Command Considerations for Carbon Monoxide and Natural Gas Incidents

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome to the B Shifter podcast.
You've got John Vance here,along with Josh Bloom and Chris
Stewart today, and our topicwhen we get into it will be on
carbon monoxide and natural gasincidents, which we'll also talk
about propane.
But first let's check in withthe guys.
How are you doing, josh andChris?

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I'm doing great.
The wintertime is upon us nowhere in Cincinnati, so it's
probably gotten cold and we hada little snow this morning.
So you know, by you youwouldn't call this snow.
I mean there was some whitestuff coming out of the air, but
we have a nice little dusting.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I got in a hot tub last night.
It was 28 degrees and snowing,and my hot tub is outside, so
it's the best time of year touse the hot tub.
We love that here in Minnesota.
How about you, chris?

Speaker 1 (01:05):
What's your weather like?
We've had a pretty rough coldsnap.
Uh, it got down to 50.
Um, I put a jacket on the othermorning walking the dog.
Um, yeah, so it's.
Uh, it's turned bitterly coldhere in phoenix bitterly cold.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, I love going to phoenix seeing people bundled
up and scars and stocking hatsand it's 50 degrees.
If I was home and it was april,I'd be in shorts and a t-shirt
it's like this is gray weather.
But yeah, they, uh, they.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
They tend to adapt differently in the desert
southwest yeah, you go aroundthose stores, jv, and it's like,
oh they, they got all thiswintertime stuff because of like
flagstaff and the ski placesand all that, and it's like, no,
that that's for the lady who'swalking down the street right
now, that's for walking your dogin 60 degree weather.

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Yeah, that's it.
That's it, hey.
So this is the week of December2nd.
We just celebrated Thanksgiving.
We have a few things coming uphere for the rest of the year.
The grants close soon for AFGand we wanted to give a little
bit of a reminder on thatbecause we do have resources for

(02:09):
you with Blue Card to get thosegrants.
Jeffrey King, who specializesin writing grants.
He's been very successful innot only assisting other
agencies but with his agenciesattaining those grants.
So in the show notes today Iwill include a link to a webinar
that can help you out, as wellas some contact information for

(02:32):
Jeffrey.
But over the years here we'vehad a lot of very successful
grants that have been awardedthrough AFG for folks to not
only get into Blue Card but alsosustain their Blue Card
programs.

Speaker 1 (02:47):
Yeah, I'm a recipient of one of those Like it's legit
, the tools and the resourcesthat Jeffrey and Eric and other
folks who have actually, youknow, had experience doing.
That was a fantastic help forus getting rolling and not only
introducing Blue Card but thentraining, train, sending folks
to train the trainer, gettingtrainers into our organization

(03:09):
and starting to build a, youknow, a sustainable system.
So I I have personal experience.

Speaker 3 (03:14):
I love it and there's been quite a bit of progress,
uh, and success with, withregionalization grants.
So organizations that worktogether, train together, run
together, go to alarms together,you know, doing a regional
grant to get all of their peopleon the same page Because, as we
talk about so often, there'svery few fire departments in

(03:37):
this country that respond toincidents by themselves and
don't get mutual aid fromsomebody else.
So, um, maine, new Hampshire,massachusetts, uh, north and
South Carolina, florida, now, um, and then some Midwest Kansas
area agencies that have gottenbeen successful with some

(03:59):
regional grants as far asgetting getting initial
certification for all of theirpeople who may be in the front
seat of the apparatus, orstrategic ICs.
So, yeah, reach out if you guysneed help or support on writing
your grant.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
We've got that support for you.
Also, I'd be remiss not tomention that, if you're putting
together your 2025 training plan, look at our events page and
get your people signed up.
We have several events postedalready for the first half of
2025 and some beyond, excuse me,including our workshops.

(04:42):
Do we still have one workshopavailable for big box, or are
those all spoken for already,josh?

Speaker 3 (04:49):
So if somebody's wanting the big box workshop,
you know you go ahead and sendit to me.
We're, we have we have oneagency that is that is trying to
figure out if they can make itwork or not.
But if you send me that you'reinterested, then we can get you
kind of on a list to see when wecould deliver that and if, if
Shane ends up having someadditional time available

(05:11):
somewhere that we could squeezehim into a place for a day to do
the day, one part of the bigbox we could potentially end up
doing.
You know one or two more thisyear.
So if somebody is interested inthat, and then you know the
same thing with the May Dayworkshops and critical thinking
and all that.
So we're, there's quite a bitof stuff already posted.

(05:32):
The first half of the year isdefinitely filling up and then
that second half of the yearit's interesting people
forecasting, you know that farout to make sure that they get
the dates that they want, tomake sure that they get the
dates that they want.
And we're also going to beposting we'll probably get it up
today or tomorrow all of theCanadian, all the
train-and-trainers that aregoing to take place in Canada in
2025.

(05:52):
I think there's five or sixclasses there.
I know we've got a lot ofviewers from Canada that get on
and listen to this.
So it's on AO on their websiteup there, but it'll be on our
website as well just when thoseclasses are, so you could reach
out to Todd and get registeredfor that if you wanted to get

(06:14):
into one of those classes.
Excellent, Bshiftercom.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Click on events.
You can see all the dates thereand get your folks signed up,
because we don't want you to gowithout.
And get your folks signed upbecause we don't want you to go
without, and the earlier you cansign up, the better to secure
your spots.
That would be advantageous foryou.
Any other announcements thatyou want to add before we dive
into our topic today?

Speaker 3 (06:38):
We're going to be pushing out the conference, some
conference information andregistration here relatively
soon.
So it'll be it's September 29ththrough October 3rd, 2nd or 3rd
, I believe it's that Mondaythrough Friday.
We've moved around a little bit.
We got some other generalsession people.

(06:59):
John Cirillo from FDNY is goingto be presenting this year,
talking about what we know nowabout wind-driven fires and then
a lot of the stuff that he'sdone and worked on over the
years when it comes to thisrapid fire growth.
And we know it's science, buthe connects it to the boots on
the ground and I think he canmake it make sense.
He's got a lot of incidentsthat he can talk about and
review when it comes to that.
And then we have several otherinstructors that sent us

(07:25):
information from the conferencethis year that we're going to
bring on to present.
So we are going to do thepre-conference workshops.
We're going to offer a Maydayworkshop, critical thinking
workshop.
We're going to offer a workshopthat's, you know, from engine
one and escalating an incidentall the way through, really
connecting to the EOC and to thestate.

(07:46):
So those large scale incidentsmaybe it's a hazmat incident or
some kind of a release like that, so you only get to the.
You're only successful gettingto the end of that as if it
starts off well and you build agood foundation really with
engine one.
So that's going to be anexcellent workshop.
Tim Schaubel and KevinAlexander from Houston are going
to, you know, have put thattogether and are going to be,

(08:09):
you know, presenting that overthe two days, and then we've got
many other things.
I mean it's pretty far awaystill, so I mean we'll be.
We'll be pushing out the datesand opening up registration here
, probably in the next close tothe first of the year.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
All right, looking forward to that.
And, again, great crowd.
This year we had about 600 inSharonville slash, cincinnati,
and that will be the venue thatwe're going back to again this
year.
It's a great venue, it's lowcost and it enables agencies to
be able to send multiple peopleto this conference because we

(08:47):
keep the costs very reasonable.
So looking forward to gettingthat announced.
Look for it, all right.
Today's topic carbon monoxideand natural gas incidents.
Let's start on carbon monoxide,because really this time of
year is when we see the majorityof those incidents that turn

(09:08):
very serious.
What, what are some of thestats that we have on that and
when does a carbon monoxideincident turn serious?

Speaker 3 (09:18):
well, you know the when they started pushing out
and putting co alarms andeverything, um, it kind of
caused the fire service, I think, a little bit to take a
drawback.
I mean, I remember agenciesthat if you got a carbon
monoxide alarm we'd send anengine and a truck and a
battalion chief to the alarm.
And then some departments wentall the way back to hey, kid, go

(09:39):
get in the car, take this meterover there, and that battery's
probably gonna be out, gotta bereplaced.
And really we didn't, didn'tand many still don't provide
adequate training for gasmonitoring and what that really
looks like and what it should be.
So, um, we're gonna, we'regonna continue to see, I think,
an uptick, uh, in some of theseincidents based off of, you know

(10:01):
that there's more, more andmore monitoring and more and
more fixed monitoring.
So you know new residentialsoftentimes got hardwired to the
alarm.
You know CO alarms connected toit.
And then the same thing in somany of these commercial
buildings.
It's part of the building codethat there's CO, you know, wired
into the system.
So what we really want to talkabout is we should treat all of

(10:23):
them as an event and it's realuntil we prove otherwise, no
different than going to the firealarm.
I mean, we still go there andwe're just going to verify that,
hopefully that there's nothingthere.
But you know, the alarm wentoff for some reason or another
and it's our job to really servethe customer of.

(10:43):
If it's a battery, we'll fixyour battery and if it's
something else, then we'll getthe appropriate resources there
to solve and reduce the riskuntil that particular component
or appliance can be corrected orfixed.

Speaker 1 (11:01):
So there's some interesting kind of parallels
here to the fire ground, I think, and for initial arriving
company officers, who likely arenot technicians right and don't
have the same equipment and thecapability and capacity that
technicians have is when they'reshowing up.
Is that initiating that size upprocess in a standard manner

(11:26):
that we do at every otherincident?
And in these you don't havesmoke pouring from the building,
you don't have fire rolling outof windows and all those other
stuff You're dealing with,likely an invisible hazard, and
you're starting to gaininformation from what either
people tell you, information youmay have gotten from the 911
caller or things that you canlearn in response there.

(11:47):
And a lot of the same questionsand concerns on the front end
for the fire ground are the same.
Here is one of the early thingswe've got to figure out is do
we have a life safety componenthere?
Is life safety a criticalfactor to us?
Do we have an occupiedstructure that has an alarm
activating and are we going tohave to engage and act so that

(12:11):
we can remove those people,evacuate them, isolate the area,
establish a hazard zone anddeny entry to it?
And so the early on thoughtprocess matches what we do.
On the fire ground, however, wehave a very different problem
with being invisible and we haveto have some background
knowledge and understanding ofwhat it is, where it could

(12:32):
likely be.
And then how do we actuallyprotect ourselves if we figure
out early on that we need toengage, we need to evacuate, we
need to do certain things sothat we can be more successful,
things so that we can be moresuccessful.
We can set it up appropriately,like we talked about, for the
technician level folks to showup, the hazmat guys, the
100-pound brains, to come in andfigure this out, meter and do a

(12:55):
much more thorough job ofestablishing this and then maybe
even start working on all right, how do we mitigate this
problem?
So I think for those initialarriving folks, whether it is a
chief officer or a companyofficer, a lot of the same
thing's going to play, but wehave to recognize the difference
in this hazard and what carbonmonoxide is actually doing to

(13:18):
those victims and how we canisolate it and or improve it
before the technician type folksget there, how we can isolate
it and or improve it before thetechnician type folks get there.

Speaker 2 (13:32):
And to throw some context behind this, guys is
unintentional, non-related COpoisoning is responsible for
approximately 15,000 visits tothe emergency department
annually and 500 deaths in theUnited States, and I think it's
the largest group that isreceiving.
Unintentional poisoning, too iscarbon monoxide.
So to blow it off and just sayone person in a pickup truck,

(13:56):
which I know, that is stillgoing on, it goes on around me,
where they'll just send a dutyofficer and that's it to a CO
alarm.
But before we look atmitigation, let's talk about
deployment.
What is a suggested deployment?
Not only on an alarm, but thenonce we find a credible threat
of carbon monoxide inside astructure?

Speaker 3 (14:18):
So, john, I think one thing with the deployment is
that, just like every bit ofdeployment that we do, so what
is it?
And then what are the factorsthat we got from dispatch?
And then where is it right?
So we're going to asingle-family residential home
for a carbon monoxide alarm.
You know it's going to startout and they say there's no

(14:39):
symptoms.
Because 911 dispatchers askthat question.
You know it starts out as aninvestigation, but we're still
going to do the exact same thing.
Like Chris said, we're going tohave a little bit of a standoff
, we're going to monitor thesituation and if we don't have
the monitor, then we need towait until we get somebody to
monitor it.
But with that said,organizations all across this
country, some big cities,especially Midwest to the East

(15:00):
Coast, for as long as I canremember in my career, have been
carrying single gas CO andmaybe some single gas other
types of meters.
The officer or somebody elsecarries that.
And then EMS units have beenhave recently, you know, in the
last 10 years, started puttingsingle gas CO like they're on
their clipboard or on theirairway bag.
And I can tell you, you know,just in the last 10 years I can

(15:23):
think of 50 incidents where weidentified the problem from, we
were dispatched to.
You know, grandma was sick.
And they get there and it'slike, what's that noise?
And it's like, well, the singlegas CO meter is going off.
That's not what we got calledhere for, but that's what the
problem is.
So we've seen some instancesand some write-ups in some of

(15:44):
the fire department journals ofthose kinds of incidents in the
buildings and buildings thatdon't have updated you know
furnaces and so on.
Then you know we're going tocontinue to have you know carbon

(16:10):
monoxide incidents as well asyou know the malfunctioning
piece.
So there's clearly a range ofof deployment to these types of
incidents.
If I'm going to a single familybuilding, I'm probably not going
to need as many resources, butI still need to set it up and
take all the appropriate steps.
But you know, one of our bluecard simulations is I'm you're
going to a multifamily complexfor carbon monoxide and, uh, you

(16:34):
know the call is grandma issick.
And you get there and then youidentify that all there's carbon
monoxide here.
Well, it's not just that unitthat you're in, that units
connected to many other unitsand, um, you know it comes out
that there's a car running inthe garage.
Well, you know, multiple spacesnow need to be checked and
cleared from carbon monoxide.

(16:55):
So this isn't necessarily atechnician response level
incident but depending on yourorganization's deployment model
and how you carry your metersand who carries the meters and
who runs the meters, that kindof lines back up to deployment.
But we shouldn't be sending oneperson for a known CO problem.

(17:16):
There should be a standardizeddeployment for that.
Chris.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, I take it back to the bosses.
You better be doing everythingright when something goes wrong.
So, if you're thinking aboutthis from a policy standpoint
for an organization and you'retrying to determine your
deployment thresholds and thevolume of resources, you're
trying to determine yourdeployment thresholds and the
volume of resources you're goingto send on certain type of
emergencies, well, you betterset yourself up, depending on
the occupancy type and theinitial information, that, when

(17:45):
you've got the appropriateamount of folks going to not
only initially size this up andwork on figuring out what's
going on dealing with anyvictims that you may have, and
then if and when you need thattechnician level to deal with
the source and or how we'regoing to control this, because

(18:07):
it's one thing to get there,have the alarm go off, remove
people from that place, starttaking care of them and start to
ventilate the space.
Well, that you're still notfixing the the source of that.
So the appropriate uh resourcesneed to come and help determine
what.
What do we need to actuallysolve this or fix this uh source
problem?
Is it something we can do as afire service or is it secondary

(18:30):
partners that need to come inand and manage us from building
to vendors to whoevercontractors that that come in
and manage this, from buildingto vendors to whoever
contractors that come in andmanage these things.
So it's a trick here is youdon't want to over-send and you
don't want to under-send, right,and so you've got to find a
balance point in that and it'sgoing to be critical factors
driven is planning for what isthe legitimate potential of this

(18:53):
incident when we go there, soevaluating residential versus
commercial, the volume of peoplein and around there, and then
what is actually going to beappropriate and available inside
your organization.
You can't send everybody everytime, so it is a balance point.

Speaker 2 (19:11):
This is the time of year that we see most of the CO
poisonings happening because ofdifferent things.
A lot of you know heatingequipment that's improperly
vented.
We see vents that are actuallyblocked.
I know here in the upperMidwest and the Northeast our
vents actually get frozen overeither with snow or ice, so the

(19:33):
venting from the building isimpeded by that.
So so really being a little bitof a sleuth when you get there
and looking at thingspessimistically from the outside
instead of just just thecomplacency part because we do
see a lot of complacency onthese types of alarms, correct?

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, I think.
I mean we see complacency allthe time, right.
So I mean, if we should gothere and act like you know
professionals and you know, likeI think Chris said, be prepared
, be prepared for the worst andyou know, hope for the best kind
of thing, right, and you know,hopefully it's absolutely

(20:12):
nothing, hopefully it was, youknow, false alarm for whatever
reason hairspray or somebody wasspraying something, or dust, or
you know a battery or whatever.
But we talk so much andeverybody talks about rescue.
Well, here's just anotherinstance.
Right, you get there and there'scarbon monoxide in a
multifamily apartment buildingand you're getting, you know, a

(20:35):
reading of anything anywhere.
Then you need to check thatentire place because any reading
anywhere that could be thelowest reading that there is
there could be a much higherreading somewhere else.
So you know, carbon monoxide,it really will mix with air more
than it will, you know, rise orfall.
I mean it has a better instanceof it being lighter and it'll

(20:57):
it'll rise a little bit, but itactually mixes more than I think
, than probably anything.
But you know, we need to becognizant and aware of that that
any reading means that there islikely a reading higher
somewhere else.
So I mean, if I'm at the frontdoor of a house or an apartment
building and I got a reading of50, well then somewhere else in
there there's probably a higherreading than that, because the

(21:17):
front door is not the source.
So you know, just sitting downand having training and having
that discussion of what thatreally means, and you know,
circling back to deployment,with that, I send one person or
two people in a vehicle, andthey don't even take their gear
with them, and they go and havea meter and it starts going off
and now the building does needto be evacuated.

(21:39):
Well, now they're exposingthemselves to something that
they don't need to be exposed toand that comes back to, you
know, really a failure in thedeployment system.
So your organization needs tofigure out what that best
practice really looks like.
Your organization needs tofigure out what that best
practice really looks like.
And you know, john, you sent itout on the buck slip the carbon
monoxide and natural gas.

(22:00):
You know, kind of SOG, that'sfor organizations to take.
That it's a word document.
They can take it and tweak itand modify it and make it what
fits them.
But you know that that's thestart of it.
But again, you just can't sitthere and talk about it.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
You have to actually exercise it to get everybody on
the same page, and I think it'smore likely that folks in the
Southwest, kind of in my areathese calls are actually more of
a surprise to us than I thinkthey are to you guys in the norm
the vast majority that I'vebeen on, because it does get

(22:41):
cold here for three days andpeople decide they don't have
great heat so they run theirstove.
Or I've actually been on themwhere they brought in a charcoal
grill into the house and burnedit.
So those tend to be a surpriseto us and because it's an
invisible hazard, it's all ofthose things that we do get
complacent in those evaluationsand so slowing down, utilizing a

(23:03):
standardized process of sizingup especially when we don't have
smoke and you do have folkswith, sometimes some type of
symptoms you've got a lifesafety issue, sometimes some
type of symptoms, you've got alife safety issue need to start
dealing with it.
We need to be a little bit morecautious, mindful, prepared and

(23:24):
have the ability to smartlyfigure this out, because we
can't walk away without solvingthe issue.
We can't just fix it or removesomebody from one apartment and
have an issue that's pervasivein the building that nobody else
has called about.
Yet We've got to find thesource and we've got to do our
due diligence.
It's that whole prevent harmthing that I think is our
responsibility in fixing it andcoming to a solution of it.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
I think working with your dispatch center too, and
making sure dispatch is askingthe right questions and giving
the right pre-arrivalinstructions is very important
in these cases, and I've been onincidents where they have
miscoded it as a carbon dioxidealarm.
But let's talk about thedifferences between those two

(24:08):
and how we can help educatedispatch.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Well, so one thing with that, john, is, you know,
if we get into the mindset thatwe're going to a carbon monoxide
incident and an agency is usinga single gas, co, for whatever
reason, and that's all they'reusing and it's actually CO2,
they are going to have no ideaand it's a CO2 alarm.
But there's actually CO2 in,you know, in the quickie mark

(24:35):
that's got a problem with theirCO2 tank.
That's in the manager's office,which we have that as a
simulation as well, that aninert gas thing that displaces
oxygen.
But it'll be the you know it'llbe the McDonald's incident.
Right, they had no idea whatwas going on.

(24:57):
And the next thing, you know,you're blacking out.
Or one of our close colleaguesand friends and instructors,
grant Light, at a fire incidentwith CO2, where CO2 had gone off
, the system had gone off andthey weren't really recognizing
that and the CO2 had sunk into astairwell and they were in
there later into the event anddidn't have SCBA on.

(25:18):
Fire was out and guys were likeI'm going out because, you know
, lack of oxygen in that space.
So you know, if your dispatchcenter is dispatching CO and CO2
together, there's a problemwith that.
So you know, connect with yourdispatch center to get that
fixed.
But then also you need to spenda lot more time with your
companies talking about, uh,they're sending us to two

(25:41):
different things.
That are two drasticallydifferent things.
Um, both of them are going tobe, uh, an issue for us when it
comes to cognitive response.
But, uh, if you've got a CO2alarm, there's actually CO2
present.
You have a, you have, you havequite an issue and you know, the
only way you're going tomonitor for that is if you have
a really a four gas meter andit's going to start to show, you

(26:02):
know, a lower O2 percentage andyou're going to get zero on the
CO.
So, um, that's somethingdefinitely definitely to think
about, and that that kind ofcomes back to the deployment
thing.
I, that's something definitelyto think about and that kind of
comes back to the deploymentthing.
I don't want one or two peopleout there going into a potential
hazard zone.
It's actually, you know, a COincident is a hazmat incident.
I mean, no matter how you lookat it, it is.

(26:26):
So you know we should betreating that appropriately and
monitoring in accordance withbest practice, and you know not
to get into a ton of stuff onthat.
But that just goes back tocircling around that, besides
what we're talking about,organizations need to spend a
little time with everybody andmake sure they understand fully.
You know, on my, you know radioor whatever, or on my gear, you

(27:03):
know it takes longer for that tocapture and pick up a reading
than it does assist somethingthat has a pump on it that's
actually pumping air into thesystem.
But you know, I see people goto incidents and they just, you
know, they're walking, as youknow, about as fast as you can
walk.
Well, we ain't got nothing.
And it's like, well, thatthing's not automatic, it's not
like it hits you in the face, itit takes some time for it to
respond.
Right, it's got a, there's a.

(27:25):
There's some little Keeblerelves in there that are doing
some math trying to figure outexactly what am I reading and
then what is the reading goingto be coming out the other end
of it.
It's not automatic.
So I think we downplay theseincidents so much and then, you
know, I think, as Chris said,sometimes we get surprised or
get caught and we're notprepared for what we're really

(27:48):
dealing with.

Speaker 1 (27:49):
Yeah, and I think on the CO2 side, at least in my
experience, that displacement ofoxygen and that asphyxiant
situation that it provides isthose incidents have seemed to
be pretty significant in that weshow up and you actually have
unconscious people.

(28:09):
It seems to have happened muchmore quickly.
They're in confined orcompartmentalized spaces and
again it's an invisible hazardto us and we show up and we may
or may not be prepared.
That McDonald's incident downin a basement that happened
locally for us is somebody'sdown there.

(28:29):
We started to move down thereand instantly we start getting
the oh, I'm going to loseconsciousness thing.
Well, it seems to be, at leastin the incidents I've gone on.
It's a much slower buildup inthe carbon monoxide.
There's symptoms, there's, youknow, some progressive things
with, and then the CO2 it hasn't, and then the presence of

(28:49):
alarms.
Now, so, like the CO2 alarms inmy area may actually be
replacing the natural gas callsfor what we've always referred
to as the hazmat man down call.
We're just going on themconstantly and it's lulling us
to sleep because we're going ona lot of alarms and bad alarms
and not having any outcomes andthen when we have something

(29:11):
serious there that we again weget surprised because we're not
prepared for it or we've beenlulled to sleep because of
everything else.
So there definitely is adifference between the two.
One seems to be, at least in myexperience, a lot more serious
in the immediacy and the otheris a slower build.
But you got to pay attention towhat it is and it's not the

(29:32):
same measurement and tools toutilize and verify what exactly
that problem is.
And, again, being smart andsetting things up correctly for
the hazmat guys to come in anddo their thing to better
identify it and maybe controlthe problem has always got to be
in the forefront of our mind.

Speaker 2 (29:53):
Always got to be in the forefront of our mind.
Well, let's switch gears andstart talking about our natural
gas emergencies, because we dosee a lot of very destructive
incidents.
I mean, when things get to theright mixture, we're going to
have an explosion and or firewith natural gas gas, and
there's a big difference betweenthe outside leak that typically

(30:16):
caused by construction,pipelines or other service
markings were not done correctlyor not done at all, versus

(30:37):
appliances leaking or otherreasons why we have leaks inside
of structures.
So, first of all, let's talkabout the physical properties of
natural gas and why it is athreat to us and why now,
although you know by far thereare more people killed annually
by carbon monoxide versusnatural gas, but it seems like
when natural gas gets to thatright mixture, it's catastrophic

(30:59):
.

Speaker 3 (30:59):
Yes, I mean, we don't have to look far to see this
time of year.
You know, just a few weeks ago,right here in the Cincinnati
area, likely a propane incidentthat you know that caused an
explosion.
And then, I think, just acouple of days after that, in

(31:21):
the Detroit area, a condocomplex, I believe it ended up
coming out that was natural gas.
And then I think everybodysitting here has been on one of
these incidents either, I thinkall of us after um, after the
event had happened, after anexplosion had happened.
So when we think about thatthat way, we need to understand

(31:44):
the risk that we're respondingto that.
There is a potential that whenwe get called for natural gas
leak, that there could or weshould plan for there
potentially being an explosion,right.
So we have several line of dutydeath events that we can kind

(32:04):
of tie back to some propane andnatural gas incidents.
Propane specifically.
So in understanding thedifference between propane and
natural gas, I mean very similarexcept for natural gas is going
to rise and propane is going tosink.
And then you know, in yourorganization you should probably

(32:27):
have a pretty good idea whetherthere's natural gas to an area
or whether it's supplied, youknow, by propane.
You know just some of those,some of those stats, john, I
don't know if you were going toput them up, but every year, the
average over a 10-year period,300 incidents a year with
natural gas explosions wherefiremen were hurt or killed and

(32:49):
the average of $475 million inproperty damage.
So, um, uh, you know the one Ishared with you all from here,
locally, it, uh, there was adebris field for quite a ways,
you know from that event, andthere's no, there's no alarm or
warning to that.
So you know, as we talk about,you know, blue cards, best

(33:10):
practice for response to thesetypes of incidents, and why we
deploy and stage the way we doand monitor the way that we do
and set the incident up the waythat we do.
You know that's why we do it,because it is a ticking time
bomb if there is gas there, uh,for a potential event and and,
um, we can, we'll walk throughand talk about.

(33:31):
You know all of those parts andpieces and what, what, all that
really looks like.
So the flammable limits, youknow, from five to 15 percent in
air with, with natural gas,it's, that's, that's a pretty
decent, you know pretty decentsize range.
And you know, without jumpinginto making it, you know tech

(33:52):
level stuff.
You know that doesn't mean thatif I have 5% LEL on my meter
that it's 5% natural gas.
But you, you need to figurethat out depending on what your,
what your gas meter is, youknow calibrated with and and
what all that really, what allthat really means.
But you know our magic numberand you know what you know NIOSH

(34:13):
puts out uh, we get to 10 ofthe lel, your meter's probably
set to go off.
Well, it's like that for areason because we need to, you
need to get out of there,because if you have 10 in one
place and you're not at thesource, it's higher somewhere
else.
So anytime that we have gaspresent, natural gas or propane
present, in a space somewherethere, it would be in the

(34:36):
flammable range somewhere.
I mean, even if it's all theway back at the.
You know initial source.
So you know, we just need tokeep that in our mind.
But I still see the same thing.
Not that long ago I seen anengine company pull up, pull up
right in front of the building.
They sent one companynon-emergency, no natural,
called in, reported that it wasnatural gas and they go in and

(34:59):
monitor and they got a readingand not dressed in anything,
everybody's inside the buildingand it's like what in the world
are you doing?
I mean, you're literallystanding inside of a bomb and it
could potentially go off.
So I didn't pull it up reallyfor sake of time.
But you can look at, uh, a lotof the project mayday stuff, the

(35:19):
, the, the maydays that arehappening due to gas leaks.
Um, during the time that thatthat Don Abbott was doing all
the work he was doing on projectmayday, it was on a rise, uh, a
big uptick of how many maydayswere happening due to natural
gas leaks.
So, or due to natural gas insome form or fashion.

(35:42):
So it's another real thing,right, and we manage this the
same way.
We do everything else.
We evaluate the critical fireground factors and we deploy
based off of what do we have andwhat do we need to do to really
fix the problem.
And in our case, we're notreally there to.
We're not there to fix theproblem.
As we were building this hazmatmodule out many years ago, we

(36:04):
worked with multiple energycompanies and they said we want
you to get there and, as Chrissaid earlier, we want you to
kind of evaluate, isolate andevacuate and call the
professionals, and theprofessionals are us.
But if you do something thatcauses a problem, it is on you,
it is not on us, you're notthere to fix it.
That's what we do and that'swhy our things are outlined.

(36:26):
You know the way that they'reoutlined because we're not going
to put it on the firedepartment to take liability of
doing something.
Now, I mean, if you can shut themeter off because you just
walked past it, you know that'sone thing, but we shouldn't be
in there inside of a building.
You know, uh, with, with novictims, uh, trying to hunt down
a natural gas leak.
And then you know the same thingoutside, we, if we have natural

(36:49):
gas outside, uh, you know, gasthrough, you know fissuring
through walls, through, you knowall of those different things
gets into a space.
There was an event with propanethat we can all you know recall
and talk about what the propaneleak was outside the building
and it, you know, fissuredthrough the ground, got through
the wall and it was in thatbasement space, found an

(37:10):
ignition source and, you know,end up having an explosion, and
that that resulted in a line ofduty death Right and, and that
that resulted in a line of dutydeath right and and that fire
department was called for aknown odor, like they knew that
there was a problem.
So, um, we can, we can kind ofget into the nuts and bolts, but
we just all need to realizethis is a real, it's a real
thing and, uh, I think we'vemade so many of them and we're

(37:30):
successful oftentimes with itand nothing happens that we
downplay the response.

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Well, and 75% of the time in that Mayday study, we
were told by dispatch that therewas a leak.
They've let the companies knowand we're still walking into it.
So, to back up, let's talkabout deployment, because we see
a huge disparity depending onjurisdiction, and there's a

(37:57):
difference between an outsideleak and an inside leak, what
you should be deploying.
So outside leak is a lot easierto deal with.
However, I still see in fireapparatus vice grips, duct tape.
They're jumping into trenchesand crimping off lines.

(38:18):
What do the experts tell usabout those outside leaks to
start off with?
Then we'll work our way insideabout mitigating that.
Is that at all acceptable?

Speaker 3 (38:29):
So I think so there's organizations all across the
country that do you know, really, the plastic line, yeah,
mitigation, and the people whoare doing that are are are
technician, specialist levelpeople who have trained with,
most times, their utilitycompany.

(38:50):
So their utility company hastrained them, showed them, and
they have all the appropriatetools to do what they're
supposed to do, and that there'sa process that they go through
of what do we do and what are we, you know, not going to do?
Um, and I think the localjurisdiction sometimes gets tied
into.
Well, we don't have thetraining, but I got a, I got a
towel and I can get it wet and Igot a pair of vice grips and I

(39:11):
can fix it, because the last gasleak I was on I saw the energy
company don't jump in the holeand that's all they did.
Well, because they're doing itand that's what they do, doesn't
mean that we should do it.
It's interesting to me over mycareer, when the safety bosses
show up to a significant outsideleague, how the task level

(39:35):
people perform, compared to whenthe task level people go to
their everyday routine incidentand they don't do all of the
things that they would do iftheir safety boss or their
operations field manager wasthere.
So it's not our job and weshouldn't do it, just like we
don't want people doing.
We don't want people doing ourjob, we shouldn't do their job.

(39:58):
And you know, the energycompany told us you're not
trained to do that and if youtouch it and it causes an issue,
you're taking responsibilityfor it.
And if you touch it and itcauses a bigger problem inside
the building, you're takingresponsibility for it.
So you know you shut off gas toa 300 unit apartment building.
You potentially just created abigger problem, depending on
what exactly was going on insidethe building.

(40:21):
So you know, when it comes to,you know boiler shutting off and
and you know a list of otherthings.
So, uh, our stance on it is you, we don't do anything besides
turn a valve on like a gas meterto turn it off.
Or you know there was a a slightodor from a stove and we got

(40:41):
inside.
We got basically no reading,but we've seen it was coming
from a line on the stove.
We turn that valve off insidethe building.
But as far as like trying tofix delivery lines and so on
that are outside the building,our stance is we don't do it.
And if your organization istrained, like so many that we I
do see you know that have thatexpertise because they have a

(41:03):
designated hazmat response everyday, like the system that Chris
grew up in you know, thePhoenix fire department with a
designated hazmat response, orWinston-Salem, north Carolina,
with a designated hazmatresponse, where they have
trained on and they do train onyou know some of that stuff and
they're trained by the utilitycompany then yeah, you can do it
.
But if you're not, then weshouldn't.

Speaker 1 (41:27):
Yeah, and there's a lot of measurement of critical
factors, even when they'redeciding to do it.
Are we talking about a leakthat a piece of digging
equipment just created when itfractured the line?
Is it between houses or is itout in the middle of nowhere,
where it doesn't, where we don'thave any occupied structures as

(41:48):
exposures, right?
And so they're evaluating whenand how they're going to do
these things and to figure thatout.
But for a non technician toconsider that it's not, there's
no, there's nothing reasonableabout it, we, we, we should not
be doing that.
It's no different than jumpingin a trench when you're trying
to dig somebody out.
We need to stay out of it andallow either the professionals,

(42:11):
both from inside ourorganizations or outside our
organizations, to actually dealwith that and measure that.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
So how about the inside gas leaks?
Because I've also witnessed andheard crews that are searching
for the source of the leak oncethey get their LEL alarm.
If we enter a structure and ourLEL goes off, should we turn
around and leave?
Or, you know, is there anycircumstance that we should
continue on in the building?

(42:41):
If, if everyone's evacuated,let's say that the building's
evacuated is there any instancethat we should be searching for
the source of?

Speaker 3 (42:52):
that leak.
I'm just going to read a linefrom RSOG's and then you know
that we basically took it fromthe pipeline industry's.
You know best practice stuffWhenever there's a gas leak
somewhere, there's the rightmixture to support an explosion
and or fire.
So it goes back to what I saidearlier If there's no life

(43:12):
safety hazard in there and thatwe're to that 10% LEL or even
close to it, there is really noreason for us to stay inside
that building.
Now, if I can shut that gasmeter off to the building or I
can go outside and shut that gasmeter off, you know, then fine,
so be it, but I'm not going to,I'm not the repair company,
right?

(43:32):
Our, our job is really lifesafety and then, uh, call the
appropriate people to fix theproblem and people to fix the
problem, and if we can isolateit through, you know, like I
said, a meter valve on theoutside or somewhere like that,
then that's fine.
But we're not going to keep,and should not keep just

(43:54):
searching around inside thebuilding if there is indeed no
life safety hazard inside thebuilding, because we are the
life safety hazard, we'reliterally standing inside of a
potential bomb.

Speaker 1 (44:06):
So let's take a step back, go back to the
fundamentals, like we shouldright.
So this is a risk managementquestion.
This is why we have a riskmanagement plan as a part of the
functions of command.
This is why we have the riskmanagement plan as part of
strategic decision-making.
We're going to evaluate on thefront end, size up and determine

(44:28):
critical fire ground factors orcritical factors for this given
incident.
In the case where we're showingup and we've got a supposed
leak or we've got an odor or wehave some information that we
likely have a problem on theinside of that building, the
first thing we're doing is is dowe have life safety as a
critical factor?
Do I have a hazard zone and Ihave people inside that hazard

(44:51):
zone?
Do I need to remove thosepeople from that hazard zone?
And then there should be somethought as okay, how big is the
hazard zone?
How many people or how manycomponents of a structure or an
occupancy do I need to actuallyevacuate in that?
And then that's where we plugin the risk management when

(45:15):
we're doing the evacuation, whenwe're removing those people.
We are in the green of our riskmanagement plan.
We're willing to risk a lotbecause we are in this instance
to save savable lives.
Once we've evacuated that area,we've removed that life safety,
there needs to be a completeand total reevaluation.
That's no longer a criticalfactor.
I've established a hazard zone,however big it actually is, and

(45:39):
now am I willing to engage in alittle bit of risk to save the
property, meaning manage theleak, or aren't I?
Well, we likely need to be inthat position because we're not.
We don't have the knowledge,skills, abilities, tools and and
and and responsibility toactually go in there and fully

(46:03):
investigate and figure out wherethat leak is.
So our job was to protect thepeople.
Our job is to protect theproperty the best we can,
evacuate it, get everybody out,try and minimize that to the
best of our ability and thenconnect with the professionals,
whether it's inside ourdepartment with hazmat guys, or
outside, with the contractorsand or vendors or the utility

(46:26):
partners, and say, okay, what isit that is appropriate for us
to be doing here?
And there is a time and a placewhere we're going to have to
support the professionals withtheir ability to mitigate the
leak.
So sometimes we're going to manhose lines where, then, when
they're in the hole, gettingready to crimp that off.
Or sometimes we've got tosupport them with opening the

(46:47):
structure up so they can go inthe building and fix it.
So we got to use ourfundamentals of the functions of
command and our fundamentals ofstrategic decision making to
help us make good decision onthe action.
Does our action match theconditions?
Are we operating in offensivepositions during defensive

(47:07):
incident conditions?
So it's all the same as a fireground, if you ask me.
That's the beauty of thissystem and how we do it.
And yeah, I'm not trying tobeat a dead horse, but it does
matter.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
And yeah, I'm not trying to beat a dead horse, but
it does matter.
We offer in our SOG, you know,kind of best practice response
to multiple different types ofgas emergencies.
So reported gas leak, novisible ignition.
So like what should we reallydo?
What does that really look like?
Every single one of thesestarts out with right from the

(47:45):
North American EmergencyResponse Guidebook and from the
people who we worked with onthis, from the energy companies,
that no apparatus should bewithin 333 feet, 100 meters or
roughly 100 yards of any ofthese buildings.
And basically that's based onif a house lets go, you're going
to have a debris field that faraway, so everybody else is

(48:09):
outside of that.
And then you know from thatpoint we start monitoring from
there all the way to thebuilding and in the American
fire service we see people pullright in front of the building.
We see all kinds of differentlevels of response and we've
talked about a little bit in thepast when we look at some of
the larger municipalities, metrocities, when they respond to

(48:31):
natural gas.
I'll just put Washington DC outthere Last year from that
incident that they wereresponding to.
I think most people probablysaw it their company was clearly
parked like a block away goingto a known gas leak.
They're walking up the streetand the building lets go, and
it's like that's all I need tosee right there.
And if you can't buy into, youknow, park away from the
building, start monitoring froma distance and then, you know,

(48:58):
continue to evaluate thecritical factors to figure out
exactly what we're going to dowith the incident.
Then then you're just I don'tknow, you're just totally
missing it, right, but it justfits right into everything.
Chris just said, the system.
We evaluate critical fireground factors and figure out
what can we do to solve thosecritical fire ground factors,
all based on the risk managementplan and model of life safety.

(49:20):
So there's a simulation thatkind of goes along with that as
well in the blue card system.
We have an interior gas problem, we have a commercial gas
problem and then we have a firegas problem that's on the
exterior and then we have anexplosion.
So the companies pulled up, gotcalled for an actual building

(49:42):
that exploded, and you know.
So what does that look like?
And that's another instancewhere we shouldn't just run
right up on top of it because wedon't necessarily know that
every bit of gas has been, haslit off right, there could be
gas in void spaces and thenunderstanding what damage was

(50:03):
done from that explosion.
So again we have the SOGs thatare kind of like the playbook of
what are we going to do.
And then we offer thesimulation part and the tactical
instructor guides to getorganizations to go through and
talk about.
What does this deploymentreally look like?
So you can exercise it, soyou're actually doing it, before

(50:25):
you actually get called to oneof these incidents.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
You and I have talked about that anecdotally a lot
because here in the Midwest,especially suburban departments
that are stretched or they don'thave appropriate staffing, on a
normal day they tend to be theones that are sending either a
duty officer or one person bythemselves or a single company
response to a known gas leakinside a structure.
And we'll include these SOGsthat we're talking about in the

(50:52):
show notes so you can get a linkto those if you didn't get them
in the B-Shifter buck slip lastweek.
We are saying best practice isnatural gas inside of any
building or structure or space,even if it's a sewer or some
other kind of enclosed area withno explosion or gas fire that
is not exposing.
A structure should have aminimum of two engines.

(51:18):
A ladder, pointed out, is tonot only cordon off the area but
establish an evacuation zoneand deny entry to other people
that are trying to go in thereuntil the situation gets
mitigated.
And again, we see a lot ofinstances where it's either a
single company or a singleperson trying to track down

(51:40):
where the leak is coming frominside the structure prior to
the gas company arrival on thescene.
And they're inside, but the gascompany at the end of the day,
is going to tell us to doexactly what Josh was just
talking about Be a meter, youknow, 100 meters or 330 feet
away, and to park in an areathat we're not going to become

(52:02):
part of the problem or part ofthe debris field.
You know, post-explosion, whatare some of the issues that we
deal with, and you know we'vealways been told not to fully
extinguish a gas fire,especially if it could get back
into an enclosed space.
So what?

(52:23):
What are we talking about?
Best practices after theexplosion or if a fire does
occur?

Speaker 3 (52:30):
Yeah, so the, the building there, the space where
that explosion occurred is, youknow, when we look, most
oftentimes everything there isis gone, right.
I mean the if we're talkingresidential lightweight wood
frame it, it doesn't look likeanything.
I think, john, last year youmade one there in your area and
it's like it was literally avacant lot, basically with a

(52:52):
debris pile, right.
So, yeah, we don't want toextinguish the fire if there's a
fire from the leak.
Really that's the best casescenario, because then we don't
have to worry so much about apocket of gas, though when
there's an explosion we couldhave a gas leak somewhere else
from damaged infrastructure, youknow underground, or another
pipe piece somewhere.
But the big deal becomes, youknow, getting into those other

(53:13):
spaces, right?
So you know, typical setback 15, 20 feet in a space and a house
blows up.
Well, there's going to besignificant damage, you know, to
a few of those houses on eitherside, and I mean we've seen
some instances where you knowpeople were hurt pretty
significantly in the exposureson either side.

(53:35):
So you know, still meteringright and getting into those
spaces.
And then there's another leveladded as far as a critical
factor of what damage has beendone to this building.
So, again, that size up of Ican't, I shouldn't just run
inside there, right, but weshould look at, like, what kind
of damage was done to thisexposure space that we're about
to go into.

(53:55):
But we should have lines inplace.
We have to have plenty ofresources to protect ourselves
and protect those otherbuildings, because we protect
life and property.
So the one building is gone.
It's defensive for the mostpart, right, we're not going to
do anything there and theexposures is what we're going to
protect and we're going to getthe people out of there.
So, as Chris says so often, thesystem can be applied to

(54:19):
anything and everything we do.
It's all hazards, right?
What the difference is isunderstanding the critical
factors Critical factors at afire versus critical factors at
a gas leak, versus criticalfactors at a lithium ion battery
fire versus critical factors ata high-rise fire right, it's
understanding those criticalfactor pieces that change, but
the system still applies,whether we're talking about the

(54:41):
strategic decision model orapplying the eight functions of
command.
It's an all-hazards system.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
Yeah.
So those considerations forlikely, on the front end, your
critical factors, your riskmanagement, is going to lead you
to a defensive strategy on thefront end when you're initially
evaluating this incident, right.
And so when we start thinkingabout a defensive incident
action plan, in the simplestform is identify what's lost,

(55:08):
write it off and protectexposures, right.
So if we have a home or anapartment building or whatever
that's exploded, identify it,figure it out.
Where is it, do you have activefire or don't you?
But we're not going typicallythrough and digging through that
.
We really need to expend thoseinitial resources on the
exposures and the criticalfactors in those exposures,

(55:32):
which primarily is life safetyis getting in there, getting
searches done, evacuating andtaking care of that and then
evaluating.
Are there other things that needto be done in these exposures,
like fire protection?
You know, protecting uh, uh,they're an exposure because
you've got an active fire andwhat just blew up and and really

(55:53):
treat it that way.
This is a defensive incident,right, and we are in the
defensive strategy.
We are working now to protect,we're putting water on and
trying to trying to uh, controlthe fire from what just blew up,
and now we're trying to protect.
We're putting water on andtrying to control the fire from
what just blew up, and now we'retrying to protect the exposures
, first and foremost with thelife safety, and then trying to
protect that property and usingour risk management and our

(56:14):
strategy to manage where andwhat we should be doing on the
fire ground.

Speaker 3 (56:19):
I think we could just circle around real quick just
with the.
So we're really going to treatpropane for the most part the
same, except for the factorsthat propane um, the molecular
makeup of propane is justdifferent, right, that propane
is going to sink and that, uh uh, flammability range is a bit

(56:39):
different, but we're going totreat it the same.
But with that said you, rangeis a bit different, but we're
going to treat it the same.
But with that said, you know,oftentimes with propane there's
going to be a little bit of achallenge as far as sometimes
getting a company there to helpyou mitigate what's going on
with a propane tank.
The nice thing with a propane500 pound tank or whatever
that's outside, depending on ifit's a, you know, a vertical

(57:01):
tank that you have at like atrailer park, like type place or
modular home place, or if youhave an underground, you know
larger, you know propane liketype tank.
Oftentimes we can control thatfrom the outside because there's
a valve on it, right.
So it's it's, we could, we cancut, we could cut that gas off.
But again, it goes back to yourknowledge and your organization

(57:22):
should.
If you have that, then youshould get the propane company
to come in there and do sometraining with you.
As far as, if it's anunderground tank, like, how
would you shut that off?
How do you get to it?
What would the access look like?
How far away is it from thebuilding, you know?
And if it's a vertical tank,it's really a giant tank like
you put on your grill, right, Imean, we see those.
Next, you know modular homes orin, you know oftentimes, the

(57:46):
rural environment or places thatdon't have natural gas supply.
But it's not super difficult.
It's like I can turn that valve, but it still comes back to the
risk management.
Am I willing to even go intothat area?
And if it's outside,potentially I'm willing to go
into that area because outsidemonitoring is going to outside.
Uh, potentially I'm willing togo into that area because
outside monitoring is going tobe one thing, but I have to

(58:06):
still be cognizant of what isthe reading inside the space,
cause if I'm standing next tothat building when it lets loose
, it is not going to be goodeither.
So, uh, there's there's a lotmore goes into it than um, than
the typical mindset that firemenhave.
We were fixers, right.

Speaker 1 (58:25):
We're just going to fix the problem, and a lot of
times the critical factors herefor the propane can be different
.
Right, because most of the timethe delivery mechanism is
different.
With natural gas it's typicallypiped into the homes and
there's not With a propane atleast in my experience, a vast
majority of the incidents we'vehad involves the delivery
mechanism, like so I havemultiple delivery trucks in my

(58:48):
community every single daydelivering propane to the
underground or above groundtanks, and we've had issues with
valves not being closedappropriately afterwards and
then leaking fast enough thatthey ice over, and then we
actually can't control it untilthey come out and do those types
of things.

(59:08):
So assessing that and thenconnecting the location and type
of leak that you think you mayhave with, all right, what type
of building is it associatedwith?
In my community it's homes, andin a good portion of my homes
have basements, right.
So a propane leak at a homewith a basement scares the shit

(59:28):
out of me, right and so, andbecause we've seen them just
recently blow up and thatpropane settles in that basement
and we're investigating afterwe've evacuated everybody and
something bad happens.
So we need to recognize thecombination of not only the

(59:50):
flammable hazard itself, thebuilding type, the potential for
it to pool, where is it goingto be, and then being smart
about risk management.
Once we've removed the peoplethen decide whether we should or
shouldn't be inside there.
Likely oftentimes we shouldn'tbe inside and we shouldn't be
anywhere near it, andestablishing that hazard zone
very clearly on the front endputs us in the best possible

(01:00:13):
position and we may not stop itfrom blowing up, but at least if
it blows up, I don't want to bein and around it when it occurs
, or I don't want myfirefighters in and around it
when it occurs, or I don't wantmy firefighters in and around it
when it occurs.
So there's some interestingdifferences, I think, with
natural gas and propane.
Some of it's based on thespecific gravity and whether it
rises or it doesn't, but thenwhat is it associated with and

(01:00:38):
what are the other complicatingfactors surround propane that
may be a little bit differentthan the natural gas.

Speaker 2 (01:00:47):
Why don't you say we do a timeless tactical truth?
Timeless tactical truth fromAlan Brunicini.
I would rather be on the ground, wishing I was in the sky than
being in the sky, and wishing Iwas on the ground than being in
the sky and wishing I was on theground.

(01:01:12):
This is a fantastic tacticaltruth for this.
Yeah, the boss often talkedabout gravity and the effects
that it has on us, but also theeffects that going the other way
may have on us is notadvantageous as well, especially
if we're in a situation wherewe've got an explosive
atmosphere and we get launchedout of it.

Speaker 3 (01:01:31):
Yeah, shit doesn't fall up.
That was one of his things,right?
Shit doesn't fall up.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
Yeah, neither do we.
Yeah, and I guess I'll be theyou know.
Go right to the obvious is whenwe show up.
If we're doing a good job ofevaluating critical factors, if
we're doing a good job ofapplying risk management and
strategy, then we're way lesslikely to be in a position where
we are actually leaving theearth headed towards the sky

(01:01:58):
when something bad happens.
We may or may not be able tocontrol that bad event from
actually happening, but we cancontrol our position and, a lot
of times, whether there'smembers of the community in that
hazard zone to experience theconsequences of this going boom.
So this makes me laugh, but Idon't think it's like we're not

(01:02:24):
splitting atoms here andfiguring it out.
We got to, we got to evacuateand clear out and identify that
hazard zone as quickly as we canand not be in it if something
stupid happens.

Speaker 3 (01:02:36):
And so I think my piece on this would just be you
know, we have to keep ourselfgrounded, and the way that we
stay grounded is that we arecomfortable with what we're
responding to, and the way we dothat is through education,
repetition and experience, right?
So just to circle back around,you know we have an SOG, we have
simulations.

(01:02:56):
You can do it in your firehouse, you can talk about, you know
these types of events.
There's thousands of casestudies out there that you could
review, look at, talk about.
So if we keep ourselvesgrounded and stay in control and
we use the strategicdecision-making model and follow
best practice and learn fromother people's experiences, I

(01:03:20):
think that that's how we keepourself.
You know, on the ground, youknow, and not not the in a
different position.

Speaker 2 (01:03:29):
So All right, josh and Chris, thanks so much for
sharing today and being on the BShifter podcast Again.
The SOGs that we spoke of willbe in the show notes.
Also, our emails are available.
If you're watching on YouTube,make sure to subscribe and get
that notification when we put anew episode out, so that you

(01:03:52):
never miss an episode of the BShifter podcast.
Thanks a lot, guys, and we'lltalk to you again next week.
Thanks, John.
See ya.

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