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Mixed Use Building Fires & When is it a Division? · B Shifter

• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Well, hello and welcome to B Shifter.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today it's Nick Brunassini, josh Bloom and John Vance hanging out and we're still taking questions.
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We have a plethora of questions that have come in from Blue Card and Blue Card users and some B Shifter fans that have just you know, they've seen us on and they want to ask some questions.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: So we're going to do that.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: We're out here for the Big Box workshop We're looking forward to that a little later on this week and the podcast.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: After this one you'll hear Shane Ray, who will be sharing some information with us about Big Box Fires and whatever else is happening.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: So we're looking forward to him being here and talking a little bit to us next time.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: But this time around, let's talk about some of the questions that we've gotten.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: First of all, i have one that is dear chiefs, we have a proliferation of four and five story buildings over commercial occupancies.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: What would you say is our main tactical considerations for fires in these sort of buildings?
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Now, these have fire protection systems, but they still are getting minor fires and, in particular, this rider has an issue because there are several currently under construction in their first two area.
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: So what experience have you had with those?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: It's interesting in the fire service It keeps coming up that this is a new problem and really it's not.
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: I think like 20, some years ago is when they really started throwing these things up all over the place, when we started seeing a bunch of them being built around the Cincinnati area anyway, and then I know that Pacific Northwest got a ton of them getting built.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: Now everywhere we go they're popping up.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: So one thing with the critical factors is you got to get out and visit those buildings because really starting with arrangement starts to become a problem for them because they're building them on top of each other or you have limited access in and around those buildings due to parking garages or initial arrangement and then like arrangement as far as gaining access actually inside the building.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: And then Johnny said something about they're protected and those commercial spaces on the first and second floor or above maybe sometimes are fully sprinkled and protected by a regular 13 system.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: But all that residential space typically is protected by a 13R system, which you know.
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: that difference is the 13 system is designed to protect the property, the 13R system is just designed to give enough time for occupants to get out.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And then that understanding with the critical factors on that.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: 13R is it's only in the living space.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: It's not ever in any void spaces, in an attic or any void throughout the building.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: So anytime a fire, if it grows beyond you know that room and contents space, you know the sprinkler system you know could easily be overwhelmed in that case.
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: Now, i mean, the sprinkler system is fantastic and it's there for the life piece as far as getting people out.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: but we have to have that understanding that when it gets beyond the room and in the void spaces then it's not protected.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: So I think that's just a whole other factor for us to think about and consider.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Well, that's a big deal too, because the tactic at that offensive fire and one of those is pretty much protected in place.
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: You're not going to dump the whole building But, like you said, if it's in the living spaces and it gets into the structure, the sprinkler system in most cases isn't up there, so it's going to take off in the structural components and you know you're not going to be able to protect in place, especially if it's spread across floors and through the attic.
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: I mean, you're going to have to dump everyone out of that building because the building's probably most likely going to burn down at that point.
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: and that's kind of what happens to them.
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: There's a significant amount of damage before they get fire control.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: I think one thing that we're seeing as far as these buildings, when they're occupied, is not just these buildings I guess it's every building, nick, that we look at in history.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: When fire starts on the outside of the building, it's not generally a good outcome.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: So a lot of these fires that have started on the outside of the building, you know, grow very quickly because it runs right up the outside, gets into that attic space or into a void space and then we never get ahead of it.
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: Don't quote me on it, but it was right outside of Detroit, john, maybe you might remember this.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It was like a senior living facility and the fire started, i think, on a grill, maybe outside.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, west Bloomfield, yeah, west Bloomfield, and that first due company, i think you know that company officer made some great decisions and said we're going to burn this thing to the ground, but they just went into straight rescue mode because there was too much fire for them to do anything with the amount of water available right now.
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: But you know they went into.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: We just have to try to get as many people out of this as we can right now, and I think that lines up with something you said there, nick, is when you get there and the critical factors are I got, i got a couple rooms look like they're burning and that's much different than when I pull up and the structures already involved.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: So making that early decision of are we going to have to evacuate this which becomes a whole another.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: You know challenge and problem for us, around us, they're putting in a lot of these 55 and over buildings and you know when they put them in 10 years ago.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Now that people live in there are 70 and 75 and almost becoming almost like an assisted living.
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: So that's just a whole another challenge that we have to face.
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: So I think there's a list of critical factors we have to evaluate, but it all ties into the system when we get there, what is really going on, and then that helps us develop the incident action plan of what we can really do.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: When one of the challenges with them is we live in one of those places in South Bend when we were doing stuff with clay all the time and we're staying there enough that we thought, well, it's going to be cheaper just to rent an apartment.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: So that's where we rented it and it was a six story building across the street from Notre Dame and they basically the university built it.
• 6:51
  Speaker 3: Just gorgeous building, huge, hundreds of millions of dollars to build this thing, and I remember it was so big that I think it was like 1500 steps from our door to our car in the garage and it was all connected under the same roof.
• 7:06
  Speaker 3: So you had this massive concrete parking structure that became the anchor for two city long apartment buildings, with commercial on the first two floors of it.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: So there's just if you got a working situation at that thing well, the one that we lived in in South Bend there I don't.
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: I don't know how long it would take all the fire departments to clear that building.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: I mean it was literally.
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: There were hundreds, maybe thousands of apartments in it.
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: It was just massive.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: So it would I don't know, it would take hours to like actually verify that every room was clear.
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: So I think that's why you do start using alarms and other things like that in the PA systems and those.
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: That's why they're built to that code and, like you said, the life safety piece of it is a lot of that.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: We depend on self evacuation because I mean, especially if you're trying to fight the fire and some of those operations, you can do one or the other based on the number of resources you have.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: So I mean it becomes a very challenging thing, especially senior at problems and those kind of structures.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: You're going to need your neighbors to help.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Because of it being sprinkled.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: There's some local discretion.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: That happens with those buildings too where they put the parking areas.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: And I know with my area we're putting parking areas below grade, either under the building or partially under the building and then also under the parking lot.
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: And what we ran into there is they restrict the weight that can be in the parking lot so it's restrictive.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: You cannot get a ladder truck in there, and they were the building folks And it really wasn't the building official.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It was more community development.
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: What do you have to worry about?
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: It's sprinkled, it's like no, we still have.
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: There's been sprinkler buildings that we've gotten our ladders up to and gotten people out of, because they were sheltered in place And for one reason or another we had to get them out of there.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So that's another thing to think of is the restricted access that you might have for ladder trucks and even pumpers if you have underground parking adjacent to that building.
• 9:11
  Speaker 3: We had the same issues with buildings they built here, especially in tight access places where there was a freeway on one side And there were some of those properties.
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: We couldn't get a ladder truck on the property period.
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: There just wasn't enough clearance to bring the truck in And the fire code traded off the sprinkler system in the thing.
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: You thought, well, if you need a ladder here, you're not going to be able to use it anyway.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: So it's, thank God it's sprinkled.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: So what are we seeing as far as risk goes with the occupancies that are on the first floor?
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Because we're seeing, you know, restaurants, mercantile banks, i mean, what kind of risk do those pose?
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: And I think, on the other hand, you have to educate your companies that there are two different systems once you make the transition from commercial to the residential area.
• 10:01
  Speaker 2: That occupancy space is being built because that's what our society is looking for And that's what they want.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: Like, flying in to here this morning, it looked like there was about 20 buildings over there, close to the airport, that are under construction on a big vacant lot And it looked like the entire first floor was commercial.
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Well, they go to work, they ride some kind of transit, you know whatever, and then when they get back they really don't want to leave.
• 10:22
  Speaker 2: So it could be everything from a restaurant to a bar, to a coffee shop, to you know you know trinket place, to you know whatever, to whatever, whatever those occupants are looking for.
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: So when those restaurants are in there, just like every restaurant, that risk starts to become that vertical shaft that runs through those buildings that, yeah, by code is supposed to be protected whatever.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Two hour, you know rating, i think, for the, for the, for the shaft that runs vertical through the roof and it runs through that occupancy space.
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: But there's still a risk there that we have to understand what's really going on with that And, like we know what all these places is, you know they're throwing them up so fast.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: Is it totally sealed, like it's supposed to be?
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: And then, in time has somebody you know reached that to do some kind of other work.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: So you know there's there's some risk involved there.
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: Talking about the two different systems thing, you know having that understanding of the system could have two different entire department connections one supply in the 13 system, one supply in the 13 R system.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: You could have like two different risers in two different places.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: So you know that comes back to that pre planting piece which I think is so important for all of those places, for for the access, can I get an aerial device into there?
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: can I not get an aerial device into there, the pre planned part.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: As far as the access is, how do I actually get into this thing?
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: because a lot of those places, when it's when it's all commercial on the first floor, you know the entry points are limited from the parking that, like Nick was talking about, there's direct access into, like a parking garage.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Well, we're not stretching through a parking garage to get to a stairwell.
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: So where's the stairwells in these buildings to actually gain access?
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: And you know, when we look at all the code, you know it's only a few hundred feet that are allowed to have to travel for egress, you know, to get out of the space or to get beyond you know a door or whatever.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: We need to understand that so that we're not having to make you know super long hose stretches to get into the, into that space.
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: It was about 100 years ago And I was in the Northwestern United States in a very rural part of the country, they had one of these facilities like this.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: It just happened to be a hotel, but so the first floor was all hotel stuff And then you had a big concrete parking garage adjacent to it that connected that with the hotel part and everything else.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: So I'm there doing instant command, whatever class, with everybody, and there was at one point during the time there we did a walk through the building and said, ok, you know, this building catches on fire.
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: What you know, what should we do, kind of a thing.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: And so you get to talking to them and you're like OK, let's say it's the most common problem you're going to have is typically a car in the garage or somebody sets their road, it sets their room on fire.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: So they're both sprinkler.
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: Let's go over what you do and how you get here in your arrival order and all that.
• 13:17
  Speaker 3: Well, during the first 15 minutes they were going to have no more than six people, six firefighters, on site And they said you know, so where do we make the hook up in the stairwell to get?
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: no, you don't do anything.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: In fact, you know, i would like figure out where your sprinkler connections are and make sure that you got water to them.
• 13:38
  Speaker 3: That's probably the best you're going to do.
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: But as far as any kind of activity where you have to penetrate into that building more than 10 or 15 feet, now you're not.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: You may help evacuate in areas, but you're not going to.
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: Well, no, we have to.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: You know, and it's in the very beginning and we have the best shot.
• 13:56
  Speaker 3: No, you don't have enough people to do that.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: That's uh-uh.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: They usually don't do surgery until the anesthesiologist knocks the patient out.
• 14:04
  Speaker 3: So, let's, you don't have an anesthesiologist.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: You're not going to do any surgery.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: You can't.
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: You're going to need a minimum of 24 people in the first 10 minutes.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Oh, that's going to take us two hours, you see?
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: well, no, i wouldn't.
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: I just tell them good luck.
• 14:22
  Speaker 3: I do my pre-planning and figure out where my connections are, and that's what you're going to do.
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: But and I think that's a problem It's these.
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: You said it these buildings are going up all over America.
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: They build them wherever they'll let them build them, and most places don't look at the deployment capability of the fire department when it catches on fire.
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: They're building them in places now, like shit in downtown Los Angeles.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: If they, if they catch on fire you said under construction to start this If it's under construction and you have fire showing it's going to the ground, probably more than likely, it would be a miracle to put it out.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Put a little wind behind it and you're lucky you don't lose the whole block.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: I mean it's vertical stack fuel that's got glue in it.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: It's explosive.
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: We would have these apartment complexes that would stick cities.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: We called them.
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: They catch on fire and that's just.
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: It's just what happened.
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: It burns very hot and very fast.
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: It's over quickly.
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: It is the best part of it.
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: They don't last long.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the famous Houston rescue.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: there was one under construction and they swung the ladder around.
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: They had enough time to get the construction worker off the fifth or sixth floor and then, yeah, the building was done The minute that boom moved away.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Exactly The second one was down and they used that ladder like a cherry picker.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: They just put, the guy, got in and you'd show off.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: He goes The cruise on.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: Good morning America.
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: The next day.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, the other thing I've seen lately is some departments that are pre pre deploying equipment to these under construction places.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: So we're going to put a cache of equipment on the seventh floor and these are a little higher, but man.
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: I think that's dangerous.
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: I make sure it's insured, the equipment, because if it's under construction it goes off and you're going to lose it all.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: They just burn up man.
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: Going back to talking about pumping those systems and understanding the systems that you have to.
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: I mean a lot of these are combination systems where the fire department connection is going to not only supply the sprinkler but also the stamp pipe.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Understanding how that works and understanding the pump pressures are going to need That's the reason for getting your crews into these places while they're under construction.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Out at Fort Collins, puder Colorado really probably has the gold standard and fire department connections because for those types of buildings they have a giant placard and on the placard it says what you're going to pump it at and what area of the building that fire department connection is supplying the water to.
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: So if you're a mutual aid company or you're somebody not familiar with that first two area, you're going to know just from reading the placard.
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: Well, all these fire control systems are getting more complicated and they're not getting easier.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: So it's bigger, tilt slab, big box style buildings.
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: Is you got to, one of the first people you have to corral is the engineer, the building engineer.
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: Once you get them, you got to handcuff them to you.
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: You can't let them leave because they're the ones that know where all the stuff is and can tell you.
• 17:20
  Speaker 3: We need to be very aggressive with hooking up with responsible parties of especially bigger sites that do a lot of processes that we're not fully aware of.
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: The thing that comes to mind is the Winston Salem fertilizer thing.
• 17:36
  Speaker 3: Well, they listen to the RPs and they had a much better outcome than had they not.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: So it's those kind of things is.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: Spending a few minutes in the front end gathering intelligence and people that can give it to you is a valuable use of your time, especially in the front end of that thing.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Second question, hey chiefs, i know you've addressed this in the past, but I want to get more clarity on what is a division and when it should be utilized, and even said on the fire ground.
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And that comes from ZAM, so let's answer that question for ZAM When do we use divisions and when is it not a division?
• 18:18
  Speaker 3: A division a tactical sub unit.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: So in the old days we call them sectors, divisions and groups.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: And that is what the IC uses.
• 18:28
  Speaker 3: The strategic level of the organization uses the tactical level to maintain their span and control over the incident operation.
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: So a division is a geographical subset, tactical unit.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: So as we go around the building we identify the front of it is alpha.
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: And then we go around Bravo, charlie and Delta are the sides.
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: Well, there's a corresponding.
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: We use the sides in the organization almost the same.
• 18:59
  Speaker 3: So like we'll say, okay, it's the alpha side.
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: Well, some people say the alpha side, others say we'll see alpha division.
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Well, a side isn't a division, it's just the side of the building, it's a geographic place.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: A division is a management sub unit for the tactical level of the organization.
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: Company officers, that's the officer assigned to manage a fire company, is not a tactical level officer, they're a task level officer, so they're a working supervisor And the former additions well, in fact the second edition is the most current one a fire command.
• 19:39
  Speaker 3: It talks about establishing divisions early.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: Our experience out of the recovery process of Southwest supermarkets is a site of a building and an organizational sub unit, or two entirely different things.
• 19:53
  Speaker 3: The first in company can manage the problem on a side of the building.
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: Let's say, well, that's what they're doing, they're managing themselves in a geographic place.
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: We make the mistake of calling them the first division boss.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: They're not.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: They are a company officer managed in their company.
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: It has more to do with their responsibilities.
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: That's what their responsibility is is to manage, their crew do and task level work.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: Tactical officers operate in the warm zone.
• 20:27
  Speaker 3: So I guess, to answer your question, bluecard uses tactical level bosses to manage any attack position that has three or more companies assigned to it.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: So that's when I would assign a tactical level boss.
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: Tactical level bosses typically are the same officers that manage the strategic level of the organization.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: So I worked in an urban fire department that had 50 engines, 1,800 people.
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: So we use BCs as division bosses because they operate in the warm zone.
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: When you operate in the warm zone you're not tethered to air so you don't have to rotate people through with that 15 minute work cycle thing.
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: So you have a static boss responsible for all the companies.
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: Working in that division is an IC working in a strategic level command post.
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: When I make the alpha division and I assign that to battalion two and the four companies that are working in alpha.
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: Battalion two now is responsible for those units.
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: I'm not now.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: I track them.
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: I know where they are on my worksheet and they belong to the alpha division boss, who is BC2.
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: So that's who supervises them then.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: See, now I'll go back the reason we changed this Southwest supermarkets.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: We've gone defensive.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: We got pars on everybody.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: We're going to burn the grocery store down.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: we figure out we get a Mayday from the inside, from Tarver hey, i'm lost, come get me.
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: We had company officers managing the divisions.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: That mayday wasn't solved quickly.
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: So after the first three or four minutes it wasn't solved and you started picking up more maydays from that operation, from the crews trying to save him on the inside.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: Well, that becomes a self-feeding cannibalistic operation then.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: So what happened is the IC lost tactical level control over every company that was operating in the hazard zone because there were no warm zone bosses.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Well, now a captain can manage the alpha division sure they can, up until they find something else they'd rather do.
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: They're overwhelmed psychologically so they flood back into the building in an attempt to solve the problem physically, which is what a task level boss does.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: They don't stay at the point of entry and manage that.
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: So what you lose is all accountability into the hazard zone.
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: That's what you are flirting with when you decide my company officers can do this because they're just because they know me, i got whatever reason.
• 23:04
  Speaker 3: It's just incorrect.
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: So and what happens we talked about this earlier is it's just accidental success over and over again, because one line puts the fire out, so it reinforces.
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: Well, captain on engine, whatever, did a great job being the division boss.
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: Well, no, they didn't.
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: What they did is they were a great task level boss and they went in and put the fire out.
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: So that's what happened.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: So and I've said this any number of times it's no different than if the secretaries show up and they become the division bosses.
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: That works great up until a time you really needed division boss.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: And about the time that you get May days and things like that high level tactical action going on in that division, that's where you need a boss to manage it.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: The other thing that I hear kind of misused out there is using the division as the side or using the division as the floor without first putting supervision on it.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: So like the order is engine three go to division three.
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Well, if you don't have a division supervisor for floor three, you should just call it floor three, correct?
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: Yeah, i mean that's something that they picked up who knows where.
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: But even the NEMS documents and definitions say that a division is the person that's responsible for the geographic area, even the crews that are working there.
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: it does not say anything about that.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: that is, that the third floor is division three.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: It's the person that would be working there responsible for that geographic area.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: So that's just one of those things I think that got floated out there, maybe that somebody's teaching somewhere and they heard it, and then that becomes the way, so that it's not correct and it does create confusion, because certain companies get assigned to go to, like you said, division three and then they're up there looking for, well, who's the boss?
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: they should be right here in the stairwell, somewhere where I'm going, or I'm going to assign you to division Charlie, and then they get to the Charlie side of the building and they're looking for somebody and it's like, well, there's nobody there that you're working for.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: They were mixing terms and complicating things and calling something that it shouldn't have been called.
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: The easiest way for me to make sense of it is I look at like there's phases, tense and operations, and from the very beginning somebody calls 911, it's noon and there's a six-story giant apartment building and there's a kitchen fire in the restaurant downstairs.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: So from 12 o'clock to 12.06, let's say, three or four task level units show up two, three engines and a ladder truck.
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: Well, they're going to be managed by the first officer that arrived to the scene.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: We're going to be IC number one, so that person takes command and what they're going to do is they're going to put together an incident action plan that puts the fire out and say, okay, i got to go to the seat of this.
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: The fire is what's causing all the damage to the people and the property.
• 26:05
  Speaker 3: So we're going to focus on that.
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: So, truly, the first management unit we establish every incident is the IC, is the strategic level presence, so we can build one incident action plan that solves that problem.
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: and everybody has to work together.
• 26:22
  Speaker 3: See, that's what the fire department does is it's all company operations.
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: So that first in officer knows okay, i'm going to need a water supply hook up here, i'm going to go in here and then the next company should support me this way.
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: So we kind of do this deal where we're doing a Marco Polo trying to get around the fire, get enough stuff on it to make it go away.
• 26:40
  Speaker 3: The only organizational unit for that is command strategically, and then we use their task level identifiers, so their company ID.
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: engine one is command copy, engine one, command command to engine two.
• 26:56
  Speaker 3: I want you to do X, y and Z.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: command to ladder.
• 26:58
  Speaker 3: I want you to do X, y and Z.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: Now they're going to put them on the floor or somewhere else, but they're not in a division.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: They're not.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: there's no divisions, there's no one to run them.
• 27:07
  Speaker 3: We got all these task level players that are trying to put the fire out.
• 27:12
  Speaker 3: The next, the second phase of that you start initially with all that is, reinforce it when the BC gets there and they transfer command.
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: So now battalion three is on the scene.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: I copy what you did, jimmy, i'm going to make, i'm going to take command from you and I'm going to leave you on the first floor with engine two and I got the ladder up on the second floor.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: So now you got that figured out.
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: Well, let's say, okay, we got a working fire in the kitchen.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: we need another company here.
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: So you got three companies on the first floor managing that.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: The next NBC that.
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: I see who's a battalion chief.
• 27:50
  Speaker 3: now command to battalion four.
• 27:52
  Speaker 3: I want you to take floor one, division one.
• 27:57
  Speaker 3: You got engine one, engine two and you got engine four on deck.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: Copy.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: I'm going to take division one.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, boom.
• 28:07
  Speaker 3: Now I got a division boss.
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: who's responsible for those three companies?
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: As those three companies need to cycle in and out of that hazard zone, the person that manages that is division one.
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: It's not the IC.
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: In fact I keep I'm not going to track anymore.
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: I know who's in division one, who's responsible for them, but as far as who's on deck, i'm going to lose track of that 10, 15 minutes If I want to know.
• 28:30
  Speaker 3: command to division one.
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: who do you got inside?
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: who do you got on deck, basically.
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: So that's the way you build an organization.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: If the shit hits the fan on the first floor, i got somebody there right now at the point of the attack that can control entry in and out of that attack position.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: If you don't have somebody that can control entry, you do not have a division boss.
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: It is a tactical level requirement that you control who goes in and out.
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: If you use task level bosses, where do they operate at the point of the attack?
• 29:02
  Speaker 3: Not in the warm zone, so they can't do entry control.
• 29:05
  Speaker 3: Pretty simple.
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: This gets very confused by people.
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: Well, no, i'm going to have my rescue soup group rescue one be there, because that's what the tattoo says on his chest And that's what we call it.
• 29:19
  Speaker 3: It means the most to us.
• 29:20
  Speaker 3: Well, no, we ain't a cult.
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: We're going to do this the way it makes the most sense organizationally.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: And they're a forward operator.
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: They're not a warm zone boss, big deal, it's a little thing like that.
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: And they think, no, we're going to use it.
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: No, you ain't doing blue card, then That is 100 percent not.
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: you load up your attack positions and you have working company officers manage them.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: You do not have a tactical level to the organization.
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: You're just bullshitting yourself.
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: You think you do.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: There's dozens of NIOSH reports that all say the same thing.
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: Well, Sam, i think we answer your question there.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: If we didn't, let us know and we'll tackle it again, but it's it's.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: It's pretty explanatory to that, i think, from what we said there.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: You guys ready for a timeless tactical truth, always timeless tactical truths.
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: These are the cards available to be shifter store, by the way, from Alan Barunassini timeless tactical truths.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: And this is the king of diamonds.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: And the king of diamonds says begin to package command for ongoing operation and escalation, strong command, clear communication, standard strategy and action planning, sectors or divisions, sops.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Again, begin to package command for ongoing operation and escalation.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: How does the blue card system lend itself to that?
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: I?
• 30:50
  Speaker 2: think, nick, just I think we just talked about it like 100%.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: It starts with the mobile IC got there on engine one established command assigned a few companies, the strategic IC gets there And if need be, or in a lot of systems, there's a command transfer.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: Now the strategic IC has it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: If the incident continues to escalate, they put tactical bosses forward, call for additional resources.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: So I mean, that's the system And it starts the same way every single time.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: And I think we keep talking about this whole program as a system.
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: And as long as you understand the system, then you apply it to any incident that you go to and any kind of event and any list of critical factors.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: So I mean, yeah, i think it is the blue card system.
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: We grow the system based off critical factors and the need to actually grow the system, to improve the safety system and our ability to do the job on the fire ground.
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: The initial operation that I described earlier is the most effective form of manual fire suppression and fire service of manual And manual fire suppression is the least efficient form of fire protection because the fire is already started.
• 32:10
  Speaker 3: We have to show up and put it out.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: But during my career I would be the first arriving command officer to the scene.
• 32:17
  Speaker 3: So I get there four to six minutes into the deal, less than about half the time I went and transferred command because the initial operation put the fire out.
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: It did everything it was supposed to do.
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: They got there, they did it, man, boom, boom, boom, just like it was supposed to.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: So as you get, there is the strategic position I see, and you see that I would leave command with the current, i see, and then we would do a little after action review, everybody, hug and kiss and off we go.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: When it was done, Let's define for folks what strong standard command is, because we hear Bruno talks about strong strong command a lot, but you don't always hear it.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: So what is strong standard command?
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Initial radio report.
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: You establish command with an initial radio report and it's a standard.
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: So you talk about the building, the occupancy type where the fire is and the action you're going to take And then you conclude that with the strategy and the assumption of command, that is the standard front end in response to that And that's how we use a single incident action plan.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: So on the old days it used to be, we all got to the scene at the same time and it was competitive to get first water on it and then it was all SOP base.
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: Well, 10, 15 minutes into that operation nobody knew where anybody was or what they were doing.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: It just turned into a free for all, especially if the fire didn't go out.
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: Now you got a more senior fire that's affecting more of the building with people in bad places.
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: So that standard front end the Lithmis test for that is I'm respondent, is the chief and I'm going to try, i'm going to be the reinforced.
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: I see strategically is if I get to the scene and I can transfer command quickly and then keep that incident action plan going and add to it and adjust it if it needs to, that standard command is the ability to do that Standard command the ability to, as soon I'm in my command post managing the operation in the middle of it mayday, mayday, mayday comes over the radio I can take effective action immediately after that transmission to start getting that incident back under control and resolve in that mayday situation.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: That's what standard command does, see, it's practiced.
• 34:35
  Speaker 3: So we've done it a lot and we figured out what works and what doesn't like using as an example.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: We won't use task level supervisors is warm zone tactical bosses, because they don't go together.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: It just doesn't work.
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: So they stuff like that.
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: That's the standard stuff.
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: When people say, well, we're doing blue card, well, there's about five or six things that you're doing.
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: Blue card standard initial radio report to establish command.
• 35:01
  Speaker 3: One person's in charge, everybody else stages.
• 35:04
  Speaker 3: They don't get go to work until they're assigned by the IC.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Any attack position got three or more people, you put a boss in charge of it.
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: That's not to say you can't use a captain to run a tactical subdivision.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: They just can't be a working company officer that has a crew assigned to them.
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: That's not the role they play.
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: Like if you use, let's say, safety officers as an example.
• 35:27
  Speaker 3: That are company officers If you want to use them, in fact, a better use of them is a division boss and a safety officer.
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: They'll have more safety impact as a division boss every time.
• 35:38
  Speaker 3: That's why we embedded safety within the division is that's where you're going to manage the safety.
• 35:43
  Speaker 3: It's probably most important to manage safety in the attack of attack positions first.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: That's where you're going to have most firefighters that would be exposed to the things that you're trying to protect them against.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Just another little piece of that is that the incident action plan is communicated over the radio and that everybody's on the same page, which is just another part of standard command, so that there's no secrets, everybody knows what is going on.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: and then it's communicated over the radio when those things are complete and, more importantly maybe, if they cannot be completed.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: So I think that's just another standard command piece.
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: And he says clear communication.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: So that's part of the clear communication that everybody on the fire ground knows what those orders are and there are no secret orders that were given face to face from the IC to other subsequent arriving companies or chiefs.
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: You know another blue card thing and this is more tactical in nature.
• 36:33
  Speaker 3: but water on the fire, that's a weird, just crazy.
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: for water on the fire, put the fire out.
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: and every time you put the fire out it gets better, it doesn't get worse.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: I mean, that's just the truth of the matter.
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: And sometimes we don't do that.
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: We get distracted by other things, and we shouldn't.
• 36:49
  Speaker 3: That's why we said the initial operations responsible for fire control.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: If they'll put the fire out, we'll protect more people and more property at the end of the day than any other single activity We have done.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: we've saved more people's lives and structural firefighting by doing fire control than right hand wall searches.
• 37:08
  Speaker 3: It's just the truth of the matter.
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: That wraps up this B shifter.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: If you have questions that you'd like either the ops chiefs or the chiefs to address, that email address is in the show notes.
• 37:23
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• 37:25
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• 37:32
  Speaker 1: And don't forget to subscribe to the B shifter buck slip.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: The link to that is also in the show notes.
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: Until next time.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: Thanks for listening and watching B shifter.