Episode 370: Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Tony Bompadre (Philadelphia) (Volume 6) - Mic’d In New Haven

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
You're listening to the Mike to Do Even podcast hosted
by media personality and consultant Mike Glow. This is the

(01:10):
best the brands nationwide audition. Not since last year when
I had Chief Dane Jones on from North Carolina, who
is very brilliant mine on his own right. Have I
done an installation of this mini series, and it's the
mini series I plan to really dive back into a
little bit more in the coming months. As I was
telling tonight's guest will introduced momentarily off the air. You know, again,

(01:33):
we've told so many great stories of New York City,
and we will certainly continue to because there's a lot
of great stories to be told from working as a
New York City police officer, from working as a New
York City firefighter. But besides New York City, there's plenty
of other busy places in this country that deserve to
be spotlighted in their own right. Rather you're walking a
beat in or working a patrol car, or rather you're

(01:53):
working a busy engine company or a busy truck company.
And certainly for tonight's guest, he can attest to that
on the fire side of things, given the city that
he's worked in now for twenty years, which we'll talk
about momentarily. When I introduced some Hello everyone on this
Friday evening edition of The Mike the New Haven Podcast.
Winding down summer, I'm not ready to say goodbye to it,
but nevertheless, the weather's still nice and it's good to

(02:14):
see all of you. I see Billy Ryan there as
he always is, Joe Baliga, Brian Keller retired recently out
of the Bridgeport Fire Department. Good to see you, my friend,
and of course mister John Costello retired Pennsylvania Police Sargent.
Always good to see all of you and anybody else
who may be tuning in this evening if you haven't
checked out the previous episode that was the milestone volume
twenty of the Beat. Profiles of Police nationwide. Kim Woodward,

(02:36):
who is a CIA Intelligence Operations officer for nineteen ninety
one until two thousand and one. A lot of intelligence operations,
particularly in the War on Drugs in the nineties abroad
in Latin America, which he talked about. Very interesting episode
in its own right, as I'm sure tonight's will be
as well. And just a brief note before I of
course played Billy Ryan's ad and introduced my next guest.

(02:57):
Thank you to everybody who I was able to cross
paths with yesterday in New York City, of course, the
somber twenty fourth anniversary of the nine to eleven terror
attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and
Pentagon in Washington, d C. And it was good to
be with my friends from FD and Y Squad to
eighty eight over Massive Queens to eighty eight has Matt
one which lost tragically nineteen members that day, and then

(03:18):
venturing on down to ESU Truck three in the Bronx,
which is located in the confines of the forty third Precinct.
They lost three members that day, and just very good
to see all of you. So for those of you
that may watch this rather you're the PD side or
FD side, I'm glad our passed crossed again yesterday, and
though the event is somber, it's always good to see
your faces. So with that being said, let's play Billy

(03:39):
Ryan Zad and I don't want to keep my guests
waiting too long, I'll introduce him right after this. The
Mike th ne Haveing Podcast is proudly sponsored and supported
by the Ryan Investigative Group. If you need an elite PI,
look no further than the elite Ryan Investigative Group, which
is run by retired NYP Detective Bill Ryan, a twenty
year veteran of the Department who served a majority of
his career in the detective Bureau, most notable in the

(04:00):
arson explosion squad. So, if you need a PI to
handle anything from fraud, legal services, and anything else that
you might require, contact Bill at three four seven four
one seven sixteen ten. Again three four seven four one
seven sixteen ten. Reach him at his website or the
email that you see here. Again, if you need a PI,
look no further than Bill Ryan and the Ryan Investigative

(04:20):
who a proud supporter and sponsored of the Mike Den
Newhaven Podcast prowd supporter. Indeed, again, Billy is the best,
all right. My next guest is a veteran fire officer
whose career in the Philadelphia Fire Department has been defined
by a lot of things, including hustle, street smart leadership,
and a clear devotion to his craft. From growing up
in the shadow of his neighborhood firehouse, deleting some of
Phillies' busiest companies, he has risen steadily through the ranks,

(04:42):
never losing sight of what it means to serve and
rather it's responding the fires in the West End of Philadelphia,
implementing training reforms are helping push the science of fire
dynamics alongside national experts. His fingerprints all all all over
a department, I should say he's proudly called home for
twenty years now and I'm now serving in the citywide
Incident Safe the office. He brings in wealth, acknowledged tactical
know how, and a genuine passion for firefighter development and safety.

(05:06):
And that for this volume six of the Best and
the Bravest nationwide edition from the Philadelphia Fire Department, Deputy
Chief Tony bomb Padre Chief Welcome, How are you? A
pleasure to connect with you, Mike.

Speaker 2 (05:18):
Good to see you. It's great to connect again. I
can't thank you enough for having me on. It's a
homeboyant experience. You know, You've You've had a lot of
heavy hitters on here. I've been a fan for a while,
so to be sitting here with you tonight, it's an honor.
I really do appreciate it. You know. It's funny small world,
the way the way we got connected, you know, through

(05:39):
your cousin. A friend of mine, Jose Perez, chief in
the in the city with me. You know, we were
just talking one day in the office at change a shift,
and he asked if I knew about the podcast, and
I said, of course, yeah, I've heard of Mike the
Newhaven absolutely, and I have his book. And because you
know it's my cousin, you got to be kidding me.
You know, it's such a small world, and and the

(06:00):
fire service, emergency services in general, everybody seems to know
somebody somewhere. It's pretty cool, pretty special, it is.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
And when he asked me, would you want to have
this guy on, you know, referring to you, I'm like, yeah,
of course. Like I told you off the ear, I
don't discriminate, like I just said, on the area. Plenty
of great stories from New York City, but plenty of
great stories from around the country as well. So anybody
that's got a story, rather you are on the police
side or fire department side, come on down. I don't discriminate.
I want to hear it, and we're going to dive
into it tonight. But kind of like I alluded to

(06:29):
in the introduction, you grew up in the shadow of
the Philadelphia Fire Department in more ways than one, so
it was something that kind of spoke to you from
an early age. Just tell me about growing up in
Philly and are you first generation or did you have
family on the job.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
So it's funny when you say the shadow. I actually
grew up right outside of West Philadelphia in Upper Derby.
Upper Derby borders West Philadelphia is separated by Cops Creek Parkway,
So I was born and raised in Upper Dorby, and
you know, born and raised, you know, with the fire
service always being a love of mine since I was

(07:04):
a kid. I had some friends of the family that
were Philadelphia firefighters, Philadelphia fire chiefs that we'll talk about
a little bit here, But just being a mile or
two from the border where I grew up, you know,
it was always Philadelphia was always one of the places,
one of the big cities, you know, I wanted to
hopefully one day work for and eventually it worked out

(07:25):
that way.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
Yeah, And as somebody told me, there's nothing like and
this is not knocking anybody who works in the town.
You can be very busy in the town as well.
There's plenty of towns across the country that have a
high call volume. But as somebody who is retired out
of a city here in the Northeast mentioned, there's nothing
like being a city fireman. It's just the actions different,
especially depending on where you are. The call volume is different.
What you see and experience, you know, again, doesn't necessarily

(07:49):
have to be the calls. Just the ambience of the
city makes for a very very fun career now, you know,
again diving into that momentarily, you were a volunteered for
a while and your uncle was in from that as well.
So the basics of the fire service are often incorporated
through the volunteers, and if you live outside of a
city as you do, it's often as often a stepping

(08:09):
stone to get to a city fire department. So just
tell me about learning the basics there and how that
would help you once he got the Philly.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, absolutely so uppert Rby, you know, like you said,
it's it's a great fire department. It was a great
place for me to cut my teeth as a junior
firefighter in those early and very formative years. Uh, and
it's still a great place. They they they catch work,
they catch emergencies. Uh, they're they're into training. They've grown

(08:37):
when I when I was a volunteer there back in
they're only two thousands. Uh, there is only a handful
of career firefighters. They they've since grown into uh pretty
much in all career fire department. There are still some volunteers,
which is great. So they're uh, they're doing great work.
But yeah, So my story begins when I was a kid,

(08:58):
you know, growing up a blocks from the Highland Park
Fire Company. My uncle was involved in the firehouse and
all his friends, you know, So it was in my
life since I was a young kid, ever since I
could walk and talk. It's it's all I've wanted to do.
It's all I've ever known. And as I got older
that that desire just got stronger. So I was always

(09:20):
hanging out in the firehouse. I remember, you know, they
would get runs and I would run up the street
out of my backyard and watch them, you know, just
fine down like you know. One day, so the moment
I turned sixteen, I joined Island Park as a junior firefighter.
Actually one of the first papers they had that myself

(09:46):
the first preach and it was absolutely wonderful. Guys looking
at a young age and you know, I would say
they gave me two educations on, you know, how to
grow up and got to be a firefighter. Guys like
John Lynch, John Gray and Adam you know, the list

(10:11):
goes on and on, Dave Burns, Dennis Noonan and then
right down the street that uh Carrington Stonehurst Firehouse which
backs right up to West Philadelphia. You know, there was
even more phenomenal firefighters down there that that told me
how how truck work is supposed to be done. You know,
that's where I learned to cut roofs in that neighborhood.

(10:32):
Guys like Jolly and Brian Norris, Mike Kubler, Joe ep Bright,
lou Epbright, lou ep Bright Senior Eddie Kubler, you know,
just phenomenal people. So it was it was a great
way to start my career and it just drove home
that that passion that I had it it only got
stronger for me.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Right and going into academy in two thousand and five
summer of five as a twenty two year old with
a little bit of experience on your your belt and
learning as you did during that time. Academy is short,
but it's also long, and you know, exactly what I mean.
Any recruit that's ever done that knows exactly what I mean.
And it is something that doesn't necessarily push you to

(11:14):
your breaking point. Sometimes it can push you past it.
It's a real test in developing the mental fortitude needed
for a job like this where you're gonna be in
high pressure situations, and you're gonna be in those high
pressure situations depending on where you work, very very often.
So just we'll take it step by step here. Just
being a member of the cadet class in that summer
of five, which was just under four months for you,

(11:34):
tell me about what that first day was like, and
then gradually just trying to get acclivated to the environment
and ultimately just pushing through.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, so you talk about the academy being long. When
I went through, it was eighteen weeks. That we're up
to about nine months now between National Registry for EMT,
which takes a lot of time, and then you're fire
for your training. So well, you know, eighteen weeks seems
like a blanket behind it, you know, thinking back on it.
But before that, you know, one other thing I wanted

(12:02):
to share was, you know, September seventeenth of two thousand
and four is kind of a attorney point for me.
You know, went through a personal tragedy where I lost
a dear friend of mine, Kevin Collins, who was a
firefighter as well at Holland Park. The incident occurred down
the shore wild Wood, New Jersey firefighters weekend. He passed

(12:25):
away down there. And you know, he was always the
one that told me, you know, take as many tests
as you can, you know, fire in police test, you know,
every civil service test you can get your hands on,
you know, take it for the practice. And I did that.
I took that advice. I tested everywhere and he always
told me, he said, you're you're going to get hired
in Philly. We used to go buff Philly together, you know,

(12:47):
we get in the car and drive down the West
Philly and sit out front of fifty sevens engine, sixty eight,
engine forty one, and he would say, you're gonna get on.
So he you know, he tragically passed away in September
that May of five, I got my left that I
was getting hired, and man, I you know I cried
when I got that letter. You know, I was thinking
to him, and you know, just what an experience that was,

(13:07):
and then I did what they tell you not to do,
and I immediately quit my job. I was working at
a mortgage company at the time, and I was like,
you know what, I quit, But you know, the Academy
was starting in July. That letter was a conditional offer
of employment. I had already finished, you know, all the
other requirements to background, the physical, all that stuff, so

(13:29):
you know, I hit the ground running. I used that
time to continue to get in shape and study, you know,
and still being at the volunteer firehouse at Holland Park,
you know where I spent all my time for years.
You know, you know, any chance I had, I was,
I was up there. So yeah, So entering the Academy
in July of five, July eighteen, two thousand and five,
Class one eight, it was quite the experience. The first

(13:51):
days were kind of a blur, you know. I can
remember lining up at the gate waiting to be let in,
you know, that nervous excitement, you know, and in the
pit of your gut. But it was great, you know,
I've really I enjoyed the time there. It was physically
and mentally demanding. Monday through Friday, I had moved into

(14:12):
the city prior to that, we have a residency requirement.
We had at the time in residency requirements. So I
was living in the city, living down in Fairmount, not
too far from the Fire Academy. But yeah, it was
it was wonderful. I met so many great people, lifelong friends,
you know, Ernie Barrewi, Jeff Neary, Gino Arroyo, guys I

(14:33):
work with now, like John Bell, so many guys that
you know, we all went through it together. We got
through it, you know, we we succeeded as a group,
and it went great. Phenomenal instructors like Teddy Malzinski. Both
of his sons are on the job. I work right
now with Brandon and he's at Latter twelve, which is

(14:56):
in the house I'm in. I worked in West Philly
with his other son, Teddy, Jimmy Mure, Frank Hannon. These
are guys that I still work with today. They're chief
officers now. They were lieutenants at the time and now
the chief officers with me, and you know, it's just
it's great. They were my instructors, you know, and my
first experience with the Photadelphia Fire Department. Charlie Grover, another

(15:17):
wonderful human being. He passed away a couple of years ago.
Just they you know, they set us up for success
and it was great.

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Yeah, it's nice to have that. I mean, obviously, again,
there's that paramilitary discipline that has to be instilled in
individuals who aren't familiar to the fire service. You know, obviously,
if you're familiar with the fire Service, maybe you're latering
from a different department, or you have guys that were
in the military prior. They get that. But it's I'm
not on the other side of it yet. You know,

(15:46):
I do want to be someday, and I'm sure that
day will come soon. I just got to keep working
hard for it. Like we were talking about off the air,
but a colleague of mine described that as a type
of fun you never want to have again. You look
back on it fondly because it made you who you
are today and laid the groundwork for what would come later,
as we'll discuss tonight. But I'm sure, and this is
for anybody who's ever completed a police or a fire
academy saying themselves, thank God, I never have to do

(16:09):
that again.

Speaker 2 (16:10):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, I'm sure. At the time, I wasn't
saying I loved it, but looking back, it was it
was a great experience, and like I said, Mike, I
wish you nothing but the best. You know, I can't
wait to hear that you're in, you know, I'm looking
forward to that. But yeah, it was, it was great.
It was you know, looking back, it was a lot
of fun. But at the time it was a lot
of work physically and mentally exhausting, like you said, the

(16:31):
paramilitary aspect of it. But you know, they did it right.
They set us up for success before we went out
into our firehouses, and there are assigned companies.

Speaker 1 (16:42):
And the nice thing about it too, is being a
type of department that runs its own academy, which Philadelphia
is big enough to do. I mean, again, there's still
NFPA standards to be followed, obviously, but for the most part,
you're doing it to the Philly standard. You know, you
need to do it to the Philly standard. Obviously, success
the place you're going to be spending your career in.
And with that being said, I mean it's ironic, but

(17:04):
one of the companies you buffed was fifty seven Engine
and that's where you spent almost the first six years
of your career. So getting there is a rookie getting acclimated.
You talked about great instructors who setting you up for success.
Tell me about the senior guys in the firehouse who
did the same for you. Once he got on the line,
I was a dream come true.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
I couldn't believe it when I got when I got
my assignment. So it was one of those assignments. It's
it's a phenomenal company. It was, you know, it's always
been known as one of the busiest. And I remember
when I got it, you know, the instructors saying, you know,
who do you know? You know who got you there?
And you know certain guys went to very busy spots,
and you know, you never you never want to give

(17:42):
up your your juice at the time, and I'm like,
that's further sending me. But you know I did have
a lot of help. You know, it got out later.
You know that I that I had some pull with
Chief Jim Grugan is his name. He's phenomenal. He was
a family friend and I used to go spend time
with him when he was in Battalion nine before I

(18:02):
got hired, you know, and and spend time at Engine
nineteen Lattery met a twenty eight Battalion nine up in Germantown,
which we'll talk about in a little bit. You talked
about coming full circle. But so he was great. So
he told me, he said, uh, you keep your head
low in school. You do great academically physically, and I'll

(18:23):
take care of you. He had one rule, he said,
you're going to an engine. He said, out of school,
you're going to an engine. There's no way. He believed that,
and I believe that as well. You know, I think
the engine sets you up to really appreciate ladder work,
you know, down the line to you know, really appreciate timing,
ventilation and getting the engine in fast, you know, to
four school entry, you know, to get water on the fire.
So that was his rules. You know, knock it out

(18:45):
of the park and fire school, and you're going to
an engine. So when the order came down, you know,
the engine fifty seven, you know, Cloud nine, to say
the least. And you're right. You know, I used to
buff there. You know, we used to sit out front.
There's a parking lot across the street. We watched him
go in and out on runs. And now here I am.
I show up at the graduation. Now I'm gonna work there.

(19:09):
I'm signed there. So I show up there with you know,
I got all my cakes and desserts and everything, and
I'm gonna go and introduce myself. And I remember I
was just at that point reality sucking sunk in and
I was terrified. I'm like, I can't go in there
and work with these guys, you know, And they go out.
They made a run, and I'm sitting I'm like, all right,
So when they come back, I got to get the
carriage to get out of the cars. So they're backing

(19:30):
in from the run. I get out, I get all
my cakes, and I walk across the street and right
away just you know, welcome me with open arms. You know. Naturally,
they weren't gonna make it easy on me, nor should
they have. You know, I'm the guy, but you know,
brought me inside. You know. It was my the first
time I met my senior man, firefighter Richie of Poski.
Absolute ace had a huge impact on my career and

(19:54):
my life. We'll talk about him, my first Lieutenant, Vince Waters.
I couldn't ask for a better first officer, you know,
out of fire school, no nonsense type guy. Let you
know where he stood, but he took car of you.
He uh. You know, every fire we went to, he
would try to get us in there, you know, get
get some piece of the work if we could. Andre Harmon,

(20:15):
Jerry Walker. These were the guys I worked with. And
then in the firehouse itself, it was just full of
phenomenal firefighters that have been there for decades, through the
busiest years. You had Frank Gay, Ralph Dietrich, Craig Bates,
Joeann Rozanski, Jimmy Divini, Mohudge, and Jean Prentergaz. I mean,
the whole roster was just phenomenal firefighters and now I

(20:38):
got to to learn from and you know, it was
just a sponge. I did not. I mean, obviously I
kept my mouth shut, you know, kept my maul shut,
kept moving, you know, made sure I was never sitting
down unless told to do so. But you know I
didn't let them know that I had any sort of
previous experience. I didn't want that out there. Not because

(21:00):
I was ashamed of it. I'm very proud of my
roots in uppert Rby and the way they broke me in,
but because, like you said before, I wanted to learn
the Philadelphia way, and I never wanted them to think
I knew anything, you know, even when I heard things
that I may have known, even from fire school. I
think one of the worst things you can say is, oh,
I know that. Now listen again, You're gonna get it
from a different point of view. And if it's the

(21:22):
fiftieth time you heard it, great, it's now it's going
to be drilled into your head. So, like I said,
I was a sponge, you know, I ate it up.
You know, we were going to fires. We were going
to a lot of runs, and the training didn't end.
You know, every run was a training lesson. Every run
was an opportunity to learn something new. Fire runs, medical runs,

(21:42):
it was you know, it was great. Everybody that I
worked there with.

Speaker 1 (21:47):
Yeah, I mean, And again I preface this by saying,
I'm not making fun of any academy. You need the
academy to set you up for what would come later.
And obviously you look back and finally all these years later,
because you always fall back, as people have often said,
on what they first taught you when you were going
through that process. But let's be honest too, and again
this is not a mockery. It's just the factor the
fire service. How many times across the country, not just

(22:08):
in Philadelphia does a rookie walk into a firehouse and
somebody says some variation of forget what you learn of
the academy, kid, this is how we do it on
the street. And again, are they knocking the academy, Not
at all, but the way it's done on the street,
especially as time progresses and conditions change, and you know
the nature of the call, you don't know until you're
actually there doing your size up, rather be a medical box,

(22:29):
alarm or otherwise. You know, again, it's a different type
of ballgame, and every call is in education. When you
have officers like that and seenior men like that, I mean,
part of you doesn't even want to look at them
because you're so intimidated by them. But again, you talked
about being a sponge. As long as they see that,
even if they don't make it easy, you know, again,
firemen talk, they're like, ah, you know what, I think
this kid's gonna work out. And sure enough, again they

(22:50):
invested in you. They saw that, and as time progressed,
I'll ask you, I mean, especially after that first probe
year was complete, when did you start to feel like, Okay,
I belie long here, I'm glad I'm here, and I
think these guys have really finally welcomed me with open arms.

Speaker 2 (23:05):
So that's a good question. I don't know exactly when
it happened. I know, I'm not a big kitchen table
talker to begin with it at any time. You know,
I've always just been one to kind of lay back, listen,
you know, speak when you know when, I when I
think it's appropriate. But uh, I'm not sure exactly when
it happened. Obviously it was. It took a long time,

(23:29):
but I do remember a time, I guess is as
the as the firehouse transitioned, as all companies do. People
were promoted, people, uh you know, transferred. My senior firefighter
transferred closer to home to slow down a little towards
the end before he retired. You know, these things happened,
that's natural. So it was on me to step up

(23:51):
and the newer people that came in the firehouse, I
by no means was considered or considered myself a senior man,
you know, with with three four five years on. But
you know, I just what I always tried to do
then and throughout my career. Is I remember the way
I was treated when I got in there, and that's
the way, you know, I tried to carry myself, you know,
just trying to teach the new members that came the

(24:13):
way I was taught. You know, I had a map
book and a run book. Everybody in Philadelphia is required
to drive the apparatus. Your driver training starts pretty much immediately,
and you know, so I had a map book at
the local, you know that I had wrote out, you know,
to to memorize the area. So I made sure to
pass that on, you know, so slowly I started to

(24:35):
leave my mark in the firehouse. I guess you could
say with some of this material. But you know, I started,
you know, right away as far as you know, trying
to write stuff down to remember. You know, I remember back,
you know, my first day, my first run, you know,
which was at sixty third and Walnut Rate. On my

(24:56):
first run in the morning, sixty third Walnut right on
the border of Robert Rby. Now looking in the uppert Arby,
I'm like, wow, like is this real? Like somebody pinched me,
you know.

Speaker 3 (25:04):
And then my.

Speaker 2 (25:06):
Second run would have been a first in job, but
we missed it. We were on a medical run and
we missed it, you know, so right away, you know,
it's like, but there was there was plenty of work,
you know, It's very fortunate and that where fifty SEVENS
was situated in the city in West Philly, in particulars
in the seven between the seventh and the eleventh Battalions,

(25:27):
we went everywhere, you know, every we had a busy
local and then our box local was even busier. So
you know, just through the years and through changing the
firehouse and through runs, through experience, through fire duty, you know,
my confidence grew, and you know, I just started taking
on things in the firehouse, you know, taking on if

(25:48):
we were going to do something for the retired members
to come back, trying to help out Johann Rozanski with
the house supplies. You know, that's a thankless job, but
you know, just trying to help in the house over
the years. So I don't know exactly when it happened,
but just taking initiative.

Speaker 4 (26:05):
It finally became home, right, No, of course, especially because
I never won believe, yes, this is spending so much
time with these guys, you know, and you're going through
thick and thin with them quite literally.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Naturally that bond is gonna build, especially as you show
initiative and you do those little things around the fire
house as well, that add up ultimately doing the big things. Well,
now you were no stranger to fire obviously, you started
your fire service career at sixteen years old, so by
that time, you know you'd seen a thing or two
and not that as like you said, not that you
were seeing your man, but it wasn't something that you
were necessarily foreign to. Nevertheless, I mean working in a city,

(26:38):
like we said earlier, is a whole different ballgame. So
as far as your first structure fire in Philly or
just first major incident of anything, could have been an
MBA or something of that sort, what was the first
box or otherwise where you said, ah, so this is
what it's like here.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
So it's immediately so that second run, which was a
job that we ended up missing, we would have been
first inn on. We did end up assigned to the
box as like the fourteen engine, so right away just
you know, doing our job, which you know every engine
has predetermined assignments per our procedures. So it was our
role was getting on a hydrant stretching to the rear.

(27:13):
So we were able to go through some of those motions.
But you know, just being around those companies and knowing
those companies and their reputations from being right across Cops Creek,
you know, it was like like I'm amongst giants, you know,
in sixty eighth and Larner thirteen and Engine forty latter four,
Engine five, ladder six into forty one, twenty four. Great companies.

(27:35):
So it started right away. And then my first job
ended up being my first night work in the firehouse.
We do two day works, two night works, four days off,
so my first night work in the firehouse, we ended
up on a real good job. Like I said, our
box area was busy as well, so we ended up
third eight on a job with Engine forty one up

(27:57):
at sixty third and have Aford, real good job storefront
with apartments above. We had extension into both exposures, so
there was enough fire to go around. I went for
all hands and a couple of special calls. But so
that was my first introduction to really getting fire with
the Philadelphia Fire Department. And yeah, it was a rush,

(28:19):
you know, what a ride, you know, you know, just
being with those with those amazing people. We give the
new guy or girl the tip the nozzle right away,
so I had the tip for the job. And you know,
my Lieutenant Vince Wooters was was right behind me the
whole time, encouraging me, talking me through it. And you're right,
I had been the fires and up at RB, but

(28:41):
this was still just a different experience.

Speaker 1 (28:44):
You know, absolutely, And again it kind of paves away
for what would come later, given that you made lieutenant
in twenty eleven. I did want to ask this, and
I like asking this to guys that ended up moving
up in rank on either side of the first responder aisle.
Was that something that you had given them mentors you
had both in Upper Derby and in Philadelphia. Was that
something you had in your mind kind of from the

(29:05):
jump when you got on or was that something that
kind of came to you later, Like you know what,
I think, I sho start studying for this test.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Yeah, so it came later. I always stayed in the books.
Like I said, I love the Fire Service. You know,
It's easy for me to read anything firefighting related. So
I never even when we graduated fire school, I never
got out of the books. And we had a one
year test where we had to go back to the
fire Academy, so I was always studying, you know, late

(29:33):
night at the watch desk. We still have a member
that has to sit at the watch desk. I would
be up there studying. So it just kind of happened
where I knew I was going to take the test,
and I knew I was studying, and then it happened,
you know, and then I really enjoyed it, you know,
growing into that role as a lieutenant and then eventually
moving up captain, battalion chief, deputy chief. I started to

(29:55):
enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Right, you know, there is again it's not easy. A
lot of stuff and goes into that, but ultimately when
you're able to come out on the other side of it,
it makes the process all the more rewarding because that's
the thing too. You had enough time. I feel like
six years, especially working in Philadelphia is enough time to
learn the engine, like you talked about, because it made
you appreciate truck work more like you alluded to earlier,

(30:17):
and also kind of get a sense not only from
how you carry yourself, but again the type of officers
you have. Okay, you know what, that's how you do it.
And when I get into that position, someday that's how
I'll do it, or I'll take some variation of what
this officer's doing and I'll apply it to the given
situation it's appropriate to. So I feel like it molds
you well because depending on where you work and if
the city's busy enough, and Philadelphia certainly is that, for

(30:39):
lack of a better way to word a cheat, it
forces you to grow up a hell of a lot quicker,
and grow up you did in those six years.

Speaker 2 (30:45):
Yeah, absolutely, So looking back, I did have another plan
in mind before the promotionals was published, and I did
want to go to a ladder company. I had applied
the Special Operations school. You needed five years on to
apply for that, so I had other pants that I
wanted to explore. I had worked a lot in the

(31:05):
ladder companies between details mutual exchange of tours with other
members in the battalion overtime shifts, but I had fire
duty in the ladder company under my belt. But I
was never assigned to a ladder company. So looking back,
you know, five six years in the engine, I did
want to round that out with some ladder experience. It

(31:26):
just didn't work out that way, but you know, It's
just it's just the timing, you know, before we came
down the tim you know, the test and I the
week that the list was published, I had actually spoke
to the captain of one of the ladder companies in
the Battalion Ladder twenty four about possibly putting a ticket

(31:48):
in to go over there, and just didn't work. You know,
the Lieutenants list came out truly thereafter.

Speaker 1 (31:54):
And everything for a reason, right, because he did end
up ultimately getting a ladder company later on. Now, did
you go? Because I get this is the thing that's interesting.
For example, the FD and Y has this thing where
they do until further orders, you work around at different
places as a new officer to get a feel. Did
you go straight to Latter nine as a lieutenant? Were
you covering for a little bit before you got there?

Speaker 2 (32:14):
So we do have a pool on and off, we
have a pool where you can be a covering officer.
But and this is kind of a funny story that
I'll get into the way it played out, we call
it TA temporarily assigned. I wasn't aware that I was
thad to Latter nine. It was my assignment. There was
no TA on the paperwork, So as far as I

(32:35):
was concerned, I was assigned to Latter nine. So I
was actually moving into a new house in Overbrook Park
when I got a phone call from the Fire Commissioner
Voyd Airs to tell me, Hey, the lieutenant's list is
on my desk. I just got it from Human Resources.
You did very well. You're gonna get promoted very soon. Congratulations.

(32:56):
And I thought it was a prank call. I thought
it was one of the guys from the funber Go
Okay mission and then at Doll'm like, no, this is
really him. So so you know, shortly after that, I
was transferred to Latter nine, Engine fifty seven. Lieutenant to
Latter nine, and you know, going in there without that
ladder experience necessarily, you know, assigned as a firefighter, you know,

(33:18):
look and people talk. You know, I did my homework
about Ladder nine, and I'm sure them guys did their
homework about me. That's natural, that's the way the fire
service works. You know, everyone wants to know how much
time to have on and where did you work? You know,
those are the basic questions. So going in there, you
know I understood not only was I going to a
ladder company, Not only was I a new lieutenant, I

(33:42):
was going to center City, which it was downtown firefighting.
You know, you want to talk about the big cities.
Big city firefighting. Now, completely different ballgame than what I
was used to out in West Philly, where everything was
two and three story row home, single family dwellings, apartment houses.
This was a whole different game. We had the subway,
the Rivers Highway, so I really had to step my

(34:05):
game up. So I went in there and right away.
You know, from day one, I brought the guys out
on the apparatus floor. You know, I feel like the
office is for official business. The apparatus floor is where
we you know, where we really have our conversations about operations.
And I said, look, fellas, you know it's no secret.
You know I got promoted out of an engine in
West Philly. You know this is all new to me.

(34:26):
Ladder company work, being assigned to a ladder, being assigned
a center city, being a new officer. So I'm going
to do my job and keep you guys safe. And
you know you're going to teach me as well. You know,
I might be the lieutenant, but I'm going to learn
a lot from you as far as Ladder Company workers
working downtown in the high rise district elevator operations, whether

(34:48):
it's operations on a fire ground, using the elevators in
a high rise, removing people from stuck elevators, which was
you know, five six runs a day typical that we
would respond to. That was all new to me. So
they they taught me. I learned as much from them
as hopefully I passed on, you know, a little something
to them as well. Guys like Charlie Green, who was

(35:09):
the senior firefighter there. He was first into the Meridian
fire where we tragically lost three people back in ninety one.
He was first in Ladder firefighter. That night, I had
Richie Rodgers, Brian Donneth, Denny Hart, Jimmy Haggerty, Keith Davis,
Dave Keller were across the floor in Engine forty three,

(35:29):
just great, great people that you know. They welcomed me
with open arms as a new lieutenant and said, don't worry,
we got your boss. You know you're downtown now, you
know you're out of your element, you're out of West Philly.
But we're gonna show you know, we're gonna set you
up for success. And then I had another individual I
want to mention Jimmy Gibson. Gibbie, a great guy, larger

(35:49):
than life, phenomenal firefighter, had a great reputation. He was
in West Philly. He was a fifty sevens guy. I
always heard about Gibbey when I was out there at
the kitchen table. Finally got to meet him, got to
work across the floor from him. He was a lieutenant
the engine and all the stories were true. Absolute sweetheart,
loved to have a good time. We went out and
had a lot of great times together. Unfortunately, he passed

(36:12):
away suddenly in twenty sixteen. You know, it was terrible,
but you know, I just wanted to put his name
out there. He was, you know, a phenomenal guy. I
had met him through a friend FROMUMP at RB, Tommy Thornton.
You know, just you talk about how small and how
big the fire service is, but how small it is
to you know, the people that you meet throughout the

(36:33):
years and you end up working with and becoming friends with.
You know, so them guys Lad of nine, you know,
they really set me off for success. Great firehouse, it
really is. I really enjoyed being a Center City fire officer,
Chief Officer we'll talk about that. But yeah, I really
enjoyed it, and I got to learn the latter while
I was there.

Speaker 1 (36:53):
And given the amount of high rises in that district,
I mean, again, it may seem like a silly question
on his face, but again, not knowing too much better affiliate,
this is why it's great that you're here. How much
of an emphasis on stampipe operations, A.

Speaker 2 (37:05):
Lot of emphasis on standpipe So as the years went
on and I became the chief of training, we re
evaluated and rebuilt our entire operational procedure for high rise firefighting,
really honed in on standpipe operations because that was such
a problem at the Meridian Fire, amongst other problems. That
was just a cascading list of failures that night. Everything

(37:25):
was working against the fire department that night. As far
as building systems go, they gave it their all. I mean,
they left it all out there, but you know, it
just it ended terribly. You know, we rely on the
building systems and high rises and they failed that night
for sure, the systems and ultimately the fire did was

(37:47):
extinguished by the sprinkler system once it hit the floors
that were actually sprinkled. But that's a whole water story
for another time, but there was a big emphasis on
it and standpipe operations that at the time that was
new to me, you know. So I would work in
the engine, go out with the engine. We would do drills,
engine ladder, bring out the perimeter engine ladder companies. And
it's tough to float order out of the standpipe in

(38:08):
center city. Nobody wants you hooking up to their stad
pipes in that district. But we certainly did a lot
of training, a lot of educating while I was down there,
and it was every day was a new lesson learned
for sure. And then we, like I said, we rebuilt
that procedure. Years later, you know, a wonderful group of
people came together. I was just a facilitator as the

(38:30):
chief of training, and they, you know, they knocked it
down the park. They really stepped our game up in
terms of standpipe operations.

Speaker 1 (38:39):
And the thing is, too, urban development in any given
city is great, but it's a tall order for the
fire department because you've got to keep up with it.
A lot of building inspection and again more of an
emphasis like you were saying, on these operations because you
have to stay a step ahead because the worst inevitably
is going to come, and it could be the smallest
of things that can cascade. It could be a kitchen
fire that all of a sudden it takes a turn
for the worst. Could be you know, an active fire

(39:00):
alarm with waterflow. Okay, why is water flowing where? It's
this coming from broken pipe?

Speaker 2 (39:04):
You never know.

Speaker 1 (39:05):
So with these buildings, even if they're being enforced with
stringent building code's still it creates a big, big challenge
and challenge certainly the latter companies, including Nines in Philadelphia
and particularly in that district, were certainly up.

Speaker 2 (39:17):
For Yeah, I remember one tour it seemed like every
run that we went on was something just crazy. You know,
it was a person under a train, and then it
was you know, a blind shift, stuck elevator removal, and
then it was a car hanging off you know, one
of the bridges, you know, potentially going over into the river.
And then we get a run for a water leak,

(39:38):
which is a pretty common run. And we get into
this high rise and there's water pouring into the lobby
and shine my light up into the elevator shift. There's
water dumping down from a broken pipe from twenty thirty
floors up into the elevator pit. It was just it
was a mess, you know. I remember thinking like, man,
can I just get a bedroom fired? You know, something

(39:59):
cut and dry.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
Contents really, you know, just so in and out, you.

Speaker 2 (40:03):
Know, go back to the kitchen table, have some coffee,
talk about it, break jobs. No, it was just everything
was in operation. But looking back on it, I learned
so much. I encourage well. I speak to the new
officers in our officer Apprenticeship program and I tell them,
you're going to end up downtown in the fourth Battalion.
Embrace it. It's a great place to learn, especially if

(40:24):
you're looking to move up the ranks. You want to
move up to captain, battalion chief, deputy chief, you should
have some fourth Battalion experience under your belt, where you
know every day is a new curveball and a new
learning experience.

Speaker 1 (40:35):
How many battalions in the city and total chief.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
There are thirteen battalions spread out under three divisions.

Speaker 1 (40:43):
Okay, and this is a question from Joe Malig. I
guess as far as staffing gets concerned, on the given
engine company and truck company, how many guys three four?

Speaker 2 (40:51):
So we run an officer and four in a ladder
officer and three and an engine, So you end up
with four and a ladder or four in an engine,
five five in a ladder. The roster's heavier. Like on
any we work at ABCD platoon chart we uh will
if the platoon will say the eight platoon is officer

(41:13):
in four and an engine. If everybody's working, one member
will be detailed to another company that for that particular shift.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Okay, and do you have two on an ambulance or
is the MS separate?

Speaker 2 (41:26):
So EMS is part of the Philadelphia Fire Department. Their
house in the firehouses. It's all under the same oprella.
We have approximately three thousand members that includes our paramedics
and EMTs and they ride two two in an ambulance.
We have sixty three medic units mixed between alsbos. We
do have some firefighters staffing in the medic units.

Speaker 1 (41:48):
Yeah, so it's pretty well staffed department. Thirteen battalions across
the city, like you said, for those three divisions. So
Philadelphia is definitely well served and it's never a bad
problem have too much manpower, you know, you'd much rather
figure out where am I going to send this guy
for the tour as opposed to how am I going
to figure out how to fill out the roster? So
that's definitely a nice problem to have for the Philadelphia
Fire Department. Now, sorry, go ahead, chief, No.

Speaker 2 (42:09):
You're right. You know, I was just going to say,
you know, talking about balancing the numbers and the staffing,
that's a daily thing, happens multiple times. Most of my
day as a chief was spent, you know, moving bodies around.
You know, people go off you know, holiday's, vacation, sick,
whatever the case may be. And it kind of leads
into if we were going to talk about how you know,

(42:29):
I said I thought I was assigned to Latter nine
and not T eight. You know, that all came out
during doing numbers one day with my chief. So do
you want to talk about that?

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Absolutely, go right into it. Whatever you want to talk about, Chief.

Speaker 2 (42:44):
So I've been in Latter nine for almost a year,
and like I said, I was loving it. You know,
the runs were crazy, the emergencies, a little bit of
fire duty. You know, we were certainly catching some work.
And my chief comes in one day and we're doing
the projected staffing, the numbers, and he's going down the
list and he gets to the following tour on our shift,
and he says, all right, lout next tour coming back.

(43:07):
You're officer vacancy and four. So I'm like, Chief, I
don't have a vacation next week. I'm not off. And
he's like, no, I got a note here. You're transferred.
I said, what do you mean I'm transferred? He says, yeah,
you're transferred effective April ninth, twenty twelve, to Engine fifty four.

(43:27):
And I said, well, how did that happen? I didn't
put a ticket in to go anywhere. I want to
stay here. And he said, well, I don't know either.
I got a note. Let me make a phone call. Well,
unbeknownst to me, he was calling the Deputy Commissioner of
Operations at the time, who was in charge of the transfers.
And he says, yeah, hey, Chief a commissioner. I'm here

(43:49):
with Lieutenant Bompadre, who he doesn't know. He's no clue
who I am. And he says he's transferred next week
to Engine fifty four. But he he's assigned here. You
know what's going on, and he must look it up.
And he goes and put him on the phone so
he hands me the phone. So now I'm on the
phone with the Deputy Commission of Operations and like, yes, sir,

(44:12):
and he says, yeah, what's what's going on? What's the problem.
You're transferred into fifty four? I said, I know, but
I didn't put in any paperwork to go to into
fifty four. He said, well, you're not assigned to the
ladder nine. You're tad so you go where you get
put And I said, well, I didn't know that I
wasn't assigned to ladder nine. And he said, well you're
going intine fifty four. And he goes, what's the problem.

(44:33):
He said, I look where you live. You live in
that area. I said, yeah, I do. I said, but
I don't mind driving to work. I'm thinking, like, who wants,
you know, maybe I can stay down here if nobody
wants to go to ladder nine. But the officer whose
spot I told he was coming back, that was a
whole other story. And he says, well, he goes, you're
going to fifty four. So I suggest either get a
bike or a good pair of running shoes and good luck.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
But that was it.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
So I had to go out and tell the guys,
you know, hey, I didn't do this, you know, behind
your back. I love it here. I love you guys,
but you're gonna be fine. You survive before me. You're
gonna survive it to me, thank you for showing me
the way. And off to engine fifty four and over
broke I went, and.

Speaker 1 (45:16):
Again closer to home. And it would have been nice
to know as the guy that took the assignment. By
the way, this is temporary, but big city fire department,
big city things. And that's not said mockingly. It just
it happened. Sometimes it gets lost in translation. That's anything
in the fire service or the police service by extension.
But going back to an engine company, I mean again,
even though you loved Ladder nine, you spent the first

(45:36):
six years of your career over fifty seven, so you
had to feel right at home. Different spot, of course,
front seat this time front passenger seat, next to your driver.
But engine operations was your bread and butter for such
a long time, I imagine even though coming back as
an officer is different, it was an easier transition.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah, so eventually I knew I wanted to get back
to an engine I guess it was just a way
that it happened, and Engine fifty four is a great company.
It's back in West phil It's in the eleventh Battalion.
We used to run in with them when I was
at fifty SEVENS. Very familiar with the area, Like the
Commissioner said, it was my neighborhood where I was living,
so I knew what I was getting into. I knew
the members, So I was going to go there, you know,

(46:15):
and embrace it, you know, love the one you're with.
So this is my new spot, and that's the way
I approached it. I remember the first morning I started,
dude to unfortunate circumstances. So that morning, early on before
the shift started, I went to the gym. I figured
I get a workout in before I get to the firehouse.
So I'm at the gym, I see this five alarm

(46:38):
warehouse fire going on in Kensington and I'm like, oh,
look at that. You know, they got a good job,
and I'm thinking fifty fours won't be there because they're
on the edge of the city, so they don't move
to cover up anybody else. If anything, they get covered
if they're out of service for a said amount of time,
just because it butts up to Lower Merion off City Avenue.

(46:58):
So I'm figuring they won't be there. So I go home,
I get showered, I get changed. I get to the
firehouse and everybody's in the kitchen. They're listening to the
radio and they told I said, hey, guys, what's going on.
They said, oh, hey, lout hey doing. Yeah, got this
warehouse fire in Kensington and latter ten is buried. Now

(47:23):
it doesn't process with me because from the news it
looked like the fire was under control. So I said, oh,
that's going to be a long memo, thinking the apparatus
was buried, you know, maybe they were parking a collapse,
and it turned out tragically it was the members and
we lost Lieutenant Bob Neary, firefighter Dan Sweeney that morning.
It was a terrible morning. And I remember the date,

(47:44):
you know, because of April nine, twenty twelve, because it
was the day I walked into fifty fours, and you know,
one of my first orders was, hey, guys, I'm the
new Lieutenant Tony Bumpadre and we got to hang up
the black Bonny, you know, for Bob and Dan. So
you know, I just wanted to remember them, put their
names out there for tragic time.

Speaker 1 (48:04):
Ah man, I'm very sorry to hear that. And again,
you know, again it doesn't process like you said, because
if I heard the same thing, I think, oh, yeah,
the apparatus got caught in it. You know, I guess
they're gonna have to send the truck to the shop.
But no, it's again it shows the danger. You never know.
You never know what's going to happen to or to tour,
and that that morning that you just explained was certainly
no different spending time though in fifty Fourrench And tell

(48:28):
me about the district and the type of work you
guys would catch. Was it a lot like fifty sevens
in terms of the you know, contents of fire.

Speaker 2 (48:34):
You were seeing parts of the local. The rest of
the local was big, single family dwellings, a lot of
apartment buildings, very diverse in building construction that that area.
We had city avenues, so we would get a frequent
amount of accidents. Sometimes we would work with Lower Merion.
I knew some of the people over there, which was

(48:54):
good to see people from other departments on runs, But
a lot of their work when they got first in
it was good work. You know, a big, big single
family dwellings, so it was it was good work when
we got it. I was only there a couple months,
which kind of segues into when I was assigned to
fire school as a lieutenant. So after a couple of months,

(49:15):
I was enjoying it. I had a good crew. Alonzo Smith,
Kevin Douglas, Mark Lebron, Brian Houghton, Paul Greedy was there
who I worked with at Engine sixty You know, he
was at Engine sixty eight as a firefighter when I
was a firefighter, so I had you know, I was
enjoying it. A couple months in went to a couple
of fires and I got a phone call from Will Dixon,

(49:38):
who was a firefighter at Ladder twenty four when I
was at Engine fifty seven. He was one of the
senior firefighters. He taught me a lot about ladder company work.
He got promoted with me to lieutenant. He went right
to fire school. So he called me and he said, hey, listen,
why don't you come out Engine fifty four and come
up to fire school. We had the cadet class starting

(49:59):
and I want you to teach engines. So I was
a little hesitant because I hadn't taught up to that point.
So I called another you know, i'll call him a
mentor of mine, Ed Grugan, who was Jim Grugan's brother,
and you know, I talked to him about it, and
he told me, do it, You're gonna love it. I
talked to Jeff Mullen, who was my first captain, absolute gentleman,

(50:21):
phenomenal firefighter. I love that man, and he told me, Tony,
don't pass up the opportunity to go to fire school
and teach. So I went up there and taught engines
for the one eighty six. I owe that to, you know,
Will for setting me up for success there. Unfortunately, Will
passed away a couple of years ago from cancer. You know,
just you know, great guy, you know, you know, terrible circumstances,

(50:45):
but such a terrific human being. So get up to
fire school and they were right. I loved it. You know.
At the time, I was still assigned to fifty four's
detailed the fire school as an adjunct instructor, but I
really enjoyed teaching the cadets. I wasn't the one to
yell and scream, you know. We had Droylshargenz for that.

(51:06):
That wasn't me. That wasn't my style. I was the
one that would pull you aside, teach, stay after class
if you needed help with something, set you up to
get you squared away to graduate because we're gonna be
working together. So I got to set you out there
right and we would get calls from the field you know,
what are you sending us? So you know I took
it serious. It's a big responsibility. I jumped in with

(51:27):
two feet. I really enjoyed it. It was it was
great and that started me on the path to an
assignment there. So after the class graduated, the deputy chief
up there, Jesse Wilson, who again took care of me
in so many ways that we'll talk about here. And

(51:49):
that's the why I love about the fire Service, Like
you get to meet people and you can take care
of people and and really make an impact on their career,
go to bat for them in different ways. And he
did that from so he took a chance in me
and he said, I really like, well you did up
here with the class. I was watching you, and I
want you to stay as a full time instructor. Coming

(52:11):
out of the field work this spot. Basically Monday through Friday,
we fought a straight date works. You're not in the
firehouse unless you pick up extra shifts. So I said yeah,
because I really enjoyed it at the time, and I
waited the options and then go back to fifty fours
and keep doing what I'm doing in the engine, which
wouldn't be bad, but I can come up here and

(52:32):
really step my game up. So I you know, I
took the chance, and he gave me that opportunity. We
had gone to Saint jose together for master's degree, so
we were in the in the program together, so we
got to know each other and it was a great experience.
I really enjoyed being up at fire school teaching. I

(52:53):
got to work with some great people. Jeff Kalden, who
I had worked with in West Philly. He was allowed thirteen.
He's still one of my best friends today in the
fire department. Jason Oaks, another phenomenal guy, Rich Prather, Hector, Sierra,
Dave Litchfield, Will Dixon. You know, we were the we

(53:14):
were the full time instructors up there, and man, we
had a blast. We had We had so much fun.
We you know, we're some days you probably had too
much fun, you know, training with the companies and bringing
them up and getting to do live burns and you know,
just get into UH to interact with units from all
over the city. So with you know, like I said earlier,
we have thirteen battalions. It's tough to know everybody everywhere.

(53:38):
You know some sometimes you might not cross pace, but anyway,
you stay in your area for your whole career. You
might not know people from the Northeast. But I got
to know people from all over the fire department because
we would rotate companies through fire school, so it was
it was great. And then I had the amazing opportunity
to serve as the class coordinator for connect Cine. We

(54:02):
typically push out classes of one hundred that's usually the
max that will do it one time, and so I
got to be the lead for the class. You're basically
the parent of the class. You get one hundred new
kids and you're responsible for them from the moment they
come through the gate to the moment they get out there.
You mold them and you know the way that you

(54:24):
want them to be. You set the tone for the instructors,
you approve the training schedule. There's so much that goes
into it day to day, but to see them come from,
you know, the nervous, excited civilian ends standing on the
other side of the gate, coming through the gates, suffering
through the punishing pt and the academic rigors of it all,

(54:48):
and then to come out not only graduate, but now
they're getting promoted. They're lieutenants and captains. Now. I try
to make it to their promotions because, like I said,
they were like my kids, and I'm so proud of
them because I remember telling them, you know, we would
close every day. I would get to close today, the
instructors would all talk, and then I would have the
last words and try to set them up. We would

(55:10):
talk about line of duty desks, you know, the date
if it was an anniversary. We would talk about how
to carry yourself in the firehouse, firehouse etiquette, to set
them up for success. And I told them, I said,
I sat in your seat and I got through it,
and now I'm standing here talking to you as a lieutenant.
I said, one day one of you will be standing
up here. One of you is going to be a

(55:31):
chief officer. One of you may be my boss one day.
And the class that's in now, which is pretty cool,
the class coordinator who's in that role is somebody from
that class. Brad Forsyth him a shout out. He's doing
a great job. From what I hear, I'm not surprised.
He was an ACE and fire School and then he
went out to West Philly to sixty Eighth's and really

(55:54):
hit the ground running. So it's so many great people
that I've come across, and training was a big part
of that. Absolutely, I'm so happy I went to fire school.
It was really a great experience.

Speaker 1 (56:07):
Yeah, and I mean again, there's a relatability factor too.
Where again, as you said, and this is the case
for a lot of cities that run their own pretty
much every instructor you got there is someone that at
one point was in that recruit role. Obviously they got
to be that instructor. They got to put on that
hard line and that that obviously is going to create
the respect needed. And we talked earlier about paramilitary values,
values being enforced, but deep down, they know exactly what

(56:29):
you're feeling those first few weeks. They know exactly what
you're feeling, especially when it comes to the PT and
they know exactly what you're feeling. Of course, once you
get to that level where you graduate, God, that I
need to hear this because, like we talked about earlier,
that'll be me in that in that chair at some point,
so when I get out on the other side of it,
I will look back at this conversation that we had tonight, Chief,

(56:49):
and to your point about line of duty deaths. Before
I continue with something, I wanted to ask you small world.
John Costello, who worked MS on the side besides being
a police sergeant, mentions that Danny Sweetey work for as
a medic and he obviously has a family in Philadelphia
public safety. So the Sweeney imprint is well felt down there,
So thank you for mentioning that, Sar. I hope you're well.
I know some schools, at least down here, do this

(57:11):
where the instructors, depending on the severity, can respond to
a box alarm as an incident safety officer or one
of them.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Can.

Speaker 1 (57:18):
Instructors down and Philly do the same thing.

Speaker 2 (57:20):
So two things real quick. I'm so happy that he
mentioned that. So Dan's sister, Susie was actually Suzi Sweather,
who was actually in the one A nine the class
I taught, and Dan's father was on the job, So
I just want to mention that as well. Thank you.
For bringing that up. So, yeah, to your point, it

(57:41):
used to be that way. So before we had a
dedicated incident safety officer, the captain from fire school would
fill that role on a third alarm I think it
was or second alarm. It's not the case anymore. In
the case of extra alarm fires. We do suspend training
during the extra alarm fire, and we have apparatus at

(58:01):
school that can be equipped. So if we have to
bring in personnel, which is rare, I think it might
be like a fifth alarm where we start recalling personnel.
We have apparatus ad fire school that the officers can
get squared away ready to go out to the street.
Doesn't happen a lot, but so there is still a

(58:23):
response part of that. It's rare. But when I was
up there, you could still work the field on your
days off. You get called by the chiefs ad for
over time or to go fill in a shift somewhere.
So I tried to do that every time I worked
in staff because I had two more stints and staff
that we'll talk about throughout my career. I always tried

(58:43):
to work the firehouse when I could, just to stay involved,
and staff really supports the field. So it was good
to get back out there while in the staff role
and hear from the members, you know, hear their needs.
Even when it came to training, like if I would
go out there and work, the guy would say like, hey,
we went out my last week for that class on

(59:03):
engines and it was great, but you should add XYZ.
That's a great idea, you know, And then we would
go back and add what they suggested.

Speaker 1 (59:11):
And again to your point, again, inclusiveness and that constant
ebb and flow in the dialogue is what gets things
done because you know, again in the fire service's key
and I've learned this from talking with guys like yourself
and many others. You could ever be married to the philosophy.
Sometimes you can, because the philosophy is one hundred percent
right and applicable. But sometimes there's nuances to the situation
or context and the situation what you're talking about that

(59:32):
you didn't consider before, but somebody else did, and you
blend that together. You get a great outcome and it
kind of really not kind of, it does definitely aid
and moving the mission forward. You make captain in twenty thirteen,
and in this five year period from being captain ultimately
to making battalion chief in twenty eighteen. You got the
chance to work several different engine companies forty five, nineteen
twenty five and ultimately the last one being twenty over

(59:56):
in Chinatown. So familiarization with engine operations, as we talk
about earlier, but nevertheless about we will break it down
right now. Each of those four companies you had in
those five years, what did you most enjoy about each
in terms of the guys there in the district you
were in.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
Yeah, so we rotate officers every three years, every four years.
I'll talk about that in a moment. But so to backtrack,
the one nine was in class. I took the captain's exam,
did well, placed well, and typically when you come out
at that time, when you come out of staff, you

(01:00:32):
get to pick your assignment. You jump to the top
of the list. So Jesse Wilson brings me in his
office and he says, I got the captain's list here.
You're going to get promoted before the class graduates. Where
do you want to go? This is another funny story
with that deputy commissioner who told me to get my
sneakers for Engine fifty four. So I tell him I

(01:00:53):
wanted to give North Philly a try and worked in
West Philly, and I know I want to go to
an engine. My heart's in the engine. I love the engine.
I really enjoyed ladder work and I appreciate it, but
to me, there's nothing better than being in an engine
company as either as the firefighter on the tip, the officer,
the backup drive. And I used to love driving the engine,
really enjoyed it with such a challenge and such a brush,

(01:01:17):
you know, getting there first then not getting beat in,
you know, knowing where you're going. But anyway, so he
tells me, you know where do you want to go?
So I said, well, Engine fifty in North Philly. Great company,
which is where I'm assigned. Now, that's where the safety
chief runs out out for the city. Had an opening,
had a captain's vacancy. So he picks up the phone
and calls the deputy Commissioner in charge of transfers and says, hey,

(01:01:41):
I got Tony Bumpadre in the office. He's making captain
and he says the deputy christ says where's he want
to go? And he said Engine fifty And the deputy
commissioner says, well, it's not happening, it's going to someone else,
So tell him the pick again. So then now he
comes off speakerphone. You know. It was like all right,
so we'll look at the well. There was really at
the time there was nothing open. But the class hadn't

(01:02:05):
graduated yet. They still had a few tours left at school,
so they put me at Engine forty five another great company.
Forty five's lat of fourteen Medic twenty five in North Philly.
Phenomenal place. They put me there on paper. I went
and worked a couple of tours there while I was
still at school, but I knew I wasn't staying. In fact,

(01:02:26):
on that one on the transfer, I was t eight,
so it was just a place time you do. Yeah, yeah,
this time I knew I was T eight. I made
sure to ask, so I knew that there was gonna
be more movement. So I was only there for a
couple of tours. I put that in the bio for
you more or less just to acknowledge them, because it's
a great house, it really is. So I knew I

(01:02:48):
was gonna go to Engine nineteen, which was incredible because
like I said, I used to go right hanging out
there with Jim Grugan when he was Battalion nine before
I got hired nineteen's latter eight Battalion nine, Medic twenty
eight up in Germantown and then we'll call it the
northwest section of the city. So now I get to
go back there as a captain. You know how cool

(01:03:08):
was that? So I loved it and I loved it there.
It was a great spot. I worked with great people,
guys in the engine like Anthony Granger, Franchise Robinson, we
called him Poppy, Keith Oliver, Pedro Soto. I mean, these
were great guys, they really were. And I loved it there.
And to be working there where from a place I

(01:03:28):
used to hang out at as a kid, was just
like full circle, really cool experience. But an opportunity came
up that doesn't come up often, and Engine twenty five
in the Kensington section of North Philadelphia was opening up.
That captain was moving out, and I probably like about
a year at nineteen's maybe a little less, And this

(01:03:51):
is one of them. Opportunities doesn't come around every day.
You pretty much need a letter from the Pope to
get in there as the captain. But I had Jesse
Wilson who said in that meeting when I couldn't get
engine fifty, he said, well, if anything in North Philly
comes up, let me know. So well, something in North
Philly came up. You know, phenomenal single engine I like

(01:04:11):
single engines. Fifty sevens was a single engine, smaller firehouse.
It's just that's the why I was broken. That's what
I'm used to. The full houses are great. Change a
shift is a lot of fun. You know, twenty some
guys in the kitchen. But you know, I like the
single engine work. This was a great firehouse in the
middle of a very rough neighborhood. Kensington's suffering from an

(01:04:33):
opioid crisis. It's it's it's really terrible to see, but
it certainly kept the firehouse busy. Engine twenty five Medic
eight MEDICI consistently ranks as one of the busiest medic
units in the country NonStop and the fire duties there
a lot of vacant row homes, a lot of vacant
house firework, and more important than all that, the members

(01:04:56):
are phenomenal. I got to work with Eric Fromhold Dave Sandy,
I I go with Sean Doherty, Stevie Jenkins. Stevie Jenkins's
dad was a chief in West Philly, and when I
got the assignment, you know, he called me and said, hey,
make sure you take care of my son. You know,
it's a big honor and a big responsibility, you know
to you know, I take care of my son. But

(01:05:16):
he didn't need to be He was phenomenal. He didn't
need to be taken care of. You know. I did
my best to watch out for him, but he hit
the ground running. He's a lieutenant now, he's doing great things.
He worked with me in logistics. But you know, I
loved it there. It was busy, fast paced, aggressive. The firehouse,
you know, like I said, it's in the heart of

(01:05:37):
the neighborhood. You know, the firehouse had bo wood holes
in it, you know, plywood on the windows, and you know,
you talk about that saying a great firehouse isn't made
up by the apparatus or the building, it's the members
inside that that's the place. You know. The patch is simple.
It's got a Dalmatian on it. Tradition, you know, and
that's what they live by, tradition. It's a very traditional firehouse.

(01:05:59):
One of the senior men there, Mike Conrad. His father
was there. He was killed in the line of duty
in a building collapse in nineteen eighty four. So he
worked now. He worked in his dad's firehouse. His two
brothers are on the job, two great human beings, Joe
and Jimmy. I had pleasure working with Jimmy out in
West Philly. He was an engine sixteen. He's still there.

(01:06:21):
I just saw him the other day, still loving it.
You know, he's the senior man over there, doing great
things for Engine sixteen. So, like I said, just just
a great place to work. And the North Philly I
wanted to try it out. Like I love West Philly,
but North Philly is it's a little more we'll call it.

(01:06:42):
I don't want to say aggressive, because everywhere it's a
little more cut through. Will say that the firehouses are
on top of each other in North Philly. So you
make one wrong turn, you take too long to turn out,
you get stuck behind a double park car, you're out
of the game. And the other company is not forgiving.
You know, they're gonna cut you off if they can't.
You know. It's just it's a different type of firefighting,
and I wanted to try it out. I wanted to

(01:07:03):
see what it was all about. Wes Philly was more
of a gentleman's game where the companies were a little
more spread out, but we still had to be, you know,
on our a game in West Philly because if we
gave the other engine, you know, an opportunity to get
as they would. But I wanted to see what it
was all about, and I really enjoyed the You know,
when it's healthy, it's good because it keeps you on

(01:07:25):
your toes. You better know your local, you better know
how to stretch. You better know how to stretch line
quickly and efficiently because they're coming for you. They're right
on your back. I remember going back to work at
MXT for an officer at Engine fifty seven, John Diaz,
who was one of my officers when I was there.

(01:07:47):
Great guy. Can't say enough great things about him. I
wanted to mention Sean Glenn too, He was one of
my lieutenants when I was at fifty seven's another phenomenal firefighter,
fire officer. He always got us in the mix, you know,
he was a sock firefighters in heavy rescue, So we
would get on scene and he would find a way
to get us in service, you know, whichever really loved.
But I go back to fifty seven's one day and

(01:08:10):
I'm working, and now I'm in that North Philly mindset,
you know when in room. So I'm in that mindset
and we get a box run and with sixty eights,
we're first in their second in and I can see
their lights. We're heading south on sixty second Street and
I can see their lights coming north coming at us,
and I tell my driver, I said, if they make

(01:08:31):
the turn and cut you off, I want you to
make the turn and pull up on their bumper. And
you know this, And then I'm ready to battle it
out with sixty eights And the driver kind of gives
me a look. Eric Franks who's driving, great guy, and
he says, he kind of gives me a look like
all right, but why would they do that? You know.
So we get to the intersection, they wave us in,
you know, you got it, and we get there and

(01:08:54):
it's it's nothing. It's it's it wasn't a fire. So
we put it under and we're going back to the
firehouse and he's like, hey, Cat, I think you're spending
too much time in North Philly. You need to come home.
To West. I don't know why you tht sixty as
will do that. But twenty five is great, you know,
a great place to work. But like I said, we
rotate every three four years. So off to Chinatown, Engine twenty.

(01:09:17):
I went Engine twenty, great firehouse in the heart of Chinatown,
back in that downtown fourth Battalion area. Everything is a
challenge down there, but I got to work with some
great people, Bill Cope, Tom Jardelle, Kevin Dorin, Gino Capo Bianci.
That was my crew and the engine and they were

(01:09:38):
just you know, they were phenomenal, and I really enjoyed
it there. I had taken the chiefs tests. When I
got down there, I knew I was looking to get
promoted to two battalion chiefs. But in the meantime, I
was going to enjoy Chinatown. The neighborhood is great. They
take care of themselves. Chinatown runs, it runs itself. We
were very tight with the community. I used to love

(01:10:00):
New Year working for that. They would take over Tenth
Street and have a big party and they loved us,
you know. And and uh, the reading terminal was in
our local. It's like food heaven, you know, Mike, you
ever get down the Philly. Y'll take it to the
reading terminal.

Speaker 1 (01:10:15):
We're going to make that happen.

Speaker 2 (01:10:17):
We love it, so we would go over there to
get our food. I had a lot of fun down there.
And you know, speaking of the community sometimes, you know,
when I was a captain, I would, you know, to
take care of the fellows. I would work off of.
It's probably better to ask for forgiveness than permission. When
they wanted to do some things in the firehouse, as

(01:10:37):
long as it wasn't too crazy. And we got a
new engine and they wanted to put a dragon on
the front of the engine. We were the House of Dragons,
so and we have a really cool mural painted outside.
You can look it up online. But hey, cap, can
we put this dragon on a new engine? They were
so proud to get a new engine. They hadn't had
one in a long time. So I said, yeay, you

(01:10:59):
know what it uh, and you know it's all They
were just gonna wire tie it. They weren't gonna drill
into the truck. Nothing crazy, you know, So they put
it on there. Well, it gets downtown and uh, one
of the you know, the deputy chiefs paid me a
visit and he's like, hey, you know, you're not supposed
to have this. I said, yeah, but the community loves it.

(01:11:20):
I mean they put it in there. Yeah, there's the
mural outside of the firehouse.

Speaker 1 (01:11:24):
That's the that's that's cool.

Speaker 2 (01:11:26):
Now, that's cool. It's a really cool firehouse. And so
he comes in and and I knew he was coming.
I had got in the phone call, I got downtown,
saw the truck. Okay, So he comes in. I said, Chief, like,
the community they love this. You know, if you take
it off, it's gonna rip the community up, you know.

(01:11:47):
So what can we do to make it right? And
he said, just put the paperwork in the way it's
supposed to go in. And then when he was walking out,
he says, uh, it's pretty cool by the way, and
he you know, and then he he was a memor there.
I think it was a firefighter there like thirty years
prior to this. And he's like, he's pretty cool. He's like,
wants a dragon, always a dragon, you know. So that

(01:12:08):
was a that was pretty funny. That was that was
that was a good time, good experience down there.

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
And to your point on North Philly, actually, before I
get into that, I mean highlight this question from Mitch
durn Earlier you were talking about EMS. He just wants
to know he worked New York City EMS for a
long time. How does EMS and fire get along.

Speaker 2 (01:12:25):
We have our challenges, you know, like any family, but
we're in house together. It's you know, I don't think
it's that way in New York. I don't believe, but
I can. I can speak from my own experience that
you know, they're part of the company. As far as
I'm concerned, they're part of the company. They're assigned to
the engine officer, So even though they're in the ambulance,

(01:12:47):
they're assigned to us. And they just they're so busy.
It's so hard to get back for a meal. You know.
The members of the companies try their best to have
food ready for them to come back, even if it's
just on the the apron of the firehouse. That just
you know, sometimes they're changing over and you know, off
to the next run. They could barely get time to

(01:13:07):
changeover personnel. It's a very busy ins system. So we
do the best we can, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:13:14):
And they and again, like you said, I like how
you put that family has its challenges and we still
love at the end of the day, you're there for
each other, you support each other, So I didn't want
to ignore that question.

Speaker 2 (01:13:22):
Mitch.

Speaker 1 (01:13:22):
Thank you for submitting it before I get to you
make a battalion chief.

Speaker 2 (01:13:25):
Though.

Speaker 1 (01:13:25):
I'm glad you mentioned North Philly because I recall a
conversation I had with Jeff Cole, retired on AFG and
Y Rescue three, where you know, he was talking about
how someone took exception to him saying, yeah, he was
a ghetto firefighter. And he wasn't saying in terms of
how we carried himself, not at all. He was just
talking about the neighborhood. And I've said this before and
I'll say it again. It's a term of endearment. You know,
you're not happy to see the neighborhood struggle, but you

(01:13:47):
take pride in working in a neighborhood like that because,
like you said, there was the same thing in Chinatown,
same thing there. The people love you, and every time
you have those experiences with them, rather be a little
kid swinging by the firehouse and Watston go on the truck,
or just a family a mother or father thanking you
for what you do, it reminds you not only why
you do what you do, but who you do it for. Man,
most of those people in that neighborhood, they're good, honest people.

(01:14:08):
It's a small percentage that makes it untenable at times.
I'm the majority of the people you're serving. You're you're
really really happy to serve some.

Speaker 2 (01:14:16):
Of the greatest people, and that I'm civilian citizens that
I've interacted with her in the toughest neighborhoods. Yeah. Yeah,
they really are caring, compassionate people. You know, it's just
to work in those neighborhoods. It was a challenge. It
was an honor for sure. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:35):
Absolutely. They often say the hardest transition is with two
of them. In the fire service is firefighter to lieutenant
or sergeant because some the departments have sergeants in Philly's case,
lieutenant and then battalion excuse me, captain rather to battalion chief.
You've done both in your career, so just tell me
about that transition. Where you've been an officer to this

(01:14:56):
point by seven years, that wasn't foreign, but the chiefs
level is a whole new game, and now seven years
is the chief. But just getting to the battalion at first,
how long did it take to get used to that.
And much like the guys helped you through when you
first made lieutenant over in a latter nine and later
entered fifty four, how did the guys and your battalion
help you out here?

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
They were great. I agree with that statement. Those are
the two most difficult transitions for sure. The one thing
I'll say about battalion chief is our captains can serve
as acting battalion chiefs. So I did have that experience
as far as I've been in charge of some fire
grounds up to that point. But when you're actually promoted
and the chief, it's a different ballgame.

Speaker 1 (01:15:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:15:36):
I was fortunate because right out of Chinatown, I stayed well.
I was assigned to the pool Division one pool and
in Division one is Battalion four, one of the battalions
in Division one, and that's where Chinatown was, So I
knew everyone. I knew it was a temporary assignment, but

(01:15:57):
I knew everyone that I was going to be working with.
They knew my leadership style, they knew who I was.
I'm a big fan of you know, saying you know
I work with people, I don't really say people work
for me. You know, we work together and that goes
back to my experience at latter nine in the fourth
Battalion where we all work together. You know, yeah, I'm

(01:16:19):
the officer, I'm in charge, but we're gonna work together.
But they they embraced me with open arms. I did
obviously switch platoons down in the fourth Battalion. Again, great
place to work. It was a challenge. Every tour is
a challenge. We have chiefs ats. They're worth their weight
in gold. And my aid was great, Chris Stewart. He

(01:16:42):
was another West Philly firefighter for years now he's an
aid down there. He's retired now. I hope he's doing well,
but he was great to have. He really showed me
the way, you know, as an aid, like a chief.
This building we come in, this way, this building we
do this. And one funny story about him is and
I get there, I'm doing the roster and it's my

(01:17:04):
name and his name. We're on the d Delta platoon.
And I see next to his name nine to six
eighty three. Well, that's my birthday now eighty three. So
I said, hey, Chris, I think they screwed up the
roster downtown. They have my birthday and your appointment date
mixed up. They have nine six eighty three as your

(01:17:25):
appointment that. He's like, that is my appointment day, he said,
you're telling me that, you know, the day I was
sworn in as a Philadelphia firefighter is the day that
you came into the world. He's like, it's time to retire.
But we got a good laugh out of it. But
he was great to have, so that transition was made
a little easier because I was familiar with the players

(01:17:47):
in all the companies, and I did have some crazy
jobs while I was down there. I did want to
talk about a couple of.

Speaker 1 (01:17:55):
Those, please do so.

Speaker 2 (01:17:58):
Leading up to that twenty eight team. On January sixth,
twenty eighteen, we had another suffered another terrible loss. We
lost Matt Letorno in a building collapse in North Philly.
He was working at Engine forty five. I knew Matt
from our Delaware County days. Matt was a volunteer out there.
He was an instructor at the fire school. He got

(01:18:20):
me into their fire schools an instructor. Years later, he
was a firefighter and Engine forty three across the floor
from latter nine when I was a lieutenant. So our
careers and personal lives seemed to always match up. Matt
was super into the job. He loved the job. You know,
I thought I loved the job. He put me to
shame the way he loved the job. And you know,

(01:18:42):
he was big in with FSRI when it was early
on in the research and he would come back and
he would tell us about this research that they were
putting out. And we lost firefighter Juyce Craig in a
basement fire a couple of years prior to that, and
he came back and said that fire was the Cherry

(01:19:04):
Road fire in Washington, d C. Where they lost two firefighters.
And then we had a wind driven high rise fire
in the projects in North Philly, and he said, guys,
this is exactly what happened on Vandellia Avenue. This guy
Dan Mandrakowski and the FDNY put out this whole program.
So he was ahead of his time in Philadelphia. He
was great, and I'm ashamed to say, you know, at

(01:19:26):
the time I kind of dismissed it. Again, man, I
don't know if that's gonna work here, but we'll figure
it out. But he was, like I said, phenomenal firefighter.
And then a couple of years after his death. We
ended up hooking up with FSRI and seeing his dream
become a reality, but I definitely wanted to mention him.
So that was in January of eighteen. So February of eighteen,

(01:19:48):
I'm a chief in the fourth NIE and we get
a fire at a two thirty nine Chestnuts Street. It's
a five story building. It's an old loft building built
in the eighteen hundreds, hast iron facade, heavy timber wood floors.
It's a commercial on the first floor with apartments above.
So that night was kind of typical for a Saturday night,

(01:20:12):
typical for the fourth Battalion. We chased a couple of
gas leaks, we a couple of high rise boxes that
were nothing. So I was in the office. It was
like three in the morning, and I was thinking about Matt.
Matt's job I was supposed to be working that morning.
I'd worked the day before. I'd swapped shifts with somebody,
so I didn't make the fire ground. So I'm thinking

(01:20:34):
about that, and I'm listening to the audio on YouTube
of his job and we get hit out for this fire.
So the whole way there, I just I had a
bad feeling in my gut. You know it. It was
just something didn't seem right. In the middle of the night,
fourth Battalion, you know, we pull up to this place.
There was smoke showing from the ceiling level of the

(01:20:57):
commercial on the first floor, companies are getting I placed
two engines, two ladders in service. Pretty typical for Philadelphia.
We get a full box, four engines, two ladders, two chiefs.
So I went with the first, two engines, two ladders.
They got in there, they knocked down some fire on
the first floor. But I just had that nagging gut

(01:21:17):
feeling the whole time that something didn't seem right. I
knew I wanted to get into the seller to check
the seller. And I had Kyle Waymeers, a lieutenant Ladder two,
first in ladder officer. He's there, he's telling me, trying
to get in the seller. Something seems off on the
first floor. They think they have fired beneath them. O

(01:21:38):
Ray gets there and rescue one. He checks into the
command post. Chief. You know, what can we do to
help it out? I said, well, we got to get
into the seller at this place. So time passes, and
when you're in front of a fire building, you know
you're really you get emotionally involved in these incidents, you
can start losing track of time. When I went back
and reviewed the tapes later, I was pretty surprised at
the lapse time that had already occurred. So things aren't improving.

(01:22:03):
I'm not liking the way things are going, and I'm
getting ready to back the companies out. We're going to regroup,
figure in what's going on. And they get the Builco
sidewalk doors opened, and no sooner than they get them open,
I leave the command post that walk across the street
to the sidewalk where the fire building is and I
look in and the smoke is getting sucked violently back

(01:22:25):
into the cellar. And I look up and it was
like somebody was dropping a curtain on the first floor,
just heavy black smoke from that ceiling that was probably
like eight to ten feet up down to the floor,
and I'm losing the members in the smoke. We had
two engines, two ladders and rescue one operating in there.
I give the order evacuate back out, and the companies

(01:22:46):
are coming out. They're coming out the store front window
and now I see fire from the rear of the store.
This place is flashing over in front of us. From
the rear of the store, the first floor, I just
see this fireball coming at the guys trying to bail out.
That this is happening in slow motion. I'm watching this occur.
I'm seeing the guys come out, one at a time,

(01:23:07):
bailing out. Twenty Chinatie on my company. They're they're on
the they're on the first hose on there, the last
ones out, Kevin dor and Joelson Bill Cope. They're the
last ones to get out. No sooner do they hit
the sidewalk. They're gear. They're pretty much on fire at
this point, their gear smoking. The whole first floor flashes over.

(01:23:27):
The fire blows out across the sidewalk about ten feet.
Like I said, everything's happening in slow motion. I had
to like snap out of it. You know. You ever
see those war movies, you know they drop a bomb
and then the guy on the radio has to regroup.
He's got bringing in his Yeah, shell shocked. That's what
it was like. So now I knew I had to
I had to get par for the companies. We had

(01:23:47):
a lot of people operating inside. Thankfully, one by one,
I'm getting a par everybody's out, you know, we dodge
the ball that night, no serious uh one. The lieutenant
was injured, but no worse than that. It could have
been a lot worse. I estimated we could have lost
a dozen guys in that flashover that were in there.

(01:24:09):
So I tell that story off the the Matt of
Torno story because after the job, before we left the
fire ground, I grabbed beou Ray and Kyle Wymeyer. I said,
what was going on in there? And they said, we
didn't have a good feeling from the time this job
got dispatched, much like I didn't have a good feeling
from the time the job got dispatched. And they said

(01:24:32):
when they got in there, they pretty much drew a
line in the store and said, because this place was deep,
it went back like seventy five feet. Like I said,
old city, downtown area, very deceiving. Nothing is as it seems.
They said, we didn't let anybody wander too far back.
We knew we had to find access to the seller
from the interior, so they controlled the inside. That shows

(01:24:53):
how critical the company officers role is on these operations.
They ran the inside of that place and they saved
lives that night. But they told me they had this
gut feeling. So I leave. I walked back to the
firehouse and I'm relieved. At that point the firehouse was
only a couple of blocks away, So I mean this
thing escalated to multiple alarms at that point. Yeah, and

(01:25:16):
turn into an all day event. So I got to
sign off the computer. I go to sign off and
there's a YouTube video. I was listening to a Matt's
audio and it hit me. I said, you know, we
had Matten with this looking out after us. You know
that gut feeling that we had. You know, I like
to say, you know he was our angel on chest
on the street that night. You know I had the feeling,

(01:25:37):
Oh had it, Kyle had it like this is not
gonna end. Well, so don't let your guard down. And
you know it was quite the job that I had
down there in the fourth Battalion.

Speaker 1 (01:25:50):
Yeah, and I'm glad you went into that. Thank you
for telling both of those stories and certainly the memories
of everyone you've mentioned tonight. But he's lost over the
years is not forgotten, and that's key. Like, if anything,
you never want to lose anybody. Unfortunately, it's reality in
the fire service. You're going to But if anything good
is going to come out of these tragedies, and we

(01:26:10):
talk about it all the time on this program. You
learn from it, what are the silver lines out of it?
Well that you know, you learn what went wrong and
how can we avoid that. Here is a situation while
everybody's hearts are still hurting, while everybody's minds are still
hon especially those that knew him like yourself. Here we
have another situation where it could have went bad. But
you know what, again, thankfully because of the experience on
your end, the experience and those guys in just proper

(01:26:32):
communication coordination.

Speaker 2 (01:26:33):
That night.

Speaker 1 (01:26:34):
We talk a lot about, especially in a post nine
to eleven landscape, the NIMS principles that these scenes, everybody
went home and that's the end of that. I mean, listen,
you want to put the fire out, but sometimes the
situation being as untenable as it can get in a fire,
especially one of multiple alarms, the main priority is make
sure everyone goes home. And that night everyone went home.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
You're absolutely right, Mike, Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:26:55):
I'm talking with Chief Tony bond Padre here on the
Mike Newaven podcast. Is volume six of the Best of
the Gravest Nationwide. Addition, and then Darren Phillips. Yeah, you
mentioned it. Of course your fireman in Canada, Darren, and
most of you in this audience know Darren very well.
He said he was caught flash over way back, his
ears still feeling. Thankfully he was only a few seconds,
but he mentions that that was enough, and yeah, absolutely,

(01:27:17):
it's a situation you never want to find yourself in.
But again, going back to your academy training, you fall
back on what you learn in the academy and here
you are twenty years into your career. It was a
different perspective as an incidant commander, but you fell back
on some of those principles to be able to get
your guys out. Get you went back to the fire school,
this time in a different role. You talked about the

(01:27:37):
training unit earlier, and you got the chance to spend
a couple of years and that this is COVID era.
So it wasn't easy, especially twenty twenty twenty twenty one,
which was the peak of everything with COVID. But nevertheless
being down there during that time and going into grants,
and I love that because there's no shame in those
federal grants if they're put to use a lot of
departments down here where I'm at in Connecticut utilized them,

(01:27:59):
and God bless, that's what they're there for. If you
can get that federal money and use it correctly an
advanced di mission forward, why not. But again, it takes
a lot of work. It takes a lot of observation,
and it takes a lot of networking, even with the
pandemic hanging over everyone and making things very complicated to
say the least. What did you most enjoy about that assignment?
How are you able to get those grants going and

(01:28:19):
get that networking govern Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:28:21):
So I loved it. I loved all my assignments, but
this was a good one. So after Battalion four, I
was still in the pool. I went back to Battalion seven,
which is where I started. That's fifty seven's local, that's
the battalion there in which was cool because now I'm
in the office where all the chiefs that I looked
up to, like Jerry Purdell, you know, Mike Kram, Mike

(01:28:41):
Rochi's guys, that's where they worked, and now I'm in
that office, so that was cool. Didn't stay there too
long when Jesse Wilson called, you know, you give a favor.
Now you know, you get a favor. Now signed to
give a favor, you know, he said, remember I got
you signed to twenty fives. Well yeah, now I need
you to go to the fire Academy and run these
grants and this newly formed field training unit. So I

(01:29:04):
was like, okay, absolutely, you know I'll do it. I'm honored,
they asked, and I knew how much I enjoyed fire
School from the last time. So the field Training Unit
was the big part of it. Where at the time,
all of our training occurred at the academy, so we
would have companies coming up every day, some of them
would take an hour to get there in traffic. So
we wanted to bring the training out to the companies

(01:29:26):
when we could, you know, for Spain and tree props,
different elevator props. So I said, yeah, I'll absolutely be
honored to lead that unit, but I want to pick
my players. I wanted to pick people that I knew
could operate and co exist in the field in the firehouses,
you know, going in and putting companies out of service,
and they had to have good reputation. So I went

(01:29:50):
with Matt Rock as my captain. Matt I knew him
for a while, and Timmy DeNardo and Jimmy Carr, Kevin
Donna who r Intrademic. These these guys did a great
job getting the unit up off the ground and running.
They were already working on projects. And then we incorporated

(01:30:10):
these grants. So the first grant was a command and
control grant in twenty nineteen twenty twenty. Uh well in
the twenty eighteen twenty nineteen. The next grant was twenty
twenty in COVID and funny story there. So we built
out this command and control class using this digital combustion
software and it was looking great and it was, you know,

(01:30:34):
real world scenarios from Philadelphia. We used all our buildings,
all our apparatus, and we said, we'll bring in Chief
Jim Smith, who was retired at the time. He was
a Philly legend. He wrote a book Strategy and you know,
Strategic and Tactical Considerations on the fire Ground, pulled at
the National Fire Academy. You know, he was great. We said,
let's bring in retire Chief Jim Smith to kind of

(01:30:56):
vet the material. So the night before we bring him in,
I decide to work a shift in Battalion eleven in Westville.
You know, ah, yeah, I can go right from there
to this presentation. Then I'm gonna deliver. And you know
what could go wrong? Well, well, we end up first
in at a four story U shaped apartment building. We

(01:31:18):
initially thought we'd fire in one apartment, but the fire
took possession of the cockf burnt the roof off, the
place went for five alarms. I'm there all night. Now
I got to give this presentation to Jim Smith the
next day. But I'm excited to do it, so I
don't cancel it. And you know, like I said, I've
been in love with the fire service since I was
a kid. So growing up, when kids were you know,

(01:31:42):
idolizing baseball players, football players, you know, I was looking
at Jim Smith, Leo Stapleton, Bob hop from Chicago, Vince Donn.
You know these are my heroes, you know, growing up,
And you know, now I get to present this to
one of my heroes. Well, he I will say, it
didn't go as well as I thought it would. Now

(01:32:04):
I'm coming off of this five alarm job where I
was the first in chief. I'm up all night in
the freezing cold, all on this fireground. Get a quick
Shower go to the class, and really what it was
was he loved the format and the concept and the objectives,
but the simulation software was new to him, so he's like,
I don't know if that's really gonna work. So the

(01:32:26):
guys ended up breaking my chops, like you met your
hero and he ripped you to shreds, you know, and
this and that, and it was all in good fun.
We got the class up and running and he came
and sat through the class and told me the ton
of your guys did a nice job, you know, and
that meant the world to me that he did that.
Chief Smith pissed away a couple of years ago. His
son is a great guy. His son just got hired

(01:32:47):
in a neighboring community as the chief from where I
live now in Newtown Square, and you know, just comes
from a great family. So we delivered that training, and
right out of that training, we got into the work
with FSRI and the Fire States of Research Institute what

(01:33:09):
Matt had talked about, and that was with Dan Madrakowski,
Steve Kerber, Chief Frank Leeb, Chief Pete Vandor from Chicago,
Keith Steaks, you know, great guys, and they came in
and they ran their boot camp for us and showed us,

(01:33:30):
you know, hey, look we're not changing the way you
do business. You know, We're here to just give you
more knowledge, more tools for the toolbox, to keep you
safer in an inherently dangerous job. There's there's no two
ways around it. And that's what they did. And it
was a great experience. And I remember when I gave
the opening speech. We went back to Dellrakaly to deliver

(01:33:51):
the class. You know, I had everybody stand up and
give Matt Litorno a round of applause because this was
really his dream becoming a reality, you know, and it was.
The class was a success. I would say that we
changed the culture of firefighting in Philadelphia. We got people

(01:34:12):
thinking about why they do certain things. We got people
to add flow path to their language. We got to
have conversations about engine and ladder company coordination with ventilation
on the modern fire grounds. I mean, it was great.
It was difficult to deliver during COVID. Obviously that was
a challenge, but we brought in the right people. We

(01:34:33):
got senior firefighters to buy in, like Charlie Scrollo, so
many other officers. They went through the training first, so
they could be the messengers that we put out there
with their credibility and experience and say, hey, this group
at FSRI they're doing great things and they're gonna make
us even better. And that's really what happened. I can't

(01:34:54):
say enough good things about those guys, all of them.
It was such a great experien variance, you know, I made,
you know, connections, where's about our own like networks, just
absolutely phenomenal. And then the proof really came out when
we started getting reports from the field about hey, this
is the way we fought this basement fire. We had

(01:35:16):
grade level access in the rear. Yeah, we absolutely held
the first N engine up on the first floor. They
controlled the door, and we attacked the fire from the
rear on. It's on the same level. That was difficult
before because we're a very aggressive fire department. Where to
tell the first N engine today's not your day, close
that basement door and that's pretty much all you're going

(01:35:37):
to do for now and give that fire up to
the second en engine, you know, running your position. You know,
we really were able to you know, hone that in
and I remember making a job not that long ago
with Engine fifty, very aggressive engine. It was a church.
They had one room going in a church. Ladder company

(01:35:59):
was trying to force the front doors and it was
taking some time there. It was really fortified front door,
so it just wasn't going to be a quick pop
and open and get the line in. And they played
the line from the street because it was appropriate at
that time to cool that atmosphere and take the energy
out of that room while they were forcing an entry

(01:36:20):
to get in. Because that's really what we drove home
in the class was as far as the transitional attack
and hit it hard from the yard. It got a
bad rep. It wasn't at every time scenario, but for
those times where entry was delayed, why are we going
to stand out front and let this place free burn
and let this room free burn and not put water

(01:36:42):
in that space. Now there's a way to do it.
And that's all we did with the Philadelphia Fire Department.
We said, here's another option, here's another tool in the toolbox,
another tool for the incident commander and his her decision
making process. Two when appropriate, not all the time, but
the front doors wide open and bring the line in,
get it up the steps, you know, bread and butter job,

(01:37:03):
but we do every day, but those times when entries delayed,
don't delay getting water into that space. And that was
a home run and it was great, Like I said,
we owe that to Dan and Chief frank Leeb and
you know, the guys loved Chief Leave. I love Chief Leave,
you know, and I you know, well, and it was

(01:37:24):
you know, you get firefighters together, they're going to break chops.
You know. He would tell us, like, you know, Ben
Franklin started the fire department. That's what I hear. How
do you know Ben Franklin went in, guys, how do
you know he wasn't a firefighter that stood outside. So
they were out in Indy the one year for the
fdi C and they send me this meme. They're like, hey,
send this to frank And it's Ben Franklin hanging out

(01:37:48):
of a second tour of a fire abuild. He's taking
a blow and he's saying, hey, frank grabbing madskin, come in.
It'll be okay, buddy, you know, like pretty funny stuff,
you know, the you know, breaking chops and all these
real relationships were formed thanks to FSRI, you know, And
that was great. It was a great experience. I was
happy to be the chief of training at the time.

(01:38:09):
Like I said before, I just facilitated the courses and
oversaw the movement and the staffing and detailed companies. I
would speak to the classes when they came up about
the why how we got here. But I would love
to name every instructor. They know who they are, so
many of them. They did great. You know, I can't
thank them enough. They left their mark on the Philadelphia

(01:38:31):
Fire Department. You know, they absolutely left it better and
they found.

Speaker 1 (01:38:35):
It absolutely And thank you for going into that as well,
because to your point earlier, you're not killing aggressiveness. Aggressiveness
is still the name of the game for the most
part in the fire service in Philadelphia is very much
not they hit it hard from the yard department. You know,
we see sometimes the memes fly around on Facebook and whatnot.
Certain departments get a bad rap for it. Not Philadelphia,

(01:38:56):
but in certain instances. As again, it's just a different perspective.
And again there's the old saying about fireman and fireman
hate change and the way things are. But nevertheless, once
you do it, it's kind of like a food that
you didn't want to try it first, and you try,
you're like, oh, this is so bad. Actually, like a
song that you always skip, turns out you listen to
the song one time song is actually a great song.
Here it is with this tactic. So thank you very

(01:39:16):
much for going into that. And it's an interesting evolution
for you kind of getting closer and closer to where
you are now you make deputy chief, which from where
you were in two thousand and five to here you
are at this time in year seventeen making deputy chief.
It's quite the rise and a very short amount of
time and well deserved. It's been, you know, like rocket
fuel to get to this point. And before you ended

(01:39:36):
up where you are now with my cousin over in safety,
you were in logistics, and I feel like with the
department like Philadelphia and the size of it, logistics pretty
much encompasses everything. So you talk about an assignment where
you had to use your brain and talk about putting
your thinking cap on. You were there for a while,
you were out in the field for a little bit too.
I don't want to gloss over your time in Battalion eleven,
but just in regards to elevens, which you can talk

(01:39:58):
about and logistics, about the transition between the two and
what logistics entailed.

Speaker 2 (01:40:04):
Yeah, so I joke I went out to Battanion eleven.
I did my two years at in staff as a
chief of Training, and you can leave after that time
and you get to pick your spot, as I said before,
So I picked Battanion eleven, West Philly fives latter six
Battanion eleven. You know, they're known as West Point's Great House,
and so I jumped on the opportunity and I went there,

(01:40:26):
and I joke, it was great. I had a great
ad Joe Burns, I was reunited with John Diaz, Jeff Kalden,
Jason Oaks were some of my lieutenants in the battalion.
Great firefighters in house, and I decided to mess all
that up and take the Deputy Chiefs test. You know,
we were having a blast, we were going to fires,

(01:40:46):
we were having fun at the kitchen table. And I
go and take the Deputy Chiefs test and do well,
and unfortunately didn't get to spend. I was there for
a year and was promoted and off to logistics. So
you're right, logistics for the department of this size was
very involved, but again phenomenal people working in logistics. We

(01:41:09):
oversaw all the apparatus, all firehouse maintenance, We oversaw all
equipment purchasing, research and development, all the training that went
into that. And we were able to accomplish a lot
because we brought in passionate people that wanted to just

(01:41:30):
make the Philadelphia Fire Department even better. Some of the
cool projects that I got to be involved in was
we redesigned a new firehouse for Engine fifty seven. They're
getting the new firehouse, we got to design it. I mean,
I thought that was great. You know, I was a
firefighter there and one thing I always did in logistics,
I always brought in the end user. We weren't going
to make any decisions about apparatus, firehouses, equipment without bringing

(01:41:55):
in the people that are going to use it. So
every project had firefighters fire officers attached to it so
we could get their input. So we designed Engine fifty seven.
We purchased burned through protected inchine three quarter hose line
fourteen hundred lines. This hose ine came out of the
tragedy of the Back bayfire in Boston where they lost

(01:42:18):
Mike Kennedy and Ed Walsh. I got to meet Steve Shaeffer,
the chief from up there through FSRI, so we were
able to purchase that hose line for all of our
engine companies. We put on a tower ladder class that
we built. We purchased five seventy five foot seagrave aerioscopes.
So we brought in Chief Chris Eer from New York

(01:42:42):
and Chief Tony Kellaher from Washington, DC. They're both very
experienced in tower ladders. They helped us build the class
that we delivered, and again you get to see the
proof in the end result. Just a couple of nights ago,
I was at a two alarmed church fire in West
Philadelpha and Tower Ladder thirteen just did a phenomenal job

(01:43:04):
getting into position. They pretty much wedged themselves in a
lot between two row homes. It was impressive to see
to get that bucket into a place to make an
impact at this church fire. And they went through the training.
They got a great Captain Air Justin Duff, who you
know trains them every day, and it paid off that
night without a doubt, So you know, that was great.

(01:43:27):
And then we transitioned all of our legacy a triple
foam over to green foam, which leads me to a
funny story about something known as the Delco Mafia. So
there's a story, and you know how stories in the
firehouse go, you know how they can grow and morph

(01:43:48):
into just crazy stuff. So there was a story going
around that Tony brings all his Delko boys on these
special projects, you know, And and what I do is
is I just formed these groups with people who love
the job, who want to give back, and you know,

(01:44:09):
sometimes it ends up being the same people on every
project because they're always the ones that step up. So
that was it was Tony's Delco Mafia, and he's the
godfather and you know all this, so it was all funny.
It was all, you know, in good fun Somebody made
a video of the sopranos, basically like a scroof where

(01:44:30):
Tony soprano and and and it's like a voiceover of
them at a meeting and it's like, if you ever
need anything, if you get a bead transfer or bad assignment,
to this man, and it's hilarious. The amount of time
and effort that went into this is funny. But the
even funnier part of this whole Delco Mafia thing, which
the people that they claim are in it, they're from Jersey,

(01:44:52):
guys that moved over here from Jersey, Guys from other counties,
guys from Philly. You know. Was so just all in
good firehouse fun. But I get called downtown to fire
headquarters by the Commissioner Adam Thiele at the time. He
I'm the logistics chief and he wants us to take
on this major project of transitioning to this green foam.

(01:45:14):
It was. It was a lot of work to clean
out the apparatus that had the old legacy phone in it.
It was a lot going into it. So after the meeting,
he goes, listen, I know I put you on a
tough timeframe, but I'm sure the Delco mafia can get
it done. So this made it all the way to
the commissioner, you know, which was it was funny. You know,
that's what the firehouse is all about. It's it's all

(01:45:36):
about having a good time while getting the job done.
You get you gotta have fun, of course this you
gotta be able to laugh, and you know, the Delco
mafia I was coming on here. Ts Yeah, that's pretty
much it. But the video is the work that went
into it. It was a work of to say the least.
But my last thing with logistics is uh. I want

(01:46:00):
to make mention of June of twenty twenty two. We
lost Lieutenant Sean Williamson in a building collapse, also in
North Philadelphia, a third in Indiana. It was a terrible
night in logistics. My battalion chief, who in the organizational
chart works right under me, was Bob Brennan. Bob was

(01:46:22):
a lieutenant at Engine fifty seven when I got out
of fire school. He was on a different platoon, but
he always took it, you know, looked out for me,
took care of me. They one I got there on
Christmas time, they were trying to set me up with
a prank. They're like, oh, you got Ralph Dietrich and
the Pollyanna. We had a Pollyanna before you got assigned,

(01:46:43):
and you got to get Ralph Dietrick and present. Well,
Ralph is like the Vietnam War vet, grizzled salty firefighter.
And they're trying to get me, the new guy, to
get him a Christmas present. And Bobby Brennan grabs you
one night He's say, hey, kid, listen, don't do that.
Don't get him at Christmas present. There's no Pollyanna. So
he took care of me. Now he's my battalion chief.

(01:47:05):
So the night of the fire, I get a call
at three in the morning. Listen, there was a collapse.
Sean is buried. Sean was in a cruel twist of irony.
He was the first in ladder officer for the Matt
Laturno fire on Colorado Street. He was designed. He was
in Latter fourteen that day, and he was big in
the training. He was a rescue one firefighter really squared away.

(01:47:30):
They said, Sean's trapped in his collapse. There's other members trapped,
and Bob Brennan's kid is one of them, Bobby Junior,
who I taught in fire school. So I get up.
I fly to the to third in Indiana, and I
wanted to confirm that Bob Junior was in the collapse
before I went and woke up his father. You know,

(01:47:52):
I needed to see it, hear it before I turned
this man's world upside down. I get there, it's confirmed
he's trapped. He's alive, but he's trapped. So I'm gonna
drive to my Bob, Bob Brannan, the battalion chiefs house,
to wake him up and drive him to the scene.

(01:48:12):
Well as I'm walking back to my car. He comes
walking up. Somebody had already called him, so I'm like, Bob,
what are you doing here? I'm on my way to
get you, and he said it is Bob. I said, yeah,
Bob's trapped. I said, he's alive, but he's buried. So
we just had a moment and I said, look, I'm
going to stand next to you the whole time throughout

(01:48:33):
this operation and we'll get through it together. The members
of Special Operations, as they typically do, went above and
beyond it did an absolutely phenomenal job. Heavy rescued the
squad companies. They were able to extricate multiple members that
were trapped, including Bob Junior. Unfortunately, Sean did pay us away,
but we got Bob and the other members over to

(01:48:55):
Temple and after a very long road of recovery after
being trapped in something like that, he came back light duty.
I was able to get him into TSU so he
could drive his dad day to day as his aide.
And if he's not back full duty yet to Latter eighteen,
his company that he said I'm getting back to no

(01:49:17):
matter what, he will be there shortly. So there was
a happy ending. If there was any such thing that
a terrible night, but that was my time in logistics
in a nutshell. Yeah, I definitely want to share that
story and.

Speaker 1 (01:49:33):
A lot of great stories tonight. That Again, this is
why I have the outline. But if somebody mentions things
that aren't necessarily pertaining to the outline, I'm glad they do,
because there's so many subplots within this conversation tonight that
have given me a great education. And again it's a
great way to keep the memory of these guys alive,
and I'm glad that you're mentioning them. So whoever you
want to mention, and you've mentioned a lot of guys
so far, I'm not opposed to it. I thank you

(01:49:54):
for doing it. It's a great education for all of us,
and not only the department, but what these guys did,
and of course the ultimate sac they've made and in
align with that. Unfortunately, and again you're going to see
this a lot in a bigger city, in the fire
service and certainly in the police service as well, with
these tragedies, and we'll keep it to fire Mainly, of course,

(01:50:14):
comes more education, more of an idea of what can
go wrong, and more of an impetus to want to
prevent these things from happening. Again, structural collapse is something
that's very prevalent in the fire service. Of course, everybody
thinks when it comes to structural collapse with the extreme
of what we saw in New York City twenty four
years ago, but even just day to day, true story,
home can come down when a fire load, depending on

(01:50:37):
the building, I should say that can contribute to collapse
as well. Being one of the incident safety officers along
with my cousin. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, you
have all this in your mind and when you're going
to these boxes. You may not be command, but you're
one of the guys that has to keep account of everybody.
We talked about earlier. Philadelphia is very much not a
hit it from the heart, hitt heart hard from the

(01:50:57):
yard department. But nevertheless, it's not an easy.

Speaker 2 (01:51:01):
Job for you.

Speaker 1 (01:51:01):
It's a good job, but your current assignment is not
an easy one because what's the natural inclination of firefighters
to want to go in to want to be aggressive. You, certainly,
as we've talked about tonight, are and we're in the
companies that you were assigned to a very aggressive firefighter
and a very aggressive and equally aggressive officer. But there
has to be that time to know, like you talked
about what that job a month after Matt Liturno's line

(01:51:22):
of do to death, when to stop, what to say, hey,
something's not right, When to let the incident commander know, Hey,
you might want to look out for this. So tell
me about the current safety battalion, what your role is.
What your role is I should say at a structure
fire and some of the changes you've able to implement,
implement If I could speak English, that'd be great in
this current role.

Speaker 2 (01:51:42):
I mean, Mike, you nailed it with what you said.
It's a fine line. I remember as a firefighter having
to be pulled back by my officer, get it, what
are you trying to go in there and do? But
as a chief it's even you know, more stressful being
outside and you're putting these people or firefighters in these buildings.
You may decisions and it's definitely a fine line. One

(01:52:04):
thing that's occurring in Philly and the other older cities
that I use Baltimore for example, is a lot of
these houses are you know they're building the late eighteen hundreds,
they're at the end of their lifespan, where the fire
service we get and we should we get focused on
Type five lightweight construction trusts. It's all very important, but
we can't lose sight of the fact that these old

(01:52:26):
legacy Type three brick and Joy's properties, they're in terrible
shape without fire, you know, and then you have fire
and you had our members operating. So you got to
keep that in mind. An area like North Philly where
I run out of as a safety chief, now I
cover the whole city. It's a great spot. I took
it coming down to staff as a deputy chief. It's

(01:52:47):
like a citywide ticket to buff fires. You know, I
can go to any fire I want citywide, get dispatch
on an all hands assignment and greater. But a couple
of weeks ago, out of fire in North Philadelphia, where
you you're hyper focused on building construction, building collapse safety,
that's my job, the chief, the incident commander's doing their

(01:53:09):
thing out front. I didn't like the way the building looked.
I had a conversation with the chief. It was an
older row home. It was only attached on one side.
The other side had already been knocked down. It was
probably a fire at some point, so the buildings already
substantially weaker, not supported on both sides. They said, hey,
you know what, it's already been searched. They're not making
any progress on the fire floor. Let's back them out

(01:53:32):
and approach this from another angle. Now, the place never collapsed.
But you know what, the members were safe that we
gave them a chance. They got in there, they operated,
they searched, they did a great job getting water on
the fire. It was just it was deep seated, there
was heavy contents in the dwelling. It delayed the initial
attack line. So we just backed down, regrouped, and went

(01:53:55):
about it a different way. You know that happened.

Speaker 1 (01:53:58):
Yeah, and I think again it's that extra set of eyes.
There's so many moving parts at a structure. Fire naturally
certain details and it's not because of neglect. It's not
because of recklessness. But you're moving and sometimes you can
get that tunnel vision, you may miss a detail. But
having that extra set of eyes, having that safety officer there, Hey,
this stairwells compromised. Hey that roofing doesn't look so stable.
Maybe you want to get guys off the roof. It

(01:54:19):
helps because again, as we talked, about earlier. We can't
stress it enough. Everybody's got to go home. And sometimes
again not that you let it burn. You want to
fight the fire. You certainly want to be aggressive and
putting it out in conserve property. That's the second most
important thing besides conserving life in the fire service, but
not at the cost of lives of members. Then these
incidents kind of segue perfectly into writing your book, which

(01:54:41):
we have the image of here, which is the fire
environment Timeless Lessons, And I feel like that's a very
appropriate title because it doesn't matter what advances, and there's
been so many in the fire Service over the years,
these lessons, you know, think about fires from the sixties.
You mentioned Chief Done earlier. Chief Done's main fire that
he talks about, his main aspect of fire fighting, a
structural collapse. What is that born out of the twenty

(01:55:03):
third Street collapse of nineteen sixty six, an incident that
turns sixty years old next year, and yet the lessons
from that are still being analyzed today. So very much
in line with that comes this book. So as someone
who has written a book, I can sympathize with the process.
It's not an easy one. There's so much you want
to put in, there's some stuff you have to take out.
Narrowing it down is not easy. Tell me first about

(01:55:24):
the decision to write this book, subsequently the process and
putting it together, and the feedback you've gotten since you
released it.

Speaker 2 (01:55:31):
So the book. I started keeping a journal back when
I was at fifty seven's. Rich Lapowski, my senior guy,
he told me one night at the watch task.

Speaker 5 (01:55:42):
One thing I.

Speaker 2 (01:55:43):
Regret, because he was thirty some years in the very
busy times of West Philly, is I didn't write anything down.
He said, So right down. Jobs, you make, lessons, you learned,
mistakes you made, you know, because we all make mistakes,
you got to learn from them. So that's what I did,
and I never stopped. I kept this book. From then.
I went back and remember jobs and up at RB
things I did right, things I did wrong, and every

(01:56:05):
job I had in Philly Firefighter through the ranks, you
know what did I mess up? What could I have
done better? Every time I would critique myself, and I
had this book and I didn't know what to do
with it. And then comes FSRI and they you know,
like I said, I think they changed the culture for
the good in Philadelphia, and they put out a ton

(01:56:27):
of information. And what I found was the information they
were putting out was tying into a lot of the
lessons that I had in my book from our senior firefighters.
They weren't wrong, you know, the terminology was different, but
they were telling me about don't get calling a chimney.
Well that was the flow path. And this went on
and on, and I'm looking at the book and I'm
looking or at my journal, and I'm looking at the

(01:56:49):
lessons from FSRI and I'm like a lot of them
tie in together. So I kind of just put it aside.
And you know, life gets busy, you know, home gets busy.
You know, I got very busy home life. I would
like to mention my amazing wife, Mary and our four kids.
You know, our four girls were in a wonderfully blended family.
It's uh, Mikayla, Sarah, Morgan, Madison, great girls. You know,

(01:57:14):
I'm a girl dad and I love it.

Speaker 1 (01:57:16):
I was about to say, you took the words out
of my mouth.

Speaker 2 (01:57:17):
Yeah, they keep me busy. But Mary, you know, she's
my rock, and you know it's a good time to
bring her up because she took care of the family.
Why I kind of went into this crazy mode of
writing this book. So what happened, which I'm sure you
can agree with. Once you get in the zone, it's
hard to get out of it. Yeah, any nights, you know,
not coming to bed the three four in the morning,

(01:57:38):
you know, typeing all night. But what happened was we
after the fire dynamics training, we we didn't do and
I say, I'll take the hit for it, I didn't
do a good job of making sure that the continuing
education kept up. So, like anything else, as the years
went on, some old habits at the show back through.

(01:58:01):
It's natural, and we had a couple near misses, a
couple close calls, and when I looked at them, I
was like, man, we talked about something similar to that
in dynamics. So what happened was we went to a
chief staff meeting and in the chief staff meeting, we
were throwing ideas around about training and we should incorporate this,

(01:58:24):
and we should do commanding control on fire dynamics. And
it was almost like I just had a light bulb
go off. I'm like, we did this and I have
all this information. You know, I'm not the smartest guy
in the room. I don't want to be the smartest
guy in the room. But I wrote a lot of
stuff down throughout my career, and I kept all the
information from the fire dynamics class, and I was like,
I got to step up and do my part and

(01:58:45):
own this and put this together in some sort of
manual so you know, I'm sure you can agree with it.
I kind of got into the zone and started typing
and comparing my lessons learned from all my mistakes in
my journal to the FSRI material. And my initial goal
was to just release a manual for Philadelphia. I was

(01:59:08):
gonna give it to the Fire Academy to give out.
I was going to give it out in my travels.
I like to get out have a cup of coffee
at the kitchen table every tour with the members. It's
one of the reasons I like the Citywide Safety Division
because I can pick and choose the firehouses wherever. And
that was it. And then I started to show it
to some people outside the Philadelphia Fire Department. Some great

(01:59:32):
people from Wilmington, from Camden Gay and Jimmy Ryan Kincaid,
these are great guys. Mike Nasty from Prince George County. Yeah,
people that you know, I respect their opinion, and I
wanted to get the point of view from other fire
departments because our missions the same, but the way we

(01:59:56):
do business might different by departments due to staffing, housing, stock,
whatever the case may be. So I wanted them to
read it and get eyes on it, along with some
people some of my confidants, my you know, my sounding
board in Philadelphia, people I trust, like everybody I mentioned earlier,
and you got Corey Howling, Sewan Frazier, Sean McCauley, you know,

(02:00:19):
so many other guys that helped with this project. And
I had them read it and they're like, and it's
you got a book here, you know, you got to book.
Do something with it. So I took a chance and
I called it, you know, reached out to a couple
of publishers, and here we are. It's out. The feedback's
been good, you know. And that's all I wanted to
do was just share information. My whole career, all I've

(02:00:40):
wanted to do is share what's been shared with me
and pass it on. And that that was the whole
point of the book, was to just share information.

Speaker 1 (02:00:50):
And there it is on your website, which I'll link
in the description of this episode. You can buy it
on Amazon, as you can see for those of you
watching on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, and next, and you could
also buy it on Barnes and a look at the book.
It is The Fire Environment Timeless Lessons, and that is
my Deputy Chief, Tony bon Padre our guest here tonight. Well, Chief,
we've been talking for two hours and we've covered and everything.

(02:01:10):
It did go fast, but time, I guess again, time
flies when you're having fun, and that now brings us
into the rapid fire. Five hit and run questions from me,
five hit and run answers from you. You know, I
think the first question the rabbit fire. I'm gonna change
it a bit. It's almost like the original question was
favorite neighborhood in Philadelphia to work. But that's like asking
me to pick your favorite kid. And I'm not gonna
put you through that because that's not fair at all

(02:01:30):
the great places that you work. But I will say this,
I'll switch it up a bit. You if time machines
were real and you watched the show, so you've heard
me ask this question before, and you could go back
in time to a certain spot in your career. What's
the spot that if you can go back tomorrow. Not
that you don't love where you are now, I'm sure
you do. Where are you going back?

Speaker 2 (02:01:51):
So that's tough too. Like I said, I've loved all
my assignments, you know, love the one you're with. Everywhere
I went was a gift, very lucky. I would probably,
if you're putting me on the spot here, I would
say I would go back to fifty seven's and maybe
walk down that path of doing some time in a
ladder company, you know, just for myself. I'm not saying

(02:02:13):
it would have had a different impact on the way
I carried myself throughout my career, but you know, put
some put some ladder assigned ladder company work as a firefighter.

Speaker 1 (02:02:25):
No wrong answer there. I won't ask you a second
question either, because you've covered a lot of great fires tonight.
As far as the most memorable one, a lot of
them that you discussed with me have stood out. So
I mean, unless you want to interject anything, you're more
than welcome to.

Speaker 2 (02:02:37):
I just wanted to mention the civil unrest of twenty twenty.
I just wanted to to walk down the road of
my experience at night, so randomly I was in staff
at the training Academy. Randomly I picked a comp shift
to pick up in the field, and I told you
I like to work in the field.

Speaker 1 (02:02:56):
Well, I picked that.

Speaker 2 (02:02:57):
Night at the end of May to work in Battalion
seven and I ended up for the twenty four hour
tour in the heart of it in West Philly on
fifty second Street. We went to eleven jobs that night.
It was a career night. I learned so much, you know.
I never thought I'd give a report of heavy fire

(02:03:17):
shown from a store and we have to leave the area.
You know, it was. It was a crazy time. We
talked about so many wonderful people in these neighborhoods. I
saw a lot of good that that day too, in
these neighborhoods. You know, people banding together in West Philly,
the citizens, you know, very proud to say I work

(02:03:37):
in West Philly and serve that community. But a couple
of things stick out. So Devin Ricchio, who's a friend
of mine, he shows up at the time. He had
a role that involving a liaison with the police, and
thankfully he did, because we were on a job on
fifty second Street in the storefront and the scene was cured,

(02:04:01):
but then it wasn't. In the middle of us fighting
this store fire with two engines, two ladders in service,
we were slowly getting overtaken by the crowd and some
tear gas was fired into the crowd and we were
unintended targets of that tier gas. So that was quite
the scene. Baaling into a fire building telling everyone get
in the fire building. Luckily the fire was knocked down.

(02:04:24):
One individual that night, I wanted to bring up Mark Zelensky.
So Mark was one of my cadets in the one
eight nine. He's at latter eight when I'm at nineteen
to cross the floor, and I'm watching him grow from
cadet to firefighter. Well now he's a lieutenant and he's
working engine forty one. That night he's a new lieutenant
and I watched him grow into the lieutenant role that night.

(02:04:47):
So early in the night, we had a fire and
a drug store fully involved. So I gave the order
defensive attack. Like we talked about our order, that fine
line between aggressiveness and this just isn't our night, yep.
And as I'm walking around, I see Mark doing what
any you know, aggressive firefooterer will do. He's trying to
get his company in the position to maybe eventually get

(02:05:09):
their way inside, and you know, we had some words outside.
You know, Mark, what are you doing? You know, you're
in charge. So as the night went on, I think
his company went to seven or eight jobs. I'm listening
to his first in reports, and by the time the
next morning, you know, his first in report was so calm, collected.
You know, it was like a walk in the park

(02:05:31):
from you we got heavy fire from a storefront with
apartments above. Like he grew into the role that night.
He's doing a great job. He's in Special Operations now,
a Squad forty seven as a lieutenant, So I definitely
want to bring him up. And just overall the way
everybody operated that night, you know, above and beyond fire,
ms police. It was a crazy night at the time,

(02:05:55):
but looking back on it, you know, to be a
small part of it. I remember the last job. Rich
Laposki always talked about, you know, his favorite jobs in
West Philly were the ones where the sun would be
coming up, you know it either second or third fire
the tour back in the eighties and nineties, and a
West Philly sunrise, and you know that morning, I remember

(02:06:15):
looking up at his one job and I see Doug
downing up on the roof. He was a firefighter I
worked with in West Philly, great guy, and he looks down,
he's like, hey, Toddy, crazy night, huh, And the sun's
coming up over his head and I thought of rich
and a West Philly sunrise, you know. And we got
out unscathed. We had no injuries to any of our members.
And I remember driving home that morning and reflecting and

(02:06:37):
you know, getting a lump in my throat, like, I
can't believe we got out of that without any injuries,
and you know, fairly unscathed. So everybody rose in the
occasion that night. My aid Ed McGoldrick did a phenomenal
job in the car with me. And yeah, when you
said about a memorable, you know night, I'm my god,
it's a career night for sure. One I hope we
never repeat, yes, you know, for sure, But yeah, I

(02:07:00):
just wanted to mention, you know, the members. You know,
everybody stepped up that night for the community, you know.
And it wasn't just West Phili, it was you know,
the city.

Speaker 1 (02:07:09):
So yeah, that was a very chaotic time. I'm actually
glad I asked that question now and didn't skip over
it because that was the story. We didn't even talk
about that earlier when we were talking about you being
assigned down to the training unit at this time, that
whole let's just forget twenty twenty ever happened between that
and of obviously the pandemic. We talk about it not
being our night, it wasn't our year. But thankfully we're

(02:07:31):
we're starting to get more distance from that time. Hard
to believe it's been five years since that time, but
we'll leave that. That was a good memory that deserved
to be highlighted. But everything else that happened that year
will leave in the rear view mirror. Good with that, yeah,
third question of rapid fire. You've been in leadership for
a very long time fourteen of your twenty years and
been spent in an officer's role in different variations. What's
one principle of leadership that you feel as guide to

(02:07:53):
you through the ranks.

Speaker 2 (02:07:55):
So promote, promote up to take care of more people,
and don't major in the minors, know, don't worry about
the don't sweat the small stuff. This job is too serious,
you know, so don't take yourself too serious as an officer,
you know, I you know, the bars can get heavy.
You got to make the tough decisions. But I tell
guys like I had a bunch of lucky Saturdays taking
these promotional exams. You know, it doesn't make me the

(02:08:17):
smartest in the room, doesn't make me the best in
the room. We work together. I lean on the firefighters,
the senior firefighters that run the houses, you know. And
like I said, every position I went into, I didn't.
I never took myself that serious. Like when I was
down fire headquarters. You know, I was on a first
name basis with the cleaning crew in fire headquarters, you know,
every morning having coffee, and they'd be in vacuum in

(02:08:40):
my office, Like they keep fire Headquarters operating. You know,
somebody's got to clean it. We don't have firefighters down
there to do housework. So why wouldn't I take a
couple of minutes and and and get to know the
cleaning crew. Funny story, I was a new new lieutenant
and I got promoted young, and I'm working in the northeast.

(02:09:02):
It's an overtime shift. It had to be a holiday
because there was no reason for me to ever work
that far from my battalion, you know, other than a holiday.

Speaker 5 (02:09:10):
So it was.

Speaker 1 (02:09:11):
It was a cold morning.

Speaker 2 (02:09:12):
So I have on like a quarter zip with the
forty threes lat a nine patch. There's no rank insignia
on that, so nobody knows I'm a lieutenant. I don't
know anyone there. So I knock on the door at
six in the morning. The only person there to rate
at that time is the firefighter at the watch deask.
He lets me in and I'm carrying my gear in it.

(02:09:33):
Before I can get a word out, He's like, can
you do me a big favor? I gotta get out
of here. Can you jump on the back step? You
know I'm in the engine. You know I got something
going on at home. He doesn't know I'm the officer.
And it happened so quick, and he seemed like to
be in such a panic to get out. I was like, yeah,
I gotta go ahead. So so now on the back
step I'm supposed to be the lieutenant. And the lieutenant

(02:09:56):
who I'm leaving comes out at like six point thirty
in the morning, and now I'm sitting I'm sitting at
the watch desk and he's like, what do you do?
I said, I said, I'm gonna relieve you once somebody
comes in to relieve me on the backup position in
the engine and he's like, what is going on? You
don't make yourself so serious, you know, like I'm gonna
tap my car. I'm the lieutenant, and it's like, no,
go ahead, get down here. You know, I'd just been

(02:10:18):
promoted a couple of weeks and that's it. Like I said,
it's an extreme story, but it was funny. Nonetheless, looking
back on it, this was probably twenty eleven when that happened,
and there's so much, you know, we can sit here
and talk about. There's so much tragedy, but there's so
many good times and the good times that way to
bed and yeah, I've you know, I still smile. You know.

(02:10:38):
I love my days off. I love being home with
my family, and I also love getting back into the
firehouse for my tours. After twenty years, I do still
enjoy the firehouse. I love Engine fifty. I love their
aggressiveness fifties latter twelve Meta twenty two. My office is
on the second floor, above the apparatus floor, and I

(02:10:59):
love when I hear them go out for box runs.
I time did the one that I hear them slide
in the pole, and I hear the four doors close
on the cat you know, bang bang, bang bang, and
they're out the door seventeen seconds. For a question, I'm like,
this is beautiful. You know, they're just they don't they
don't mess around. They don't, they don't mess around. It's
a great house. And they take care of me. And

(02:11:21):
if I can take care of them, you know, as
an officer. Getting back to the question, you know, take
care of your people. Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (02:11:28):
Man, that's talking about a fast turnout time. That's incredible.

Speaker 2 (02:11:31):
Yeah, I just you know at they go into the
bunker gear and out the door.

Speaker 1 (02:11:36):
Yeah, oh my goodness. Well again, all those sixty second
drills back in the academy has served. They are well
under those sixty seconds. Thanks for going into that as well.
You had a lot of mentors. I was gonna ask
you one of the questions the rapid fire second to
last one being mentors who've made a lasting impact. You've
talked about so many of them tonight. If you can
combine all of their advice into one, what's the main

(02:11:58):
impact each one has made on you that has you
where you are right now?

Speaker 2 (02:12:04):
So I think it was just it was the way
they carried themselves and it was in their delivery, like
they were no nonsense on the fire floor and on
the fire ground, and they were you know, they were
just people in the firehouse, good people that were willing
to share information. You can have a conversation with them
about you know, your life. You know, they were approachable.

(02:12:27):
You know, they didn't let the rank go to their head.
But when the bells went off, it was all business
and you knew they were in charge and they were
going to take care of you and they were going
to show you the way, and they were going to
teach you. You know, they always took time to show
me the way and anything I know today I learned.
I was very fortunate in the companies I worked in,
but people placed me in them companies. They took a

(02:12:48):
chance with me and they put me in these busy
companies and then they taught me and they taught me.
And now that's you know, going back to the book.
I just want to teach people pass.

Speaker 1 (02:12:57):
On what I was, what I was taught, and that
you're certainly doing. And that brings us the last question.
It segues perfectly into this final question the rapid fire,
which is you've been on the job now twenty years. Again,
we talk about it much like our conversation to night
time flights when you're having fun. What does it mean
if you had to define it in a sentence or two,
what does it mean to serve as a firefighter in
the city of brotherly love.

Speaker 2 (02:13:19):
It's a no, It's an absolute honor to be in
this fire department. And I tell people, you know, people
call us on their worst day, they're down on their luck,
and they're in these these you know, these neighborhoods that
are very tough neighborhoods, and they look at firefighters. They're
there to help, you know, they say, you know, please
help meet firefighter. That is a major responsibility that cannot

(02:13:42):
be taken likely. One thing that was a non negotiable
with me, and anybody that worked with me knows this
is that the public was treated with respect one percent
of the time. I don't care if it was our
twentieth run on a one hundred degree night and somebody
called because their nose was bleeding at three in the morning,
they get the same treatment as everybody else. Because those neighborhoods,

(02:14:06):
you know, you want to go to these neighborhoods for
the fire duty. Well, you're gonna for that fire duty.
You're gonna earn that fire duty through a lot of
running and through a lot of taking care of people.
So you're going to take care of them and you're
not going to treat them with anything less than one
hundred percent dignity and respect. On my watch, and people
knew that working with me. Don't let me, you know,

(02:14:26):
I only had a couple of non negotiables, and don't
let me catch you. You know, Giving anybody an attitude
is the best way I can put it, because it's
an honor. It's an honor to work for this fire department,
to work in these neighborhoods, to work in this city,
well said Chief.

Speaker 1 (02:14:41):
Perfect way to put a bow on this show. Again.
The Chief's book, which you can get on Amazon as
well as Barnes and Nobles, which I will link in
the description. As mentioned earlier, is The Fire Environment Timeless Lessons,
which is well worth three. I certainly want to get
my hands on it and begin the process of free
to get pretty soon. Thanks again, stick around, we'll talk
off air. But you mentioned so many people earlier, but again,
I'll give the floor right back to you before I

(02:15:02):
say goodbye to the audience. If there's any other shout
outs you want to give, Chief, go right ahead.

Speaker 2 (02:15:07):
No. I know we mentioned a lot of people, and
like I said, my wife Mary, our beautiful kids, our
beautiful daughters. You know, they take care of me just
like everybody in the firehouse does. And you know, and
I'm just happy to meet you, Mike. You know, I'm
glad we were able to hook up and get to
know each other. So it's it's great.

Speaker 1 (02:15:28):
Thank you so much, thank you. Like I said, one
of these days, I'll come down to Philly and hopefully
catch up with you and my cousin as well, and
no noise, maybe even right out with you guys and
see what.

Speaker 2 (02:15:37):
It's like down there. You got them all right, So.

Speaker 1 (02:15:40):
We'll make that happen sometime down the road. Again, make
sure you get your hands in the Chiefs books. It's
the fire Environment, Timeless Lessons coming up next to the
Mike new Haven Podcast. We'll see if we have a
show Monday. Dave Russell should be the guest. He was
lieutenant in the ft and y and as a lot
of roots here in Connecticut, was also involved in the
Air Force. I believe in they're firefighter units, So that

(02:16:01):
could be another volume with the best of the Bravest
interviews with the Ft and Wise Elea awaiting confirmation on
that next Friday, this is confirmed, should be volume seven
of the Best of the Bravest nationwide with former Bridgeport,
Connecticut Firefighter which currently the chief of Department in Dan Barry, Connecticut,
Ridge Thoad and Bridgeport one of the busier jobs in
the Northeast. It's well on its own right, so Ridge

(02:16:22):
has a lot of stories from fighting fires in that
particular city and he'll be here to tell them next
Friday and six. Again, we hope to see you Monday
as well. I'm just waiting confirmation on that one. In
the meantime, on behalf of Chief Tony mont Padre and
all of you tuning in. I very much appreciate you
guys tuning on this Friday. Actually, before I forget the
outro song for those of you listening on the audio side,

(02:16:42):
it was released in nineteen ninety four, one of my
favorite songs, regarded as one of his better songs as
well over the course of his lengthy career. Naturally, with
the Philadelphia guest Bruce Springsteen with Streets of Philadelphia to
play us out on the audio side. In the meantime,
behalf of Deputy Chief Tony bum Padre and all of
you in the audience. Mike Clohane, this has been volume
six of the best the gravest nation wide, and we'll

(02:17:02):
see you next time. To everyone, have a great week
and be safe, Mike.

Speaker 5 (02:17:44):
I was bruised and battered. I couldn't tell what I felt.
I was unrecognizable to myself. I saw my flexing in
a window and didn't know my own fee. So brother
gonna leave me waste and wig the streets of filative.

(02:18:25):
I walked to heaven and til my legs fell like stone.
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone but night.
I could hear the blood in my veins. Just it's
black and whispering. It's the ring the streets of filative. Uh,

(02:19:07):
ain't no, ain't just gonna greeting me.

Speaker 2 (02:19:12):
It's just you and I my friends and my clothes don't.

Speaker 5 (02:19:19):
Fit me, No, mam. A thousand miles just to slip
the skin, not its falling. I'm flying away. I can
feel myself feeding away.

Speaker 3 (02:19:39):
So receive me brother with you, feedless kids, so we'll
we leave each other along like this on the streets
of filled fi n

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Episode 370: Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Tony Bompadre (Philadelphia) (Volume 6)

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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 370: Best of The Bravest - Nationwide: Deputy Chief Tony Bompadre (Philadelphia) (Volume 6)