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Best Of B Shifter: Blue Card Explained · B Shifter

0:39
SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to the B Shifter Podcast.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: John Vance along with you right now.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: And this is a best of B Shifter.
0:47
SPEAKER_01: We don't do these too often, but in this case, we wanted to roll back a few years and go to Nick Bernicini and Josh Bloom talking about what Blue Card is, what Blue Card isn't, and the attributes of a training program to train incident commanders.
1:07
SPEAKER_01: We get so many misconceptions, so many people who falsely represent.
1:12
SPEAKER_01: A lot of them are internet trolls.
1:14
SPEAKER_01: Some of them, though, are National Fire Service leaders who have never been through this program.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm not sure if they've even read the Fire Command book, but they make claims about the system that they know nothing about because they've never trained in it.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: So I want to revisit that today.
1:31
SPEAKER_01: Roll you back a couple of years.
1:32
SPEAKER_01: This might be an excellent podcast to send to somebody who isn't quite sure what Blue Card is, so you can educate them a little bit more on it.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: It's just about a half-hour podcast.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: So let's dive into it right now.
1:44
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to this best of B Shifter.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: And we hear a lot of misconceptions out there on what the Blue Card program is.
1:54
SPEAKER_01: And people, I think a lot of times who haven't been exposed to it misrepresent it greatly.
2:01
SPEAKER_01: So let's start off with what is Blue Card based on and what drives the curriculum that we deliver to the students, and the students take back to their departments.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: Blue Card basically was developed out of the recovery process from the Southwest supermarket fire.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: So in that fire, Brett Tarver lost his life in a at that point was an offensive fire in a grocery store.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: So we come away from that.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: In fact, during my career with the Phoenix Fire Department, that was the only structural firefighting line of duty death during my career.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: So I mean that was we had a very robust system.
2:46
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you go back in time and look at, we were the fifth or sixth largest city in the country.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Well, if you look at the top ten cities, and during my career, all of those cities had multiple LODDs throughout.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: So we were a little odd in that regard that because of the fire command system we use, that seemed to offer a higher level of safety and survival for the firefighters operating within that system.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: So it came as a complete shock to us in March of 2001 when that wasn't the case, and Tarver ended up dying in that building.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: So over the next, I don't know, two, well, the next five years, we did a forensic review of not only that fire, but the basic task level actions that we take at the Cena Structure fires.
3:37
SPEAKER_02: And then we moved up from there with the the kind of the organization we use to manage that.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, my takeaway, and it was after, I don't know, two and a half years of looking at what happened there and what caused it, was there was no tactical level supervision.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: That's the reason that happened, is you did not have tactical bosses in place.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: And in fact, further validation to that point is after the initial May Day was declared, because they had got the IC had gone defensive, getting everybody out, they were reporting pars.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Tarver's company officer had reported a PAR probably three minutes before he announced this May Day.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: So that May Day triggered rescue operation where they actually went in and they got their hands on Tarver.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: They were bringing him out, and he was disoriented from all the smoke he had breathed, and he had basically assaulted the crew that was trying to save him.
4:32
SPEAKER_02: He ended up running back into the building, into the back of the building and dying there.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: So that rescue operation wasn't successful.
4:47
SPEAKER_02: And after about the first five minutes, other rescue, the firefighters that went in to rescue him started experiencing their own May Days.
4:56
SPEAKER_02: So there was a period of time for seven or eight minutes where you couldn't talk on the radio channel because of multiple requests to for emergency traffic from the crews operating inside.
5:07
SPEAKER_02: We lost, we couldn't count after 36 in about a five-minute period of, you know, it's it's not going well in here.
5:14
SPEAKER_02: Come and get us.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: So the whole system melted down.
5:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, you come back from that and think, okay, well, you know, there's this, there's this, there's this, and you look at all those things.
5:23
SPEAKER_02: Air supply.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: If he would have just had more air supply, he would have lived.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, okay, maybe, but maybe not.
5:32
SPEAKER_02: Maybe they all would have died.
5:34
SPEAKER_02: So and the thing that I think as a fire department that really shook us the most is this all occurred about an hour into the fire.
5:47
SPEAKER_02: This whole cluster where everybody's in trouble in the building.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: So and I was a BC at the time.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: Well, as a strategic and tactical boss, you're kind of looking at that thinking, man, most of these buildings fall down after 15, 20 minutes of having an attic fire of that size.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: And this one went an hour, and there were four or five crews in there.
6:09
SPEAKER_02: That's 16 to 20 Phoenix firefighters that are gonna wear that roof on top of.
6:16
SPEAKER_02: Man, that that that's now we're talking about Granite Mountain.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the safest fire department in the country killed everybody one day.
6:24
SPEAKER_02: So that was that kind of discombobulated us.
6:26
SPEAKER_02: So it made us a lot more serious in our efforts to figure this out.
6:31
SPEAKER_02: So that they got control of that incident scene after just the training academy staff basically was driving home from work, heard what was going on on the radio, went to Southwest supermarkets, and became the tactical bosses, plugging those entrances and exits.
6:50
SPEAKER_02: The front of the building and the back of the building.
6:54
SPEAKER_02: So that's where Blue Card came from.
6:57
SPEAKER_02: So we started looking in this in Phoenix, and at that time we had a very robust writ operation.
7:02
SPEAKER_02: It was all gonna be writ, as Rick's gonna save everybody.
7:05
SPEAKER_02: So if somebody gets in trouble, we got this whole like limph system layover of firefighters and supervision that are gonna save the day.
7:14
SPEAKER_02: Well, like I say, we had four or five RIC teams inside the building and they were just fodder two.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: They have the same biological limits as the person they're going to save.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: So what we ended up doing was revising the way we do our business.
7:30
SPEAKER_02: So it changed the way we manage things a little bit.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: What it was is you had uh tactical level bosses that we plugged in.
7:38
SPEAKER_02: So in the department I came from, we would use BCs to fill those roles.
7:43
SPEAKER_02: Well, in the old days, you were taken away from a company officer, so there was some offense, tactical offense that, hey, I'm a brosef and I can do this and that, that, that, that, that.
7:53
SPEAKER_02: No, you're you're a task-level supervisor, you're not a tactical level boss.
7:57
SPEAKER_02: There's a difference there.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: You can be a steely-eyed killer still, but you aren't managing the attack position.
8:04
SPEAKER_02: You're just not in place to do that.
8:06
SPEAKER_02: So that's where we really started to delineate the levels of supervision based on where the hazard was.
8:13
SPEAKER_02: So you got a cold zone, warm zone, hot zone.
8:16
SPEAKER_02: So, and then we we reinforced all that.
8:20
SPEAKER_02: We opened a command training center, we started simulating, and then we would take it out to the street to test the changes we were making to the way we organized ourselves.
8:30
SPEAKER_02: So, and and probably the biggest during my career, the biggest changes we made were on the tactical level between safety officers and tactical level bosses.
8:40
SPEAKER_02: So, our rule of thumb became anytime you put more than two companies in one attack position, they got to have a tactical boss somewhere.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: Task level company officers supervise task level operations.
8:52
SPEAKER_02: They don't supervise and manage tactical level operations.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you want them to, and that's not to say they can't, but they can't be a working company officer anymore.
9:01
SPEAKER_02: They have to take a step back, change hats, whatever that looks like, but they're no longer the boss of a crew.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: They're running an attack position.
9:09
SPEAKER_02: Just like an IC isn't gonna go run an attack position.
9:12
SPEAKER_02: They stay inside the vehicle, they stay clean, and that's really what the tactical level does is it protects the strategic level from the task level at that point.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: If you allow too many task level operators and something goes wrong, they will overrun the IC and eliminate any strategic presence you have.
9:33
SPEAKER_02: The only way you can maintain that strategically is with tactical level interruption and supervision.
9:39
SPEAKER_02: That is blue card essentially.
9:41
SPEAKER_02: And then the way we react to firefighter emergencies, like Josh said earlier, we first of all we eliminate them.
9:47
SPEAKER_02: We don't let them happen in the first place.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: We're doing everything right.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: And in the because they will happen.
9:52
SPEAKER_02: We're going into an imperfect world, man.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: It's an IDLH hazard zone, and shit happens in those.
9:57
SPEAKER_02: So you gotta be doing everything right because it'll reach out and grab you.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, now the IC has a task-level May Day, not a strategic one like we did at Southwest Supermarket, it's going to kill everybody.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: So we have enough time to manage that, especially when you put on top of it, and this has been an acceleration of what I was doing in Phoenix since I retired, because during my career with the Phoenix Fire Department, we were never quick hit exterior offensive water application.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: It was all inside.
10:27
SPEAKER_02: Well, today we know that the most effective way to hit the fire is before you go in and knock it down.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that just makes sense.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: The police do, it's like a flashbang, right?
10:38
SPEAKER_02: They did just, hey, we're here and we're gonna kill everybody.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: No, they don't do that because they get killed themselves.
10:43
SPEAKER_02: So what they do is they knock the wind out of it and then they go in and clean up.
10:47
SPEAKER_02: That's what we should be doing in offensive operations whenever we can.
10:51
SPEAKER_02: We put the fire out faster, we have better results, it's safer for everybody.
10:55
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so that's that speaks for itself.
10:59
SPEAKER_02: So, with those kind of changes, the way we captured that was within the blue card program.
11:05
SPEAKER_02: And see, and this was going on during a competitive time.
11:08
SPEAKER_02: Because, like I say, Tarver happened March 2001.
11:11
SPEAKER_02: Well, six months later, September happened of 2001.
11:16
SPEAKER_02: Well, that World Trade Center event brought us NIMS.
11:21
SPEAKER_02: Well, that was going to be the new solution for all IDLH hazard zones for the fire service, is where we've got NIMS now.
11:28
SPEAKER_02: And you thought, there no, there's no strategy in NIMS, there's no rapid anything in NIMS, there's no firefighter safety in NIMS.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: So there was a little bit of confusion about what do we use here and what do we use there.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: So, but we just kept going with Blue Card.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, today, Josh has mentioned NIOSH, CDC, and the people that investigate these things, kind of like the F the NTSB does for the FAA when there's transportation accidents.
11:56
SPEAKER_02: Well, NIOSH is starting to in these line of duty death reports, the solution you're starting to see inside these things is strayed from fire command and command safety now into blue card, because blue card is more the application piece of what fire command is.
12:14
SPEAKER_02: We've talked about it a little bit.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: The strategic decision-making model is how do I make decisions when I'm operating up against an IDLH hazard zone?
12:23
SPEAKER_02: And Josh has said it a hundred times.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: We need firefighters and ICs that can make decisions because everything's a little bit different.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: Well, we use the critical factors to define those differences, and then that causes some kind of matching action to apply.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that's just staying out of its way.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: You know, if this thing's railroad, if we go to Reading, California, the Amazon warehouse, and they're going in to check the status of the sprinkler system, and uh 200 feet have flashed over up into the ceiling, we're in a different phase of the problem.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: You're not gonna put that out, it's gonna burn to the ground.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: There's nothing you're gonna do.
13:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like trying to stop a hurricane, not gonna do it.
13:05
SPEAKER_02: So you get out of its way, let it do as it's gonna do, and then you feed everybody.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: That's where we learned how to do that.
13:11
SPEAKER_02: It's okay, we're gonna be here.
13:13
SPEAKER_02: Instead of taking attack lines and sneaking in the back, have some cold pizza.
13:18
SPEAKER_02: We'll sit around and we can tell lies to each other.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: So when we when we talk uh, Josh, about blue card, what what's the the big barrier that you see?
13:27
SPEAKER_00: Just some other pieces with with what is blue card because it comes up.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: Because we hear people say, Oh, well, we do fire command, we use the second edition of fire command, we do volume two, which is the greater Phoenix area manual on how they operate.
13:46
SPEAKER_00: Blue Card is the training system for the book second edition of Fire Command and Command Safety in ways.
13:57
SPEAKER_00: So we we have a firefighter 2 manual.
14:00
SPEAKER_00: Well, if we just gave that manual to a hundred recruits and said, read that and said, Okay, you're in in six months after you read that book, we're gonna put you on the fire truck.
14:09
SPEAKER_00: It would not work.
14:11
SPEAKER_00: No.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: And if we had a paramedics, just read the book, and and in two years we're gonna put you on the ambulance after you read the book.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: That that's that.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: Well, fire officers.
14:22
SPEAKER_00: Well, we we we have SOPs and it's the second edition of fire command, and that's what it is.
14:25
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well, have you trained anybody on it?
14:27
SPEAKER_00: Have you verified that that works?
14:29
SPEAKER_00: Does do they know what that means?
14:31
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is no.
14:32
SPEAKER_00: And and in many ways, what Nick was talking about, I mean, they've had the second edition of fire.
14:37
SPEAKER_00: Well, they had the first edition of fire command, they had the second edition of fire command, they had volume two, but like what does that training look like?
14:43
SPEAKER_00: What does that really mean?
14:44
SPEAKER_00: How do we do that?
14:45
SPEAKER_00: How do we tie it all together?
14:47
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
14:47
SPEAKER_00: So Blue Card is the training system on the second edition of Fire Command.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: The book is simply education.
14:56
SPEAKER_00: You can read it, it's a reference manual.
14:59
SPEAKER_00: I can it I can interpret it any way I want.
15:02
SPEAKER_00: In Blue Card, they get 40 hours of cognitive learning online.
15:06
SPEAKER_00: It gives them a basis.
15:07
SPEAKER_00: We they come into class, they get evaluated, they learn some manipulative skills, they run simulations, they get to exercise it, and when they leave, they've actually done something, and people are on the same page, and we can connect the dots and make it make sense at the strategic and tactical level.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: And then, as Nick said, organizations, after they certify people, they take that to the drill ground and you exercise it and you run full-scale exercises using the system that all references back to the second edition of Fire Command, which is simply the eight functions of command.
15:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's even more pronounced than that.
15:49
SPEAKER_02: The blue card is.
15:51
SPEAKER_02: Josh made mention of it.
15:52
SPEAKER_02: Is the second edition of Fire Command was produced in 2000.
15:56
SPEAKER_02: Command Safety came a couple years later.
16:00
SPEAKER_02: It's 2021.
16:02
SPEAKER_02: Blue card is the most up-to-date version of Fire the Fire Command program there is.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: In fact, there was a period of time where the hell with the book.
16:11
SPEAKER_02: We're done with the book.
16:12
SPEAKER_02: We got the program and we keep the program up to date, and that's the robust.
16:16
SPEAKER_02: Blue card is well, shit, it's 20 years ahead of fire command with with application to today's modern fire problem.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: So it it's in fact, but one of the things I want to do now that we have this building is finish the third edition of Fire Command, which matches with and supports the Blue Card program.
16:34
SPEAKER_02: So it'll bring the whole thing into the 20s, let's say.
16:40
SPEAKER_01: One of the other things we hear from people as a barrier for them to get into Blue Card is they think they have to have a certain level on deployment.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: They think they have to have five engines and two ladders on every alarm.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: How do we answer that?
16:54
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so it's it's command function one.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can deployment and resources has you can only do what you can do.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And we don't get to decide about that.
17:05
SPEAKER_00: The community gets to decide about that.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we can have some influence on that.
17:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, how many people do you have, how many trucks do you have, how long does it take to get there?
17:13
SPEAKER_00: What can you really do?
17:14
SPEAKER_00: How can you deploy all of that?
17:16
SPEAKER_00: But in the blue card system, we have the Houston fire department that's 4,000 or 4,500 people, and we have one station fire departments that have four people on duty and don't get mutual aid for seven minutes.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: And I even asked myself a few times, like, what is going on?
17:35
SPEAKER_00: Why are we going there?
17:36
SPEAKER_00: And the fire chief at a couple of those places told me, Well, you're here because of the strategic decision-making model.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I need my company officers to understand there's four of you.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: If the kitchen's on fire, you can probably handle it.
17:49
SPEAKER_00: If it's beyond the kitchen, it's over.
17:51
SPEAKER_00: Do not go in there, it's gonna burn down.
17:54
SPEAKER_00: And they wanted to have the tool to help people make decisions.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: So uh Nick, I'm not sure what when when it changed, but actually the second edition of Fire Command, it it is still in a different order.
18:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, the but in functions, yeah.
18:08
SPEAKER_00: But but in blue card now, number one, you know, deployment.
18:14
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like?
18:15
SPEAKER_00: So, how many resources do you have?
18:16
SPEAKER_00: How many can you get there?
18:18
SPEAKER_00: And and that changed really because it's it's all over the place.
18:21
SPEAKER_00: If it was just the Phoenix Fire Department, it's pretty standard.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: But when we get out and the rest of the U.S.
18:27
SPEAKER_00: fire service with with connecting to everybody, it's all over the place.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: You know, crossmanning or well, we have four people on the engine, but if the ambulance goes out, they only got two because two were on the ambulance.
18:40
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, all of that matters and it changes a lot.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe it's totally crossman that that or first emergency first, that there's only three people, and if it's an in the engine goes, the ambulance is out, and if the ambulance goes, the engine's out.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, people have to figure all of that out.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: And then the the are we in downtown and I'm gonna get five engines and two ladders in seven minutes, or am I on an island somewhere where I'm gonna get two companies and it's gonna be 15 minutes?
19:09
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's that deployment piece, which is the number one thing we should be looking at.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: Like, we can only do what we can do with what we got.
19:21
SPEAKER_02: All your capabilities hinge upon your staffing, your service delivery capabilities, a product of your staffing and your response time, period.
19:30
SPEAKER_02: Well, if if you respond to a fire in a large warehouse and you've only got six on-duty firefighters, it's very limited what you're gonna do there.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: I mean, just by nature having six people in such a basket full of problems you have to address.
19:47
SPEAKER_01: I think uh a misconception is we we say there's a blue card deployment for the purposes of the class, just to make the class run.
19:56
SPEAKER_01: But it's scalable to whatever your local deployment is.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to have what we teach in class.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: It's again back to that strategic decision-making model.
20:05
SPEAKER_01: You're making better decisions on the scene based on what you get on on the deployment package.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: And and that gets fixed.
20:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, when somebody shows up to an instructor class, we that gets fixed immediately.
20:18
SPEAKER_00: And they they're like, Oh, we that's not what we thought this was.
20:23
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, yeah, because you're look you're hearing from everybody else.
20:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, come find out for yourself what it really is.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And and come find out for yourself if you haven't already realized it that it is it is industry best practice, and that's where it is headed to, and that it's referenced back to well, NFPA 1561 references the eight functions of command evaluation of critical fire ground factors.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: Look at the most recent LODD report that was released that happened in a building fire where it has the blue card strategic decision-making model slide in it.
21:02
SPEAKER_00: And then there's 17 recommendations uh that specifically reference blue card or the second edition of fire command or command safety of what steps we should be taking.
21:16
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to get on a ramble on this and bring it all up again because I've already brought it up twice on the other ones, but we always want to jump to the task level shit that feels really nice, and it's like, look what we bought, and it's really nice.
21:28
SPEAKER_00: And that is not the that is not the problem.
21:33
SPEAKER_00: The hose was the problem, the air pack was the problem, the radio was the problem, the turnout gear was the problem, the whatever it was the problem.
21:42
SPEAKER_00: It that ain't the problem.
21:43
SPEAKER_00: It's decision making is the problem, which is this system.
21:47
SPEAKER_00: It's there's the strategic decision-making model, which is a huge component of this program.
21:52
SPEAKER_00: And with that, the strategic decision-making model includes evaluation of critical fire ground factors, always doing the eight functions of command.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: And one of the eight functions of command is how many people do you have, how many resources do you have?
22:05
SPEAKER_00: So it all ties together, it's a system.
22:08
SPEAKER_02: When I went to work for the Phoenix Fire Department in 1980, we were already using concepts of fire command.
22:15
SPEAKER_02: It was pretty much the the Ned and the First Reader edition was out for our fire department, and then it became a book in 85.
22:24
SPEAKER_02: So it becomes a book in 85, it gets revised in 2000.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: We had critical factors.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: My dad put critical factors in the first one.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: That's what it was built on.
22:35
SPEAKER_02: So, reality.
22:36
SPEAKER_02: This is the reality.
22:37
SPEAKER_02: You have to stop long enough to figure out what.
22:39
SPEAKER_02: What's going on so you can take the right action.
22:41
SPEAKER_02: And then further along, there was a risk management plan.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: And this is how much we can risk ourselves.
22:47
SPEAKER_02: So if there's something we're saving, you can take a risk.
22:50
SPEAKER_02: But if there's nothing we're saving, don't take a risk.
22:52
SPEAKER_02: So we had that.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: And then you had the tactical priorities, which was the job list.
22:58
SPEAKER_02: You know, we're going to go in and rescue and do fire control and property conservation and all those things.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: And then you had the overall incidence strategy.
23:05
SPEAKER_02: You know, so if it's offensive, that's going to be around a surge.
23:08
SPEAKER_02: If it's defensive, that's around fire control.
23:10
SPEAKER_02: Yada yada.
23:11
SPEAKER_02: Even in 1980.
23:14
SPEAKER_02: We didn't have a strategic decision-making model until the 2000s, late 90s, 2000, because the the dummies teaching tactics needed a decision-making model to figure out why we were doing certain things in certain places.
23:30
SPEAKER_02: That's where it was born.
23:32
SPEAKER_02: So we had it a long time before we figured out this is the way that you have to structure this so us B shifters will understand it all the way.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: So and what that did is that started giving you the tools you needed to eliminate doing stupid shit on the fire ground.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: So you would get to a fire in a warehouse, the Southwest supermarkets, when you're blacked out completely on the inside saying, How are we going to get an all clear on this, baby?
24:04
SPEAKER_02: You're not.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: We're not going to do search and rescue in there because it's impossible.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't work.
24:09
SPEAKER_02: So when you sit in a classroom and well, we have to because we're the last best chance, bro.
24:16
SPEAKER_01: So do that, you know, the other thing that we hear, and we we had a chief who signed us folks up because he he thought we were telling people how to ventilate and what they can do with their ventilation tactics.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: Do we do we really care about that?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I mean we're we're not going down that path with people because this is this is a model that's really strategic and tactical.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And there's other people in our industry, UL, NIST, that that are doing those things and releasing that data to our industry.
24:44
SPEAKER_00: And we tell people just go look at that.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Make your own decisions, right?
24:48
SPEAKER_00: There's a time and a place to do things.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: You have to decide what you're gonna do, how you're gonna do it, how many resources you have, what does that really mean?
24:56
SPEAKER_00: Do you pull an inch and three-quarter line?
24:57
SPEAKER_00: Do you pull a two and a half inch line?
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Are we doing positive pressure attack?
25:00
SPEAKER_00: Do we set up a fan?
25:01
SPEAKER_00: You know, what do we do?
25:02
SPEAKER_00: So when we get that question about this whole ventilation piece, this is nothing new.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: One, it has to be coordinated, which we we generally don't do very well with, but this system helps with that.
25:16
SPEAKER_00: And two coordinated, and and pretty much so well, not everybody's saying it, right?
25:23
SPEAKER_00: Ventilation does not equal cooling.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's a you you can go to UL NIST, that's not us.
25:29
SPEAKER_00: Go to UL NIST, look at that, and you know, make then make your own decisions for for that.
25:36
SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you use foam lines?
25:38
SPEAKER_00: Do you not use foam lines?
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Do you use smooth board nozzles or combination nozzles?
25:41
SPEAKER_00: I mean everybody's gonna make their own decisions about that.
25:45
SPEAKER_00: That that is not that is not our system, and we're not really we don't really go there with that.
25:49
SPEAKER_00: We just reference them back to another industry best practice that's being funded very well by the federal government and grants and has experts and people from fire service from from from Boston to LA on those groups that are coming out with some reports.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: You know, we we tell people go read that part of that, make your own decisions about what you're gonna do with those things.
26:13
SPEAKER_00: We we we have a system that helps people to make some decisions, but but when we get to some of that task-level work, we have to reference them back to the people who are studying that and releasing the reports and where's that data.
26:30
SPEAKER_00: We're not digging into, we're not getting into the weeds, if you will, on that.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: And and I mean, we did take a big rap on that that no vertical ventilation and you can't do this and you shouldn't do that.
26:41
SPEAKER_00: And you know, I've heard that blue cards against smooth board nozzles because they said something about they said something about in a class that I went to that you should use the combination nozzle because you can do hydraulic ventilation, and it's like we don't we don't get into the weeds on all that.
26:57
SPEAKER_00: We we put out some fax stuff, you know.
26:59
SPEAKER_00: We we we have information from UL and NIST that we share.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not ours.
27:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it it's it's really government property, I guess, or UL NIST's property, which is really everybody's property because it's being paid for with by the federal government.
27:15
SPEAKER_00: And we say this is this is what's out there, and then if you want to know more, go look at it.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Go to go to all the websites.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: They just updated all their website stuff, and it's it's that even that much better.
27:26
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to know about any of those things, go there.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: But I mean, we don't get into the weeds on that.
27:31
SPEAKER_02: A blue card IAP is built on best practices, period.
27:37
SPEAKER_02: So, and this is no different, so there's not a whole lot of vertical ventilation clips in the program for that reason.
27:44
SPEAKER_02: We started off that way, but it kind of turned.
27:47
SPEAKER_02: See, and that's no different than like if you're responding code three, you should not go through red lights at a high rate of speed.
27:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just that's just the best practice.
27:57
SPEAKER_02: So, again, we don't talk a lot about that in a blue card trainer.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, as you're responding, how are you doing it?
28:02
SPEAKER_02: Is everybody seat belted?
28:04
SPEAKER_02: So those are task-level things that I mean, that's firefighter one and two stuff and company officer and the rest.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Best practice.
28:12
SPEAKER_01: And we keep saying we want thinking firefighters.
28:15
SPEAKER_01: We're giving you tools to organize your knowledge so you can apply that knowledge on the fire ground to make tactical decisions.
28:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
28:24
SPEAKER_02: The key to a blue card fire attack is uh based on water application.
28:29
SPEAKER_02: That's all the through history, all of our apparatus is designed to move water for a reason.
28:37
SPEAKER_01: And that water application supports human life and any possible rescue.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: That's that's something we do assert, right?
28:45
SPEAKER_00: You can find it in all kinds of tactical books written by chiefs all across the country that when you put water on the fire, everything gets better.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: You can find the statement written by people that says if we just put water on the fire, we might not have to jump out of the windows.
29:05
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: So it I mean that that's what it comes down to.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're not we're in no way saying that we don't search.
29:11
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we we support we support that 100%.
29:14
SPEAKER_00: Places that have beds in it, we 100% support that.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: We gotta put the fire out.
29:18
SPEAKER_00: And when we put the fire out, it makes everything else better.
29:21
SPEAKER_00: And we do searches, right?
29:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that that is that is what we do, and it's based off of the of risk management.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: And we're we're gonna continue to commit to doing searches.
29:32
SPEAKER_02: Those searches are so important that we're not gonna f by letting companies go in and breach closed doors and allow the products of combustion in survivable areas, because that is counter to life safety.
29:49
SPEAKER_02: So that is what we're talking about in these things.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: And before we wrap up this episode, let's check in with a timeless tactical truth.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: All right, new segment here on the podcast.
30:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna shuffle the deck.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: You guys don't know what's coming up here, and I'm just gonna get your thoughts on it before we go.
30:13
SPEAKER_01: This is a deck of timeless tactical truths written by Alan Burtissini, kind of what uh everything is based on.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: And you can pick up these cards.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I think we have some of these cards available probably at the store.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: So here we're gonna shuffle, and I'm gonna randomly pick out a card, and I just want your thoughts on it before we go.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: What I got here was the ace, or no, the uh eight of clubs.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Confirm command assumption as soon as you arrive, and then act and sound like command on the radio.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about that for a second because we can hear radio traffic all the time of scenes completely out of control where someone isn't acting like command, right?
30:55
SPEAKER_01: What's your thoughts on that?
30:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes, I mean I think one, I think people are thrown into positions that they maybe shouldn't be in or aren't trained or educated to be in.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: So that's a piece of it that we gotta we gotta fill the seat today, so let's throw somebody in there.
31:06
SPEAKER_00: So when we look at big systems, ICs, battalions, whoever it is, whatever you call them, arriving that's gonna be in that position, should be trained and educated to do that job, not just you were voted in and now you're a chief, and when you pull up, you got the white shirt and you're in the car today and you're in charge.
31:27
SPEAKER_00: But the this is the first time you've ever run a fire.
31:29
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time you've ever been in the position to make any decisions.
31:32
SPEAKER_00: Shouldn't be the first time.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: The real one shouldn't be the first time.
31:35
SPEAKER_00: We don't do that with paramedics, we don't do that with any that we don't do that with the airline industry.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: First time you're gonna fly to California, you're not it's not the first time that you flew the pilot flew an airplane, right?
31:45
SPEAKER_02: It's like yeah, it wasn't oh the pilot fell out, so get the baggage handler.
31:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: Get him up here.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: We gotta get this baby.
31:50
SPEAKER_02: We gotta get this baby up in the air.
31:52
SPEAKER_00: So I'm uh so I think that's a piece of it, but we have to keep we we have to keep practicing and exercising and get people comfortable in that position.
32:04
SPEAKER_00: And and I think far too often they're not, they they've had no training.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Fireman today, company officer tomorrow.
32:10
SPEAKER_00: Two years later, company officer goes to captain of the station.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: Three years later, they took a test, now they're battalion chief, never rode in a spot, and it's you today.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: Make it happen.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, what what that what's that all about?
32:22
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's broken.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: And that's that comes back one thing.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: That comes back to the blue card thing on certification.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: That blue card is a certification piece for incident commanders.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: Well, if you're a fireman, you gotta be certified, hazmat tech got to be certified, paramedic guy got to be certified, rescue tech's gotta jump through gazillion hoops.
32:38
SPEAKER_00: So, I mean, I think that that that's the piece of that is they don't sound like that because they don't even know what to do because they've maybe never been told what to do.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: And then in some cases, some people just shouldn't be in the position, and we all know it.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: Like, we all know them, and it's like, oh god, this guy he's he's here, we don't want him on the radio.
32:57
SPEAKER_00: How do we because we just know.
32:58
SPEAKER_00: I mean, so putting the right people in the right seats that are trained, educated, and then and then validating that.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think that helps with that.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: I've had captains that when the tones drop, they run to the bathroom and have explosive diarrhoea.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
33:14
SPEAKER_01: I that that is no like every single time.
33:18
SPEAKER_00: John, we see it in the CTC lab, and they're like, uh, do I have to be battalion one?
33:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, yeah, it's a simulation.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: We're teaching you what to do here.
33:28
SPEAKER_00: And they come out and they're like, Holy shit, I was nervous as hell.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's like we're I guess that's good, but we're teaching you what to do here.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't be nervous.
33:37
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do this until you get it right and you feel comfortable with it.
33:40
SPEAKER_00: So it's like, what's gonna happen when this guy's sitting in that car making a decision?
33:44
SPEAKER_00: It's like, holy shit, this is you know it's crazy.
33:48
SPEAKER_02: When we first started Simon, you had like seasoned ICs, company officers doing very well with the scene of working everything.
33:55
SPEAKER_02: And you put them in a simulator, and they you could see them, they start to get tight and they start genuflecting, and they just twitching.
34:07
SPEAKER_02: And you ask them later on, why do you do what's going on?
34:10
SPEAKER_02: They said, Oh, those son of a bitches are judging me.
34:15
SPEAKER_02: And that's what it is.
34:16
SPEAKER_02: You have to perform in front of your people.
34:17
SPEAKER_02: It this it's almost like a game you're playing.
34:20
SPEAKER_02: So it puts an undue amount of pressure on them, and it's different than like the incident scene.
34:26
SPEAKER_02: They said, That's simple, that's somebody else's problem.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: We get there, we do the best we can.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: This thing, you gotta be perfect almost.
34:34
SPEAKER_02: Well, and we were implemented in a kind of a refined system where most you had to have a certain amount of training to get to certain spots, but still, you had the same thing.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: Some people were better than others, and that's just part of life.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: I mean, you look at paramedics that go through a paramedic program, they all graduated at the end.
34:51
SPEAKER_02: But if we're sitting at a table and you give me a list of names, no, this one, this one, not this one or that one.
34:58
SPEAKER_01: And that wraps up this B Shifter.
35:02
SPEAKER_01: We really appreciate you listening.
35:05
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35:08
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35:12
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35:15
SPEAKER_01: If you have any comments for us, my contact information is in the show notes.
35:20
SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you so much for listening, and please be safe.