Episode 335: The Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Alider Pratts (New Jersey)(Volume 4) - Mic’d In New Haven

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Bike Did You Even? Podcast, hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. This is the

(01:11):
Best the Bravest Nationwide Edition. It's one of the newer
mini series that we have on the program. But it's
a good one because, as I've said before, this is
the fourth volume of it. We've told a lot of
the stories of the NYPD and the FDN Y on
this program, and we'll continue too. There's a lot of
great stories to be told there and some that we're

(01:32):
learning even now after all these shows for the first
time as we go. But there's plenty of stories from
around the country, and even if you just look at
the Try State, Long Island, New Jersey, Connecticut, as tonight's guest,
is proof of so many guys and girls with great
stories of their own that have gotten it done in
their careers or in tonight's guest case, still active, still
getting it done. So hence the beat Profiles of police Nationwide,

(01:54):
and hence the launch as well of the mini series
The Best the Bravest nation Wide Edition, which volume four
us tonight, And on that note, we welcome you back
to the Mike the New APN Podcast overall, this is
episode three hundred and thirty five to the program, and
if you haven't checked out the previous episode. Detective Dave
Sargy retired NYPD, joined the program man. He came out
in nineteen thirty five, finished up recently twenty twenty two,
so only two years ago. Spent the last decade of

(02:16):
his career in the training.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Division for detectives, which was interesting.

Speaker 1 (02:19):
He looked at the Detective Bureau and the lore behind
that shield, and it was interesting to get a glimpse
at the training that goes into brand new detectives, which
can almost be like being a rookie all over again.
We'll get into tonight's show with tonight's guest momentarily, but
of course there's always a couple of advertisements to run,
and we're gonna switch it up a bit. We'll do
my consulting company after, but Billy Ryan's in the chat.

(02:41):
He's always here, so we'll run as that tonight first.

Speaker 2 (02:43):
The Mike.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
The New Apen podcast is proudly sponsored and supported by
the Ryan Investigative Group. If you need an elite PI,
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(03:07):
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email that you see here. Again, if you need a PI,
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through a proud supporter and sponsor of the Mike Den
Newhaven Podcast. And to give you a glimpse just before

(03:27):
we go to the next at at how hard Billy
works at that.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Think about it.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
So he was an NYPD cop slash detective for twenty
years eighty four to zero four.

Speaker 2 (03:34):
He's been doing that this PI.

Speaker 1 (03:35):
Business just as long as he's been doing as he
was in the NYPD. So twenty years on both sides
of the aisle, a lot of experience with a guy
like Billy, and I can attest you he'll get the
job done for you. So a big shout out to him,
always a big supporter of this show, and now we
could run the ad for mcbdia adding services. Need advice
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(03:58):
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(04:18):
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Firm that's going to charge you an arm and a
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my next guest has built an impressive career in the
fire service and rescue services, spanning over two decades. To
be exact both leadership and specialized operations. Originally, his journey

(04:45):
began in the United States Marine Corps Reserves from nineteen
ninety five until two thousand and two, and also in
between in Morris County Juvenile Corrections two thousand to two
thousand and four, when he would then make the switch
to firefighting with the North Hudson Regional Fire and Rest
You and he has been there ever since, where he
currently and works as a deputy chief assigned to the
Special Operations Command for the department. It's promoted to captain

(05:08):
in twenty ten, Battalion chief in twenty seventeen, and its
current rank as we just set a deputy chief in
twenty and twenty two.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
In addition to serving.

Speaker 1 (05:16):
As chief of Special Operations for North Hudson Regional Fire
and Rescue, he is also the law enforcement in military
liaison for his department as well, and that for this
volume four of the Best the Bravest nationwide edition is
current Deputy Chief Al Pratts Chief Welcome.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
How are you.

Speaker 4 (05:33):
I'm doing excellent, Mike, Thanks for having me. I'm totally humbled.
I've seen the guests that you have on and I'm
excited to get this going.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
Thank you for having me, well, thank you for being here.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
It's been a while coming and I'm glad that we
could finally link up and do this tonight for this
volume four. And as always, for those of you the chat,
if you're watching on YouTube, super chats available, submit a
question if you've got.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
One, same thing. For those of you watching.

Speaker 1 (05:53):
On Facebook and LinkedIn as well, feel free to throw
it in as we go today tonight's interview. But as
we start out with every reinterview, before we get into
your career and where your interest in service started, where
did you grow up?

Speaker 4 (06:05):
Yeah, I grew up in Union City, New Jersey, which
is right across the Hudson River UH to New York City.
So I grew up with with a you know, with
the skyline of New York City, you knows as the backdrop.

Speaker 3 (06:18):
You know, I grew up in the city streets. It's
a densely populated area.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
In fact, I believe it is still and has been,
at least for the last twenty years or so, the
most densely populated city in the country.

Speaker 3 (06:31):
Union City very diverse. You know.

Speaker 4 (06:35):
I lived in a five story tenement building and grew
up you know, playing ball, in the streets and and
you know, being out until you know the street lights
came on, and you know, just living in that very
tight knit, you know, kind of blue collar type of neighborhood,
and you know, and and and you know, I believe
it was a great upbringing.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
It was.

Speaker 4 (06:56):
I believe it was a different time, a lot different
than than what it is now.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
Now.

Speaker 4 (07:00):
You don't really see the kids out in the streets
anymore and that sort of thing. I don't know if
it's because it's it's a little bit more dangerous or
you know, just because of you know, kids that are
into different things now than they were back in the day.
But but yeah, for me, I think it was you know,
taught me a lot of a lot of lessons, a
lot of life lessons and kind of help build my
character over the years.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Now, blue collar upbringing tends to gravitate one towards blue
collar work. So would you say that kind of upbringing
is what motivated you to look towards fire service or.

Speaker 2 (07:32):
Maybe let me rephrase the question a little bit. Was
it always the fire.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Department for you? Or did you look at police? Did
you look at other avenues?

Speaker 4 (07:40):
So I'll answer it this way, I didn't. I never
wanted to be a firefighter, my my my thing. I
wanted to be a police officer. And you know, we'll
get into what led me down that path. But during
that time when I was growing up in Union City,
both my parents worked in the factory in Hoboken, New Jersey,
and and and you know, I seen the hard work

(08:02):
that they put in and the hard work that everyone
else in the neighborhood was putting in. I remember that
there was a lady that lived right down the hall
for me on the third floor, eight or nine year
gave you elderly lady who had you know, we were
always looking out after her. And and you know, I
always kind of felt that it was for some reason,

(08:23):
it was my job, even at an early age, to
be able to help people, to look out for other people.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
And I didn't realize that that's what I was doing.

Speaker 4 (08:31):
It was sort of something that was just I don't
know if it's inherent or if it was something that
was taught to me by my parents, specifically my mother
at a young age. My parents were they got divorced,
and so you know, I was raised my mother did
the racing, and it was myself, my mom and my
younger sister, you know, and I've seen her work, you know,

(08:52):
work about off work, a tail off to be able
to food on the table and all that kind of stuff.
So you know, I kind of grew up looking out
after some of my neighbors, and then as I got older,
I grew up looking out after my sister and after
my mom, whereas it felt like I became the man
in the house a lot sooner or a lot younger
than than than I don't know if I don't know

(09:13):
if it's most kids, but I know it was pretty
quickly in my upbringing.

Speaker 3 (09:17):
So I guess I've always had that.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Sense of, you know, to to help other people and
look out for others that needed to be looked out after.
And I think that's kind of like what led me,
started leading me towards that path of wanting to be
part of something bigger than what I was. You know,
I played high school, I played sports recreation, you know,

(09:40):
I played sports in high school and all that sort
of thing. So, you know, between having that desire to
look out for other people and always being part of
a team environment, I think that sort of you know,
kind of started leading me towards wanting to do something bigger,
and what that was for me early on was I
wanted to be in the military. You know, I kind

(10:00):
of thought that that's what I wanted to do, and
that's the direction that I went in before I even
ever considered law enforcement or or the Fire Service.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
And that's often the hardest thing, because you know, we've
had guests from the Fire Service and law enforcement who
have that background. And I've often said, if you can
survive that in any boot camp of any of the branches,
anything else after that, not to not fire academy and
say it's easy, it's not. To do police academy and
say it's easy.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
It's not.

Speaker 1 (10:27):
But if you can deal with the military training first
before going into that, it definitely changes your perspective and
it makes the process a little bit easier to square
away considering the background you're coming from. And nineteen ninety
five is an interesting time to join the reserves because
the nation is not at war, which is something that
most kids who've grown up in the twenty first century
it's unheard of.

Speaker 2 (10:47):
Sadly, the nation has always been at war. For them.
I'm twenty four.

Speaker 1 (10:50):
I've grown up in the post nine eleven world most
of my life, so it's been the case here. But
in ninety five, the most recent conflict had been the
Golf War that resolved itself pretty quickly, and you ended
up being in the reserves for seven years. So just
to give a glimpse of the other portion of the
audience for those that may not remember a time to
be in the military when there was no active conflict
going on, what was that like in the mid nineties.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
Yeah, I guess you could say it was a little
euphoric in a sense where you didn't you weren't worried
about what was happening in the world.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
I think that your immediate concern was your neighborhood. And
I think that.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
That's why it was easy to have that very close
knit relationship in your in your own neighborhood, is because
that was your immediate concern. Your short term and long
term goals were based around what you had around you,
and you weren't thinking about conflicts overseas. I remember when
I was in grammar school and.

Speaker 3 (11:44):
You know, some of the.

Speaker 4 (11:46):
Service members were coming back from you know, either the
Gulf War or you know, different conflicts, and they would
show up to school in their uniform, and I remember,
you know, seeing them in their uniform, and I was
always super pressed with how squared the way they were,
the presence that that they had around them, you know,
the sense of accomplishment, the sense of leadership, the sense of,

(12:12):
like I said before, belonging to something, being part of
something that that's bigger than you. And so, you know,
growing up and not there not being any conflicts. I
think was is a luxury that that it's it's sort
of hard to explain, but I would say I would
say that way it.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Was, it was a luxury.

Speaker 4 (12:29):
And in my high school years when when the recruiters
start showing up at at high school, you know, during college,
you know, you had your college weeks, and I would
walk around and look at the different colleges and universities
that were there, and and and you know, I wanted
to go to college. I did want to go to college.
I was a fairly decent student. I did want to

(12:49):
go to college. But there was something about the marine recruiter,
specifically when he walked in and his and his uniform
neatly perfectly pressed. You can cut yourself on the creases,
the creases on the shirt decreases on the trousers. Just
the way that that he stood and walked down the hallway.
I was like, man, that that's you know, I could

(13:11):
see myself doing that, and and that's kind of like
what what led me in that direction? And you know,
I took the the ASVAB test, which is your your
your your military abilities skills tests that will determine number one,
whether or not you can get into the military in
the first place, and then number two what type of
job you would be qualified for in the military. And

(13:31):
since there was no conflict at the time, it wasn't
like it is now almost an everyone that signs up
there they're guiding you right towards that three eleven that that.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
Infantry uh ms.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
But now it back then, now, back then, it was
like you had all these different things to choose from,
and it was like, you know, if you did really well,
you can choose from all these different jobs where you know,
after your military life, you can you know, get into communications,
where you can get into too, you know, engineering or

(14:03):
or sciences or something like that, and and and it
was it was very appealing to me. So you know,
that's I was seventeen years old and I spoke with
the recruiter behind my mother's back, and and uh, and
I said to him, I said, listen, I want to join,
but my mom's not gonna let me. She's not gonna
there's no way, you know. And because I'm seventeen, I

(14:24):
need her permission. And and so sure enough he came
to my house and sat down with my mother and spoke,
and she cried, and but she did sign. And her
condition was that I joined the reserves, not active duty,
and that I also enrolled in college so that I
do both at the same time.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
And that was the agreement, and I lived by that.
I said, Okay, that's I'll do it.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
That's the way you want it, that's the way it
will be, and and that's what it was.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
Yeah, and it worked out well considering what would come later.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
We're talking to Tivity Cheap Now Practice Volume four, the
best Bravest nationwide edition, Deputy Chief Practice, current assignment. It's
North Hudson, New Jersey, Regional Fire and Rescue, where he's
currently chief their Special Operations Command. As we mentioned earlier,
do you have any questions in the chat, submit them
as we go and I'll highlight them.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
SBB.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
I see your question on Facebook. I'm gonna wait until
a little bit later in the show to highlight that
it's a good question. I didn't want you to think
of icdoring, and I do see it, and I'll highlight
it at the appropriate time. Now, we'll go back to
the training for a second before we continue with the
educational portion of your career. And the training, as we said,
is no joke. It's very intensive and no matter if
you're a reservist or if you're going into active duty,

(15:31):
Marine Corps boot camp is Marine Corps boot camp, and
they are essentially breaking you down at first to build
you up into.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
Well a marine.

Speaker 1 (15:39):
So tell me about just the mental shock and the
brit that you had to really build up within yourself
to endure that, and some of the lessons that you
feel are still guiding you from that experience to this
day in your current role and even just in your
day to day life.

Speaker 3 (15:53):
Yeah, it's a great question.

Speaker 4 (15:56):
So they build the entire training program around shock, and
all you know, they bust you in at oh dark,
dirty in the morning. You don't know your surroundings, you
don't know how you got from the airport to Marine
Corps training depot, in Paris Island. You have no idea
how you got there. You just know it was a
long bus ride. For all you know, they made one

(16:17):
hundred and ten different turns that they didn't have to
make in order to make it a longer bus ride.
And you're sitting there and you're anticipating, and you're stressing,
and the anxiety is starting to build, and then you're exhausted,
you're tired. And then you show up and the bus
stops and everyone is nice and quiet, and then in
comes drill instructor and he walks in and he's got

(16:40):
the meanest look on his face. His cover is you know,
you can't even see his eyes because his cover is
covering the brim of his cover is covering his eyes.
And he just starts yelling and screaming right away. And
then other dren instructors get on the bus and they
yell at you. And then they're telling you to go right,
they're telling you to go left, they're telling you stand here,
sit there, up here.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
I mean, it is it is complete pandemonium. And it is.
And then for the next I believe two days, you're
you're sleep deprived and you're going through this indoctrination process
where basically all they're doing is having.

Speaker 4 (17:14):
You fill out paperwork right due to you, all the
administrative things that they need to do, get you into
some sort of uniform, and then split you up into
different platoons. But that process that seems seemingly simple, Uh,
they make it. I mean it's part of the training process.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
And and and.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
It's designed to stress you and design designed to make
you think that basically your life as you know it
is over. And then it's designed to make you question
whether or not you need to be doing what you're doing,
or if you made some type of terrible, horrible mistake
and need to take your butt back home. And and

(17:56):
and it's okay for you to feel that way. And
I felt that way many times where I'm like, oh man,
what did I do?

Speaker 3 (18:02):
You know? Am I going to make it? Do I
have what it takes? I'm not sure.

Speaker 4 (18:05):
But it's it's being put in that position that challenges
you and makes you wonder whether or not you have
what it takes.

Speaker 3 (18:14):
And then you just.

Speaker 4 (18:15):
Put one foot, one foot in front of the other,
right one step out of time. You don't think what's
going to happen two days from now or next week
or two months from now.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
You think about how do I get past right now?

Speaker 4 (18:27):
How do I get past this moment, the next few seconds,
the next minute, the next two minutes, And then you
do that little by little over time you realize three
months have coming gone and you're graduating Marine Corp Boot Camp.
Just putting one foot in front of the other. I
mean even when we go out, when we would go
out on organized runs, you know, they would say, put

(18:47):
them up and set them down. They're talking about your feet.
You pick them up, you set them down. It's all
you need to do is pick up your feet, set
it down, and take one step out of time and
next thing you know, we've run, you know, ten miles right.
And that's that's life. And I believe that that's something
that even now. I tell my daughter, who plays very
high level soccer, and she's you know, she's in high school.

(19:08):
She's a freshman. She's on the varsity team. I'm very
proud of her, and but she doesn't play much, but
she's on varsity. I'm like, honey, you're you're on the
varsity team. You're a freshman. You got a scholarship to
go to the school your time is gonna come. Just
worry about right now. Don't worry about what's going to
happen later. So, these these skills that that that I

(19:29):
learned in boot camp, and that's one of them, is
something that has taken me not just through my career,
but through fatherhood as well. It's something that I'm starting
to you know, teach my kids as well, Like, you know,
don't don't stress about what's happening. What your situation is
not a good situation, and it's not necessarily a bad situation.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
It's just a situation.

Speaker 4 (19:49):
How we handle it and how we address it is
what makes us who we are. Right, we have to
put ourselves in situations where we're uncomfortable, that we're unhappy,
but become comfortab but with being uncomfortable, because that's how we.

Speaker 1 (20:01):
Grow, Right, It's not just you know, pushing yourself to
the boundary sometimes is pushing yourself past it. I'm kind
of as we were talking about off there, dealing with
that now where Okay, in my training, have I been
training very long for my career ambition of being a
fireman myself?

Speaker 2 (20:17):
Not very Have I progressed in that time?

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (20:19):
Now you can look at it two ways either Okay,
hang my head, I missed it by a set, or say,
oh you missed it by a set. Okay, so you
know what your achilles heel is, Go work on it.

Speaker 2 (20:28):
You know.

Speaker 1 (20:28):
Jacko Willink, who has an excellent podcast, Connecticut Guy was
a former Navy seal. Now there's a great short clip
on YouTube. You probably see it whorries like you failed today.
Good good, get problem good good, because it's more of
an opportunity to train. And I think that mindset is
definitely easier said than done, because all of us, I
feel to a degree, especially in today's day and age,

(20:49):
we're overthinkers. We're so busy with the long term and
sometimes even the short term that we just forget the basics,
which is.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
No listen, one foot in front of the other.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
One step at a time, get there when we get there.
And that's something that is critical in the fire service,
and as you astutely pointed out, you know, critical in
life and speaking of something that you got to again,
at the time, your ambition is to go into law enforcement.
You got a bachelor's degree in criminal justice from New
Jersey City University.

Speaker 2 (21:17):
Now that process at the time, it's such a.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Great program, not just in that particular university, but anywhere
you go, because even if you never go into law enforcement,
it gives you a very clear understanding of what police
officers prepare themselves for and the process that they, along
with detectives take, you know, as throughout an investigative matter,
whatever the case may be, whatever the matter may be
comprised of. What are the key things you feel you

(21:41):
took from that or even though listen, you did go
into corrections, you ultimately didn't go on to the police department.
What did you most enjoy about that particular process?

Speaker 4 (21:50):
Well, what I enjoyed about the process was understanding that
criminal justice isn't just locking up the bad guy. There's
a lot different components to it, things that I had
no idea about. So it showed me that there's a
psychological component to criminal justice, right, Understanding what the bad
guy is thinking and what motivates certain people to do

(22:13):
certain things. Understanding that there's different facets to law enforcement,
not just you know, not just police, but there's corrections
and there's you know, state, local, federal law enforcement.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
I think having just a.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
Broad general understanding of all the different facets that go
along with criminal justice is something that I enjoyed at
the time, and you know, it kind of helped me
decide whether or not I wanted to because at some
point I also considered going into private security and doing
that as well, just because there's good money in it,

(22:47):
you know, and that wasn't sure what I wanted to do.
In fact, I was looking to switch my military occupation,
which was an aircraft electrician at the time in the reserves,
and I was looking to go active duty. Right after
nine to eleven. I was trying. I me and my
wife sat down and we came up with a plan
to try to go active duty and and and leave

(23:11):
and we were going to go and live the active
duty life. And but what I wanted to do was
I wanted to switch my job function at the time
from being an electrician to go into quantico and going
into military intelligence, because I said, you know what, if
I'm going to go into law enforcement, based off of
the things that I learned in school, I was really
considering doing some type of federal law enforcement, whether it

(23:33):
was FBI or US Marshals or something along those lines.
And so I figured that if I was to do
military intel, I think that that would kind of fast
track me, or at least, you know, give me, give
me an edge over some of the other applicants. But
something funny happened. My wife was pregnant with my son,

(23:54):
who is now twenty two years old. He's a senior
in college. And we sat down, I'm with the career planner. Now,
the career planner's only job is to make get you
to reenlist at all costs. Doesn't matter if he, you know,
twist your arm and makes you do a job that
you don't want to do. His job is to get
you to reallist. And so we sat down at the

(24:15):
career planner's office. My wife, my wife's pregnant was you know,
my wife's value was huge. He was pregnant with my son.
And he looks at her.

Speaker 3 (24:22):
He looks at me, looks at her, looks at me,
and I'm like, what is this guy thinking.

Speaker 4 (24:25):
He goes tells my wife, He goes, you know, he's
not going to be there for the birth of your son,
and he may not be around for another couple of years,
because again this was right after nine to eleven. And
he says, but we have very good support groups for
wives and and and you might be okay with a
support group. And I say that, I'm thinking to myself,

(24:48):
I'm like, why the hell would he tell her this.
She's going to turn around and say, hell, no, we're done, Like,
why would you do this? Your job is to keep
me in and it feels like you're pushing me out.
So my wife turns to looks at me, she goes,
let's go, We're done. And so I didn't realist. I
signed out, and I was done and over the you know,
a few years later, I realized what he had done.

(25:09):
He actually did us a favor. Now, something in him
looking at us as a young couple, we're about to
have a family, and something in him said, you know what,
this is not a good move for them, right, let
them do something different.

Speaker 3 (25:22):
And and then that's what he did. And I have
no idea what his name is.

Speaker 4 (25:25):
I can't remember, but I'm forever grateful for that move
that he made.

Speaker 1 (25:31):
So, yeah, no, and it paid dividends, And I think, yeah,
that probably was the strategy. You don't realize it in
the moment, but I'm sure you know it's a conscious decision,
and it was a good conscious decision on his part
to do that.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
So wherever he is, shout out to that particular recruiter.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
You know, getting had paved the way for not only
a great career, to bost of all a great family,
you know, and that's something that a lot of people
haven't had the opportunity to have because they absolutely and
even for people that didn't have a family situation like that,
the stories have been told in this program. Deployed in
late two thousand and one, early two thousand and two,
not home until two thousand and.

Speaker 2 (26:05):
Three or in some cases two thousand and four. That's
a long time.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
You miss a lot, You miss a lot, so who
knows it would have happened, right, It's always those when
you look back on your life, and especially where things
are right now. I'm sure you find yourself saying, man,
what if, what if I would have went?

Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (26:21):
Absolutely, my you know, I was. I was done with
my military career in two thousand and two. My son
was born in two thousand and two. Two thousand and four,
I got hired by the fire department, so everything kind
of worked out, and you know, at the end obviously
worked out, but even then I was you know, the
fire department was something that just came up and it
was like, you know what, the test is coming up.

(26:42):
And my wife called me and she says, baby, you
should take the test. Her uncle, her aunt's ex husband,
was a deputy fire chief in one of the other cities,
and he says.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
Hey, tell him to take the test. You's got to
take the fire department test. And I looked at her.

Speaker 4 (26:55):
I said, I don't want to be a firefighter, said,
I have a couple interviews coming up with the Morris
County Prosecutor's office, and you know, if I don't take that,
I'm going to sign up for the next police test.
And you know, I got a degree in criminal justice.
Why would I want to be a firefighter at the time,
and it realized with the pension, you know that you know,

(27:15):
you you get on the job and you could always
switch over, or you could you could at least transfer
your pension time. And so when I found that out,
I was like, all right, home run, that's what I'll do.
I'll take the fire department test because that came up
before the law enforcement test, and if I do well,
I'll take the job and and I'll still take the
police test and I'll switch over. But no one switches
over from from FD to PD. I mean, you have

(27:40):
a lot of cops now you have. We have a
lot of cops. We have a lot of guys that
used to be police officers that switched over to the fireside,
but doesn't happen the other way around. And I was like,
I'll be I'll be that guy. I'll be the first
one to do it. And it didn't happen.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
It did not happen.

Speaker 4 (27:55):
Then I had the opportunity to because I came out,
you know, pretty high on Union City Police Department's list.

Speaker 3 (28:00):
And and I say, no, I'm good, I got the
better job. I'm happy where I'm at. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
No.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
And it's it's interesting you say that because where I
work currently, there's two guys like that. One was a
police officer for twelve years. One was a state trooper
and they made the switch, you know, over the fire
and even.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
Then, I mean, I'm not knocking them. I love them.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
We do a lot of emergency service. You have interviews
on this show. We have a mini series on NYPD
s U. A lot of those guys when they're not
being emergency service cops in the city, they're volunteer fireman
all of Long Island so they get the best of
both worlds. You know, there's always the joke and this
is not my joke, but you hear a lot of
firemen say it. Inside every cop is a fireman dying
and you know, jump out. So you know that said lovingly.

(28:39):
We love our police friends as well.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Absolutely, and listen, if I could do both, I would,
you know, if I could do both, I would, you know,
And that's you know, and that's kind of like how
I transition to eventually to become the department to law
enforcement liaison because you know, if I, if I could
do both jobs, they would because it's a highly respectable
and you know, we work together.

Speaker 3 (28:57):
We were on the same team, you know.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
So yeah, and if you're a fire marshal, technically are
doing both jobs's to both worlds. That's why some people
know that particular route in their careers. Now, what's interesting
about your department is it's not just one city, but
you guys cover multiple areas. Now for contexts and now
I'll explain it further. Union City, West New York, Weehawken,
North Bergen, and Guttenberg, New Jersey are the specific areas

(29:20):
of the state that you guys cover. So for those
that are not familiar with a county fire structure, they're
familiar with county police, but I've never personally been familiarized
with county fire, which is another good reason why you're
here tonight.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Explain the process to as to why it's set up
that way.

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Yeah, and so there are other cities that are not
part of the department that are within the same county,
which is Hudson County, so it's almost like a county.
It's a regional fire department, but it doesn't encompass the
entire county because we have Jersey City to the south
of US we have Hoboken Fire Department, which is a
career department, Jersey City Fire Department, which is another career department.

(30:00):
Then to the west of US we have Seaqualks Fire Department,
which is a volunteer department, and then to the north
we have Bourbon County, which are volunteer fire departments.

Speaker 3 (30:10):
So within the county itself we have.

Speaker 4 (30:15):
And you know I left out Carnee Fire which is
also Hudson County, and Harrison Fire. So those other fire
departments are within the county, but are their own fire
departments as well, So we don't have a county wide system,
but it is a regional department where you have five
cities that over a little over twenty five years ago
consolidated and created a one fire department. And the premise

(30:38):
behind that is to save taxpayer dollars, to increase the
number of personnel that you have responding to every single incident,
more apparatus responding to these incidents without needing automatic aid
or mutual aid. Bayone, somebody put in their bayone. I'm sorry,
bayone absolutely Bayon fied apartment. Yeah, so it's it's like

(31:01):
I said, it's a huge county. You know, it's a
huge county. But so, like I said, over twenty five
years ago, they consolidated and now you have more personnel
responding along with apparatus two incidents without the need for
automatic aid. So you're you're you're you're increasing, uh, you're
decreasing your response time.

Speaker 3 (31:20):
So we're getting to incidents a.

Speaker 4 (31:21):
Lot quicker with more manpower, operating safer than you would
if we were having to rely on automatic aid or
mutual aid all the time. And that was the idea
behind it, and when that happened, that was prior to
to me being hired by the fire department when I
was hired.

Speaker 3 (31:39):
I was hired by North Ostern Regional.

Speaker 4 (31:41):
But you know, we hear the stories and at the
time when when they were merging, you know, it wasn't
without its growing pains.

Speaker 3 (31:49):
You know, the unions got.

Speaker 4 (31:51):
Involved and and you know, one department was getting paid
more than another fire department, and you know what was
going to happen with the rank structure. Who is going
to you know, we're guys going to get demoted where
other guys are gonna get promoted. There was a lot
of infighting when it came to that, but I think
at the end of the day, well obviously at the
end of the day it all worked out. But but yeah,

(32:12):
we will cover those five cities, which are some of
the most densely populated cities in the country. And as
far as you know what we respond to, I mean,
you have everything from million dollar homes to housing projects.
We have, you know, a couple of private you know,
we have some some areas of town that you have
industrial section in the town. To the east, we have

(32:33):
the Hudson River and so we share responsibilities with FD
and y Mareene.

Speaker 3 (32:37):
Units, Coast Guard.

Speaker 4 (32:39):
We have the Lincoln tunnel that we respond to, so
we work alongside Port Authority. We have parts of the
the Amtrak tubes, uh, the train system that that we
respond along with with FD, ANDY and and you know,
and other agencies, and so you know, there's a lot
going on in that one little area of North Hudson

(33:01):
or of Northern Hudson County.

Speaker 3 (33:04):
So you know, it keeps us.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
I think it keeps us pretty busy, and it gives
us a good perspective into the fire service and emergency
services in general.

Speaker 1 (33:13):
Oh yeah, and I love the overlap too, FD and
Y New Jersey Transit police, poor authority police, amongst other
agencies that you can see at any given job, depending
on what the job is. And it's not that you're
happy these emergencies are happening. You don't want to see
people have their worst moment. But the volume of emergencies
that are occurring in these larger cities, the more diversity

(33:35):
calls are, from the medical component, to the NBA component,
to the rescue component to of course the box alarm and.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
The structure fire.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
The more well rounded your members are, you know, because
you have a chance to work and refine on certain
disciplines to where Listen, you got to be up to
speed because it's not just one city you're responsible for,
it's multiple so you got to meet the needs and
each place is different. And I imagine that's part of
the challenge and a part of the joy too, measuring
up not just in general being a good firefighter, from
measuring up the needs of a given city, given that

(34:03):
some emergency, some calls are more frequent in one place
than others. And I imagine that's to be a lot
of fun for you and the guys to getting hired
both then and.

Speaker 4 (34:12):
Oh absolutely, and and you know, for for for the
most part, the guys that are hired in North Hudson,
they have to live within one of those five cities
because we do have a residency requirement. But there was
a point in time where we were hiring from a
statewide list, so we were getting guys that were transferring
over from Cape May Fire Department in Atlantic City Fire Department.

(34:35):
They were taking a test again going back to the
fire academy after they've already done the fire academy, so
that they can get hired by us in North Hudson.
You know, because it's a bigger it's a bigger city,
it's a bigger fire department. You're going to more calls.
You you're you know, the diversity of the types of
alarms and the incidents that you go into, because of

(34:56):
the things that I mentioned, because of the infrastructure in
the area, because of where we're where we are situated
on the map. You know, it makes it, uh, it
makes it appealing, and it makes it very highly competitive
as far as seeking out that type of job and
testing for the fire department.

Speaker 1 (35:13):
Tell me about where you were first to side that
some of the senior guys there that I really helped
you learn the job early on.

Speaker 3 (35:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (35:20):
So, so I was first assigned to Squad ten, and
Squad ten was in West New York, or is in
West New York. And that's where I spent a good
portion of my proby year. And and I was working
for a captain. His name was al Ballister. He he
was I believe he was in the Air Force at
some point.

Speaker 3 (35:39):
It was either the Air Force or the Navy.

Speaker 4 (35:42):
But when I got when I got hired, all of
the company officers were salty, salty captains, gray hair, older men,
older gentlemen.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
I'm not like it is now. I mean now it's
a You look around and all the officers are young.
Most of the officers are just young guys. But at
the time that wasn't the case. But he was a.

Speaker 4 (36:04):
Type of officer that I aspired to be eventually, and
I realized what he did to assist me and to.

Speaker 3 (36:12):
Help me kind of grow up in the fire service,
so to speak.

Speaker 4 (36:17):
In addition to whatever we were doing for the day,
as far as organized training goes, right, so you have
a training schedule that you're following for the day, the
entire fire department or the entire shift is following the
training schedule. But in addition to whatever was assigned to
you for the day, you had your probationary training, which
was on top of everything else. But in addition to that,
he took every opportunity at your regular calls, right your

(36:42):
alarm activations, wuarter leaks things that were not actual fires.
Even even at fires, he would take the opportunity to
have us stayed just a little bit longer so that
we could walk around the building.

Speaker 3 (36:56):
He could teach me building construction.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
We would go up to the roof, we would you know,
try to pull the gooseneck away from you know, from
the building. He would, you know, teach me how danger
it is it is to you know, climb a fire
escape and that sort of thing. And you know, we would,
you know, stretch hose lines when you know, just just
for practice. And I'm talking two o'clock, three o'clock in
the morning, after the incident's over, after the fire everything,
after everything is all picked up already and everybody's going home.

(37:20):
We're we're still there, you know, at the fire seat
doing something to train and learn. And I remember looking
over at some of the more senior guys and they're.

Speaker 3 (37:28):
Like, oh, here we go.

Speaker 4 (37:30):
Can we get this probe out of here, because we're
never gonna We're never We're never gonna have an opportunity
to relax, right, He's gonna, you know, Captain Ballast is
gonna find every single opportunity to train this guy.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
And that's all we're gonna do. And and that and
that's what we did, you know.

Speaker 4 (37:43):
And but you know, having a conversation with with some
of these guys that are still on the job, they
they still you know, appreciate those moments because you know,
what what happens is is when you start seeing the
younger guys and their training and they're learning and they're
asking questions and then motivated some of these older guys
that are kind of setting their ways. And when I
say older, I'm not talking about age, I'm just talking

(38:06):
about more veteran firefighters. Once they're setting there in their
own ways, they start getting comfortable, they start getting a
little complacent, but they don't want to be you know,
they don't want the younger guy to show them out,
you know, So now they want to start kind of
stepping up their game as well, so that the younger
guy doesn't know as much as you know, as much
as they know, you know.

Speaker 3 (38:25):
So it kind of helps everybody.

Speaker 4 (38:26):
So anytime that we go through a process where we're
hiring new firefighters, or anytime that we're going through a
promotional process where guys are studying for the promotional exam,
you see, everybody starts to get better. Everybody starts getting
a little bit better. We hire a bunch of new guys,
you start seeing these veterans, which and when I say
veteran firefighters, they could be somebody with five, six, seven
years on the chop doesn't have to be a twenty

(38:47):
year man. So you know, somebody with you know, five six,
seven years now, you get new firefighters coming in. They
want to show them what they know, and they start
training them and they start working with them and they
start becoming that senior man and you start seeing just
the improvement and the operations, the improvement in training and
just improvement them around. In my opinion, department wide, when

(39:09):
you start having that, you know, change over you guys,
fresh blood and then the same thing when when when
when the promotional you know, season is up, you know,
you start seeing the same thing.

Speaker 2 (39:20):
Yeah, it rejuvenates guys.

Speaker 1 (39:22):
That's a good pers you know, it takes them out
of that monotonous, as you said, complacent mindset.

Speaker 2 (39:28):
And it's like, okay, I think you know what it is.
And this is not the.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
Case for every firefighter. I don't want to and I
know you're not portraying it.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
That way either.

Speaker 1 (39:34):
Where Naturally firefighters get complacent as time goes along. No,
it's not the case for all. Some still keep the
same vigor. But naturally, listen, sometimes we do get shaded.
Sometimes life and the things that you see out in
the field can wear a man down. But when they
see these probes coming on with so much energy and
so much you know, vinegar and just juice for the job.
I think it reminds them of what they once were

(39:55):
and that they were once that kid that you know,
had all that excitement and all that ambition and all
that goodness, and you know, there's a fondness for that.
As long as the probe has the right attitude that's contagious.
It really helps the department out. It boosts the morale
of the more betteran firefighters, as you said, and a
boost the morale of the rookies who are unsure themselves.

Speaker 2 (40:13):
Probably in the beginning.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
They have a lot to learn and a lot of
ground to cover to say, Okay, I made the right decision.

Speaker 2 (40:17):
I'm glad I'm here.

Speaker 3 (40:19):
Yeah. If you create that culture, right, it's a culture thing.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
If you create that culture, then I think what happens
is you start kind of weeding out those firefighters that
don't want to you know, be part of the process,
you know.

Speaker 3 (40:31):
Because it's it's the environment is important. It's just like
when we grew up as kids.

Speaker 4 (40:36):
If you grow up in a in a happy, wholesome household, right,
I think that you're more likely to grow up as
a happy.

Speaker 3 (40:43):
Healthy person.

Speaker 4 (40:44):
Right, For the most part, right, And I believe the
same thing holds too with the fire service. If you
take a kid out of the academy who has all
the potential in the world to be, you know, an
excellent firefighter, and you put them with a crew that
is not motivated, that is disquntled, they don't want to train,

(41:06):
they see everything as as as being negative. Then eventually,
over time they start to break down that that firefighter
that had the potential of being great, and then they
start kind of falling in line with that. Whereas if
you do the reverse and you take that junior firefighter
or that prob and you put them in a motivated company,

(41:28):
I believe, I strongly believe that they're going to become
motivated and they're gonna they're gonna do as they're as
they're taught, right, they get because they're following that example,
just like at home. That's why I like being in
a fire service and as as a chief officers like
raising another family.

Speaker 3 (41:43):
It really is.

Speaker 1 (41:44):
And what's going to happen when that rookie firefighter gets six, seven,
eight years in the job. They're gonna do the same
thing when the come in.

Speaker 4 (41:51):
And if they take the test, yeah, and if they
take the test and they become an officer if they
didn't have the good foundation as a good firefighter, and
you become an officer, just because you could become an
officer doesn't mean you're going to be a good officer, right,
Just because you're in charge and you're a boss, you're
not a leader, right. So it's it's it's contagious for
the good and for the bats. So you got to
you got we have to try to, you know, make

(42:13):
it right from the beginning. I think you got to
make it right from the beginning, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:16):
And that's the key for not just the fire service,
especially the fire service considering the fact that lives are
quite literally in the line, but.

Speaker 2 (42:23):
For anything right, you know.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
If I'm a huge baseball fan, particularly with the New
York Yankees, one of the things that made those dynasty
teams of nineteen ninety six through two thousand so effective
is every guy hustled. It didn't matter if it was
a star like Derek Jeter or Bernie Williams or Paul
O'Neill or a bench guy like Louis Soho. Every guy
approached there at bats and their play out in the
field the same exact way, with the same exact intensity.

(42:47):
It was such a culture that, hey, it was successful.
They went the five World Series of six years one
four of them. We're not going to talk about two
thousand and one against Arizona. We won't go there. But
you know, nevertheless, it's the same thing in the fire service.
A good attitude goes a long way, and it's it's
a great foundation that you know, listen, as the old
Kiss method says, keep it simple stupid.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
As long as you have a good culture in place,
everything else gradually will fall to place.

Speaker 4 (43:09):
Till absolutely and everybody knows their role. You know, you
brought up the Yankees. You know, Derk Jeter wasn't even
the best short shortstop on the Yankees.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
When they brought.

Speaker 5 (43:21):
A Rod in.

Speaker 4 (43:22):
They you you're gonna play first base. You're not gonna
be a shortstop, even though you're a better shortstop. But
you know what, Jeter's a captain and that's the role,
and then this is gonna be your role.

Speaker 3 (43:30):
And he went along. He did it.

Speaker 4 (43:32):
He did an excellent job. And that's that's the same thing.
It's like, you have to know your roll, your responsibilities.
Where do you fit in that, what what cogured you
in that wheel, and and and if that falls apart,
everything else falls apart.

Speaker 3 (43:44):
And that's a culture thing. It goes back to culture.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
It goes back to setting that setting that precedent from
the beginning, making sure that everybody is on the same page.
And it's a matter of explaining what the mission is.
Right if every you don't have to agree with everything
that I do, But if I play the mission, if
I explain this is why I'm doing what I'm doing,
and you don't have to agree with it, and you
may have a different opinion, but if you understand why

(44:09):
I'm doing it, I think that you're more than likely
to kind of follow.

Speaker 3 (44:14):
Along and say, you know what, let's try to make
that work. Right.

Speaker 4 (44:17):
We see that in a special operations world where where
you know, we have a complex incident special operations called
complex incident, a technical rescue, and everybody has an idea
on how to best manage or mitigate this incident. Everybody
has good ideas. Everyone that's there is there for a reason.
They have the training, they have experience, they motivate their
A type personalities. But everybody has an opinion and a

(44:39):
lot of times we see it during training where you
know what we have to perform some type of you know,
technical complex grope rescue, and everybody has an opinion how
to get it done. Well, we can sit there and
we can talk about our opinions and spend five, ten,
fifteen minutes talking about what is the best way, or
we could identify one or two of the best ideas

(45:01):
right away and make one of those work and if
it doesn't work, we will adjust. But you make one
of those things work, you know what I mean. And
so that's kind of like whether it's Special Operations or
anything else in the fire Service. People need to understand
why we are doing what we're doing. And if people
understand why we're doing that, then I think everyone will
do whatever it is that they can do within their

(45:23):
experience or within their roles, within their role to try
to make that work to the best.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Of their abilities.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
Now, let's go for a second to the squad component.
Because you mentioned being in a squad earlier. You we
have spent a lot of your career both as a
chief officer as a firefighter in Special Operations Command. Now,
just to get context, I know the FG and why
set up with squads is within their first two area,
they're an engine company. Anything outside of that a truck
company if it's second to or third two, anything beyond
that a squad if it's city wide emergencies.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
Is that the case for North Hudson Regional.

Speaker 3 (45:52):
Fire pretty similar.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
There's one squad that fits that billet, Squad one, and
it was West New York at the time. Now it's
in Union City rising along with the rescue and the
second battalion. The Squad one fits that billet. So Squad
one is the first do area. You're you're an engine,
you're an engine company. Second do area to a working fire,
you're you're not a truck company, but you're the fifth engine,

(46:17):
which can act as a truck company.

Speaker 3 (46:19):
Brings saws up to the roof, perform.

Speaker 4 (46:21):
Primary search, secondary search, whatever needs to get done along
with the rescue, so they would work with the rescue
or if the rescue is tied up doing something else,
then they're the backup rescue. So, for instance, if our
rescue goes out of town for a for a special
operations type call, then the squad becomes the rescue and runs.

Speaker 3 (46:38):
The rescue for for the for the city.

Speaker 4 (46:40):
For the town, the squad squad one UH in addition
to having obviously it's it's a pumper, but they have
extrication battery powered extrication tools on the rig as well,
so if they respond to a motor vehicle accident and
they have to perform education, they have that on there
as well. And the other squads that we have in

(47:01):
the regional or in the in the department are the
RIC teams. So those if they're not if it's not
their first du if they're not on the first alarm
assignment as a first, do engine, second, do a dird
new engine, then they're responding as the RICK team, and
so that's their function at a working fire for the
other squads that we have. So I spent so I

(47:23):
started off with Squad ten, which was in West New York,
and then I made my way over to Squad one,
which was the backup, because I knew that I wanted
to make my way into special operations.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
I wanted to go ten the classes.

Speaker 4 (47:33):
I wanted to go to all the FEMA classes and
get certified, and so that's kind of like what I
wanted to do. So I was always interested in that
and and eventually I did as a after my PROB
year I think I was within my somewhere a year
and a half to two years.

Speaker 3 (47:47):
I was able to make my way over the squad.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
One and and then get trained there and then and
then you know, take all the special operations classes, and
it was something I fell in love with right away.
I knew I wanted to do something like that. That's
what I wanted to be doing in the fire departments,
something that interested me from the beginning.

Speaker 1 (48:05):
Oh, it's definitely a great place to be. But just
you mentioned you're rid. I've said this before on the shore.
I'll say it again. I know I work with some
guys and I've known some guys over the years.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
That don't like RITT.

Speaker 1 (48:14):
And it's not that they don't care about the time
they do. It's just naturally, if you're a firefighter, you
want to be act if you want to be doing
something at a fire And the comic complaint I hear
is well, we don't get the chance to do anything
on RIT. I will say this again, if you're on WRIT, good,
I don't want you doing anything because if you have
to do something on WRIT, that means something terribly wrong.

Speaker 4 (48:31):
So well, yeah, to be honest with you, if you're
If you are writ and you're not working, and I'll
explain what I mean in a second, then you're not
doing your job as a rick team because there's a
lot to do.

Speaker 3 (48:44):
Right.

Speaker 4 (48:44):
Yes, you're not going in right, you're not stretching lines,
you're not performing searches. But when you get on a
scene and you're the rip boss, you should be conducting
a continuous size up of this building. You should be
walking around doing the three sixty. You should be identifying
what windows have bars that need to be removed right
so that, in God forbid, we need to get in
there and get firefighters out. We don't want to have

(49:06):
to navigate to these obstacles that are going to prevent
or make it difficult for ingress or egress. So if
you're the rigged team in our department, what you need
to be doing is placing ground ladders to the fire
floor and the floor above right, so that you have
alternate means of egress for the guys that are inside you.
You listen to the radio traffic, listen to what's happening

(49:28):
as far as whether they have water in the fire.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Or is it getting worse.

Speaker 4 (49:32):
Right, because the cadence starts to change when you're listening
to the radio and there's a may day situation, it's
not calm, cool and collected. There's there's a series of
things that start to kind of break down. You know,
we have a you know, we can't find the season
of fire, or it's getting hot of here, or you know,
you know, you start to hear it in their voices

(49:52):
that something is going wrong, and then there's a may
day and you know, you know what, it's the fan.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
So if you're the rig team, you should be listening
to that radio traffic. You should be every now and
then you should.

Speaker 4 (50:03):
Walk around the building is you know, depending on the
size of the building obviously, but if you can physically
walk around the building just to take another look to
see check the conditions in the rear, or the conditions
somewhere where the inside commander may not have eyes, you know,
and constantly evaluate what's happening on the fire ground, then
you're not working. So, you know, you said, guys, sometimes
they tell me, well, you know, chief, how many how

(50:24):
many ladders you want me to put up? They keep
putting ground ladder, keep putting ground ladders up until I
tell you to stop, Like I want if I could
have a ground ladder at every window, because God forbid,
somebody's got to get out, you know, I want them
to be able to get out. Now that being said,
if there's a rescue situation that happens on the fire ground,
it's chances are it's not going to be the rick
team that's gonna make the graph. It's gonna be the

(50:46):
guys that are working inside the building, the rescue company,
the lot of companies. The guys that are inside the
building that have quicker access to the down firefighter, missing
firefighter are the ones that are going to make access
to that firefighter first.

Speaker 3 (50:58):
Right.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
The rick teams roll is really a matter of assisting
that initial rescue. So if a guy goes down, he's disoriented,
there's a partial collapse, or whatever the case is, I'm
gonna send the rescue company to go get them the
rescue I'll put it to you this way. I don't
need to send the rescue company to get them because
they know that that's their role. They're gonna hear that,
they're gonna listen to that radio transmission, they're gonna start

(51:20):
making their way to that down firefighter.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
That becomes a priority.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
So when that happens, then I activate the rig team
and I have them work in coordination with the rescue
and then once they find the down firefighter, then they
can assist with the removal of that firefighter. That's really
what the role responsibility. So you gotta be ready. So
if you're standing there and you're Hanser in your pocket
and you're a rictine, you're not doing your.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Job well said.

Speaker 1 (51:43):
You know, it's definitely a critical component because the faster
you can operate, the better, And it's about not only
responding to risk, but a lot of it is also
prevention too. If you can mitigate those risks before they
even manifest themselves as such, it definitely goes a long way.
And unfortunately, there is a lot to learn from not
just from fires in New Jersey, but other incidents in
other places over the years where that.

Speaker 2 (52:04):
Was not done so effectively, or even where it was.

Speaker 1 (52:07):
But unfortunately, because of the nature of the situation, things
got out of control. Members were hurt, her members were killed.
And as Nick Colombo says he's in the chat, he says,
high to both of us, a men brother, a designated
writ is a branch of safety.

Speaker 2 (52:18):
Yeah, he's a good guy.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
Is a branch of safety and accountability. And for those
of you in the audience, my sister who don't know
what RIT stands for, it's rapid Intervention Team for those
who's not familiar with that. Once again, my sister. So
that being said, you know, again we talked earlier about
squads and how well rounded they are, how there's multiple
different emergencies they can respond to any given time. For
you either as a fire officer, from your time as

(52:41):
a captain to your time currently as a chieper as
a firefighter and one of these squads, what are some
of the emergencies from a technical rescue standpoint or a
structure fire standpoint that stand out to you as Wow,
that was quite the operation.

Speaker 3 (52:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (52:53):
So one of the fire situations that kind of stand
out to me is I was a captain on a
squad and we had a high rise fire and we
pull up and we were third due to the high
rise and our assignment as a third two engine is
that the chauffeur stays with the apparatus and UH and
assist with supplying the fire department connection right for the

(53:15):
stamp pipes and all that. So you know, he stays
with the rake and me and my guys going inside
and and we we operate a little differently than than
our brothers in fd ANDY in the sense that we
don't have the manpower that they have. I really wish
we did. But we have on an engine or on
the squad it's a captain and two five fighters. If

(53:37):
you're lucky, you'll get a third fire fighter on squad one.
That day it was just three of us, right, So
I leave my chauffeur with the rake he's working with
with one of the other engines and make sure that
they establish a water supply and supply supply the fire
department connection. And me and my guy, which happens to
be approby at the time, another fellow Marine jar head.

(53:57):
We walk into walk into the lobby and and we
walk up to the command post and they tell us,
I think it was the thirteenth floor, and just make
your way up to the thirteenth floor. The hose line
they're having they're having a hard time with making it
with advancing on to the fire make your way up
up the up the elevator up to the thirteen floor
and then just you know, go to work. Checking with

(54:18):
your your operations chief. There was an operations chief up there.
So we take the elevator, go up to the floor below,
find the stairwell, will walk up to the to the
fire floor.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
Checking with the chief.

Speaker 4 (54:29):
He says yeah, they're having an issue with making headway
on the fire and say all right. So I turn
over to my guy, who's a proby, and I go,
you ready, and he goes yeah, he's he's excited, full
of pits of edegar. This guy, Johnny warth Man, he's
like a huge muscle guy. Right, I'm a I'm a
small guy. I'm not I'm five to seven, I'm not.
I'm not a big guy by any means. I say,
all right, let's let's suit up, let's get ready.

Speaker 3 (54:50):
We mask up.

Speaker 4 (54:51):
We uh, you know, we see the hose line in
the coming from the standpipe and follow it in down
the hole and we end.

Speaker 3 (55:01):
Up finding the apartment. So now we're at the apartment.

Speaker 4 (55:04):
We start making our way into the apartment and you know,
complete black, zero visibility, and I reach out in front
of me and I feel a firefighter and I'm able
to with my light, I'm able to make out his
name from the back of his coat, in the back
of his jacket and he's like right in front of me,
and I realize that they're on the line and they're

(55:25):
flowing water and they're trying to make some progress on
the fire.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
And from one.

Speaker 4 (55:30):
Second to the other, this guy jumps back, falls on
top of me, and he's screaming that he can't he's
got no are So what ended up happening is he
jumps back, rips his mask off because he was a
young firefighter as well, he rips his mask off, and
now he's kind of grabbing and trying to get his

(55:51):
way out of Remember, now this isn't just an apartment,
and then you're in the hallway, it's the or the
stairwells in the apartment. You got to make your way
fifty feet down the hallway and then you're in the
free and clear in the stairwell. He falls back, and
I realize what's happening, and I tell John to grab him.
And so as we go to grab him and start
dragging him out again on my radio and I'm about

(56:13):
to call a may day situation over the radio, and
as I attempt to call the may day, he reaches
up and ends up.

Speaker 3 (56:20):
Grabbing uh the.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Uh the regulator host the host for my regulator, and
pull ends up pulling my mask away from my face
and I taken I taken some smoke.

Speaker 3 (56:29):
So at that point, I'm like, just now I'm just.

Speaker 4 (56:33):
Beating them and just kind of trying to get them
off of me just to be able to get my
mask back in place.

Speaker 3 (56:39):
And I'm able to do.

Speaker 4 (56:40):
That, and then we'll grab we grab him, take him
down the hallway, get him out to the stairway. And
then once we're out in the stairway, you know, he's
got his mask off and his face is completely black
and bloody, and you know, and he was able to
get to the hospital and went to the he went
to the burn center. He spent some time in the
burn center, had some uh some burns to his to
his to his respiratory system, and he was out for

(57:04):
quite a bit and it ended up making it back
and he's on the job now and now he's he's
studying for the rank rank of rank of captain and
he's you know, he's a great firefighter.

Speaker 3 (57:14):
But what what what sticks out in.

Speaker 4 (57:16):
My in my head with that situation is what you
can do with minimal manpower.

Speaker 3 (57:21):
And I don't preach minimal manpower.

Speaker 4 (57:23):
I'm not here to say that, you know, I wish
we had five, six seven guys on each piece of apparatus.
But kind of going back to what we talked about
in the Marine Corps, when you're faced with something that
you don't know how the hell your body is going
to react to it, or you know how you're going
to handle the stressful situation, and you find a way
to overcome. But how we got from that apartment door

(57:47):
with him to the hallway to the stairwell is a
blur in my mind. It's it's a complete blur how
that even took place. But it was a matter of
training and working with this probe firefight that I had
with me on the squad. And this is something we
trained on all the time. We trained even though we
weren't never going to be the rictine. We trained on

(58:07):
rid operations, We trained on carries and drags, We trained
on you know, air consumption, you know how to manage
your the air and your actually b a you know
how to how to get yourself out of a tight situation.
And it is something that we trained on all the time.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
You know.

Speaker 4 (58:22):
And and that was something that because of the training
and I think because I want to say, because you
had two marines there, I think, and and the five
part of that, I had a that had is uh
ended up being a malfunction with his with his s
b A, which was out I put out of service
for quite some time and it was eventually fixed. But
you know, he also happened to be a marine as well,

(58:43):
but so we kind of don't let him, let him
lift that down a little bit. But actually, but that
was that was one, you know, just one of many
different you know, fire situations.

Speaker 3 (58:54):
That one sticks out in my head quite a bit
because you know, now he has you know, they.

Speaker 4 (58:59):
Both have families and kids now and stuff, and you know,
it's nice to see that, you know that that you
made a difference in, you know, in somebody's life, and
especially somebody that you care so much about, you know.
In the fire service, we you know, it's a breaks
a brotherhood, it really is. It really is a brotherhood, sisterhood.
It definitely is is a is a family for sure.

Speaker 2 (59:20):
Of course.

Speaker 1 (59:20):
You know, as I've learned, even though I'm currently civilian
employee where I work in the fire Fire Department Connecticut,
you know, if they're not busting your shops. That means
they don't like you. It's such a reverse from any
other workplace. Any other workplace doesn't operate this way. But
if you're in civil service or any kind of former
public service, they operate that way. I mean just yesterday
we at our ships down here run a through D.

(59:41):
The D ship was in and I was getting eviscerated
at the watch desk looking at you, Helen Hickey, and
you know what, I'm like, yo, You know what as
as I thought about on the drive home, like good
because if that wasn't the case, as as is the case,
as you were talking about with your colleague, what does
that say about the person?

Speaker 3 (59:57):
You know?

Speaker 1 (59:58):
So, even now that you guys can even laugh about
at it all these years later, it's a testament not
only to the bond you guys have, but just to
de bond in general the Fire Service.

Speaker 2 (01:00:05):
And that's good to see.

Speaker 3 (01:00:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:07):
I mean every time we hire a new class, I
tell the kids there's you know, I spend about an
hour with them telling, you know, kind of going over
what they should expect and how they should conduct themselves.
You know, not just in the fire academy, but you know,
within their first year probation every year in the fire department.
That's definitely one of the things that that I that
I talk about all the time is is you know,

(01:00:27):
if they're not busting any chops, they don't like you.

Speaker 3 (01:00:29):
So don't take things personal. It's part of the process.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
It's just like being at home and it's like you're
having your your your brother, little.

Speaker 3 (01:00:36):
Brother or sister.

Speaker 4 (01:00:37):
You know, you could bust their chops all the time,
but you're not gonna let somebody else do that, you know.
So it's it's it's a again, it's a family environment
that you have to understand that that that that that's
the way it is. Uh And if you don't like
that and it's not for you, and that's fine, it's not.
This job isn't for everybody, really, isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:00:52):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:53):
I tell you, why are you doing Why are you
doing this job?

Speaker 4 (01:00:56):
Is it because you want to you know, wear the
T shirts or you want to have a sticker, you know,
fight a farm mistick or licensed plates on your car
or something like that. Or is it because you really
want to you know, serve you know, you want to
be a firefighter.

Speaker 2 (01:01:08):
Yeah, that's ultimately what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
What is the metal inside you, if there is one
that's motivating you to do the job, and in most
instances the intention is good and therefore when careers turn
out quite well. Now, speaking of careers, being a fire
officer is such a big step, and it's worth noting
for context, you were promoted to captain in twenty ten.
For those of you not familiar with the setup that
they have in North Hudson Regional, they don't have the

(01:01:31):
rank of lieutenant, so you go straight from firefighter to captain.
It's not like most places firefighter lieutenant and then captain,
or even some places firefighter fire sergeant.

Speaker 2 (01:01:39):
And then captain. So for you six years on the job,
by this point.

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
You've learned a lot. You've been around some great officers
and great guys. After being promoted, there always comes both
two moments. One, holy crap, I'm in charge of the
whole crew now and I really got to set the tone.
And two making sure you make decisions that don't compromise
their safety. The third moment to it too, the moment
where you finally feel comfortable in your rank.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
So we'll go one by one and we'll start with
the first one.

Speaker 1 (01:02:07):
A lot of studying went into it a lot of prep,
you know, just before you can even get to any
of the other scenarios, you.

Speaker 2 (01:02:12):
Got to pass the test first.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Tell me about that process in terms of staying disciplined,
really digging into those books and hone it down to
pass both the oral and written.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:21):
So the study process is interesting because that's something that
that I actually, you know, teach you know, young young
firefighters now how how to study for and you know,
do well on their promotional exams. And and also we
teach people that civilians that are taking the fire department
test of whether it's in New Jersey and sometimes some
other states, you know, how to study for it, how

(01:02:44):
to take and how to pass and do well in
the firefighters exams as well. But for for me, it
was it was the fact that I had an opportunity
to take the test. And in New Jersey and Silver Service,
the requirement is that you have to have three years
on which to me is it's crazy, like three years

(01:03:07):
as a firefighter. They determined that within three years you
have what it takes or you're qualified quote unquote to
be able to at least take the fire Officer exam.
And if you do well, you move up the ranks. Now,
I don't think that that is the best indicator of
someone that has what it takes to be a good

(01:03:27):
fire officer, but that's what it is, and that's the process.
So you know, I made the cut by ten days.
As far as having my three years on, I had
it by ten days. So I barely made it to
be able to take the test. And so I said,
you know what someone has said to me once, and
I say this all the time, never pass up.

Speaker 3 (01:03:49):
An opportunity to take a test. If you're in.

Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
The fire service. First of all, from day one, you
should be constantly reading. You should any free time that
you have in the firehouse, you should be reading something
right in the fire service that's going to make you better.
So I was always reading, even after my probationary year,
I was always in the books and reading. And when
the test came up, the application for the test, I said,

(01:04:15):
you know, I'll apply for it. I'll take it, and
I'm not going to really go all in. I'm just
going to study a little bit. I don't want to
embarrass myself. I'll study a little bit, and you know,
the studying is going to help me on the job,
because it's going to teach you things, because it's not
like some places that it's heavy on s ops and
rules and regulations and departmental policies and procedures in that nature.

(01:04:37):
This is these are the textbooks Fire Officer ham Tactics
by Norman Done, you know, so you're you're getting all
these textbooks that you're that you have to read. Also
one of the textbooks that you have in Jersey, uh,
Firefighter Skills Essentials. So there's a bunch of different textbooks
that you have to read Brandigan. So you know, you

(01:04:57):
have this extensive reading list, which you know, if you
do it right, you take what you're learning in the
books and his book world and his real world right.
And you have to be able to take what you
learn in the books and then apply it, you know,
on the streets.

Speaker 3 (01:05:10):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:11):
And so I realized that as I was reading and
I was studying, I was starting to really get a
better understanding of building construction, Understanding how buildings are built,
Understanding you know, how fire travels.

Speaker 1 (01:05:21):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:05:21):
In addition to what you learn as approby or on
the job. It usually on the job is your captain
tells you he stayed with me do what I tell
you to do. Right, We're going to stretch lines, We're
going to get to be aggressive this, you know, and
you kind of follow suit, and you don't. Sometimes you
don't think for yourself necessarily. But if you start reading
and you start, you know, taking what you're learning in
the books and then start applying it to what you

(01:05:42):
see on the street, then you start developing a better
knowledge of it. So as I started doing that, I
started realizing, matter, I really like this, and I think that,
you know, I could do a pretty good job of this.

Speaker 3 (01:05:53):
And I would see some of the officers that were maybe.

Speaker 4 (01:05:58):
Not as motivated and not as aggressive as the officers
that I had when I was coming up, and I
said I could.

Speaker 3 (01:06:07):
I think I could do a better job than that guy.

Speaker 6 (01:06:09):
I think I could do a better job of leading
men and women. I think I could do a better
job of keeping you know, my people safe. I think
I could do a better job of being an aggressive firefighter
and doing you know, doing a good job. So and
I started kind of picking up a little bit more steam,
and I really started studying and hitting the books and
started getting motivated. I had a conversation with my wife,
and you know, because it's a commitment, you have to

(01:06:31):
kind of put a side family time, you know, you know,
put family time aside it and you have you have
to be able to. And I had a young family,
so it was tough to tell my wife, you.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
Know, you take care of the kids, You do all
the cooking and cleaning, you take care of the kids.

Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
I'm going to be an absent father for the next
six to eight months.

Speaker 4 (01:06:46):
Leave me alone. I'm going to be stuck in the
basement reading. It's not gonna happen. My wife's like, that's
not happening, right. So I had to wake up at
four o'clock, five o'clock in the morning just to study.
I would read the books, I would highlight, I would
type notes, and then what I would do is I
would I would kind of record myself reading the notes,
and then I'd listen to myself reading my notes on

(01:07:06):
my way to work or on my way home, just
so that all this information could kind of sink into
my head. And uh, you know, and then I remember
being in the firehouse kitchen and I'm reading Norman, and uh,
one of the senior firefighters walks past and goes, what
are you doing? I go, I'm just reading. Was he
taking the test?

Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
So yeah, he.

Speaker 4 (01:07:25):
Goes learn how to be a firefighter. First, you go,
you should put that book down, grab a mop and
do the go mop the kitchen. I said, all right,
So I put the book down, I went and mopped
the kitchen, and then I came back and went right
back to my books.

Speaker 3 (01:07:38):
And I said, I'm going to show this guy. I'm
going to show him.

Speaker 4 (01:07:41):
And you know, I did well enough where where I
was promoted on that on that first test, and I
and I was promoted in the first round and and
and that was the easy part because now you got
to really do the job. And that's that's really where
the work is. And that's the difficult part of this
is not the studying. It's not the reading, not finding time,

(01:08:01):
is actually realizing that that now you've got to go
to work. Now, this is this is the real test,
not the civil service test. This is the real test
whether or not you can keep your people safe.

Speaker 3 (01:08:12):
Right.

Speaker 4 (01:08:13):
You know, have that short term goal of making sure
that your whole crew goes home at the at the
end of the day. Long term goal making sure that
that you guys make it to retirement.

Speaker 3 (01:08:23):
Right, So those things are.

Speaker 4 (01:08:25):
Are, you know, become a reality real quick the minute
that you get promoted and you get assigned your first
your first company.

Speaker 1 (01:08:34):
And that segues into the second leg of this ultimately
three part question, which is, and again you can kind
of answer the second and third parts on this particular
question that first operation as a captain, whatever it was,
where not only you're concerned about the safety of those
who have callity for this particular emergency, but also the
safety of your crew and making sure your size of
is effective and you deploy resources correct uh, correctly, and

(01:08:56):
that's the biggest thing to the resources. You can never
have enough. And then you get there and you say, okay,
well maybe we can downgrade. The response to me, we
have to upgrade. So whatever that first operation was, tell
me about it. Tell me about your takeaways after the
factory you said to yourself, Okay, I handled this well
and maybe, okay I could have done this a little
bit better. I'll keep this in mind for next time.

Speaker 3 (01:09:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:09:15):
So, so I remember my first day walking into into
the firehouse as a captain, and I'm walking up the
stairs and I'm like taking my time coming up the stairs,
and I'm like, you know, I was nervous, I really was.

Speaker 3 (01:09:28):
And you know, I walk.

Speaker 4 (01:09:29):
Into the kitchen and I had my brand new, you know,
Captain shirt, and I walk into the kitchen and I
had some kind of pastries or something. Right, So you
never walked into the firehouse with your arm swinging. So
I came in with with something for the guys. And
you know, I walked in and uh and I was
the first one there. And so you know, I got
there early because I you know, I would always get

(01:09:50):
in early. I made coffee and then the crew started
to show up and arrive, you know, the the oncoming crew.
And the guys that were that were assigned to me
were strategically assigned to me. And I didn't notice at
the time. The guys that were assigned to me were seasoned,
veteran firefighters, you know, these guys. And it was Engine

(01:10:11):
four in Union City, which is you know, Union City
got always got all the major fires, and Engine four
is the business engine in the department. And I'm assigned
to Engine four, and I got these two firefighters that
are with me that that have much more time on
the job of me and much more experience. And so
it was, it was it was a bit. You know,

(01:10:33):
I was nurse. You know I was nurse, and you know,
I walked in and I knew the guys. So it
wasn't like I'm walking in and introducing myself to a crew, right.

Speaker 3 (01:10:42):
I knew them.

Speaker 4 (01:10:43):
I've worked with them in the past, very little, but
I have worked with them in the past. So that
does make it a little bit easier that you're not
just walking into like a crew that firefighters that you
never met.

Speaker 3 (01:10:54):
But when the.

Speaker 4 (01:10:58):
When they started busting chops like right away, like to
the degree that they did, I was like, oh, man,
I really got my work cut out for me here.

Speaker 3 (01:11:07):
I really do got my work cut out for me.

Speaker 4 (01:11:09):
But I quickly learned that every call that we went to,
right from from the most basic call to to to
to a structure fire, motor vehicle accident, whatever it was,
any type of incident that we went to, they were
taking care of me. These guys, right, they were taking
care of me. They would ask me questions a cap
did we do this? Or what do you think about that?

(01:11:31):
But so they're not at the time I'm thinking that
they're asking me for my opinion, and they really weren't
asking me for my opinion. I think they were kind
of guiding me in the right direction as to say, look,
this is this is what I think we should be doing,
without saying in those words.

Speaker 3 (01:11:46):
And then eventually I started realizing what.

Speaker 4 (01:11:48):
They were doing, you know, and and to this day
I thank them for that.

Speaker 3 (01:11:52):
I mean, it was they were an excellent crew.

Speaker 4 (01:11:54):
And now what I try to do is is when
I get a brand new fire brand new cap and
come and he also assigned to me, I try to
put them with a crew that's that's a more seasoned
veteran crew, because I see how much that helps. And
you know, and and we, like I said, any type
of call that we would go on, these guys would
would help me out, and you know, and we became,

(01:12:15):
we became like a family. They would invite me to
their homes or birthday parties for the kids, this that
and the other, and vice versa, and and and eventually
they they they you know, I think they realized, all right,
we got this young kid, he's our captain, and we
got to step it up.

Speaker 3 (01:12:30):
Now, we got to get promoted.

Speaker 4 (01:12:31):
And they did, and they started you know, taking their
their their taking it serious as far as the promotional
process goes, I helped them out just a little bit
kind of guide them in the right direction with the studying.
But eventually they became captains and and now they're they're
both battalion chiefs that that very highly respected and mired
battalion chiefs on the job with us.

Speaker 3 (01:12:52):
But but yeah, that that was that was like.

Speaker 4 (01:12:56):
My experience as growing up as a captain real quick,
you know, being assigned with a group of guys that
have their stuff together, know their job, and are good
hearted people that are going to take care of you,
and then you've got to return to favor and.

Speaker 3 (01:13:12):
Take care of them as well. You know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:14):
That's a super important part, you know of being a
boss or being a manager, supervisor or chief officer is
you know, you take care of your people and they're
going to take care of you, you know. And I've
seen that throughout my entire career.

Speaker 1 (01:13:29):
And that segues into your ascension to battalion chief in
twenty seventeen. They often say one of the hardest transitions
in promotion is going from captain to chief because again,
whole new ballgame is it somewhat easier because now you've
been a fire officer for a while and you're not
going into it brand spanking new somewhat, but it doesn't
make the transition any less challenging in terms of the

(01:13:51):
new obstacles to joining to have to face. So being
a battalion chief around this time and you were covering
all three battalions at different points during this stretch, tell
me about the study that went into that and what
made you want to pursue that, because not to deticgrate
the rank in any way, it sounds like a great spot,
and obviously your current spot is a great spot too,
But a lot of people once they get the captain

(01:14:11):
or lieutenant in other departments, that's their sweet spot and
they stay there.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
You kept pushing further.

Speaker 4 (01:14:15):
Why captain is the best job? The captain or or lieutenant,
You know, depending on your department, that's the best job.
Because for for us in North Hudson, I would say,
it's kind of like like a lieutenant in an FDY
because you're going in, you're you're you're a captain.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
You're you're going in with the guys.

Speaker 4 (01:14:31):
You're fighting fires, You're there on the on the nozzle,
you're on the roof, you're cutting holes, you're you're doing
all the work with with with the guys that you're
working with. Once you're a battalion chief, you're no longer
in the crew. You're you're you're arriving on the scene,
and you're you're outside the building while everyone else is working.
And the only time that the battalion chief actually goes

(01:14:52):
in is depending on the alarms. The deputy chief will
arrive on the scene and assign that battalion chief as
interior Operations or roof division or whatever the case is.
But he's still not working, but he's in there actually
having eyes on the firefighters inside the building or on
the roof for whatever the case is, as they're conducting
their operation. But for me, when when I was a captain,

(01:15:13):
as I started training more and more and more and
they would send me a lot of younger guys to train.
You know, I went from edge of four as a
captain back to Squad one where I was as a firefighter.
Now I'm a squad captain and now we're doing all
the special operations training. I'm working with the rescue and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:33):
Then the department. At that time, they bought a they
bought a new truck and new tower ladder.

Speaker 4 (01:15:37):
In fact, my champel came over and did did all
the tower ladder training with us, and when we started
working on the on the tower ladder, I was like, man,
I want to work there. So and that's also part
that Ladder three in Western New York. It was also
part of the Special Operations units. So I say, you
know what perfect thing I want to be on the
roof I want to I want to be on the
ladder company and and that's what I want to do

(01:15:59):
for the rest of my time as a captain, you know.
And it's also you know, part of Special Operations, So
it's like perfect and so I put in for that
and I got the position. But when that happened, they
started the department started asking me to put some things together, some.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
Large area rope search training together.

Speaker 4 (01:16:18):
I started, you know, training more and more, working with
the department to train a larger group of people versus
just my crew. So as I started doing it, and
I started kind of transitioning to I wasn't a training
officer for the department, but I was working with the
department training officer to put training programs together. And I
enjoyed that so much because I said to myself, you

(01:16:39):
know what, I'm not only working to make my crew better.

Speaker 3 (01:16:42):
I'm working to make the department better.

Speaker 4 (01:16:45):
So I realized that once you start transitioning into these
roles and start moving up the ranks, the amount of
people that you can affect, the amount of people that
you can have a positive impact on, and the amount
of change that you can possibly make is on a
larger scale. So I said, if I move up the
ranks and move up to battalion, then I can possibly

(01:17:07):
end up doing special operations and then end up you know,
changing this changing that, you know, helping the department kind
of move in a direction where I felt that we
needed to kind of step up the type of training
that we were doing, maybe improve on a couple of
things here and there. And so I said, you know what,
I'll take the Batali Chiefs Exam and you know see
how I do.

Speaker 2 (01:17:27):
So, you know, no, go ahead, that's gonna say.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
It's worth noting around this time a few years prior
twenty thirteen, it'd also begun your ten yures and instructor
the Momouth County Fire Academy. Now, in line with that,
I wanted to ask you, how do you feel that
gig allowed you to better communicate as a fire officer,
particularly once you made chief.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:17:45):
Absolutely, because when I started working in the fire Academy
and I was working for my former boss. So when
I became a captain, my deputy chief was Anthony Villo.
And Anthony Villo ended up when he retired as a
deputy in North Huton, he went to take over.

Speaker 3 (01:18:00):
The Amama County Fire Academy. Calls me up.

Speaker 4 (01:18:02):
He says, you know what, we got a couple of positions.
I would love for you to come, uh, you know,
work for me here at the fire Academy. And I said, yeah,
that's perfect. I said, I wanted to be a fire instructor.
I have my fire instructor certification, and so so I
went and I started working at the MoMA County Fire Academy.
What was good about that was that it allowed me
to get in front of an audience. It allowed me
to get in front of people, and it allowed me
to teach things that I didn't want to teach. And

(01:18:25):
what's good about that is teaching something that you don't
want to teach. And what what I mean by that
is there's some of the more boring chapters in fire school,
right fire communications or fire history or that's or or
you know stanmdpipes of sprinklers, Like nobody wants to teach
unless you're a sprinkler guy. And if you are, I'm not.
I don't mean to offend anybody, but that my my thing.

(01:18:46):
My wheelhouse was a lot of company operations, you know, ritine, this,
that and the other.

Speaker 3 (01:18:50):
Rescue. That's what I enjoyed doing. But what I would
do is I would.

Speaker 4 (01:18:53):
Sign up for these classes that were a little bit
more difficult to teach because of how dry the sub
matter is, and that would kind of help me get
comfortable with speaking in front of a crowd of people,
a group of people a class and be comfortable, you know,
with material and eventually that would help me with the
oral boards.

Speaker 3 (01:19:14):
Uh when when I was moving up the ranks to.

Speaker 4 (01:19:16):
Take the test for for Batani chief and eventually deputy chief.
But what was great about working in the fire Academy
is that it kept you fresh right you were you
were doing all whatever was was new in the fire service,
whether it was the studies on flow path, different types
of nozzles that we were using, different techniques, like these
things that we were teaching you firefighters, you're now doing

(01:19:39):
hands on yourself as as as a fire instructor, you know,
And so I would sign up for these classes to
teach these classes. And then as I moved up the
ranks eventually to batanity chief and I was no longer
actually fighting fires, I would sign up for as many
live burns as possible. So I would, you know, be
an instructor at a life burn, so I'm actually physically
doing the job that I came physically do at work

(01:20:01):
in Mulf Hutton. Because once you're a batalenty, if you're
not stretching lines anymore, you're not pulling ceilings, You're not
you know, you're.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
Not doing that. So I would do that in the.

Speaker 4 (01:20:09):
Fire Academy just to keep myself fresh so that you know,
when I'm teaching somebody at work, or or when when
I'm making sure that we're getting it done right, I
have that hands on experience. And you know, because it's
all a lot of it is muscle memory. And even
though you know, I say it's like riding a bike,
you never look, you never forget. I don't believe in that.
I think everything that we do in the fire service

(01:20:30):
is repetitive in nature to some degree, and I think
we have to do it over and over and over again,
build that muscle memory.

Speaker 3 (01:20:36):
And if you stop doing it for a while, you.

Speaker 4 (01:20:38):
Got to get back in it because it's something it's
definitely a personal skill, I believe. So I think that
that was something that that for me kind of helped
me stay fresh, help me stay engaged and stay motivated,
and just kind of have a greater admiration and love
for the fire Service.

Speaker 1 (01:20:56):
Two nineteen, you take over rescue operations, and I'm sure
you came into that, and you can look in general,
you can look at a situation and say, Okay, here's
where we are, here's what's good, here's what needs improvement.
You've been in special operations a while, You've been a
captain for a while in it seven years speak exact.

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
You've been achieved for a couple of years now.

Speaker 1 (01:21:15):
So when you got the chance to oversee rescue operations,
tell me about again the short term and long term
game plan of Okay, I like what's going on with this,
but I think we could do better with that.

Speaker 3 (01:21:28):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:21:28):
So when when I took over as as a chief
of Rescue Operations, there was a deputy chief that that
had done it prior to me Anthony Fanezia, he was
the chief of Rescue Operations, and.

Speaker 3 (01:21:41):
He kind of passed it off, passed the torch to me.

Speaker 4 (01:21:44):
He kind of sat me down with with the chief
of the department at the time, Frank Montaigne, who is
one of my partners with promotional Prep now you see,
since retired from from North Utton, sat down with me
and they said, look, we think that that you know,
this would be a perfect fit for you. You know,
being that you have the rescue and the special operations background,
that you're now the town in chief, and you've been

(01:22:06):
heavily involved in training and helping advance and move this
department in the right direction, we think that's something that
that would be a good fit for you. Traditionally, that's
a position that is a staff position, so in other words,
you work out of headquarters. It's not something that you're
you're not going to go on the line, You're not
going to work in the field with the guys.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
You're stuck at headquarters. So I said, you.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
Know what, as much as I want to do special
operations and I want to be you know, I want
to run special operations that have a lot of good ideas.
When a position opens up on the line and I
get an opportunity to work as a street battalion, I
want to be able to go do that job, and
then I will continue doing rescue operations as an attached

(01:22:51):
I'll do the extra work. I'll do whatever needs to
get done. As long as you guys support me with it,
I'll continue doing it. And if it becomes something where
I'm not productive or it's not working out, then by
all means, you know, we'll give it, you know, let somebody.

Speaker 3 (01:23:05):
Else take to take it and and run with it.

Speaker 4 (01:23:08):
So they agreed, and uh, and you know, I was
in headquarters assigned to headquarters when I first got promoted
to batalion chief because usually you do a stint in headquarters.
I've been lucky where both times when I got promoted
to battalion and deputy, I only did six months and headquarters.
And you know that's not to say anything negative about headquarters.
I mean there's a lot of work that happens in
headquarters and you know, administrative work and unsung heroes. However,

(01:23:34):
my job, I felt that I needed to be out
on the street with the guys, right, I can't be
behind the desk.

Speaker 3 (01:23:39):
I got to be out there doing the physically doing
the work.

Speaker 4 (01:23:43):
So you know, my, my, my time came up, and
and and I went out and I was covering three battalions,
but I remained as as a Chief of Special Operations.

Speaker 3 (01:23:51):
One of the first things that that that I did
to change.

Speaker 4 (01:23:54):
What we were currently doing was put together a rescue
task force for active shooter response. Because I got sent
to a class, an active shooter Incident Management class, and
while I was at headquarters, I went into this class
and I said, man, based off of where we work,

(01:24:14):
with it being a prime target for for bad actors,
prime prime target for terrorism, how do we not have
some type of active shooter plan in place? How are
we not working with our local law enforcement partners to
make sure that if God forbid, there's a shooting at
a school, or at the mall, or or at the

(01:24:35):
hospital or whatever the case is, that we don't have
a plan in place to get in there and effectively
rescue these people right and get people out and get
people out to the hospital. So so I came up
with a plan on how to put an active shooter
program together. I sat and I met with the unions.
I discussed with them what what what my plan was.

Speaker 3 (01:24:56):
I was basically using.

Speaker 4 (01:24:58):
National standards for active shooter response. It wasn't like I
was reinventing the wheel or anything like that. But I
had to change a couple of things because of the
you know, the makeup of my fire department. And so
I sat with the UNIS and and I came up
with a plan and they said, okay, they said, as
long as you run the Rescue Task Force, will will
support you as a union will support it. Right because

(01:25:20):
it is it becomes a collective bargaining question and all
that anything you do in the fire service. And so
they know I had basically their blessing. And then I
went to the chief of Department and I went to
the directors and I said, look this, I believe this
is what we should be doing, and this is how
we should put the program together. I had written a
draft SOP and make a long story short, they approved it.

(01:25:41):
And then I started working with the local law enforcement officers,
working with the county SWAT team, and I started developing
mu's memorandums of understanding and agreements to be able to
have a written document between fire ems and police, to
be able to make sure that we a have the
proper training be continued with that training throughout the year,

(01:26:05):
and then see we can to identify the responsible parties
as far.

Speaker 3 (01:26:08):
As who's who's running the who's running.

Speaker 4 (01:26:10):
The show, you know, who is making sure within each
specific jurisdiction that they're keeping their members trained and that
we constantly work together training together on not just you know,
actual hands on active shooter drills, but that we're also
training on incident command, unified command, and things of that
nature to make sure that we have that intellagency operations

(01:26:32):
going on. And so that was sort of like the
first major thing, uh that that I was able to
get get done as.

Speaker 3 (01:26:39):
The Chief of Rescue Operations for my department.

Speaker 4 (01:26:43):
W G.

Speaker 1 (01:26:44):
Valde Brats is our guesting tonight rather for volume four
the Best of the Bravest nation Wide Edition. Two questions
in the chat that will highlight The first one, as
we mentioned earlier, SBB be a Facebook will highlight his
question or hers now and he or she says, ask
the chief about his involvement of apparatus, purchasing it, how
it transfers over to operating more effectively on the fire
group also asked the chief how important it is to

(01:27:05):
have rescue squad companies in the same fireps.

Speaker 3 (01:27:08):
Mm hm, that's a great question.

Speaker 4 (01:27:12):
So the other thing, in addition to the rescue rescue
task Force, I had the pleasure of being intimately involved
in purchasing our rescue truck.

Speaker 3 (01:27:22):
We bought a Ferara rescue truck. Is it to walk
through a beautiful piece of.

Speaker 4 (01:27:29):
Apparatus, And so my my involvement with that was kind
of specking out and and you know, speaking of different
manufacturers understanding what it is that we needed for for
our specific department. We we have the the second hilliest
UH city in the country, like outside of US UH,
San Francisco. We have huge, you know, steep hills UH

(01:27:53):
in North Bergen UH. We have uh, you know, very
tight tight streets, extremely tight street making it difficult to
make turns. We have you know, section in Union City
that you know you can't drive down the plot without
going over five.

Speaker 3 (01:28:07):
To six different speed bumps.

Speaker 4 (01:28:09):
So the reason why I mentioned that is because when
you start purchasing apparatus, you gotta consider the terrain, you
gotta consider your response area. You gotta consider how busy
you're that department, or or how that how busy that
company is going to be how many calls are going
to go on. When you're looking at rescue units, you're
you're looking at what kind of equipment you're going to
store on that rescue truck.

Speaker 3 (01:28:28):
So you got to think about stage storage space, You
got to look at.

Speaker 4 (01:28:31):
Weight restrictions, things of that nature, making sure that the
chassis is going to be able to uh to handle
that that that that extra weight chassia is going to
be able to handle all the speed bumps that you're
gonna maybe you might have to knock out the bumpers
at forty five degree angles so you can make turns
and things of that nature. So so I had never
been involved in the purchasing of apparatus. We have a

(01:28:52):
chief on a department that that handles purchasing apparatus. He
happens to be one of my battalion chiefs, Al Salveson,
so he's he's always been intimately involved in that. But
because it was a rescue truck, obviously that that you
know that I played a major role in that. So
you know it was I was able to pick the committee,
uh and you know, I was able to pick company
officers and firefighters from different shifts. So I can have

(01:29:15):
everybody's involvement, be able to pick members from the union
for them to be involved in it as well. And so,
you know, just went through the process of deciding, you know,
what we needed, what type of apparatus we were looking at,
getting quotes, getting bids from different manufacturers, and then ultimately deciding.

Speaker 3 (01:29:30):
What what we were going to go with.

Speaker 4 (01:29:32):
And and you know, even down to the color scheme
of the apparatus, and you know how it was going
to be designed. If it was up to me, we
would have had black rims and black bumpers and all
that kind of stuff. But that's an extra cost that
that department wasn't going to give me any leeway on.
But you know, trying trying to get the best piece
of apparatus that you can within whatever, uh, you know,
financial restrictions that your department has is is definitely a challenge.

(01:29:55):
And and purchasing an apparatus today versus when we bought
this rescue truck, which I believe was we've had it
now for I want to say, three years. Purchasing it now,
I mean everything is double the price, takes double the
amount of time to get it, and it's it's so difficult,
and I'm glad I'm not involved in and in apparatus

(01:30:17):
purchasing now at this point. But in addition to that,
we also went with the brand new squad one UH
through the same manufacturer Ferrara and f F one and
and we ended up UH specing out and and and
and customizing an engine company that had UH specialized compartments

(01:30:37):
for for extrication equipment, and we went with battery operated
extra education equipment so on on the the rear, the
rear two of the rear compartments on the on the
driver side has specialized battery operated extrication tools and equipment
and stuff like that. And so you know, I was
involved in that process as well as far as I

(01:30:58):
think that.

Speaker 3 (01:30:59):
The follow up question was how important is it to
have both in the same firehouse. I think it's extremely,
extremely important to have both in the same firehouse. I
think it's I.

Speaker 4 (01:31:10):
Want to say, to obvious, but the reason is because
number One, you had that cohesiveness. These guys are going
to major incidents. They're there, you know, they might be
getting called to a structure fire, or they may be
doing an elevator rescue on bergen Line Avenue. You know
where where the platform is one hundred and sixty eight

(01:31:32):
feet down from street level, and you know, you may
have to use specialized equipment and tools to get it done.
Or it might be responding to a car into a
truck into a building, or a truck that that went
through three levels of a parking garage because they decided
that that they were going to ignore the weight restriction
signs on this on this parking deck. So having them
respond to to to these incidents together is really only

(01:31:56):
possible if they're responding out of the same firehouse together.
Other than that, it's very difficult to make that happen.
The other thing is these guys train together all the
time and in the firehouse that we have our squad,
our rescue and our second battalion chief who are second
batalion chief is is the chief that's trained in special operations.

(01:32:18):
You drive past their house at any given time, their
bay doors if they're not out on the call somewhere,
their bay doors are open.

Speaker 3 (01:32:25):
They have you know, an.

Speaker 4 (01:32:27):
Arizona cortex set up. They have you know, they have
a dummy on a Stokes basket. They may be going
off the side of the building, off the roof they're
always doing something in addition to whatever training that they're assigned.
Like every Tuesday of the month we have task forces
task Force Tuesdays what we call it.

Speaker 3 (01:32:46):
So every Tuesday we're doing.

Speaker 4 (01:32:47):
Task force training, which is specialized special operations training that
takes precedence, that takes priority over any other training that's
happening that day. But in addition to that, I don't
care what time of day it is, well, even if
it's not a Tuesday, these guys are out there doing that.
So you have like minded individuals that are motivated, that
motivate each other, and they're in the firehouse together, building

(01:33:08):
that camaraderie, that brotherhood, that sisterhood, and you know, those
are some of the best guys and guys that we have,
in my opinion in North Hutton are the ones that
are in.

Speaker 3 (01:33:17):
The Special Operations units. You know, obviously I'm a fit bias.

Speaker 4 (01:33:20):
If it was up to me, I'd have all the
special operations units that we have under the same roof.
But it's just not possible because we have Rescue one,
Squad one, LAD of three, lad of four, and Squad ten, so.

Speaker 3 (01:33:33):
Those are five different units.

Speaker 4 (01:33:34):
It's just impossible to have them under one roof, but
if it was up to me, they'd be.

Speaker 3 (01:33:38):
All in the same house.

Speaker 1 (01:33:40):
Secondary question comes from my Captain Jake Irb and he
is our training and safety officer for the West Stave
and Fire Department. Captain Urban asked, who does the chief
look to for mentors and what is his advice for naysayers?

Speaker 4 (01:33:51):
Thanks, Captain, Yeah, so who does the chief look for
for mentors?

Speaker 3 (01:33:55):
So I'll say this a couple of times.

Speaker 4 (01:33:57):
So I know that when I was when I first
got promoted to captain, my deputy chief I mentioned this before,
was Anthony Villo, and he assigned another captain to be
my mentor. And so that captain that was my mentor
was was somebody that was that we had a lot
in common.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):
He was also a special operations kind of guy.

Speaker 4 (01:34:18):
He was motivated military and and so you know, we
kind of hit it off pretty quickly. And and then
anytime that that that that we had a new captain
assigned to us after that first year that I was
being mentored, he would assign me to them so that
I can mentor them. So I think that what the

(01:34:38):
chief looks for is someone that can motivate others. I
think he looks for somebody that is also self motivated
and has a love for the job, because you know what,
you got to have a love for the job, and
that's gotta be number one. Somebody that is selfless, somebody
that that is you know, willing to do extra work,

(01:34:59):
h somebody that is you know, somebody that's a leader basically, right,
somebody has that that has those leadership abilities, because it's
it's super important if if I'm gonna if I'm gonna
identify whether it's a firefighter, senior man or or whether
it's a captain or another chief officer to work with

(01:35:21):
a younger officer or upcoming firefighter or fire officer.

Speaker 3 (01:35:27):
You know, I want to make sure that they're going
to get the job done right right.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
So it's got to be somebody that that that that
is is has no ego, somebody leaves their ego at
the door, uh and and somebody that's just just willing
to do the right thing.

Speaker 2 (01:35:40):
You know.

Speaker 3 (01:35:40):
I hope that answers the question.

Speaker 4 (01:35:41):
It's it's that's a it's a it's a great question
because I think that you know, sometimes you identify somebody
that's going to be a good mentor and you don't
really kind of think about what what skills that they
have that that identify them as as a good mentor,
But you just kind of know that that's the person
that that's the guy usually somebody that everyone else is

(01:36:01):
going to look up to, someone that's that's going to
lead by example, you know, because you'll have that where
you know, you have firefighters that that say, you know,
they'll talk to talk, but they're not going to walk
the walk. So I think that that's probably you know,
I hope I answered it, but I think that that's
that's probably the best person to mentor young young en
up and coming firefighters and fire officers.

Speaker 2 (01:36:24):
Covered it well.

Speaker 1 (01:36:25):
Thanks to both SBB and Captain Irvin for submitting those questions, respectively.
A couple more things I wanted to hit them before
we get to the rapid fire. One of them is
the very shirt you're wearing. We'll talk about promotional prep momentarily,
but sticking on operations for a moment. You promoted the
deputy chief in twenty twenty two, and one of the
things I wanted to ask you about is maritime operations.
I feel that's timely, very tragic fire New Jersey not

(01:36:46):
too long ago where two veteran firefighters were killed aboard
a ship fire. So in essence, again we talked earlier
about prevention, nip these problems in the blood before they
become problems. And unfortunately, in the fire service and in
a lot of different jobs involving civil service, they fatalities
in the line of duty that you never want them
to happen, but unfortunately they do. And if there is
a silver lining to them, it's at least you can

(01:37:08):
learn from the incidents to make sure the same event
does not repeat itself. I'm sure this training was going
on beforehand, but in any event, how did that particular
fire and the loss of these two five men in
that fire in the line of duty change the way
you taught maritime operations and are still teaching maritime operations.

Speaker 4 (01:37:27):
So it's it's it's uh, it's crazy that you asked
this question, and we haven't had a conversation about this,
me and you offline on this. But I was actually
there at that at that incident, at the at the
Newark shipt fire when you lost two brothers from Newark
and so so as a chief of special Operations, I

(01:37:48):
sit on I sit on the Committee of the UAC,
which is an Urban Area Security Initiative. UH the we
have a metro Use Our Strike Team. The Metro us
ARE Strike Team is comprised of eleven fire departments from
northern New Jersey, all career departments in Northern New Jersey,
that and Port Authority E s U. So it's those

(01:38:12):
eleven fire departments plus Port Authority E s U. We
have all have specialized heavy rescue fire trucks that after
nine to eleven, right after nine eleven, to grant money,
we were able to purchase these these trucks. And with
these trucks you have specialized equipment and then specialized training
obviously that goes along with it. So these eleven fire

(01:38:35):
departments all make up the Metro Use Our Strike Team,
which is a picture that's kind of in the background
there where where these eleven fire departments will respond to
work can respond to to major incidents throughout New Jersey.
These major incidents can be building collapses, trench rescues, confined space,

(01:38:56):
and anything out of the ordinary that requires secialized the
equipment and manpower. So as Chief of Sposial Operations, I'm
also fortunate enough to sit on the committee which is
the incident command staff. I'm part of the Incident Command
team for the Metro Use our STRUC team, and also
the Planning and Training Committee. So anytime that there's a

(01:39:20):
major incident in New Jersey departments, whether they're paid career
doesn't matter. If they have an incident in their jurisdiction
that requires specialized equipment, specialized training, they're able to through
a Union County dispatch, They're able to make a request
and have us come out and assist with shoring.

Speaker 3 (01:39:42):
Let's say you have.

Speaker 4 (01:39:42):
A truck into a building and you have victims inside
that building or in the truck. You can't just go
in there start pulling through people out. You have to
be able to shore up the building. So we have
that capability, and we have the training to be able
to respond either as a single unit, a unit of two,
or three units for a full respond depending on the
size and complexity of the internet.

Speaker 3 (01:40:03):
That being said, on that night.

Speaker 4 (01:40:04):
July July fifth, when when these two brothers from Newark
lost their lives, I was home, and I was on vacation,
and I was I had been on vacation, on vacation
for about a week or so at that point at
Full Beard. And I'm sitting there, sitting in my house
and and watching TV, and I start getting messages on

(01:40:25):
my phone because as as part of the Intent Command staff,
we get messages anytime that there's a major incident happening
in New Jersey. You start getting messages on my phone
that there's a major shipt fire in Newark, and and
you know, I'm watching this, and I'm looking at the messages,
and all of a sudden, I see reports of people,
firefighters trapped May Day, so on and so forth, and

(01:40:46):
you know, and then my my my buddy who's a
deputy chief in Patterson who lived around the corner from
my house, A J. Woods, who's also on the U
Star committee with me, calls me up and he was like, hey,
how you're listening to the.

Speaker 3 (01:40:56):
You know, are you are you watching this? I'm like, yeah,
I just saw the text messages. And as we're talking
to each other, we get a text message that Newark
had reached out for one of our specialized rescue units. So,
being that we're on the Incident Command staff, anytime that
one of our specialized rescue units is requested, regardless if
it's our city or not, we go like the members

(01:41:19):
of the command team, we make our way, we start
going out to the incident. The reason why we go
to the incident is so that we can assist the
incident commanded with you know, staging, manpower, resources, any additional
because not everyone knows what we bring to the table.

Speaker 4 (01:41:34):
So we would show up and they know who we are.
We would show up and say, look, you know, this
is where we can provide you if this.

Speaker 3 (01:41:41):
Is a major incident.

Speaker 4 (01:41:42):
Will will you know, filled out fill out the assignment
and make this a major incident and call all the
resources that we have. You know, we'll bring radio, communications,
will bring logistics. I mean, we'll bring everything to the
table almost sort of on a smaller scale of what
you know New Jersey Task Force one or or you
know the other FEMA teams New York and Pennsylvania that

(01:42:03):
they've just gone out to uh to uh to North
Carolina ahead of the hurricane that's coming up the uh
coming up the country and uh so that night we
you know, as soon as I saw may Day and
firefighters trap and they reached out for one of our
rescue units.

Speaker 3 (01:42:20):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:42:20):
He swings by my house, he picks me up. I
grabbed my gear, grab my equipment, and we go.

Speaker 3 (01:42:25):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (01:42:27):
It's a very long story, but to make a long
story show, we ended up. We ended up at some
point working alongside their command staff that they had set
up once they've already realized that they still had one
firefighter still missing inside of the ship. Once we identified
that there was one firefighter still inside the ship, they

(01:42:50):
were sort of like an operational time out where they
started pulling all companies out to start to try to
regroup and then try to figure out what.

Speaker 3 (01:42:57):
The next steps were going to be.

Speaker 4 (01:42:59):
But with us, with the training that we have, specialized
rescue training, we came up with a plan and one
of our committee chairpersons, Chief Seeburger, he said, you know what,
let's let's let's treat this building, or let's treat this
ship as if it was a high rise, and let's
set up operations in the ship just like we would
in the high rise building so we could break it
down to manageable pieces. And then Chief Woods ended up

(01:43:22):
being a rescue operations branch and I decided to go
inside the ship and run the rescue and search operations
from inside the ship. So once that was decided, we
made sure that we had, you know, radio communications to
be able to get the job done, because once you're
inside the ship, those state radio channels that we were

(01:43:42):
using weren't making the transmissions, weren't getting out of the ship.
So we had to set up a talkaround channel so
I can set up communications, communicate directly with rescue branch,
which was Chief Woods, let him know what I had
inside the ship, and that he could radio that information
or relay that information through the state use our channel.
I went in with the North Hudson with my guys

(01:44:03):
from North Hudson, and they went in as the rick
team at that point, right kind of going back to
rick teams tough. They went as a rick team at
that point because there was a department that was in
there trying to do a search for Firefighter Brooks. At
that point they were doing large area rope search inside
the inside the ship. Conditions were less than favorable inside

(01:44:23):
the ship, you know, it's like being inside of a
tin can that's burning. But we were able to get
into the into the stairwell, make our way up, and
then as we made our way up to the deck
where the search was being conducted, that department that was
in there conducting the search, they started running out of air,
so now they came out and they went out for
a rehab. At that point, I sent my guys in

(01:44:44):
to continue the search and then started backfilling, you know,
other companies from the eleven towns that we had there
to come in and start, you know, making sure that
I had a rig team in place, making sure that
I had additional companies ready to work so that we
can keep rotating company as much.

Speaker 3 (01:45:00):
As we could.

Speaker 4 (01:45:02):
At that point, I was told that we had FD
and Y units coming up making their way upstairs. And
at that point I looked down the stairs and I
see a very familiar face smiling up at me as
he's walking up the stairs. And it was a Chief More,
Chief Malcolmore, and I know him from a committee that
I sit on a couple of different committees that we
both sit on.

Speaker 3 (01:45:23):
And I see him coming up the stairs and he
looks at me. It was a hour.

Speaker 4 (01:45:26):
I said, man, I'm glad to see you here. I said,
you know, and I explained to them what was happening.
Right behind him was Chief Downy. I'm like, oh man,
this couldn't be any better for me as far as
having because I was the only chief officer inside that
ship at that point, and I have firefighters and company
officers reporting to me. And you know, I knew at
that point that that, based off of the number of
units that we had working inside the ship, that my

(01:45:48):
span of control was already out the window.

Speaker 3 (01:45:50):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:45:50):
So as soon as I seen these guys coming in
and I was like, oh man, I felt so good
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:45:54):
So I said, you know what, North Hudson's doing their search.

Speaker 4 (01:45:57):
They're making their way through the ship there, making it
way towards where we think, you know, down firefighter is.
And he says, well, I got and I can't. I
can't remember the rescue. I think it might be Rescue three,
Rescue three Staten Island. I believe the bronx. Okay, so
it's not right. Well I'm sorry. I apologize. It might
have been Rescue five. So you had a rescue company

(01:46:19):
and a squad company with him. And I said, you
know what what I'll do is I'll send the rescue,
your rescue and your squad they'll do the next search.
And then I believe it was had to SATI fire
department that was making their way up. I said, they'll
be the rich team for you guys, and that's exactly
what we did. Luckily, they picked up right where my
guys left off once they were done with their search,

(01:46:39):
and they were able to find and rescue five all right,
and they were they were able to find the down
firefighter right they did the job, they found them, they
radio to us and we were able to you know,
get additional firefighters there to help them package the down firefighter,
brother Brooks. And it was it was just a crazy
operation because you know, we've been fires and high rises,

(01:47:01):
building fires in all types of structures. You know, this
was something that we've never you know, dealt before, dealt
with before, you know, while this has happened, the fires
burning above your head on the deck above, you know.
And then eventually we ended up getting him onto the
stokes and then bringing him upstairs to the top deck,
which was like a frying pan. And and what was
crazy was that the guys that were up there were

(01:47:22):
manning hose lines keeping keeping you know, flooding that top
deck because the fire was burning right underneath. So if
you can imagine you're you're standing on a firing pan, basically,
you know, you can feel it was like six inches
of water when you got up to the top deck
and you could.

Speaker 3 (01:47:34):
Feel out how the water was.

Speaker 4 (01:47:37):
But you know what, you know, between FD and Y
and our guys that we had working there, were able
to get them over to to the port side of
the ship repackage him that way because we now we
know that we were going to use rope rescue to
get him over to the side of the ship repackage him.

Speaker 3 (01:47:54):
You know, we found the American flag draped over him,
packaged him.

Speaker 4 (01:47:57):
And I remember communicating with us one of the ship's
cruise and I said, I said, listen, as we put
this firefighter over the side of the ship, I want
you to take the flood light and just kind of
follow him down with the floodlight because he had his brother,
newer brother firefighters.

Speaker 3 (01:48:11):
Weighing down, you know, down below to receive his body.

Speaker 4 (01:48:14):
But you know that that operation is one of thirty
three you know special operations calls that that that the US,
our strike team you know, went on.

Speaker 3 (01:48:25):
Within the past year.

Speaker 4 (01:48:27):
What was great about this one was the fact that
we were dealt with a situation that we never dealt
with before, and the fact that we had that inter
agency coordination working seamlessly with our brothers from from across
the river.

Speaker 3 (01:48:41):
I thought it was an amazing thing. You know.

Speaker 4 (01:48:43):
In fact, after that, they actually extended an invite to us.
FDN Y extended an invite to us to come out
to uh To to the rock and and and you know,
Chief More put together and outstanding three day managing the
May Day, you know type of training for us where
we had you know, it was the command staff and

(01:49:03):
we were able to invite chief officers from from the
eleven Fire Deparmers plus Port Authority ESU to be able
to participate in that operation where you know, we worked
with these I mean, what a great facility and what
a great group of guys. I mean, didn't humble down
on earth. So I'm definitely grateful and big shout out
to Chief More and Chief as Posito on their recent promotions.

(01:49:26):
You know, both guys came up through the you know
rescue and special operations and everything like that, and so
I definitely look up to those guys.

Speaker 3 (01:49:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:49:34):
No, it was chiefs Bosio in particular, the original Squad
eighteen guy when they got made it into squad in
nineteen ninety eight, and he had Jerry Tracy as his
commanding officer for a while, So there was ever a
good person to learn from, it's a guy left still
in retirement, still possesses so much knowledge. As we said,
we would also touch on this before the rapid fire,
and thank you for touching on that. I had no
idea you were there, so I appreciate you going into

(01:49:55):
depth on that. I know it's a very difficult night,
but the audience and myself to appreciate both reference that
night as well as those of all involved. Promotional Prep
is something you got involved with in twenty twenty. It's
something that you're also involved with on social media. And
if I going off the name again, a lot of
people want to be officers, but there's an intricate process
involved in that, as you well know, tell me about

(01:50:16):
your involvement in that.

Speaker 4 (01:50:18):
Yeah, so I've been involved with the company. I'm now
a one of the managing partners of Promotional Prep, and
like I said before, we have a few different programs
where we have a training program that's designed to train
civilians how to take the promotional excuse me, how to
take the entry level Firefighter Exam.

Speaker 3 (01:50:38):
There's a science to it.

Speaker 4 (01:50:39):
It's not just you know something that when I was
taking these exams. You know, twenty plus years ago, I
didn't know that this existed. I didn't know there were
companies out there. I would you know, I went online,
I looked for a book, or I went to Barnes
and Nobles and bought a book.

Speaker 3 (01:50:53):
Right, I don't even what. Amazon definitely didn't exist back then.

Speaker 4 (01:50:57):
But you know I went out and bought a firefighter
you know exam book and studied it and and none
of that really helped.

Speaker 3 (01:51:04):
So, you know, having an.

Speaker 4 (01:51:06):
Understanding, uh, like we do with the testing process, having
us been through the testing process, having worked with different
departments in different in different states with their testing process,
having that that that smme that subject matter insight is
extremely helpful. But like I said, we we we we

(01:51:28):
teach people that my own son is taking the fire
department exam and sits sits in our classes as well.

Speaker 3 (01:51:34):
And in addition.

Speaker 4 (01:51:36):
To that, teaching firefighters how to take the promotional exam,
whether it's to tenant to captain the town of chief,
deputy chief and chief of department. We even put a
program together specifically for Philadelphia Fire Department. We got together
with some of the guys in Philadelphia, got a great
understanding of what their testing process is different from what

(01:51:57):
we do in Jersey because they focus a lot on
their directives, their policies and procedures within the department and
that sort of thing. But just getting an understanding of
how they do it and then us being able to
integrate what we bring to the table as far as
how to read the books.

Speaker 3 (01:52:12):
And I know, you know, people like, what do you
mean read the books? You just read?

Speaker 4 (01:52:16):
No, there's a way that you need to understand how
to read the books because the test assessor is reading
it in certain terms. So you have to own kind
of like understand how a test is developed. And when
you understand how a test is developed, then you know
how to read the books and you know what to
look for. You know what within the text you should
be highlighting and taking notes and saying, you know, this

(01:52:37):
is something that they can ask me on the test,
whether it's multiple choice or maybe this is something that
they can ask me if it's a scenario for an
oral board. And so we do a lot of that
work with our students and in New Jersey with our
company officers.

Speaker 3 (01:52:52):
There's a company officer in Batality Chief.

Speaker 4 (01:52:53):
There's a multiple choice test that you take and it's
a scenario based multiple choice, so you'll have several scenarios
that they'll give you a fire scenario, different types of
fire scenarios, and then they'll have multiple choice questions that
are associated with that scenario. So you have to kind
of look at the question itself and look at the
scenario and determine which is going to be the best answer,
and then if you pass that, then you're invited to

(01:53:14):
take the oral assessment oral presentation, where either you're sitting
in front of a board or you're being recorded and
you're given a scenario. There's a certain amount of time
that you can read and take some notes, and then
you have to be able to provide a response. And
depending on the rank that you're testing for, you'll be
a company officer of the ladder or a company officer
of an engine and you're given a task or decided

(01:53:36):
to do something. How do you handle that responsibility? Second
question is usually something goes wrong? How do you handle that?
Could be a stare, collapse or flashover or whatever case is,
how do you address that? And then if their question
is usually a supervisory, then you're given another scenario where
you're the inside commander into the commander for the duration
because you have to know the job and the responsibilities

(01:53:59):
of the rank above you as well. So and then
for the deputy chief and chief of department is just
an oral court and there's no multiple choice, but you
have to go through all the books chief officer hand
but the tactics, there's a ton of books that you
got to read through, pretty extensive reading list. But you
have to be able to answer scenarios based off of

(01:54:19):
you know, fires, administrative, supervisory, and leadership type questions as well.

Speaker 3 (01:54:25):
So you know, we do a.

Speaker 4 (01:54:26):
Lot of work with with firefighters throughout the state of
New Jersey for different ranks. And what's great about the
program that we have is we have a lot of firefighters,
fire officers, chief officers that send their kids to us.
You know, the other day we ran a firefighter program
and I asked that question. I said, how many of
you guys raising and how many of you guys were

(01:54:47):
sent here by your dads, by your uncles, by somebody
and your family that's on the job. And almost everybody
raise their hands, I mean everybody's you know, because our
job and our goal is to number one, help people
become firefighters by doing well in the tests, and then
once they become firefighters, we want to help them move
up the ranks.

Speaker 3 (01:55:06):
So we want to keep it all in the family.

Speaker 4 (01:55:08):
So that's that's we pride ourselves in that being you know,
local you know fire chiefs. I'm I'm you know, my
my partners, Mike Turpak, which is he's written text well
you know Mike Turpak, Okay, he's he's uh, he's the
principal partner, Frank Mantaine, who's retired from North Hudson.

Speaker 3 (01:55:28):
They took me under their wing.

Speaker 4 (01:55:29):
And and you know, you know, they wanted, you know,
some fresh blood and I brought something new to the
table and and but but yeah, man, they they they've
been doing this for a long time and I was
very fortunate to get linked up with these guys. But
but yeah, it's a it's a it's an excellent company.
And I think that are our results. You know, the

(01:55:50):
fact that we're we're local New Jersey, you know, current
and retired fire chiefs you know.

Speaker 3 (01:55:55):
Still doing this and you know, I think you know,
says a lot for.

Speaker 1 (01:55:59):
Sure, absolutely, and we covered a lot with that tonight.
Really all aspects of training was very well round conversation
actually before the rap fire, you did send me some
photos and we'll go through them and produce a victorial
highlight of the mess WEEKO. One of them is our
background tonight, which is the USR team in action. And
where was this taken?

Speaker 3 (01:56:16):
Yeah, this was each Weatherford, New Jersey.

Speaker 4 (01:56:18):
There was a worker that was working in the basement
of a building that was being renovated. The building was,
you know, over one hundred and fifty years old or
something like that. It was the old railroad cafe. After this,
it ended up being demolished. But if you can kind
of make out in the yellow, he's wearing like a

(01:56:38):
fluorescent yellow shirt with a red YEP. So he was
working and he was doing some excavating. This is inside
the building. And as he was doing some excavation work,
I believe he's just using some hand tools, part of
the retaining wall came down and pinned them in between
two separate walls, and he was kind of pinned like

(01:57:01):
from waist down and it took several It took a
couple of hours to actually get him out. And you know,
people that don't understand, you know, how long it takes
to be able to set something like this up and
you know, make something like this successful. But you don't
see on this picture is the rest of the wall
that's in danger of collapsing that needed to be short
up and and what's happening on the exterior of that

(01:57:22):
building to keep you know, to keep that that the
rest of that wall stabilized. A lot of things go
into into play to be able to have an effective
rescue operation. This was one of the like I said,
thirty three or thirty four responses that that we went
on this past year. But what's interesting and what's great
about what we do is that when we we're about

(01:57:45):
to run a drill, we have an annual drill and
exercise that we run. Uh, it's going to be Friday, Friday,
October eleventh and Saturday, October twelfth. And what we do
is when we when we have these drills, we bring
all the fire departments that are you know, the love
of fire departments plus plus Port Authority of New York,
New Jersey. But what we do is we set up

(01:58:06):
the training so that the time and date that you're
conducting the training, you're only conducting the training with the
guys that are on your shift and not just within
your department, but within the other departments as well. So
what happens is if you get like today, today is
our group four. I know you said ABC and D
for some of the other departments. For US is one, two, three,
and four. Today's group two, tomorrow's group three. I'm a

(01:58:29):
tour commander for tomorrow. So the guys that are working today,
if they go on on a UAC call, if they
go on one of these Metro strike team calls, they're
going to see all the familiar faces there, all the
guys that they train with all year round. Those are
the same guys that they're going to see. The guys
that they work with at the drills. Those are the
guys that they're going to see at the actual incident.

(01:58:49):
And that's super important because it builds that camaraderie, it
builds that trust. You know this guy, you've worked with
him before, you know what their capabilities are. And so
you're getting eleven depending on the size of the scope
of the and then of course it may not be
all eleven, but you're getting eleven specialized units with all
the same equipment, the same type of truck, the same
type of experience, the same type of training responding to

(01:59:11):
these incidents to get to get the job done. In
addition to that, we have a couple of the departments
that have shoring units and showing trucks lumber trucks. We
happen to have one of them as well, So you'll
have a cache of equipment on a piece of apparatus
that you can basically build or tear down a house.
There's so much stuff on this thing. But but yeah,
and that that's that's that. That's one of the pictures

(01:59:33):
from from one of our recent incidents.

Speaker 1 (01:59:36):
We'll go to the second one, and this one's pretty
self explanatory.

Speaker 7 (01:59:40):
Yeah, what's the reason why I said this one is
because it's this is very typical of of what we
have in in the North Eton area as far as
our wood frame structures.

Speaker 4 (01:59:53):
And believe it or not, the space that you see
in between uh the you know, so for us, we
we call the front to a side and then the
what F D N Y would call the two side
is our B and then C D and so on
and so forth. Uh so, so what what the space
that you see between the.

Speaker 3 (02:00:10):
Fire building and those those two exposures.

Speaker 4 (02:00:13):
That's a lot of space compared to what we normally
have in the Malfatton area.

Speaker 3 (02:00:18):
A lot of the structures that we have are attached.
A lot of them have maybe.

Speaker 4 (02:00:22):
A five five foot three foot alleyway in between, but
you know, wires in front of the buildings. This happens
to be off of Tunnel the Avenue, so it's a
it's a pretty steep hill from Tunney Avenue to to
UH to this street here. But very typical of what
we have as far as you know, tight streets, uh,
tight quarters, very very densely populated. You know, anytime we

(02:00:46):
have a top of a fire, we always have a
situation where we have wires in front of the building, right,
So you have to, you know, think about what what
else are we gonna do? Put ground ladders up on
on the other sides of the building, ground ladders up
to the rear, you know, and and not that you're
getting creative, but you have to be would think on
on the fly, you know a lot of times. So
you know, that's that's why I that's why I put
that picture in there. But you can see the the

(02:01:07):
siding off of the melting off of the what we
call the delta and the de exposure on the right there. Uh,
you know because of the exposure issues. We got lucky
here because underneath the vinyl siding was asphalt siding, and
asphalt has a.

Speaker 3 (02:01:21):
Fire retarding property to it.

Speaker 4 (02:01:23):
I think that if it was I'm sorry, asbestos as
best a sighting, Had it been asphalt siding, it would
have been a different story.

Speaker 3 (02:01:30):
I think it would have. It would have definitely lit up.

Speaker 4 (02:01:34):
But yeah, this was as beest as siding underneath the vinum,
which has the fire retarding property to it. And you
know what, if you go back for a second, what's
crazy about these? So if you look that that fire
building and the other buildings there to the right there,
they look identical in nature. And if you look at
the if you look at the buildings on the right,

(02:01:54):
you can kind of see on the roofline that you
have a definite.

Speaker 3 (02:01:58):
Attic in the fire building. There is no attic.

Speaker 4 (02:02:01):
That's a what's called the Hollywood front and so and
so there it's just a false wall. So you think
that you have an attic up there, but there really
there is no attic up there. So essentially, if you
can it's a flat roof behind that what looks like
a peak. So extremely important to be able to, you know,
conduct the three sixty. You walk around give reports from

(02:02:22):
the rear, because you could be in front of the
building and think you have one thing, but now you
walk around the side or the back, you know, and
you have something completely different.

Speaker 3 (02:02:29):
So you can't take for granted, you know what you see.

Speaker 1 (02:02:32):
On the fire ground, and that breaks us the border
number three, which is this is a building collapse.

Speaker 3 (02:02:38):
I'mssuming that's a building collapse.

Speaker 4 (02:02:40):
I think that was I want to say that was
in twenty eighteen and I think it was East Orange,
But that was one of my first operations as a
rescue a chief for rescue operations that we responded to
that was a full, full response.

Speaker 3 (02:02:57):
Has happened late at night.

Speaker 4 (02:02:58):
There was the reports of of people that that had
been walking down that sidewalk. That building was was under
renovation and when it collapsed and there was a threat
of you. So what you don't see is in front
of that that dumpster they were they were cars that
were buried underneath the rubble. So you know, this was
something where we had a full scale uh you know,

(02:03:19):
Metro usource strike team activation and then when we got there,
we we realized that we needed UH the assistance of
a Task Force one, and we called out for New
Jersey Task Force one to bring out the search dogs.

Speaker 3 (02:03:33):
Search dogs started hitting on the scent, but it turned
out to be nothing.

Speaker 4 (02:03:36):
But you know, you get an idea of the size
and the scope of of of you know, some of
these incidents, and the amount of resources that that it
takes to be able to get something like this done.
And the fact that all these departments work together and
they're all different, you know, different departments not all the same,
is a testament to the amount of training and preparedness
that we have as a as a committee and as

(02:03:58):
a as a resource.

Speaker 3 (02:03:59):
Brought State of New Jersey the number four.

Speaker 4 (02:04:04):
And no this is if you, I don't know, if
you recognize that guy with the white mustache to my right,
that's Mickey Comboy. This this was this was when they
invited us out to to the Rock and and and
we had that managing the May Day training after you know,

(02:04:26):
about a month or two after the New Yorkship fire.

Speaker 3 (02:04:30):
And I was able to h to have UH.

Speaker 4 (02:04:33):
To my left is Captain Ruiz, who's a captain of
my rescue and then off off behind him off to
the side of him. That's a chief moval Dez, who's
my second battalion chief. So these are the guys that
are my specials, you know, my special ops guys.

Speaker 3 (02:04:50):
So I was excited to.

Speaker 4 (02:04:50):
To be able to have them come out to UH
to f d N Y and and you know, train
with these guys and and you know, we're definitely grateful
for the for the experience that we have with them.
But you know, what they have there at the Rock
is is amazing, is amazing.

Speaker 3 (02:05:04):
It's better than anything I've ever seen. It's it's a playground,
you know.

Speaker 4 (02:05:06):
And I wish we could get out there every single
day and train, you know, but just being out there
and and and seeing the way that they have everything
set up, and being able to actually handle an incident,
even though it was during training, but be able to
get on the radio, be able to beat the ends
to the commander, uh, you know, get on the roof
with the guys to see how they do, you know,
rope rescue and this that and the other, and then

(02:05:27):
be part of it. Was such a great learning experience
and and and and look, I don't I don't care
who you are, you never stop learning. I think that
you know, if if you think you're an expert at
something and you know everything, you're you're fooling yourself, you know,
and you know, uh, you know, put your ego aside,
and put your pride aside, and and and go and
ask questions and ask and ask for help and and

(02:05:49):
and you know, you know it'll pay different ends in
the future.

Speaker 2 (02:05:53):
Takey conboy, of course, the top floor Tactics.

Speaker 1 (02:05:55):
That's why I like, Okay, click this who as you
said the name, I know him by name, uh, but
not necessarily always my face.

Speaker 2 (02:06:01):
But yeah, he runs.

Speaker 4 (02:06:02):
What a great guy, what a class a class a.

Speaker 1 (02:06:05):
Classic guy for sure. Photo number five, please produce.

Speaker 2 (02:06:09):
That's local.

Speaker 4 (02:06:10):
Yeah, and that's our logo. That's our Special Operations Command logo.
That that uh that I had one of my firefighters, uh,
Timmy Calachi, who happens to be the president for the
for the union, the Firefighters Union.

Speaker 3 (02:06:23):
He helped me put this this this.

Speaker 4 (02:06:25):
Patch together and and department approved it and and the
guys wear it with pride. And I'm very proud of
the guys in Special Operations Commands units. These guys are motivated,
they're they're always looking for an opportunity to train. They
don't complain. Well, they complain a little bit, but we
all do a little bit, right. But but these guys
are are you know, self motivated and you know some

(02:06:46):
of the best special operations operators that that I would
that I would put up against anybody in the country.
In the final photo, please, well that's our I'm glad
that there was a question about the the rescue truck
that uh, you know, or being part of the apparatus
purchasing that that's that's the rescue truck that we just bought.

(02:07:07):
So we have that's our frontline rescue truck. That's the
rescue rescue one that rides to you know, to all
the working fires, report the fires, motor vehicle accidents, things
of that nature. But we also have a a rescue
truck that's our special rescue or special operations rescue truck
Rescue two that would respond out of town with as

(02:07:30):
part of the UAC Metro Urban Strike Team. In addition
to that, we also have a lumber truck that that
we would respond.

Speaker 3 (02:07:38):
That as well. Uh So that's that's one of the
rescue companies in our fleet.

Speaker 2 (02:07:43):
That it's a beautiful looking truck.

Speaker 3 (02:07:45):
It's nice truck.

Speaker 2 (02:07:46):
It's a very nice truck.

Speaker 1 (02:07:47):
I could see what you wanted, the black bumpers what
it looks as is, but yeah, that would have given
the extra kick.

Speaker 3 (02:07:54):
You know, yeah, absolutely it.

Speaker 1 (02:07:56):
Is one of it is, yeah that you know, as
we said, it's a beautiful as this. So now this
brings us to the rabbid fire again. A great conversation.
We covered a lot tonight, and this rapid fire consist
of five hit and run questions for me, five hit
run answers from you.

Speaker 3 (02:08:08):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:08:09):
One of them are to be fair.

Speaker 1 (02:08:09):
Actually two of them you already answered, which is advice
you'd give newly promoted fire officers. I won't ask you that,
and also best advice. You've also answered that in depth tonight.
So we'll ask you three of the five. But the
first one is funniest call.

Speaker 4 (02:08:22):
M So it wasn't that that funny at the time,
but when when I explained what happened to my wife
and my kids, they they had a good laugh about it.
Cats don't like to be rescued, and and I'm not
a cat person. I'm a dog person, So don't if
there's any cat people in the room, don't get upset.

Speaker 3 (02:08:42):
But I don't think cats need to be rescued. I don't.
I think you leave them alone, they'll figure it out.

Speaker 4 (02:08:47):
And you get a call for a cat in a tree,
they they got up there the fun they'll find their
way down. But there was a we had a fire
and and and there was a good amount of call
them outside throughout the building. I mean, corn outside was
pretty high. So you had this lady that was.

Speaker 3 (02:09:03):
Frantic because her cat was upstairs, this, that, and the other.

Speaker 4 (02:09:08):
And she was she was an elderly lady and that's
all she had was her cat. So you know, I'm
a new captain. I'm like, all right, I'll go up
there with my guys. We'll grab the cat.

Speaker 3 (02:09:18):
So get into the apartment.

Speaker 4 (02:09:20):
And I'm looking around, and I'm looking at all the
usual places that you would think to find a cat, right,
and I see something from the corner of my eye
and in the bedroom and I see something moving.

Speaker 3 (02:09:29):
I was like, the cat's in the bedroom.

Speaker 4 (02:09:31):
So we go into the bedroom and and when I
get in there, I say, I tell the guys to
go close the door so the cat doesn't get out.
But the guys close the door and stay on the
other side of the door and leave me inside the
room with the damn cat.

Speaker 3 (02:09:43):
So I'm like, all right, so.

Speaker 4 (02:09:44):
Now, and I'm glad they did it because I'm glad
they didn't see what happened. But I'm chasing this damn thing.
This thing is jumping on top of the dressers, climbing
up the curtains.

Speaker 3 (02:09:52):
I mean, this thing is is going.

Speaker 4 (02:09:53):
Crazy, and I'm like just trying to grab this cat
and bring them out with me. So now I'm like,
I don't care what happens. I'm walking out with this cat.
And so he gets under the goes under the bed.
I flipped the mattress over the things there, and make
a long story short, I ended up like soup flexing
or something. I ended up jumping on top of this
thing because as I grab I had grabbed the cat

(02:10:13):
at one point, and I don't know how this cat
bit through my gloves or.

Speaker 3 (02:10:17):
You know, it just did not want to go anywhere.

Speaker 4 (02:10:20):
So finally I grabbed this cat and now I'm holding
him and I'm walking out. Uh And I'm thinking to myself,
yet there's gonna be a picture of me walking out
with this cat.

Speaker 3 (02:10:28):
I'm gonna be a hero. So on and so forth.

Speaker 4 (02:10:29):
The cat freaking jumps out of my arms again, jumps
right back into the So the guys are out there
laughing at me, and they're like, hey, did you think
about having the lady come up here and just, you know,
once the carbon monoxide is gone, and just maybe using
the fan to clear the carbon monoxide and once it's clear,
maybe having her come up here and get the cat herself.

Speaker 3 (02:10:47):
I'm like, you know, I didn't even think about that,
you know.

Speaker 4 (02:10:50):
I'm like, I was so focused on trying to complete
this task and get it done that I you know,
I just I didn't think of the obvious, and sometimes
has got to think of think of the obvious and say, you.

Speaker 3 (02:11:02):
Know, what the hell with it?

Speaker 4 (02:11:03):
And that's probably the only thing I could think of.
That's a funny call, because you know, my kids still
like to hear the story of the cat that did
not want to be rescued.

Speaker 3 (02:11:13):
But this cat did not want to be rescued. Man,
they really didn't, and that is what it is.

Speaker 1 (02:11:18):
Yeah, they are very And that brings us to the
second question of the rapid fire most uplifting call.

Speaker 3 (02:11:27):
Yeah, that's that's a good one.

Speaker 4 (02:11:28):
I think I can't think of one specific uplifting call.
What I what I think of as being most uplifting
on our day to day operations and day to day
calls is the look that the kids give you when
they see you walking in and walking out. And it
could be a small kitchen fire, or it could be

(02:11:49):
a no mom activation, or it could just be something
that you know at a school that you go to.
And and the look that these kids give you of
like complete admiration.

Speaker 3 (02:11:58):
And you could be the.

Speaker 4 (02:12:00):
Worst firefighter in the world, or you good to hate
your job, or whatever the case is, but these kids
look up to us like no matter what, they're looking
up to us. So anytime that I go on a
call that they're small children and kids, they look at
you and they look at you as like a hero.

Speaker 3 (02:12:14):
To me, that that's uplifting in itself. And it kind of.

Speaker 4 (02:12:16):
Reminds you why why you do what you do, and
and it and it should remind you that they're watching
and you should conduct yourself as such, you know, because
you're being watched and you're you're you're whether you want
to or not, you're you're serving as an example for
these kids. You know, you hear all the time, like
you know, sports athletes and you know, music stars and whatever.

(02:12:40):
They talk about how how they're not you know, they're
not they don't want to be role models, and but
we don't really have that option.

Speaker 3 (02:12:47):
If a kid looks up.

Speaker 4 (02:12:48):
To you for whatever reason, you know, you're you're the
role model, and you got to conduct yourself, you know,
as such. I just I just saw something interesting and said,
and I wish I came up with this, because it's awesome.

Speaker 3 (02:12:58):
It says that.

Speaker 4 (02:13:00):
The name, uh, the name on your on your helmet,
on your shield represents who hired you. The name on
your back meaning your coat represents who raised you. Right,
so your department, your kids, when you're out there in
public view, conduct yourself as such because you're representing those

(02:13:21):
two things, you're not representing yourself, you know. So I
thought I thought that was excellent to you know, I
just kind of just just remembered it right now as
I was talking because of the fact that you know,
with the uplifting call, we have to remind ourselves that
people are watching.

Speaker 3 (02:13:37):
Us, you know, and and and you.

Speaker 4 (02:13:39):
Know, if you're in it for the right reasons, then
when you see the look on these kids' faces or
or or an old.

Speaker 3 (02:13:46):
Lady when when you.

Speaker 4 (02:13:47):
Know, get her cat right, or or any other call,
you know that that that should be rewarding in itself.
We shouldn't be looking for like a big reward or
a metal or something like that for doing what we're
supposed to be doing every day.

Speaker 2 (02:14:00):
That's simple things.

Speaker 1 (02:14:01):
Even if the cat doesn't want to be rescued, can
you do? And the last question of the rapid fire,
and this is one that you can say multiple you
don't have to say one. Favorite firehouse meal.

Speaker 4 (02:14:13):
Yeah, favorite firehouse meal is Jack Rizzo, retired firefighter.

Speaker 3 (02:14:20):
He used to make this I scroll and beans soup. Right.

Speaker 4 (02:14:24):
He would do this, he said, it makes scott Olden beans,
scott Olden beans. But he would put spicy sausage, chopped
up pieces of spicy sausage, and big ass chunk excuse me,
legs big chunks of chicken into this soup.

Speaker 3 (02:14:39):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:14:40):
But what was crazy about it was that it was
such a comfort food. And so he would start the
sting in the morning and make a big witch's cauldron
pot you know of this thing of the soup, and
we'd have it for lunch, just a soup as it
is with bread, and then for dinner, he makes a macaroni,
and you have a macaroni. But he would sit in
the firehouse kitchen in his bunker pants all day cooking

(02:15:03):
this thing. And this was before we we talked about
cancer prevention and that kind of stuff. I mean, it
was so just to put some context before somebody says, oh,
that's you shouldn't be wearing your gear to the fire. Yes,
you're right, I agree, one hundred percent. But at the
time we weren't having those conversations. At the time we
weren't having those conversations. He would just sitting in his
bunker pants all day, ready ready to go, and that

(02:15:25):
was just him. But he would make this delicious pot
of soup. Man, it was so good that that ended
up having to get his recipe.

Speaker 3 (02:15:32):
And I've tried to make it a few times.

Speaker 4 (02:15:34):
I've never made it as good as him, but that's
probably my favorite firehouse meal. And then on Sundays, you know,
on Sundays it's it's saw us so gravy whatever you
want to call it. You know where wherever it is
that that you're from in the region, uh with you know,
with your sausage and meatballs, and especially during the you
know football season.

Speaker 3 (02:15:53):
That's that's usually to go to on most.

Speaker 4 (02:15:55):
Firehouses on a Sunday, So you know, those are things
that I look forward to.

Speaker 1 (02:16:01):
All right, well said, and that covers everything. This has
been a great conversation. Of course, to stick around. We'll
talk off there before I say goodbye to the audience.
Any shout out to anything or anyone you want to
give you.

Speaker 4 (02:16:13):
Yeah, I want to give a shout out to my
partners and promotional prep Mike Turpak, Frank Montaigne. I want
to tell everybody that's taken our classes, good luck on
your upcoming UH Firefighter exams.

Speaker 3 (02:16:26):
And and we just did a program for company officers
and the.

Speaker 4 (02:16:29):
Guys that are taking the lieutenants and captain's exams, good
luck on your exams as well. I want to give
a shout out to UH to New Jersey Task Force one.

Speaker 3 (02:16:38):
They're out there right now.

Speaker 4 (02:16:40):
They got deployed out as a FEMA team to help
out and be on standby.

Speaker 3 (02:16:45):
Be safe out there. Captain Mauiz, who's my rescue captain.
He's out there with them.

Speaker 4 (02:16:50):
A bunch of great, great guys out there, so you know,
good luck to all you.

Speaker 3 (02:16:53):
Guys and be safe and uh, and and then that's it.

Speaker 4 (02:16:57):
And uh and to my family, they're not want they're
probably not going to watch, but they're the reason why
I do what I do.

Speaker 1 (02:17:05):
My wife and my kids, well said shout out in
deep to New Jersey Task Force one and also to
my friends in New York Task Force one, both those
of you and the FD and Y side and those
of you representing the NYPD Emergency Service Unit be saved
down their voice as Hurricane Heleen, upgraded to category three
today makes.

Speaker 2 (02:17:21):
Its way through the South.

Speaker 3 (02:17:22):
All right.

Speaker 1 (02:17:23):
Coming up next on the Mike the New Aven Podcast
two really exciting shows that I've been working on for
quite a bit with the last name like Butcher give
minus will be a medical examiner and she was from
any year.

Speaker 2 (02:17:33):
She wrote a book.

Speaker 1 (02:17:34):
About it, Barbara Butcher, who will join me this Monday,
and particularly she'll discuss her work after nine to eleven,
which was not an easy task, but she was highly
involved in that, amongst many other notable cases. And next Friday,
I think he's currently Car twelve in the FD and
Y Assistant Chief and heads up their Safe Division. Mike
Myers and I've been working out Chief Myers for a while,
so looking forward to that one. That'll be the best.

(02:17:54):
The bravest interviews with the Ft Andys next Friday, six
pm Eastern Time. This Monday with medical Examiners Butcher Eastern
Standard Time at six pm as well. In the meantime,
actually no, let me introduce the outrosong for those of
you listening on the Audio Song audio site tonight, I
can't speak anymore.

Speaker 2 (02:18:11):
Friday, Brain, folks, has been a long day.

Speaker 1 (02:18:13):
It's a song that was quite quitted after the events
of nine to eleven, and it doesn't need much of
an introduction. It's Bruce Springsteen with the rise of So
enjoy that for those of you on the audio side.

Speaker 2 (02:18:23):
In the meantime, we'll be happy.

Speaker 1 (02:18:24):
Producer Victor and current Special Operations Deputy Sheep Al Pratts
has been volume four, the best of the Bramous nationwide.

Speaker 2 (02:18:31):
I Mike Cologne. We'll see you next time. Have a
great week at your money.

Speaker 8 (02:18:33):
Cass from Cashing Nursing coming up time.

Speaker 3 (02:18:42):
Make movies is dark now.

Speaker 9 (02:18:46):
Cattewson, but Change Dance.

Speaker 10 (02:18:51):
Lost Tracking How Far Gone.

Speaker 9 (02:18:55):
Far Gone Hell High.

Speaker 10 (02:19:00):
On the back of sixty milestone on the sure He
Mine line.

Speaker 5 (02:19:08):
Come on up for the Riseing.

Speaker 9 (02:19:12):
Tme all up.

Speaker 11 (02:19:14):
Le heads and mine.

Speaker 9 (02:19:17):
Come on up for rising, Come on up for the
rising night, river house mornment, this rainians filthy airs, I'll
swearing across on my calling.

Speaker 5 (02:19:38):
On Wi Fi, roll down here, come on up further rise,
Come on luckily, d and mine, Come on up for
the rise, Come on up for the rising night. Shirt

(02:20:37):
the storm like a suber his first blue fur.

Speaker 11 (02:20:46):
Sastans by Red, I see made in the garden, in

(02:21:13):
the garden of the thousand size.

Speaker 10 (02:21:16):
There's holding pictures of her children dancing in the sky.
There was a line, may fee runs around me. May
feel your blood mixed with mine.

Speaker 9 (02:21:34):
The dream of life.

Speaker 3 (02:21:35):
From stude like catfish dancing on the end of my line.

Speaker 11 (02:21:43):
The sky blackness, the somber dream of sky, love, Scots
in the blood, the sky's.

Speaker 5 (02:21:52):
Bway of sad freadam.

Speaker 10 (02:21:56):
Skyt merry, says Sky feeling Scott a man and share
you're brooding.

Speaker 8 (02:22:06):
He feels mom arts and Scott of all Scott, food,
Scott firs and lines.

Speaker 3 (02:22:17):
Come on for the rise, Come on up with to.

Speaker 5 (02:22:26):
Come up for the rise, Come.

Speaker 3 (02:22:31):
Up for the rising.

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Episode 335: The Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Alider Pratts (New Jersey)(Volume 4)

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Episode 335: The Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Alider Pratts (New Jersey)(Volume 4)