March 6, 2025 • 55 mins
This episode features Nick Brunacini and John Vance.
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This episode was recorded at the AVB CTC in Phoenix, AZ on February 13, 2025.
Command Safety intertwines safety with effective firefighting tactics and operational control. Each discussion point highlights critical aspects of situational awareness and fire behavior.
• Introduction to Command Safety and its significance
• Reflection on past firefighting incidents and lessons learned
• Importance of dynamic situational awareness for firefighters
• The cultural shift needed around safety in the firefighting community
• How Command Safety evolves traditional firefighting tactics
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Welcome to the B Shifter podcast.
Got John Vance, nick Bernasini,hanging out today waving,
waving by to the girls.
They're leaving, we're staying.
That that's it.
We're committed to podcasting.
That's what we do.
It's what we're all about.
How are you doing today, nick?
I'm doing well, jv.
How about you?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
doing good doing good .
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We're just uh wrapping up a train the trainer
here.
We had a good group of folks,beautiful visiting us at the avb
ctc.
That's it so we turn the lightson for another week yep, yeah,
we'll be back again next monthdoing the same thing woohoo.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And then in between there's probably two, three or
four of them going on on theroad somewhere in america.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, yeah, excellent , sorry for drinking on the air,
that's that not cool.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's clear nutritious fluid that we're taking in
Water, which is a yeah, that'slike number one on the Maslow
list right there.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's funny because I think the first couple of
podcasts ever that we recordedseveral years ago we would drink
beer and then that just kind ofbecame not a good idea.
Remember we would drink a beerwhile we were doing the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It demands.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's all yeah water under the bridge in the old
building, we we'd pop a beeropen really in the yeah and the
thomas road facility.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, oh, that's.
I've warehoused many of thosememories.
Yeah, across the way the hallfrom the urologist.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Which smelled kind of like a urologist's office.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, it was a very urban office building.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well here.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
we are now Got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, exactly, so we've evolved.
This is HQ3 or HQ2?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Because really one was out in Indiana and then here
and then yeah, but they had onein Ohio there for a while and,
yeah, they've been all over.
So we've had an opportunity torefine the way it's supposed to
look and operate.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
HQ2 Phoenix.
We would say that there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, as Rare Forms says on their door, this is our
world headquarters now.
So yeah, I don't foreseeanother one.
If it happens, it's going to becrazy.
Yes, In fact, maybe a flotilla.
The blue card yeah, arc.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I've always wanted a pirate radio ship.
You know where we couldbroadcast international waters
without getting in trouble withthe FCC not that anyone listens
to FM anymore well, but we'dhave to do it from, maybe like a
submarine, underwater, yeah, sothey really couldn't locate us
at any moment.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
It'd be where we were streaming from, streaming from
the Gulf Stream yeah, but nottoo deep, because I think we've
all learned a lesson from theExplorer Challenger episode,
where you shouldn't undertakeany recreational activity which
is really what that was, youknow just taking tourists to go
see the Titanic, where whenthere's a mechanical failure, it
(03:18):
kills you faster than yournerves your nerves.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
No, I, I, I would uh just avoid getting into a
submersible watercraft that wasbuilt in gus's garage, yeah, and
, and a controller from anintendo is what uh drives it
and the restroom is a fivegallon bucket behind a shower
curtain and I paid fifteenthousand dollars for this.
Yeah, you're gonna blow up, sir.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, exactly not to make light of it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Today let's talk about command safety and
specifically I wanted to talkabout Command Safety the book,
because it's really a must-readfor fire officers, because it
bridges what traditional fireground tactics are the blue card
system or fire command and it'ssafety-focused, but also
(04:05):
there's the focus is on gettingthe job done too, and I think
today we're living in a worldwhere safety is a four letter
word and gets criticizedsometimes, and I wanted to talk
about the intent of the book andthe thought behind it and how
it's really meant to get the jobdone while being safe.
(04:27):
And it's something that Brunoused to say all the time that
you know, the number one job ofthe IC is to keep people safe on
the fire ground and I thinkthat message gets lost with
people a lot of times, that thatis really what the IC is there
for.
You know, first and foremost,is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, and really what it is.
Firefighting is an occupationand like any other occupation,
especially a high risk one, isyou have to build the safety
into it as a regular part ofjust performing structural
firefighting.
So like if you worked in afoundry, as an example, the
(05:04):
people that work in a foundrythis is a very hazardous place
to work and you'd have to goprobably a lot further in our
country to find a foundry.
But back when there was a lotof them operating, especially in
the Midwest, is there were arobust set of safety rules
because if you make a mistake atanywhere during that process
(05:31):
you're dead.
I mean you burn to death, youlose a limb, whatever it is.
We were doing fire command stuffat a place and I forgot where
it was, but they hung up as asafety reminder a three-quarter
ton pickup truck that hadviolated a traffic law inside
the foundry Big giant, you knowwork area there and there's
(05:56):
giant machinery that is movingthat you have to stop because if
it hits your truck, as wasevidenced by this, is it
flattened.
A three-quarter ton floorpickup truck where the tallest
part of it was maybe six toeight inches, and you're like
well, jesus Christ, and youlooked at it and the thing you
were left with is it killed theguy and they said yeah, it did.
(06:17):
You're like, well, is he stillin there?
I mean, could you even recover?
So I'm drifting.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
They drained the truck afterwards, probably they
had to do whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And then they hung it up and this thing is, I mean,
it's as big as a room and you'relike it took a minute to figure
out and they wrote on it safetyis up to you.
So basically this guy chose notto be safe and he's dead now.
So that's kind of it.
And I guess to answer yourquestion about command safety is
the fire command curriculumpackage, because that's kind of
(06:55):
what it was.
The second edition was afull-blown curriculum package
where you could teachessentially two semesters
Tactics 101 and Tactics 201.
Now, mobile ICs, strategicposition ICs.
That whole thing was out in2000,.
(07:16):
I think I want to say Rightaround.
Then the whole package was doneand going and in fact it's
still in effect today.
The second edition is still.
I mean, we're revising it andwe'll be here sooner than later
with the third edition will comeout.
But what happened right afterthe second edition in 2001, the
Southwest supermarkets Tarverended up getting killed in a
(07:39):
fire in a grocery store, so andthat's had kind of a lasting
effect on a lot of things.
But really what that was iswell, the fire chief at the time
made the observation that wewere using residential tactics
to fight all of our fires,because 80, 85% of all your
fires occur in residentialproperties and those tend to be
(08:02):
smaller buildings, and so yourwater is a lot more effective
because the fire doesn't get asbig and you know it's quicker to
get to and all those otherthings that make fighting fires
in smaller structures.
Those evolutions look a certainway.
Well, we essentially would portthose same tactics over to
commercial buildings and theyworked most of the time, I mean,
(08:24):
if you're able to get water onit quick enough and get around
it and control the fire.
That's kind of where oursuccess came from.
Well, at Southwest Supermarkets.
That's not what happened.
Everybody knows the outcome ofthat thing, and during my career
I got hired in 1980, during mycareer, I got hired in 1980, and
this is 2001.
So 21 years later, the onlyline of duty death from
(08:49):
structural firefighting was thatone during my career.
So one, and, like I said, firecommand had just come out.
So we go through this, we'regoing through this recovery
process to figure out, okay,what went wrong here and why did
everything blow up the way itdid.
So I don't know, it's probablyfour or five months into that
(09:11):
process you could start to pullsome takeaways from it and you
could see where we were going tostart making changes.
And that's kind of where therapid intervention going from a
task level assignment to acapability of the entire
response.
And so, you know, youformulated the on deck and you
(09:32):
had the help order and all theother stuff.
Well, a lot of, I mean the firstthing that happened is a lot of
the fire service thought, jesusChrist, they killed a
firefighter in Phoenix becauseI'm sure three quarters of the
country thought that we didn'teven think they went into
burning buildings.
You know this whole, like yousaid, four letter word.
Well, see, what we had figuredout, at least in my department,
(09:56):
is that effectiveness and safetykind of go hand in hand.
So if you're doing everythingthe way you're supposed to be
doing is you're going to haveoperational effectiveness on the
other side, especially if youmatch and do size up and all the
rest of it.
So that was, and in fact wewere very forward in attacking
(10:24):
the fire.
You know people say fast,aggressive, blah, blah, blah,
all those words that we love touse.
Well, we live that and I reallydo believe that the reason that
we had the success we had,especially in the safety area,
is because we had a system wherethe task level would pace the
way we engaged into the.
(10:45):
So the first company would getthere and they would take
command, right, and then they'redoing a set of actions.
See, they're like, okay, you'retaking commands, so nobody's
doing anything.
You're like, well, no, we havefour-person companies, you've
established a water supply, theofficer's doing a size up,
they're making the hookups forthe water supply, the other
firefighter is advancing anattack line to where it needs to
(11:06):
go, and they're all going tocatch up.
So within a minute is you'repressing from the time the
airbrake set.
A minute later you're figuringout where your attack point is
and we're getting ready to goinside.
So it was a very fast unfoldingthing.
But then there was a sequence toit.
So the next company in justcouldn't blow in and do.
(11:28):
What they wanted is they had tostage, and then they got
assigned to the incident actionplan.
So whatever they did supportedwhat the first company did.
So there was never anything atodds.
So anyway, during the course ofmy career, most of the time
we'd put the fire out.
That would eliminate thehazards, remove them, and so it
(11:49):
got a lot safer In the eventthat we didn't, is command would
quickly.
It typically always started offwith a company officer who was a
mobile IC.
They'd assign the first two orthree companies and then by then
a BC's there.
C They'd assign the first twoor three companies and then by
then a BC's there.
Well, so the BC let's say BCtakes command seven at the seven
(12:10):
, eight minute mark of the deal.
Well, you've had the initialoperation, has been putting
water on the fire for a minuteor two.
In most cases that's enough toswitch it, as we've gone from an
offensive fire to now we gotknocked down and we're doing
post fire control stuff wherewe're overhauling, checking for
extension and those things.
Well, in the event that that'snot what happened and the fire
(12:32):
keeps going and garrison talkedabout it the other day in a
podcast we were doing, um, asyou get there as ic number two,
and now you're doing a size up.
You're doing everything thefirst one did and you're like
well, we've been putting tasklevel action on this thing for
two or three minutes and I thinkit's gotten bigger.
So then what you would do isyou'd readjust the incident
(12:55):
action plan so you could maybedo a second push on the fire and
if that wasn't working,typically in the world of
structural firefighting you getone revision and then, if that
doesn't do it, you're lookingmore like defensive conditions
now, because the fire has beenburning 10 minutes maybe and
it's traveling into places whereit's affecting the structure
(13:15):
and all the other stuff.
So what happened is IC numbertwo is in command and it gets
passed offensive and they pullus out, they declare defensive
and we all come out and do theroll call and you know, boom,
boom, boom, and then thebuildings it's going to burn
down.
Well, and that's what happens,whether you want it to or not.
That's just science and facts.
(13:36):
So you're not.
There's a number of burningbuildings, probably, I don't
know.
In urban places they get a veryrapid fire response.
I don't know.
20 percent, 15 percent aregoing to burn to the ground.
That's the nature of it.
Don't have a fire if you don'twant your building to burn to
the ground.
That's that's kind of whathappens.
(13:58):
So the IC says no, there's therisk isn't worth the gain.
You see these T-shirts that youknow.
Yes, it's worth the risk.
Well, you've got to qualifythat.
What's worth the risk?
I don't know.
Is that worth the risk?
Well, it's all worth the risk.
No, it ain't, buddy, uh-uh.
No, what it is is that'snegligence.
(14:22):
In fact it's amateurish.
Is what it is?
No negligence, in fact it'samateurish.
Is what it is.
No, I'm going to stick with thisattack.
It doesn't matter, because wewon't be chased out.
Well, when the fire says youwill be, you will be.
And we're seeing that now outof fire departments where
they'll send a crew in withoutwater to do a search or whatever
.
And now they're taking threefirefighters to the hospital
(14:45):
that will never return to workagain because of the fire.
That's what it does.
I mean, we understand that.
So, anyway, command, we've gotthe system.
Southwest Supermarkets happens.
We're going through therecovery process and the fire
chief says some things havechanged and we need to somehow
(15:07):
deal with this.
So we're making the changes inour own fire department and he's
taking a set of notes.
So I end up on a note.
At some point it was about sixmonths in this process we sit
down and he says hey, we need toproduce another book on the
safety effect that fire commandhas, and because we're going to
fix some things as far ascommercial fires go in our own
fire department where this thingblew up on us the way it did,
(15:32):
and it's demonstrated a couplethings.
Well, during your career there'salways these pet peeves.
You have these little thingsyou put in your pocket and think
we got to fix this somehow, butI just don't know how to do it
and it conflicts with too manyother things and it's just kind
of we don't know how to wrap ourhead around it.
Well, when in our department,when we had our line of duty
(15:52):
death, it's like we weregalvanized because of the
walkthrough that we did.
I'm going to say 98% of thePhoenix fire department went
through a walkthrough withinthree days of that event
happening.
And so we saw and these arelike firefighters, even like the
vapid A-shift ladder peoplewere trying.
(16:14):
They had to control theiremotions because they knew what
happened in there and what acertain point.
It's like no, you get out aheadof this because this building's
going to the dump.
Offensive tactics do not putout defensive fire conditions.
They don't, they never have.
And in fact if the building'sbig enough, it'll be on the
national news because that'sjust what happens.
(16:36):
So we were galvanized to makesure that didn't occur again.
So that was really during my29-year career that was the most
unified the Phoenix FireDepartment ever was was the two
or three years coming out of theSouthwest supermarket incident.
Well, during that, as my dad'skind of sitting in the
(16:56):
background driving the thing,he's taking notes.
And so he asked you know ifyou'll do the layout for like
for each function and put likethe key stuff that we found on
the thing?
We'll do that together.
And then he says I'll flesh outthe rest of it and then we'll
hook up and get it illustrated.
Ok, perfect.
(17:17):
So I don't know, it took himabout a year, I don't know, a
year maybe something like that.
And then you had command safety, which was the companion
textbook to fire command.
That told the safety effect ofwhat well managed look like and
kind of how that paid off, andthat really that whole process
(17:40):
led to embedding kind of theconcept of safety into
structural firefighting.
And really we started looking atit like any kind of other high
risk adventure, like if you're ascuba diver what we talked
about with the people under seato start this thing or a
skydiver is like OK, we're goingto have a safety officer as we
(18:00):
skydive and jump out of theplane, and you're like, well,
what the hell do they do?
Because it's too late, we'vejump out of the plane.
And you're like, well, what thehell do they do?
Because it's too late, we'vealready committed to the jump
and now we're falling atterminal velocity.
So if there's some kind ofsafety thing they can do, maybe
they have a harpoon gun.
They shoot you through like theass A net, yeah.
So it's one of those deals.
(18:20):
If you ain't doing it as partof the activity, it's one of
those deals.
If you ain't doing it as partof the activity, it isn't going
to get done and you're going toget the consequences of whatever
that is.
So that's really what commandsafety was about.
So if you will just manageyourself in a standard kind of
way is you can recover fromcertain things a lot of times,
whether it's you took it throughthe wrong door or whatever it
(18:44):
was.
The fire did this when everybodythought it would do that.
So and we say, you got to bedoing everything right when
something goes wrong, because ifyou're not, there's no way to
unpack it.
And we demonstrated that in a25,000 square foot grocery store
that had a very senior fire init that we weren't going to put
out.
Once it got up in the attic,which happened in the first two
(19:08):
or three minutes of the fire,it's over.
Once that thing's running inthe attic, you're done.
The wind's blowing, so you puta 25 mile an hour wind to it and
you got smoke puffing up in theattic and it took them 15 or 20
minutes to really figure outwhere that thing was burning and
the way that funky building waslaid out.
(19:29):
Well, you had people on theback on the Charlie side, chiefs
coming home from work, hadpeople on the back on the
charlie side, chiefs coming homefrom work, and they're trying
to get on the radio to tell theic you get them out.
Now you got smoke puffing outof all the attic vents on the
back of this building.
Man, it is lit up.
They can't because they'remaydaying that just to the cows
(19:51):
come home on the inside of thatthing.
So it it was, and really thething that I think a lot of us
took away from that is hey, man,we killed one person and we
there were 16 people in here,and if this roof would have
collapsed like it should have,we're at.
We're 40 minutes into it in asenior attic fire.
(20:12):
I have never been to a building, 25,000 square feet, where the
roof was still up that long.
So it was everyone, knewEveryone, with any time at all
or any kind that had any kind ofjuice in the system.
No, we're we.
We, we to say that we lostsomebody.
And we're lucky To say that welost somebody and we're lucky.
(20:33):
And you have like a wholebattalion and a whole shift that
is going to have some issueswith this for the rest of their
lives as they were at this thingand it was, there were 20
people who were convinced theywere going to die in this thing
and went in anyway to pull himout and it was like, well, they
(20:53):
knew, in the command van, hesaid shit, he's been dead for a
while now, so just livingthrough that is is really.
You know, you hear Vinnie Dunntalk about it.
He, he was at the father's daysfire and a bunch of others.
And he says what I did, insteadof going crazy is he says it
must've been therapeutic for him.
He said I started writing booksand researching and so he
became the building construction.
(21:15):
Don't let it kill you, guy.
And I think that's what my daddid, just with command safety
and say, no, if the system isn'tprotecting you in real time,
then it ain't protecting you,because when the wall falls, if
you're under it, you're dead.
There's no one ringing thatbell and it isn't worth the risk
to die when you know.
Pulling up to the scene.
(21:36):
Well, picture this the buildingslated for demolition has got a
fence around it and you end upwith the fatality off of that
after the fire.
You can't justify that.
It's like, no, well, no, it wasworth the risk, there could
have been somebody in there.
And this is what we do.
No, that's not what uh-uh.
People with a pension don'tjust disregard their lives as
(22:01):
fodder and paper and say, well,no, this is.
You know, we're throwinganother virgin down.
The volcano almost is what itsounds like.
So really effective structuralfirefighting operations.
They're very quick to unloadand put into place and you have
to react to it.
You've got to be conscious.
You just can't say, well, thisworked last time and now I've
(22:22):
got a different building thatwill maybe work this time.
You have to be present andmanage the thing, and really
that's kind of what commandsafety tells the story for, and
it just goes through each of thefunctions and say, okay with
deployment.
This is how we do thisorganization strategy and
incident action planning.
Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And continuing on with that thought on strategy,
because that's really where theincident commander saves the
lives of the firefightersworking under their command.
I think the book talks about.
It's the term survivabilityprofile, right?
Yeah, that's in the book.
So you know, part of that isit's not a one size fits all for
survivability profile, and Ithink that's something that gets
left out a lot of times whenwe're, you know, breaching a
(23:04):
fence and then going into searchin a secured, abandoned
building or something like that.
So what does survivabilityprofile look like to you?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Survivability is the ability.
When we talk about it, it's theability of an unprotected
person to survive in that firecompartment.
So fire compartments have verylow survivability traits about
them.
One of the examples we used issee and firefighters almost
(23:38):
disregard that sometimes becausewe're protected.
But you're seeing incidents nowwhere you're burning
firefighters up in buildings andyou think why were you in there
doing that?
Well, we were doing a search.
Well, you didn't have an attackline with you.
That's one reason you gotburned.
But well, we wouldn't take theattack line because it slows the
search down.
You think you won't, you willnever return to duty.
(24:00):
You have, you have sufferedheavy burn, trauma and you were
fully protected.
The person that you're going inthere to save has, they were
dead before they.
You see, and a lot of peopleyou can't.
Are you God?
You can't see, you don't knowwhat's going on?
Yeah, I do.
I did it long enough, just as afirefighter and I have, like,
(24:23):
read a lot.
Look at any scientific study.
You can't survive in theseareas.
The human skin is destroyed at163 degrees, destroyed at 163
degrees, and now we're lookingat having face piece lenses that
last above six or 700 degrees.
So you're like.
(24:43):
It's not a proximity suit thatwe're wearing inside.
You're not, you know.
And then you look at all themanufacturers and the people
that actually design thatturnout gear and they say, no,
you're not supposed to burn it,you're not supposed to get it
that hot.
It loses its ability to protectyou and, in fact, your gear can
survive certain things andit'll kill you as the wearer.
(25:06):
It will radiate through andkill you.
There's a number of line of dutydeaths that talk about that,
where they think, well, theylook fine, no, it was.
Their organs are screwed upfrom the fire man, they're dead.
That's what happened.
So that's part of the size upprocess.
So if I pull up somewhere andI'm looking at it and think that
(25:28):
fire compartment has gone toflashover, well, there's nobody
alive in there to save.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to knock the fire
down and really the search andrescue for that area there isn't
any.
What you're doing is you'relooking for bodies, victims.
That didn't make it out.
That's why you're searchingthat You're going to find the
bodies on the other side ofwhere the fire is.
(25:50):
So there's got to be separationwalls or something that keeps
the heat and smoke and firegases and all the other toxic
elements of those products ofcombustion off the survivable
members, anybody that's trappedinside that building and it's.
I mean, that's just the realityof it.
So until you stop that firefrom doing what it's doing, is
(26:19):
everybody in or around thatstructure is at great risk.
So if you and it's tough to dothis, but like when the police
go in if there's somebodyshooting a gun at people,
they're going straight in andthey're going to take out that
threat right.
Well, if you look like a personwith a gun, they kill anybody
who they see and shoot at Astructure.
(26:39):
Fire kills everybody that's inthe fire area.
There's.
No, it just doesn't.
It's the laws of nature, it'shumans can't survive in those
same spaces.
So and Blue Card does this isthe first thing we do when we
get to the scene is we controlthe fire, because the fire is
where the problem is and that'swhat's killing people and that's
(27:01):
really kind of command safetyis written around that.
So it stresses the importanceof being ready to go to work
when you get there and then whenyou pull up and you say it's
offensive is we're putting wateron the fire right now and in
fact, command safety was writtenaround offensive tactics of
(27:23):
engaging the fire from insidethe building.
Cause that's what we believedin 2001 in Phoenix, arizona, is
you did not put outside water inoffensive situations.
You went to the sea of the fireand that's the way you did your
business.
Coming out of that about 2007 to10, in there somewhere they
(27:45):
started doing studies andlooking at that, because the
scientists are like, why do younot do this?
Well, because it'll steampeople.
And they're looking at you like, all right, you make steam at
212 degrees and at 168, yourskin goes away.
So what are you talking about?
Well, we'll steam thefirefighters.
(28:05):
Well, you're wearing protectivegear and you know you got a
hood and this and that, and youknow I've been steam burned a
couple of times and it was ourfault because we put water too
close and it came back on us andwhatever.
But anyway, in fact, reallywhat it was is it wasn't putting
water on, we were just tooclose.
You know, because that was kindof the deal is you get as close
as you can and you kick its ass.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
So well then, the other myth, or whatever you want
to call it, was attacking fromthe unburned side.
And if you didn't do it thatway, you're going to push the
fire into uninvolved areas.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And when I put when I when.
When the fire department showsup and puts the fire fire out,
it protects.
It's the quickest way toprotect life and property.
Now, if you talk to thecustomer and say, what do you
expect out of the firedepartment?
When they get there, put thefire out.
That's why we called you.
Well, no, we're going to showup and we're going to do these
(28:59):
six things ahead of putting thefire out, because this is what
we feel we need to do.
Well, every one of those that Iknow of that goes outside of
putting the fire out is adetriment to an effective.
Let's not even use the wordsafe, let's use effective.
See, using the fire commandsystem, you get to the scene and
(29:25):
you're putting water on itwithin a minute.
Two minutes later you got thefire controlled.
You could do a lot of thingsnow.
You could make a lot ofmistakes if you want that aren't
going to be fatal, becausethere's not 2000 degrees and
smoke and fire gases getting you.
In fact, after you put the fireout, the thing that you're
careful about is not getting thecancer on you, so you don't die
(29:46):
20 years later.
I mean, that's kind of whatyou're looking at is now I've
got a high risk thing that'lltake me out.
Right now I eliminate that, andnow I've got a bunch of small
hazards that'll lie dormant inmy body until they blossom later
on.
Well, the quicker we put thefire out, the quicker those free
radicals quit getting made byall that nasty heat.
(30:11):
So, and in fact, a lot of theseinternet tacticians work for
fire departments that will havetwo and three person staffing
for the two or three units thatthey're going to take the world
over with.
So in those places, the bestthing you can do is put the fire
(30:31):
out.
In fact, if you're not puttingthe fire out and you're doing
something that isn't that andthe initial part of that is
you're really not taking thecorrect actions.
In fact, I would call that into.
Now I quit looking at all thenonsense on YouTube.
It's just.
All it does is just make youmad.
You go about it, but every nowand then you'll hear somebody
(30:53):
say, nah, the comment section iswhere you need to be, because
then you'll get somebody who'slike a 25-year captain that says
, oh, look at all you pros, notan attack line in sight, and
you're all off gassing andburning right now.
Way to get the job done, son.
So it's almost like it's not asuccessful fire attack unless we
(31:15):
have scorched our gear and thencut a hole somewhere.
We've done a certain set ofthings that are like a checklist
set of tactics that we useEvery single fire that we go to.
We do these things and youthink, well, you didn't need to
do that, you didn't need to cutthat hole there.
You could have done this and itwould have been done three
(31:36):
times as fast, it wouldn't havedone the damage and you would
have reduced your on-scene timeby 30 minutes.
I mean, you would have put itback that much quicker, you
would have been done with theoperation, and a lot of it is.
There's just no—there's zeroregulation for fire departments
as it comes to structuralfirefighting.
(31:56):
It's like no, we show up and wedo what we're going to do, and
nobody gets to look at it.
And so a lot of these sameindividuals get pissed off.
When NIOSH writes a report.
How dare you criticize us?
You're like they're doing anafter action review.
Pal, that's what we do.
You know you kind of.
Why did this happen and how dowe keep it from happening again?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So, and it's to help others, yeah, it's actually
going to benefit the safety ofour future brethren.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, vance, if you.
I just saw the email from Garyabout the thing you guys did.
Aggressive tacticians I meanthat's just very aggressive and
as aggressive as any firedepartment that's ever been.
And they go to fires, oh, theyget some, and it's almost like,
(32:43):
oh, where has this been?
We're better as firefightersdoing it this way.
We're tens down here where wehad to do all these stupid
things for our ego.
We were threes.
We were not the people.
I don't want them coming.
Don't burn yourself up in myfire, just put the water on it
(33:04):
and knock it down and yeah, soin the book we're talking
strategy and managing thestrategy, and that's the safety
impact.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And then there's a lot about situational awareness
and I'm wondering you, as an ICsitting in the buggy in command,
how did you make let's justwalk through situational
awareness and what that lookslike, how much of it is your
visual cues, what you're seeingversus can reports, versus
anything else that you'regetting versus?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
can reports versus anything else that you're
getting.
Well, it's a collage of allthose things.
So, especially for IC numbertwo, because you're going to get
there after the first three orfour companies.
So everybody's responding yousee smoke on the horizon, you
know God's out and working, yada, yada, yada.
So now what we're waiting foris the very first unit to clear.
(33:57):
So let's say it's in engine25's first two area.
When you hear engine 25 clear,that means in our system that
engine 25 wants to say somethingto the dispatch center.
That's going to be more thanjust the one sentence thing.
So the dispatch center comesback and says, go ahead, engine
(34:18):
25.
And the other thing that doesis it ensures to that company
officer that they're on thecorrect tactical radio channel.
Because and this was part oftraining, is that how many of
you have given an initial radioreport over channel one and all
the old guys raise their handand say, yeah, it sucks.
The best initial radio reporterI ever gave was over channel
one and all the old guys raisetheir hand and say, yeah, it
sucks.
The best initial radio reporterI ever gave was on channel one
(34:39):
and they told me to go toanother channel.
It was a shit show from thereon out.
And you're like, yeah, exactly,so that's how we make sure that
we don't do that.
And so, like, if you go engine25 clear and the dispatch center
says 25, your traffic's onchannel three, good, 25 clear,
go ahead, 25.
Well, everybody else respondingknows you're about to say
(35:02):
something.
So to the point that, look, Iworked on a ladder, I turned the
sirens off, we would go codetwo while we listened to what
they were doing, and then thatwould dictate how we would
respond.
The rest of our deal so anyway.
So now they give their initialradio report and let's say I'm
on scene of a house with aworking fire offensive, doing X,
(35:25):
y and Z.
Well, so now I'm thinking, okay, good, so they've got less than
2,000 square foot, usuallysingle level, maybe two story,
no basements in Phoenix.
So you know, we didn't eventhink about that.
So I got a certain set ofthings going on in my mind as I
see number two.
So that's where my thoughtprocess is and I'm like, okay,
based on my experience going tothese house fires, it's going to
(35:46):
take a minute, maybe a minuteand a half, and that black smoke
should start to be knocked downand I should start to see
conversion.
Right, that's it.
So like when the when they picka new Pope, black smoke, black
smoke, white smoke, new Pope,white smoke has fires being
controlled, so I'm looking forthe white smoke baby.
(36:06):
Then when it's so, let's sayit's not, it keeps going black.
Well, I get there and I think,okay, this is, it's not going
out.
I'm going to transfer commandof the thing.
So now I figure out.
So what you got to do is think,okay, this is what it looked
like when they got there.
So you got to, kind of okay,but probably was here, and now
it's a little bigger here andthey're just not getting water
(36:27):
on.
It is what it is.
So I'll transfer command andthen I'll usually go to the IC.
I mean, this is one of thesethings where this really
happened.
I got it out here, engine 8.
I've done all that.
Have you dropped the ceilingsyet?
No, we're still getting to theback.
No, stop right now and opensome ceilings and put water in
(36:48):
the attic right now.
Oh, okay, you raised your voice.
It's where the fire is.
So now my expectation is in thenext 30 seconds to a minute, I
should start to see somethingdifferent, whether it's the
smoke starts to change color alittle bit.
We're going to get some pushand poking, because now I'm
(37:10):
going to have some expansion upinto the attic with my water
vapor and all the other stuff.
So this is what I'm looking for.
I'm also looking at the roof,making sure that it's got its
shape.
It doesn't have any big sags init.
We don't have a bunch of firecoming in it.
You're looking at the eaves tosee what kind of heat you got,
you know, with the tar comingoff the thing.
So just kind of, the structureis keeping its shape.
(37:33):
I don't have a bunch of cracks.
So it's still an offensive setof things.
But the fire's getting biggerand bigger until we put water in
it.
So now what I'm doing is I'mgetting other companies up.
Now.
Command to whoever do this,command to the latter, do this.
Blah, blah, blah.
So we're doing the actions thatwe would typically do.
If a minute or two later it'snot happening, then I'm going to
(37:54):
go back inside.
What's going on, give me a canreport, and then they're going
to.
In this case, once they got theceilings open, they put water
in it.
Then the fire started going out.
So, okay, perfect.
So now, now it's just keepingpeople doing what they're doing
and it's like, okay, in anotherminute it's smoke's going away,
and now I just got this.
(38:14):
So then we're going to slowthis thing down, we're going to
get it ventilated, we'll finishthe search in the thing.
Other companies are coming innow and starting to do that
piece of it.
So that's kind of the way youmaintain.
For me as the IC, most of thesafety stuff, especially at
structural fires, was uscontrolling the fire, and so
(38:34):
that's kind of what you'relooking for.
And then one of the safetystuff, especially structural
fires, was us controlling thefire, and so that's kind of what
you're looking for.
And then one of the things thatcame out of command safety or
command safety talks about andthis was after the recovery
process is any attack positionwhere you've got three or more
task level companies assignedand operating.
Is you need, especially if youdon't have fire control, is you
need a division boss, a truetactical boss?
(38:56):
So that would be BC number twocoming in, and we went through
this with you.
Know, a company officer coulddo it.
They have the skills.
No, this isn't about that.
They are a working boss.
They don't provide entrycontrol and a tactical boss does
so.
They can't provide entrycontrol and their work cycle is
too dynamic.
(39:17):
They got about 10 minutes atthe most on air and then they're
going to have to recycleoutside and then they go back on
deck when they're ready to goback to work.
Well, the supervisor managingthat task level crew can't
manage the tactics for thatattack position.
There's too many things goingon.
So, and that became a thing thatyou had to get through to both
(39:41):
company officers and chiefofficers, because company
officers said well, we could doit.
You're like how to work atSouthwest Supermarkets.
Yeah, you're right.
So what it was is they had newinformation that broke their
beliefs and they thought, no, wecan't do that anymore, man.
And so now they start goingback to a bad place and it's
like no, we got it, we have tostay out of.
That kind of trouble is, once weget in that deep, we're done.
(40:05):
If we survive, it's just bychance.
It's nothing we did that causedus to survive, it was just dumb
luck.
So you know, eric Phillips andChris Stewart talk about
accidental success just dumbluck.
So you know, eric Phillips andChris Stewart talk about
accidental success.
Well, I don't think we hadaccidental success quickly
attacking the fire.
That's intentional success.
You know, in freelancing, ifyou're the company that put
(40:25):
water on it, your plan was right, but you can't manage.
Freelancing is the problem.
And so once you get five, 10minutes into that, you end up
with it's nothing different thanSouthwest supermarkets.
So, and they did not takestrategic control of that fire
until they had tactical bosseson the Bravo side of that thing.
They just didn't.
You lost all control until youput a tactical boss in place.
(40:47):
So I mean I just kind of stressthe importance in bigger
buildings, more active attackpositions, is putting that chief
up sooner.
Well, captain saw that, butthen it was getting the BCs.
He's like well, man, my turnoutsare made out of Nomex and I
think there's like a wholecolony of spiders in them
because we don't wear them.
I mean, come on Like well, it'sa new day, and if you're number
(41:10):
two, you're going to be.
And they're like well, and theywould almost you could see it
in training they almost saidwell, just don't, just don't use
us that way.
And so, like when you were theIC though it's like bullshit,
you're, you're going to getassigned, because that's the
only way I'm going to stay incontrol of this is to put one of
my counterparts is the tacticalboss.
(41:31):
That's what you're there for.
So you think, well, right, youknow, if a fire department gets
I don't know, two or threeworking fires in a day, one of
them may be of a big enoughscope where you actually assign
a BC as a tactical boss.
But it didn't happen oftenbecause you put the fire out so
quickly.
So if I put the fire out in thefirst five minutes with an
(41:52):
attack line and two crews, iteliminates my need in most cases
to build an organization on thetactical level because we've
eliminated those risks.
So now you've got a captain canmanage that because you're
getting into a place whereyou're not tied to inside air
SCBA air you're going toventilate, then you can use a
(42:14):
filter mask or whatever, andthen you can make you don't have
a bunch of people wanting topush to get in where you need to
keep entry control and lobby inthe thing.
So it's like, well, no, we'rejust overhauling now, and now we
got.
So it may be that you move some.
Let's say you're doingoverhauling a Home Depot, right,
and you controlled the fire andyou had a sprinkler activation.
(42:36):
Now you got rack storage.
Well, you're probably going toput a division boss inside there
If you're doing like overhauloperations, just to make sure
that companies are operating ina safe way, because now it's the
fallen stuff and you think,well, no, we got the fire
control.
We shouldn't let like a box fullof wet shit kill us now.
So stay out of its way and weneed to extinguish it.
(42:58):
What we really want to do isgive this store back to the Home
Depot people.
So if the fire's out andthere's a big mess in the middle
of the aisle, that is theirissue and they've got systems to
deal with that.
We're not cleaning this thingout.
This ain't 1960 anymore, wherewe like use squeegees on, uh,
(43:21):
spalted concrete is our finaldeal before we leave.
So it's uh, yeah, more in fact,vance, I'm getting off track
again, but there's more and more.
As the building becomes moretechnical, the more likely
overhaul is going to be done bythe building owners.
Because if you have like a,let's say, a warehouse that does
logistics, shipping, and it'sgot conveyor belts and shit like
that, we ain't, we ain'tdicking with it, we put the fire
(43:42):
out.
We're sure the fire's out.
There's an overhaul issue.
We're giving the building backto you.
We'll stand by, but we're notthis.
This is off limits.
There's people that do this.
I mean, there's companies thattake care of this, and they know
who they are and that's reallywhat they want, these building
(44:03):
owners.
They said no, we spent millionsof dollars for the fire
protection and now we want toput this building back in
service in two weeks.
So please leave, and it'snothing for you, but just a very
complicated building.
The people in here are going tobe supervised by structural
engineers.
This is a different operation.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
So one of the things that it talks so we're managing
our strategy, we've got goodsituational awareness, risk
management.
Then, after the incident, thebook talks about post-incident
analysis.
How has that evolved in the 20years or so?
Now we've got the AAR, but wasthat the same thing or was that
(44:44):
done any different?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
How all this came from is the first edition of
Fire Command and into the secondedition of Fire Command.
You talked about strategy andinstant action planning, coming
up with an instant action plan.
Well, I was a battalion chiefand I started teaching tactics
with Garrison.
He was at BC about a year ortwo ahead of me, so the two of
us kind of did the A101 and 201tactics right and so I'm on my
(45:11):
first class with him and we'regoing through size up and
incident action planning, thecritical factors and all that
you know and the tacticalpriorities.
So I couldn't, it didn't makeany sense to me.
Incident action planning it washard to teach because I really
didn't understand it.
It's like offensive quick wateron the thing.
So that's where the strategicdecision-making model was born
(45:35):
is sitting down and saying, no,there's got to be a simpler way
where it really kind of allthese elements, you got to
sequence them in a way.
So it was almost like they putit in but the directions weren't
there so you had to kind ofwander through the forest a
little bit.
So that's kind of what Garrisonand I ended up doing and it
kind of changed the way thedepartment taught tactics.
(45:57):
Well, it just because it wassimpler and it made more sense.
See, you had to have a Bshifter in there at some point
to decipher what the A shiftershad created.
So that's what happened thatsystem where you got to the
scene and you absorbed thecritical fire ground factors and
(46:18):
then you context those againstboth the completion of the
tactical priorities and the riskmanagement plan, the
survivability of the compartment.
We're dealing with all thatstuff.
So it's like well, no, thisfire attack is not going to save
anybody in the fire compartmentbecause they're all dead.
It realizes that and that's theway it operates.
(46:38):
Reality.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to go in and we're
going to attack that first.
Well, that's not where you'regoing to find the victims.
The victims are on the otherside of the walls.
So that's where that came from.
And then what happens is we usethat same exact process where
we figure out okay, this is thestrategy, and then the
(47:01):
corresponding incident actionplan.
Well, that is the same model weuse to run the after action
review.
So we would get the firstin-company officer.
And this is I mean now.
This is this was ahead ofSouthwest Supermarkets.
This is probably two or threeyears ahead of Southwest
(47:21):
Supermarkets.
So I'm a battalion chief, I getto the scene.
I ended up taking command.
15 minutes later we got firecontrol big ass apartment
complex.
Now we're doing the afteraction review.
There's four engines, twoladders, two BCs.
We canceled the other alarms.
They're going.
So it's us in the front 10minutes, right, okay, guy named
(47:45):
John was the IC engine.
Five, john, what'd you have?
Well, nick, I got here, I had aworking fire in this unit.
I knew it was in the attic andso I came in, did fire attack.
And then the big end is engine14 was next to I.
Put them over there, get an allclear, get up in the attic,
(48:05):
stop horizontal spread and thelittle land I had, engine 25, go
over there.
I had the cut the roof.
That's what we did back in theday.
You know that was kind of thetactics, still.
So, boom, boom, boom.
You got here, you took it over,excellent, so you know what.
So then he talked about theeffect of the attack.
We got in, we knocked it downpretty quick.
(48:27):
We had a little bit of fire inthe attic but you know, on both
sides they got the ceilings down.
Boom, boom, boom, so like, andthese were pretty good sized
occupancies, probably at least25, 30, 40 feet long each in the
building, these units.
So the one thing we talkedabout is where do you pull your
ceiling to stop it?
They said, well, I pulled it onthe wall that it shared with
(48:49):
the fire occupancy.
I had fire in the attic, so Iwent to the other end, pulled it
.
It was clear.
We pulled it bigger.
We got up there and we startedputting water in the attic.
So we got ahead of it and Ithought, okay, what'd that look
like?
Well, we made a mess on oneside and then we made a mess on
the other side.
But you know, that's said well,one burned out, two suffered
(49:10):
fire damage.
There's 40 units that havenothing wrong with them today.
See that, if we would have, ifif John would have taken his
crew and done blind searches, wewould have, we would have lost
half the building at least.
So that's where I'm talkingeffective.
He went in, he puts fire out,so that's really so.
(49:32):
What happened is that sold itas you do that eight or nine
times over a period of three orfour months, and then the
workforce gloms onto it.
It's like no man.
This is too good.
And then we look likecheerleaders in the after action
review.
It is, you know, it's just, it'sa better, safer way to do it.
And now we're starting tounderstand this.
It's not a mystery anymore, andso it's so.
(49:55):
We're communicating on B shiftturns at that point, so it
becomes so everybody's a littlebit happier.
I mean, you're, it's asuccessful operation.
Uh, john has got his gold star.
His crew thinks a little morehighly of him.
He feels a little bit better.
I mean, maybe I don't know I'mmaking this shit up now.
Vance, his kids go to college,they become doctors and they,
(50:19):
yeah, that's how evolutionhappens.
Yeah, so that's really kind ofthe way we did that.
Well that, so we just took thatsame system and put it on
steroids, and then what we didis we wrapped.
We said, okay, we've been doingrapid intervention this way for
a long time, well, let's seehow that works.
And so you ran it through thatprocess of okay, the critical
factors, and then that's goingto lead me to risk management
(50:42):
strategy, life safety, blah,blah, blah, blah.
So people could start to makesense of things even ahead of it
.
So when you started saying, hey, man, rapid intervention don't
work.
And well, the task level knewthat when you assign somebody to
become a RIC, most companieswere pissed.
They were, oh Jesus Christ, infact to the point that, like,
(51:03):
the third-end company would notstage, they would wait for
somebody else to stage, and thenthe third-engine stages or they
would stage for them.
I had that happen where engine14 staged for engine 25.
And so that one didn't work,though Thanks, geofencing.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Now you can't do that .
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well, it didn't matter, because we needed
another line.
We didn't need a RIC crew, Ineeded a line to stop the fire
from burning down the next house.
So that's what we did.
So engine 14 said copy, becausethey thought they were going to
be the RIC.
And then Engine 25 goes.
Hey, engine 25 is last, engine25, ric.
So Engine 25 is going to file agrievance after the thing,
(51:44):
because I was the third.
You assigned the third unit tofirefighting.
I said, well, yeah, I needed tobecause there was fire to fight
.
And I assigned the fourth unitto take Rick because all the
firefighting was covered.
It was.
It was an excellent system forlike understanding what you were
actually doing and why you weredoing it.
(52:04):
So you almost had to justifythe actions you took.
Is what?
Why did you do this?
It just kind of like your mom.
Why did you do this, this one,why did you throw the rock
through the window?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Well, because it felt good, well, don't do it again.
I think fire command reallygives us the basis for
everything as far as the bookgoes.
But uh, fire, uh, I'm sorry.
Command safety if you haven'tread it.
It's a modern look at thesafety philosophies that an
incident commander should have.
Probably is the best way todescribe it.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, and it all kind of starts with your
firefighter's gear has a limitto what it can take and it's not
designed to be an entry suit.
It's designed to protect themagainst something that you don't
want to happen to them.
Changing conditions yeah, andit's like, no, this isn't.
I was young and dumb and didthe same thing.
I'm flowing water and smokingand I'm like, well, god, that
(52:59):
hurts, but what are they goingto say about me?
You know, it's that whole deal,and what you rely on then is a
captain grabbing you and sayingyou're going too fast, knock it
off, moron here, and put thewater on it, and then we'll move
.
Yeah, uh-uh, no more of this.
So yeah, you know, and theproblem is, is that's a tough
(53:22):
way to educate yourself, becausefirst of all, you're getting
burned unnecessarily and theother thing is it'll kill you.
So now you're doingoccupational suicide.
It's tactical Russian roulette.
You're like, no, this is.
And fires are even moreunpredictable today.
They burn hotter and fasterthan they did when I was doing
this in the 80s and 90s.
(53:42):
It's uh-uh.
Want to do a timeless tacticaltruth.
We may as well Vance.
That's the way we end thesethings.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Timeless tactical truth from Alan Bernasini the
eight of hearts.
Effective control by the ICequals worker safety.
Effective control by the IC.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
So define control.
The IC controls position andfunction of all operating
resource at the incident scene.
So the other thing the systemgets you is so if the IC could
control your position andfunction.
The other thing is, when you dothat and connect that to a well
thought out incident actionplan is you will more quickly
achieve the completion of thetactical priorities, as the
(54:29):
incident will just run smootherand everything will happen
faster as you don't have peopleworking at odds.
And then the other thing is ifit starts off in an offensive
strategy and the conditionsworsen to the point that people
need to be removed from thebuilding, so the IC uses the
strategy.
So, first of all, thefirefighters can kill the fire.
(54:50):
Second of all, it keeps thefire from killing the
firefighters.
So if the conditionsdeteriorate let's say that it
moves up in the attic and youneed to move everybody out right
Then if you can controlposition and function, you
withdraw them from the building,you confirm that with the PAR
and then it's okay, we're out.
(55:10):
We're going to keep you in safeareas, so stay out of the
collapse zones and we'll dowhatever we need to keep this
fire from spreading andthreatening other lives and
property.
So that's what operationalcontrol looks like.
Cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Nick Bernasini.
Thanks, man.
Thank you, john Vance.
All right, good seeing you, andthanks to everyone for
listening to B Shifter.
Talk to you soon, ciao.
Welcome to the B Shifter podcast.
Got John Vance, nick Bernasini,hanging out today waving,
waving by to the girls.
They're leaving, we're staying.
That that's it.
We're committed to podcasting.
That's what we do.
It's what we're all about.
How are you doing today, nick?
I'm doing well, jv.
How about you?
Speaker 2 (00:34):
doing good doing good .
Speaker 1 (00:36):
We're just uh wrapping up a train the trainer
here.
We had a good group of folks,beautiful visiting us at the avb
ctc.
That's it so we turn the lightson for another week yep, yeah,
we'll be back again next monthdoing the same thing woohoo.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
And then in between there's probably two, three or
four of them going on on theroad somewhere in america.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Yeah, yeah, excellent , sorry for drinking on the air,
that's that not cool.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
It's clear nutritious fluid that we're taking in
Water, which is a yeah, that'slike number one on the Maslow
list right there.
Speaker 1 (01:12):
It's funny because I think the first couple of
podcasts ever that we recordedseveral years ago we would drink
beer and then that just kind ofbecame not a good idea.
Remember we would drink a beerwhile we were doing the podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
It demands.
Speaker 1 (01:24):
It's all yeah water under the bridge in the old
building, we we'd pop a beeropen really in the yeah and the
thomas road facility.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
Yeah, oh, that's.
I've warehoused many of thosememories.
Yeah, across the way the hallfrom the urologist.
Speaker 1 (01:45):
Which smelled kind of like a urologist's office.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Yeah, it was a very urban office building.
Speaker 1 (01:52):
Well here.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
we are now Got to start somewhere.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Yeah, exactly, so we've evolved.
This is HQ3 or HQ2?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Because really one was out in Indiana and then here
and then yeah, but they had onein Ohio there for a while and,
yeah, they've been all over.
So we've had an opportunity torefine the way it's supposed to
look and operate.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
HQ2 Phoenix.
We would say that there you go.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Well, as Rare Forms says on their door, this is our
world headquarters now.
So yeah, I don't foreseeanother one.
If it happens, it's going to becrazy.
Yes, In fact, maybe a flotilla.
The blue card yeah, arc.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I've always wanted a pirate radio ship.
You know where we couldbroadcast international waters
without getting in trouble withthe FCC not that anyone listens
to FM anymore well, but we'dhave to do it from, maybe like a
submarine, underwater, yeah, sothey really couldn't locate us
at any moment.
Speaker 2 (02:55):
It'd be where we were streaming from, streaming from
the Gulf Stream yeah, but nottoo deep, because I think we've
all learned a lesson from theExplorer Challenger episode,
where you shouldn't undertakeany recreational activity which
is really what that was, youknow just taking tourists to go
see the Titanic, where whenthere's a mechanical failure, it
(03:18):
kills you faster than yournerves your nerves.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
No, I, I, I would uh just avoid getting into a
submersible watercraft that wasbuilt in gus's garage, yeah, and
, and a controller from anintendo is what uh drives it
and the restroom is a fivegallon bucket behind a shower
curtain and I paid fifteenthousand dollars for this.
Yeah, you're gonna blow up, sir.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Yeah, exactly not to make light of it.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Today let's talk about command safety and
specifically I wanted to talkabout Command Safety the book,
because it's really a must-readfor fire officers, because it
bridges what traditional fireground tactics are the blue card
system or fire command and it'ssafety-focused, but also
(04:05):
there's the focus is on gettingthe job done too, and I think
today we're living in a worldwhere safety is a four letter
word and gets criticizedsometimes, and I wanted to talk
about the intent of the book andthe thought behind it and how
it's really meant to get the jobdone while being safe.
(04:27):
And it's something that Brunoused to say all the time that
you know, the number one job ofthe IC is to keep people safe on
the fire ground and I thinkthat message gets lost with
people a lot of times, that thatis really what the IC is there
for.
You know, first and foremost,is that right?
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, and really what it is.
Firefighting is an occupationand like any other occupation,
especially a high risk one, isyou have to build the safety
into it as a regular part ofjust performing structural
firefighting.
So like if you worked in afoundry, as an example, the
(05:04):
people that work in a foundrythis is a very hazardous place
to work and you'd have to goprobably a lot further in our
country to find a foundry.
But back when there was a lotof them operating, especially in
the Midwest, is there were arobust set of safety rules
because if you make a mistake atanywhere during that process
(05:31):
you're dead.
I mean you burn to death, youlose a limb, whatever it is.
We were doing fire command stuffat a place and I forgot where
it was, but they hung up as asafety reminder a three-quarter
ton pickup truck that hadviolated a traffic law inside
the foundry Big giant, you knowwork area there and there's
(05:56):
giant machinery that is movingthat you have to stop because if
it hits your truck, as wasevidenced by this, is it
flattened.
A three-quarter ton floorpickup truck where the tallest
part of it was maybe six toeight inches, and you're like
well, jesus Christ, and youlooked at it and the thing you
were left with is it killed theguy and they said yeah, it did.
(06:17):
You're like, well, is he stillin there?
I mean, could you even recover?
So I'm drifting.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
They drained the truck afterwards, probably they
had to do whatever.
Speaker 2 (06:30):
And then they hung it up and this thing is, I mean,
it's as big as a room and you'relike it took a minute to figure
out and they wrote on it safetyis up to you.
So basically this guy chose notto be safe and he's dead now.
So that's kind of it.
And I guess to answer yourquestion about command safety is
the fire command curriculumpackage, because that's kind of
(06:55):
what it was.
The second edition was afull-blown curriculum package
where you could teachessentially two semesters
Tactics 101 and Tactics 201.
Now, mobile ICs, strategicposition ICs.
That whole thing was out in2000,.
(07:16):
I think I want to say Rightaround.
Then the whole package was doneand going and in fact it's
still in effect today.
The second edition is still.
I mean, we're revising it andwe'll be here sooner than later
with the third edition will comeout.
But what happened right afterthe second edition in 2001, the
Southwest supermarkets Tarverended up getting killed in a
(07:39):
fire in a grocery store, so andthat's had kind of a lasting
effect on a lot of things.
But really what that was iswell, the fire chief at the time
made the observation that wewere using residential tactics
to fight all of our fires,because 80, 85% of all your
fires occur in residentialproperties and those tend to be
(08:02):
smaller buildings, and so yourwater is a lot more effective
because the fire doesn't get asbig and you know it's quicker to
get to and all those otherthings that make fighting fires
in smaller structures.
Those evolutions look a certainway.
Well, we essentially would portthose same tactics over to
commercial buildings and theyworked most of the time, I mean,
(08:24):
if you're able to get water onit quick enough and get around
it and control the fire.
That's kind of where oursuccess came from.
Well, at Southwest Supermarkets.
That's not what happened.
Everybody knows the outcome ofthat thing, and during my career
I got hired in 1980, during mycareer, I got hired in 1980, and
this is 2001.
So 21 years later, the onlyline of duty death from
(08:49):
structural firefighting was thatone during my career.
So one, and, like I said, firecommand had just come out.
So we go through this, we'regoing through this recovery
process to figure out, okay,what went wrong here and why did
everything blow up the way itdid.
So I don't know, it's probablyfour or five months into that
(09:11):
process you could start to pullsome takeaways from it and you
could see where we were going tostart making changes.
And that's kind of where therapid intervention going from a
task level assignment to acapability of the entire
response.
And so, you know, youformulated the on deck and you
(09:32):
had the help order and all theother stuff.
Well, a lot of, I mean the firstthing that happened is a lot of
the fire service thought, jesusChrist, they killed a
firefighter in Phoenix becauseI'm sure three quarters of the
country thought that we didn'teven think they went into
burning buildings.
You know this whole, like yousaid, four letter word.
Well, see, what we had figuredout, at least in my department,
(09:56):
is that effectiveness and safetykind of go hand in hand.
So if you're doing everythingthe way you're supposed to be
doing is you're going to haveoperational effectiveness on the
other side, especially if youmatch and do size up and all the
rest of it.
So that was, and in fact wewere very forward in attacking
(10:24):
the fire.
You know people say fast,aggressive, blah, blah, blah,
all those words that we love touse.
Well, we live that and I reallydo believe that the reason that
we had the success we had,especially in the safety area,
is because we had a system wherethe task level would pace the
way we engaged into the.
(10:45):
So the first company would getthere and they would take
command, right, and then they'redoing a set of actions.
See, they're like, okay, you'retaking commands, so nobody's
doing anything.
You're like, well, no, we havefour-person companies, you've
established a water supply, theofficer's doing a size up,
they're making the hookups forthe water supply, the other
firefighter is advancing anattack line to where it needs to
(11:06):
go, and they're all going tocatch up.
So within a minute is you'repressing from the time the
airbrake set.
A minute later you're figuringout where your attack point is
and we're getting ready to goinside.
So it was a very fast unfoldingthing.
But then there was a sequence toit.
So the next company in justcouldn't blow in and do.
(11:28):
What they wanted is they had tostage, and then they got
assigned to the incident actionplan.
So whatever they did supportedwhat the first company did.
So there was never anything atodds.
So anyway, during the course ofmy career, most of the time
we'd put the fire out.
That would eliminate thehazards, remove them, and so it
(11:49):
got a lot safer In the eventthat we didn't, is command would
quickly.
It typically always started offwith a company officer who was a
mobile IC.
They'd assign the first two orthree companies and then by then
a BC's there.
C They'd assign the first twoor three companies and then by
then a BC's there.
Well, so the BC let's say BCtakes command seven at the seven
(12:10):
, eight minute mark of the deal.
Well, you've had the initialoperation, has been putting
water on the fire for a minuteor two.
In most cases that's enough toswitch it, as we've gone from an
offensive fire to now we gotknocked down and we're doing
post fire control stuff wherewe're overhauling, checking for
extension and those things.
Well, in the event that that'snot what happened and the fire
(12:32):
keeps going and garrison talkedabout it the other day in a
podcast we were doing, um, asyou get there as ic number two,
and now you're doing a size up.
You're doing everything thefirst one did and you're like
well, we've been putting tasklevel action on this thing for
two or three minutes and I thinkit's gotten bigger.
So then what you would do isyou'd readjust the incident
(12:55):
action plan so you could maybedo a second push on the fire and
if that wasn't working,typically in the world of
structural firefighting you getone revision and then, if that
doesn't do it, you're lookingmore like defensive conditions
now, because the fire has beenburning 10 minutes maybe and
it's traveling into places whereit's affecting the structure
(13:15):
and all the other stuff.
So what happened is IC numbertwo is in command and it gets
passed offensive and they pullus out, they declare defensive
and we all come out and do theroll call and you know, boom,
boom, boom, and then thebuildings it's going to burn
down.
Well, and that's what happens,whether you want it to or not.
That's just science and facts.
(13:36):
So you're not.
There's a number of burningbuildings, probably, I don't
know.
In urban places they get a veryrapid fire response.
I don't know.
20 percent, 15 percent aregoing to burn to the ground.
That's the nature of it.
Don't have a fire if you don'twant your building to burn to
the ground.
That's that's kind of whathappens.
(13:58):
So the IC says no, there's therisk isn't worth the gain.
You see these T-shirts that youknow.
Yes, it's worth the risk.
Well, you've got to qualifythat.
What's worth the risk?
I don't know.
Is that worth the risk?
Well, it's all worth the risk.
No, it ain't, buddy, uh-uh.
No, what it is is that'snegligence.
(14:22):
In fact it's amateurish.
Is what it is?
No negligence, in fact it'samateurish.
Is what it is.
No, I'm going to stick with thisattack.
It doesn't matter, because wewon't be chased out.
Well, when the fire says youwill be, you will be.
And we're seeing that now outof fire departments where
they'll send a crew in withoutwater to do a search or whatever
.
And now they're taking threefirefighters to the hospital
(14:45):
that will never return to workagain because of the fire.
That's what it does.
I mean, we understand that.
So, anyway, command, we've gotthe system.
Southwest Supermarkets happens.
We're going through therecovery process and the fire
chief says some things havechanged and we need to somehow
(15:07):
deal with this.
So we're making the changes inour own fire department and he's
taking a set of notes.
So I end up on a note.
At some point it was about sixmonths in this process we sit
down and he says hey, we need toproduce another book on the
safety effect that fire commandhas, and because we're going to
fix some things as far ascommercial fires go in our own
fire department where this thingblew up on us the way it did,
(15:32):
and it's demonstrated a couplethings.
Well, during your career there'salways these pet peeves.
You have these little thingsyou put in your pocket and think
we got to fix this somehow, butI just don't know how to do it
and it conflicts with too manyother things and it's just kind
of we don't know how to wrap ourhead around it.
Well, when in our department,when we had our line of duty
(15:52):
death, it's like we weregalvanized because of the
walkthrough that we did.
I'm going to say 98% of thePhoenix fire department went
through a walkthrough withinthree days of that event
happening.
And so we saw and these arelike firefighters, even like the
vapid A-shift ladder peoplewere trying.
(16:14):
They had to control theiremotions because they knew what
happened in there and what acertain point.
It's like no, you get out aheadof this because this building's
going to the dump.
Offensive tactics do not putout defensive fire conditions.
They don't, they never have.
And in fact if the building'sbig enough, it'll be on the
national news because that'sjust what happens.
(16:36):
So we were galvanized to makesure that didn't occur again.
So that was really during my29-year career that was the most
unified the Phoenix FireDepartment ever was was the two
or three years coming out of theSouthwest supermarket incident.
Well, during that, as my dad'skind of sitting in the
(16:56):
background driving the thing,he's taking notes.
And so he asked you know ifyou'll do the layout for like
for each function and put likethe key stuff that we found on
the thing?
We'll do that together.
And then he says I'll flesh outthe rest of it and then we'll
hook up and get it illustrated.
Ok, perfect.
(17:17):
So I don't know, it took himabout a year, I don't know, a
year maybe something like that.
And then you had command safety, which was the companion
textbook to fire command.
That told the safety effect ofwhat well managed look like and
kind of how that paid off, andthat really that whole process
(17:40):
led to embedding kind of theconcept of safety into
structural firefighting.
And really we started looking atit like any kind of other high
risk adventure, like if you're ascuba diver what we talked
about with the people under seato start this thing or a
skydiver is like OK, we're goingto have a safety officer as we
(18:00):
skydive and jump out of theplane, and you're like, well,
what the hell do they do?
Because it's too late, we'vejump out of the plane.
And you're like, well, what thehell do they do?
Because it's too late, we'vealready committed to the jump
and now we're falling atterminal velocity.
So if there's some kind ofsafety thing they can do, maybe
they have a harpoon gun.
They shoot you through like theass A net, yeah.
So it's one of those deals.
(18:20):
If you ain't doing it as partof the activity, it's one of
those deals.
If you ain't doing it as partof the activity, it isn't going
to get done and you're going toget the consequences of whatever
that is.
So that's really what commandsafety was about.
So if you will just manageyourself in a standard kind of
way is you can recover fromcertain things a lot of times,
whether it's you took it throughthe wrong door or whatever it
(18:44):
was.
The fire did this when everybodythought it would do that.
So and we say, you got to bedoing everything right when
something goes wrong, because ifyou're not, there's no way to
unpack it.
And we demonstrated that in a25,000 square foot grocery store
that had a very senior fire init that we weren't going to put
out.
Once it got up in the attic,which happened in the first two
(19:08):
or three minutes of the fire,it's over.
Once that thing's running inthe attic, you're done.
The wind's blowing, so you puta 25 mile an hour wind to it and
you got smoke puffing up in theattic and it took them 15 or 20
minutes to really figure outwhere that thing was burning and
the way that funky building waslaid out.
(19:29):
Well, you had people on theback on the Charlie side, chiefs
coming home from work, hadpeople on the back on the
charlie side, chiefs coming homefrom work, and they're trying
to get on the radio to tell theic you get them out.
Now you got smoke puffing outof all the attic vents on the
back of this building.
Man, it is lit up.
They can't because they'remaydaying that just to the cows
(19:51):
come home on the inside of thatthing.
So it it was, and really thething that I think a lot of us
took away from that is hey, man,we killed one person and we
there were 16 people in here,and if this roof would have
collapsed like it should have,we're at.
We're 40 minutes into it in asenior attic fire.
(20:12):
I have never been to a building, 25,000 square feet, where the
roof was still up that long.
So it was everyone, knewEveryone, with any time at all
or any kind that had any kind ofjuice in the system.
No, we're we.
We, we to say that we lostsomebody.
And we're lucky To say that welost somebody and we're lucky.
(20:33):
And you have like a wholebattalion and a whole shift that
is going to have some issueswith this for the rest of their
lives as they were at this thingand it was, there were 20
people who were convinced theywere going to die in this thing
and went in anyway to pull himout and it was like, well, they
(20:53):
knew, in the command van, hesaid shit, he's been dead for a
while now, so just livingthrough that is is really.
You know, you hear Vinnie Dunntalk about it.
He, he was at the father's daysfire and a bunch of others.
And he says what I did, insteadof going crazy is he says it
must've been therapeutic for him.
He said I started writing booksand researching and so he
became the building construction.
(21:15):
Don't let it kill you, guy.
And I think that's what my daddid, just with command safety
and say, no, if the system isn'tprotecting you in real time,
then it ain't protecting you,because when the wall falls, if
you're under it, you're dead.
There's no one ringing thatbell and it isn't worth the risk
to die when you know.
Pulling up to the scene.
(21:36):
Well, picture this the buildingslated for demolition has got a
fence around it and you end upwith the fatality off of that
after the fire.
You can't justify that.
It's like, no, well, no, it wasworth the risk, there could
have been somebody in there.
And this is what we do.
No, that's not what uh-uh.
People with a pension don'tjust disregard their lives as
(22:01):
fodder and paper and say, well,no, this is.
You know, we're throwinganother virgin down.
The volcano almost is what itsounds like.
So really effective structuralfirefighting operations.
They're very quick to unloadand put into place and you have
to react to it.
You've got to be conscious.
You just can't say, well, thisworked last time and now I've
(22:22):
got a different building thatwill maybe work this time.
You have to be present andmanage the thing, and really
that's kind of what commandsafety tells the story for, and
it just goes through each of thefunctions and say, okay with
deployment.
This is how we do thisorganization strategy and
incident action planning.
Yada, yada, yada.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
And continuing on with that thought on strategy,
because that's really where theincident commander saves the
lives of the firefightersworking under their command.
I think the book talks about.
It's the term survivabilityprofile, right?
Yeah, that's in the book.
So you know, part of that isit's not a one size fits all for
survivability profile, and Ithink that's something that gets
left out a lot of times whenwe're, you know, breaching a
(23:04):
fence and then going into searchin a secured, abandoned
building or something like that.
So what does survivabilityprofile look like to you?
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Survivability is the ability.
When we talk about it, it's theability of an unprotected
person to survive in that firecompartment.
So fire compartments have verylow survivability traits about
them.
One of the examples we used issee and firefighters almost
(23:38):
disregard that sometimes becausewe're protected.
But you're seeing incidents nowwhere you're burning
firefighters up in buildings andyou think why were you in there
doing that?
Well, we were doing a search.
Well, you didn't have an attackline with you.
That's one reason you gotburned.
But well, we wouldn't take theattack line because it slows the
search down.
You think you won't, you willnever return to duty.
(24:00):
You have, you have sufferedheavy burn, trauma and you were
fully protected.
The person that you're going inthere to save has, they were
dead before they.
You see, and a lot of peopleyou can't.
Are you God?
You can't see, you don't knowwhat's going on?
Yeah, I do.
I did it long enough, just as afirefighter and I have, like,
(24:23):
read a lot.
Look at any scientific study.
You can't survive in theseareas.
The human skin is destroyed at163 degrees, destroyed at 163
degrees, and now we're lookingat having face piece lenses that
last above six or 700 degrees.
So you're like.
(24:43):
It's not a proximity suit thatwe're wearing inside.
You're not, you know.
And then you look at all themanufacturers and the people
that actually design thatturnout gear and they say, no,
you're not supposed to burn it,you're not supposed to get it
that hot.
It loses its ability to protectyou and, in fact, your gear can
survive certain things andit'll kill you as the wearer.
(25:06):
It will radiate through andkill you.
There's a number of line of dutydeaths that talk about that,
where they think, well, theylook fine, no, it was.
Their organs are screwed upfrom the fire man, they're dead.
That's what happened.
So that's part of the size upprocess.
So if I pull up somewhere andI'm looking at it and think that
(25:28):
fire compartment has gone toflashover, well, there's nobody
alive in there to save.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to knock the fire
down and really the search andrescue for that area there isn't
any.
What you're doing is you'relooking for bodies, victims.
That didn't make it out.
That's why you're searchingthat You're going to find the
bodies on the other side ofwhere the fire is.
(25:50):
So there's got to be separationwalls or something that keeps
the heat and smoke and firegases and all the other toxic
elements of those products ofcombustion off the survivable
members, anybody that's trappedinside that building and it's.
I mean, that's just the realityof it.
So until you stop that firefrom doing what it's doing, is
(26:19):
everybody in or around thatstructure is at great risk.
So if you and it's tough to dothis, but like when the police
go in if there's somebodyshooting a gun at people,
they're going straight in andthey're going to take out that
threat right.
Well, if you look like a personwith a gun, they kill anybody
who they see and shoot at Astructure.
(26:39):
Fire kills everybody that's inthe fire area.
There's.
No, it just doesn't.
It's the laws of nature, it'shumans can't survive in those
same spaces.
So and Blue Card does this isthe first thing we do when we
get to the scene is we controlthe fire, because the fire is
where the problem is and that'swhat's killing people and that's
(27:01):
really kind of command safetyis written around that.
So it stresses the importanceof being ready to go to work
when you get there and then whenyou pull up and you say it's
offensive is we're putting wateron the fire right now and in
fact, command safety was writtenaround offensive tactics of
(27:23):
engaging the fire from insidethe building.
Cause that's what we believedin 2001 in Phoenix, arizona, is
you did not put outside water inoffensive situations.
You went to the sea of the fireand that's the way you did your
business.
Coming out of that about 2007 to10, in there somewhere they
(27:45):
started doing studies andlooking at that, because the
scientists are like, why do younot do this?
Well, because it'll steampeople.
And they're looking at you like, all right, you make steam at
212 degrees and at 168, yourskin goes away.
So what are you talking about?
Well, we'll steam thefirefighters.
(28:05):
Well, you're wearing protectivegear and you know you got a
hood and this and that, and youknow I've been steam burned a
couple of times and it was ourfault because we put water too
close and it came back on us andwhatever.
But anyway, in fact, reallywhat it was is it wasn't putting
water on, we were just tooclose.
You know, because that was kindof the deal is you get as close
as you can and you kick its ass.
Speaker 1 (28:24):
So well then, the other myth, or whatever you want
to call it, was attacking fromthe unburned side.
And if you didn't do it thatway, you're going to push the
fire into uninvolved areas.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
And when I put when I when.
When the fire department showsup and puts the fire fire out,
it protects.
It's the quickest way toprotect life and property.
Now, if you talk to thecustomer and say, what do you
expect out of the firedepartment?
When they get there, put thefire out.
That's why we called you.
Well, no, we're going to showup and we're going to do these
(28:59):
six things ahead of putting thefire out, because this is what
we feel we need to do.
Well, every one of those that Iknow of that goes outside of
putting the fire out is adetriment to an effective.
Let's not even use the wordsafe, let's use effective.
See, using the fire commandsystem, you get to the scene and
(29:25):
you're putting water on itwithin a minute.
Two minutes later you got thefire controlled.
You could do a lot of thingsnow.
You could make a lot ofmistakes if you want that aren't
going to be fatal, becausethere's not 2000 degrees and
smoke and fire gases getting you.
In fact, after you put the fireout, the thing that you're
careful about is not getting thecancer on you, so you don't die
(29:46):
20 years later.
I mean, that's kind of whatyou're looking at is now I've
got a high risk thing that'lltake me out.
Right now I eliminate that, andnow I've got a bunch of small
hazards that'll lie dormant inmy body until they blossom later
on.
Well, the quicker we put thefire out, the quicker those free
radicals quit getting made byall that nasty heat.
(30:11):
So, and in fact, a lot of theseinternet tacticians work for
fire departments that will havetwo and three person staffing
for the two or three units thatthey're going to take the world
over with.
So in those places, the bestthing you can do is put the fire
(30:31):
out.
In fact, if you're not puttingthe fire out and you're doing
something that isn't that andthe initial part of that is
you're really not taking thecorrect actions.
In fact, I would call that into.
Now I quit looking at all thenonsense on YouTube.
It's just.
All it does is just make youmad.
You go about it, but every nowand then you'll hear somebody
(30:53):
say, nah, the comment section iswhere you need to be, because
then you'll get somebody who'slike a 25-year captain that says
, oh, look at all you pros, notan attack line in sight, and
you're all off gassing andburning right now.
Way to get the job done, son.
So it's almost like it's not asuccessful fire attack unless we
(31:15):
have scorched our gear and thencut a hole somewhere.
We've done a certain set ofthings that are like a checklist
set of tactics that we useEvery single fire that we go to.
We do these things and youthink, well, you didn't need to
do that, you didn't need to cutthat hole there.
You could have done this and itwould have been done three
(31:36):
times as fast, it wouldn't havedone the damage and you would
have reduced your on-scene timeby 30 minutes.
I mean, you would have put itback that much quicker, you
would have been done with theoperation, and a lot of it is.
There's just no—there's zeroregulation for fire departments
as it comes to structuralfirefighting.
(31:56):
It's like no, we show up and wedo what we're going to do, and
nobody gets to look at it.
And so a lot of these sameindividuals get pissed off.
When NIOSH writes a report.
How dare you criticize us?
You're like they're doing anafter action review.
Pal, that's what we do.
You know you kind of.
Why did this happen and how dowe keep it from happening again?
Speaker 1 (32:15):
So, and it's to help others, yeah, it's actually
going to benefit the safety ofour future brethren.
Speaker 2 (32:21):
Well, vance, if you.
I just saw the email from Garyabout the thing you guys did.
Aggressive tacticians I meanthat's just very aggressive and
as aggressive as any firedepartment that's ever been.
And they go to fires, oh, theyget some, and it's almost like,
(32:43):
oh, where has this been?
We're better as firefightersdoing it this way.
We're tens down here where wehad to do all these stupid
things for our ego.
We were threes.
We were not the people.
I don't want them coming.
Don't burn yourself up in myfire, just put the water on it
(33:04):
and knock it down and yeah, soin the book we're talking
strategy and managing thestrategy, and that's the safety
impact.
Speaker 1 (33:12):
And then there's a lot about situational awareness
and I'm wondering you, as an ICsitting in the buggy in command,
how did you make let's justwalk through situational
awareness and what that lookslike, how much of it is your
visual cues, what you're seeingversus can reports, versus
anything else that you'regetting versus?
Speaker 2 (33:34):
can reports versus anything else that you're
getting.
Well, it's a collage of allthose things.
So, especially for IC numbertwo, because you're going to get
there after the first three orfour companies.
So everybody's responding yousee smoke on the horizon, you
know God's out and working, yada, yada, yada.
So now what we're waiting foris the very first unit to clear.
(33:57):
So let's say it's in engine25's first two area.
When you hear engine 25 clear,that means in our system that
engine 25 wants to say somethingto the dispatch center.
That's going to be more thanjust the one sentence thing.
So the dispatch center comesback and says, go ahead, engine
(34:18):
25.
And the other thing that doesis it ensures to that company
officer that they're on thecorrect tactical radio channel.
Because and this was part oftraining, is that how many of
you have given an initial radioreport over channel one and all
the old guys raise their handand say, yeah, it sucks.
The best initial radio reporterI ever gave was over channel
one and all the old guys raisetheir hand and say, yeah, it
sucks.
The best initial radio reporterI ever gave was on channel one
(34:39):
and they told me to go toanother channel.
It was a shit show from thereon out.
And you're like, yeah, exactly,so that's how we make sure that
we don't do that.
And so, like, if you go engine25 clear and the dispatch center
says 25, your traffic's onchannel three, good, 25 clear,
go ahead, 25.
Well, everybody else respondingknows you're about to say
(35:02):
something.
So to the point that, look, Iworked on a ladder, I turned the
sirens off, we would go codetwo while we listened to what
they were doing, and then thatwould dictate how we would
respond.
The rest of our deal so anyway.
So now they give their initialradio report and let's say I'm
on scene of a house with aworking fire offensive, doing X,
(35:25):
y and Z.
Well, so now I'm thinking, okay, good, so they've got less than
2,000 square foot, usuallysingle level, maybe two story,
no basements in Phoenix.
So you know, we didn't eventhink about that.
So I got a certain set ofthings going on in my mind as I
see number two.
So that's where my thoughtprocess is and I'm like, okay,
based on my experience going tothese house fires, it's going to
(35:46):
take a minute, maybe a minuteand a half, and that black smoke
should start to be knocked downand I should start to see
conversion.
Right, that's it.
So like when the when they picka new Pope, black smoke, black
smoke, white smoke, new Pope,white smoke has fires being
controlled, so I'm looking forthe white smoke baby.
(36:06):
Then when it's so, let's sayit's not, it keeps going black.
Well, I get there and I think,okay, this is, it's not going
out.
I'm going to transfer commandof the thing.
So now I figure out.
So what you got to do is think,okay, this is what it looked
like when they got there.
So you got to, kind of okay,but probably was here, and now
it's a little bigger here andthey're just not getting water
(36:27):
on.
It is what it is.
So I'll transfer command andthen I'll usually go to the IC.
I mean, this is one of thesethings where this really
happened.
I got it out here, engine 8.
I've done all that.
Have you dropped the ceilingsyet?
No, we're still getting to theback.
No, stop right now and opensome ceilings and put water in
(36:48):
the attic right now.
Oh, okay, you raised your voice.
It's where the fire is.
So now my expectation is in thenext 30 seconds to a minute, I
should start to see somethingdifferent, whether it's the
smoke starts to change color alittle bit.
We're going to get some pushand poking, because now I'm
(37:10):
going to have some expansion upinto the attic with my water
vapor and all the other stuff.
So this is what I'm looking for.
I'm also looking at the roof,making sure that it's got its
shape.
It doesn't have any big sags init.
We don't have a bunch of firecoming in it.
You're looking at the eaves tosee what kind of heat you got,
you know, with the tar comingoff the thing.
So just kind of, the structureis keeping its shape.
(37:33):
I don't have a bunch of cracks.
So it's still an offensive setof things.
But the fire's getting biggerand bigger until we put water in
it.
So now what I'm doing is I'mgetting other companies up.
Now.
Command to whoever do this,command to the latter, do this.
Blah, blah, blah.
So we're doing the actions thatwe would typically do.
If a minute or two later it'snot happening, then I'm going to
(37:54):
go back inside.
What's going on, give me a canreport, and then they're going
to.
In this case, once they got theceilings open, they put water
in it.
Then the fire started going out.
So, okay, perfect.
So now, now it's just keepingpeople doing what they're doing
and it's like, okay, in anotherminute it's smoke's going away,
and now I just got this.
(38:14):
So then we're going to slowthis thing down, we're going to
get it ventilated, we'll finishthe search in the thing.
Other companies are coming innow and starting to do that
piece of it.
So that's kind of the way youmaintain.
For me as the IC, most of thesafety stuff, especially at
structural fires, was uscontrolling the fire, and so
(38:34):
that's kind of what you'relooking for.
And then one of the safetystuff, especially structural
fires, was us controlling thefire, and so that's kind of what
you're looking for.
And then one of the things thatcame out of command safety or
command safety talks about andthis was after the recovery
process is any attack positionwhere you've got three or more
task level companies assignedand operating.
Is you need, especially if youdon't have fire control, is you
need a division boss, a truetactical boss?
(38:56):
So that would be BC number twocoming in, and we went through
this with you.
Know, a company officer coulddo it.
They have the skills.
No, this isn't about that.
They are a working boss.
They don't provide entrycontrol and a tactical boss does
so.
They can't provide entrycontrol and their work cycle is
too dynamic.
(39:17):
They got about 10 minutes atthe most on air and then they're
going to have to recycleoutside and then they go back on
deck when they're ready to goback to work.
Well, the supervisor managingthat task level crew can't
manage the tactics for thatattack position.
There's too many things goingon.
So, and that became a thing thatyou had to get through to both
(39:41):
company officers and chiefofficers, because company
officers said well, we could doit.
You're like how to work atSouthwest Supermarkets.
Yeah, you're right.
So what it was is they had newinformation that broke their
beliefs and they thought, no, wecan't do that anymore, man.
And so now they start goingback to a bad place and it's
like no, we got it, we have tostay out of.
That kind of trouble is, once weget in that deep, we're done.
(40:05):
If we survive, it's just bychance.
It's nothing we did that causedus to survive, it was just dumb
luck.
So you know, eric Phillips andChris Stewart talk about
accidental success just dumbluck.
So you know, eric Phillips andChris Stewart talk about
accidental success.
Well, I don't think we hadaccidental success quickly
attacking the fire.
That's intentional success.
You know, in freelancing, ifyou're the company that put
(40:25):
water on it, your plan was right, but you can't manage.
Freelancing is the problem.
And so once you get five, 10minutes into that, you end up
with it's nothing different thanSouthwest supermarkets.
So, and they did not takestrategic control of that fire
until they had tactical bosseson the Bravo side of that thing.
They just didn't.
You lost all control until youput a tactical boss in place.
(40:47):
So I mean I just kind of stressthe importance in bigger
buildings, more active attackpositions, is putting that chief
up sooner.
Well, captain saw that, butthen it was getting the BCs.
He's like well, man, my turnoutsare made out of Nomex and I
think there's like a wholecolony of spiders in them
because we don't wear them.
I mean, come on Like well, it'sa new day, and if you're number
(41:10):
two, you're going to be.
And they're like well, and theywould almost you could see it
in training they almost saidwell, just don't, just don't use
us that way.
And so, like when you were theIC though it's like bullshit,
you're, you're going to getassigned, because that's the
only way I'm going to stay incontrol of this is to put one of
my counterparts is the tacticalboss.
(41:31):
That's what you're there for.
So you think, well, right, youknow, if a fire department gets
I don't know, two or threeworking fires in a day, one of
them may be of a big enoughscope where you actually assign
a BC as a tactical boss.
But it didn't happen oftenbecause you put the fire out so
quickly.
So if I put the fire out in thefirst five minutes with an
(41:52):
attack line and two crews, iteliminates my need in most cases
to build an organization on thetactical level because we've
eliminated those risks.
So now you've got a captain canmanage that because you're
getting into a place whereyou're not tied to inside air
SCBA air you're going toventilate, then you can use a
(42:14):
filter mask or whatever, andthen you can make you don't have
a bunch of people wanting topush to get in where you need to
keep entry control and lobby inthe thing.
So it's like, well, no, we'rejust overhauling now, and now we
got.
So it may be that you move some.
Let's say you're doingoverhauling a Home Depot, right,
and you controlled the fire andyou had a sprinkler activation.
(42:36):
Now you got rack storage.
Well, you're probably going toput a division boss inside there
If you're doing like overhauloperations, just to make sure
that companies are operating ina safe way, because now it's the
fallen stuff and you think,well, no, we got the fire
control.
We shouldn't let like a box fullof wet shit kill us now.
So stay out of its way and weneed to extinguish it.
(42:58):
What we really want to do isgive this store back to the Home
Depot people.
So if the fire's out andthere's a big mess in the middle
of the aisle, that is theirissue and they've got systems to
deal with that.
We're not cleaning this thingout.
This ain't 1960 anymore, wherewe like use squeegees on, uh,
(43:21):
spalted concrete is our finaldeal before we leave.
So it's uh, yeah, more in fact,vance, I'm getting off track
again, but there's more and more.
As the building becomes moretechnical, the more likely
overhaul is going to be done bythe building owners.
Because if you have like a,let's say, a warehouse that does
logistics, shipping, and it'sgot conveyor belts and shit like
that, we ain't, we ain'tdicking with it, we put the fire
(43:42):
out.
We're sure the fire's out.
There's an overhaul issue.
We're giving the building backto you.
We'll stand by, but we're notthis.
This is off limits.
There's people that do this.
I mean, there's companies thattake care of this, and they know
who they are and that's reallywhat they want, these building
(44:03):
owners.
They said no, we spent millionsof dollars for the fire
protection and now we want toput this building back in
service in two weeks.
So please leave, and it'snothing for you, but just a very
complicated building.
The people in here are going tobe supervised by structural
engineers.
This is a different operation.
Speaker 1 (44:23):
So one of the things that it talks so we're managing
our strategy, we've got goodsituational awareness, risk
management.
Then, after the incident, thebook talks about post-incident
analysis.
How has that evolved in the 20years or so?
Now we've got the AAR, but wasthat the same thing or was that
(44:44):
done any different?
Speaker 2 (44:46):
How all this came from is the first edition of
Fire Command and into the secondedition of Fire Command.
You talked about strategy andinstant action planning, coming
up with an instant action plan.
Well, I was a battalion chiefand I started teaching tactics
with Garrison.
He was at BC about a year ortwo ahead of me, so the two of
us kind of did the A101 and 201tactics right and so I'm on my
(45:11):
first class with him and we'regoing through size up and
incident action planning, thecritical factors and all that
you know and the tacticalpriorities.
So I couldn't, it didn't makeany sense to me.
Incident action planning it washard to teach because I really
didn't understand it.
It's like offensive quick wateron the thing.
So that's where the strategicdecision-making model was born
(45:35):
is sitting down and saying, no,there's got to be a simpler way
where it really kind of allthese elements, you got to
sequence them in a way.
So it was almost like they putit in but the directions weren't
there so you had to kind ofwander through the forest a
little bit.
So that's kind of what Garrisonand I ended up doing and it
kind of changed the way thedepartment taught tactics.
(45:57):
Well, it just because it wassimpler and it made more sense.
See, you had to have a Bshifter in there at some point
to decipher what the A shiftershad created.
So that's what happened thatsystem where you got to the
scene and you absorbed thecritical fire ground factors and
(46:18):
then you context those againstboth the completion of the
tactical priorities and the riskmanagement plan, the
survivability of the compartment.
We're dealing with all thatstuff.
So it's like well, no, thisfire attack is not going to save
anybody in the fire compartmentbecause they're all dead.
It realizes that and that's theway it operates.
(46:38):
Reality.
So what we're going to do iswe're going to go in and we're
going to attack that first.
Well, that's not where you'regoing to find the victims.
The victims are on the otherside of the walls.
So that's where that came from.
And then what happens is we usethat same exact process where
we figure out okay, this is thestrategy, and then the
(47:01):
corresponding incident actionplan.
Well, that is the same model weuse to run the after action
review.
So we would get the firstin-company officer.
And this is I mean now.
This is this was ahead ofSouthwest Supermarkets.
This is probably two or threeyears ahead of Southwest
(47:21):
Supermarkets.
So I'm a battalion chief, I getto the scene.
I ended up taking command.
15 minutes later we got firecontrol big ass apartment
complex.
Now we're doing the afteraction review.
There's four engines, twoladders, two BCs.
We canceled the other alarms.
They're going.
So it's us in the front 10minutes, right, okay, guy named
(47:45):
John was the IC engine.
Five, john, what'd you have?
Well, nick, I got here, I had aworking fire in this unit.
I knew it was in the attic andso I came in, did fire attack.
And then the big end is engine14 was next to I.
Put them over there, get an allclear, get up in the attic,
(48:05):
stop horizontal spread and thelittle land I had, engine 25, go
over there.
I had the cut the roof.
That's what we did back in theday.
You know that was kind of thetactics, still.
So, boom, boom, boom.
You got here, you took it over,excellent, so you know what.
So then he talked about theeffect of the attack.
We got in, we knocked it downpretty quick.
(48:27):
We had a little bit of fire inthe attic but you know, on both
sides they got the ceilings down.
Boom, boom, boom, so like, andthese were pretty good sized
occupancies, probably at least25, 30, 40 feet long each in the
building, these units.
So the one thing we talkedabout is where do you pull your
ceiling to stop it?
They said, well, I pulled it onthe wall that it shared with
(48:49):
the fire occupancy.
I had fire in the attic, so Iwent to the other end, pulled it
.
It was clear.
We pulled it bigger.
We got up there and we startedputting water in the attic.
So we got ahead of it and Ithought, okay, what'd that look
like?
Well, we made a mess on oneside and then we made a mess on
the other side.
But you know, that's said well,one burned out, two suffered
(49:10):
fire damage.
There's 40 units that havenothing wrong with them today.
See that, if we would have, ifif John would have taken his
crew and done blind searches, wewould have, we would have lost
half the building at least.
So that's where I'm talkingeffective.
He went in, he puts fire out,so that's really so.
(49:32):
What happened is that sold itas you do that eight or nine
times over a period of three orfour months, and then the
workforce gloms onto it.
It's like no man.
This is too good.
And then we look likecheerleaders in the after action
review.
It is, you know, it's just, it'sa better, safer way to do it.
And now we're starting tounderstand this.
It's not a mystery anymore, andso it's so.
(49:55):
We're communicating on B shiftturns at that point, so it
becomes so everybody's a littlebit happier.
I mean, you're, it's asuccessful operation.
Uh, john has got his gold star.
His crew thinks a little morehighly of him.
He feels a little bit better.
I mean, maybe I don't know I'mmaking this shit up now.
Vance, his kids go to college,they become doctors and they,
(50:19):
yeah, that's how evolutionhappens.
Yeah, so that's really kind ofthe way we did that.
Well that, so we just took thatsame system and put it on
steroids, and then what we didis we wrapped.
We said, okay, we've been doingrapid intervention this way for
a long time, well, let's seehow that works.
And so you ran it through thatprocess of okay, the critical
factors, and then that's goingto lead me to risk management
(50:42):
strategy, life safety, blah,blah, blah, blah.
So people could start to makesense of things even ahead of it
.
So when you started saying, hey, man, rapid intervention don't
work.
And well, the task level knewthat when you assign somebody to
become a RIC, most companieswere pissed.
They were, oh Jesus Christ, infact to the point that, like,
(51:03):
the third-end company would notstage, they would wait for
somebody else to stage, and thenthe third-engine stages or they
would stage for them.
I had that happen where engine14 staged for engine 25.
And so that one didn't work,though Thanks, geofencing.
Speaker 1 (51:21):
Now you can't do that .
Speaker 2 (51:22):
Well, it didn't matter, because we needed
another line.
We didn't need a RIC crew, Ineeded a line to stop the fire
from burning down the next house.
So that's what we did.
So engine 14 said copy, becausethey thought they were going to
be the RIC.
And then Engine 25 goes.
Hey, engine 25 is last, engine25, ric.
So Engine 25 is going to file agrievance after the thing,
(51:44):
because I was the third.
You assigned the third unit tofirefighting.
I said, well, yeah, I needed tobecause there was fire to fight
.
And I assigned the fourth unitto take Rick because all the
firefighting was covered.
It was.
It was an excellent system forlike understanding what you were
actually doing and why you weredoing it.
(52:04):
So you almost had to justifythe actions you took.
Is what?
Why did you do this?
It just kind of like your mom.
Why did you do this, this one,why did you throw the rock
through the window?
Speaker 1 (52:21):
Well, because it felt good, well, don't do it again.
I think fire command reallygives us the basis for
everything as far as the bookgoes.
But uh, fire, uh, I'm sorry.
Command safety if you haven'tread it.
It's a modern look at thesafety philosophies that an
incident commander should have.
Probably is the best way todescribe it.
Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah, and it all kind of starts with your
firefighter's gear has a limitto what it can take and it's not
designed to be an entry suit.
It's designed to protect themagainst something that you don't
want to happen to them.
Changing conditions yeah, andit's like, no, this isn't.
I was young and dumb and didthe same thing.
I'm flowing water and smokingand I'm like, well, god, that
(52:59):
hurts, but what are they goingto say about me?
You know, it's that whole deal,and what you rely on then is a
captain grabbing you and sayingyou're going too fast, knock it
off, moron here, and put thewater on it, and then we'll move
.
Yeah, uh-uh, no more of this.
So yeah, you know, and theproblem is, is that's a tough
(53:22):
way to educate yourself, becausefirst of all, you're getting
burned unnecessarily and theother thing is it'll kill you.
So now you're doingoccupational suicide.
It's tactical Russian roulette.
You're like, no, this is.
And fires are even moreunpredictable today.
They burn hotter and fasterthan they did when I was doing
this in the 80s and 90s.
(53:42):
It's uh-uh.
Want to do a timeless tacticaltruth.
We may as well Vance.
That's the way we end thesethings.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Timeless tactical truth from Alan Bernasini the
eight of hearts.
Effective control by the ICequals worker safety.
Effective control by the IC.
Speaker 2 (54:07):
So define control.
The IC controls position andfunction of all operating
resource at the incident scene.
So the other thing the systemgets you is so if the IC could
control your position andfunction.
The other thing is, when you dothat and connect that to a well
thought out incident actionplan is you will more quickly
achieve the completion of thetactical priorities, as the
(54:29):
incident will just run smootherand everything will happen
faster as you don't have peopleworking at odds.
And then the other thing is ifit starts off in an offensive
strategy and the conditionsworsen to the point that people
need to be removed from thebuilding, so the IC uses the
strategy.
So, first of all, thefirefighters can kill the fire.
(54:50):
Second of all, it keeps thefire from killing the
firefighters.
So if the conditionsdeteriorate let's say that it
moves up in the attic and youneed to move everybody out right
Then if you can controlposition and function, you
withdraw them from the building,you confirm that with the PAR
and then it's okay, we're out.
(55:10):
We're going to keep you in safeareas, so stay out of the
collapse zones and we'll dowhatever we need to keep this
fire from spreading andthreatening other lives and
property.
So that's what operationalcontrol looks like.
Cool yeah.
Speaker 1 (55:24):
Nick Bernasini.
Thanks, man.
Thank you, john Vance.
All right, good seeing you, andthanks to everyone for
listening to B Shifter.
Talk to you soon, ciao.
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