
We're whether you're paid or notpaid, it doesn't matter.
We're we're professional.
We got the classification ofprofessionals to provide that
service.
And it just the thing that comesto my mind and has for a long
time, but now with the ARFmodule, is we've we've listened

(55:42):
to we sh we share quite a bit ofaudio from inbound aircraft
emergencies of of any sort, andyou don't have to look far to
find audio pretty regularly ofdifferent kinds of inbound, you
know, air traffic emergencies.
And it's like the door just blewoff of a 737, and it sounded

(56:03):
like they were sitting at thecoffee shop having coffee in the
morning and went through theprocess and the the value of of
the of the air trafficcontroller and our world
dispatcher engaging with themand just being on the same page,
how they talk to each other, howthey follow the order model,

(56:25):
that communications piece backand forth.
It just paints that picture andconfirms what Chris said of
committing to the 10,000 hours,having a system that everybody
is on the same page, and ifthis, then that.
It's and and in our system, theif this then that is the
decision-making piece.
Like we don't have the one-stopshop answer, but we have we have

(56:48):
the if you have this, then weshould probably do that.
But if you have this, then we'regonna probably do that.
And it's it comes back todecision making.
And you we can throw out the youknow, our lead instructor, Steve
Lester, on the three C's, right?
That that's a big deal.
I love I love listening to theCobb County audio of those
Chiefs because it's like is thatreal or is that fake?

(57:10):
Because there is zero emotion inthe fires and though.
I mean, we we've had no lessthan 18 or 20 fires from Cobb
County that we've had on thepodcast, and you know, a lot of
that comes back to a majority ofit comes back to their training
and focus on no, we'reprofessionals, this is our job,
and that they're all on the samepage in the same system.

(57:32):
It's it's not the all the bellrings, let's let's go get them
boys.
And it's like they're they'rethey're guys are gonna do work.
I mean, clearly they I mean,they do as much work, I think,
as as anybody, but they'reprofessionals and they're on the
same page and they have the samesystem.
And I know the task level job,you know the tactical level job,

(57:53):
you know strategic level job.
We all know that we can'toutperform each other, but we're
all on the same page.
And uh there's no there'spriority traffic, we got a
victim.
And it's like, that's clear,engine seven, you got a victim.
Are you coming out the frontdoor?
Yeah, we're coming out the alphaside, we need an ambulance, and
we're gonna need the cyano kit.

(58:13):
And it's like they they get tothat because of the training,
the expectation, and thetraining and the reinforcement.
It's not a one and done thing,it's not I sent you this class,
whatever.
But it's also because ofsomething Chris identified a
little bit.
The tas level guys are gonna getthe tas level work done, and the

(58:34):
tactical level guys are gonnaget the tactical level work
done, and the strategic levelguys are gonna do the strategic
level, and they don't really getin each other's way.
They work as a system and have aplan, and they're ready for that
next transmission, as we shouldalways be to be Mayday, Mayday,
Mayday.
We should ever do everything wecan to prevent it, but on the
person that's having their worstday in the world, if the IC gets

(58:57):
amped up, you can forget it.
And just you just go out thereand look for audio of the Mayday
incidents where the IC startsscreaming on the radio, and it
it just makes it all worse.

SPEAKER_02 (59:12):
Great discussion, as always.
Josh and Chris, thank you todayfor uh being on the B Shifter
podcast, and that'll wrap it upfor us today.
We appreciate you listening.
Make sure to subscribe and tellyour friends if you haven't
already, and we'll talk to younext time on B Shifter.