Episode 388: The Best of The Bravest: Bob Pressler (Volume 80)

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

(01:02):
the best of the Bravest interviews with the Ft and
Wys a week. A lot of people were excited about
this one and Jerry Tracy, who's been on the show previously,
Great Battalion Chief and the FD and WI formerly the
captain of Squad eighteen, that he described a Knight's guest
as a quote unquote icon fire service. So I praise

(01:24):
from somebody who's pretty highly regarded in his own right,
and it was definitely an enjoyable conversation to have in
his own right when we had him on the program.
Hit What is the signature Jerry Tracy line is? But
in any event, you know, usually he'll begin a sentence
that way. But in any event, but definitely a great mind,
and I look forward to the night's guest, who we
spoke very highly of. Welcome back, ladies and gentlemen. We're
on the March to four hundred episodes of This Bad

(01:46):
Boy and this is episode three hundred and eighty eight,
So if you haven't checked out the previous episode that
was episode three hundred and eighty seven, of course, with
former police officer, actor and comedian Joe Battilamante, who worked
in the Central Park primarily and had a lot of
interesting stops of course between comedy and the NYPD. I
enjoyed that chat, and I'm sure if you guys go back,

(02:07):
for those of you that have you inter see it,
you'll enjoy it too. And of course you'll enjoy tonight's guest.
To'll introduce in just a moment, but we'll run a
couple of ads first. And I'm losing my mind because
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(03:39):
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(04:01):
If you need a PI, look no further than Bill
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of the Mike de new Haven podcast. Billy will be
returning to the program pretty soon. I'll have more on
that at the end of tonight's episode. And my next
guest is a seasoned fire officer and instructor whose experience
spans over five decades, multiple states, and a broad spectrum
of fire service environments. And we're talking about the suburbs

(04:23):
of New Jersey to the inner city streets of New
York and the volunteer heart of upstate towns. He's a
retired FD and I veteran nineteen years. He'll talk about
that tonight. Of course, former chief respect national Instruction. We're
on top of that. The rest made that blessed thingk
er gret from working in New York suburban adapta. BILLI

(04:43):
your dedication and that is going to be for the
milestone Volume eighty of the Best of the Bravest interviews
with the f and I Lee, retired ft ANDI veteran
Bob Pressler, Bob welcome, How are you. Let's get Bob welcome.
How are you? Great? Great, great to have you looking
forward to this conversation for quite a while. Glad that
we were finally able to get in touch. So just
tell me before I get into anything involving getting on

(05:06):
the job, just growing up, where you grew up and
did you always know you wanted to be on the job.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
So I grew up in a small town in northern
New Jersey, Creskill, New Jersey, and my dad was a
volunteer fireman there, so you know, we'd spend a couple
of days at the firehouse on the weekend, and eventually
he became chief. And when he became chief, that kind
of piqued my interest. But on his way to becoming chief,
they started the junior program, and I don't know, I

(05:35):
was probably twelve years old, but because he was running
at junior program, I used to go down with him.
So I was there their mascot And there's actually a
pitcher from the Sunday Daily News. Like I said, I
couldn't find I was looking for it because it'd be
kind of funny of me hanging out of the side
of the truck. It's probably the only pitcher of me

(05:58):
and a fire truck without a must ash. So I
joined as their mascot. When I became sixteen, I was
able to join the junior program, and then at eighteen
they changed the state law and I was able to
become a full interior firefighter at eighteen.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
And I got to kickstart and everything that would come later,
of course, and from there after a few years there,
and I don't want to go gloss over Creskill. I
get the summit in a moment. What was the fire
duty like back then? Was Creskill burning a lot back then?

Speaker 2 (06:30):
Or not existed? Okay, they would do one hundred runs
a year in a bad year. The most exciting time
of year was Halloween because back then it was still
a lot of fun to light leaves on fire. But
if we did a fire a year, it was a lot,
you know. And I think there were several years we
did none. We did some mutual aid, but the fire

(06:52):
duty and Crescold always was next to none, you know.
So that's why I was always looking. I ended up
going to Oklahoma State fire protection engineering. When I graduated
high school and I lived in a firehouse out there.
I actually forgot to put that on my fire service career.

(07:12):
So I spent two years living in a firehouse there,
and that's when I first started going to fires. And
again not a ton, but you know, as you go along,
as long as you're making the most of the fires
you go to that you're trying to pick up little
things or that work that didn't work. The interesting thing

(07:32):
about Stillwater at the time, we were covering the entire county.
We were the county fire department at a one firehouse,
so if it was unincorporated area anywhere in Payne County
I think was the name of it, we would go.
So it's very common nighttime, leaving the city limits, getting
out into the darkness and seeing the glow another ten

(07:54):
miles away. So that was the start, you know, I
started going to fires there all along through the end
of high school, before I went to college. When I
was home in the summer, I became a pretty big firebuff.
I was taking pictures. I wanted to chase fires, and
I found out you can learn quite a bit watching

(08:14):
someone else do something. Now I can't do that, but
I can watch them. You could see if a tactic work.
You could see if something they did was great, or
something he did that you know what, maybe we shouldn't
do that because that didn't work real good for them.
So I started amassing photographs. I think my senior year

(08:34):
in high school. Reports from Engine Company eighty two had
been out a couple of years. So I decided I
was going to go to eighty two Engine. And I
took the bus into New York to train to Manhattan,
and then the subway up into the Bronx and walked
to the firehouse and I knocked on the door and
they're like, who are you and how did you get here?

(08:57):
And I said, I walked from a train station, and
they were like, your nuts. You know, this is probably
nineteen seventy one, maybe seventy two, and it wasn't the
best of areas. So I started going there fairly regular
whenever I had a chance, you know. And then when
I was old enough to drive, I drive over there,
and again, you know, just sitting listening to the conversations

(09:19):
at the kitchen table, the fire duty they're running around
the streets, an unbelievable education, and you know, that really
piqued my interest. I had a job at the time
of testing fire alarms and it was terrible. But the
only thing it gave me is I did a lot

(09:40):
in Patterson, New Jersey, so I learned how to buff Patterson,
New Jersey. They thought I was testing alarms. I was
outstating fire trucks, and then I heard that Summit New Jersey. Well,
let me step back. What happened is right around that time,
the state in New York, New Jersey changed the eligibility
for time. They gave a test and you checked off

(10:03):
whose list you wanted to be on. Then after the
test was done, they decided that they could give preference
to people in the city. So I was number nineteen
in Patterson, never got called. Didn't know why. I know
a guy it was one hundred that got called, but
they had gained the law and they didn't really tell

(10:24):
anybody it was. I was nineteen years old. I would
have moved to Patterson, right, I mean, I'm a kid.
I would have moved at the job, of course. So
it turns out that Summit, New Jersey was giving what
they called a chiefs test. They were making the test,
they were managing the test. They were doing the whole thing.
So I started putting my application and started studying. And

(10:46):
they used to be these books what the heppened to
the name of the books test questions? So it for bookstore.
I bought the newest version of it. I did every
test in it, and they were adabulary, you know, machinery
when this gear turns, what does that one do? I
took everyone. I did the entire book. So there's about

(11:08):
three weeks left to go to the test and I'm like,
I gotta do something else. So I go to the
library and I find another volume, but it's like two
volumes before and I'm like, but you know what, the
test question style is the same, so I'll do these.
So I do six tests, seven tests in that book.

(11:28):
So test day comes, I go and sit down. I
open up the test. I turn the page. I go, well,
this was a great idea, but I'm out of luck.
I get to like the third page and I turned
the page. I go, wow, that question's familiar Arco books.
There was twenty five questions out of the old Arco

(11:52):
book word for word, so I started with a twenty
five and I was number one on the list. Wow,
and I ended up getting hired in Summit, New Jersey,
which wasn't adventure. Another place didn't do much fire duty.
We had a couple of real decent ones while I
was there, but it was it's more. I was referred

(12:15):
to as a rich man's luxury to have a career
fire department. That was the way it was. But they
had a tiller, so I started to learn how to tiller,
so that was pretty cool, you know. Stayed there three
years and then interesting again how things work. I took
Jersey City test and I got a Jersey City license.

(12:38):
So at one time I had three licenses in my wallet.
I had my crescyl one, I had one for Jersey
City without a middle initial, and I had one for
New York. So if I got pulled over, I had
to decide where I was and who I wanted to
get in trouble. Yeah, pretty much. So I get called

(13:02):
for Jersey City in February of seventy nine, and I
know they're putting a class on in New York City.
So it was good having friends that I had met
all the years buff and chasing fires. You know, they
told personnel in Jersey City that I was skiing Vermont
and they couldn't get a hold of me, and they

(13:24):
held my spot for three days. But I got called
for New York City and I ended up going to
New York City. And if not, I would have been
a Jersey City fireman for six weeks and three days
because I would have taken that. But then when New
York called, I probably would have switched.

Speaker 1 (13:40):
No, I don't blame you.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
Yeah, you know, it was just just the way it
all laid out, you know. So it was a lot
of fun, had some fun. But like you had mentioned,
you know when we talked earlier, that started my career
of seeing how things are different in different places. You know,
they operate different, the hoses different, the nozzles are different.

(14:03):
You know, a lot of things were different. So weaks
place I went. I like to think I was more
of a sponge than anything else. I took advantage of
what they had. I might not want to use it later,
but it was just one more option to try stuff,
you know. And you look now you look online forcing doors.

(14:23):
There's twelve million videos on how to force the door. Yes,
some good, some bad, some incura, yep, some in between,
you know. And I told people all the time, I said,
you know, what you have to watch is the door itself.
Does the door move when they're forcing the door, Because

(14:44):
most of the doors have springs in them. If the
door's moving, they're compressing the springs. They're not defeeding the
piece of wood or the lock. The better doors out
there now don't have springs in the hinges. You actually
have to get the halligan to go be in the door.
But if they have springs, all you do is push

(15:04):
the door against the springs and I gives you your gap.
So kind of digressing, but I mean that's the little
stuff that you look at and you look at the
videos online and you go, of course you can do that,
you know, and ain't gonna work on a real door,
but you could do it all the time on that door.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Right on a prop door and theory, and there's something
to your point on that that you mentioned. We're talking
with Bob Presley or in the Mike the Newaven podcast.
That's all you made the best, the bravest interviews with
the Ft and wise lead in one of your many
conversations with our mutual friend Miki Farrell, where you you know,
just a paraphrase you you said, okay, this method as
you're teaching it pertaining to New York City, will say,
as an example, may work in New York City, but

(15:44):
it may not be applicable to the guy that's listening
from Omaha, Nebraska. So that's to your point about the adaptability,
seeing how it works for different places. What type of
buildings are we encountering? What type of doors do we
normally see out in the field that may work in
the bronx all day long when you come down and
or you come up rather in New Haven connect is
it going to work the same way? We don't know.
Maybe maybe, but maybe not.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
It's a pretty funny side story to this is for
years I wrote articles for fire engineering, and I ended
up being a technical editor. So if someone sent in
an article, you know, I got to read it and
say yeah or no, or haven't changed this, or call them.
Well a lot of times i'd call them. And one

(16:25):
particular person, you know, he ended up writing an article
that it wasn't wrong, but it was for his department,
and I said, you either have to put that in
the beginning of the article or you have to change
some things. And he was highly offended that I questioned him.
Not the reason why, which was silly, right because it

(16:47):
was justifiable and all he had to say, this is
for the XYZ fire department works real good for us.
Would have been a great article, except you got all
bent out of shape because we questioned them. So oh absolutely.
But with all of that, I think the bigger problem
today is everybody wants the secret squirrel stuff. They want

(17:10):
the advanced stuff. No one wants to learn the basics.
The very simple thing that gets you through ninety nine
percent of the time is doing the same thing all
the time. And the reason it works is because then
when you hit a problem, you've identified why the problem happened. Right,
If I always start doing things the same way, did

(17:32):
it get stuck on step one? Did it get stuck
on step two? You know where did it start to
be an issue? Well, this is what I have to correct.
You know, I've been teaching the same method for years
with great success, and all it is is just learning
what the tools? Do? You know? Why is it not working?
Where's it hanging up? Where's the resistance? Another funny thing

(17:56):
you'll see online is guys leaning into the door with
the leg and then forcing above the lock so that
door didn't give up there, right, If you want to
go below the lock, you lean against the door. You
might get a little bit right, but you're not. You're
not deflecting the door above the locking mechanism. No, And

(18:18):
it's something I saw on.

Speaker 1 (18:19):
A video, right, you know, And it's even then, sometimes
it comes down to mechanics. Is am I a big guy?
Per se?

Speaker 2 (18:25):
No?

Speaker 1 (18:26):
I'm five to eight, so I have to use a
lot of extra mechanics and a lot of extra technique
to get the door. Can I get the door? Yeah?
I'm in fire one Fire two classes for college right now,
and recently we had a live burn. I was able
to get the door open just fine, but it took
me jerking my shoulder upwards to be able to have
that little gap to then be able to drill in

(18:47):
and force the door, pull it back, mask up, go
into the burn. It's and even something like that, right,
there's nuance for me and my size. But if you're
six foot five three thirty a solid muscle, well then
maybe you don't need to do that.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
And that's why guys still kick doors. Right of course
they're six foot five three thirty and they can right
they have the legal bounce off it you know. I mean,
so you're not wrong. Now I'm not wrong, but the
whole point is, you know, so there's a lot of
guys now that are they're into the baseball swing with
the spike. Yeah, and almost every door they get they

(19:20):
could have gotten with the ads, and it's the cool
thing to do. So everybody wants to do it. And
now there's videos all over the internet defending it. And
now it's fine, it's a tactic, be my guest, right,
but I'm not going to do that, right. The ads
is what's going to get me in ninety percent of
the time, is going to make the gap to get
the forks in, you know. And again it's doing the

(19:41):
same thing every time.

Speaker 1 (19:44):
Right, able to push it forward, able to push it,
and able to get it open. We'll go more on
tactics in a moment, but just to go back to
your career in those nineteen years, specifically in the New
York City fire department. So once you got through Proby school,
which back then was very short. It was like, what's
six weeks for you? Sixt week, six weeks and then
you were in the firehouse. Where did they where do
they put you? Out of Proby School?

Speaker 2 (20:02):
So I ended up going to two point fifty five
Engine and interesting too. So I was in Jersey guy,
you know, I grew up in Jersey. In order to
get on the job, I ended up living in Brooklyn,
and you know, in New York City back then it

(20:22):
was possible to have a rabbi. And a friend of
my father's was like, where do you want to go
in the Bronx. You know, I'd been up in the Bronx.
But I had had some hiccups getting on the job
with my investigator because he would call the Summit Fire
Department and ask them where I lived, and they would
say when I was seven Broadway Crossky, New Jersey. So

(20:45):
he kept saying they didn't have a New York City address.
And I kept telling him, the day you tell me
I have a job is to day I'm telling them
where I live, They're going to fire me. And he
tried to keep me from getting on the job. And
as could be some other reasons in the background. You know,

(21:05):
he was a non white gentleman. They said that, you know,
he was looking out for the Hispanic society people. They
were under quote at the time, so he was giving
all would he perceived white fireman hard times. So to
make a long story short, I ended up getting on
and I was petrified at trying to pick a Bronx

(21:27):
company because why would a guy in Brooklyn want to
go to the Bronx? So I said whatever I can
get in Brooklyn, and they sent me the two fifty
five engine, which was a great place right now, it's
probably one of the premier spots to be in. So
when I got there, they were just starting to get busy,

(21:48):
so we did a fair amount of running around, fair
amount of fire duty. I was fortunate enough to start
working in the truck relatively early because I had a
background in the fire service. And it was an interesting
couple of years. You know, the neighborhood was definitely changing.
There's enough old timers there it were passing on good knowledge.

(22:11):
We still used the bells every payday Wednesday, which was
hysterical because people couldn't count the bells the way the
old timers did. But that's where I landed in Flatwish, Brooklyn.
So it's a good start to a career.

Speaker 1 (22:27):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
So.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
When you mentioned the truck, though, the je slide across
the floor to one five seven.

Speaker 2 (22:32):
So I started working mutuals there, okay, and then eventually
I went across the floor. So again this is that network.
Right before I turned first grade, which was three years
through contacts, I got asked to go to rescue four
and a lieutennis list had come out and they were

(22:54):
losing five guys right off the top, so they were
looking for people. So I had people speak up for me.
I said, he'd be a good guy to take now,
he's young, he's got a background. So the Queensborough commander
wouldn't let them take me because I wasn't first grade.
So that was February. I went in April and again

(23:14):
you know, you talk about every place you go, so
now I'm working in queens The interesting thing about rescue
for at that time, every fire was a ride. Nothing
burned in their firehouse, you know, I listened. Now two
ninety two is given a fair amount of ten seventy five.
But it was good. You know, a lot of different stuff,

(23:36):
some bigger buildings than Flatbush that we had fires in taxpayers,
so it was a pretty good place. The only bad
thing is they had the hazmat unit at that time,
and part of the problem was was the money wasn't
there to keep up with the stuff. So they were
sending suits out and had holes in them that were

(23:58):
coming back not repaired. They were looking for equipment they
couldn't get it. So after two months, the day I
went to tell the Captain I wanted to go back,
was the day he was telling me I was going
to be on the next order. I was going to
be transferred there. So, needless to say, I was immediately
back in Brooklyn. By the next editors, I was back

(24:19):
in Brooklyn and won fifty seven.

Speaker 1 (24:21):
That works.

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Yeah, Well, like I said, it just kept getting busier
and busier. So it was a good spot and it
also helped to have friends in the dispatches office. We
were eating dinner one night and the tones go off
and it was one fifty seven. You're relocating, and we're like,
we had a radio one. There isn't even a fire.
And as we're going up Rogers Avenue, they give a

(24:43):
ten to seventy five and because we got to jump
on it, we were the extra truck. So we got
we got to go to fires that we shouldn't have been.
You know. Good, we had some fun.

Speaker 1 (24:56):
That's a Warren Fuge special right there.

Speaker 2 (24:58):
Yeah. Absolutely, one of many characters.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
That was there, absolutely on one of the great dispatchers
the f and wise ever had. I know, well, Jack
Pitcher was there later on as a captain in the
nineties Catain. They used to call him Captain Jack's Jolly Rodgers.
I mean, they're the name of Jolly Rodgers as it is.
But pittcherd who again was a rescue guy himself over
in two for a long time. He was over there
for the hot minute there at the nineties, had some
good grabs. But besides there, I mean, because the thing

(25:23):
is back then and the war years eras as I've
discussed in the program before, is defined as sixty four
to seventy eight. But like I've told guys who worked
in the period of the seventies, late seventies into the eighties,
it's not like fire duty just dramatically declined over night.
Still plenty of work to go around. And the common burrows,
and that's not to say they weren't spots Manhattan or
Queens or even Staten Island that burnt. But the burroughs

(25:45):
where you were gonna see the most was gonna be
Brooklyn or the Bronx either or if you wanted fire
duty back then, those were the two boroughs where you
knew on a nightly basis you were gonna get it.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Oh, absolutely, it's you know what it was. It was
more concentrated earlier. Certain neighborhoods. They always talk about one
twenty fourth truck in Bushwick.

Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah, you know, they were one seventy six, right.

Speaker 2 (26:08):
But one twenty four. Back in the day, they were
like seventy fifth in the city, fiftieth in the city,
seventh number one in the city for fires, and then
the found year went right back the other way. Yeah,
the seventh to fifty, you know, all the way back out.
But that's when they were burning. You know, Bushwick was
all wood frame, all attached frame, so every fire was

(26:29):
at least three and sometimes five. And there the reason
it slowed down is there was fire breaks, you know,
but they were doing a tremendous amount of fire duty,
so you had the work just moved around, that's all
it did. It just wasn't concentrated, right, you know.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
It was kind of fluctuating during that period of time.
So after two fifty five one fifty seven, is that
when you went to three or was their stops prior
to rescue.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
Three so I was an illegal alien. I was living
in New Jersey, right, so I was getting kind of
tired of the ride. So I talked to a friend
of mine. I said, you know, this was inly June
thirty thirtieth or July first, right in there. I said,
I think the end of the year, I'm going to

(27:13):
look to go to the Bronx. And he said, okay,
just let me know. So I was up in Boston
for the fourth of July weekend and I got a
phone call tell me I'm being transferred to ninety two Engine.
And you know, it wasn't my idea. Guy was doing

(27:34):
me a favor. There was a spot there. He moved me.
But it did create some problems. You know, most captains
of a company don't want a guide dropping in out
of the blue. They might have two or three people
that are looking to get there. So, you know, my
first day there, they're like, well, where'd you come from?
And the best I could do is give them the story.

(27:55):
You know, I talked to a friend of mine, I
was going to try to come up here someplace by
the end of the year beginning of next year, and
I don't know. Next thing I know, I'm here. So
I ended up in ninety two engine. And you know,
like I said, there were some people that weren't happy.
It's a real good another real good house, and they
just didn't want a guy falling out of the sky.

(28:17):
So started working in the engine are and because there
was a chaufriend one fifty seven, because I had some time,
pretty soon I was working in the truck, you know.
And it was just one of those things you end
up fitting into the firehouse routine. You become part of
the group. You work for guys, you work in the truck,
you work in the engine. But it was pretty funny.

(28:37):
I stayed in the engine, working in the truck for
probably over a year, and other guys were getting the
truck spots, but I didn't care. It didn't matter, you know.
But I'm working one night and I break a finger
at a fire So it's middle of the night. I go,
you know, it's not too bad. I don't know if

(28:57):
it's broken. Well, I get up seventh in the morning.
It's broken. I can't move it, you know, So I
wait for the boss to get up. I go to
the boss and go, hey, little listen, yo. We did
a CD seventy two way last night, I can't move
my finger. I think it's broken. He goes, okay, come on,
we'll start the paperwork. So we're up in the office

(29:19):
and he goes he had talked to the guy from
the medical office, so of course it's another fireman I'm
talking to, right, And he goes, okay, your name right,
badge number where you work? And I go, well, here's
the thing. I'm assigned to one fifty seven and Truck
in Brooklyn. I'm on a long term detail in ninety two,

(29:41):
but I'm working in forty I worked in forty four
last night. He goes, all right, he goes, what GROUPI in?
I said, well, I'm in this group, but I was
off on a mutual, but I picked up a mutual
to work for a guy that needed the day off.
So now this is getting complicated for this guy. So
he goes, you know, hold on a second, do me

(30:02):
a favorite call back after nine o'clock and he hangs
up on me. So we had to start the whole
thing over again after nine o'clock. But it was a
real good place, so I stayed there for I guess
just over two and a half years, three years, and
then I got the chance to go to the rescue.

(30:24):
And it was the same thing a bunch of guys
who got promoted from the rescue. They were going to
have openings. You know, say you went for your blue
stool interview. The captain kept the book and he'd give
you a call and you go over and if you
like what he saw, they'd bring you out a detail
and then after a while they tell you to put
your paper in.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
And three. At that time, as it was now I
mean known as Big Blue, also known as the Gentleman's Rescue,
was seeing it. I mean it sees a lot of
work today, it's never stopped seeing work, but especially back then,
it was seeing plenty. And it wasn't just the ten
seventy fives or even the ten sixties. It was other
emergencies too that you guys could respond to. You had
your man unders, you had your MBAs. There was a
lot of work to go around to where it wasn't
just the fires to it, although that would gain plenty

(31:08):
of those. Like I said, you became a really well
rounded fireman working in a house like that. There was
a more variety than one would think when people think
of variety and rescue calls. They tend to think of
one in Manhattan, understandable, but more variety than you would
think in the Bronx too.

Speaker 2 (31:22):
Yeah, and we were to collapse rescue, yeah, for collapses.
So that was kind of a learning curve, you know,
but that always gave you something to do. That's what
was good about it. And you know when I went
there were still doing over three thousand runs and quite
a bit of them with fires, and we didn't work
in them all, but we worked out enough of them,

(31:43):
especially the winter. Now, we always said three cold nights
in the winter is the start of the winter offensive
and that's when the fires start to come. And we
bounced between the Bronx and hallm all night long. That
it was a great place to great place to work
for fires.

Speaker 1 (32:00):
Absolutely. So at around this time it's about the mid
eighties or so, it's Chief Normans, I mean, but well
before he was the chief is Chief Norman there at
the time at least as a lieutenant or who.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
He was one of the ones that was getting promoted okay,
and opened the spots for a bunch of us him Sokka, yep,
there's a couple more. I just can't think them off
the top of my head. That's what That's what opened
up that group where a bunch of people were able
to go hy here, Yeah, I have the door closed.

(32:32):
So he's upset, come here, pass.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Right, That's fine. He's more than welcome to make a
special guest to parents. I'm not gonna be upset, you know. Uh,
you know so, because I would say, did Conrad Tinney
was there at the time too.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Wasn't he Connie Tenny? Where a gentleman fire marshal? And
where did yeap went on to the fire marshal? Just
everyone there at the time. It was tremendous people, you know,
and they all they all worked through those years. They
all came from good spots, and like you said, it
was always considered the gentleman's rescue. You know, there's no need.

(33:09):
If they didn't need this, we didn't get in a way,
you know, and at that was a lot different than
some of the other rescues, right, So you just did
your job. If someone else was doing something, you didn't
need to stand back let them do their job. But
that also worked for the chiefs then, because when they
needed you, they were looking for you, right, and you

(33:31):
got you from the seventeenth, the one time says to
the officer rescue, do your rescue thing. They had a
lot of bad things going on all at once. He
wasn't going to say I need you to do this,
this and this. He's like, just go do what you
guys do. And you know what everybody did. I mean
they lost the beauty of it, you know.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
Right, there's a trust factor because there's a reputation factor,
you know. And Timmy Brown was on the show a
while ago. He talked about it too, because he worked
in Rescue three for a while before he went to OEM.
It was really as they all are. It was a
highly regarded rescue for that reason though, because while they
were proactive, there was, like you said, that gentleman's approach
to it, which is, hey, if you don't need us
to your point, then that's fine. You don't need us.

(34:12):
We're not gonna hop in anybody's shoes. Because I remember
reading this, and I'm not making fun of him. I
love my Rescue two guys too, and I've had plenty
of those guys on the show. But Tom Downey's book,
Chief Downy's Nephew, The Last been out, great book where
he mentions. I believe sometime in the eighties or nineties
there was a shirt amongst the Rescue two guys Rescue
two Hate You, which was the usood for Hate University,

(34:33):
because a lot of guys they didn't care for Rescue
two because of how aggressive they were back then. And listen,
I'm not gonna God bless them. They were a very
aggressive company back then. They still are. But it goes
to show the approach from Burrow to Borrow to Borough.

Speaker 2 (34:44):
Sure, and you know, they used to have a guy
assigned to the fire apartment and we always felt that,
you know, if the companies are doing their job, they
don't need one more person in that fire apartment. Right, Yeah,
it's all of this. There's so many little dynamic that
fit into it. And you learn you go along, you see.

(35:04):
You know, it's circumstantial when they need your help. I
guess that's the best way of putting it.

Speaker 1 (35:12):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely circumstantial. So how long were you in
three four?

Speaker 2 (35:17):
So I went there in eighty in eighty seven and
I got hurt in ninety one. Okay, so three and
a half years.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
If you don't mind, I mean, if you don't want
to go into it. That's fine, But we get hurt
at a job.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Yeah yeah. They found me in respiratory arrest on the
fire floor.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
Oh wow. All right, so you know, what do you
if you don't mind telling the story what happened that
night or that there's.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
Some kind of reactions shut down my uh, my lungs.
They foundily laying on the floor. Luckily that once my
body relaxed, I start to get air and again. But yeah,
no one to this day they don't know one hundred
percent what it was. But I was in the hallway

(35:59):
trying to put my face thank you son, and that
was it.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
Just went down.

Speaker 2 (36:05):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (36:05):
So it's a tough thing because now it kind of
changes the dynamics and you know, it forces you to
kind of not regress back to certain things, but kind
of just adjust on the fly. By this point, it's
twelve years into your career and you're at the height
of it, right, twelve years of DFD and why you've
been working studying.

Speaker 2 (36:22):
I was studying. It was time to get promoted. Yeah,
we're saying end up getting at the end. But I
mean it didn't mean anything. I did it just to
get out, you know, I thought it would help me
more teaching to be a lieutenant, and it really didn't matter.
Pretty I passed the test and stayed on the list
at the last possible promotion.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
Okay, because I know you ended up leaving in nineteen
ninety eight. So after the injury and just working your
way back to duty, where'd you go? Where'd you spend
the rest of those years up until nineteen ninety eight?

Speaker 2 (36:50):
So light dude is a tough thing, right. Luckily, the
doctor that I had understood what my problems were like,
I would get winded walking twenty feet. My lungs were shot.
Whenever I had happened to my lungs over time they
were done. I had gone for a couple of peak
flow tests. On one of them, my highest number was

(37:11):
forty three percent. So I spent quite a while on
medically at the beginning under the care of doctor Prisant,
and pretty funny story with him. I used to go
see him on Sunday mornings, you know. So I go
down there one morning and he'd given me a peak
flow monitor to try in the morning to see if

(37:33):
my lungs were getting any better, and so I blow
the thing in the morning. I get about like a
one ten on it, you know. So I go there
in the morning, going to see him because how are
you doing? Oh, I'm doing good, you know. Ride down
wasn't bad. YadA, YadA YadA. And he goes, oh, do
you take your peak flow this morning? And I said, yeah,
it's like one hundred and five hundred and ten. And

(37:53):
he's staring at me. He takes his glasses off and
puts him down and he goes, you, fireman. Because I
told other doctors what I was doing with you guys,
they think I was trying to kill you. He says.
Most people if they blow a one ten, they get
in a namblems, they go to the hospital. You got
in the car and you drove down here, you know.

(38:13):
So he was kind of amazed, and he took care
of me all the time that I was there. So
I went from there, I went to light duty in
the seventh Division. I drove the message of ann. I
became a division aid for a while, which was pretty interesting.
I got to drive the chief around, went to a
lot of fires with him. From there, I did the

(38:34):
back to Basics when they did the entire job on
the back of Basics Engine Company, and that went for
quite a while, but then at the very end there
was some friction between a couple of the officers. It
wasn't a fun place. So I tried to go back
out into the light duty field and the Bronx Help

(38:56):
Team opened up. And what the Bronx Help Team was
a group of people that when guys got hurt and
went to the hospital. If you're not believing the death
of the hospital in New York City, you can sit
in a waiting room for seven eight hours.

Speaker 1 (39:08):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:09):
So what we did is, you know, we had the
injine outs of the hospital, get the guys registered, get
him to X ray, get what was done, and we
get him in and out in a couple of hours.
What was nice about that is if no one was
in the hospital, it was my time. So a lot
of pictures, a lot of vacant buildings that I looked at,

(39:30):
you know, a lot of driving around. Gave two ten
to seventy fires while I was in the health team.
It was a lot of fun. One my brother was
a dispatch their so he gives out the box and
I called him, you know, Bronx Help Team or the
Bronx K guy had Bronx Health Team ten seventy five.
And that was pretty funny because I went in the
back door and when I got around to the front door,

(39:51):
they were trying to force their way in. I opened
the door for them and I said, yeah, first room here, on.

Speaker 1 (39:56):
Your right, try before you probably, baby.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Absolutely, absolutely, and then I got promoted out of there,
and that was that was pretty much the end.

Speaker 1 (40:06):
Yeah. Yeah, at least he made the best of it.
And I know it's tough because you would have liked
to go on. You would have liked to have never
gotten that injury.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
You know, absolutely, But you know what, that was the thing,
because it was line of duty. They kind of let
me stay till I was ready, and that's what was happening.
It was to that point. Yeah, I wasn't having as
much fun anymore. I was doing I was doing a
lot in New York with the fdi C at the time,
I was writing articles. I was doing a lot of teaching.

(40:34):
You know, I've taught I think almost forty states, so
I was able to go a lot of places. So
that was becoming more of just it was time.

Speaker 1 (40:44):
Yeah, absolutely, And again it could have been a blessing
in disguise because I mean, think about it, if you
you were obviously a very aggressive fireman, to say the least,
if you didn't have that injury in ninety one, you
would have kept on going and look at what happened
three years later. Who knows, maybe you would have been
there that day. Maybe we wouldn't be talking. Know, you
never know.

Speaker 2 (41:02):
It's pretty funny you use that turn aggressive fireman. Mickey
Farrell tell you about.

Speaker 1 (41:06):
That a little bit, but you can expand out of here.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
No, it was pretty funny, I said, So it's an
aggressive fireman and he gives you all the standard you
know answers, and I go, isn't it just knowing your
job and doing your job? Well? Yeah, right, you're looking
at somebody going in a window ves and is that
aggressive where they know they can do that? Right? All
the things you know, identify that it's doable, and they

(41:33):
going and get a search stunt. So it's pretty interesting
some of the terms that are that are thrown out there.
So I laugh at that one all the time. Learn
your job and do your job, you'll be considered aggressive.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
Absolutely, That's okay, kind of the line of the show
right there. I like that a lot. I'm going to
hold to that, especially as you know, as I try
to get on the job myself. So we'll dive into
tactics again momentarily, but just a few more notes on
your service volunteer wise, Like I said in the reduction,
you kind of know all sides of the coin between
Jersey between obviously New York City for almost twenty years
from seventy nine through ninety eight, and then of course
everything you've done since then. So as far as the

(42:09):
different stops, tell me about some of those stops and
what you enjoyed about each place.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
So I think there's another one I forgot to put.
I had Cresky in New Jersey, YEP Summit where I
was career, Oklahoma State where I lived in the firehouse.
Do mind New Jersey for a short time when I
first got married, and then you know, eventually ended up
up here in Montgomery. And you know, Montgomery's a pretty
interesting place, a lot of rural areas, a ton of

(42:37):
mutual aid. We never did a lot of fires in
our own district. I think the busiest year for fires
in our own district, believe it or not, is when
my son would come up to visit. I think the
one year he made six runs and four of them
were fires. Hold on one second, that's fun, all right,

(42:57):
So I'll close the door when he comes in. I
can't have to edit that out.

Speaker 1 (43:01):
That's no dog, that's fine.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Gold. But you know, so the one year we went
to twenty one fires, there were like I think one
was our arrest of mutual aid. So, you know, again
a lot of different fires, farmhouses, older row homes, older
brick houses in the village, frame houses, barn fires, garage fires.

(43:25):
You know, so it just kind of it gives you
exposure to a lot of different things. So that was
up here, and like I said, I became chief up here,
and you know, it was interesting. It's a lot of work.
A lot of people don't like being told what to do,
you know. So my compromise always was, yes, this is

(43:48):
you know, a democracy. Everybody has a vote until the
fire was the blows. Then it's a dictatorship. Then I
don't care about your feelings because that's where it's my problem.
You know. I even had the commissioners. I was at
war with one of our commissioners and they're like, well,
we're going to set a rule. What happens. We had

(44:08):
a mutilate fire where all three chiefs went to the
fire out of town and they said, well, we're going
to put a rule in that only one of you
can go. And I'm like, all right, you guys can
put all the rules you want in, but if you
read the handbook on fire district, it says when the
whistle blows, I make the decisions. So as soon as
the whistle blows, all three of us are going. You know,

(44:30):
you can't you can't stop that. You can put it
on paper what you want, but we're doing it all
way for a reason. And you know, they huffed them puffed,
but there was nothing they could do about it. So
I wrote up. You know, I was the chief up here,
and I was a firm believer. If my guys were
out on the street, I was going to try to
go with them. So you know, we're doing five hundred

(44:53):
runs a year, and I was doing three hundred and
seventy of them. If I was home, I was going
two o'clock in the morning, me and one for a
medical call. But that was just my belief that that's
how it should be. So, yeah, I was chief. We
had a line of duty death one of our older
members at the corostory from the firehouse. We had a

(45:15):
mutual aid. We were only relocating. So when the ends
you pull out on the apron, it didn't have its
lights on. Charlie got in the middle of the street
to stop traffic, and a car coming up the street
where the sun sat and never saw him and ran
them over. And that, really, you know, was a very
somber thing for everybody. So we got through the funerals,

(45:39):
you know, and everybody's trying to rebuild their lives. And
a friend of mine had ended up moving to Delaware
and he goes, you should come down to this Christianity Delaware.
So I went down to one night, you know, rode
around a little bit with him. Of course we didn't
do a thing. Went down another night, I think our
second run of the night. We're going to a second
alarm and a petroleum for him splitter at the local refinery.

(46:04):
And I'm second guessing every move I've ever made in
my life. What am I doing here? But then I
start going there and it became a pretty fun place.
So after a couple of years they asked if I
wanted to be a boss. I became a lieutenant, became
a captain, assistant chief and I'm still going down and

(46:24):
I was a deputy chief. But it's an interesting place.
It's a place that still creates firemen and you know
a lot of people, well what do you mean by that?
So I was, you know, because of the questions that
you said, we're going to talk about one of the
things I looked at. Probably in the last five years,

(46:45):
we've had fourteen or fifteen people. I'd have to look
at the list go on to career departments from there, DC, Philadelphia, Baltimore,
New York City, Wilmington. We let people become firemen, and
it's it's great that it keeps going. We hope it
last forever. You know, we don't know if it will.

(47:08):
But the engine, you know, you're doing forty five hundred,
forty six hundred runs. The truck is doing thirty seven hundred,
I guess thirty eight hundred. Slow year. This year we
usually do about one hundred. Fires. Will be a little
bit less this year. And they're not you know, they're
not tenements, they're not top floor of H's and that
rows of stores. But we get some challenging fires, and

(47:30):
you get townhouse fires. It blows out the backslider and
goes up the back. You got three of them going
on arrival. And it's got its own challenges. So my
son's remember there too. And the night he got sworn in,
I was the engine office, he was my nausl man.
I took him to his first fire and it was
just that it was at the back of the townhouse.

(47:52):
We went out the back, looked up it was up
into three of them are ready. So yeah, one hundred
fires a year, twenty challenging fires a year. You know,
apartment houses a couple of floors, top floors, use attics.
So it's an interesting place. But it makes fireman and
that's what we like about it. And the thing is

(48:15):
we're not doing any fancy stuff. It's the basics. Learn
the basics that you can't get them wrong, right.

Speaker 1 (48:23):
And no, that's again. It's a good breeding ground, for sure.
It's busier than some career departments, that's for sure as well.
I'll ask you too, because we have so many of
them down here at Connecticut, both where I live in
New Haven and where I volunteer in west Haven, where
two and a half woods are a big thing now,
especially with hybrid construction being what it is nowadays. You've
got a lot of those down there in Delaware not
so much.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
Well not in our local. So our local really has
been built up in the last fifty years, a lot
of farmland before that. So we have rows and rows
of wood frame townhouses. We have certain two and a
half frames like you're talking about, scattered around. But so
one neighborhood we're missing two of our automatic aid places

(49:04):
have a fair amount of them. We just don't go
to a lot of fires in them, and they are
a real challenging fire.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
Absolutely, yeah, I mean, because you just it's not only
the extension factor, it's also the fire load that's in there.
A lot of people have firewalls in their home now too,
which esthetically, in some cases that may look great for
the homeowner, but it's a nightmare when you're in there
crawling around trying to put it out. I mean, then
trustes these days aren't as reliable, and I always kind

(49:33):
of shudder to think of what can happen if one
of those comes crashing down a fire. They're never really
all that stable. So it's a lot, you know, especially
in places like this part of the country where you
have your fair share of cities and urban development's challenge.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
Like you said, it's a lot is based on drywall.
If they got to put the drywall in, did a
good job. You know, once a place catches on fire,
fifteen twenty minutes to get in and put it out,
get the sailings down. Yeah, you know, from what I've
seen and from what people know now on the job,
are telling me that truck work is starting to suffer

(50:04):
more and more. Yeah, that getting the ceilings down, Guys
are afraid of damage. Everybody's using a thermal imagure looking
at the ceiling, going well it's hot, Well, no kid
in the room is on fire. You know, they're worried
about doing extra damage. Mewant of fire got up in
the air and it's spreading because you're afraid to pull
the ceiling. You know, same with the overhauling. Huge thing.

(50:28):
People don't have overhaul. How many times you hear them
going back for a weekend or a second fire. Yeah,
these are all skills that if they're not passed down,
are going to get worse and worse and worse. So
it's kind of a slippery sloper at right now. And
a lot of the stuff we're talking about isn't the
glamorous stuff. Pulling ceilings isn't glamorous, right, washing down after

(50:53):
fire on what I'm called, I want to go home? Yeah,
you know, so these are all the little things that
really affect the outcome of the fire. Now, if I
go for a rekindle, I'm extremely upset. So as a
truck boss, you know, I was always the last one
out of the building, and I was a chief officer.
I walked through with the truck boss. I wanted to

(51:16):
see where the fire was. What happened. We pulled, walk up,
you know, and you have to not be afraid to say, hey,
I wind it, open up a little more. We look
through the camera, it looks good. Well that's not good
enough for me. Sorry, you know. But that's the other problem.
No one wants to be told that they didn't do enough,

(51:36):
that they're not correct right, fat on the back, nice job.
So you know, sometimes you got to be the bad guy.

Speaker 1 (51:47):
It's a necessity, of course, because again, if you're going
back there. And somebody brought this point up the other day.
It was on Facebook. It was an interesting post where essentially,
and I'm quoting that person saying, a rekindle is a
nice way of saying the fire department didn't do its job.
Not my words, the words of that person, but it's true. Right,
you want to make sure you get it the first time.
People are counting on. It doesn't matter if it's career volunteer.

(52:09):
If you didn't look hard enough and you just assumed
what happens on that rekindle, what if it really flares
up again? Now people get hurt? Dare I say people
get killed? Then what is the fire department so great?

Speaker 3 (52:20):
Then?

Speaker 1 (52:20):
Wherever this may have happened, not in the eyes of
the public that called them.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
So you're taking firefighter one and two. How much in
there did they talk about ovohol and checking for extension?

Speaker 1 (52:30):
Quite a bit? It was it was hit on heavily.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
And what did they tell you? What's the sign of
a good truck company? What's the room look like when
they're done?

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Well, the room the room is pretty much bare bones.

Speaker 2 (52:42):
It should be every it's just sailing down all the
wood trim, gone, windows trim. But a lot of people
don't do that anymore, right, you know? And how to
wash down? Well, we're creating water damage. No, we're making
sure we're not creating fire damage, right, you know? It's
a fine line, but you have to learn how to
do both right.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
And I'll ask you to on a couple of things.
It's interesting as I take these classes, as I try
to get and try to go career myself, hopefully in
the near future. As far as officers rolls nowadays, you've
been an officer for a little bit. Size up is
a big thing. Type of building that you got initial
conditions on the scene, you have to manage a lot
because now, of course, especially if you're a boss of
an engine, let's say truck, is a little bit different.

(53:22):
You're bossing an engine. You got your driver, he's gonna
be pumping, stand behind a pump. And if it's like
down here where our engines tend to carry four guys
or four people on it, got a pipe guy, you
got a high trump guy. So it's a lot to
worry about with your own crew alone. But it all
starts with the size up. What do you make about
that in the fire service nowadays? What do you like
about the current current size ups? What do you think

(53:42):
can be better as far as officers doing it?

Speaker 2 (53:46):
So two things years ago I wrote an article for
Fire Engineering. Size up was below building extent location of fire,
life has ad occupancy, and water. That's all I ever
want my officers to address five things. So an engine
you look at an engine officer, what's his primary job
at a fire.

Speaker 1 (54:08):
Besides the safety of his own crew? Of course, getting
water on that fire as soon as.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
Possible, water on the fire period, right, santi of the
crew is always there, right, but getting water on the fire.
So now you know you mentioned having a hydrant man.
What's the big push in the American Fire Service boost
their backup? Right? Oh, you don't have to lay a
hydrant line? Well, you know what depends on your fires?
I guess because I have a bunch that we can't

(54:33):
put out with tank water. Right, Well, we are stopping
and doing that. But regardless of that, so you get
on the scene, what's the engine officer's.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Job getting water on the fire?

Speaker 2 (54:43):
Right? So what is he going to do?

Speaker 1 (54:45):
Well after he will he gets off the engine or
she gets off the engine. I'm thinking and correct me
if I'm wrong, and I'm sure I will be. He's
going to be wrong. He's going to be there with
his nozzle guy or girl. They're gonna be flaking out
the line as they get the door as soon as
they're good to go, call for water and the water's there.
Make sure there's no kinks in the line. Of course,
once they got the water mask up, go in there,
find the fire, put it out.

Speaker 2 (55:05):
What happened to the three sixty?

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Hmm, good point, Yeah, going around.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
See, I'm not a fan of the three sixty. We
have a member of the truck that's going to do
that for us. I want my engine officer to do
exactly what you said and what I want my engine
officer to do. As they're flaking out the line, I
wanted to see if the door was open. If the
door's open, go take a peek. Now, as soon as
you say that, people, they get up in arms, right,

(55:31):
go take a peek. What do you mean, Well, open
the door, see what the smoke does, and crawl in
five feet. What's he looking for? Layout fire victims. But
he's got to be comfortable being a little uncomfortable, And
that's where we're failing. We're telling everybody of if I
don't have you by the hand, you and I can't

(55:52):
go in. So we're handicapping us right from the start.
Some places make him stay out and be command. Well,
who's he commanded the pump operator, the guy in the hide,
and the nauseaman by himself not much to command, right, Right,
So in my world, I want my engine officer pushing
the first line. If you can pop the door before

(56:15):
the truck gets there, by all means pop the door, right.
What's the other thing to tell us about the door?
Now I pop the door. What's the first thing I do?

Speaker 1 (56:24):
Well, once you pop that door open, you grab your tool,
you push it back towards you close it, mask up
and go in. At least that's what I've been hearing.

Speaker 2 (56:30):
Yeah, So what I've taught my guys is I leave
the door open for a little bit. What am I
hoping to happen?

Speaker 1 (56:37):
Well, you're gonna observe the smoke pattern, but maybe a
little bit of ventilation to it's.

Speaker 2 (56:41):
Gonna do something, right, what's the smoking to do? So
we open the door to smoke instead of floor, and
I leave the door open, and it just slowly keeps
rising and I start to get visibility on the first floor.
Where's fire?

Speaker 1 (56:55):
So somewhere in the well, it's either somewhere in that
first floor, maybe towards the back end, maybe on the
second floor.

Speaker 2 (57:00):
It's probably the second floor banked all the way down.
I opened the door, I let it out. It gets
about to that. Everyone likes the words. It gets to
that neutral plane, right, the smoke is getting a little
bit better. Where's fire? Probably on the level that we're
at again, more towards the rear. The last one is
I opened the door. The smoke never comes off the floor.

Speaker 1 (57:22):
Where's that fire is? That fire's right there.

Speaker 2 (57:26):
Or right below you because he keeps filling up. Because
even if the fire was in the first room, that
would be lifting to give that fire the oxygen. Now
it's lifting and refilling because the fire is coming from
below us. Right, there's my basement fire. Then if we're
not ready to go, then we're closing the door. But

(57:47):
why waste that fifteen seconds of valuable information that you
can get There are a good guess on where the
fire is and what's what it's doing.

Speaker 1 (57:59):
Right, And I like that you mentioned that because it's
not to the point about guessing. It's not definitive in
that moment. Of course, you have to go in to
assess what the conditions are fully, and it's not like
you're saying, you know, stay in there for five minutes
before you go in. No, it's it's very quick. It's
fifteen seconds to go in there, check around, see what
you have, see what you don't have, and get a

(58:21):
little bit of a picture as to what you're heading into.
Are you going to know everything about the fire? No
conditions can change in the heartbeat, as we've seen many
a time over in small towns and big cities alike.
But at least it gives you a mental image or
dare I say a guesstimate. Okay, we may have this,
it may not be definitive, but I'm thinking, with what
I'm seeing, we're going to walk into this, and you

(58:41):
know that could be the difference, you know, at the
end of the day as far as safety is concerned.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
So now the truck shows up, right, truck, off, shirt, dress,
ready to go. He goes in. What's he looking for?

Speaker 1 (58:50):
Well, he's looking for victims, primarily, I would imagine.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
Looking for the fire, Chris. Until we find way to
fire is we can't search properly because someplace we're going
to go is going to be the wrong spot. Once
I find the fire, I'm good, right, I get to
the fireroom. It's the first floor kitchen all the way
in the rear. I'm there. I can send my guys

(59:13):
going searching. I'm waiting for the engine to come. As
soon as the engine comes, I can join my guys searching.
But until we find that fire. Because at two o'clock
in the morning, where would you want to go search?

Speaker 1 (59:26):
Yeah, you want to search bedroom.

Speaker 2 (59:28):
Of course we pay. We don't find a fire on
the first floor. Now we've left the front door open.
Now the fire takes off, where is it going to
go upstairs with us? Yeah, So if you're in before
the line, you have to find the fire first. Then
once you identify the fire, you know what, Now it's
time to search. I can send my guys searching. I

(59:48):
can hold that position to the engine and gets there
and then I can join them. Or OV is probably
trying to get in the back window at that point,
you know. So it's all the things are having riding
positions and things to do right now.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
And that's I was thinking just now with what you
said in terms of truck company operations. The reason I
gave that answer is I thought the lines already in
there and the engine's doing its bit. I didn't think
about that component too, where sometimes you're searching without that
line just yet. It's not that anybody's being lazy, you're
doing anything wrong, they're getting it ready, it's just not
there that split second. So yeah, the other the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:23):
Other problem is when the line is ready, So does
the engine officer take the hand line with them searching
for the fire?

Speaker 1 (01:00:33):
Good question? I mean, listen, you're you're going primarily with that.
You're kind of at least what we've been taught is
to foul the line. Of course, if you're the nozle man,
you're the nozzle man. That line stays with you at
all times.

Speaker 2 (01:00:42):
Absolutely, it is a tool.

Speaker 1 (01:00:44):
I think I've seen certain guys talk about having with
them while they're you know, at least glancing for victims
if they come across one or wrong the way that.
If you're on an engine, though, that line's never supposed
to leave you, So i'd imagine stay with you, correct
or no?

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
So big centle hole, colonial house, right, go to the
top of the stairs, lights out, smoke to the floor.
You got twenty foot hallways go in each direction. Does
the officer go find a fire or does he take
the line with him?

Speaker 1 (01:01:15):
Well, I know he doesn't leave his nozzle man, his
herb woman. They got to stay with him. His nozzle
person has got to be with him at all times.
That's a tough one. What do you think?

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
Tell me, because the line stays at the top of
the stairs and the officer goes find it the fire
because if he takes the line, what if they go
the wrong way. Yeah, that's trying to fire at the
air und of the house and it's out in the
hallway and it's coming for you. You gotta fight your
ways back to the stairs. But what is that again?
You know I mentioned it earlier. What does that mean?

(01:01:46):
It means the engine offices by himself a little bit, right,
he's got to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Now he's not
going one hundred and fifty feet down you know, a
center hole apartment.

Speaker 1 (01:01:56):
It's a little bit different.

Speaker 2 (01:01:57):
Yeah, he's going in a fifteen twenty four hallway. So
the first time you do it, land on the floor.
Let the nozzle person hold your boot. Right, So now
you're six feet down the hallway. Oh it's hotter, Oh
it's cooler. There's ways to do it, but the fact is,
no one is comfortable being uncomfortable. That's what going of

(01:02:18):
fires gives you. It's that kind of experience that you
can't duplicate anywhere else.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
Right, even in a live burn, right, Like live burns
are great. I liked, I love the one that we
did the other day. It was a great education. I
learned a lot. But you know, as even guys on
the line that have done live burns for training. Although
it's a fun training to do and it certainly has
its value, I know it's been invaluable for me. It's
it's the same thing with ems, right, as an EMT,
there's nothing like the street. I could have read that
textbook I did. I read the textbook, I did everything

(01:02:45):
I needed to do and passed my practicals. Then I
got out on the street and started working calls, and
it's like, oh no, it's a whole different ballgame until
you actually get out there and you do it in
real life. That's with anything, but especially in the emergency
response field.

Speaker 2 (01:03:00):
Well, that was another thing when I did with Mickey
the podcast, I said that knowledge without experience is theory.
You think you know, right, like you said, you did
all the empty stuff art, this is easy. Hold here,
push that, put my hand there right then you get
the first one. It's a little different when you're doing it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:22):
Right right, and it's not a man again, it's a
real person.

Speaker 2 (01:03:26):
That's everything we do, you know, from forcing that door
on the prop to your first four to five door
in real life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:33):
Right, absolutely, absolutely, and that carries you know, that carries
through and as far as it pertains to an urban environment.
You were a truck guy for a hot minute too.
A lot of buildings you're seeing and I'm seeing it
down here in New Haven, You're seeing it down in
New York City too. A lot of buildings are going up,
but I'm not talking necessarily sixty story high rises, although
a lot of those are going up too. But with
the modern building construction too, Like we kind of touched

(01:03:53):
on earlier, it presents modern challenges at fire departments, especially
in larger cities, have to adjust to on the fly
farest truck working. Bigger cities are concerned with these buildings
going up. What do you make of that? What do
you what are you seeing with it now? That most
gives you concern.

Speaker 2 (01:04:11):
Lack of pulling sailings and a lack of roof ventilation.
M it's you know, without mentioning the names, we did
a class a couple of years ago, and I listened
to one of the current rising stars of the New
York City Fire Department and we were sitting having dinner

(01:04:33):
at a firehouse, and not in New York, we were
out on the road, and he made the statement that
he felt in five years New York City wouldn't even
go to the roofs. And he based it on taxpayer
fires where you know, rescue three, it was very common
to hear the rescue told the report him with two saws.

(01:04:55):
So you'd have two trucks and a rescue with two saws,
you have four saws. Ain't on the roof of a
taxpayer and now they're lucky to get one that gets
the hole in the right spot. So in particular fire
he was talking about, they had a back draft of
a store four or five U from the fire store
and it's like it's too concerning. Well, no, there wasn't

(01:05:16):
enough roof ventilation. So you know, even with all the
Mardern fire, all the tests they're doing and all the
things they're coming up with, there's this still some things
that are forever going to be true. You got fire
a cockat, you don't get enough holes open up on top.
It's going to come out someplace, and if you don't
get it pulled from underneath and get water up into

(01:05:37):
it and get a couple of holes to slow it down,
it's going to take the whole building. It's going to
take that whole taxpayer. And if that environment gets too
rich and you force the last store and give it oxygen,
you might have a backdraft or a small explosion or
whatever they want to call it this week. But it's
those tasks. It's the it's the things. Yeah, we took

(01:06:00):
for granted, I would say, because there was enough fires
for everybody learning to cut. You know, my very first
fire cutting the roof, Bobby Brule is the shau for
I had the roof. I got up to the roof
the fires roaring out of shaft between two buildings, and
I'm looking, how far away from this fire can I
get the cut? And he calls me right up to

(01:06:23):
the edge of it. We start cutting, the fire coming
out of my curf, cut the paints bubbling off my
heat as I'm cutting, you know, and we cut this
hole and fire came out of it. I mean, that
was my first roof experience. He showed me so much
in one experience but it's not enough fires for everybody
to get that anymore, right, So it's getting harder and harder.

(01:06:48):
You know. I mentioned Christiana one hundred fires, twenty twenty
five real good fires. The other seventy five go out,
but they're not that hard. It's those extra ones. If
we had a hundred of the good ones, you see some.
We have terrific firemen now, but you would see absolute
rock stars because every fire is harder than the one

(01:07:10):
before it. And that's what's missing. They're not getting the
top floors on the ahies and when they do, it's
a third alarm and they're taking the wing off a building.
You know, private house is second and third alarms in
New York City, a private house with a third alarm
and it's got to be one hundred and forty guys.
What are they doing with them all right?

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
How are they being utilized?

Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
Yeah? Yeah, so there are some things that are confusing.
I guess to me, I'm glad I worked when I did,
had a lot of fun doing it, you know, but
there was some there was some good old fashioned firefighting
going on, and I think it's there's places that are
holding on. There's places that are still doing it, you know,

(01:07:55):
but it comes with risk. Depends if your chief is comfortable.
You know, I was doing a class for future chiefs
and that was one of the things I said. You've
got to be comfortable. You know, you're watching people do
things that you might not have wanted to do. That's
why you have to know what your troops are doing.
You know what they're training on. You have to be comfortable.

(01:08:17):
You're watching the building for them. They're doing all the
other stuff. They're putting water on the fire to cutting roofs.
You're looking at the building. You know that. That's one
of the things. So not to get off on a tangent,
but people tell me question, would you be in the
car as a chief? Listen, I stand in front of
the fire building until two hundreds and two trucks go

(01:08:37):
to work, because I figure those four crews are real,
real busy. No one else is watching the fire building,
right so I'm on the front lawn. Once I put
them to work, I'll retreat. We got a board in
the car, you know, once it gets to where I'm
putting the third hand line or a fourth hand line
or the third truck to work, I'm looking at a

(01:08:57):
multiple alarm. Then I have to play a little catch up,
you know, making sure everything's going right. But at the
beginning of the fire, I'm watching a fire building for them,
you know, to Marry Pang fire Seattle, Washington a million
years ago, that chief never never left the car and
for a firefighters died in the fire. That he never

(01:09:18):
knew the building had more than one level.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
That's cowardice.

Speaker 2 (01:09:23):
Well, it's it's what they taught. It's where everybody believed
at the time. Man. And there's people today that believe
you should be in the car. And you know what,
I say, good for them. If that's what they want
to do. I'm not saying they're wrong. They shouldn't tell
me I'm wrong, right.

Speaker 1 (01:09:39):
No, I mean that's my fight, you know, no, And
I get it. I get it one hundred and ten percent,
because you don't. I mean, it's one thing to go in,
it's another thing. Just at least, like you said earlier,
even if you're not a proponent of the three to sixty,
just getting a good lay of the land. There was
a fire we had in west Haven almost two years ago.
It was the first fire I went to at the time.

(01:10:00):
I wasn't a volunteer at the time, I was just
their media guy taking photos documenting the scene. It was
a third alarm because kind of like what you described earlier,
we got three districts in West Haven as well, all
career and it was in the Allingtown district, so our
district as well as an adjacent district to ours on
the mutual aid and our training captain happened to arrive
there first before anybody, and while he never went interior
at the fire, ended up having commanded the fire and

(01:10:21):
did a great job. He was able to get a
good size up for the guys to get a good
a great report on what the building was, so that
the incoming companies that were responding, especially our first two
engine company that got there as the first fire apparatus
besides him, knew what they were heading into and you
know what, to your point, even though it sadly we
had a fatality there, that fire was able to go
out in about twenty minutes and a huge part of

(01:10:43):
that that kickstarted that process was an officer getting a
good rundown of what the building was, in this case
a two story apartment building and what the building wasn't
mm hmm, you know, and that goes along.

Speaker 2 (01:10:55):
But it's all information. It's all valuable information that has
to be shared.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Right, So somebody's watching the building like that, Yeah, near yor.

Speaker 2 (01:11:04):
City of the ov does it. Christiana Rov does it
on the truck, He gets the seaside report, goes back
there with a portable ladder, you know, I mean he's
looking for a window to get in. Again. It's all
you hate to say, it's simple stuff, but to a
point it is. It's routine. You know, some places they

(01:11:24):
won't let you vees unless they notice a life has it, right,
So how good are you going to be if you'd
never done it before? Right right? We rather our guy
go to the rear forty times, throw the ladder forty times,
maybe take the window five times, maybe crawl in the
window twice, than never having done it and going, know,

(01:11:46):
my baby's up there right right. And again that's just
being proactive. We drop lines, We stretch all the time,
and it's all to make them better at it. So
the one thing you don't have to worry about when
we get a fire is the line in there. They've
stretched a million times every time. That's all they do
is stretch, stretch, stretch gets tiresome. But where do we

(01:12:10):
get good at stretching?

Speaker 1 (01:12:13):
It becomes second nature, becomes must and listen. I mean,
as Chief Brennan and I use this line all the
time on the show. As he said a while ago,
you can never learn enough about a job that can
kill you. And by the way, Steve Rodo, I see
your question, Joe Malik, I see your question too. I
didn't forget I'm when to highlight the momentarily, but to
your point on that, and I wanted to ask you
this too. Who hit on this as well as those

(01:12:34):
questions before? The rapid fire technology is becoming a big
day in the fire service, right we were talking about
ticks earlier thermal imaging cameras who were alluding to them
as that becomes more and more prevalent every passing day,
every passing year in the fire service. You're a proponent
of the old school, which is fine. I mean, you've
been teaching a lot of tactics that should always apply
their universal tactics that it doesn't matter how old the

(01:12:55):
fire service gets, keep to them, stick to them because
they'll help you at the end of the day. What
do you feel of the technology making its way into
the fire service. Now what place do you feel it
has Where do you feel the best balance is versus
when to utilize it versus when to go with those
taxics you've been talking about with me tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:13:12):
So the problem with technology is it's become the answer, right,
it's to go to And I use the example before
about checking for extension. Well, if this room had a
fire in it and I came in with the tick,
what's it going to show me the ceiling is hot? Right?

(01:13:33):
What's going on above the ceiling? I'm not sure because
the drywall now is working in the opposite way. It's
keeping me from seeing above the drywall, right, I have
to open up, And I think what's happening is too
many people are relying on the tick. So I went
to a fire one day up here in Montgomery where

(01:13:55):
small kitchen fire. We got the ceilings down. I am
looking at the under side of the roofboards in the attic,
and the officer next to me has a tick, goes, oh,
we got fire in the attic. And I look at
him and I look up. I'm like, what are you
talking about? It goes, I can see it through the

(01:14:16):
thermal image here I'm not gonna put the thermal limeragure down.
I'm looking in the attic and what it was was
a warm spot, yeah, but not known a thermal image there.
It shows all the different gradients, so the you know,
the warmest spot is going to be the brightest white.
But there's no fire. And I think that's happening a
little bit with the technology. You know, how about the

(01:14:39):
uh the automatic presets on engine companies, right, so you're
engine in west Haven. How many precnnects does it have?

Speaker 1 (01:14:50):
I'm thinking about, like if I remember correct, that could
be wrong on this somewhere between two maybe three somewhere.

Speaker 2 (01:14:57):
And what are the lengths of them? Offend? No, no,
but I'll tell you why, because you know most places
have one hundred foot bump a line, a two hundred foot,
maybe a three hundred foot some places have gone down
a four hundred foot Well, which one is the preset
for it? So we're taken the engine years ago they

(01:15:19):
came out with the automatic nozzle, right, and the variable
pressure variable flow nozzle used to operate between sixty five
and one hundred and five pounds pressure at the tip.
So what happened at sixty five pounds, the spring would
start to engage and it would start to shape the stream,

(01:15:41):
so it looked like a fire stream. And the more
pressure you put in that spring kept moving. The shape
of the stream didn't change. So if you weren't paying attention,
you were flowing sixty five or ninety five or one
hundred and five, you didn't know what was coming out
the other end. The spring kept moving, the stream looked

(01:16:03):
the same. You didn't know if it was one hundred
dollars and two hundred fifty gallons, right, does that make sense? Yeah,
So we took the pump operator out of there. So
we have several decades of pump operators that can't do
friction laws.

Speaker 1 (01:16:19):
That's a big that's a big artist.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
When they pulled the other line, they didn't know what
to do. So now we have precepts. So when I
was Chief of Montgomery, we got two new engines. I
wouldn't let them use the precepts. Learn how to pump.
Then you can use the preset right right, So again.

Speaker 1 (01:16:36):
I won't be doing for a few years.

Speaker 2 (01:16:37):
But that's that technology creeping in, right. Yeah, I'm gonna
make it easier push this button.

Speaker 1 (01:16:44):
Well for our pull certain level or lever right, you know, yeah,
but for what SoSE line, Yeah, I get to know.

Speaker 2 (01:16:50):
And that's the thing. I'm not against technology. There's some
good stuff coming up, you know, the tracking of firefighters
in the building is good. Everybody's got radios. I mean,
there's a lot of good stuff. But a lot of
people are forgetting the basics of the job and hoping
that technology gets them through. That's what I don't like, and.

Speaker 1 (01:17:10):
I think that's perfectly valid and fairer even to your
point about the positives of it. Right, you get a
building collapse. You got drones now that can kind of
do an overhead view of what the building looks like,
and maybe you can pick up on something that the
naked eye can't. So it has its place, and it's
only going to expand. But it can't be I think
the point overall, as you highlighted perfectly was it can't
become the substitute for good tactics. Good tactics and technology.

(01:17:34):
Good technology and good tactics go hand in hand. That's
an unbeatable duo. It's when the complacency kicks saying, oh,
this machine will just do it for me, that's when
the problems can start.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
Yeah, it's like having the tree of where people are,
you know. Yeah, in an organization, Well, pactics is always
going to be here. All those other things can help it,
but if you don't have this, they're not helping anything. Right.
The American Fires Service, for how many years, still stretch
inch and a half into store fires with disastrous results. Yeah,

(01:18:08):
we don't learn from it now, that won't happen to us,
you know, So learn the basics, do all the things
without it, and then the technology is a great assist.
But if you can't do it without the technology, then
you don't do it with it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:24):
Right, No, good point, good point, And I think that
plays perfectly. And a Jie Maliga's question if we could
highlight that producer picture where he's asking, do you think
virtual fire will be the future of training?

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
I think people started doing it years ago when they
started doing assessment centers. And I remember years ago a
friend of mine said, you know, I'm in there taking
an assessment center for Captain. I've got a fire and
a it's the building has an atrium in it between
two wings. I fire in the B wing. I'm doing

(01:18:57):
my thing, getting lines in plays light it to the roof.
We're going to off ventilation, and all of a sudden,
the fire is in the B wing And I said
to the guy running the program, how can that possibly be? Oh, well,
you've got to be ready for it. It had a
center atrium. It couldn't get there unless it was the
second fire. And that's what I'm afraid. It was virtual fire.

(01:19:18):
I think nothing beats finding a video on YouTube, a
pre arrival video, right, and then the fire department pulling
up and seeing what they did. Did that work? No,
don't do that right? Yeah, they figured that was taking

(01:19:38):
down off the internet. Kind of funny to watch. It's
a fire in the kitchen of a house. Garage door
was open and you can see the fire through the
garage door, rolling around in the kitchen, and these guys
decide to go in through the garage. Can't get buy

(01:19:59):
the car, and we can't push fire. But they assist
this fire through pretty much the whole first floor in
his house because they couldn't get there to get enough
water on it to knock it down. And that's the anything.
You can't push fire, Well, maybe not this little square
in front of me, but fire works on pressure. Correct. Yeah,

(01:20:20):
So if I'm increasing the pressure in this fire area
and not extinguishing all the fire. Where does the rest
of it go someplace where it can freely follow the smoke.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
And goes grow every thirty seconds.

Speaker 2 (01:20:35):
Yeah, they're trying to make everything so simple. Won't do this, Nah,
I'm pretty sure it will, you know, I don't know
if that answered this question completely. I think it can
be an assist in training, but you know, again, you
look at all these places that have gone to gas
fed trailers and gas fed fire buildings. It's not real.

Speaker 1 (01:21:00):
Yeah, I think we were our own.

Speaker 2 (01:21:03):
Worst enemy, but acquired. You can't be the quiet structure
of training. But we're our own worst enemy. We killed
people every year doing it for doing stupid things. And
I blame part of that on fourteen oh three. You know,
they they think they have all the answers. Show me
a fourteen oh three where the safety line should be?

(01:21:26):
Or is there even a mention of a safety line?

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
Good question, good point.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
And every fire we've ever done, what do you think
the last thing the students passed before they got to the.

Speaker 1 (01:21:39):
Fireroom probably what you just said, probably line.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Yeah, so if they didn't make it, there was someone
there to put the fire out right, you know. And
it's it's not even mentioned the fuel. I mean, it's this.
They're in it took for themselves. They're not in it
for us.

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
Right, you know. And that's only again a disservice to
those that are already in the fire service and those
trying to of course get into the fire service. And
on a related note, the other question was from Steve Vierrado,
who's a Jersey guy. He's on the job out there.
He just wants to know if he's still had any
family in Creskill.

Speaker 2 (01:22:14):
No, we're all gone.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
That answers that question, Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:22:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:22:18):
So you know, again this has been quite the education.
We still got the rapid fire coming up, and the
hour and a half, almost.

Speaker 2 (01:22:24):
Hour and a half is give me one second, please.

Speaker 1 (01:22:26):
Sure, we gotta run ant anyway.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
The dog came in, I gotta close the door.

Speaker 1 (01:22:31):
That's fine. We got to run an at anyway. So
the rapid fire is brought to you by our friends
over at Grantitede State. Hey, there are firefighters from fire Buffs.
If you're tuning into the Mike and Newhaven podcast, you
know the value of reliable gear at Granite State fire
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(01:22:52):
and that timeless style you trust. And here's the best part.
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(01:23:15):
helmets or tradition eats innovation, and we're firemen apt be covered,
they sure do. Bob is back the fire perfect time.
I could have a time that any better myself, all right?
So the Rapid Fire five hit and run questions for me,
five hit run answers from you. You could say pass
if you want. Of course. We got the background music
courtesy of producer Victor of those nineteen years from nineteen

(01:23:37):
seventy nine until nineteen ninety eight in the Fting Live specifically,
what's a favorite memory of yours.

Speaker 2 (01:23:43):
That's so hard because, as I mentioned earlier, I was
fortunate enough to work in four out of the five
burrows and each one had its own little thing. But
if I had to name one thing, it was probably
riding in the back of Rescu's right, that's about it.
Spend a lot of time on the rear step. Used
to call it riding on the porch. It was just

(01:24:04):
it was just nice, you know, it was. It's a
real good memory to have.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
Absolutely, I'll say, yeah, the backstep now, I mean I
wish there was a way to make it safer. There's
not a way to make it safer now unfortunately. But yeah,
that guy's with a certain era. Your era included, of course, Well.

Speaker 2 (01:24:19):
Why did safety become the thing? Listen? I remember two
guys skiing off the back of the fire truck going
down Amsterdam Avenue. There you go on their personal harnesses.
There you go on their boots. I mean, safety is great,
we need it, but I don't know what the problem was.

(01:24:42):
Was riding on the back step?

Speaker 1 (01:24:44):
I still do it, right, Yeah, that's true. That my
listen producer Victor, that's what he does. That's what he
can attest to that. You couldn't You couldn't have used
some more apple pro analogy. That second question, the rapid
fire most rewarding aspect of working with the volunteers across
the every place you've been.

Speaker 2 (01:25:02):
So you know what's very interesting about it is every
department has that kid that could be a great fireman.
Is he giving the opportunity, you know when he goes
to a fire is he learning? Is he looking to learn?
Is he the first one to go to, you know,

(01:25:22):
out the door to rehab? And like I said, you
look at Christianita and I end up talking about that
place a lot because it's so interesting. But we've taken
over the past ten years this thirty firemen out there
in career jobs that came there that a lot of
them had no experience, but we made them firemen. And that,

(01:25:45):
to me is the great thing. You know, when you
go to when you go to working school in New
York City, they do everything they can in the six
weeks we had or the twenty weeks now to give
you as much as they possibly can to make you successful.
And that's what I think they don't have in the
smaller places, and that is rewarding. You know, when you

(01:26:07):
can go and have a kid that never forced the door,
go up and size up the door, and pop that
door all by himself because he wanted to learn. You know,
he's on his way to being good, you know, how
to operate the line, all those little things. But we
truly believe in those basics. You know, it's it's what's

(01:26:31):
going to keep the job alive. And if you're looking
for shortcuts, this isn't the right job for it. No,
So to mean that's that's the reward finding those those
uh you know, diamond in the rough. I guess there's
that kid. With a little bit of push, he can
be some fireman. And that's what I like about it.

Speaker 1 (01:26:53):
Nice. Nice. As far as the third question of rapid fire,
as far as suburban departments go, and you work in
a few of the years, what's one lesson do you
think every fireman should take as it pertains to those
departments manpower?

Speaker 2 (01:27:06):
That that's you know, having worked in New York City
and dealing with a lot of a lot of guys
that you know, I didn't know there's any other fire
department in the country. You know, there's departments that run
with two and the fire still goes out, maybe not efficiently,
but they go out. Hey listen, some run out of fuel,

(01:27:29):
right ye don't being realistic, but there's there's a ton
of places. That was three and four man engines and
three and four man truck companies that are doing tremendous work.
And and you have to understand that. You know, I
know a lot of New York City instructors, you hire
them to teach truck classes. They talk about a six

(01:27:50):
man truck. Not a lot of places have them. No, right,
so the jobs don't change. Now that truck officers creative.
He's got to do all those things, but with only
three or four people. And to me, that's the thing
that suburban has over the you know the urban, I
guess demand power is so different, and that's the thing

(01:28:15):
you need. You know, New York City is a vertical city,
so you need all that help. Stretching lines. Yes, my
son had to fire the other night. Three engines get
the first line in service, you know, stretch fourteen fifteen lanths,
I think it was. You know that that takes a lot.
You're not doing that with two guys. But they could
get that fire. So they might use a piece of rope.

(01:28:38):
You know, who knows what they'll do. But we have
to realize that not everyone has the staffing that we have,
and they're still trying to do the same job, and
they're doing it to some extent, but really it can't
be as good because of the amount of people that
we throw at it in New York.

Speaker 1 (01:28:57):
That's that's a good point. It depends on where you are, too, said,
we're running that's he described us. You know, we're running
the two four man engines. Well, again, were our district alone,
because we're three districts, two four man engines a three
man truck. The medic on the ambulance will jump over
to the truck on a box, so it becomes a
four person truck and he's there, right, Yeah, as long
as he's there and he's not out on the call, yeah,

(01:29:18):
it'll he'll jump over onto the truck on that box.
We got our captain in his own shift commander's vehicle
and off they go. So manpower is pretty good for us,
combining that with the automatic aid. But you know, it
reminds us we're fortunate to have that type of manpower
because not every department benefits from that. Is you highlight
it there? Fourth question the rapid fire I'm gonna change
upcause it kind hitting.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
I got a quer question for you. How does the
truck have four and one of the engines have three.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
We used to be that way, So this is this
is why the captain used to be on the truck
and it was a four person unit. They took the captain.
I'm not knocking. It's just what the department.

Speaker 2 (01:29:53):
One of what we just talked about, right, yep, yep.

Speaker 1 (01:29:56):
The department took the captain out the truck and put
him in his own shift commander vehicle. So the captain
now has his own vehicle. There's a lieutenant on the
truck and a lieutenant on the engine. So we got
two three lieutenants on the shift with the captain, and
now the engines run four and the truck runs three.

Speaker 2 (01:30:11):
Yeah. One of the engines you would have three and
the truck would run four. Yeah. I guess they don't
care about searching for people.

Speaker 1 (01:30:23):
Next question, shout out to all my friends in the
West Haven Fire Department. They do a great job with search.
So I'm gonna switch up the last two questions of
the of the rapid fire here because you kind of
hit on them earlier when we were talking about Christiana. Specifically,
favorite meal to have in the firehouse chicken palm. Can't
go wrong with that.

Speaker 2 (01:30:42):
I can never go wrong with that.

Speaker 1 (01:30:43):
I love need some chicken farm and real good cooks too. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely. And the fifth and final question of the
rapid fire, when you look back on your career, like
I said, you've pretty much experienced all versions of it,
the suburban aspect, the urban aspect, of volunteer aspect. Does
that meaning you, especially with how long it's been between
doing a job and being an instructor.

Speaker 2 (01:31:05):
I think it's fairly interesting in how different the American
Fire Service is. Everybody wants to be like New York,
but no one has the staffing like New York, right,
and you just can't do the same things. You don't
have the buildings. You're not going to be the same.
But can you be good at what your your environment

(01:31:29):
demands you to be? Right? I don't need you to
learn how to cut trenches on an H type building
if you don't have any H type buildings, you know,
and that little bit of knowledge sometimes leads people astray.
Like you teach a class and you bring up a
row of stores, they want to cut a trench on
it to isolate, you know, one store from the next.

(01:31:51):
They don't realize that the store is seventy five foot deep.
That's one hundred and fifty feet of cutting, plus all
the cross pieces. They'll be rebuilding this store before you
get the French cut, right. But it became became the
thing everybody wanted to do. So my take you, Like
I said, I've taught in quite a few states. I

(01:32:14):
think it's great that there's all these people that still
want to be fireman, that'll put the sacrifice in, well,
put the time in, that are trying to learn. They're
attending classes. The hardest thing is, you know, they say, well,
the day you stop learning is the day you should retire. Well,

(01:32:34):
you know what my problem is. I'm looking for people
to have information I can use and I'm not being
a wise ass, but I'm not changing the way. I'm sorry, curse,
I'm not second way. I've always forced the door. I
might try what you suggest, but my word, my way
works pretty good. I'm going to stick with my way

(01:32:56):
right now. It's all that stuff, But there's a tremendous
amount of people that want to be good, and that,
to me is the thing. I think the bigger problem
is is who you learn from. Now, Like I said,
you can go online and you can watch one hundred
videos on forcing the door, and some of them are

(01:33:18):
real good and some won't get you in the door
in a real world. And if you don't go to
fires where you have to force doors, how do you
make that distinction? Right? You're going to try what worked
on the door in the firehouse, and the door is
not opening, and now what right? Right? So it's great

(01:33:39):
that the amount of people that are truly into the
job training has become popular again, so popular that so
many people are doing it that there's some not good
information out there. So when I do classes, one of
the things I tell them is listen, I'm here to
make you think. You can disagree with me. That's fine
because most times you have to think to disagree with someone.

(01:34:01):
You can agree with me, that's fine, right, But think,
that's what this is all about. Find what works for you,
hone that into that's what you do automatically, and you know,
without thinking about it, getting dressed, getting dressed one hundred
percent the right way, you know, not racing so that
your hoods up over in the ear, getting your face

(01:34:22):
piece set, all that stuff, bleeding the line. It should
all be done without thinking. It should just happen. And
what are you doing while that's all happening. You're looking
at the fire building. Oh, three windows across the front,
small window down the side, probably the bathroom or the staircase.
You're looking at all these things that are going to

(01:34:42):
help you instead of looking like where's this strap going?
You know. So, maybe not quite the answer you're looking for,
but that is what I've seen all over the place.
There's so many people that want to be good, and
unfortunately they don't. I'll go to the fires enough, So
you have to prepare them enough so that the fires

(01:35:06):
they go to they can glean the most good information
from it.

Speaker 1 (01:35:10):
There you go. That was the answer I was looking for.
I appreciate the answer, and I appreciate you diving in depth.
And that concludes the rapid fire. Thank You's always producer
Victor for the background music. So before I say goodbye
to the audience and stick around, we'll talk off air
if you have any shout outs, Bob, but you want
to give to anybody by all means, fire away.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
Now you know what. I'm just cruising through life right now,
So I'm good.

Speaker 1 (01:35:32):
There you go, because you'd.

Speaker 2 (01:35:34):
Forget somebody and then somebody else will be mad.

Speaker 1 (01:35:35):
At you, right, Yeah, that's true. That's a good point.
So we'll just blanket it. Shout out to everyone, you know,
everyone out there, we appreciate you. And as far as
I go, my shoutout as always told you in the
audience that tuned in a night rather you were watching
or listening, maybe driving around. For those of you who
listen to this later, shout out to you in advance,
we appreciate you. So coming up next in the Mike
the New Aven Podcast, we I don't have the guests

(01:35:57):
currently for this Friday. We'll see what happens that so
we may have a show. We may not. Ray Flood,
I know was scheduled for it for our NYPDESU mini series,
but we had to reschedule that one. So I'll get
Ray on the show a little bit later on, hopefully
early next year. But I mentioned Billy Ryan earlier and
we ran his ad of course, and Billy's coming back
on the show. He's, of course, the co executive producer

(01:36:18):
and creator of our NYPD mini series Tails in the
boom Room, which focuses on retired members of both the
Arson Explosion Squad and NYPD Bomb Squad. So the reason
why He's coming back is Next Monday will mark thirty
years since the Freddy's Fashion Mark massacre of nineteen ninety
five in Harlem, and Billy was there for that as
one of the detectives that investigated it, so he was
there that day of course in the aftermath of it.

(01:36:38):
He's coming back on for a special edition of Tales
from the Boom Room to break down that incident in
what it means three decades since it happened, So look
forward to that one next Monday, six o'clock Eastern Standard time. Now,
for those of you listening on the audio side for
tonight's outro song from their two thousand and one album,
Morning View, Incabis once again playing us out in the
mic and Newaven podcast, this time with our are you

(01:37:00):
in in the Meantime on behalf of Bob Pressler and
producer Victor all of you in the audience. This has
been volume eighty of the best of the Bravest Interviews
with the Ft and Wise Elite. I am Mike Cologne
and we will see you next time. To everyone, Thank you,
thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:37:42):
M hm.

Speaker 2 (01:38:07):
That so much bad.

Speaker 3 (01:38:12):
Where Breathing war is is?

Speaker 2 (01:38:16):
No?

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
Are you.

Speaker 3 (01:38:18):
So much that where breathing ward is in? Are you Daddy, Mags?

(01:38:58):
And so much that where every wants is now you.

Speaker 1 (01:39:09):
So much pasy.

Speaker 3 (01:39:13):
What's epongr is invention.

Speaker 2 (01:40:00):
H M.

Speaker 1 (01:40:39):
If it's

Speaker 2 (01:41:11):
A

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Episode 388: The Best of The Bravest: Bob Pressler (Volume 80)

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