The Fully Involved Podcast: Firefighting Tactics, Debates, and Fireground Truths - Task Force Tips

Saving Lives & Protecting Property

What Is The Fully Involved Podcast?

Ready to be the smartest firefighter at the kitchen table? Welcome to the Fully Involved Podcast — where the fire service’s sharpest minds pull back the curtain on tactics, tools, and training. In every episode, we sit down with instructors, chiefs, researchers, and frontline firefighters to have real, unfiltered conversations about what helps crews perform at their very best.

From water mapping and hydraulic ventilation to nozzle selection, high-rise operations, industrial firefighting challenges, and health & wellness — this is where experience meets insight. Whether you’re riding the front seat or leading a department, Fully Involved delivers practical takeaways and fresh perspectives to help you sharpen your craft, master your equipment, and make better decisions on the fireground.

E13 - Basement Fires, Deck Guns + Exterior Water

E12 – Basement Fire Tactics, Search, and Blitz Attack with PJ Norwood

E11 – Sean Gray on Steam Myths, VEIS & Smarter Fire Attack

E10 – Tony Downes on Shotgun Homes, Blitzfire Ops, and 500-Foot Apartment Lays

E9 – Burp Drafting & The Bowling Pin Hack with Andy Soccodato

E8 – Firefighter Safety That's Still Aggressive with Lance Vinson

E7 – High GPM, Low Manpower: Industrial Tactics with Rick Haase

E6 – Basement Fire Tactics, Building Construction Types & Fireground Culture with Jesse Marcotte

E5 – Why This Alberta Dept Switched to Low-Pressure Nozzles

E4 – Exterior Water, Nozzles & Low Staffing: Fireground Tactics w/ PJ Norwood

E3 – High-Rise Firefighting: Lessons from Chicago’s Fireground w/ Tim Walsh

E2 – Apartment Fire Mistakes That Cost Lives: Search, Water Supply & Nozzle Tactics w/ Payton Owens

E1 – Myths That Are Holding Firefighters Back: Sean Gray on Nozzles, Water Mapping & Fire Attack

E13 - Basement Fires, Deck Guns + Exterior Wate

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

– Basement fire tactics and line-of-duty-death lessons
– When to knock fire down from the outside (exterior attack)
– Deck guns, portable monitors, and master stream setups
– Hoarder fire search and collapse hazards
– Attack package design: hose loads, nozzles, and low staffing

Jim York is Deputy Chief of the Hartford Fire Department in Connecticut, a 12-station department that anchors Connecticut’s largest metropolitan area. Among his areas of interest is studying lethal fireground situations.

View Transcript

00:00:00:01 – 00:00:06:19

Jim York

in the past, tradition and and that that would have been crazy talk.

00:00:06:23 – 00:00:31:05

Jim York

we’re well-staffed we’re in the Northeast. We’re aggressive interior firefighters. And and we do operate that way. And the majority of the time taking a hose line into the building and protecting the interior stairs and making an aggressive push from from the public hallway or what have you is the right way to attack these fires. However, we have had situations.

00:00:31:05 – 00:00:48:24

Jim York

I’ve operated as the incident commander where I’ve asked a company to deploy a hand line to knock down fire because of certain, situations, conditions. And all that’s done has been to improve the conditions and allow the firefighters inside to be successful.

00:00:48:28 – 00:01:15:22

Unknown

Our guest today is Jim York. He’s the deputy chief of the Hartford, Connecticut Fire Department. Hartford’s a 12 station apartment. They’ve got 17 companies, and they cover about 18mi². Chief York supervises a shift of 73 firefighters, and they cover the city’s wide range of housing types. Who’s this episode for? Well, it’s for firefighters who want to learn more about basement fire tactics, hoarder situations, when to use the deck gun.

00:01:15:22 – 00:01:22:13

Unknown

And then we’re going to break down the department’s initial attack package. We’re talking hand lines and ground monitors, especially

00:01:22:16 – 00:01:38:06

Unknown

Connecticut Fire Academy held its annual winter fire school, so we went where the brainpower was. It’s episode 13 of the Fully Involved podcast from Windsor Locks, Connecticut.

00:01:38:08 – 00:01:54:26

Gordon Voit

I’m very happy to be joined by Chief Jim York from the Hartford Fire Department. I’ve been really looking forward to this. I can tell you, you’re somebody who has a tremendous amount of passion in a couple different areas of the fire service. So, first of all, I just want to say thank you so much for coming on and talking with us.

00:01:54:27 – 00:01:57:02

Jim York

Thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

00:01:57:04 – 00:02:11:12

Gordon Voit

So you’re here to talk about a really interesting topic here, here. And we’re here at the Winter Fire School, at the Fire Academy. 13 lethal Situations. Tell me about kind of the origin of this class that you’re teaching today.

00:02:11:14 – 00:02:33:02

Jim York

Yeah. So, this particular class grew out of, just studying line of duty deaths and kind of a passion I have as a, chief officer. I’ve been fortunate to, have been promoted back in 2016. So I’ve been a chief for eight years with the, Hartford Fire Department, and that’s kind of a lengthy amount of time.

00:02:33:02 – 00:03:02:17

Jim York

And that that took place because of some contract union situation that we had a large retirement that occurred, and a lot of us got promoted. And we’ve been doing the job now for quite some time. I have 23 years with the department. So I feel, in my career there was there was a gap, I guess, with, the transition from from company officer to chief officer and the responsibilities and the things that went along with that.

00:03:02:20 – 00:03:25:09

Jim York

So having, been an instructor here at the state for, for a number of years now, our training director, PJ Norwood, who I know you’ve had on your, podcast before, has developed this Winter Fire school program. And when he was looking for people to be presenters, I did it for the first time last year, which was the inaugural year of the class.

00:03:25:09 – 00:03:54:09

Jim York

The the program and I did a presentation on basement fires. And that presentation kind of led me to expand to beyond just this one single topic. And I’ve been really fortunate to have had some, influence from some other areas in the fire service. I’ve had the opportunity to go to FDIC for a few years now. I have been down at the National Fire Academy, in the executive fire officer program.

00:03:54:11 – 00:04:19:20

Jim York

And I also participated with the, leadership under fire training group. Jason Brezler out of FDNY runs that. I sat through a presentation he did at FDIC, 3 or 4 years ago. And that really piqued my interest into the decision making process and things that happened at at the incident commander level when, you run these, these fire scenes.

00:04:19:22 – 00:04:52:08

Jim York

So this topic was something I had been brainstorming for a while and really an offshoot from the basement fire presentation. I did, and wanting to expand it to really give some more, meat and potato type information to incident commanders and anyone that may be in charge of a fire scene. So it really is a broad presentation to cover people that maybe a chief officer, or they may pull up and be in charge because they’re riding in the front seat that day.

00:04:52:10 – 00:04:56:05

Jim York

And that’s, that’s where I’m at with it. So, yeah.

00:04:56:07 – 00:05:03:09

Gordon Voit

So, so tell me about some of these lethal situations that you talked about in your class. Can you kind of just paint a picture of some of the specifics?

00:05:03:09 – 00:05:27:20

Jim York

Yeah, I mean, basement fires being one of them, some of the other situations without giving them all away, you know, wind driven fires, hoarding, vacant buildings, high rise. So there’s just a, a y and some of these crossover, you can have a wind driven fire in in a, in a building where you have hoarding conditions, you can have a wind driven fire in a high rise.

00:05:27:20 – 00:05:30:15

Gordon Voit

So a lot of these. Can you explain that a little bit more?

00:05:30:15 – 00:05:58:00

Jim York

Yeah. Wind driven fires have been, it’s been something that’s affected the fire service for many years. And one of the line of duty death cases goes back to the, late 90s. So a wind driven fire, simply, any fire that’s influenced or affected by wind, and it can be as low as 10 to 12 miles an hour is enough to influence what’s going on with the, conditions of the fire.

00:05:58:02 – 00:06:28:23

Jim York

And a lot of this comes from the UL, NIST, FSRI classes and the work that those organizations have done to study and understand fire dynamics. I’ve kind of lived through that during my fire service career from the early, tests and studies that were done at Governors Island in New York, and really understanding some of the myths and things that have changed, things that were taught to me as a young firefighter.

00:06:28:26 – 00:06:29:25

Gordon Voit

What’s one of those myths?

00:06:29:26 – 00:06:34:08

Jim York

I mean, you know, pushing fire, that sort of, concept.

00:06:34:08 – 00:06:36:15

Gordon Voit

Firefighters, a pushing for.

00:06:36:18 – 00:07:04:20

Jim York

What people? Well, back back in the day, when I first started, it was don’t open the nozzle until you see the flame. You know, don’t flow water through a window or from the outside. And we’ve we know now that you are not going to cause that fire to travel to other parts of the building. You are only going to improve the situation in that fire compartment in that building for the victims.

00:07:04:23 – 00:07:28:07

Jim York

Anybody that might be trapped, we can we can say that because we have the data statistics, we can prove it now. And there was a time when we simply didn’t have the technology to study it. And now we do. And we can put to bed some of those things, and we can operate better, smarter, faster, have, have a quicker effect on, on doing our job.

00:07:28:09 – 00:07:29:08

Jim York

So yeah.

00:07:29:11 – 00:07:37:23

Gordon Voit

Do you have an, equipment preference when it comes to, like, the nozzle? I’m assuming you’re talking about a hand line there. If you’re talking about quick water from the outside.

00:07:37:26 – 00:07:38:07

Jim York

Yeah.

00:07:38:07 – 00:07:39:18

Gordon Voit

Monitor? Or what’s your personal preference?

00:07:39:20 – 00:08:04:12

Jim York

Yeah, both. I mean, just the, just the simple fact that it’s okay to, knock down a fire from the outside if you need to, if that’s the preferred, circumstances that are in front of you. And those are things that we’ve done in my department where in the past, tradition and and that that would have been crazy talk.

00:08:04:15 – 00:08:07:21

Gordon Voit

Because it’s weak, it’s too defensive …

00:08:07:27 – 00:08:33:01

Jim York

Yeah. We’re we’re well-staffed we’re in the Northeast. We’re aggressive interior firefighters. And and we do operate that way. And the majority of the time taking a hose line into the building and protecting the interior stairs and making an aggressive push from from the public hallway or what have you is the right way to attack these fires. However, we have had situations.

00:08:33:01 – 00:09:00:15

Jim York

I’ve operated as the incident commander where I’ve asked a company to deploy a hand line to knock down fire because of certain, situations, conditions. And all that’s done has been to improve the conditions and allow the firefighters inside to be successful. So I think we’ve come a long way. These concepts are being taught here at the, Fire Academy with the recruit classes in my own department.

00:09:00:18 – 00:09:01:14

Jim York

So, yeah.

00:09:01:17 – 00:09:23:24

Gordon Voit

And, can you give us an idea just from your department? Like, there’s so many different ways to configure, you know, like, whether it’s pre connect or just. Can you walk us through the different, department preference preferences? Obviously there’s a lot of variations, but like hose nozzles, how many lengths of what. Just like what’s the what’s the attack packages for your department.

00:09:24:02 – 00:09:24:09

Gordon Voit

Yeah.

00:09:24:09 – 00:09:57:27

Jim York

So so we have pre connected inch and three quarter attack lines. They’re, they are 250ft. We have another, it’s not preconnected but it’s preloaded. 400ft of two and a half reduced to 200ft of inch and three quarter with a smoothbore 15/16 nozzle. And we call that our Detroit load. And I don’t know exactly why that comes with that, nomenclature to it, but, I think Detroit has some kind of similar things that they do, but.

00:09:57:29 – 00:09:59:19

Gordon Voit

And why did you choose that?

00:09:59:22 – 00:10:22:17

Jim York

That was operationally to do a couple things. Number one, prevent our our pre connected crosses from being extended piecemeal, which in my time was very common to hear add 50ft, add 50ft, add 50ft. And there’s only so much you can do that before you suffer the effects of friction loss. The time it takes to make and break connections.

00:10:22:19 – 00:10:48:24

Jim York

Whereas this load and this came from my experience in a couple of engine companies I was assigned to where we had deep apartment buildings. We had U-shaped, setups with, with large, multiple dwellings that required, stretches that you needed 3 or 400ft. And we weren’t really set up to do that in an effective and efficient manner.

00:10:48:24 – 00:11:12:09

Jim York

So this has allowed us and when companies deploy this line, they verbally announce that and we team up two engine companies to to make that stretch happen. And it, it solves the friction loss issue because we’re starting off with 2.5in that’s reduced down. And, you know, the smoothbore nozzles, the guys like, you know, we know what our, our flow flow is.

00:11:12:09 – 00:11:15:15

Jim York

And, yeah. And it works and it works.

00:11:15:16 – 00:11:16:28

Gordon Voit

Yeah. All about coming up with a solution.

00:11:17:01 – 00:11:45:25

Jim York

Yeah. And we’ve also added to our, our package with a, kind of a blitz type nozzle, to, to crossover. We also have a 2.5in pre connect as well, that’s 250ft. And part of our challenge was having a master stream device and having something that the guys could operate. And we had too large a nozzle on our, on our pre connected two and a half.

00:11:45:25 – 00:12:13:08

Jim York

So what we did was we went to a 1-1/16in smoothbore on the 2.5in pre connect. That’s more of our commercial building fire basement fire. This is a larger volume of water flow, but it accounts for nozzle reaction so that we are not overpowering, the firefighters on the line, because if they’re if they’re overpowered, they’re going to get down.

00:12:13:08 – 00:12:42:26

Jim York

They’re just going to reduce the amount of water that they’re flowing. So we’re not helping them by giving them a nozzle that flows a ton of water at a certain p.s.i if the nozzle reaction’s going to be unmanageable. So we were able to divide that up and create a dedicated, hand line that the members can operate, as well as a master stream device that we can flow up to 500 gpm, and it can be deployed quickly for rear porch knock down.

00:12:42:26 – 00:12:48:01

Jim York

Vacant buildings, any other tasks that we need to put a large volume of water on

00:12:48:05 – 00:12:49:24

Gordon Voit

Interesting, and you’re talking about a portable monitor?

00:12:49:24 – 00:13:15:29

Jim York

Portable monitor type of, device. And we went from a situation where our deck guns were detachable and had a base, and we would use our four inch supply line to create a setup where we use that. And what what happened was, it never got used. It was hard to manage and deploy the deck on the process of removing that was guys would forget about it.

00:13:15:29 – 00:13:43:00

Jim York

There’d be a malfunction with the the pin to pull it. So we have now transitioned to having our deck guns just permanently piped, and we are transitioning to a smaller, you know, deployable master stream on a 2.5in line that one member can quickly they can deploy 150ft of that by themselves, set that up, set it and forget it, almost let it operate and do its thing.

00:13:43:02 – 00:13:45:28

Narrator

Let’s head to TFT headquarters for a bonus tip.

00:13:45:29 – 00:13:49:27

Unknown

Fires doubling in size faster than you can imagine. And you’re thinking,

00:13:49:27 – 00:13:51:23

Unknown

oh, gosh, that four letter word.

00:13:51:25 – 00:13:53:13

Unknown

I’m Paul Neely here at TFT.

00:13:53:18 – 00:13:59:03

Unknown

Think about it in a minute. Minute and a half. You can drop a blitz fire on the ground with a three inch line.

00:13:59:05 – 00:14:03:12

Unknown

You can be putting 500 gallons a minute on that fire in the first two minutes of time.

00:14:03:12 – 00:14:04:13

Unknown

Off a tank. Water.

00:14:04:13 – 00:14:05:26

Unknown

the goal? Is quick knockdown

00:14:05:26 – 00:14:08:04

Unknown

making a punch when you when you arrive.

00:14:08:06 – 00:14:13:21

Unknown

it’s that same old saying the first couple minutes of the fire are worse the next five hours,

00:14:13:21 – 00:14:15:25

Unknown

It’s something to think about at your next fire

00:14:15:29 – 00:14:24:27

Gordon Voit

Hartford is such an interesting fireground. Can you kind of. For those who haven’t been to Hartford, can you describe kind of the different environments that you see in different parts of the city?

00:14:24:27 – 00:14:53:04

Jim York

Yeah, for us in the northeast, I mean, we consider ourselves a large city, but we’re small in the grand scheme of things. You know, we have 18mi², but it’s a dense urban environment. You know, going back to the founding of, of the country where the capital city of of Connecticut. But, we really have some of the, the original things that happened, you know, in this area of the country, whether it’s Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York area.

00:14:53:06 – 00:15:23:17

Jim York

So we have about 125,000 people, which is small. But to us up here, it’s comparable to Worcester, Springfield, Providence, Bridgeport, New Haven, these are our kind of large, career northeastern departments with, triple deckers, three family. You know, the three frame type buildings. We have what we call perfect sixes. These are our, three story apartment buildings, typically ordinary construction, brick facade.

00:15:23:20 – 00:15:46:05

Jim York

But we have everything. We have large apartment buildings that were built in the 50s and 60s. We have high rise. We have a significant, downtown high rise, district. Hartford is kind of was known, is known to some extent is the insurance capital of the world. We had large insurance companies that reside in Hartford, Aetna, Travelers, The Hartford.

00:15:46:07 – 00:16:11:09

Jim York

You know, so that’s kind of, a lot of our history. Right. Unfortunately, we do have some, some, some difficult urban sections of the city where, crime and poverty are a reality. And, that leads to some other issues. But we have a significant portion of the city with single family homes, capes, ranches.

00:16:11:12 – 00:16:42:05

Jim York

The west end of the city is home to the governor’s mansion. We have large multimillion dollar, homes. That line, some streets in the West End. So it’s a an incredible microcosm of, everything from, you know, large, multiple dwellings, old wood frames, single family high rise, to interstate highways, railroad River. So, yeah, we have a little bit of everything here.

00:16:42:08 – 00:17:04:17

Gordon Voit

You know, not every firefighter watching this at home deals with skyscrapers, but everybody’s been in a tight situation. And, you know, everybody wants more manpower on fires. Won’t be the message of some to like a rural firefighter, for example, that they could, take a page out of your book. We’re working in a in a dense urban environment, just like what’s what would be your message to the.

00:17:04:19 – 00:17:06:19

Gordon Voit

Yeah, suburban or rural firefighter?

00:17:06:20 – 00:17:36:03

Jim York

I think it’s just, be prepared to use what you have to its maximum advantage and effectiveness. So if you show up with 3 or 4 people, you can you can do something with that. But you have to you have to be trained and experienced to deploy that line, pump the truck, make the stretch. That’s good from the sense of it’s got to be done in a way that that is effective.

00:17:36:05 – 00:18:12:10

Jim York

You just can’t screw it up. So it’s really more pressure because I have I supervise a shift of 73 firefighters. So I feel blessed that I have a manpower situation where I can utilize quite a bit of manpower. I have it at my disposal. It can be on scene within 5 to 7 minutes. Within the city, when you’re in a smaller department, you have to make really good decisions because you don’t have that ability to just say, well, I’ll call the next engine, or when the next engine or truck gets here, I’m going to put those guys to work and we’ll just recover.

00:18:12:12 – 00:18:36:09

Jim York

So I think there’s a lot of, it’s tough out there for, for the smaller departments, the volunteer departments. And I came from that area, you know, early as is, being young in the fire service at 16 and coming up in, you know, suburban area where you had to make good decisions. And there wasn’t this just, limitless supply of manpower.

00:18:36:11 – 00:18:52:21

Gordon Voit

Yeah. You should have seen a role, one of the tactical centers. And I’m fascinated to hear about that. You talked about in your class is a hoarder situation. You paint a picture for me of a time where you encountered, like, the worst hoarder situation you’ve faced.

00:18:52:24 – 00:19:20:28

Jim York

Yeah. I mean, there’s just been a number of occupancies where you go in and you feel like you’re in a tunnel. Is is really what it’s like because of the, that situation presents itself in a number of different ways. A lot of times it is the pure accumulation of, of material that prevents you from operating. Just if you watch some of the TV shows, there’s a lot of reality TV shows that deal with this sort of issue.

00:19:20:28 – 00:19:29:24

Jim York

And if you can kind of imagine what it’s like to be in a in the narrow, confined space with, a collapsed hazard on either side of you, that’s like.

00:19:29:27 – 00:19:30:20

Gordon Voit

Newspaper.

00:19:30:22 – 00:20:12:05

Jim York

Newspapers, boxes, and anything that it doesn’t necessarily sometimes it’s trash, sometimes it’s not. A lot of times it’s simply the accumulation and stockpiling of of material and the, the risk is, is just extremely high. It’s difficult enough. I think that’s where training is a little skewed from reality. When you train and you do searches versus what it’s really like when you are in somebody’s living unit, where they have tables and chairs and beds and clothes and dressers and storage, not a hoarding situation, but just normal living.

00:20:12:08 – 00:20:25:15

Jim York

And you realize how difficult it is to conduct a search to move efficiently through the room. I think sometimes in our training scenarios, it’s kind of a square room and you kind of move around and there’s not, you know, we don’t just have there’s.

00:20:25:16 – 00:20:28:01

Gordon Voit

That dummy right there. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

00:20:28:01 – 00:20:55:17

Jim York

Yeah. There’s there’s not the normal accumulation of life. And then you add to it these situations where, it presents a challenge where the occupant may be incapable of physically removing themselves from their, you know, the situation they’re in. A lot of times these fires tend to be, the occupants are trapped and don’t survive these, you know, significant fires and hoarding situation because they simply can’t get out.

00:20:55:19 – 00:21:04:11

Jim York

And it just makes it exponentially more difficult. And the risk is so much higher for the firefighter to be in those, environments.

00:21:04:14 – 00:21:10:16

Gordon Voit

What are the biggest mistakes that you see getting made when it comes to a hoarder situation?

00:21:10:18 – 00:21:43:20

Jim York

I think recognizing what what you’re dealing with. Because if it if it’s not something that you’re familiar with, maybe because you go there on an EMS call on a regular basis, or your fire marshal has gotten involved in some enforcement action. If you stumble into that, recognizing what you’re dealing with, immediately communicating that to the incident commander, it also presents a lot of challenges when it comes to fire dynamics and flow path issues, volume of material is is is huge.

00:21:43:23 – 00:21:59:08

Jim York

You may or may not be able to conduct ventilation as you might normally do. It may not have the effects, or it may have kind of, opposing effects depending on the situation. And it’s hard to kind of generalize because everyone is so different.

00:21:59:11 – 00:22:03:14

Gordon Voit

But what why is that bad? And not being able to ventilate like you want to.

00:22:03:16 – 00:22:31:25

Jim York

Is simply I would say it would if you had an opportunity to flow your line or, attack the fire from a certain position. And you weren’t able to do that because even though I’ve done it this way in 30 or 40 other single family homes, that I’m able to operate in this fashion, and now I’m being challenged to be totally.

00:22:31:27 – 00:23:02:11

Jim York

Maybe I can’t stretch a line interior through this ranch, right? I have to I have to access this bedroom or this fire from a ladder from the exterior, breaching a wall. Really challenging things that are not in the kind of top of your mindset. Right? So I think those are some of the challenges. And just the fact of, vertical ventilation presents its own challenges.

00:23:02:11 – 00:23:23:29

Jim York

And that’s an entire another topic. Yeah, we still do a lot of it. We have, you know. Yeah, we can talk we can have a whole discussion about that. I’m sure you hear a lot about that throughout the country. We still do vertical ventilation in Hartford in very specific situations, coordinated. We use it to our advantage. We have a lot of fires and cocklofts and things like that where it proves itself.

00:23:24:02 – 00:23:36:07

Jim York

And there’s other situations where it’s it’s not as advantageous based on the information that we have now. There’s other things that we can do to, to assist with, with the firefight. So.

00:23:36:10 – 00:23:53:11

Gordon Voit

So when you’re dealing with a huge amount of fuel, which is what a hoarder situation is, what how does that affect your water flow strategy? Like do you use like a more of, like always go with the smoothbore to get a better penetration or is it like “No, water is water.”

00:23:53:11 – 00:24:23:18

Jim York

Yeah. We have, we have, we have, automatic nozzle and a smoothbore set up on each of our crosslays. So it’s kind of up to the officer, but it’s discretionary. It’s discretionary. So we don’t we don’t break it down that specific to say, do this on this type of fire. What we’re looking for is a minimum GPM, and so many things present themselves, getting to the scene of the fire, the actual amount of material, deep seated fires.

00:24:23:18 – 00:24:35:05

Jim York

Overall, the fact that if you are flowing water, you’re creating a tremendous amount of, weight that could influence collapse concerns.

00:24:35:07 – 00:24:36:08

Gordon Voit

Or weigh a lot more.

00:24:36:09 – 00:25:03:24

Jim York

Than anything clothes, discarded boxes. I mean, everyone’s getting Amazon boxes, so you have this massive amount of cardboard or whatever. And, the collapse potential simply within, you know, if you have small hallways that are there are narrow because there’s just a small pathway. And now you wet everything down and now it’s going to collapse or water doesn’t drain out of the structure like it normally does.

00:25:03:27 – 00:25:07:15

Jim York

You can see that these all these factors just begin to kind of compound.

00:25:07:16 – 00:25:32:20

Gordon Voit

Yeah. Well, another one that you talked about in your class is vacant Structures. What are the you’ve you have a lot of experience under your belt with this topic. Hartford. Like you said, older city, a lot of old construction, poverty in certain areas of the city. So what are the biggest mistakes you see firefighters make? Or biggest misconceptions around vacant structure?

00:25:32:23 – 00:26:00:14

Jim York

Yeah. Vacant. Fortunately, we’ve we’ve had a significant reduction in vacant buildings in the city. So we don’t we do have vacant building fires. Occasionally. Not as much as what we used to back in, back in the heyday. But, I think approaching from a risk standpoint. And I come from the era when, I was, I was in college when, you know, the Worcester Cold Storage warehouse fire happened.

00:26:00:14 – 00:26:27:05

Jim York

So that was a very influencing topic. And there were people that were reported in there. And I think it kind of, it showed the commitment that firefighters were willing to make, no matter who you were, no matter how big the fire, the type of structure, we’re going to do a search and we’re going to and I believe in that to this day in the sense of that’s the ethical and moral responsibility that we have as firefighters that is different from the rest of the population out there.

00:26:27:08 – 00:26:46:01

Jim York

Because there’s nobody else that’s going to come and do what we do. Right? So that that weighs heavily on you. And then as an incident commander, wanting to make sure that we are successful and by that, that, that, you know, you hear the term, you know, everyone goes home at the end of the shift. I think that’s kind of a low bar sometimes that we set for ourselves.

00:26:46:01 – 00:27:16:07

Jim York

Like being alive shouldn’t necessarily be how we determine whether or not the ship was successful or not. But vacant buildings have a tendency, you know, how do we balance that, that risk? And it’s not I do a whole presentation on on safety risk and the incident commander that I developed for, for one of our, instructor organizations here in Connecticut, and I talk a lot about, how difficult it is in this field to be safe.

00:27:16:09 – 00:27:35:15

Jim York

But what we do have to do is figure out what is acceptable from a risk standpoint. And more importantly, what are you willing to tolerate? How much risk are you willing to tolerate? And that’s where the rubber meets the road as an incident commander. And that’s what I use, standing in the street and commanding these fire scenes.

00:27:35:17 – 00:27:43:03

Jim York

And we can be aggressive and we can be successful at vacant building fires. We’ve got to be really smart. And sometimes.

00:27:43:06 – 00:27:44:07

Gordon Voit

Is that like.

00:27:44:08 – 00:28:05:22

Jim York

Yeah, depending on the fire. Yeah. And this may be like a really good opportunity to do an exterior attack to knock down, reset the fire and allow the members to go in when it doesn’t rise to the level of, why am I putting people in a building where they can’t see the fires rapidly extending, let’s let’s knock this thing down.

00:28:05:22 – 00:28:31:14

Jim York

Let’s let’s give ourselves a chance to go in and find the hidden pockets of fire, prevent extension. Make sure that this building is able to be rehabbed. I, I feel strongly about the, protecting the property. I think, you know, working in an urban environment, every time you have a fire in a building is unoccupied. It presents a lot of challenges for that community.

00:28:31:17 – 00:28:53:10

Jim York

So I think we can tend to gloss over the importance of property preservation and, how big an influence that has and to make sure that that building, is in a state where it can be, it can be reoccupied and it can be redeveloped to, support housing and whatever, whether it’s a different type of building in the community.

00:28:53:13 – 00:29:08:18

Jim York

So, yeah, those are a few things. And, we’ve, we’ve been better about being proactive with our own use, in, in the city. And like I talked about earlier with the, portable monitor.

00:29:08:24 – 00:29:23:06

Gordon Voit

So. Interesting. Yeah. How do you what does it look like to spec out your deck gun operations, like, as a deputy chief, as a leader in a department? Like. Where did you begin? I didn’t choose one deck on one nozzle.

00:29:23:11 – 00:29:45:14

Jim York

Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of that is done at the apparatus spec, part of the process. It’s something that is just, it’s something that we’ve always maintained on our apparatus over the years. So, so it’s, it’s there. I think the bigger challenge is, supporting the officers in making good decisions when they pull up on a scene and to let them know.

00:29:45:16 – 00:30:13:19

Jim York

Yeah, committing to the use of that tool could be, game changing in this operation. And we have very aggressive, you know, go get them type of officers and they want to they want to stretch that line. So sometimes getting them to think maybe the best thing I can do is get get my, my nozzle man up there and have him direct that that deck on and and reset the fire.

00:30:13:19 – 00:30:36:03

Jim York

And then we can go in and and do what we need to do. So I think I think that’s our bigger challenge is getting guys into the mindset that this is a tool. You really you can’t be forgotten. They can’t be a resource of of last resort type of thing or we can’t wait for the six story mill to be on fire to think about the deck gun.

00:30:36:06 – 00:30:45:10

Gordon Voit

Yeah. I just want to say, just how awesome it is. And you got you got the Dunkin Donuts. Yeah. Do you call? Do you call Dunkies? But what do you call it now?

00:30:45:10 – 00:30:47:10

Jim York

Just. Dunkin. Dunkin, just get some Dunkin.

00:30:47:10 – 00:30:51:07

Gordon Voit

Yeah, that’s all I know. We’re in New England right now. It’s got that. Yeah, it’s.

00:30:51:14 – 00:30:52:16

Jim York

It’s part of my identity.

00:30:52:16 – 00:31:19:19

Gordon Voit

So it’s so it’s like it’s Duncan. Yeah. Get this guy an NIL deal for Duncan. This has been phenomenal. So basement fires is a topic that we have not tackled. You taught an entire class here at the Connecticut Fire Academy winter school last year. Okay. Tell me about, yeah. What are the biggest mistakes you seeing getting made with basement fires?

00:31:19:22 – 00:31:21:22

Jim York

Not recognizing that you have a basement.

00:31:21:22 – 00:31:24:17

Jim York

Fire is probably the first one.

00:31:24:19 – 00:31:25:28

Jim York

You know, traditionally.

00:31:25:28 – 00:31:30:27

Jim York

Operating in a manner where you’re using the interior stairs to access the fire.

00:31:30:29 – 00:31:34:27

Jim York

There’s just, you know, line of duty death.

00:31:34:27 – 00:31:38:09

Jim York

Report after another after another, that.

00:31:38:11 – 00:31:42:29

Jim York

That results in, in tragedy because of this. And there’s so many other.

00:31:42:29 – 00:31:46:20

Jim York

Influencing factors with basement fires.

00:31:46:22 – 00:31:47:24

Jim York

Truss and.

00:31:47:24 – 00:31:51:27

Jim York

Engineered construction of the floor system.

00:31:51:29 – 00:31:54:17

Jim York

Failure and rapid fire development.

00:31:54:19 – 00:31:58:12

Jim York

Which rapid fire development’s, another lethal fire ground situation

00:31:58:12 – 00:32:04:16

Jim York

that I talk about. But it happens in basement fires. And we have so many examples of.

00:32:04:19 – 00:32:05:09

Jim York

Cherry Road.

00:32:05:09 – 00:32:08:10

Jim York

In Washington, DC, failure of the sliding glass.

00:32:08:10 – 00:32:08:23

Jim York

Doors.

00:32:08:23 – 00:32:10:12

Jim York

That allowed.

00:32:10:14 – 00:32:11:03

Jim York

Blow torch

00:32:11:03 – 00:32:12:21

Jim York

like conditions to extend up

00:32:12:21 – 00:32:14:13

Jim York

the interior stairs that

00:32:14:16 – 00:32:20:28

Jim York

That killed two guys. Berkeley Way in San Francisco, same situation. It didn’t look like a basement

00:32:20:28 – 00:32:21:12

Jim York

Fire.

00:32:21:12 – 00:32:21:28

Jim York

But it was a

00:32:21:28 – 00:32:23:19

Jim York

Sloping grade structure.

00:32:23:27 – 00:32:26:18

Jim York

And failure of sliding glass windows

00:32:26:18 – 00:32:27:25

Jim York

allowed for rapid fire

00:32:27:25 – 00:32:28:28

Jim York

Development that killed two.

00:32:28:28 – 00:32:30:07

Jim York

Firefighters out there.

00:32:30:09 – 00:32:33:06

Jim York

So, fighting.

00:32:33:06 – 00:32:34:01

Jim York

The fire on its own.

00:32:34:01 – 00:32:39:21

Jim York

Level is such a critical thing. Putting water.

00:32:39:21 – 00:32:40:17

Jim York

On the fire from.

00:32:40:17 – 00:32:45:27

Jim York

Any opening, whether it be the outside a hole, reducing the.

00:32:45:27 – 00:32:46:22

Jim York

Temperature in that.

00:32:46:22 – 00:32:53:01

Jim York

Space, being considerate and cognizant of flow path with basement.

00:32:53:01 – 00:32:53:15

Jim York

Fires.

00:32:53:15 – 00:32:54:07

Jim York

Is just.

00:32:54:08 – 00:32:56:04

Jim York

Super critical to understand.

00:32:56:04 – 00:32:56:21

Jim York

That and.

00:32:56:21 – 00:33:01:25

Gordon Voit

How do you unpack a flow path, analysis. What how do you coach people on reading that?

00:33:02:02 – 00:33:08:22

Jim York

Well, not not randomly taking doors and windows, and really.

00:33:08:22 – 00:33:15:18

Jim York

Understanding where the fire is, how you’re going to get water on that fire, where your, your intake and your.

00:33:15:18 – 00:33:16:22

Jim York

Exhaust openings.

00:33:16:22 – 00:33:18:10

Jim York

Are.

00:33:18:13 – 00:33:19:09

Jim York

And knowing that the.

00:33:19:09 – 00:33:20:11

Jim York

Interior stair is most.

00:33:20:11 – 00:33:22:29

Jim York

Likely going to be an exhaust opening, one of the most difficult.

00:33:22:29 – 00:33:25:08

Jim York

Areas to operate in.

00:33:25:11 – 00:33:26:13

Jim York

And if you do have.

00:33:26:13 – 00:33:27:17

Jim York

Up here in the northeast.

00:33:27:17 – 00:33:29:10

Jim York

We have basements.

00:33:29:12 – 00:33:30:05

Jim York

Where a lot of.

00:33:30:05 – 00:33:41:01

Jim York

I mean, a lot of the country doesn’t have basements, right. So, but but here we do. And a lot of basements. You have, small windows that are kind of like.

00:33:41:01 – 00:33:42:16

Jim York

This big that are part of the poured.

00:33:42:16 – 00:33:45:02

Jim York

Foundation. And if you can get to one of those and.

00:33:45:02 – 00:33:48:02

Jim York

Operate a line in there, you are.

00:33:48:03 – 00:34:08:13

Jim York

Helping the situation exponentially. That action. And we know from the FSRI studies and the reports that have been done, you are going to improve the conditions throughout that building, not just the basement. You’re going to, you know, lower the levels of carbon monoxide. You’re going to increase the levels of oxygen.

00:34:08:13 – 00:34:09:14

Jim York

For trapped

00:34:09:14 – 00:34:20:26

Jim York

occupants, you’re going to reduce the temperature. You’re going to reduce the, degradation. You could add at this point, degradation of.

00:34:20:28 – 00:34:23:12

Gordon Voit

He said it the.

00:34:23:14 – 00:34:24:17

Jim York

Structural members.

00:34:24:17 – 00:34:25:02

Jim York

That are being.

00:34:25:02 – 00:34:25:23

Jim York

Exposed to the.

00:34:25:23 – 00:34:26:25

Jim York

Fire. Right.

00:34:26:28 – 00:34:34:22

Jim York

So there’s nothing wrong with doing that, even though traditionally we want to do that interior. “I’m a badass. I’m going to go down the

00:34:34:22 – 00:34:36:01

Jim York

basement stairs.”

00:34:36:03 – 00:34:39:18

Jim York

And we kill people doing that. And there’s no reason to do it.

00:34:39:18 – 00:34:42:12

Jim York

Just just crazy.

00:34:42:15 – 00:34:46:09

Jim York

There’s a lot of other influencing factors, basement fires that occur.

00:34:46:12 – 00:34:49:14

Jim York

The kitchen’s the most dangerous place above a basement because.

00:34:49:15 – 00:34:51:16

Jim York

The number of penetrations.

00:34:51:16 – 00:34:52:21

Jim York

And openings.

00:34:52:21 – 00:34:54:09

Jim York

That occur. I did a.

00:34:54:09 – 00:34:58:28

Jim York

Renovation of my kitchen, and I don’t think I even realized it till I was down in the basement with the electrician.

00:34:58:28 – 00:34:59:16

Jim York

And the plumber.

00:34:59:16 – 00:35:03:26

Jim York

And man, it is Swiss cheese underneath your kitchen because.

00:35:03:28 – 00:35:06:06

Jim York

There’s drains for your dishwasher and your sink.

00:35:06:06 – 00:35:12:02

Jim York

And the plumbing has to go up in electrical, and it goes on and on and on. It’s a really.

00:35:12:02 – 00:35:12:22

Jim York

Dangerous,

00:35:12:28 – 00:35:13:12

Jim York

Place to.

00:35:13:12 – 00:35:14:14

Jim York

Operate.

00:35:14:16 – 00:35:39:11

Gordon Voit

I hear it in the Facebook comments all the time. When Sean will talk about. You’re not going to steam the firefighter. No. Steam is a very hot button topic. How does steam or lack thereof influence, how you teach basement fires? Like when you’re talking about if firefighters are in already, you know, don’t put an exterior stream in like how do you approach.

00:35:39:11 – 00:35:59:11

Jim York

Yeah. So I think I think, a couple things. I mean, I think we kind of opposing hand lines is, is always a topic. And you certainly don’t want to be hit by an opposing hand line. I think we need to kind of digest the difference between flowing, and attacking.

00:35:59:11 – 00:36:00:14

Jim York

Fire.

00:36:00:16 – 00:36:09:00

Jim York

And also flowing in attacking fire, whether that’s happening from the inside and the outside, because that can happen. And there’s situations.

00:36:09:00 – 00:36:09:10

Jim York

Where.

00:36:09:10 – 00:36:14:21

Jim York

That is okay. I think we want to think about the physical impact.

00:36:14:21 – 00:36:21:04

Jim York

Of, of fire streams on firefighters. That can be a really dangerous situation. As far as the steam conversion.

00:36:21:04 – 00:36:23:12

Jim York

Issue, I think it’s less of a topic. I think.

00:36:23:12 – 00:36:24:27

Jim York

Earlier in my career, there were.

00:36:24:27 – 00:36:26:23

Jim York

Still a lot of.

00:36:26:25 – 00:36:28:02

Jim York

30 degree fog.

00:36:28:02 – 00:36:37:11

Jim York

Type of teaching going on and things of that nature that we know we’ve kind of debunked to an extent, and we know that operating.

00:36:37:14 – 00:36:39:19

Jim York

A straight stream.

00:36:39:21 – 00:36:40:18

Jim York

Is going to be your.

00:36:40:18 – 00:36:41:02

Jim York

Preferred.

00:36:41:02 – 00:36:48:17

Jim York

Method type of thing. And I just don’t. The sooner that you knock that.

00:36:48:17 – 00:36:49:11

Jim York

Fire down.

00:36:49:11 – 00:36:50:18

Jim York

The better it’s going to be.

00:36:50:18 – 00:36:52:14

Jim York

So there’s a just a short and.

00:36:52:14 – 00:36:55:26

Jim York

Small time period that those sort of things are happening. And I think.

00:36:55:26 – 00:36:57:27

Jim York

If we’re in our proper.

00:36:57:27 – 00:36:59:01

Jim York

PPE and.

00:36:59:01 – 00:37:00:25

Jim York

We operate with proper.

00:37:00:28 – 00:37:08:11

Jim York

Tactics and and our positioning, you know, I don’t think it’s is as big a deal.

00:37:08:14 – 00:37:09:12

Jim York

If we were operating.

00:37:09:12 – 00:37:10:07

Jim York

With.

00:37:10:09 – 00:37:12:20

Jim York

Fog patterns and things like that, that’s different.

00:37:12:20 – 00:37:14:16

Jim York

But we’ve kind of I think steered the ship.

00:37:14:16 – 00:37:15:13

Jim York

In the right direction.

00:37:15:13 – 00:37:19:23

Jim York

To that. We’re not we’re not thinking that any more.

00:37:19:26 – 00:37:37:14

Gordon Voit

Is there any, story if you were to get lunch with the young firefighter, what’s kind of the story that you like to share with with him or her about from your career that that you think, every firefighter should hear?

00:37:37:17 – 00:37:38:19

Jim York

I just, you know, a couple.

00:37:38:19 – 00:37:39:18

Jim York

Fires.

00:37:39:21 – 00:37:44:28

Jim York

That I can think of where everything about, you know … My PPE

00:37:44:28 – 00:37:45:14

Jim York

mattered.

00:37:45:19 – 00:38:01:17

Jim York

And we would not have been able to have done what we did without being spot on. And, I mean, hood, gloves, collar turned up and we were able to be aggressive and make a difference in those.

00:38:01:17 – 00:38:05:10

Jim York

Firefights where you have fire.

00:38:05:13 – 00:38:06:15

Jim York

Multiple rooms on.

00:38:06:15 – 00:38:06:26

Jim York

Fire.

00:38:06:26 – 00:38:08:19

Jim York

Hallway, you can’t turn.

00:38:08:19 – 00:38:09:07

Jim York

The corner.

00:38:09:07 – 00:38:10:09

Jim York

Because.

00:38:10:11 – 00:38:10:28

Jim York

You’re going to get.

00:38:10:28 – 00:38:11:19

Jim York

Burned because.

00:38:11:19 – 00:38:13:01

Jim York

There’s fire coming over.

00:38:13:01 – 00:38:15:10

Jim York

The side of you. So having that.

00:38:15:10 – 00:38:17:08

Jim York

Muscle memory of.

00:38:17:11 – 00:38:18:23

Jim York

Getting off the piece.

00:38:18:26 – 00:38:19:11

Jim York

With your.

00:38:19:11 – 00:38:24:29

Jim York

Equipment, you know, in a manner where you can quickly don.

00:38:24:29 – 00:38:25:05

Jim York

Your.

00:38:25:05 – 00:38:32:21

Jim York

SCBA, pull your hood up and go to work. And I think that’s the most frustrating thing is I’ve been in situations.

00:38:32:21 – 00:38:33:29

Jim York

Where guys are fumbling.

00:38:33:29 – 00:38:44:29

Jim York

And it sucks, and it really kind of hits home when. You know, people are depending on you, whether it’s.

00:38:45:02 – 00:38:47:29

Jim York

Your brother, firefighter, sister, firefighter.

00:38:48:02 – 00:38:53:19

Jim York

Or the public and guys are fumbling. And I think the biggest thing about being a.

00:38:53:19 – 00:38:54:18

Jim York

Career firefighter, the.

00:38:54:18 – 00:38:55:20

Jim York

Way I was able to come.

00:38:55:20 – 00:38:56:16

Jim York

Up through the ranks.

00:38:56:16 – 00:38:58:02

Jim York

Is.

00:38:58:05 – 00:39:00:06

Jim York

You go to work and you’re doing, you know, your.

00:39:00:06 – 00:39:01:02

Jim York

Engine company is doing.

00:39:01:02 – 00:39:04:15

Jim York

3000 runs a year and you’re in and out of your turnout gear five.

00:39:04:15 – 00:39:12:29

Jim York

Ten, 12, 15 times a day. You become really good at putting your equipment on, getting on and off the truck with your SCBA.

00:39:12:29 – 00:39:16:04

Jim York

But more importantly, are you at that point where.

00:39:16:09 – 00:39:17:22

Jim York

If this automatic.

00:39:17:22 – 00:39:19:28

Jim York

Alarm actually is a fire, are you ready.

00:39:19:28 – 00:39:22:07

Jim York

To to make the move? And I think that.

00:39:22:07 – 00:39:25:01

Jim York

Just separates the guys that are.

00:39:25:03 – 00:39:33:02

Jim York

100% focused and serious and those that aren’t. So I would just say, you know, really, really consider that and you’re going to have a hell of.

00:39:33:02 – 00:39:34:02

Jim York

A career and you’re going to.

00:39:34:02 – 00:39:38:07

Jim York

Do some really cool things, but you got to be ready to, to make the move.

00:39:38:07 – 00:39:57:08

Gordon Voit

Alright, well Chief Jim York, this has been amazing. I’ve really enjoyed picking your brain and, thank you. You fight fire in a very interesting part of the country. And I know you’re used to it, but it’s just really cool to see somebody who’s done it at an excellent level and, has just such a wide variety of experience.

00:39:57:08 – 00:40:05:09

Gordon Voit

So thank you so much for coming on the show. And thank you. I’m looking forward to it’ll be fun to visit you sometime in your natural environment. Absolutely. Come see how your department does things.

00:40:05:14 – 00:40:06:16

Jim York

We could certainly arrange that.

00:40:06:16 – 00:40:07:08

Jim York

We’d love to have you.

00:40:07:14 – 00:40:10:07

Gordon Voit

Thank you very much. Thank you. Go Dunkin.

00:40:10:10 – 00:40:19:01

Gordon Voit

Want to take your residential attack to the next level? Schedule a demo at Ft.com slash demo so you can perform at your best.

Have a question? Ask Jim York

E12 – Basement Fire Tactics, Search, and Blitz Attack with PJ Norwood

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

• Basement fire tactics and ventilation before water
• Search tactics based on victim location research
• Water mapping, smooth bore nozzles, and fog nozzle application
• Deck guns, blitz attacks, and ground monitor operations
• Exposure protection, wind, staffing, and fireground decision-making

P.J. Norwood serves on the FSRI Training Advisory Committee and is an FDIC speaker, co-author of The Evolving Fireground and the Director of Training at Connecticut Fire Academy.

View Transcript

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:11:04
Sean Gray
That’s, we have been brainwashed with that over the years, is that, you know, more GPMs, more BTUs, more GPMs, big fire, big water. We’ve heard all these things over the years, and it’s just simply not true.

00:00:11:07 – 00:00:17:08
Gordon Voit
It’s respectful, and he disagrees with you. Okay. And I’m really curious to hear your response. Could I just have you.

00:00:17:09 – 00:00:17:13
Sean Gray
Sure.

00:00:17:15 – 00:00:19:05
Gordon Voit
Of course, you have not read this before.

00:00:19:06 – 00:00:20:16
Sean Gray
Have not. Nope.

00:00:20:18 – 00:00:28:00
Narrator
One of the most popular guys at FDIC is back for another podcast episode. It’s Cobb County, Georgia’s Sean Gray.

00:00:28:00 – 00:00:36:14
Narrator
In this episode, we talk about the viral response to his fully involved episodes, and he’s even going to answer some criticism live.

00:00:36:19 – 00:00:39:17
Narrator
We talked about gas cooling versus surface cooling,

00:00:39:19 – 00:00:48:14
Narrator
a common basement fire mistake that he sees, and the changes to search research in the brand-new edition of his book, Evolving Fire Ground.

00:00:48:16 – 00:00:56:20
Narrator
Join us at the Connecticut Fire Academy’s Winter Fire School, and get ready for 30 minutes of knowledge to help you level up your game.

00:00:56:20 – 00:01:04:18

Must be coming in.

00:01:04:20 – 00:01:07:11
Gordon Voit
Back by popular demand. Great.

00:01:07:12 – 00:01:08:13
Sean Gray
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

00:01:08:14 – 00:01:24:20
Gordon Voit
Thank you so much. You hosted us in Cobb County. Yep. We did an interview, and people love it. They love to hear what you have to say. So we’re here at Connecticut Fire Academy’s Winter School with the keynote speaker himself, Sean Gray. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:25:00 – 00:01:27:00
Sean Gray
Thank you for having me, man. Always a pleasure.

00:01:27:03 – 00:01:35:07
Gordon Voit
So I got to know, what’s it been like watching the responses on social media to our tactical videos and your podcast interview?

00:01:35:07 – 00:01:54:09
Sean Gray
Well, you know, I was a little nervous because of our past social media experiences that we’ve had with Stop Believing, Start Knowing. And so I was like, oh, man, here come all the haters, right? So, but no, it’s been nothing but positive. It’s been great to see, and, you know, really glad that you guys have had a lot of people kind of lock onto them and be paying attention and listen to what’s being said.

00:01:54:10 – 00:02:07:09
Sean Gray
And of course, I’ve taken some ribbing personally, that kind of thing. You know, when I’m up there and, you know, my face is up there, I’m like, you know, people make fun of me like, oh, great, my social media feed’s going to blow up again with Sean Gray’s face on it. But yeah. So it’s all been good.

00:02:07:10 – 00:02:11:14
Gordon Voit
Yeah. Like, who has reached out to you? What’s the response been like from your friends?

00:02:11:15 – 00:02:28:12
Sean Gray
Honestly, nothing but positive. You know, everybody’s like, hey, man, that last video you guys did, that was great. You know, really love it. Just good conversations. And so it’s kind of hard to beat it up when it’s all, you know, research-based and very factual. So it’s not like it’s just BS and it’s just my opinion type of thing. You know.

00:02:28:13 – 00:02:29:02
Sean Gray
You know.

00:02:29:08 – 00:02:40:03
Gordon Voit
What was the tactic or the video we did that touched a nerve the most, where you were like, whoa, that really got a strong reaction?

00:02:40:05 – 00:03:03:02
Sean Gray
You know, probably, I think that people are really locking into the VEIS type stuff now. And so when we did that window-initiated search and the guys were talking about like, you’re going in a window, you have hot gas coming out over top of you. It’s okay to flow water in that window. I think that’s still, people are a little nervous about that, about putting water that close to firefighters.

00:03:03:04 – 00:03:15:09
Sean Gray
And so that’s one of those things where people are still probably not comfortable with that, because they still think that they’re going to get steamed and burned. And that’s just simply not the truth. It’s only cooling that room off, and it’s only making things better.

00:03:15:10 – 00:03:29:02
Gordon Voit
So I’m glad you brought that up, because there was actually a comment that came in. One of the many comments you’ve gotten. This was very recently, and it’s respectful, and he disagrees with you. Okay. And I’m really curious to hear your response. Could I just have you.

00:03:29:03 – 00:03:29:07
Sean Gray
Sure.

00:03:29:09 – 00:03:30:23
Gordon Voit
Of course, you have not read this before.

00:03:31:00 – 00:03:32:09
Sean Gray
Have not. Nope.

00:03:32:11 – 00:03:47:23
Gordon Voit
Awesome. This is of your comment there. Okay. You don’t necessarily have to read it aloud, but just, yeah. What’s the gist of his question from what you can tell? And take your time kind of digesting it. He’s never seen this before.

00:03:48:00 – 00:03:49:05
Sean Gray
Yep.

00:03:49:07 – 00:03:50:05
Gordon Voit
It’s Captain Brain.

00:03:50:05 – 00:03:58:08
Sean Gray
That’s pretty funny that I just brought that up about the, that I just brought that up about steam, because I had no idea that this was going to be on here.

00:03:58:10 – 00:04:00:07
Gordon Voit
Yeah. So, so what’s his objection?

00:04:00:09 – 00:04:33:00
Sean Gray
Yeah. So he, you know, he said, you know, what’s been disproven is oversimplified teaching. The water automatically expands to 1,700 and violently displaces everything in the compartment. Steam formation itself was never disproven. Well, technically, in the UL FSRI fire attack study, we actually learned we had some kids that are just amazing. They built lasers that went across the middle of the hallway. And yeah, so, and so that was really trying to figure out exactly how much moisture was in a fire before we even put water into it.

00:04:33:01 – 00:04:51:10
Sean Gray
Right. And so what we learned was the moisture content just from what’s burning inside of the fire is actually very, very high. And so, yeah, it’s a really wet environment. And it’s mostly just because if you ever take like a piece of foam and you’re just playing with it, you start lighting foam, it actually starts dripping water out of it, fire and dripping.

00:04:51:10 – 00:05:13:10
Sean Gray
So you’re like, wait a minute. What? That doesn’t make sense to me. So yeah. So there’s been a thing that’s been in the books forever about the 1,700 times. And that 1,700 times is just simply inaccurate. It came from locomotive steam engines, and it was hypothetical, and somehow made it into our textbooks. And firefighters have that number in their head of 1,700 times.

00:05:13:10 – 00:05:36:04
Sean Gray
It’s going to expand that no matter what. It’s been there for, I don’t even know how many years, longer than I’ve been in the fire service. It’s been there. So, and people still believe that. And then they have these experiences, bad experiences that happened on a fire ground. Stories get told at the kitchen table. And those stories continue on, right, in the firehouse.

00:05:36:05 – 00:05:59:10
Sean Gray
And so, clearly, this person has had a bad reaction at some point in time, and maybe even from an exterior stream. And so, usually when I run into people that have concerns like this about exterior water, I ask them what type of stream were they using? And usually, they can’t tell you. It’s like, I don’t know, I was inside, and it was hot.

00:05:59:10 – 00:06:21:18
Sean Gray
And then they brought water in, and things got really hot. But it’s always amazing. Their ears are never burned off, and it’s not like they have, you know, scars on their ears or anything like that. But it probably was uncomfortable for just a second if a misapplied exterior stream was put on there. So when I say misapplied is, you know, we talk about the right way to do that. It’s got to be on a straight stream, you know.

00:06:21:19 – 00:06:41:16
Sean Gray
And if I can advocate, I want you guys to make a nozzle that locks in place on a straight stream. And then we can unlock it by pressing a tab, going to fog, because we want it to be locked in on a straight stream. If it’s on a fog stream at all, if somebody makes a mistake when they put a fog stream into there, the fog, because of the air and the convective air that’s coming with it.

00:06:41:16 – 00:07:04:03
Sean Gray
That’s why it’s so important to understand air entrainment, that air that’s coming in there with the smaller droplets. It could absolutely start to expand some gases inside of there, and there could be some pushing, right, pushing of gases, not really necessarily pushing fire, because water droplets put out fire. But you’re going to push hot gases with the air of that nozzle, not necessarily with the water of the nozzle, but with the air of the nozzle.

00:07:04:03 – 00:07:16:01
Sean Gray
And that’s super important to understand. That’s why we really want to keep things on straight streams, either smooth bore or straight streams. It’s got to be locked-in tight streams when we’re fighting fire, especially on exterior fire control.

00:07:16:03 – 00:07:16:20
Gordon Voit
Interesting.

00:07:16:21 – 00:07:19:00
Sean Gray
I hope I answered all of it. I didn’t read the whole.

00:07:19:00 – 00:07:33:13
Gordon Voit
Thing, but it is a very long comment. Okay. Yeah, he says if we’re going to promote aggressive research and informed fire funding, it’s important to present the facts completely and precisely, not selectively. And you’re basically saying, well, you know, what’s the accuracy of.

00:07:33:13 – 00:07:56:03
Sean Gray
Sure. It’s difficult. I mean, these reports are 1,000 pages long. You know, it’s very difficult in a two-minute video to actually be able to put all of the facts in there. So I understand his concerns in his comments, but I would challenge him to go back and pull up the report and where it talks about the moisture content of what was burning and exactly what comes out of the live fire environments.

00:07:56:03 – 00:08:04:10
Gordon Voit
Interesting. Yeah, I think this is a nice segue into, would love to hear about your trip to Wales. What were you tackling in Wales?

00:08:04:11 – 00:08:08:13
Sean Gray
Yeah. So the UK fire service in general, just

00:08:08:17 – 00:08:27:03
Sean Gray
they’re transitioning, and they’re transitioning the type of nozzles that they’re using. So they have traditionally always used gas cooling as their primary fire attack method. And so that is a high-pressure hose line, 22 mm hose line, which for us here in the U.S. is tiny, 0.87 inches.

00:08:27:03 – 00:08:53:14
Sean Gray
Yeah, smaller than a one-inch line. And it flows, you know, very little water, somewhere in the 50 to 60 gallon range type of thing. So, and with a nozzle and with that high pressure, they traditionally have some door control tactics. When they get there, I should say just door tactics. And they put water up into the gases to try to convert the gases to steam with that smaller droplet.

00:08:53:16 – 00:09:16:07
Sean Gray
If you start to understand the methodology behind that, they think hypothetically that it’s a 0.33 mm size droplet, right, in order to convert the gases over, which is tiny. For us in the U.S., the easiest way to explain is like fighting fire with with a pressure washer, you know. So if I, yeah. So if I were to tell you as firefighters, say you want to fight fire with a pressure washer, they’re like, heck no, I don’t want to fight fire with a pressure washer.

00:09:16:07 – 00:09:37:17
Sean Gray
So, but for them, they are really good at controlling the air on their fires. So they’re really, really hardcore. Like, they don’t take any windows. There’s very little venting. They control all the doors. So they really take the air away from the fire, which allows them to have lesser GPM nozzles to be able to go in and do gas cooling.

00:09:37:17 – 00:10:00:13
Sean Gray
So, but they are transitioning. They’ve had some, they’ve had, they are following the research. They know where all the research is coming from. They talk about exactly that, it doesn’t take as much water as we think that it does, and then about surface cooling. So I went there to, they are building the FSRI water mapping props. They’re building them all over the place in the UK, which is pretty cool to see.

00:10:00:13 – 00:10:19:03
Sean Gray
And so I went there because they had built an FSRI water mapping prop, and they wanted somebody to come over and do a train the trainer and talk about surface cooling. And so, yeah, so I got to go over there and kind of represent the U.S. and speak in Wales. But yeah, super cool. You know, really, really good people.

00:10:19:05 – 00:10:40:14
Sean Gray
They were even like almost a little nervous to get on an inch-and-three-quarter hose line because that is their like defensive line almost. That’s their hose line that they use. Like what we typically use two-and-a-half. Like, a lot of people, one person on a two-and-a-half typically is not going to get down there and be super happy that they’re on a two-and-a-half by themselves, right?

00:10:40:15 – 00:10:58:17
Sean Gray
It’s just such a big line, a lot of water coming out of it. That’s how they feel about the 44 millimeter, which is equal to our inch-and-three-quarters. And so, yeah, so it was kind of fun to see that and then teach them some nozzle techniques and then talk about surface cooling with them and painting rainbows going down hallways and, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:10:58:17 – 00:11:22:07
Sean Gray
Gas cooling versus surface cooling. So, you know, historically, the European fire service has always done gas cooling. And, you know, they’re wanting to go to surface cooling, which is all the nozzles that TFT makes. Right. So with surface cooling and gas cooling. So in America, our water droplets are too large to do gas cooling.

00:11:22:08 – 00:11:40:21
Sean Gray
I think people have taught, almost maybe even bastardized. So Americans went over to Europe, and they said, hey, this gas cooling thing is pretty cool. It’s very scientific. And so, I’m going to bring that back. And so they brought it back to the U.S. and developed techniques and went back to their own departments. Matter of fact, L.A. County did this before the fire attack study.

00:11:40:21 – 00:11:46:02
Sean Gray
And then they learned in the fire attack study that, hey, what you guys are doing actually doesn’t work at all. It’s completely made up, right?

00:11:46:03 – 00:11:46:20
Gordon Voit
Because it’s.

00:11:47:01 – 00:12:09:13
Sean Gray
Because of the droplet size. So our droplets here in the U.S., our nozzles, we have larger droplets. The energy of the fire gets eaten up by those larger droplets. Versus in Europe, they have very small droplets, and they try to put that small droplets up into the gas layer to do gas cooling. So that gas cooling has to be 0.33 mm in size.

00:12:09:14 – 00:12:38:02
Sean Gray
Okay. So this hypothetical, but about that water droplet size. And so it’s like a pressure washer, that small, right. So they are trying to cool gases. But the same thing is their nozzles aren’t making it through the gases with that fog onto the surfaces. So they’re not really doing any surface cooling. And one of the things that we’ve learned from research is that the surfaces are very, very important because you can get rebound ignition of gases just based off of the surface temperatures.

00:12:38:02 – 00:12:58:16
Sean Gray
So it’s important for us to coat the surfaces with water. That’s why I talk about painting rainbows down a hallway. Right. Because we’re going to coat that entire surface all the way down that hallway. And when we make it down the hallway to the very end, we want to try to put the water up, up steep, across the ceiling surfaces into the fire room and allow it to come down onto the wall.

00:12:58:16 – 00:13:20:02
Sean Gray
So we cool all the surfaces before we put water onto the burning fuels. Right? So let’s understand really like a sprinkler. But the, yeah, the sprinkler’s just not coming out. It’s really, it’s actually the velocity of the stream is allowing, is taking the water and it’s pushing it across the surfaces. And so it surfs, the water actually surfs right across the surfaces and makes it down there.

00:13:20:02 – 00:13:35:22
Sean Gray
And so you can coat everything. That’s why the water mapping rig is so important. Because when you see that water mapping prop, it’s because of the clear glass that we use in the hallway, as the students can stand there and see it, and they just watch the surfaces. What’s amazing is that you don’t actually have to use your nozzle.

00:13:35:22 – 00:13:53:16
Sean Gray
You don’t actually have to move it that much. If you just go to the very end of the hallway and you put the nozzle straight up, that water is going to surf right across that ceiling, and it’s going to go all the way down. It comes right down the walls. And so you can show students that, hey, stream angle matters.

00:13:53:18 – 00:14:15:11
Sean Gray
The movement of the nozzle matters to coat all the surfaces. And so you’re able to take, in that actual prop, just really show people the advantage of surface cooling. And that’s where, in Europe, that’s why they’re starting to transition. They’re transitioning to the newer nozzles and really starting to make a change. And I love their lower GPM stuff.

00:14:15:12 – 00:14:32:07
Sean Gray
I think that that’s a huge thing. They use liters per minute. But I think that we should meet somewhere in the middle. I think the U.S. and Europe are, we’re getting really close. So ever since my time over there in Wales, I’ve had some guys from Europe reach out on social media, and we’ve had some discussions back and forth, and they agree.

00:14:32:08 – 00:14:50:02
Sean Gray
I was like, I think we’re too far. We’re flowing too much water. Right? So our water requirements are too high, and I’d love to see it come back and get dialed in maybe around the 125, 130 GPM range. And this is just all hypothetical. It’s just Sean Gray’s opinion here. I have no research to back this up.

00:14:50:02 – 00:15:02:23
Sean Gray
Right. But, and then they need to probably come up from their smaller hose line, reel hose lines, high-pressure lines, and meet us somewhere in the middle right around that. So, you know, I think we’re getting there. Yep.

00:15:02:23 – 00:15:11:04
Gordon Voit
So, yeah, that’s so cool. And then so is your picture like on banners all over Wales? No. No parade.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:28:16
Sean Gray
No, not so, yeah. No, it’s pretty funny, but they were lovely hosts. I mean, they were awesome, you know. Of course, took me out to the pub and took me out to, as they would say, a proper pub. And so I went to a proper Welsh pub and went to a, there’s a castle right outside the pub that they took me to.

00:15:28:17 – 00:15:44:09
Sean Gray
And yeah, of course, like everybody has a castle right there, they’re downtown, so like huge, you know, old castle. And then right into going to this pub, and there were people just in there with fiddles, just playing music. Like, they were all a little confused too. Like, this doesn’t normally happen. It wasn’t like live music that was planned to be there.

00:15:44:09 – 00:15:52:20
Sean Gray
It was just some patrons that had come in and brought in their fiddles. And there they were, playing this very Celtic music, and it was awesome. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah, a very good experience.

00:15:52:22 – 00:15:59:11
Sean Gray
And so this training was to create a train the trainer group for them to be able to go out and train the Wales fire service.

00:15:59:11 – 00:16:08:10
Gordon Voit
Wow. That’s got to feel pretty cool. The fact that your impact wasn’t just with that group and knowing that you’re going to make an impact for the whole country, potentially.

00:16:08:11 – 00:16:12:16
Sean Gray
Yeah. No. Yes, pretty cool. Yeah. Not a very big country, but yeah, pretty small place.

00:16:12:16 – 00:16:14:01
Gordon Voit
But

00:16:14:03 – 00:16:29:07
Gordon Voit
what are the other tactics that, when we were kind of deciding what to chat about, basements. Tell me about what low intake and high exhaust. Why is this something that you feel like is misunderstood?

00:16:29:09 – 00:16:56:19
Sean Gray
Yeah. So if you really look at some historical line-of-duty deaths, we’ve had a lot of low intake, high exhaust. And historically, going back to talk about Cherry Road in D.C., Diamond Heights fire in San Francisco, [unclear] Avenue, and most recently in FDNY, there’s been a lot of fires that have, or people don’t recognize that the fire is below them, and they’re caught in an exhaust above them.

00:16:56:19 – 00:17:18:03
Sean Gray
So low intake, meaning that the air is being pulled in on the lower level, and the firefighters are operating on the upper level. And it’s an exhaust. So they are caught in that flow path. That’s a very dangerous place for both civilians and for firefighters. So low intake, high exhaust, yeah, it can happen in a basement. I think that’s what most people think of when they think of low intake, high exhaust.

00:17:18:03 – 00:17:38:09
Sean Gray
But it really can happen, you could be on a ten-floor building. It could happen in a stairwell from the ninth floor to the 10th floor. Right. It’s low. It’s got to be just below it, like you’re just operating above it. So dangerous place to be, really recognized. And I encourage people to go onto the FSRI Fire Safety Academy.

00:17:38:13 – 00:17:57:19
Sean Gray
They have, it’s like a two-minute video that was put together about low intake, high exhaust, and really try to familiarize yourself with that. But how do you fight that fire? You try not to commit above it if you can. You know, got to get water on the same level that the fire is on. And so some people are going to say, well, you know, how do I go?

00:17:57:22 – 00:18:22:15
Sean Gray
What do I go down into? How am I going to, I have to go down the stairs. That’s the only access point typically in basements or anything like that. There’s very few places that don’t have a door that accesses a basement, windows that access the basement. There’s typically some sort of opening. There are dwellings that have just a solid block, just the stairwell going down in there.

00:18:22:16 – 00:18:41:07
Sean Gray
You know, that’s kind of that creepy thing that you see in the horror movies, right? That. Right. So there’s just like a boiler or something like that downstairs. Right? Yeah, that does happen. But you know what the advantage of that is, is in fires that are down below that, and that you would have to go down because we’re taught in the academy to be able to go down, get real low, and slide down the stairs.

00:18:41:08 – 00:19:05:07
Sean Gray
And it’s always that what if moment, right. But there’s no air down there in that type of scenario. If there is truly no windows and no doors or no access to that basement, there’s also no air. And so it’s going to not be this rip-roaring fire. It’s going to probably be pretty nasty, pretty sooty, even somewhat low temperatures, because it doesn’t have a lot of air to do that.

00:19:05:07 – 00:19:11:23
Sean Gray
So if you control the door at the top of the stairs and get your butt down the stairs quickly to the base of the fire, you should be able to extinguish it.

00:19:11:23 – 00:19:15:14
Gordon Voit
But with an inch-and-three-quarter. We’re not talking about anything crazy.

00:19:15:15 – 00:19:35:02
Sean Gray
Nope. Just know, because you don’t need it. That’s the thing about GPMs, right, is that it doesn’t matter how many GPMs you typically have. That’s, we have been brainwashed with that over the years, is that, you know, more GPMs, more BTUs, more GPMs, big fire, big water. We’ve heard all these things over the years, and it’s just simply not true.

00:19:35:03 – 00:20:01:20
Sean Gray
What we’re finding with the research is you don’t need as much water as you think you need. What you need is maneuverability, speed, and getting water onto the base of the fire. That’s what you need. It’s all about maneuverability and speed. Getting water onto the base of the fire with probably open hose line. Most of the hose lines now, like if we’re talking low-pressure nozzles and a little bit lower GPM nozzles, those nozzles are open the entire time we’re talking, opening them up, flowing water the whole time.

00:20:01:20 – 00:20:29:19
Sean Gray
That is what’s extinguishing fire. So dig into the research. You know, I challenge people to go into their, go to the fire attack study and look at what the average gallons was. So those were one- and two-room fires, 257 gallons I think was the average. The total average, right, of use, total 257 gallons. Right. Then you go to the coordinated fire attack study, where we did residential structures and acquired structures, and we saw pretty much very close to the same numbers.

00:20:29:20 – 00:20:51:03
Sean Gray
Then you go to the multi-family dwelling fires that we hosted in Cobb County, and you see, there was one fire in particular that a lot of people run videos of, and it’s this big, huge light show on the outside, and I’m actually the guy that happens to be on the nozzle. So, and yeah, and so on that fire, we usually try to guess how many, how many gallons did it take to extinguish this fire.

00:20:51:03 – 00:21:10:12
Sean Gray
And the answer is 185 gallons total. But when you see this, we have a whole apartment going, 700 square feet completely on fire. It’s blowing out of multiple ventilation openings, and it’s really ripping. And when you see it, there’s like, there’s no way that they put that out with 185 gallons total. It’s not gallons per minute, gallons total, you know.

00:21:10:13 – 00:21:15:14
Sean Gray
And that’s the key. It’s a 160, 162 GPM nozzle, 7/8 smooth bore tip.

00:21:15:18 – 00:21:18:09
Gordon Voit
So it’s trying to pull that video.

00:21:18:11 – 00:21:19:20
Sean Gray
I’ll get it to you. You can add it in.

00:21:19:21 – 00:21:20:14
Gordon Voit
Yeah.

00:21:20:16 – 00:21:21:06
Sean Gray
Yep.

00:21:21:08 – 00:21:40:21
Gordon Voit
Awesome. So what are the, you know, 2018, you come up with Evolving Fire Ground. What has the response been like? Because I know people in our building that I work with that haven’t even met you, drop it down on the table and you’re like, I read this all the time. What’s the response been like from Evolving Fire Ground? What nerve can you touch?

00:21:42:01 – 00:22:00:12
Sean Gray
No, I think, you know, our goal was, you know, the research. It can be, it’s very difficult to read. It’s very difficult to digest. You know, a lot of people don’t like reading a 1,000-page report and diving in, looking at charts and graphs. I mean, firefighters aren’t built to do that. So PJ and I both felt like that we needed like a translator.

00:22:00:12 – 00:22:19:05
Sean Gray
And so, and we felt like that working with our friends, our close friends at FSRI with the research, we were able to kind of learn from them, really, and start to think about ways that we can translate some of the research into a digestible book to be able to read it. So that’s kind of where the idea came from.

00:22:19:05 – 00:22:42:19
Sean Gray
And then the book came out, and, you know, next thing you know, we have like large metro departments that are using it for their promotion exams. And, you know, it’s small. It’s easily, easily read, like very readable book. And it’s not, it’s not really our opinions. You know, it is our translation of the research that’s being done.

00:22:42:19 – 00:22:51:16
Sean Gray
And that’s it. Trying to put it into perspective. So it’s been good. And, you know, the second edition coming out, we’re super excited about that.

00:22:51:17 – 00:22:56:09
Gordon Voit
Yeah. And like, at what point did you go, oh yeah, we should release a second?

00:22:56:11 – 00:23:15:15
Sean Gray
Yeah. So because the research is always ongoing, right. So that’s what’s cool about the research is like every research study that we do, there’s an oh moment. It’s like, oh, I mean, you know, Steve Kerber, Dan, you would think that after all these years, they truly know all of the answers. Right. And the fact is, is that there’s some things that still surprise them.

00:23:15:15 – 00:23:36:22
Sean Gray
And so those little moments like, oh, you know what? Yeah, we need to look into that again. So, you know, notes get taken, and the next thing you know, it just continues to evolve and turn into more research. And, you know, where we are now is like we know a lot about residential, especially the way that water moves across surfaces, surface cooling, water mapping, air entrainment.

00:23:36:22 – 00:23:57:05
Sean Gray
But we know a lot about extinguishment in residential structures, but we don’t really know all that much about it in commercial structures. And so that’s where we’re like heading in the future. And so the book for us was, we wanted to go back and capture some of the things that we didn’t get in the first edition and the things that we felt were really important, that the research should now come out.

00:23:57:05 – 00:24:15:12
Sean Gray
That stuff wasn’t out yet. So the water mapping and air entrainment was really, really important. Those pieces were there. We wanted to add that in. So we added a whole section on that. Actually, our search chapter. So our search chapter was just built off of the things that we do in Cobb County. And fortunately, we have some pretty smart dudes that work in Cobb County.

00:24:15:12 – 00:24:36:13
Sean Gray
And they developed a lot of search techniques that fell in line with the research. Well, now there’s an entire search study that came out since our first edition was published. And so now in the second edition, you’re going to get that chapter that was already built, that was in the first edition. And now we have all this research to match up everything that we were already doing and putting into the book.

00:24:36:14 – 00:25:00:04
Sean Gray
It matches it. So just small examples, you know, the way that we’re searching, like always isolating. You know, we used to search and open up lots of doors, and that’s not what you want to do now because we know so much about victims, and victim isolation is very important. So had I told you in, you know, five years ago, seven years ago, like, hey, it’s okay to go into a room.

00:25:00:07 – 00:25:15:17
Sean Gray
Yeah, you got a rocking fire down the hallway somewhere. Close the door, go in there and break the window. People are going to go, no, don’t break the window. Don’t do that. No, that’s 100% what you want to do. Because if you have a victim in that room, the door is isolated. You’re getting all of those gases out, and you’re making everything better for the victim.

00:25:15:17 – 00:25:34:14
Sean Gray
So that’s some of the things. It’s like, you know, in this book, we’re really challenging people to get water on the fire as quickly as possible because it makes everything better for the civilians and for the firefighters. And then we’ve got to get all the gases out as quickly as possible. So whether that might be hydraulic ventilation, which is very efficient, we learned that from the coordinated attack study.

00:25:34:14 – 00:25:55:23
Sean Gray
So we brought in all that type of stuff, talking about the efficiency of hydraulic ventilation to PPV to roof ventilation. Really, we split up the ventilation patterns of there’s forced ventilation and natural ventilation. So that mechanical forced ventilation is with a device. It’s either with a fan in your hand, which is nozzle. Right. So, so you either have that fan in your hand, which is very effective.

00:25:55:23 – 00:26:15:21
Sean Gray
So an effective nozzle should be able to get to the fire room. And then immediately, once they’ve got a confirmed knock on the fire, open it up and start getting all the gases out the window. And that’s, I mean, that’s a home run right there. If we can teach people to do that, you know, making the fire room, getting all the gases out, and then you have natural ventilation, which is where the roof ventilation pieces come in.

00:26:15:21 – 00:26:41:19
Sean Gray
So we talk about all of those. And then we got a chapter on emerging technologies. And that’s not something that I was super comfortable writing about because I’m certainly not an expert in that field. But FSRI has done a ton of research on that. And so we tried to do a bunch of research, take what FSRI has done, try to translate some of that on how the lithium-ion batteries are affecting our fires and how they’re starting to change the environment.

00:26:41:19 – 00:26:47:04
Sean Gray
So we have an entire chapter on that. And yeah, it’s great. So, yeah, we’re excited for it to come out.

00:26:47:06 – 00:26:56:01
Gordon Voit
And then speaking of content, you’re about to, or you delivered content at the fire school in Connecticut. Yeah, Connecticut Fire Academy.

00:26:56:01 – 00:26:57:18
Gordon Voit
What did you speak on?

00:26:57:19 – 00:27:18:15
Sean Gray
Yeah. So the Winter Fire School at the Connecticut Fire Academy. You know, I was invited by my buddy PJ Norwood and asked me to come up and be the keynote presenter. And so he challenged me to present a company officer leadership class. And that’s not something that I’m real comfortable with presenting on. I don’t feel like that.

00:27:18:16 – 00:27:39:20
Sean Gray
That’s, I don’t, I don’t write leadership. I don’t, you know, I don’t really speak on leadership. And he’s like, no, you’ve been an officer for a long time. And so, yeah. So I basically developed something that, you know, a lot of mistakes that I’ve made over the years as a company officer, and kind of talk and tell stories, if you will, of how some of those situations come up, how they were handled.

00:27:40:02 – 00:27:57:22
Sean Gray
And it’s really, it’s called Walking the Wire. And the whole point of the class is that as a company officer, you’re there to support your people, but you’re also there to support the mission and the department. And so you walk a very fine line of how to do that. And so as a company officer, those are some of the challenges.

00:27:57:22 – 00:28:11:21
Sean Gray
And so I throw that out there and try to challenge some people and, you know, play some videos and tell some stories. And that’s really what it is. And hopefully, they walk away at the end of the day and makes them think about, man, you know, one of the things about being an officer is like, now you’re kind of the dad, right?

00:28:11:21 – 00:28:26:07
Sean Gray
Like, that’s what I tell my crew all the time. Like, hey, don’t make me be dad. Most firefighters, they know the rules, right? Like, they know all the rules already. They know if they break the rules. So don’t make me be dad, because I don’t want to have to, you know, put you in timeout.

00:28:26:09 – 00:28:40:14
Gordon Voit
Just thanks so much for just lending your knowledge. It’s so cool to see the conversation, like millions of impressions, you know, from the conversations that we’ve been having with you and PJ. And yeah, we’re just really grateful. And thanks for taking the time.

00:28:40:20 – 00:28:42:00
Sean Gray
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

00:28:42:04 – 00:28:50:21

Want to take your residential attack to the next level? Schedule a demo at tft.com/demo so you can perform at your best.

Have a question? Ask PJ Norwood

E11 – Sean Gray on Steam Myths, VEIS & Smarter Fire Attack

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

• Exterior fire attack and steam expansion myths
• Straight streams, fog patterns, and air entrainment
• Gas cooling vs. surface cooling in fire attack
• Basement fires, flow paths, and low-intake, high-exhaust conditions
• Interior attack, maneuverability, low-pressure nozzles, and GPM selection

Sean Gray is on the FSRI Training Advisory Committee and Advisory Board, is an FDIC speaker, co-author of The Evolving Fireground and a Captain in the Cobb County (GA) Fire Department.

View Transcript

00:00:00:04 – 00:00:11:04
Sean Gray
That’s, we have been brainwashed with that over the years, is that, you know, more GPMs, more BTUs, more GPMs, big fire, big water. We’ve heard all these things over the years, and it’s just simply not true.

00:00:11:07 – 00:00:17:08
Gordon Voit
It’s respectful, and he disagrees with you. Okay. And I’m really curious to hear your response. Could I just have you.

00:00:17:09 – 00:00:17:13
Sean Gray
Sure.

00:00:17:15 – 00:00:19:05
Gordon Voit
Of course, you have not read this before.

00:00:19:06 – 00:00:20:16
Sean Gray
Have not. Nope.

00:00:20:18 – 00:00:28:00
Narrator
One of the most popular guys at FDIC is back for another podcast episode. It’s Cobb County, Georgia’s Sean Gray.

00:00:28:00 – 00:00:36:14
Narrator
In this episode, we talk about the viral response to his fully involved episodes, and he’s even going to answer some criticism live.

00:00:36:19 – 00:00:39:17
Narrator
We talked about gas cooling versus surface cooling,

00:00:39:19 – 00:00:48:14
Narrator
a common basement fire mistake that he sees, and the changes to search research in the brand-new edition of his book, Evolving Fire Ground.

00:00:48:16 – 00:00:56:20
Narrator
Join us at the Connecticut Fire Academy’s Winter Fire School, and get ready for 30 minutes of knowledge to help you level up your game.

00:00:56:20 – 00:01:04:18

Must be coming in.

00:01:04:20 – 00:01:07:11
Gordon Voit
Back by popular demand. Great.

00:01:07:12 – 00:01:08:13
Sean Gray
Yeah. Thank you for having me.

00:01:08:14 – 00:01:24:20
Gordon Voit
Thank you so much. You hosted us in Cobb County. Yep. We did an interview, and people love it. They love to hear what you have to say. So we’re here at Connecticut Fire Academy’s Winter School with the keynote speaker himself, Sean Gray. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:25:00 – 00:01:27:00
Sean Gray
Thank you for having me, man. Always a pleasure.

00:01:27:03 – 00:01:35:07
Gordon Voit
So I got to know, what’s it been like watching the responses on social media to our tactical videos and your podcast interview?

00:01:35:07 – 00:01:54:09
Sean Gray
Well, you know, I was a little nervous because of our past social media experiences that we’ve had with Stop Believing, Start Knowing. And so I was like, oh, man, here come all the haters, right? So, but no, it’s been nothing but positive. It’s been great to see, and, you know, really glad that you guys have had a lot of people kind of lock onto them and be paying attention and listen to what’s being said.

00:01:54:10 – 00:02:07:09
Sean Gray
And of course, I’ve taken some ribbing personally, that kind of thing. You know, when I’m up there and, you know, my face is up there, I’m like, you know, people make fun of me like, oh, great, my social media feed’s going to blow up again with Sean Gray’s face on it. But yeah. So it’s all been good.

00:02:07:10 – 00:02:11:14
Gordon Voit
Yeah. Like, who has reached out to you? What’s the response been like from your friends?

00:02:11:15 – 00:02:28:12
Sean Gray
Honestly, nothing but positive. You know, everybody’s like, hey, man, that last video you guys did, that was great. You know, really love it. Just good conversations. And so it’s kind of hard to beat it up when it’s all, you know, research-based and very factual. So it’s not like it’s just BS and it’s just my opinion type of thing. You know.

00:02:28:13 – 00:02:29:02
Sean Gray
You know.

00:02:29:08 – 00:02:40:03
Gordon Voit
What was the tactic or the video we did that touched a nerve the most, where you were like, whoa, that really got a strong reaction?

00:02:40:05 – 00:03:03:02
Sean Gray
You know, probably, I think that people are really locking into the VEIS type stuff now. And so when we did that window-initiated search and the guys were talking about like, you’re going in a window, you have hot gas coming out over top of you. It’s okay to flow water in that window. I think that’s still, people are a little nervous about that, about putting water that close to firefighters.

00:03:03:04 – 00:03:15:09
Sean Gray
And so that’s one of those things where people are still probably not comfortable with that, because they still think that they’re going to get steamed and burned. And that’s just simply not the truth. It’s only cooling that room off, and it’s only making things better.

00:03:15:10 – 00:03:29:02
Gordon Voit
So I’m glad you brought that up, because there was actually a comment that came in. One of the many comments you’ve gotten. This was very recently, and it’s respectful, and he disagrees with you. Okay. And I’m really curious to hear your response. Could I just have you.

00:03:29:03 – 00:03:29:07
Sean Gray
Sure.

00:03:29:09 – 00:03:30:23
Gordon Voit
Of course, you have not read this before.

00:03:31:00 – 00:03:32:09
Sean Gray
Have not. Nope.

00:03:32:11 – 00:03:47:23
Gordon Voit
Awesome. This is of your comment there. Okay. You don’t necessarily have to read it aloud, but just, yeah. What’s the gist of his question from what you can tell? And take your time kind of digesting it. He’s never seen this before.

00:03:48:00 – 00:03:49:05
Sean Gray
Yep.

00:03:49:07 – 00:03:50:05
Gordon Voit
It’s Captain Brain.

00:03:50:05 – 00:03:58:08
Sean Gray
That’s pretty funny that I just brought that up about the, that I just brought that up about steam, because I had no idea that this was going to be on here.

00:03:58:10 – 00:04:00:07
Gordon Voit
Yeah. So, so what’s his objection?

00:04:00:09 – 00:04:33:00
Sean Gray
Yeah. So he, you know, he said, you know, what’s been disproven is oversimplified teaching. The water automatically expands to 1,700 and violently displaces everything in the compartment. Steam formation itself was never disproven. Well, technically, in the UL FSRI fire attack study, we actually learned we had some kids that are just amazing. They built lasers that went across the middle of the hallway. And yeah, so, and so that was really trying to figure out exactly how much moisture was in a fire before we even put water into it.

00:04:33:01 – 00:04:51:10
Sean Gray
Right. And so what we learned was the moisture content just from what’s burning inside of the fire is actually very, very high. And so, yeah, it’s a really wet environment. And it’s mostly just because if you ever take like a piece of foam and you’re just playing with it, you start lighting foam, it actually starts dripping water out of it, fire and dripping.

00:04:51:10 – 00:05:13:10
Sean Gray
So you’re like, wait a minute. What? That doesn’t make sense to me. So yeah. So there’s been a thing that’s been in the books forever about the 1,700 times. And that 1,700 times is just simply inaccurate. It came from locomotive steam engines, and it was hypothetical, and somehow made it into our textbooks. And firefighters have that number in their head of 1,700 times.

00:05:13:10 – 00:05:36:04
Sean Gray
It’s going to expand that no matter what. It’s been there for, I don’t even know how many years, longer than I’ve been in the fire service. It’s been there. So, and people still believe that. And then they have these experiences, bad experiences that happened on a fire ground. Stories get told at the kitchen table. And those stories continue on, right, in the firehouse.

00:05:36:05 – 00:05:59:10
Sean Gray
And so, clearly, this person has had a bad reaction at some point in time, and maybe even from an exterior stream. And so, usually when I run into people that have concerns like this about exterior water, I ask them what type of stream were they using? And usually, they can’t tell you. It’s like, I don’t know, I was inside, and it was hot.

00:05:59:10 – 00:06:21:18
Sean Gray
And then they brought water in, and things got really hot. But it’s always amazing. Their ears are never burned off, and it’s not like they have, you know, scars on their ears or anything like that. But it probably was uncomfortable for just a second if a misapplied exterior stream was put on there. So when I say misapplied is, you know, we talk about the right way to do that. It’s got to be on a straight stream, you know.

00:06:21:19 – 00:06:41:16
Sean Gray
And if I can advocate, I want you guys to make a nozzle that locks in place on a straight stream. And then we can unlock it by pressing a tab, going to fog, because we want it to be locked in on a straight stream. If it’s on a fog stream at all, if somebody makes a mistake when they put a fog stream into there, the fog, because of the air and the convective air that’s coming with it.

00:06:41:16 – 00:07:04:03
Sean Gray
That’s why it’s so important to understand air entrainment, that air that’s coming in there with the smaller droplets. It could absolutely start to expand some gases inside of there, and there could be some pushing, right, pushing of gases, not really necessarily pushing fire, because water droplets put out fire. But you’re going to push hot gases with the air of that nozzle, not necessarily with the water of the nozzle, but with the air of the nozzle.

00:07:04:03 – 00:07:16:01
Sean Gray
And that’s super important to understand. That’s why we really want to keep things on straight streams, either smooth bore or straight streams. It’s got to be locked-in tight streams when we’re fighting fire, especially on exterior fire control.

00:07:16:03 – 00:07:16:20
Gordon Voit
Interesting.

00:07:16:21 – 00:07:19:00
Sean Gray
I hope I answered all of it. I didn’t read the whole.

00:07:19:00 – 00:07:33:13
Gordon Voit
Thing, but it is a very long comment. Okay. Yeah, he says if we’re going to promote aggressive research and informed fire funding, it’s important to present the facts completely and precisely, not selectively. And you’re basically saying, well, you know, what’s the accuracy of.

00:07:33:13 – 00:07:56:03
Sean Gray
Sure. It’s difficult. I mean, these reports are 1,000 pages long. You know, it’s very difficult in a two-minute video to actually be able to put all of the facts in there. So I understand his concerns in his comments, but I would challenge him to go back and pull up the report and where it talks about the moisture content of what was burning and exactly what comes out of the live fire environments.

00:07:56:03 – 00:08:04:10
Gordon Voit
Interesting. Yeah, I think this is a nice segue into, would love to hear about your trip to Wales. What were you tackling in Wales?

00:08:04:11 – 00:08:08:13
Sean Gray
Yeah. So the UK fire service in general, just

00:08:08:17 – 00:08:27:03
Sean Gray
they’re transitioning, and they’re transitioning the type of nozzles that they’re using. So they have traditionally always used gas cooling as their primary fire attack method. And so that is a high-pressure hose line, 22 mm hose line, which for us here in the U.S. is tiny, 0.87 inches.

00:08:27:03 – 00:08:53:14
Sean Gray
Yeah, smaller than a one-inch line. And it flows, you know, very little water, somewhere in the 50 to 60 gallon range type of thing. So, and with a nozzle and with that high pressure, they traditionally have some door control tactics. When they get there, I should say just door tactics. And they put water up into the gases to try to convert the gases to steam with that smaller droplet.

00:08:53:16 – 00:09:16:07
Sean Gray
If you start to understand the methodology behind that, they think hypothetically that it’s a 0.33 mm size droplet, right, in order to convert the gases over, which is tiny. For us in the U.S., the easiest way to explain is like fighting fire with with a pressure washer, you know. So if I, yeah. So if I were to tell you as firefighters, say you want to fight fire with a pressure washer, they’re like, heck no, I don’t want to fight fire with a pressure washer.

00:09:16:07 – 00:09:37:17
Sean Gray
So, but for them, they are really good at controlling the air on their fires. So they’re really, really hardcore. Like, they don’t take any windows. There’s very little venting. They control all the doors. So they really take the air away from the fire, which allows them to have lesser GPM nozzles to be able to go in and do gas cooling.

00:09:37:17 – 00:10:00:13
Sean Gray
So, but they are transitioning. They’ve had some, they’ve had, they are following the research. They know where all the research is coming from. They talk about exactly that, it doesn’t take as much water as we think that it does, and then about surface cooling. So I went there to, they are building the FSRI water mapping props. They’re building them all over the place in the UK, which is pretty cool to see.

00:10:00:13 – 00:10:19:03
Sean Gray
And so I went there because they had built an FSRI water mapping prop, and they wanted somebody to come over and do a train the trainer and talk about surface cooling. And so, yeah, so I got to go over there and kind of represent the U.S. and speak in Wales. But yeah, super cool. You know, really, really good people.

00:10:19:05 – 00:10:40:14
Sean Gray
They were even like almost a little nervous to get on an inch-and-three-quarter hose line because that is their like defensive line almost. That’s their hose line that they use. Like what we typically use two-and-a-half. Like, a lot of people, one person on a two-and-a-half typically is not going to get down there and be super happy that they’re on a two-and-a-half by themselves, right?

00:10:40:15 – 00:10:58:17
Sean Gray
It’s just such a big line, a lot of water coming out of it. That’s how they feel about the 44 millimeter, which is equal to our inch-and-three-quarters. And so, yeah, so it was kind of fun to see that and then teach them some nozzle techniques and then talk about surface cooling with them and painting rainbows going down hallways and, you know, that kind of stuff.

00:10:58:17 – 00:11:22:07
Sean Gray
Gas cooling versus surface cooling. So, you know, historically, the European fire service has always done gas cooling. And, you know, they’re wanting to go to surface cooling, which is all the nozzles that TFT makes. Right. So with surface cooling and gas cooling. So in America, our water droplets are too large to do gas cooling.

00:11:22:08 – 00:11:40:21
Sean Gray
I think people have taught, almost maybe even bastardized. So Americans went over to Europe, and they said, hey, this gas cooling thing is pretty cool. It’s very scientific. And so, I’m going to bring that back. And so they brought it back to the U.S. and developed techniques and went back to their own departments. Matter of fact, L.A. County did this before the fire attack study.

00:11:40:21 – 00:11:46:02
Sean Gray
And then they learned in the fire attack study that, hey, what you guys are doing actually doesn’t work at all. It’s completely made up, right?

00:11:46:03 – 00:11:46:20
Gordon Voit
Because it’s.

00:11:47:01 – 00:12:09:13
Sean Gray
Because of the droplet size. So our droplets here in the U.S., our nozzles, we have larger droplets. The energy of the fire gets eaten up by those larger droplets. Versus in Europe, they have very small droplets, and they try to put that small droplets up into the gas layer to do gas cooling. So that gas cooling has to be 0.33 mm in size.

00:12:09:14 – 00:12:38:02
Sean Gray
Okay. So this hypothetical, but about that water droplet size. And so it’s like a pressure washer, that small, right. So they are trying to cool gases. But the same thing is their nozzles aren’t making it through the gases with that fog onto the surfaces. So they’re not really doing any surface cooling. And one of the things that we’ve learned from research is that the surfaces are very, very important because you can get rebound ignition of gases just based off of the surface temperatures.

00:12:38:02 – 00:12:58:16
Sean Gray
So it’s important for us to coat the surfaces with water. That’s why I talk about painting rainbows down a hallway. Right. Because we’re going to coat that entire surface all the way down that hallway. And when we make it down the hallway to the very end, we want to try to put the water up, up steep, across the ceiling surfaces into the fire room and allow it to come down onto the wall.

00:12:58:16 – 00:13:20:02
Sean Gray
So we cool all the surfaces before we put water onto the burning fuels. Right? So let’s understand really like a sprinkler. But the, yeah, the sprinkler’s just not coming out. It’s really, it’s actually the velocity of the stream is allowing, is taking the water and it’s pushing it across the surfaces. And so it surfs, the water actually surfs right across the surfaces and makes it down there.

00:13:20:02 – 00:13:35:22
Sean Gray
And so you can coat everything. That’s why the water mapping rig is so important. Because when you see that water mapping prop, it’s because of the clear glass that we use in the hallway, as the students can stand there and see it, and they just watch the surfaces. What’s amazing is that you don’t actually have to use your nozzle.

00:13:35:22 – 00:13:53:16
Sean Gray
You don’t actually have to move it that much. If you just go to the very end of the hallway and you put the nozzle straight up, that water is going to surf right across that ceiling, and it’s going to go all the way down. It comes right down the walls. And so you can show students that, hey, stream angle matters.

00:13:53:18 – 00:14:15:11
Sean Gray
The movement of the nozzle matters to coat all the surfaces. And so you’re able to take, in that actual prop, just really show people the advantage of surface cooling. And that’s where, in Europe, that’s why they’re starting to transition. They’re transitioning to the newer nozzles and really starting to make a change. And I love their lower GPM stuff.

00:14:15:12 – 00:14:32:07
Sean Gray
I think that that’s a huge thing. They use liters per minute. But I think that we should meet somewhere in the middle. I think the U.S. and Europe are, we’re getting really close. So ever since my time over there in Wales, I’ve had some guys from Europe reach out on social media, and we’ve had some discussions back and forth, and they agree.

00:14:32:08 – 00:14:50:02
Sean Gray
I was like, I think we’re too far. We’re flowing too much water. Right? So our water requirements are too high, and I’d love to see it come back and get dialed in maybe around the 125, 130 GPM range. And this is just all hypothetical. It’s just Sean Gray’s opinion here. I have no research to back this up.

00:14:50:02 – 00:15:02:23
Sean Gray
Right. But, and then they need to probably come up from their smaller hose line, reel hose lines, high-pressure lines, and meet us somewhere in the middle right around that. So, you know, I think we’re getting there. Yep.

00:15:02:23 – 00:15:11:04
Gordon Voit
So, yeah, that’s so cool. And then so is your picture like on banners all over Wales? No. No parade.

00:15:11:06 – 00:15:28:16
Sean Gray
No, not so, yeah. No, it’s pretty funny, but they were lovely hosts. I mean, they were awesome, you know. Of course, took me out to the pub and took me out to, as they would say, a proper pub. And so I went to a proper Welsh pub and went to a, there’s a castle right outside the pub that they took me to.

00:15:28:17 – 00:15:44:09
Sean Gray
And yeah, of course, like everybody has a castle right there, they’re downtown, so like huge, you know, old castle. And then right into going to this pub, and there were people just in there with fiddles, just playing music. Like, they were all a little confused too. Like, this doesn’t normally happen. It wasn’t like live music that was planned to be there.

00:15:44:09 – 00:15:52:20
Sean Gray
It was just some patrons that had come in and brought in their fiddles. And there they were, playing this very Celtic music, and it was awesome. Oh, yeah. Great. Yeah, a very good experience.

00:15:52:22 – 00:15:59:11
Sean Gray
And so this training was to create a train the trainer group for them to be able to go out and train the Wales fire service.

00:15:59:11 – 00:16:08:10
Gordon Voit
Wow. That’s got to feel pretty cool. The fact that your impact wasn’t just with that group and knowing that you’re going to make an impact for the whole country, potentially.

00:16:08:11 – 00:16:12:16
Sean Gray
Yeah. No. Yes, pretty cool. Yeah. Not a very big country, but yeah, pretty small place.

00:16:12:16 – 00:16:14:01
Gordon Voit
But

00:16:14:03 – 00:16:29:07
Gordon Voit
what are the other tactics that, when we were kind of deciding what to chat about, basements. Tell me about what low intake and high exhaust. Why is this something that you feel like is misunderstood?

00:16:29:09 – 00:16:56:19
Sean Gray
Yeah. So if you really look at some historical line-of-duty deaths, we’ve had a lot of low intake, high exhaust. And historically, going back to talk about Cherry Road in D.C., Diamond Heights fire in San Francisco, [unclear] Avenue, and most recently in FDNY, there’s been a lot of fires that have, or people don’t recognize that the fire is below them, and they’re caught in an exhaust above them.

00:16:56:19 – 00:17:18:03
Sean Gray
So low intake, meaning that the air is being pulled in on the lower level, and the firefighters are operating on the upper level. And it’s an exhaust. So they are caught in that flow path. That’s a very dangerous place for both civilians and for firefighters. So low intake, high exhaust, yeah, it can happen in a basement. I think that’s what most people think of when they think of low intake, high exhaust.

00:17:18:03 – 00:17:38:09
Sean Gray
But it really can happen, you could be on a ten-floor building. It could happen in a stairwell from the ninth floor to the 10th floor. Right. It’s low. It’s got to be just below it, like you’re just operating above it. So dangerous place to be, really recognized. And I encourage people to go onto the FSRI Fire Safety Academy.

00:17:38:13 – 00:17:57:19
Sean Gray
They have, it’s like a two-minute video that was put together about low intake, high exhaust, and really try to familiarize yourself with that. But how do you fight that fire? You try not to commit above it if you can. You know, got to get water on the same level that the fire is on. And so some people are going to say, well, you know, how do I go?

00:17:57:22 – 00:18:22:15
Sean Gray
What do I go down into? How am I going to, I have to go down the stairs. That’s the only access point typically in basements or anything like that. There’s very few places that don’t have a door that accesses a basement, windows that access the basement. There’s typically some sort of opening. There are dwellings that have just a solid block, just the stairwell going down in there.

00:18:22:16 – 00:18:41:07
Sean Gray
You know, that’s kind of that creepy thing that you see in the horror movies, right? That. Right. So there’s just like a boiler or something like that downstairs. Right? Yeah, that does happen. But you know what the advantage of that is, is in fires that are down below that, and that you would have to go down because we’re taught in the academy to be able to go down, get real low, and slide down the stairs.

00:18:41:08 – 00:19:05:07
Sean Gray
And it’s always that what if moment, right. But there’s no air down there in that type of scenario. If there is truly no windows and no doors or no access to that basement, there’s also no air. And so it’s going to not be this rip-roaring fire. It’s going to probably be pretty nasty, pretty sooty, even somewhat low temperatures, because it doesn’t have a lot of air to do that.

00:19:05:07 – 00:19:11:23
Sean Gray
So if you control the door at the top of the stairs and get your butt down the stairs quickly to the base of the fire, you should be able to extinguish it.

00:19:11:23 – 00:19:15:14
Gordon Voit
But with an inch-and-three-quarter. We’re not talking about anything crazy.

00:19:15:15 – 00:19:35:02
Sean Gray
Nope. Just know, because you don’t need it. That’s the thing about GPMs, right, is that it doesn’t matter how many GPMs you typically have. That’s, we have been brainwashed with that over the years, is that, you know, more GPMs, more BTUs, more GPMs, big fire, big water. We’ve heard all these things over the years, and it’s just simply not true.

00:19:35:03 – 00:20:01:20
Sean Gray
What we’re finding with the research is you don’t need as much water as you think you need. What you need is maneuverability, speed, and getting water onto the base of the fire. That’s what you need. It’s all about maneuverability and speed. Getting water onto the base of the fire with probably open hose line. Most of the hose lines now, like if we’re talking low-pressure nozzles and a little bit lower GPM nozzles, those nozzles are open the entire time we’re talking, opening them up, flowing water the whole time.

00:20:01:20 – 00:20:29:19
Sean Gray
That is what’s extinguishing fire. So dig into the research. You know, I challenge people to go into their, go to the fire attack study and look at what the average gallons was. So those were one- and two-room fires, 257 gallons I think was the average. The total average, right, of use, total 257 gallons. Right. Then you go to the coordinated fire attack study, where we did residential structures and acquired structures, and we saw pretty much very close to the same numbers.

00:20:29:20 – 00:20:51:03
Sean Gray
Then you go to the multi-family dwelling fires that we hosted in Cobb County, and you see, there was one fire in particular that a lot of people run videos of, and it’s this big, huge light show on the outside, and I’m actually the guy that happens to be on the nozzle. So, and yeah, and so on that fire, we usually try to guess how many, how many gallons did it take to extinguish this fire.

00:20:51:03 – 00:21:10:12
Sean Gray
And the answer is 185 gallons total. But when you see this, we have a whole apartment going, 700 square feet completely on fire. It’s blowing out of multiple ventilation openings, and it’s really ripping. And when you see it, there’s like, there’s no way that they put that out with 185 gallons total. It’s not gallons per minute, gallons total, you know.

00:21:10:13 – 00:21:15:14
Sean Gray
And that’s the key. It’s a 160, 162 GPM nozzle, 7/8 smooth bore tip.

00:21:15:18 – 00:21:18:09
Gordon Voit
So it’s trying to pull that video.

00:21:18:11 – 00:21:19:20
Sean Gray
I’ll get it to you. You can add it in.

00:21:19:21 – 00:21:20:14
Gordon Voit
Yeah.

00:21:20:16 – 00:21:21:06
Sean Gray
Yep.

00:21:21:08 – 00:21:40:21
Gordon Voit
Awesome. So what are the, you know, 2018, you come up with Evolving Fire Ground. What has the response been like? Because I know people in our building that I work with that haven’t even met you, drop it down on the table and you’re like, I read this all the time. What’s the response been like from Evolving Fire Ground? What nerve can you touch?

00:21:42:01 – 00:22:00:12
Sean Gray
No, I think, you know, our goal was, you know, the research. It can be, it’s very difficult to read. It’s very difficult to digest. You know, a lot of people don’t like reading a 1,000-page report and diving in, looking at charts and graphs. I mean, firefighters aren’t built to do that. So PJ and I both felt like that we needed like a translator.

00:22:00:12 – 00:22:19:05
Sean Gray
And so, and we felt like that working with our friends, our close friends at FSRI with the research, we were able to kind of learn from them, really, and start to think about ways that we can translate some of the research into a digestible book to be able to read it. So that’s kind of where the idea came from.

00:22:19:05 – 00:22:42:19
Sean Gray
And then the book came out, and, you know, next thing you know, we have like large metro departments that are using it for their promotion exams. And, you know, it’s small. It’s easily, easily read, like very readable book. And it’s not, it’s not really our opinions. You know, it is our translation of the research that’s being done.

00:22:42:19 – 00:22:51:16
Sean Gray
And that’s it. Trying to put it into perspective. So it’s been good. And, you know, the second edition coming out, we’re super excited about that.

00:22:51:17 – 00:22:56:09
Gordon Voit
Yeah. And like, at what point did you go, oh yeah, we should release a second?

00:22:56:11 – 00:23:15:15
Sean Gray
Yeah. So because the research is always ongoing, right. So that’s what’s cool about the research is like every research study that we do, there’s an oh moment. It’s like, oh, I mean, you know, Steve Kerber, Dan, you would think that after all these years, they truly know all of the answers. Right. And the fact is, is that there’s some things that still surprise them.

00:23:15:15 – 00:23:36:22
Sean Gray
And so those little moments like, oh, you know what? Yeah, we need to look into that again. So, you know, notes get taken, and the next thing you know, it just continues to evolve and turn into more research. And, you know, where we are now is like we know a lot about residential, especially the way that water moves across surfaces, surface cooling, water mapping, air entrainment.

00:23:36:22 – 00:23:57:05
Sean Gray
But we know a lot about extinguishment in residential structures, but we don’t really know all that much about it in commercial structures. And so that’s where we’re like heading in the future. And so the book for us was, we wanted to go back and capture some of the things that we didn’t get in the first edition and the things that we felt were really important, that the research should now come out.

00:23:57:05 – 00:24:15:12
Sean Gray
That stuff wasn’t out yet. So the water mapping and air entrainment was really, really important. Those pieces were there. We wanted to add that in. So we added a whole section on that. Actually, our search chapter. So our search chapter was just built off of the things that we do in Cobb County. And fortunately, we have some pretty smart dudes that work in Cobb County.

00:24:15:12 – 00:24:36:13
Sean Gray
And they developed a lot of search techniques that fell in line with the research. Well, now there’s an entire search study that came out since our first edition was published. And so now in the second edition, you’re going to get that chapter that was already built, that was in the first edition. And now we have all this research to match up everything that we were already doing and putting into the book.

00:24:36:14 – 00:25:00:04
Sean Gray
It matches it. So just small examples, you know, the way that we’re searching, like always isolating. You know, we used to search and open up lots of doors, and that’s not what you want to do now because we know so much about victims, and victim isolation is very important. So had I told you in, you know, five years ago, seven years ago, like, hey, it’s okay to go into a room.

00:25:00:07 – 00:25:15:17
Sean Gray
Yeah, you got a rocking fire down the hallway somewhere. Close the door, go in there and break the window. People are going to go, no, don’t break the window. Don’t do that. No, that’s 100% what you want to do. Because if you have a victim in that room, the door is isolated. You’re getting all of those gases out, and you’re making everything better for the victim.

00:25:15:17 – 00:25:34:14
Sean Gray
So that’s some of the things. It’s like, you know, in this book, we’re really challenging people to get water on the fire as quickly as possible because it makes everything better for the civilians and for the firefighters. And then we’ve got to get all the gases out as quickly as possible. So whether that might be hydraulic ventilation, which is very efficient, we learned that from the coordinated attack study.

00:25:34:14 – 00:25:55:23
Sean Gray
So we brought in all that type of stuff, talking about the efficiency of hydraulic ventilation to PPV to roof ventilation. Really, we split up the ventilation patterns of there’s forced ventilation and natural ventilation. So that mechanical forced ventilation is with a device. It’s either with a fan in your hand, which is nozzle. Right. So, so you either have that fan in your hand, which is very effective.

00:25:55:23 – 00:26:15:21
Sean Gray
So an effective nozzle should be able to get to the fire room. And then immediately, once they’ve got a confirmed knock on the fire, open it up and start getting all the gases out the window. And that’s, I mean, that’s a home run right there. If we can teach people to do that, you know, making the fire room, getting all the gases out, and then you have natural ventilation, which is where the roof ventilation pieces come in.

00:26:15:21 – 00:26:41:19
Sean Gray
So we talk about all of those. And then we got a chapter on emerging technologies. And that’s not something that I was super comfortable writing about because I’m certainly not an expert in that field. But FSRI has done a ton of research on that. And so we tried to do a bunch of research, take what FSRI has done, try to translate some of that on how the lithium-ion batteries are affecting our fires and how they’re starting to change the environment.

00:26:41:19 – 00:26:47:04
Sean Gray
So we have an entire chapter on that. And yeah, it’s great. So, yeah, we’re excited for it to come out.

00:26:47:06 – 00:26:56:01
Gordon Voit
And then speaking of content, you’re about to, or you delivered content at the fire school in Connecticut. Yeah, Connecticut Fire Academy.

00:26:56:01 – 00:26:57:18
Gordon Voit
What did you speak on?

00:26:57:19 – 00:27:18:15
Sean Gray
Yeah. So the Winter Fire School at the Connecticut Fire Academy. You know, I was invited by my buddy PJ Norwood and asked me to come up and be the keynote presenter. And so he challenged me to present a company officer leadership class. And that’s not something that I’m real comfortable with presenting on. I don’t feel like that.

00:27:18:16 – 00:27:39:20
Sean Gray
That’s, I don’t, I don’t write leadership. I don’t, you know, I don’t really speak on leadership. And he’s like, no, you’ve been an officer for a long time. And so, yeah. So I basically developed something that, you know, a lot of mistakes that I’ve made over the years as a company officer, and kind of talk and tell stories, if you will, of how some of those situations come up, how they were handled.

00:27:40:02 – 00:27:57:22
Sean Gray
And it’s really, it’s called Walking the Wire. And the whole point of the class is that as a company officer, you’re there to support your people, but you’re also there to support the mission and the department. And so you walk a very fine line of how to do that. And so as a company officer, those are some of the challenges.

00:27:57:22 – 00:28:11:21
Sean Gray
And so I throw that out there and try to challenge some people and, you know, play some videos and tell some stories. And that’s really what it is. And hopefully, they walk away at the end of the day and makes them think about, man, you know, one of the things about being an officer is like, now you’re kind of the dad, right?

00:28:11:21 – 00:28:26:07
Sean Gray
Like, that’s what I tell my crew all the time. Like, hey, don’t make me be dad. Most firefighters, they know the rules, right? Like, they know all the rules already. They know if they break the rules. So don’t make me be dad, because I don’t want to have to, you know, put you in timeout.

00:28:26:09 – 00:28:40:14
Gordon Voit
Just thanks so much for just lending your knowledge. It’s so cool to see the conversation, like millions of impressions, you know, from the conversations that we’ve been having with you and PJ. And yeah, we’re just really grateful. And thanks for taking the time.

00:28:40:20 – 00:28:42:00
Sean Gray
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.

00:28:42:04 – 00:28:50:21

Want to take your residential attack to the next level? Schedule a demo at tft.com/demo so you can perform at your best.

Have a question? Ask Sean Gray

E10 – Tony Downes on Shotgun Homes, Blitzfire Ops, and 500-Foot Apartment Lays

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

• Shotgun house fires and close-exposure problems
• Initial attack priorities in older residential construction
• Using Blitzfire monitors for exposure protection and quick knockdown
• Long apartment lays, courtyard stretches, and horizontal high-rise tactics
• Louisville Fire Department’s approach to water supply, staffing, and aggressive line deployment

Tony Downes is a retired Battalion Chief from Louisville Fire Department who currently serves on Jeffersontown Fire Department.

View Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:15:17
**Tony Downes**
You know, we ride with four. But there are times we’re riding with three because there are training classes or, you know, sick calls and stuff like that. So the more water you can put on something, or if you can put a little fire out and protect an exposure, and it doesn’t take up, you know, personnel.

00:00:15:18 – 00:00:16:18
**Tony Downes**
That’s.

00:00:16:21 – 00:00:19:17
**Tony Downes**
Put water on the red stuff. You know, quit, quit overthinking.

00:00:19:17 – 00:00:28:20
**Tony Downes**
You know, we basically just take the tactics of high-rise and turn them sideways. You know, we get into some courtyards. We’re here 500 feet off the street. There could be…

00:00:28:23 – 00:00:36:13

My guest is Tony Downes, retired battalion chief with Louisville Fire Department, who now serves on Jeffersonville, Indiana.

00:00:36:14 – 00:00:49:14

This interview is for firefighters who want to learn more about shotgun housing and other close-proximity situations, Blitzfire ops, and how the department makes 500-foot apartment lays with maximum efficiency.

00:00:49:15 – 00:00:57:25

How one of the top five oldest departments in the country gets the job done. On this episode of the Fully Involved podcast.

00:00:57:28 – 00:01:03:08

[unclear]

00:01:03:10 – 00:01:12:11
**Gordon Voit**
All right. Well, I’ve really been looking forward to this. We have a very good friend back on the show. We have Major Tony Downes from Louisville Fire Department. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:01:12:14 – 00:01:15:08
**Tony Downes**
Thank you for inviting me. Appreciate it.

00:01:15:10 – 00:01:37:28
**Gordon Voit**
We had so much fun coming down to Louisville twice. I was there in August, and then you hosted us again in the fall. I think it was early November, somewhere. Yeah, and we shot two great Fully Involved episodes, and we’re going to be seeing early this summer. We talked about exposure protections, and we talked about kind of an interesting take on an apartment lay.

00:01:38:01 – 00:01:40:14
**Gordon Voit**
What was your memory of that day?

00:01:40:16 – 00:01:55:25
**Tony Downes**
It was always good to get companies out. Members always enjoy training, especially something different. They like showing off what we do sometimes. So it was just a good, enjoyable day. You know, we always enjoy having you or anybody. So you’re always invited.

00:01:55:29 – 00:02:12:22
**Gordon Voit**
Oh, sure. Appreciate that. Louisville’s such an interesting city from a, just, I love visiting. Great culture, great people, but from a fire-service perspective, I mean, tell me a little bit about what people are going to see in these episodes about what makes building construction different.

00:02:12:25 – 00:02:40:25
**Tony Downes**
Louisville is kind of a unique city. It’s surrounded, the city of Louisville itself, and the urban service district is very unique, very old. Some of the oldest cast-iron buildings in the world are there, but companies can go from $30,000, $40,000 homes to million-dollar homes all in the same district. It’s kind of unique. You can make some shotguns, which is, you know, shotgun for us is a one-story in the front, two in the back.

00:02:40:27 – 00:02:52:08
**Tony Downes**
You know, a lot of close proximity and exposure problems in the majority of our districts. And then you can get into your high-rise apartment buildings and stuff like that.

00:02:52:10 – 00:03:00:07
**Gordon Voit**
I would love to hear more about what it’s like to put out a fire in a shotgun. I mean, tell me, what are the difficulties of a shotgun?

00:03:00:09 – 00:03:23:01
**Tony Downes**
A lot of times, they’re full of, you know, housing. You go right into a living room, could walk through somebody’s bedroom to get to the kitchen. A lot of times, they’re kicked off on the side a little bit, so you can go down the side entrance in between two houses. So depending on if there, you know, if fire was blown out the windows, you always have an exposure problem, but you usually have pretty good access to them if you come in the back.

00:03:23:04 – 00:03:43:29
**Tony Downes**
A lot of times, people have added like a lean-to into the back of it for storage or sheds. Some of those lean-tos have been turned into dining rooms and, you know, makeshift houses and kitchens or bedrooms. So there’s some balloon-frame construction going on in it, so fire can travel pretty good, but a lot of, a lot of voids and stuff sometimes.

00:03:44:02 – 00:04:01:10
**Tony Downes**
The other thing is, as the houses have gotten older, they used to have 10-foot ceilings in them. Since then, people have dropped them. They put double ceilings in, or they put a ceiling, you know, framed it down up to about an 8-foot ceiling for heating and air-cooling conditions. And then you have more hidden traps and voids and stuff like that.

00:04:01:13 – 00:04:16:01
**Gordon Voit**
You are very passionate about getting that initial line into a fire. So walk me through the expert viewpoint on how you tackle a shotgun shack or shotgun home with an initial line. You know, what is Major Downes doing in that situation?

00:04:16:02 – 00:04:44:27
**Tony Downes**
Obviously, the first thing I do is, you know, you’re walking around. You’re doing your 360, and you’re trying to find the easiest point of access. Going in the front door might not always be the easiest access. It may be to the rear. So you may have to, you know, stretch a line down to it to get to it. But again, it’s just the initial, you know, sitting down on that front step, kneeling down, putting your mask on, putting your stuff together, and, you know, crawling down or, you know, sometimes you’re able to walk down, walk a portion of it to get to where you need to go.

00:04:44:28 – 00:04:55:27
**Gordon Voit**
And tell me about your, your preferred attack package. If you had every piece of equipment in the universe available to you, what are the different choices? What nozzle are you going with? What kind of hoseline? Just tell me about what that package looks like.

00:04:55:28 – 00:05:11:23
**Tony Downes**
I’m not picky. I’m really not. And so, you know, I always have been around for a long time, and that’s the majority of what we use, is that adjustable, you know, nozzle. So, you know, that’s the inch and three-quarter, an adjustable nozzle, and good pressure on it.

00:05:11:25 – 00:05:17:08
**Gordon Voit**
So, so you like the, you like the fog nozzle as opposed to a smooth bore, smooth bore gun.

00:05:17:09 – 00:05:33:09
**Tony Downes**
No, we don’t use a lot of smooth bore. We just, history, I guess. You know, we’ve always kind of had the adjustable gallon nozzle for a long time. The only smooth bores we really use are on our ladder pipes. Or we do have some that we use for three-inch, you know, what we call our big pipe.

00:05:33:13 – 00:05:43:02
**Gordon Voit**
Tell me about, you know, how are you using the different settings in a typical Louisville building? Do you like to get it real wide, or are you keeping it mostly straight stream?

00:05:43:03 – 00:05:44:01
**Tony Downes**
Keeping it mostly straight.

00:05:44:02 – 00:05:46:20
**Gordon Voit**
[unclear]

00:05:46:22 – 00:06:01:01
**Tony Downes**
I don’t. I just, I guess, you know, if it’s, you know, if I’m hitting something, it’s going to be pretty much straight. And then, you know, if I need to fog out, I will. But most of the time, I’m on them to keep it straight. And I’m a big believer in using lots of water. Everything eventually dries out.

00:06:01:05 – 00:06:01:22
**Tony Downes**
There you go.

00:06:01:23 – 00:06:14:26
**Gordon Voit**
So, yeah. What do you feel like is the biggest misconception out there about initial attack? Are there any misunderstandings where you’re like, you know, people say this, but I don’t really believe that? I mean, what do you feel like?

00:06:15:03 – 00:06:33:22
**Tony Downes**
I believe that you got to give people time to make a difference. You know, just don’t always assume that it’s a defensive operation. You know, a little bit of water can put a lot of fire out. And you’ve got to give your guys and your company members time to make a difference. But you got to see progress during that time.

00:06:33:23 – 00:06:45:02
**Tony Downes**
You know, the fire may not be going out quickly, but you’ve got to see some difference in changing the smoke and conditions to whether, you know, to stay in there and continue fighting fire, if you need to transition into a defensive attack.

00:06:45:03 – 00:06:50:08
**Gordon Voit**
So like a rookie, you know, probie who doesn’t really understand that, what mistakes might they make?

00:06:50:10 – 00:07:06:27
**Tony Downes**
A lot of times, they shut the nozzle down too quick. They don’t, you know, the, you train to do little bursts of water and stuff like that. Or if you’re in a, you know, a live-training fire, you don’t always put a lot of water on it. I think a lot of times, we don’t put enough water quickly enough on it, or they’ll try to shut it down.

00:07:06:27 – 00:07:27:20
**Tony Downes**
And ventilation is a big key to us. You know, we try to open up the roof. We try to open up the windows and try to get the contamination out of the house as quickly as we can, too. So just, you know, stay on the ground, stay low for a little bit, you know, put a lot of water on it, and get the ventilation and the smoke out of there, and then see if the conditions continue to change.

00:07:27:22 – 00:07:41:23
**Gordon Voit**
Do you, you know, as far as, like, attacking the fire, do you typically just be like, don’t overthink it? You know, some people will say that. There’s some people that are very big on angle of attack. They say, okay, always aim high. Let it, you know, what, the sprinkler effect. What’s your…

00:07:41:26 – 00:07:59:07
**Tony Downes**
Put water on the red stuff. You know, quit, quit overthinking. You know, if you put enough water on it, it’s going to go out. You know, that’s my philosophy. Louisville is really good about laying lots of lines. We don’t instruct our company officers or our firefighters to, you know, lay lines. They just know they’re coming in. You’re on engine, come to your own line.

00:07:59:07 – 00:08:17:13
**Tony Downes**
If two guys are on a truck and they don’t see a line going somewhere, they may go get a line. You know, we are very big on laying supply lines. Each company pretty much brings our own water. It’s almost always, we have two supply lines on every house fire. We try to get a water, you know, a pumper in the front of the house.

00:08:17:13 – 00:08:32:02
**Tony Downes**
We try to get a pumper in the rear of the house. So our standard is three or four engines and two trucks on every box. One engine, one truck always goes to the rear, and if they can’t get to the rear, they take their personnel to the rear to start operating forward.

00:08:32:02 – 00:08:42:09
**Gordon Voit**
So interesting. And you know, one of the, one of the fascinating parts about Louisville Fire Department is bringing hose. Tell me what you do and why you do it.

00:08:42:15 – 00:09:01:23
**Tony Downes**
Well, 30 years ago, you know, almost 27 years ago when I got on, we used three-inch hose on all our engine companies. Only our quints and our squirts had five-inch back then. We used to lay bundle, and you would pull up and lay out to the hydrant, and they would use a three-inch and pump back.

00:09:01:23 – 00:09:28:22
**Tony Downes**
Since then, we switched to all five-inch for our supply line. But what we use three-inch for is still, you know, when we need large water. We use Blitzfires a significant amount. It’s probably our second most laid line for the fire department. Like we talked and seen, we have a lot of exposure problems. So it’s nothing for someone to grab a three-inch with a Blitzfire on it that’s, you know, already attached, to lay 100 feet and put it in between two houses.

00:09:28:22 – 00:09:50:11
**Tony Downes**
And that’s the only work you got to do with it. So it allows lots of water to protect an exposure, but there’s less friction loss in it. There’s a downside to it. It’s heavy, so it’s not a good line to take inside of fire if you need additional lines or additional water. So that’s a downside to three-inch. It’s hard to maneuver inside the structure.

00:09:50:11 – 00:09:55:22
**Tony Downes**
And it’s really, you know, even outside of structure, it’s hard to maneuver. But you can get it to where you need to go.

00:09:55:25 – 00:10:18:07
**Gordon Voit**
That’s fascinating. Tell me about kind of the, one of the problems you face, too, is just narrow streets because it’s such an old city. So I’m curious in your career, whether you were a part of this or whether you heard about this, what is the trickiest situation you ever encountered where it was impossible to get engines or pumpers into a street?

00:10:18:08 – 00:10:20:21
**Gordon Voit**
Did you ever have to do relay, you know, down the block?

00:10:20:22 – 00:10:41:22
**Tony Downes**
Well, we have narrow streets and apartment complexes. What usually happens is you’re able to get one apparatus back there, and depending on how the supply line is laid, it’s difficult to get the rest of them back there. But yeah, we had to, you know, go drag a lot of hose or make some manifolds and, you know, lay down again.

00:10:41:23 – 00:10:54:29
**Tony Downes**
That’s kind of what we, you know, where we lay the wye, where we hook three-inch up to it, and we either use our hotel packs or we have bundles of inch and three-quarter on the apparatus that we can, you know, get into the courtyard of a building or, you know, anything like that.

00:10:55:01 – 00:11:13:02
**Gordon Voit**
Yeah. That was one of the pieces of equipment that we used in our training, was that the wye. That’s not the only option you had available. And I’m not talking brand, new brand, but just like as far as like a use the wye there. What kinds of decisions do you have to make with valves?

00:11:13:04 – 00:11:14:16
**Tony Downes**
Is what type of valves?

00:11:14:17 – 00:11:24:11
**Gordon Voit**
Yeah. Just like when you’re choosing a valve in a situation like that, where you’re laying a bunch of lines. Imagine you’re relaying. How do you know what valve is…

00:11:24:14 – 00:11:38:09
**Tony Downes**
Our experience. You know, again, you know, we have some water thieves and stuff like that. Just experience sometimes, you know, of knowing what to do or from previous which worked before and what hasn’t worked, you know.

00:11:38:11 – 00:11:54:27
**Gordon Voit**
But another thing that was interesting about our shoot was the Blitzfire. That’s something that you use. Why is angle of attack important with that? I mean, I understand you use it, or use it for the unmanned capacity. Would you mind sharing about that?

00:11:55:04 – 00:12:14:14
**Tony Downes**
You know, like I said, the unmanned, we can easily. Staffing is always an issue. You know, we ride with four. But there are times we’re riding with three because there are training classes or, you know, sick calls and stuff like that. So the more water you can put on something, or if you can put a little fire out and protect an exposure, and it doesn’t take up, you know, personnel.

00:12:14:15 – 00:12:38:16
**Tony Downes**
That’s great. Again, we use Blitzfire sometime where we may knock it down really quick from the exterior to, you know, transition into an offensive attack. You know, if the whole front porch and house is on fire, we may hit it real quick with the deck gun or a Blitzfire, knock down the majority of the fire, and then we can progress in. You know, 500 gallons on something can do, you know, one minute of water can really knock down a lot of fire.

00:12:38:19 – 00:12:46:19
**Gordon Voit**
And as far as like the angle, why is it important to have a wide angle, a wide range of angles out of a ground monitor?

00:12:46:21 – 00:13:06:09
**Tony Downes**
Just because whether you go up two or three stories, you know, are you trying to, you know, get into old Louisville where you got three-story houses that could be blown out the roof? You’re going to need to get up some reach. And your windows may not be your windows at ground level. Most of the time, your exposure comes from the window blowing out and blowing over, or coming out the roof and hitting another house.

00:13:06:09 – 00:13:30:27
**Gordon Voit**
So interesting. One of the other topics that we covered was the apartment lay. Can you give folks at home kind of a little taste of, of, of the tactical situation where it was kind of my understanding of the concept, is that a high-rise is like this, but if you have an apartment complex, it’s basically a horizontal high-rise. So explain to people what’s going to be in that episode.

00:13:30:27 – 00:13:52:17
**Tony Downes**
You know, we basically just take the tactics of high-rise and turn them sideways. You know, we get into some courtyards where you’re 500 feet off the street. There could be, or, you know, to get to the farthest point of that. So majority of our companies have three-inch attack to a wye. And then they have a bundle of inch and three-quarter available.

00:13:52:17 – 00:14:13:02
**Tony Downes**
So they can take the bundle of inch and three-quarter and put it on the shoulder. They lay it to a courtyard or close to the entrance of it. They drop the wye. It allows the engine company to pump to the wye, allows the next engine in to bring their bundled hose, hook up to the wye, and you have two lines pretty quick on a, you know, an apartment fire, you know, similar to a warehouse, you know.

00:14:13:07 – 00:14:23:27
**Gordon Voit**
Really excited to show that episode. One interesting thing I want to know about is kind of your origin story about being in the fire service. Tell me about young Tony Downes.

00:14:23:28 – 00:14:47:19
**Tony Downes**
Well, I got, I grew up in the fire service. My dad was on the fire department, uncles on the fire department. So kind of family history. Grew up in a volunteer fire department. And at some point when I graduated high school and started college, I decided to try to be a full-time fireman and got lucky enough to get hired at the best job in the world, worked through the ranks, and started my 28th year not too long ago.

00:14:47:19 – 00:14:53:19
**Gordon Voit**
So tell me about, you know, you’ve been on Louisville your whole career, correct? Yes. Why is that?

00:14:53:21 – 00:15:17:26
**Tony Downes**
Been happy. You know, Louisville is a top fire department in the state of Kentucky to go to. So it was great experience. I had excellent assignments, you know, as far as being busy and making fires, and just took promotional tests and promoted myself up, you know, slowly. I spent almost 10 years as a fireman, and I took [unclear] before I got promoted to sergeant.

00:15:17:26 – 00:15:36:26
**Tony Downes**
So I think it’s not a race for promotions. I think sometimes when you stay at, you know, each rank a little bit, you get to learn, get to be good. And it’s, don’t race to the top for promotions. You know, learn each rank, spend some time there. It’ll pay off better for you.

00:15:36:28 – 00:15:41:02
**Gordon Voit**
[unclear] Is there anything that we didn’t cover today that you were hoping to talk about?

00:15:41:04 – 00:15:48:18
**Tony Downes**
No. I appreciate always getting with you all. You’re a great [unclear]. You know, you always take care of us. And we enjoyed using the products as well.

00:15:48:22 – 00:15:48:26
**Tony Downes**
Well.

00:15:48:26 – 00:15:57:10
**Gordon Voit**
Thank you so much for coming on. It was fascinating to learn more about you. It’s the fourth time we’ve got a chance to chat, and I feel like I learned something new every time. So thank you so much.

00:15:57:16 – 00:15:59:03
**Tony Downes**
I appreciate it. Thank you.

00:15:59:03 – 00:16:07:15
**Narrator**
If you want to take your exposure protection to the next level, download the Portable Monitor Guide at TFT.

00:16:07:17 – 00:16:09:13
**Narrator**
So you can perform at your best.

Have a question? Ask Tony Downes

E9 – Burp Drafting & The Bowling Pin Hack with Andy Soccodato

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Rural water supply hacks (including a bowling pin?)
Burp drafting to solve failed primers and long-lift issues
Drafting and water supply training checklists
Intake-to-intake pumping and residual water flow
Creating above-ground loops for better multi-engine ops

Andy Soccodato is a national instructor and expert in water supply and pump operations. He founded The Water Thieves, authored Water Thievery: The Art of Water Supply Operations, and currently teaches at the Tennessee State Fire Academy.

View Transcript

00:00:38:17 – 00:01:01:13
Gordon Voit
Man, it’s great to catch up with the most popular man at FDIC. Andy. Soccer. So, Andy, the response to rural water supply, has been incredible. And, we actually have two members of the rural water supply cast with us today. Can you introduce us to our special guests that we have below the table? Yes. Bam!

00:01:01:15 – 00:01:18:19
Gordon Voit
Yeah, the bowling pin. So tell me, why does this appear so much in rural water supply? Anytime I post a video of this, it gets people like bowling pin. And then they’ll be like, is that NFPA approved to say it’s PBA approved professional bowling association? So,

00:01:18:21 – 00:01:46:19
Andy Soccodato
I can’t take credit for this. A good friend of mine and, fellow instructor, Keith Thomas, showed me this trick years ago, but, Keith is a firefighter with the city of Columbus, Ohio, and, he showed me that in the city of Columbus and a lot of places up in Ohio and Pennsylvania, they use bowling pins as their mallets for a couple reasons.

00:01:46:20 – 00:02:07:06
Andy Soccodato
The first and most obvious is they’re pretty cheap. You can go to bowling alley and either get, you know, pins that were a little jacked up, for free or pay, you know, very, very, very little money to get a box of pins. But what I love about it is they’re they’re fairly ergonomic. Right. The weight is all up here.

00:02:07:08 – 00:02:33:09
Andy Soccodato
I swing nice and easy. I can turn around in those tight spots and go ahead and get that year if I’m doing that. And the weight is perfectly balanced in my opinion. But what I really love about it is even when I miss my connection, I’m still making contact. So. So that helps because, you know, it’s not perfectly accurate when we’re on the rural fire ground.

00:02:33:14 – 00:02:43:17
Andy Soccodato
But the best part about this thing, especially for rural water supply stuff, is when my clumsy self drops this thing into the water source, it’ll float.

00:02:43:19 – 00:02:45:05
Gordon Voit
There you go. To the bottom.

00:02:45:05 – 00:03:08:04
Andy Soccodato
And I’ll lose it. So because this is a wood core. Perfect. And when you drop it in the water. So it can also be thrown into a dump tank and help prevent your whirlpool from so on. And so multi multi-use. It looks a little barbaric and backwards. But it’s something that, a great fireman showed me and it means a lot to me.

00:03:08:04 – 00:03:09:20
Andy Soccodato
So I like to show other people.

00:03:09:22 – 00:03:17:09
Gordon Voit
That’s amazing. I gotta get a quick shot here. If you see this.

00:03:17:11 – 00:03:18:11
Gordon Voit
That’s going to be the teaser

00:03:18:16 – 00:03:35:05
Gordon Voit
or the little hook on the video. Andy Weir was probably generated millions and millions of impressions, comments, shares. Just what’s the response been on your end? How often do people say, man, I’ve been seeing your videos?

00:03:35:07 – 00:03:45:13
Andy Soccodato
It has been unbelievable. I, I honestly, when we filmed it, I didn’t know what to expect. I kind of thought, Well, I mean, maybe somebody will find this useful.

00:03:45:15 – 00:03:46:07
Gordon Voit
Because you’re humble.

00:03:46:07 – 00:04:03:13
Andy Soccodato
That’s why I hope I, but the number of people that have come up to me and said, hey, we’ve watched your videos and it has helped us so much, or what I’ve loved even more is, hey, we watched the video and then we went outside and tried it.

00:04:03:13 – 00:04:09:15
Gordon Voit
Or what was a what’s an example of a time where somebody said, we implemented what you did? Yeah. Can you think of a story?

00:04:09:17 – 00:04:32:14
Andy Soccodato
I was teaching I was teaching in Angola, Indiana. It’s fairly, shortly after the series had dropped and I had taught a class and we talked about the videos I think I made and showed one. But, the group, folks in that class walked out afterwards and they texted me, about a week later, they’re like, hey, we watched watched the first draft and video.

00:04:32:14 – 00:04:50:16
Andy Soccodato
We went outside and we did it. After, you know, we never had drafted before and we got it right away and that now we’re teaching it. So, that was really cool. And, I want to be honest, it’s it’s not all me or Henry. Write what you did. Editing.

00:04:50:17 – 00:04:52:23
Gordon Voit
Oh. Thank you. Thanks.

00:04:53:01 – 00:04:58:04
Andy Soccodato
Right. Like, that’s the magic that was talking that.

00:04:58:06 – 00:05:00:06
Gordon Voit
That’s not true, but thank you. Yeah. Put it.

00:05:00:06 – 00:05:05:23
Andy Soccodato
Together. The way that the fire service can understand it and make, use of it.

00:05:06:00 – 00:05:06:13
Gordon Voit
Oh, man.

00:05:06:16 – 00:05:15:03
Andy Soccodato
And I cannot tell you how many times, people have come to me and said those checklists are really.

00:05:15:05 – 00:05:17:05
Gordon Voit
Really. So tell me more about that one.

00:05:17:08 – 00:05:51:16
Andy Soccodato
I was teaching a class in, West Virginia, Moundsville, West Virginia, and Moundsville is right on the Ohio River. So there were folks from Ohio in the class, and one of the guys who is, part of the Ohio Water, task group, Jim Delman, he came to me and they brought their water supplies support trailer, and he had every single checklist printed out and laminated and said, hey, just just so you know, we keep this on our trailer and we keep it on our engines and our what?

00:05:51:18 – 00:05:52:13
Gordon Voit
Wow.

00:05:52:15 – 00:06:08:03
Andy Soccodato
If we need a reference, I can look up and. Okay, this is how you draft, and this is this is whatever. So, Yeah, something that I don’t even remember how the checklists came about. If we were talking about doing it or if it was an idea, you add.

00:06:08:03 – 00:06:25:11
Gordon Voit
Or I, we’d been kicking rod. I think it was a collaborative effort. We’d been kicking around. I was like, you know what? This is kind of there’s, you know, you make it simple, but there’s still some steps. And this is some of the stuff is not, you know, intuitive. So why not just make it easy for people and put every step on a track?

00:06:25:11 – 00:06:37:01
Gordon Voit
I, I love printing stuff out and having a hard copy or pulling it up on my phone, but I need it step by step, you know, guide. And so I thought, wouldn’t that be helpful to people? And so I’m thrilled to hear that people have been using them.

00:06:37:02 – 00:06:52:11
Andy Soccodato
What I love about it, from a personal standpoint, you know, like the draft and video in its entirety. That thing is like 15 minutes long. So there’s a lot of good information. But I mean, you know as well as I do, not everybody can.

00:06:52:12 – 00:06:52:22
Gordon Voit
Ten.

00:06:53:00 – 00:06:53:16
Andy Soccodato
15 minutes.

00:06:53:17 – 00:06:54:02
Gordon Voit
Right.

00:06:54:07 – 00:07:12:23
Andy Soccodato
So having the the meat and potatoes where I can read this list okay. Step one is x, y, z, whatever it is. So I can go out and just refresh, right. Maybe watch the video real quick and then turn around and say, hey, you know what, this is how I need to I need to do it.

00:07:12:23 – 00:07:22:13
Andy Soccodato
So it’s the checklists I think have been a huge success. And it was something that, like you said, I don’t think it was necessarily on our original radar when.

00:07:22:13 – 00:07:39:01
Gordon Voit
We were, Man, that’s awesome. So I would love to hear more. Why? So, you know, I can see on the metrics behind the scenes, like certain episodes are way more popular than others. Why was burp drafting so popular?

00:07:39:03 – 00:07:59:05
Andy Soccodato
I don’t know that I necessarily know that answer, but, I think I can tell you from what I, from when I teach and I show people how to do it, people, once they do it, they’re like, this is so easy. Why haven’t I been doing this from the beginning?

00:07:59:07 – 00:08:03:12
Gordon Voit
And and what problem are they solving when their burp draft,

00:08:03:14 – 00:08:27:00
Andy Soccodato
Failed primers. Right. Primer that has failed. Or even if the primers not failed, some of the challenging, more challenging drafting scenarios like drafting off of the bridge with a lot of lift or a really long reach operation where I may have you know, 60 or 70 for the sleeve. And, I’m concerned about burning up a primer or stuff like that.

00:08:27:02 – 00:08:49:01
Andy Soccodato
So that’s the solution that it has, you know, it’s kind of three full failed primers, long read scenarios or high lifts. That’s that’s where it really comes into play and it’s successful. But, the other thing too, I think what separates the burp draft video is I have a lot of students that will come and tell me that, hey, you know what?

00:08:49:01 – 00:09:18:00
Andy Soccodato
I’ve done something like that or been taught something similar to that. We called it something else. Primer list, Prime or bump? Draft or whatever it is. But the one very difference that that I’m glad that we captured and we explained in the video series, is a lot of people, especially in the burp drafting video, a lot of people have been taught to do that technique while flowing a hand line or following a deck.

00:09:18:02 – 00:09:23:11
Andy Soccodato
And while that will work, it 100% works.

00:09:23:13 – 00:09:43:11
Andy Soccodato
You’re on a timer. So if your deck gun is flowing and your booster tank runs dry, well, now you can’t burp draft anymore. And then on the flip side, if you’re flowing hand lines and you’re drafting well now the nozzle man gets those erratic nozzle reactions. And we saw that in the video. With the.

00:09:43:15 – 00:09:45:09
Gordon Voit
With the guy. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

00:09:45:09 – 00:10:08:21
Andy Soccodato
Right. So so I think that’s why the video so successful because people can see okay, this is how I was doing it. This guy and TFT is saying use your tank Phil, as the way to move the water and it solves all this problem. And it’s quick and I don’t have to worry about anything. So, so yeah.

00:10:08:23 – 00:10:28:16
Gordon Voit
Curious. You know your brain is moving 100 miles a minute. I’m sure there were moments where you’re like, you know what? We did do eight great episodes. But I really wish if I could have done a ninth episode, I really wish we could have covered. What? What was that? The next one we would have done? Or maybe we’ll do in the future.

00:10:28:19 – 00:10:49:15
Andy Soccodato
Yeah. So, I think the major things we covered, just about everything that was on my wish list for the water. What we didn’t get into was more on the hydrant side. You know, we did the Oasis series, which.

00:10:49:17 – 00:10:50:18
Andy Soccodato
We did those.

00:10:50:20 – 00:10:51:19
Gordon Voit
Yeah. Right.

00:10:51:21 – 00:10:59:22
Andy Soccodato
But I know originally I had thought that we had the potential to do a hydrogen water supply series as.

00:10:59:22 – 00:11:00:23
Gordon Voit
Well where.

00:11:00:23 – 00:11:34:05
Andy Soccodato
We can talk about heavy hydrogen hookups using not the Oasis valve but three supply lines off the hydrogen. What that does, showing people and developing a video on intake to intake pumping or dual pumping is some people call it. There’s a lot of people that don’t understand that or, have a hard time visualizing it. And I think with what we were able to do and the graphics that we did with the water and even the, four way valve series, that would shed a lot of light, that, that tactic as well.

00:11:34:09 – 00:11:43:22
Gordon Voit
So tell me about the like let’s just start from the beginning with that tactic. What’s the problem that you’re experiencing as a firefighter that would make you want to do that?

00:11:44:03 – 00:12:08:21
Andy Soccodato
Yeah. So the typical problem is I’m on a fire scene on the attack. This tech beast has a water supply. And let’s say there’s, there’s a pumper on that water source that is pumping to the attack engine. So this engine at the fire scene has water, has good water, but another apparatus comes from a different direction, whether it be a quint or a another engine, something like that.

00:12:08:23 – 00:12:45:07
Andy Soccodato
And they’re operating at the fire scene as well, but they need a water supply as well. A lot of fire departments in America will do 1 or 2 things. That third arriving engine or quint, they will pick up their own water layout from a separate hydrant and do it that way. Does that work? Certainly works, but it’s more hose on the ground or engine one that’s operating at the fire scene will come directly to the two, and with those two rigs sitting right next to each other, nose to nose, that also accomplishes the task.

00:12:45:07 – 00:13:04:01
Andy Soccodato
But engine one doesn’t have to pump at a high pressure to get water, you know, a 100ft to the next rig, but they’re probably pumping at a high pressure for their attack lines or whatever else they’re doing. So they’re going to have to get back the supply. Feeding this rig, and it becomes a balancing act as you gain the buck.

00:13:04:03 – 00:13:34:08
Andy Soccodato
The easier option is to go rather than discharge to intake from 1 to 3. What I can do is go intake to intake. And now the residual water and residual pressure from the system flows through the first engine and goes into the other rig. And that engine gets the volume at a much lower pressure. And every rig has the ability to, manipulate their throttles and have full control of their discharges.

00:13:34:08 – 00:13:38:13
Gordon Voit
So what’s the biggest misunderstanding about what you just described?

00:13:38:14 – 00:14:10:19
Andy Soccodato
So the biggest misunderstanding is that, the second engine will drop water from the first engine. And that’s not true. The engine that’s being pulled, pumped is receiving the leftovers or residual water. So residual water means what is left over what’s not being used. So if engine one is flowing 500 gallons a minute and the the water supply is providing them with 1500 gallons per minute, the unused thousand GPS is shown on engine.

00:14:10:19 – 00:14:39:05
Andy Soccodato
Once measure intake gauge has residual intake pressure. That means that I can now share it with engine two over here. And engine two has access to the unused water. But if engine one continues to flow or starts flowing, water, that just removes water available for engine two to use. Engine two is the, the little brother who gets the, big brother always gets first big brothers.

00:14:39:06 – 00:14:41:20
Gordon Voit
And you and I are both big brothers. Yeah, we get first.

00:14:41:20 – 00:14:48:11
Andy Soccodato
Big brother gets the hammy down now, and that kind of leads into the next kind of video that I thought.

00:14:48:15 – 00:14:49:21
Gordon Voit
Yeah, right.

00:14:49:22 – 00:15:17:17
Andy Soccodato
Well, could do is the, the disadvantage to that system is it’s a one directional flow. So engine two loses water doesn’t lose water. Is the end of the line. He gets the last bit. So the way I build that out and make it more advantageous for everybody is I create what’s called an above ground loop. So now we have a fourth engine come from the engine up here.

00:15:17:19 – 00:15:32:05
Andy Soccodato
And they lay out to a separate hydrant. And now I got two engines down at hydrants pumping to the two engines that are at the fire scene. And I literally create an above ground loop right there. Man, have all the water.

00:15:32:07 – 00:15:48:02
Gordon Voit
You’re so full of knowledge. You live outside of the digital ecosystem. In fact, most of your time is spent training firefighters. What’s your message to a firefighter who’s watching this video and wants to train with you? How can they get involved with the water thieves? Yeah.

00:15:48:02 – 00:16:23:18
Andy Soccodato
So, couple options. The best thing is, first of all, follow us on social media. We we try to do our best, posting all of our trainings and giving some synopsis on, our trainings and what we’re doing them. You can go to our website, the water feeds.com and, click on a link to request a quote to see if, you know, we can come and teach for your fire department, or you can go and purchase, my book from Fire Engineering Books, Water Thievery, the Art of Water Supply operations, all of this information, everything that we talked about.

00:16:23:18 – 00:16:29:06
Andy Soccodato
This video series, both video series is in that book. And there’s data and numbers to prove it.

00:16:29:06 – 00:16:35:11
Gordon Voit
So awesome. Thank you so much for joining us. And we can’t wait to get down to Tennessee and, train with it some more.

00:16:35:12 – 00:16:36:15
Andy Soccodato
Again.

00:16:36:17 – 00:16:37:06
Gordon Voit
Thanks, Andy.

00:16:37:08 – 00:16:37:23
Andy Soccodato
Appreciate it.

Have a question? Ask Andy Soccodato!

E8 – Firefighter Safety That's Still Aggressive with Lance Vinson

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

What’s fueling the fire service’s “Civil War” over safety culture
How to answer critics who think safety kills aggressiveness
Real talk on clean air: StationProtect, CrewProtect, and culture change
Gross decon challenges and how DECON/Pak can help crews comply
What young firefighters need to hear from today’s leaders
Key updates from FDSOA that impact every department

Whether you’re building a safety program or trying to change hearts and minds on your crew, this conversation will give you practical tools.

Lance Vinson is the Western Director of the FDSOA (Fire Department Safety Officers Association) and is the Batallion Chief for Training at Amarillo (TX) Fire Department.

View Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:06:27
Lance Vinson
chief called me and told me that, Brian had fallen out of a fire truck because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and that he was dead.

00:00:07:04 – 00:00:09:07
Lance Vinson
And it was a shift in the force for me. It

00:00:09:07 – 00:00:15:18
Lance Vinson
and it just it started me down the line of, you know what? We shouldn’t be dying for for for needless reasons.

00:00:15:18 – 00:00:16:11
Lance Vinson
We just shouldn’t.

00:00:16:11 – 00:00:30:16
Unknown
Our guest today is Lance Vincent, western director for the PhD associate, the fire department’s safety officers Association. Lance is the training battalion chief for Amarillo, Texas Fire Department. And his passion is safety.

00:00:30:16 – 00:00:35:17
Unknown
Is it possible to dial up your safety without sacrificing aggressiveness?

00:00:35:17 – 00:00:37:05
Unknown
And what does that look like?

00:00:37:05 – 00:00:40:24
Unknown
How can you make your department a national leader in clean air?

00:00:40:25 – 00:00:44:12
Unknown
We’ll tackle those questions with Lance on episode eight of the Fully

00:00:44:12 – 00:00:46:22
Unknown
Involved podcast.

00:00:50:01 – 00:00:58:12
Gordon Voit
We have Lance Vinson here. Lance, you were so many different hats in the health and safety related. First of all, thank you so much for joining us for this conversation.

00:00:58:14 – 00:01:00:22
Lance Vinson
Thanks for having me. I’m super excited to be here.

00:01:00:25 – 00:01:04:07
Gordon Voit
So tell me, what are all the different hats?

00:01:04:09 – 00:01:32:10
Lance Vinson
So I, I’m professionally, employed with the Amarillo Fire Department. I’m the training, battalion chief there. I also served as a health and safety captain before I became the, training chief. The HCO there, and I have a really good, relationship, heavily engaged in after action reviews and incident safety in my organization. I also serve as a western director for the fire department’s safety officers Association.

00:01:32:13 – 00:01:53:15
Lance Vinson
So that’s where a lot of of, those hats. I guess that’s where I put them on. From helping drive safety culture, around the country. By being exposed to different fire departments. You know, that new book just came out. I got an opportunity to help edit or, I guess I’m not an editor, but,

00:01:53:17 – 00:02:10:28
Lance Vinson
Yeah, proofread that book and talk, and, Chief reader and I got to meet each other, and that stuff came out to us, and we just. So from all angles, from the health and safety aspect, not my huge lane, but I’m more of an operational safety kind of guy.

00:02:11:00 – 00:02:16:14
Gordon Voit
Interesting. What? I mean, what set you out in that journey? Because it’s one thing to just cash a check.

00:02:16:17 – 00:02:17:06
Lance Vinson
Sure.

00:02:17:08 – 00:02:22:09
Gordon Voit
I can tell you’re not just a guy who just does it to check a box. I can tell your passion. What’s your why?

00:02:22:11 – 00:02:47:15
Lance Vinson
So I graduated from the Amarillo Fire Academy in 2001 or 2002. Excuse me? We were in, we were in class on the Tuesday, September the 11th, and I actually wondered if I’d picked the right profession. Right. I actually wanted to be a cop. But don’t tell anybody that I know. Yeah, do not publish that. And so, anyway, somebody said, why would you want to be a cop, like, go into the fire service?

00:02:47:15 – 00:03:08:28
Lance Vinson
So I did, and then September 11th happened. I was in the fire academy and I’m going, oh my gosh. Well, you start to forge strong bonds in the fire academy. And, one of the guys that I graduated the fire academy with, he went to work at an Amarillo fire. I actually went to work, at a private fire department, and we have a nuclear weapons assembly plant in Amarillo.

00:03:09:01 – 00:03:30:27
Lance Vinson
And so I started working as a firefighter at the nuclear weapons plant there. It’s called the Pantech plant. And one night, the chief from our. I was volunteering at the time as well. The chief called me and told me that, Brian had fallen out of a fire truck because he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt and that he was dead.

00:03:30:29 – 00:03:51:25
Lance Vinson
And it was a shift in the force for me. It was like, what do you mean, like, supposed to wear a seatbelt? Now, we worked for different organizations professionally, but we rode the same fire apparatus. We rode the same fire apparatus when we volunteered. And our volunteer fire apparatus never left the truck bay unless everybody was buckled in, him included.

00:03:51:28 – 00:04:12:21
Lance Vinson
So it was beyond me. How it is that where he worked for the organization I’m a part of now, and I love as a good organization. Like how do how does how does culturally that not convey. And and it just it started me down the line of, you know what? We shouldn’t be dying for for for needless reasons.

00:04:12:21 – 00:04:13:16
Lance Vinson
We just shouldn’t.

00:04:13:18 – 00:04:18:15
Gordon Voit
What did that do inside when your best friend and closest people and you know.

00:04:18:18 – 00:04:45:08
Lance Vinson
Oh, man, I you know, I still, It’s coming up April the 25th. And and it just, you know, this is going to be 20 years. He died. No. Five. I still have it. I still get it. It’s still hard to fathom that it’s been that long ago. And that my journey, my safety journey has really been pushed by the legacy of a guy that I just love to death.

00:04:45:08 – 00:05:04:17
Lance Vinson
And, you know, I, I don’t know, it was a hard phone call to get for sure. I tell people this, I say, especially when it comes to seatbelts, because we get in some of these conversations, guys like, yeah, we don’t wear seatbelts. I say, you don’t ever want to know what it feels like to for that phone call to come in.

00:05:04:17 – 00:05:29:03
Lance Vinson
You don’t. And and all of what we think is safe is bred bar experiences. And that’s a small sample size. If I ask an old board firefighter, was that safe? Well, if he never got slung off the tail board, he thinks that’s plenty safe. But the reality is it wasn’t safe. It was never safe. We just weren’t keeping records on how many of those guys were getting killed.

00:05:29:05 – 00:05:36:01
Gordon Voit
So, no, I mean, how are you channeling that energy? What are what are the the actions that you wish you would see in the fire service?

00:05:36:01 – 00:05:58:01
Lance Vinson
For sure. Well, I think that I think that, the the fire service is, is going through what I call, to anybody that will listen. Some people don’t listen. Right. But the a civil war, we’re in the middle of a of a huge civil war. And you have safety people and you have people that are just not safety people.

00:05:58:04 – 00:06:21:19
Lance Vinson
Now, I, I believe in aggressive firefighting, but I believe in intelligently aggressive firefighting, and I hate seeing arbitrarily aggressive firefighters. I think that every decision we make from the time we walk in or out of the firehouse to while we’re on duty to when we’re running calls, needs to be calculated. And you need to know why it is you’re doing what you were doing.

00:06:21:21 – 00:06:43:08
Lance Vinson
And if you can’t answer that question, especially if it comes to a fire blowing out of every orifice in a house, and we’re just going to push because that’s what we do, that’s different than identifying survivable space, having a driving force towards a rescue, and making an entry based on a risk versus benefit thought process. And that’s my passion.

00:06:43:08 – 00:06:45:20
Lance Vinson
Risk versus benefit is my passion.

00:06:45:26 – 00:06:52:27
Gordon Voit
How does it make you feel? What are the emotions when somebody says, oh, you’re not being a for us you’re about safety. Yeah yeah.

00:06:52:29 – 00:07:11:07
Lance Vinson
Yeah. So well first of all, I tell them because most of those folks don’t, haven’t grown up with me in the fire service. And I go, you don’t know me. The first, the first time that, I got into kind of officially into this safety role, the battalion chief that was bringing me on, they’d assigned me to him.

00:07:11:10 – 00:07:33:09
Lance Vinson
He came to me and he told me, he said, man, I’m really concerned about you being my safety, captain. And I said, why? And he said, because you’re a cowboy. And I said, oh, chief, I’m not a cowboy like I, I’m willing I’m willing to do the work. But I always know why I’m taking whatever action. And we had about an hour and a half long conversation.

00:07:33:11 – 00:07:54:04
Lance Vinson
It ended up, it ended up really good. He and I ended up with a we have a great relationship. And he he introduced me to the FDA, so but he was like, man, I never knew that. I said, yeah, I think about everything before I do it, because here’s what I knew that if Brian had thought about the 15 seconds before he mounted the rig, right, 15 seconds, seven seconds.

00:07:54:04 – 00:08:19:15
Lance Vinson
However long it takes you to swing your coat over your shoulders and be like, well, you buckle it up. You don’t have to get on the rig buckle, buckle up, and then get buttoned up. I did it for years, I know, so that that 7 to 15 seconds of indiscretion cost my friend his life. And I’ve always just considered my actions when I’m when I’m in at work or doing what I do.

00:08:19:17 – 00:08:29:28
Gordon Voit
It’s a powerful message. One of the other topics that, you know, top of mind for the FDA, so particular is, clean air.

00:08:30:01 – 00:08:31:18
Lance Vinson
Oh, man.

00:08:31:20 – 00:08:35:14
Gordon Voit
What about clean air? Did you have that reaction right there?

00:08:35:16 – 00:09:20:12
Lance Vinson
So we have, and we’re trying to put it so hard to put a firefighter in reverse. It’s so hard to put fire culture in reverse. And we talk for years that if your helmet was dirty or if your gear smelled like smoke, or if you smell like smoke, you were out there doing the work right? So much so that you have to convince somebody, go take a shower when they get out of, when they get off of, of a call, and to find out that the air we breathe is causing chronic illness that we can’t see, or sometimes that smell I’m talking about, sometimes you can’t smell it, is a

00:09:20:12 – 00:09:42:11
Lance Vinson
silent killer that I think, finally being acknowledged by people, you know, firefighter cancer support network. We have all this, this cancer national fallen firefighters. Everybody’s got cancer initiatives. But it’s bigger than that. It’s about your health when you’re just at home, like, what is it? How is this affecting your day to day? Not just are you going to get cancer and die?

00:09:42:13 – 00:10:02:01
Lance Vinson
How is this affecting your day to day? And so clean air is extremely important. And the things we do clean cab concepts and things like that. Now a clean cab fire truck that well, hey, don’t we can’t have any air packs in here and you’re taking them back out and putting them in the pocket. I’m not so sure I advocate for that.

00:10:02:01 – 00:10:25:08
Lance Vinson
Here’s what I advocate for to monitor your environment. Don’t put anything dirty in the cab of your truck. And if you do, clean it up right when you get home, right the the same, the same decision making process that you make about hey is a survivable space. Am I going to go in the window like all that, that matrix?

00:10:25:10 – 00:10:34:07
Lance Vinson
Do the same thing with your air you breathe with the things that you’re exposed to every day. And be a pro. Don’t tell people you’re a pro. Be a pro.

00:10:34:07 – 00:10:47:02
Unknown
I’m.

00:10:47:04 – 00:10:59:04
Unknown
Happy to.

00:10:59:07 – 00:11:00:06
Unknown
Thank you

00:11:00:21 – 00:11:06:24
Gordon Voit
Where is clean air is just the cap is on the fire house and where are the problem areas?

00:11:06:27 – 00:11:34:22
Lance Vinson
You ever, So I lived at a fire station that had, poles in it for the the majority of my career was spent at this particular firehouse, our central fire station. Now, I’ve got I’ve been rattled around through town, but if you divided it up, most of my time spent at Central Fire Station, and it always amazed me that we would check off trucks and tools with the pole holes of the bedroom right above us.

00:11:34:24 – 00:11:54:23
Lance Vinson
Insane. So no, it’s not just the cab of the truck. It’s where we live, where we eat. It’s everywhere because of of of the things that we’re exposed to. All the time. And if people make good decisions about those things, I think we we can we can start to clean, clean up the air around us and help us.

00:11:54:25 – 00:12:04:14
Lance Vinson
I said this yesterday out live, the, the studies on our pensions. Right. Make somebody go, oh, that guy wasn’t supposed to live that long, right? That would be awesome. What?

00:12:04:16 – 00:12:07:08
Gordon Voit
Why is there resistance to clean air?

00:12:07:11 – 00:12:29:03
Lance Vinson
Because it’s hard. Because it’s another thing that we have to do. Another. You go back to old firefighters and they’ll go, man, we just used to sit around waiting for fires to come in, and that’s not the fire service anymore. It doesn’t work that way anymore. We have to justify our existence all the time. People have become.

00:12:29:05 – 00:12:53:15
Lance Vinson
Understand that we’ll get any from the cat out of the tree to your to your paper cut. We’ll come see about you. Right. And I’m okay with that. But guys get to where it’s like, and it’s just something else for us to, to do and and engage really in, process. Right. Firefighting where like lowest you can go without going over and what.

00:12:53:17 – 00:13:04:24
Gordon Voit
Yeah. Tell me about, hassle. But as deacon, you know what the brushes and the buckets. Yeah. What’s the most frustrating part of,

00:13:04:27 – 00:13:28:24
Lance Vinson
So in theory, deacons should be pretty easy. It should be. It should be pretty easy. It’s a hassle because we’ve not built a culture that we do it. We just like to say, hey, we can do this. Like, we’ll have a brush and we’ll have this soap, and then we’ll remove 86% of the contaminants on our gear and we go, that’s great.

00:13:28:25 – 00:13:50:11
Lance Vinson
Then we’ll have a hose and somebody and then you actually go out to do it and it’s, where I come from, it might be three degrees outside. Well, nobody wants to do that in three degree weather, right? It’s inconvenient. Or you have guys like me who have done something a certain way for so long that that you,

00:13:50:13 – 00:13:51:12
Gordon Voit
Like I said.

00:13:51:15 – 00:14:18:24
Lance Vinson
You forget I was always. I always told my crews this when I, when I was running a crew, I said, I run a truck where accountability runs both directions. You are accountable to me, I promise. But I’m also accountable to you. Right. And so I got a fire one night. We fought this, working structure. Fire came out was in the middle of the summer, I was hot, I took off my air pack and my coat, and I called for an overhaul.

00:14:18:24 – 00:14:40:19
Lance Vinson
Crew put my helmet back on my head and walked in the door. And the youngest member of my crew went, hey, cap, I thought we were supposed to overhaul in air packs. And I was like, you’re right, kid, absolutely right. Like, I messed that up. And I just think we need maybe more fire service leaders to actually have the vulnerability to understand you’re not going to do it right every time.

00:14:40:21 – 00:15:01:29
Lance Vinson
And that’s from tactics to, to to clean air to whatever, but be coachable and listen to what even the babies are telling you. And I said, you know what? And we came out and we all geared back up and put our air protection on and went into overhaul. But I overhauled houses for 20 years without an air pack on, you know.

00:15:01:29 – 00:15:02:15
Lance Vinson
And so.

00:15:02:22 – 00:15:20:27
Gordon Voit
Yeah. What’s another example from your career of a time where now you know, what best practices are when it comes to safety, especially, you know, clean air sperm. What’s a what’s a time where you look back and be like, wow, young Lance really did something that I would never do today.

00:15:21:04 – 00:15:24:13
Lance Vinson
Oh, sure. So.

00:15:24:15 – 00:15:45:24
Lance Vinson
Wow. That’s a that’s a great question. You know, young, young firefighters don’t ever really consider being old firefighters. And I think that if I boiled everything down, some of the things I did as a, as you know, there are things that my wife’s like, you shouldn’t even be around, and I’m a safety guy, like I really am.

00:15:45:24 – 00:16:08:12
Lance Vinson
I try to make good decisions, but it wasn’t until I started driving a truck and going, whoa, this responsibility is heavy, right? And that’s really the time that I started digging in. And then when I made company officer, sitting in the front seat and looking back and going, oh, my gosh, that’s probably why that bike said, man, you’re a cowboy.

00:16:08:13 – 00:16:26:03
Lance Vinson
Probably remembered really young Lance, right? And I didn’t slow anybody down. I just it’s like, hey, we can’t do we can’t be arbitrarily aggressive. We can’t do things that just. Well, it sound like a good thing to do, but young members are going to do that. Young people are going to do that just because they don’t know any better.

00:16:26:09 – 00:16:41:28
Lance Vinson
And they need they need leaders that are going to step up and pull what I call pull the choke chain. But I like firefighters that are ready to go. But sometimes a leader has to be willing to hold them back and go, hey, I love that attribute of you. But I’ve got I’ve got to hold you back on this one.

00:16:42:00 – 00:16:48:25
Gordon Voit
Yeah. Tell me what’s coming up this year for FDA. So what are your big, emphases coming up?

00:16:48:27 – 00:17:10:02
Lance Vinson
So the new books out, which is exciting. 1550, of course, is a revamp there. And at the, at our conference, I was just talking to, to our chair, Eric Valliere, about it. Shout out to him was just on the phone with him. And, we’re going to we’re going to teach our ISO class and to that new to that new standard.

00:17:10:02 – 00:17:32:12
Lance Vinson
So if you’re wanting that class because you have to come up to the new standard, that’s going to be one of your first opportunities, will be will be your first opportunity to get it from us, conferences moving to Phoenix, or Phoenix area. It’s going to be in Scottsdale. It’s going to be awesome in January if you if you want if you want information about that, it’s fda.org.

00:17:32:14 – 00:17:33:23
Lance Vinson
Yeah.

00:17:33:25 – 00:17:36:24
Gordon Voit
Plan. Is there anything that we didn’t cover that you were hoping to talk about?

00:17:36:27 – 00:18:02:20
Lance Vinson
Well, I don’t think so. I think that, just the opportunity to I’m passionate about this stuff. I’m also passionate about being a good firefighter. Like, you can’t fake being a good firefighter. You can’t even fake a lot of stuff, but you can’t fake that and and be a pro, do things right, take care of your guys and your gals and it’ll all work out in the end.

00:18:02:22 – 00:18:25:13
Gordon Voit
Thank you so much for sharing your experience, I think. Yeah. Well, one of the things I like to use that you’re a great marriage between a practical understanding was if you’ve been in those situations, you understand what kind of like the old school mindset. No. Yeah. But then you married them with kind of like a new understanding. We have about science.

00:18:25:15 – 00:18:42:27
Gordon Voit
I think that makes it really relatable. Make sure you’re a lot of times people are in one camp for the other. But, yeah, even the most grizzled fighter is going to look at that mustache, you know, here year. Matter of fact, I think they respect,

00:18:43:00 – 00:19:02:23
Lance Vinson
I like that the fire, the fire service, I say owes me nothing, I would everything it’s been so good to me. But but if that is back to that accountability thing, if you aren’t accountable the same way that you hold your people accountable, it’s never going to work. You’re never going to be the kind of leader that’s dynamic enough to to truly make a large impact on this service as a whole.

00:19:02:23 – 00:19:11:25
Lance Vinson
And I don’t know that I’m that guy. I would like to be that guy, but but that’s always my goal is to just be better at being better.

00:19:11:27 – 00:19:17:23
Gordon Voit
Awesome. Lance, thank you so much for joining us and looking forward to visiting you some time. And I’m sure thank you. Thank you.

00:19:17:23 – 00:19:25:16
Unknown
Want to see how you can make your department safer? Schedule a demo and talk to the experts at Ft.com. Slash demo.

Have a question? Ask Lance Vinson!

E7 – High GPM, Low Manpower: Industrial Tactics with Chief Rick Haase

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Gallons-per-person (GPP) as a tactical metric
High-flow water tactics for low-staffing scenarios
Using BlitzFires and quick attack trucks for rapid knockdown
Foam application in both municipal and industrial fires
Fog stream techniques for fire capture and cooling

Whether you’re pushing water at a refinery or on a rural structure fire, 45-year veteran Chief Rick Haase brings battle-tested insight that helps every firefighter move faster, hit harder, and stay smarter. He leads the FDIC Industrial Summit, has served decades with Staunton (IL) FD and retired from the ConocoPhillips Wood River Refinery in Roxana, Illinois.

View Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:08:18
Speaker 3
I look at stuff from a, a GPP perspective, okay. And most people give me this weird look and, and I look at gallons per person.

00:00:08:19 – 00:00:16:05
Speaker 3
a firefighting standpoint, I’ve got to maximize my flow rates with the number of people I have to overcome those be to use.

00:00:16:06 – 00:00:20:12
Speaker 3
And a classic example would be okay. The typical inch and three quarter hand line.

00:00:20:13 – 00:00:25:02
Speaker 3
you know, we’ll say it flow in 150 gallons a minute. I got three guys on that hand line.

00:00:25:04 – 00:00:30:21
Speaker 3
My GPP is 50 gallons a minute, and that’s not extremely effective.

00:00:30:22 – 00:00:38:03
Unknown
Our guest today is Rick Hassey. He’s a leading expert in industrial firefighting and rural low staffed firefighting.

00:00:38:03 – 00:00:39:12
Unknown
His 45 years

00:00:39:12 – 00:00:46:21
Unknown
in the fire service have been spent with the RB Refining Phillips 66 refinery outside Saint Louis,

00:00:46:21 – 00:01:01:04
Unknown
Illinois. Hazmat disaster response. The International Association of Fire Chiefs, Illinois Fire Service Institute, and nearly 30 years in a volunteer capacity with Staunton, Illinois Fire Protection District.

00:01:01:11 – 00:01:06:15
Unknown
This interview is for firefighters who want to level up their volume of water per firefighter

00:01:06:15 – 00:01:09:07
Unknown
who want to learn industrial foam tactics,

00:01:09:07 – 00:01:09:09
Unknown
how

00:01:09:09 – 00:01:12:19
Unknown
to use portable monitors to maximize fire attack,

00:01:12:19 – 00:01:16:17
Unknown
and also how to work short staffed fires more smartly.

00:01:16:17 – 00:01:22:04
Unknown
Rick Ross likes to think differently, and you will not want to miss his tips for your department.

00:01:23:02 – 00:01:27:19
Unknown
I.

00:01:27:19 – 00:01:40:23
Speaker 1
We’ve got Rick Haase here, a man who wears a lot of different hats. He’s based out of Staunton, Illinois in the St. Louis metro area. He’s also coordinating the industrial summit here at FDIC. Rick, thank you so much for joining us for really appreciate it.

00:01:41:01 – 00:01:42:18
Speaker 3
Thank you. Appreciate it.

00:01:42:20 – 00:01:54:04
Speaker 1
First of all, I gotta know what are all the different hats that you wear in the fire service because you’re a humble man, but you do a heck of a lot and a lot of different in all sorts. What are what’s the laundry list of roles you have in the fire?

00:01:54:06 – 00:02:16:20
Speaker 3
Well, I, I’ve been doing this stuff for, about 45 years. The last 43 years I’ve been the, been with the Staunton Fire Protection District, in Staunton, Illinois, the last 29 years now, I’ve been the fire chief there. Beyond that, from an industrial perspective, I worked 38 years at the wood River refinery.

00:02:16:21 – 00:02:39:16
Speaker 3
For 34 of those years, I was the fire chief and the director of emergency response and security. Also, when I was working in the industrial world, I was also a member of the Phillips 66, corporate incident management team, which we basically covered the entire U.S and part of, Europe from an incident management standpoint.

00:02:39:18 – 00:03:06:03
Speaker 3
Beyond that, I’m, I’m part of a couple of, regional teams, the, maybe 35 hazmat team, the Madison County Technical Rescue team. And, recently I became the coordinator for the southwest, Illinois incident Management team. And then, I also am an instructor and the, Nims ICS program manager for the Illinois Fire Service Institute.

00:03:06:05 – 00:03:22:14
Speaker 3
And finally, sideline job. Now that I’m retired, I, I’m the owner of Hazy Consulting and Training, which is, and consulting business that we do some training, fire protection work for both industry and municipalities.

00:03:22:16 – 00:03:30:15
Speaker 1
We need a new memory card. So you have, like, 18 different titles. How many hours of sleep do,

00:03:30:17 – 00:03:32:21
Speaker 3
You got all kinds of time for sleep.

00:03:32:23 – 00:03:46:01
Speaker 1
You probably got, like, three hours a night. Come on. Us. But, Wow. So your dedication is unquestioned. You are an industrial expert. You not save yourself, but you coordinate the summit here. What was that experience like?

00:03:46:03 – 00:04:06:18
Speaker 3
So this is. Yeah. So this this is the first time that we’ve had the summit here at FDIC. You know, and our initial thought process was to try to bring, a lot of the different industries here together and just kind of, use it as a building block to kind of understand, you know, what type of training do they need?

00:04:06:20 – 00:04:41:19
Speaker 3
We we kind of, outdid our expectations, which was great. We actually filled the summit up, well, over what we initially inspect. Expected, already talking about next year, going to offer even more training classes, more opportunities for networking. And we’re actually trying to build some additional relationships with some of the key, companies that provide equipment for industrial purposes, such as, you know, the TFT, the US Fire Pumps, some of the bigger manufacturers of, of equipment that, you know, a lot of the industries use.

00:04:41:21 – 00:05:06:10
Speaker 1
So I’ve been really looking forward to this, this conversation because, our mission is to help firefighters. So you face every problem there face to face. An industrial goal. What what what are what’s one main problem that you talked about at the summit, and then you’re really hoping to push education across all to do.

00:05:06:12 – 00:05:31:02
Speaker 3
Well, you know, and I think, believe it or not, no different in the municipal world. One of the big things that was brought up again, again, it’s staffing, just like it is in the municipal world. You know, nobody ever has enough people to really do what they want to do. So, you know, it’s not just from a perspective of how many, but how can you really be good with the number of people that you have available?

00:05:31:02 – 00:05:53:18
Speaker 3
I mean, you know, I see that every day in my volunteer world where, you know, during the day, you know, I may be limited to 8 or 10 guys, whereas, you know, a, a structure fire at 10:00 in the evening, I might have 25 or 30 guys show up. So it’s it’s being able to, do the maximum amount with the number of people that you got available.

00:05:53:18 – 00:06:05:02
Speaker 3
And, and I think everybody’s looking for that. And, you know, that’s the key of training. What type of equipment that you use, how you use that equipment to, to make your personnel as effective as possible.

00:06:05:04 – 00:06:08:16
Speaker 1
So what’s the solution? You have a staffing problem, water waste and you get it wrong.

00:06:08:22 – 00:06:37:10
Speaker 3
So, I’ve I’ve had a unique perspective for a number of years, and I kind of had a play on stuff. I I look at stuff from a, a GPP perspective, okay. And most people give me this weird look and, and I look at gallons per person. So how am I effective? Because of course, from a firefighting standpoint, I’ve got to maximize my flow rates with the number of people I have to overcome those be to use.

00:06:37:12 – 00:06:57:18
Speaker 3
So how do I do it? So when I look at GPP, I’m looking at how many people I’m using versus how many GPS zoom I throwing. And a classic example would be okay. The typical inch and three quarter hand line. Okay, you know, we’ll say it flow in 150 gallons a minute. I got three guys on that hand line.

00:06:57:20 – 00:07:25:14
Speaker 3
My GPP is 50 gallons a minute, and that’s not extremely effective. But now, if I put a BlitzFire monitor out there and it only takes me two guys with that BlitzFire monitor, now my GPP just went up to 250 and I’m I’m getting pretty effective. And then I’ll put on my industrial hat and I pull a quick attack truck up there with the with with two crossfire monitors mounted on it.

00:07:25:15 – 00:07:43:19
Speaker 3
So I’m flowing 2500 GP, 2500 GPM with two people, and I’m well over a thousand gallons a minute. My GPP is really effective and that’s what I got look at is how big a bang for my buck am I going to get what the people I’ve got available to me?

00:07:43:21 – 00:07:48:22
Speaker 1
So why BlitzFires? There’s a lot of different options out there. How’s that worked out for you on.

00:07:49:00 – 00:08:12:23
Speaker 3
The BlitzFire for for us, you know, and I’m going to speak again both from the my municipal perspective and, the, the industrial perspective. One is it’s the low, low angle. That low angle is a huge deal because, especially from the, the industrial perspective, I’m typically wanting to get those up close and personal so I can get a good capture with them.

00:08:13:01 – 00:08:32:23
Speaker 3
You know, because I’m using a, a fog pattern that if I have a flammable liquid fire and or a pressure fed fire, I want to encapsulate that flame source to keep it from moving on me. So if I can get that BlitzFire monitor in close with a tight power stream, I’m going to hold that fire for moving.

00:08:32:23 – 00:08:56:07
Speaker 3
And once I capture that flame, life gets simple. I can let it burn within that captured flame for an extended period of time. No problem. You know, from from the the municipal perspective, it’s it’s lightweight. I can move it. I can get it in place. I mean, I I’ve got my attack engines that in some cases I got two BlitzFires that are pre connected.

00:08:56:07 – 00:09:13:10
Speaker 3
One off the front bumper, one off the rear hose bed. And it’s kind of a joke when, when people call for, for my municipal department here comes those guys from Staunton. They’re going to flow a whole bunch of water even. There’s not much flame. And that’s kind of our perspective, is we we want to overwhelm the fire.

00:09:13:12 – 00:09:42:16
Speaker 3
We don’t want to fight fair, get the big flow started, knock the fire out. And then if I’ve got to pull a hand line to do mop up and in our case and I’ll, you know, again, getting back to the the TFT version of our theory for overhaul is we pull out prop packs with Class-A foam. That’s, that’s our standard guideline because we don’t want to come back at 2:00 in the morning for a little mini, overhaul or another overhaul because we didn’t do good salvage an overhaul before we left.

00:09:42:18 – 00:09:51:19
Speaker 1
So, yeah, I want to hear more about what is the situation and paint a picture for me of when you’re pulling out the frame pack. What does the fire look like? What’s the problem?

00:09:51:21 – 00:10:12:00
Speaker 3
Usually with the Pro pack for us, in my municipal world, the fire’s basically out. But now I’m going to put glass foam down and, you know, make the water wetter so that the fire is is not going to rekindle. And I’m not going to be back there at 2:00 in the morning with a pipe pole, going through everything, trying to get stuff moved out of the way.

00:10:12:02 – 00:10:32:12
Speaker 3
So from that perspective, you know, I’m looking more at you know, getting amounts of Class-A foam on the, the, the embers that are in there. I mean, you know, and in some cases it, it may be opening up the top of a wall. And now I’m, I’m sticking more of the straight stream in there, the, the low expansion nozzle to kind of get some foam down in there.

00:10:32:17 – 00:10:48:20
Speaker 3
Or if I’ve got a mattress, it may be from the mattress standpoint, I’m putting the high expansion nozzle on there and I’m I’m covering it completely up just trying to, you know, so again, I’m wet using that wetting agent from that class eight perspective.

00:10:48:22 – 00:10:54:17
Speaker 1
Tell me from an industrial perspective, how how do you use foam?

00:10:54:19 – 00:11:26:07
Speaker 3
Well, you know, from, from the industrial perspective, we’re using mainly class B foam. You know, what we’re doing more of the hydrocarbon type firefighting operations. So from that perspective, you know, it’s an in in the municipal are the industrial world. It’s high volume stuff we’re not looking for. Oh, hey, you know, let’s use a hand line. You know, you have those small scale type incidents where okay I I’ve, I’ve got a spill fire and or I’ve got some, liquid on the ground that I need to put a foam blanket over.

00:11:26:12 – 00:11:45:16
Speaker 3
But usually when we’re talking large scale fires, I’m going to take the heat out of the fire with foam. And how am I going to do that? Lets fires, cross fires, or even bigger. I want to put down a large blanket of foam to take the heat out of the fire, so I can understand where is that fire coming from?

00:11:45:16 – 00:12:04:16
Speaker 3
Because in in the industrial world, it’s usually not as straightforward as it is in a municipal world. Hey, we we kind of know where the fires coming from. This is what this is, the class eight material that’s burning in in the industrial world. We we may have a pipe rack on fire that we don’t know which one of those pipes is, is leaking.

00:12:04:16 – 00:12:22:04
Speaker 3
And now you know, causing that material to, to be released and, and that’s, you know, our source of the fire. It’s not that simple. So we’re going to put the phone down until we can I.D.. And then as soon as we I did, just like I said earlier, we’re going to put that BlitzFire, that cross fire to capture that location.

00:12:22:04 – 00:12:36:17
Speaker 3
So now we can go in and actually isolate, you know, use the valves that are feeding that line to close it down. And now, because, you know, in our world, that’s how we’re taking care of it. We’re isolating valves.

00:12:36:19 – 00:12:52:12
Speaker 1
I’m sure you have. And the story I should take you out for dinner tonight. Okay. But what’s what was one particularly troublesome, troubling, fire that you encountered in the industrial context? Just like, what was the trickiest puzzle you ever had?

00:12:52:13 – 00:13:29:16
Speaker 3
So, probably one of them. We had a, process unit fire that, it burned for about 16 hours. The unfortunately, where the fire was, it was being fed by a 270ft tall column. There was no isolation point in between. So the only way that we could, control the fire was to pin the fire at the fire location, which was a large flange on about a 24 inch line.

00:13:29:18 – 00:13:55:18
Speaker 3
So literally, we pinned the fire. Probably 2 to 3 hours into the fire. We had, three crossfire monitors. This was this was. And I’ll put this in perspective, this was prior to the BlitzFire monitor even being on the market. But we had three crossfire monitors, above it. We had a quick attack truck with two crossfire monitors, and then we had an aerial truck.

00:13:55:22 – 00:14:22:00
Speaker 3
So we were flowing, you know, approximately 4000 to 5000 gallons a minute to pin the fire at its location. And we literally allowed that entire column to do inventory for that 16 hour period. And it worked because, even though we, you know, we had a large fire load, we had some other fires that we were able to extinguish after we got the main fire captured.

00:14:22:02 – 00:14:43:01
Speaker 3
The, the we we had large I-beams within 15ft. One of them warped on us from the sheer heat of the fire. But that was one I-beam out of all of the structural members that were there. And it was based on the amount of water that we were able to flow and capture that fire at that single location.

00:14:43:03 – 00:14:47:19
Speaker 1
I mean, I’m trying to picture that scene in my mind, but that just sounds epic.

00:14:47:21 – 00:15:11:15
Speaker 3
It was, so again, even though we were an industrial apartment, we had five other municipal departments there with us. Because of the, the, you know, the time frame we had about, 8000ft of large diameter hose on the ground, pretty, pretty large scale incident. And, but again, the the good news, no one got hurt.

00:15:11:18 – 00:15:25:01
Speaker 3
Secondly, the amount of damage that was done was minimized because of using high flow rates. And I think that’s one of the things I can’t emphasize enough is, you know, getting in there and overcoming to be to use.

00:15:25:03 – 00:15:36:02
Speaker 1
What’s a common mistake, inexperienced industrial firefighters, maybe we were having a common problem accidentally experiences.

00:15:36:04 – 00:15:56:10
Speaker 3
Well, I think the first thing is you have to understand what is the problem. You know, so many times we see the fire and everybody wants to rush in and oh yeah, we got to put the fire out. In some cases, putting the fire out may be actually worse than letting the fire burn. We’ve got to understand what’s on fire.

00:15:56:15 – 00:16:21:20
Speaker 3
We’ve got to understand how we can control it the second we get captured on that fire, whether it’s, it’s a liquid spill or it’s, pressure fed fire, things get better. And that gives us nothing but time. If we can get to that point and we can tell folks, hold the fire where it’s at, it gives us time to kind of understand what’s the next step that we’re going to take, or how am I going to do final extinguishment.

00:16:22:01 – 00:16:46:01
Speaker 3
But, you know, getting captured is a is a big deal. And again, I think that’s one of probably one of the big deals. So many times, you know, we see in in the municipal world it’s more of that straight stream mentality. And I, I personally think even in the municipal world, there’s still a lot of, room for using the, the, the modified bog streams for firefighting operations.

00:16:46:01 – 00:17:02:06
Speaker 3
Straight streams have its use. But, you know, don’t focus on the straight streams. The only thing out there that those modified bog streams, especially one that get you a good tight pattern to be able to hold and also cool at the same time. A lot of benefits to it.

00:17:02:06 – 00:17:05:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, you help me understand the geometry of that better.

00:17:05:18 – 00:17:45:11
Speaker 3
Yeah. So that’s typically it’s typically going to be about a 30 degree fog stream. So the nice thing about what we refer to in industry that’s a power comb. And we’re getting two things. We’re still getting push on the fire but yet we’re still cooling as well. And we’re also capturing within that ring. So what we can do is if that fire is moving towards and a possible exposure, we can use that power stream to move that fire source away from those exposures and make life easier and simpler for us, and taking those other exposures out of the potential of becoming something else that’s now going to make that fire worse.

00:17:45:13 – 00:17:53:13
Speaker 1
Do you ever have the desire to have a monitor? I don’t know if you use the hemisphere in any of your lines.

00:17:53:15 – 00:18:15:01
Speaker 3
So we use the hemisphere at the refinery. The great thing that we use the, the, the, the hemisphere for is these large scale fires that now they’re going to be burning for a long period of time. We go in there, tie it on to an I-beam, get capture with it, and now, okay, we back our folks out so we’re not beating them up for long periods.

00:18:15:03 – 00:18:39:12
Speaker 3
The other thing that we used them for extensively was for standby operations. If we had a potential problem, we said, you know, we got a a potential leak from this piece of piping. Okay, we want to put some standby equipment. We would go up there, we would put it in place, lock it into place, run the line all the way back to a water source, a hydrant, or, you know, a foam engine.

00:18:39:12 – 00:19:00:14
Speaker 3
If we felt like we had to have that on standby and now we didn’t have to put anybody in the potential leak area, if it did let go, all we did was charge the line and it’s all set up to provide protection with nobody have to enter entering that hazard area. So you know when when from the perspective of we’re not putting people in that hazard area.

00:19:00:16 – 00:19:09:06
Speaker 1
One of my favorite, piece of equipment is the tsunami of 8000 gallons a minute. Do you have an experience with the tsunami wave grips? Yeah, we.

00:19:09:06 – 00:19:29:23
Speaker 3
You know, again, high volume streams. You know, when we’re talking about, again, the process unit fires lots of fire. We’ve got that large thermal updraft. We’ve got to take the heat out of the fire using the high volume monitors is the only way to do it. If we can get that high volume in there, we knock out those BTUs.

00:19:30:00 – 00:19:58:19
Speaker 3
And of course, it’s the same deal. Think about the push that we’re going to get without with a hand line nozzle. Not very much. Think about the push that we’re going to get with a BlitzFire okay. We’re we’re gaining on it. Think about the push that we’re going to get with a cross fire more. But now we get that big nozzle in there and the push that we’re going to get especially you know, think if, you know, we had areas of the refinery where we had 2000 psi hydrogen streams.

00:19:58:20 – 00:20:16:10
Speaker 3
I mean, if you think you’re going to go in there with some small scale and you’re going to get a push to be able to move that flame in a certain direction, you’re not going to get it with those lower scale, whereas the higher volume you may be able to push it and get it pushed away from an exposure.

00:20:16:13 – 00:20:40:09
Speaker 1
I love to ask about quick attack trucks. On the lead. It’s literally in the next few. But so we did a quick attack truck video one day. We posted it and it just blew up, and I it was an interesting data point for me because I go, okay, people really want to know more about quick attack trucks, but I’d love to pick your brain, but start from scratch with me:

00:20:40:11 – 00:20:44:20
Speaker 1
What goes into designing an efficient, quick attack?

00:20:44:22 – 00:21:15:13
Speaker 2
Well, I mean, you know, the main the main thing of quick attack trucks, from my perspective, is, is a vehicle that is nimble, get in and out of tight spots, that’s capable of flowing large volumes of water with minimal number of people. So from my perspective, there’s a couple things involved with it. So, we started using quick attack trucks at the refinery back in the late 80s, early 90s.

00:21:15:15 – 00:21:36:14
Speaker 2
Back then, they weren’t known as quick attack trucks and our refinery. We referred to them as disposable fire trucks. And the reason that we did it was, we set we literally got used trucks from our maintenance department that they didn’t want them anymore. We said we don’t care if they’re not brand new. We’re going to mount these big monitors in there.

00:21:36:14 – 00:22:03:19
Speaker 2
And guess what? We’re going to get them as close to the fire as we can, so we can get significant push, and we can we can provide exposure protection. And, you know, we don’t care what the truck looks like. We advanced through the years, you know, and we got to the point where they were so useful. We were buying new trucks, and we were outfitting them, you know, and we can look at those high volume trucks from a couple different perspectives, and, and there’s pros and cons to them.

00:22:03:21 – 00:22:28:22
Speaker 2
One would be not using a dual monitor configuration that okay, it’s got two 1250s. I can still marry those strings together and still get that 2500 stream. Or maybe I put a 2000 gun or a 3000 gun or a 4000 gun in the back. So that’s one thing. Having it reconnected LDH hose to where? That’s what’s going to supply.

00:22:29:03 – 00:22:51:16
Speaker 2
One thing you got to understand is in a lot of your large, refineries and chemical plants, the the water supply system is not your normal municipal water supply system. You know, if we if we hook up to a a municipal water supply system, you know, in my jurisdiction. Okay, the hydrant pressure is going to be, you know, 60, maybe 70 PSI.

00:22:51:22 – 00:23:17:02
Speaker 2
And, you know, off, off a hot hydrant. I might get 1500 gallons a minute, maybe. Well, at my refinery, my standard hydrant pressure before I kicked on the pumps when I have a fire was 150 GPA. I’m sorry, 150 psi and I had 16 inch manifolds that had six six inch outlets on it. That would flow 7500 gallons a minute.

00:23:17:04 – 00:23:51:10
Speaker 2
So if I can lay dual lines, a five inch hose off of that, and now hook it into a quick attack truck, you know, I’m, I’m easily flown 25 off dual cross fires. I’m flown probably 3000 gallons a minute because the friction loss is so low and I’m flowing heavy duty water. Now, if I want to make that truck even one one time more useful, I can put a, a foam tank with a self a ducting foam nozzle on it, even if I’m only carrying, 100 gallons of 1% foam.

00:23:51:12 – 00:24:11:00
Speaker 2
The quick knock down I can get maybe to the point of. I got a quick knock down. I just found out where the fire’s at. Now I can go isolate. And I’ve not even used a foam engine, and they haven’t even arrived on scene. Couple of the other things that I look at with quick attack trucks is what other use are you going to use them for?

00:24:11:02 – 00:24:36:10
Speaker 2
In our case, we use them as a it was the standard everyday vehicle for our shift supervisors. They were all on the response team, so they’re driving it for day to day operations. We carried a three lengths of hose, three inch hose, as well as a BlitzFire monitor on those same trucks, because that was just another tool that you could pull off.

00:24:36:12 – 00:25:00:19
Speaker 2
The carried their bunker gear, carried SCBA so they could operate that in an area, you know, if they’re downwind of the fire, if they had to operate in that, that area. You know, we were at the point right before I left that we were going to put ads on all of them. So from a quick response standpoint, if that if that guy was coming, there was an ad we had you know, we had 75 ads in our in our refinery.

00:25:00:21 – 00:25:23:05
Speaker 2
And, you know, that’s from the EMS standpoint, but it was still a great use of the vehicle that it was a multi use vehicle. And, you know, the the ideas behind them is, you know, how much do you want? I mean, we did most of our stuff manually in today’s world you know to have remote control systems it’s even going to make it more effective, you know, to keep people out of that hazard zone.

00:25:23:05 – 00:25:25:02
Speaker 2
So it’s something else to think about.

00:25:25:04 – 00:25:29:20
Speaker 1
What’s the biggest misconception?

00:25:29:22 – 00:25:46:11
Speaker 2
I think some people think that, you know, quick attack trucks, are those vehicles that, you know, you got to have them you got to have an engine to support them. You got to have a, you know, whether that be a foam engine, whether that be a municipal pumper. It’s based on how you set the truck up, what type of water supply.

00:25:46:12 – 00:26:06:18
Speaker 2
I mean, me personally, if if I had my choice, I’d have a, a kind of a modified, quick attack truck. Even in my municipal world. Reason being is my small municipal department. We don’t have an aerial truck. We really don’t. You know, we’ve we’ve looked at it. We’d like to have one, but think about this.

00:26:06:18 – 00:26:30:04
Speaker 2
You know, if I’ve got a 2000 GPM gun mounted in the back of a one ton vehicle that I can split with a couple of five inch lines, I’m gonna get a reach of, you know, 150 to 200ft very easily and think about that. Hey, if I need to get it up in the air to replace an aerial truck, it still has that use.

00:26:30:06 – 00:26:45:17
Speaker 2
So, you know, it’s kind of the poor man’s aerial truck, that, you know, I’m still going to need an engine to supply it, but I can do a lot of work, and I can get it up close to the fire because it’s a lot smaller than that, you know, that that engine that’s carrying a thousand gallons of water and everything else.

00:26:45:17 – 00:26:51:08
Speaker 2
So there’s there’s there’s a lot of opportunity in the trucks if we set them up right.

00:26:51:10 – 00:27:02:00
Speaker 1
How about just where you choose to position that 20 500ft? Yeah. Whether it’s, the bed of the truck, the top, the front bumper. Like, where do you like to position?

00:27:02:00 – 00:27:23:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, so so, man, I’ve always looked at, you know, the water directly behind the cab. We, we typically trained our people to lay in as they go. So, you know, you’re pointing to your point. The front bumper at your target area and then most of the time, what we’d like to do is go directly over the cab of the truck.

00:27:23:13 – 00:27:42:12
Speaker 2
You’re going to get the most stability on the truck. You know, that doesn’t mean that we can’t turn at 90 degrees. But, you know, the stability of the truck. And as far as the stream, one of the negative things, unfortunately, is when your nose and in like that you can’t get the low angle. But most of the time in the industrial world, we’re not looking at that.

00:27:42:12 – 00:28:14:04
Speaker 2
It’s going to be a pipe rack type of situation where we’re pointed kind of up in the air. If we do have to go a low angle, then you’re going to have to basically back the truck into position to be able to get that low angle on those. And of course, if you know, you also have to be mindful, you know, like with the crossfire, you may have to pull that pin, which is something that we really don’t want to do because a lot of times with the, the, the quick attack trucks, again, set it and forget it, you know, we want to put it into operation and if possible, if we’re not having to

00:28:14:07 – 00:28:34:16
Speaker 2
sweep the area or do something like that, I’m going to pull that, that operator out of the area. I mean, I’ve literally driven quick attack trucks down the middle of a pump out and pull it into position, pointed up a at a pipe rack, get capture and say, okay, everybody bail out. We’re going to let it sit there for a while because it’s not hurting anything.

00:28:34:18 – 00:28:43:12
Speaker 2
It’s capturing the fire. Let’s find out what lines we need to, valve out. And now we’re working to work around that.

00:28:43:22 – 00:28:58:05
Speaker 1
You’ve been in the fire service, so when you’re at the very top of your field. But I know all human beings. So I’m curious even that the expert that you are, what was the last thing?

00:28:58:07 – 00:29:27:06
Speaker 2
Well, I think it’s where technology is going. You know, high flow rates. How how the, how we apply it, you know, in now, in today’s world, it’s it’s even so it’s even going back to what we used to do, the new phone world, you know, with the new fluorine free foams, we’re, we’re kind of reversing and we’re, we’re looking at, you know, what was the site?

00:29:27:06 – 00:29:51:04
Speaker 2
And so some of the ways that we used to apply foam in the old protein foam days where we had to get a lot more expansion on the phone and, and, and be able to lay it on there, softly. And that’s where we’re going with the fluorine free foam. So we’re even kind of looking to the way we used to do things and, you know, and especially in the foam world, things are changing every day.

00:29:51:06 – 00:30:13:13
Speaker 2
You know, the, the, the amount, the time that the, the foam will stay in place now is a lot longer with some of the new fluorine foam, but we’re having to proportion it in some cases at a higher level. And, and to be able to extinguish the same materials and things are just constantly changing. And you got to you got to understand the, the, you know, the, the foam.

00:30:13:13 – 00:30:24:12
Speaker 2
You got to understand application rates. You got to understand, you know, how do I put all those things together and what type of hardware do I need to make these things work?

00:30:24:14 – 00:30:34:07
Speaker 1
Yeah, it’s so interesting. So bubble integrity seems to be everything, you know, because the film has got better. So it’s like you better. You better hope those bubbles hold.

00:30:34:09 – 00:30:48:05
Speaker 2
Yeah. And that’s it’s all about bubbles. You know what? The old days. You know, we had that film. Film that was moving out in front of us, and it made life easy. We unfortunately don’t have that anymore.

00:30:48:07 – 00:30:53:08
Speaker 1
Well, is there anything that, that you were hoping to talk about that we didn’t get a chance to cover?

00:30:53:10 – 00:31:04:17
Speaker 2
I. I don’t think so. I mean, I you know, I feel pretty comfortable that we have a lot of a lot of things out there. And I think people need to take the opportunity to find out what’s out there and what we can do with it.

00:31:04:19 – 00:31:19:13
Speaker 1
Well, Chief Rick has he just such a pleasure to, just learn from me. You have, 43, 45 years of experience. Yeah. And, yeah. Just such a pleasure to have you here in the booth, TNT. And, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom.

00:31:19:19 – 00:31:20:12
Speaker 2
Thank you.

00:31:20:13 – 00:31:21:11
Speaker 1
For.

00:31:21:11 – 00:31:27:07
Unknown
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E6 – Basement Fire Tactics, Building Construction Types & Fireground Culture with Jesse Marcotte

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Basement fire tactics and classification
Understanding building types 1–5 for tactical advantage
Flow path control and exterior fire attack myths
How deliberate culture shapes firefighter performance

Jesse Marcotte, Training Chief for Northville Township (MI), blends FSRI research with fireground reality, helping crews stay safer and get better results. He serves on the FSRI Training Advisory Committee (TAC) and the ISFSI Board of Directors.

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00:00:00:00 – 00:00:08:05 Speaker 2 the past we were taught, don’t flow water into that. You’re going to something bad is going to happen. So you just got to kind of take it and get to the bottom of the stairs.
00:00:08:07 – 00:00:10:07 Speaker 2 I think that’s still the biggest misconception.
00:00:10:07 – 00:00:15:24 Speaker 2 if we’re going to go into a basement and we have to go down those stairs, we need to be flowing down the stairs while we’re going.
00:00:15:24 – 00:00:25:04 Unknown Our guest today is Jesse Marcotte, one of the top voices in metro Detroit and the United States. He’s training chief of Northville Township Fire
00:00:25:04 – 00:00:32:07 Unknown Serves on the Retraining Advisory Committee and is on the ice FSI Board of Directors.
00:00:32:07 – 00:00:44:28 Unknown This episode is for firefighters who want to get some of Jesse’s expert knowledge on basement fire tactics, building construction types, nozzle stream technique, and how to get better culture at your department.
00:00:44:28 – 00:00:47:26 Unknown Grab a beverage and a notepad and let’s buckle up.
00:00:48:09 – 00:00:53:15 Unknown To fight.
00:00:53:15 – 00:01:03:16 Speaker 1 All right, well, I’ve been really looking forward to this one. Since we connected, we got Jesse Marcotte from Northville, Michigan Fire Department, and you wear a lot of different hats. Jesse, first of all, thank you for coming on.
00:01:03:18 – 00:01:06:08 Speaker 2 Thanks for having me. I think that’s fantastic. So I appreciate it.
00:01:06:08 – 00:01:26:01 Speaker 2 my career job is as a training chief in Metro Detroit and, an organization I’ve been at now for almost 23 years, which is crazy, has gone by so fast. But in addition to that, I’ve had a lot of really cool opportunities to make some really good friends and learn a lot of important lessons. One of those, one of those other hats is through the International Society of Fire Service Instructors.
00:01:26:04 – 00:01:48:06 Speaker 2 So is FSI. And, I set aside as a really neat group because you talk about, well, just their mission statement inspiring, supporting, elevating fire service instructors. So with them, I’ve been able to teach kind of coast to coast, north south, east west variety of different topics. And it’s a fantastic organization. And I currently serve as the second vice president of FSI.
00:01:48:06 – 00:02:14:29 Speaker 2 So that’s a that’s a fun one. Another organization, that I’m really, like, really thrilled and humbled to be a part of is FSI right. So that’s, Underwriters Laboratories fire safety research Institute. So that’s a really big one. That was kind of a lifelong mission there to get some little role there. So in addition to getting the coffee and I work remote, so it’s probably cold coffee by the time it gets there.
00:02:14:29 – 00:02:29:28 Speaker 2 But I’m in the education and training department there as an education training coordinator. So fantastic team a joke. It’s like a fellowship without the degree. I’m not getting the degree, but I’m getting all these fantastic lessons that I can hopefully share, you know, on things like this today.
00:02:29:28 – 00:02:30:12 Speaker 1 So
00:02:30:12 – 00:02:33:21 Speaker 1 that what were you teaching on here at, Yes.
00:02:33:23 – 00:02:55:10 Speaker 2 So let me ask you, this year, I taught a class, Monday morning for our workshop on probationary firefighter training programs, setting and raising the bar. And the concept there is in the fire service, we may wear many different hats, whether it’s, you know, as a firefighter or a company officer, chief officer, fire prevention training, there’s so many different hats to wear, but we all start the same way.
00:02:55:10 – 00:03:10:13 Speaker 2 And that’s as a probationary firefighter. So if we can focus in on the probationary firefighter training programs, which hits all the skills including culture, leadership and everything else, then we set people up for success. And that’s our goal in that program.
00:03:10:16 – 00:03:15:23 Speaker 1 What’s the biggest misconception out there about firefighter culture building?
00:03:15:25 – 00:03:38:02 Speaker 2 I think one of the misconceptions is that you should just let it happen and let it, you know, just happen organically. But that’s hard. If we’re just trying to happen, our culture happen organically. Look at all the directions that could go. So the concept of culture is deliberate. That’s a big one that we really emphasize organizationally. And, we have some excellent leaders in our organization that focus on culture.
00:03:38:09 – 00:03:54:14 Speaker 2 In fact, one of them covered that segment during the class the other day. And, I think that would be it is I would I would try to maintain positive control of the culture in terms of making sure it’s representative of what the group wants, but identifying what it is and where it needs to go. So I think that would be a big takeaway on that.
00:03:54:14 – 00:03:56:06 Speaker 2 On on that in.
00:03:56:08 – 00:04:05:12 Speaker 1 I know, you know, Prime Pontiac is a big fan of you. I said, you know, hey, we got Justin Marcotte coming on the show. What should I talk to him about? He was like cultural.
00:04:05:15 – 00:04:22:18 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah, we could talk about culture all day. I can simplify it. Actually, we have a thing, through our department called the Whole Person Initiative. So we want you to be, you know, a good person on and off duty is the concept. And we’ve really simplified it after working on it for several years. And it’s it’s really the three C model.
00:04:22:18 – 00:04:26:21 Speaker 2 So we talk about culture, but we put culture with character
00:04:26:21 – 00:04:47:21 Speaker 2 competency and conditioning. So everything we do fits into one of those three categories, with character being the foundation of that. So if you think of it as a triangle, very strong geometric shape, character in the bottom, competency, stuff like this that we’re talking about today. And then we have the conditioning side, which also can blend into competency going out and doing training, getting a good sweat.
00:04:47:24 – 00:04:56:05 Speaker 2 Just physical fitness at the fire station, behavioral health. But that’s our several year culture journey summarized in the 30s.

00:04:56:07 – 00:05:20:07 Speaker 1 So that was incredible. Yeah. Very precise. So I’d love to pick your brain type. Yes. Good experience. And you understand it’s kind of the the practical side of that. And also you have a grasp of kind of a bit more intellectual side of it. So what are we through? Yeah. Walk me through a analyzing a basement fire. You roll up, you kind of hear, you know, what’s going on, you see.
00:05:20:07 – 00:05:23:08 Speaker 1 Okay, I’m dealing with a basement fire.
00:05:23:10 – 00:05:50:08 Speaker 2 Yes. Basement fires are important to me for several reasons. In 2006, we had a near miss event in our department, and I happened to be there for that. In fact, I feel like a lot of those decisions that didn’t make it a super great, incident were really my fault because I didn’t know better at the time because I looked at a basement fire, kind of as any other fire, if you will, and did not have a healthy appreciation for some other things that really play into that, building construction.
00:05:50:08 – 00:06:08:06 Speaker 2 And by building construction, I mean, what type of basement is it, a walkout basement, an egress basement, those sorts of things. And then fire dynamics wise, I, I really believed at that time that the coolest place would be at the bottom of the stairs, and you just had to be uncomfortable and get to the bottom. So we talked about tactics.
00:06:08:06 – 00:06:48:09 Speaker 2 Flowing water wasn’t my goal. I didn’t, you know, all those old kind of myths of the fire service, like, don’t upset the thermal layers or can’t flow water and smoke. So those things really wasn’t that I tried to be wrong. It was that that was where the fire service was at that time. So I think a basement fires, it’s not just the conditions presenting, but when we talk about the importance of seeing as many sides of the building as we can, that is one of the first key factors, because basements are basically classified in the three categories, like if you read the, the understanding of fighting basement Fires technical report from FSRI.
00:06:48:12 – 00:07:13:10 Speaker 2 The three basement types that they use are no exterior access, limited exterior access and full exterior access. So then when we talk about that, fire wise people are like, what does that mean? What is, what is. So the way we identify that back in our recipes and our department is we have a standard basement, little windows that you would expect to see, kind of that standard house in the Midwest of the basement.
00:07:13:12 – 00:07:39:16 Speaker 2 Then we have egress style basements, which have larger style windows. We quantify that tactically by saying if it’s a window big enough for a firefighter to fit out of, that would be an egress window in our system, meaning limited exterior access. And then full exterior access. We just classify those as walkout basements. So if there is a door of some sort there, that’s how we’re referring to that.
00:07:39:19 – 00:08:02:15 Speaker 2 And the reason it matters so much is it’s not just at the fires in the basement, it’s what’s going to happen. So a very lots of modern fires are ventilation limited. So in those basements where you have those large openings, those big doors, big windows, if there’s a failure of that window, whether we did it or the fire itself did it, we have the potential for a rapid change in ventilation.
00:08:02:15 – 00:08:25:06 Speaker 2 So that limited, that that fire that’s in the vent, limited phase now could get all that oxygen it needs. And we could see a big change in fire conditions inside. Worst case would be that that happens below grade while the crews coming in on that first floor. So that’s a there’s a lot to it. And it at the end of the day it’s really actually quite simple.
00:08:25:06 – 00:08:27:18 Unknown on my home department, we had a situation where
00:08:27:18 – 00:08:31:23 Unknown We were set up at the street level because that’s closest we could get to the building.
00:08:31:23 – 00:08:34:02 Unknown The deck couldn’t get under the eave,
00:08:34:02 – 00:08:37:06 Unknown and we didn’t have a ground monitor on the on the vehicle that day.
00:08:37:06 – 00:08:40:16 Unknown So we had to do it with handling operations and we struggled.
00:08:40:16 – 00:08:43:27 Unknown Not having the right tool for the right job. It’s that simple.
00:08:43:27 – 00:08:45:14 Unknown I’m Paul neely, a task force tips.
00:08:45:14 – 00:08:47:16 Unknown I’d like to talk to you today about the BlitzFire.
00:08:47:16 – 00:08:51:19 Unknown You know, if you don’t have that low attack angle, a lot of times you can’t make the front of the building.
00:08:51:19 – 00:08:58:19 Unknown if your monitor won’t go down to ten degrees, you can’t get in the front door, you can’t get in the front windows, you can’t get in the front garage door.

00:09:08:22 – 00:09:08:07 Speaker 1 So so okay so what next step suit. So you walk in you’re starting to have that threat of just building a ton of fire.
00:09:08:10 – 00:09:29:28 Speaker 2 Yeah. So one thing that we really try to push is to initiate the fire attack on the level the fire is on. So in the past there was a lot of, you know, again, I think we just didn’t fully understand because we didn’t have the research that we have now. But the concept in the past was if you flow water from the outside to the inside, we’re going to push push the fire, so to speak.
00:09:30:00 – 00:09:52:03 Speaker 2 And what we know now is stream tight and nozzle patterns, that there’s a right way of doing things. And so a big part of this is exterior fire control from next year to the interior. We want to be, as close as safely possible. We want that I tell people the three S’s all the time. We want it straight, number one.
00:09:52:05 – 00:10:20:19 Speaker 2 So whether it’s a smoothbore or a, a combination nozzle, it needs to be a solid or straight stream. So straight. Steep. So we want that line, very vertical. So it’s going across the the ceiling and cooling the surfaces. So that’s again, you know, a lot of people don’t even know. Obviously you guys do. But how a how a fire, how a nozzle on the American Fire Service is designed to work so steep, straight and, and steady.
00:10:20:26 – 00:10:38:10 Speaker 2 So we’re not trying to whip that nozzle around. We’re trying to to coat and cool the surfaces, get the water where it needs to go, and then that helps us either reset that fire to a point where we can find another means of getting in there, or now we can worry about getting the the water on the fuel package or on the base fuels.
00:10:38:10 – 00:11:01:01 Speaker 2 But the, the the technique for it is, is important. It can be a little bit more interesting in a basement fire scenario. Yeah. But the the real key is that’s why we need to do the three 60s when possible. So once we see that or once we suspect and we can see it on the alpha side or, on the front of the building with our thermal imaging cameras, with a good scan, thermal size up.
00:11:01:04 – 00:11:22:00 Speaker 2 We could also see it obviously, by walking around and visualizing the fire conditions. So part of that is to knowing have to battle. As G.I. Joe said, once we know then it’s, it’s where do we go kind of thing. So once we make that that notification over the radio that sets off whatever the cues are in those different organizations.
00:11:22:03 – 00:11:40:28 Speaker 2 But but the best way to do it is to initiate the attack on the level the fire’s on. And so when we have the opportunity to flow water through that window into that basement, it has a profound effect, because it’s it’s not just that fire compartment, it’s where are all those toxic and thermal products going in that structure.
00:11:40:28 – 00:11:50:25 Speaker 2 So the people on the first floor, the people on the second floor. So the quicker we can put water where it needs to go, right time, right place, better off, everybody’s going to be.
00:11:50:28 – 00:11:57:04 Speaker 1 And what’s another misunderstanding you feeling in the fire service that you’re passionate about when it comes to your basement fires?
00:11:57:07 – 00:12:14:29 Speaker 2 So I think in those scenarios where we do have to go down the stairs, and maybe it is that basement scenario where there is no exterior access. So standard basement, we had a fire down there and and this is the scenario maybe where, where the organization decides, all in all, this is going to be what we’re going to do.
00:12:15:01 – 00:12:38:04 Speaker 2 So one of the things that you hear a lot in the fire service today, flow path. Right? 20 years ago you didn’t hear flow path as commonly. Now you see it all over the place. So that flow path is is really a combination of all the things that are occurring in that fire. So the fires over here, we have an area of high pressure, and it’s always moving from high pressure to low pressure.
00:12:38:07 – 00:12:57:12 Speaker 2 So if you think about that, when we open the front door, we’ve just created a pretty significant area of low pressure. Right. So we have a high pressure in the basement flowing up those stairs into the area of low pressure. In that we have a thing called convective flow, which is really the the part that we can visualize of the flow path.
00:12:57:12 – 00:13:18:16 Speaker 2 Besides the smoke that we’re seeing, it’s it’s kind of the thermal end of that. So we’re seeing the convective heat transfer through the camera. We’re feeling it through our gear. Right. But that convective flow, that’s where in the past we were taught, don’t flow water into that. You’re going to something bad is going to happen. So you just got to kind of take it and get to the bottom of the stairs.
00:13:18:18 – 00:13:27:29 Speaker 2 I think that’s still the biggest misconception. If we are going to flow water, if we’re going to go into a basement and we have to go down those stairs, we need to be flowing down the stairs while we’re going.
00:13:28:01 – 00:13:32:24 Speaker 1 Okay. So you need to get it on there as quick as possible. Yes.
00:13:32:27 – 00:13:52:22 Speaker 2 So at the top of the stairs in the studies, the the speed of that convective flow, those convective currents, we’re going 10 to 15mph at the top of those stairs. So if you think about it moving at you that quick, that’s a that’s a fair amount of energy. Those temperatures at the top of the stairs, we’re closer to, you know, 1300 degrees.
00:13:52:24 – 00:14:11:28 Speaker 2 So you have it. It’s hot, it’s heavy and it’s moving fast. So if we don’t do anything with it, the firefighter in thermal environments, our gear or not is not made for that. So the quicker we can coat and cool those surfaces going down, seal off the flow past, push that back to where it’s going, the better our attack is going to be.
00:14:11:28 – 00:14:32:18 Speaker 2 And again, whether we’re tough enough to take it or not, if we’re trying to have a good impact on on the civilians that can be in that structure, maybe there’s a search occurring at the same time the the, obviously the average civilian doesn’t have their own set of fire gear sitting next to their bed. So we want to protect that environment as quickly as reasonably possible.
00:14:32:20 – 00:14:45:24 Speaker 2 So flowing in and moving into that convective flow is is in the exhaust of the flow path. Essentially. That is something that we could and should be doing versus we should never be doing.
00:14:45:26 – 00:14:55:19 Speaker 1 You personally, do you have a preference if you do have to go down those basement steps between, you know, a nozzle in a straight stream versus a smooth or given.
00:14:55:22 – 00:15:17:12 Speaker 2 Yeah. So that’s a great question. And here’s what we know. They’re both fantastic options, both nozzles. But what we also know is when we’re when we’re making a push, so to speak, whether that’s down a hallway, whether it’s down the stairs, both should be on straight stream. So whether it’s the solid stream of the smoothbore or the straight stream of of a combination nozzle.
00:15:17:14 – 00:15:39:22 Speaker 2 Also with that, if you’re not using a, you know, an automatic nozzle as an example, then that smoothbore or that selectable nozzle nozzle has to be all the way open. We don’t want turbulence in the flow, turbulence in trans air, and more importantly, due to droplet size doesn’t cool the surfaces. So we need straight streams or or solid streams.
00:15:39:25 – 00:15:57:25 Speaker 2 I personally don’t really have a preference. It’s back to what’s on the end of that line. So I know we have in our department, but it might not be the same at your department that we go do training at, or it might not be the same on a scene that we go to with a neighboring department. So we don’t have the option of screwing it off and putting a new one on real quick.
00:15:57:27 – 00:16:02:07 Speaker 2 They both work. Excellent. It just has to. You just have to know how to use it.

00:16:02:09 – 00:16:21:01 Speaker 1 Well that’s awesome. Pearls of wisdom. I’ve, I also love to pick your brain about building, what I would love to tap into kind of your experience. What’s a time in your career where you encountered a particularly tricky building?
00:16:21:03 – 00:16:40:12 Speaker 2 Yeah, so there’s been a couple times. One was back to that basement fire. And was that lightweight construction or not? And is that why that floor ended up collapsing or and so that was one end of it. The other end of it was for 15 years I was on a, I was on our urban search and rescue team and obviously a big a big part of that is structural collapse.
00:16:40:14 – 00:17:03:12 Speaker 2 So that’s an area that I really enjoyed learning more about because went back to building construction, which is one of my one of the things I really liked. So we had a structural collapse of a commercial building due to a gas explosion. And in the in that if you think of it as a strip mall, we’re several types of different building constructions, in terms of are these load bearing walls where our where do we.
00:17:03:12 – 00:17:15:15 Speaker 2 Sure. So it’s not just don’t assuring system in there for the sake of it. We have to be shoring up the right part of the structure for that to make sense, for that to work. So that would that was a tricky one. That was a complex one.
00:17:15:17 – 00:17:20:14 Speaker 1 What’s another misconception out there about building construction?
00:17:20:17 – 00:17:44:19 Speaker 2 I think with building construction in general? I think one of the, the Mrs. is is understanding the, the actual five building types or the five classifications, you know, from type one to type five and what that means for us. And then furthermore, I think the biggest miss is correlating the effects of the fire on the structure based on is that type one, two, three, 4 or 5.
00:17:44:25 – 00:17:51:29 Speaker 2 So we have to type both. It can’t be just one or the other. It has to be the relationship in my mind of both of those things.
00:17:52:02 – 00:17:59:28 Speaker 1 How does your strategy change between those two building types? Thank you. Yeah. But yeah, just give me the ABCs.
00:17:59:28 – 00:18:25:20 Speaker 2 So yeah, quick ABCs. I tell people to think about this as a scale of combustible because that’s really what it is. So if it’s on the UN, if it’s a one that is, it’s so noncombustible that it’s called fire resistant. Right? All the structural members are fire rated. They’re protected. So we’d find those, you know, in, high rise buildings and parking structures, hospitals.
00:18:25:26 – 00:18:48:19 Speaker 2 So very strong structurally, type five would be the most combustible. Right? So type five, is our wood frame building construction. So a lot of our houses, you see it now in a lot of hotels and schools. So in, in the middle of that. So we have all wood products on the, on the five end and we have, you know, protected steel and concrete on the one.
00:18:48:22 – 00:19:17:26 Speaker 2 So in the middle is type three like our main street USA. And that has a mixture of products. So we have we have combustible materials to hold the roof up or the floors. And then we have our masonry noncombustible products to hold the walls up. So I think if we can understand that a little bit, that really helps us in when we talk about nozzle application, how we flow water, where we flow water, then each one of those has, you know, kind of its own unique thing.
00:19:17:28 – 00:19:40:22 Speaker 2 Would we expect to see sprinklers in a lot of type one and type two structures? Yes. But in those type two structures, what doesn’t work well for us is, you know, if you were to look up, even here, the residential environment has smooth surfaces. They have smooth walls, drywall, they’re smooth ceilings. So our nozzles are really good at distributing that water out and cooling those surfaces.
00:19:40:24 – 00:19:59:21 Speaker 2 If you think back to like a type two building. So go to the grocery store, look up right. We see the roof. We see the we see the metal, trusses, the bar. Joyce. That is not a smooth surface. So when we think of that, you know, maybe that based on that occupancy and combining all those effects, it’s sprinkler.
00:19:59:23 – 00:20:26:16 Speaker 2 We have that different construction up top. Maybe now we’re focused on our lateral or horizontal movement. Right. Know products on shelves bring across. Yes. So sprinklers hopefully that are keeping that in check. So it’s not just being you know, always doing something for the sake of doing it. We take into consideration the way the building was built and what is being used for, because that’s going to affect how we ultimately get in, in flow water, to some extent.
00:20:26:16 – 00:20:41:14 Speaker 1 So, what’s an example from your career of when you had to break out the big guns and you had to go with the biggest monitor you got, you got to make sure you got the right supply. Just tell me. Yes, the diesel side of things. Wonderful.

00:20:41:17 – 00:20:59:03 Speaker 2 Yes. So we had a scenario. This is, probably 20 years ago. Of course, Murphy’s Law. It’s either the hottest day or coldest day of the year. This was the hottest, most humid day of the year. Super strong winds. And there were three very large homes, one in the center under construction and then two on either side of it.
00:20:59:03 – 00:21:18:20 Speaker 2 And these are large houses, probably the neighborhood of 7000ft², roughly, but is just one of those things that didn’t take long. We showed up on scene. All three were fully involved. So like that in hydrant loop. So now you got to be really careful with how much water you’re flowing. Where are you flowing it? Where do you start?
00:21:18:23 – 00:21:23:22 Speaker 2 So that was that was probably the most difficult, in terms of water.
00:21:23:25 – 00:21:26:18 Speaker 1 You had one hydrant and you had to put out three houses.
00:21:26:22 – 00:21:45:12 Speaker 2 So we ended up getting, another good hydrant down the street kind of thing. But it was basically back to apparatus positioning, the way those vehicles parked at the beginning, it had a big impact on how we could use them long term. So that was a that was a really interesting one because we’ve learned a lot from those types of incidents.
00:21:45:12 – 00:21:59:02 Speaker 2 We’ve learned a lot from, you know, even the idea of like big fire, big water, we know a lot more about that now than we did then. So that that particular fire was a good one for the the deck gun.
00:21:59:04 – 00:21:59:28 Speaker 1 Okay kind.
00:21:59:28 – 00:22:00:15 Speaker 2 Of thing.
00:22:00:17 – 00:22:02:24 Speaker 1 Did you use deck guns?
00:22:02:27 – 00:22:28:15 Speaker 2 We, we use deck guns there and ultimately elevated master streams. So we, we have used the portable ground monitors, you know, like BlitzFire as an example. But it’s back to how do we do that appropriately. Right. So if we’re just flowing water in through a window on this horizontal plane, we might not be getting that water even close to where it needs to go.
00:22:28:17 – 00:22:49:26 Speaker 2 So even like the portable ground monitor using it, taking advantage of how it’s built, we can get it close. We can dial that up back to steeps, ready, steady and straight. And now we can, you know, again, use that to coat and cool surfaces. And we’ve also found a lot of scenarios is it’s really about, again getting the right water in the right place at the right time.
00:22:49:29 – 00:23:11:16 Speaker 2 So even if we’re really quick with our like hand lines, we can do a lot of, of good, by getting that, that mobile line in place quickly. But yeah, the, the deck gun stuff is impressive. We’ve had a number of instances where that was the only choice. But those are impressive calls, obviously.
00:23:11:17 – 00:23:19:00 Speaker 1 So hundred all three houses catch fire in the Baltic. Did they very close together?
00:23:19:07 – 00:23:36:27 Speaker 2 So they’re fairly close together. And I, I don’t know honestly what caused that particular incident. Yeah, I know it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t a suspicious fire in any way, shape or form. I think it had more to do with the house under construction and maybe something, you know, being left on or whatever the case is, but I don’t.
00:23:36:29 – 00:23:46:22 Speaker 2 Yeah. And it was again with the, with the winds the way they were that day, you know, slightly delayed notification. It didn’t take long for that to be such a big incident.
00:23:46:22 – 00:23:52:15 Speaker 1 So, you’ve been awesome. Your voice is evidence of how hard you’ve worked. History.
00:23:52:17 – 00:23:55:02 Speaker 2 Oh, yeah. I’m trying to project. I’m trying to project.
00:23:55:02 – 00:24:03:29 Speaker 1 Sounds good. Last thing I want to ask you about is, you know, Officer Wright is, you know, as rebranded transitional tag to exterior water.
00:24:04:02 – 00:24:04:22 Speaker 2 Yes.
00:24:04:24 – 00:24:12:08 Speaker 1 Okay. Attack. Yeah. Just tell me your thoughts on wonder. What’s the biggest misconception about you?
00:24:12:10 – 00:24:42:19 Speaker 2 Yeah. So I love that has been renamed because now it’s. What are you doing and where are you doing it? So exterior fire controller and interior fire control. Is it a door initiated search or a window initiated search. Right. So that’s that’s kind of what we’re the the concept behind that. I think the biggest misconception behind that the that what was called transitional attack and became, you know, hit it hard from the yard or whatever it was, is that it was very passive by nature.
00:24:42:19 – 00:25:02:05 Speaker 2 And I think the concept is if we were to talk about what aggressive looks like in in my world, what aggressive looks like is people getting off a truck with a purpose and being as fast and professional as possible. That goes for our water application. It goes for forcible entry, it goes for search. So how does that all get pieced together?
00:25:02:08 – 00:25:22:09 Speaker 2 And that’s really what we do. We we run a lot of time to task drills for surviving time to task. So if somebody is is forcing a door, we have somebody masking up and we have somebody flowing water. So we don’t want to build in this, this two, three, four minute delay. If there’s an opportunity to to put water where it needs to go, we’re going to do it.
00:25:22:12 – 00:25:43:03 Speaker 2 And again, the biggest reason we’re doing it is for the people that may be inside of that structure. And I think that gets back to the misconception of you can’t flow water from the outside to the inside if there’s somebody in there. And that’s not true. So as long as we’re following those rules, a straight stream, steep, steady, that’s that, that is not going to happen.
00:25:43:05 – 00:26:03:28 Speaker 2 We’re minimizing entrainment. We’re maximizing water distribution in surface cooling. So that’s you can flow water from the outside of the inside and still be aggressive and still be quick. We’re not talking about posting this person up on the lawn chair for 30 minutes. We’re talking about, you know, potentially as little as 15 to 30s of water application.
00:26:04:01 – 00:26:13:27 Speaker 2 And if we can do it appropriately, it’s only going to be better for the property we’re there to protect and the people that we’re there to save. So that’s.
00:26:14:00 – 00:26:20:14 Speaker 1 Daniel. Jesse, you are a champ. You’ve been talking for the last year. You got here on Sunday I think so, yes, Friday.
00:26:20:14 – 00:26:21:13 Speaker 2 And yes.
00:26:21:16 – 00:26:32:21 Speaker 1 100% effort. And we’re so thrilled that you chose to come by and thank you. I can’t thank you enough. Is there anything that you were hoping to talk about today that you didn’t we didn’t get a chance to cover?
00:26:32:25 – 00:26:56:13 Speaker 2 No, I really appreciate it. My only advice would be, you know, getting back to whatever your organization uses, just be good at using it. It’s simple stuff. It’s simple stuff. And what that the choreographing of those first two minutes looks like has a big impact. Last thing this would be the wisdom I’d have is I sat through one of the classes this week by Keith Stakes, and it was the residential fire growing playbook.
00:26:56:15 – 00:27:20:06 Speaker 2 There is no greater common denominator for the speed of transition. We say is the enemy of regrowth. So we flow water from the outside to get to the inside. We don’t want these gaps. There is no bigger predictor of success in those scenarios. The classes they took everything height, weight, age, seniority, all of those things. The number one predictor of success was when was the last time you trained on that skill.
00:27:20:09 – 00:27:33:01 Speaker 2 So that is a takeaway. We can’t let these big gaps go, to doing basic training, flowing water, forcing doors, putting our masks on. Those are those are perishable skills. We need to keep them going.
00:27:33:04 – 00:27:42:16 Speaker 1 And somebody get this guy a beer. Yeah. You know, serves it. And, I really hope we get a chance to come visit you in Northville. Yeah. See what you’re doing in metro Detroit.
00:27:42:18 – 00:27:44:01 Speaker 2 Love to have you guys. Thank you so much.
00:27:44:07 – 00:27:45:01 Speaker 1 Thanks so much, Jesse.
00:27:45:05 – 00:27:45:27 Speaker 2 Thanks.
00:27:45:27 – 00:27:53:27 Unknown Curious to learn more about TFD nozzles? Check out the new Sortable Nozzle page at Ft.com. Slash shop.

Have a question? Ask Jesse Marcotte!

E5 – Why This Alberta Dept Switched to Low-Pressure Nozzles

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Exterior water and transitional attack
Choosing between fog and smooth bore nozzles
Tactics for garage fires and aggressive fire attack
Using hydraulic ventilation effectively
How nozzle choice impacts staffing and fatigue

Amy West, Assistant Chief of Taber Fire in Alberta, lays out how her department moved to low-pressure nozzles recently — and how she trains new and veteran firefighters to adapt to smarter tactics.

View Transcript

00:00:09:03 – 00:00:18:10
Unknown
I got.

00:00:24:22 – 00:00:32:28
Unknown
I got.

00:00:32:28 – 00:00:34:13
Unknown
is it?

00:00:34:16 – 00:00:39:26
Unknown
It’s moving water for sure. But now again, if I, if I just put myself against the

00:00:39:26 – 00:00:43:23
Unknown
top of the window. I don’t know.

00:01:25:16 – 00:01:39:17
Speaker 3
say we’re joined by Amy West, who is the assistant fire chief for training and Tager fire Department, Alberta. She’s also part of the Alberta Fire Training Officers Association. And I heard she’s a rock star. And I just

00:01:39:17 – 00:01:40:14
Speaker 3
thanks so much for joining us.

00:01:40:19 – 00:01:41:16
Speaker 2
Thanks for having me.

00:01:41:16 – 00:01:47:00
Speaker 3
just want to know the ABCs of your responses. Tell me what it’s like being in the timber fire department.

00:01:47:07 – 00:02:11:03
Speaker 2
Sure. Well, in the town of Tabor fire Department, we’re primarily urban response. That said, there’s two kind of fire departments in our area, so one takes care of the rural area. My department takes care of urban response. So just within that municipality. So dealing mostly with, you know, calls related to buildings, alarms, fires, low speed mvcs, that kind of thing.

00:02:11:06 – 00:02:23:24
Speaker 2
But a lot of southern Alberta is very rural. I’ve had opportunity to work in, in other departments where we had a lot of rural response. So where you’re dealing with, you know, limited water supplies and long response times, etc..

00:02:23:26 – 00:02:27:07
Speaker 3
And, tell me about the building construction scene in your response.

00:02:27:10 – 00:02:48:20
Speaker 2
Yep. So in my response area, we have a lot of legacy construction. A lot of older homes. Our town is developing. So we do have a certain corner, that is more modern, lightweight construction. We got a lot of, multi-unit residential, row homes, some apartment buildings. But everything is like the mid-rise. At least.

00:02:48:21 – 00:02:59:03
Speaker 2
So. We do have our downtown core is all strip malls of older construction type. So, yeah, we have quite an interesting mix of the built environment there.

00:02:59:03 – 00:03:05:09
Speaker 3
what kind of crews do you have? You know, I’m just talking to PJ Norwood. Yeah. He has, you know, two main crews.

00:03:05:14 – 00:03:07:16
Speaker 2
Yeah, his department. Yeah, sure.

00:03:07:18 – 00:03:13:18
Speaker 3
Both in Taber and in kind of the southern Alberta region. Yeah. Tell me, what’s typical for you.

00:03:13:21 – 00:03:33:18
Speaker 2
So I think it varies from department to department. But we do in Alberta like 80% of our fire service is volunteer or paid on call. Kind of models. So my department is a composite model. So we do have rely a lot on paid on call firefighters. We run five engine or five man engines. So we’re pretty fortunate in that aspect.

00:03:33:18 – 00:03:51:27
Speaker 2
We usually do have a full truck. Going out out first. Do, I think a lot of I know there are some other departments in the area that go down to 4 or 3 man engines. But yeah, we are we’re pretty fortunate that we typically have, you know, two full trucks with 5 to 6 guys in them.

00:03:51:27 – 00:03:54:12
Speaker 2
So, yeah.

00:03:54:15 – 00:04:07:16
Speaker 3
One of the things I’ve been dying to ask about. So we posted a couple of videos with our, Canadian representative. Okay, great. Talking about he was talking about can I have low pressure solutions?

00:04:07:17 – 00:04:08:23
Speaker 2
Yes, absolutely.

00:04:08:25 – 00:04:11:08
Speaker 3
Hundreds and hundreds of thousands of years.

00:04:12:11 – 00:04:21:18
Speaker 3
And so I know it’s a topic that people want to hear about. Yeah. So tell me about kind of just walk me through your nozzle philosophy. Sure. Individually but also your department.

00:04:21:22 – 00:04:47:08
Speaker 2
Yeah. Awesome. So this is actually a topic I’m quite passionate about because we just did it. Yeah, we just did a big, nozzle review in my department and made some changes. And actually, Jeff, was instrumental in that. You got me some demos and stuff. So, yeah, I think historically, in Alberta, a lot of people and are still using, your standard 700 KPA, combination type nozzle.

00:04:47:11 – 00:05:11:21
Speaker 2
So for me, the big push to go to that low pressure nozzle was, in our department. We were an immigration hub. We’ve got a lot of diversity. Our firefighters are, smaller and smaller, it seems, lighter. Yeah. Different stature and, different physical abilities. We’re getting a lot of just the hose and nozzle combinations we were using were requiring really high pump discharge pressures.

00:05:11:23 – 00:05:34:27
Speaker 2
We were getting a lot of nozzle reaction, and, so I just started looking into, like, different solutions and kind of looking at our equipment and being like, why are we using what we’re using? And yeah, started, looking down different paths. And so with the low flow, I’m a fan of the smoothbore, but, I know that’s another kind of point of contention in a lot of, places where I’m from.

00:05:35:00 – 00:05:55:03
Speaker 2
It’s hard to get people away from that, fog nozzle combination. So, we ended up going with. Yeah, the combination low flow, or. Sorry, low pressure, fixed flow. So when you look at the low pressure nozzles, you’re getting sometimes bigger flows out of them than you get with a combination, but at a lower pressure right.

00:05:55:03 – 00:06:17:29
Speaker 2
So with that lower pump discharge pressure you’re getting less nozzle reaction, more maneuverability on the hose team. Your engine’s not working as hard. So everyone’s having a better day. And, you’re still maintaining that required fire flow on the ground, sometimes even exceeding it. So we actually, with our change, we ended up going to a higher flow out of our nozzles.

00:06:18:01 – 00:06:24:26
Speaker 2
But our seeing drastically lower pump discharge pressures, easier to maintain lines and easier to manage at the nozzle.

00:06:24:26 – 00:06:27:09
Speaker 3
So you’ve been getting, like, real results.

00:06:27:10 – 00:06:46:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And so what we did because, you know, the fire service, it’s hard to hard to make change. And change is a word we don’t like. So, how we approached that is we just we brought in a bunch of demo equipment, set up lines, our old system, some new systems, and let the guys try it out.

00:06:46:11 – 00:06:59:22
Speaker 2
And at the end of the day. So going into it, people are like, I don’t want to do that. Like, no, we got to stick with what we know. And at the end of the day, there wasn’t a single person that was against the change. They all saw the results. So yeah, it was awesome.

00:06:59:22 – 00:07:02:23
Speaker 3
And why is there resistance?

00:07:02:26 – 00:07:27:09
Speaker 2
That’s a good question. Yeah. I think it’s probably just like, you know, we’re so in depth in our history in the fire service, and it’s hard to look at, you know, this is the way we’ve always done it. Why do why change a good thing? So I think if people don’t haven’t had a situation that directly affected them or, like, negatively, they don’t really see the need for change.

00:07:27:11 – 00:07:43:00
Speaker 2
It’s hard for, for some people to just be forward thinkers and rather than looking at, what can we do to be more efficient or make this better for us? They just look at like, well, it’s not broken. Don’t fix it. Right. It’s been working. So why do we need to make change? Yeah.

00:07:43:03 – 00:08:04:17
Speaker 3
So random scenario. Yeah. We, So episode one, or. Sorry, episode two of cahoots was, all about different garage fires. And it just it generated a lot of debate. We got like over 400 comments, people arguing about smoothbore versus fog

00:08:04:17 – 00:08:06:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, about, drum.

00:08:06:24 – 00:08:16:25
Speaker 3
Ground monitor versus deck gun versus hand line versus water can. How would you typically tackle and garage fire if you had all the equipment available?

00:08:16:27 – 00:08:20:28
Speaker 2
Okay. So are we saying like an attached garage to a structure or.

00:08:21:05 – 00:08:27:12
Speaker 3
Yeah, let’s say it’s an attached. So the scenario in the episode was like 2000 square for a typical suburban home.

00:08:27:12 – 00:08:28:00
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:08:28:03 – 00:08:31:23
Speaker 3
With an attached garage. And it’s starting to get out of here.

00:08:32:01 – 00:08:55:04
Speaker 2
Okay. So garages fully involved are close to potentially threatening the house. Okay. Yeah. I honestly my response would be pull up quickly, deploy a hand line. Hit it from outside, straight stream, high angle into the garage. Knock down that bulk of the fire. And reassess. And if then if you can, you know, make a push and obviously check for extension into the structure.

00:08:55:04 – 00:09:05:06
Speaker 2
But, I think it’s all about quick action. Right? So the whatever you can get deployed the quickest and get the right amount of water on it in the proper application. That’s. Yeah, the way to go.

00:09:05:09 – 00:09:06:21
Speaker 3
It’s with our fog.

00:09:06:24 – 00:09:29:07
Speaker 2
I’m a smoothbore fan. The fog I feel it has. It’s, it has its uses for sure. Has its time and its place for it. Hydraulic ventilation. I, I’m a fan of the fan in your hand, so, using the hose for ventilation, it’s very effective. And so that is one reason, like, in our department couldn’t get real full support to go straight to the smoothbore.

00:09:29:07 – 00:09:53:23
Speaker 2
So we actually ended up going with the breakaway nozzle. Then you can put the low pressure tip on it or the, seven eight smoothbore. So it kind of gives you a little bit of maneuverability or dealer’s choice really. And we run our pre connects with one smooth and and one top tip. Yeah. So then it’s it just gives a little bit more option if people are, you know comfortable with one hose or the other.

00:09:53:25 – 00:10:16:03
Speaker 2
I think that there’s not they both get the same, you know, flows out of they both do the job. It’s just a matter of making sure your, you know how to use the tool you’re using and using it correctly. Right? So I think, the problem that I see with the, the fog or the combination nozzles is that people don’t have it in the proper stream, like having it on straight stream for fire tack is so important.

00:10:16:10 – 00:10:37:07
Speaker 2
And sometimes, you know, it just gets moved around, unintentionally or intentionally for whatever reasons. And then you’re opening the nozzle when you need it to be a straight stream, and it’s not. So, that’s why I like the smooth board. Simple. I always say, you know, keep it simple. Work smarter, not harder. So when you don’t have an option of securing it up, it’s always better.

00:10:37:09 – 00:10:56:16
Speaker 2
But I think that, one thing I would love to see that I haven’t seen on a fog or a combination nozzle yet is like a locking mechanism to be able to, like, put it in that straight stream, even if it’s just like a quick flick of the, you know, thumb and, lock it in that straight stream so that as you’re moving through a structure or whatever, it doesn’t accidentally get changed in pattern.

00:10:56:19 – 00:11:02:05
Speaker 2
And then when you need it for ventilation or whatever, you can slip it open and use it. But yeah, so.

00:11:02:08 – 00:11:07:11
Speaker 3
I’m glad to hear you used to be work. So I got to ask you that. Yeah. Tell me about your ventilation strategy.

00:11:07:16 – 00:11:27:15
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, personally, for me, like I said, I, I like to keep it simple, work smarter, not harder. So you have. Yeah. A fan in your hand, right. You have a nozzle there. If you have a window or an opening in that fire room, being able to just, you know, put the fire out, turn your angle, get clear out the smoke.

00:11:27:17 – 00:11:45:06
Speaker 2
I use it in training all the time to show people because, again, that’s one of the things, I think that, has been a sticking point, for some reason, like people think ventilation, they think they think they got to get the fans out. So to be able to show we’re fortunate enough to have a training center in our community.

00:11:45:06 – 00:12:06:14
Speaker 2
So, where we run Class-A. So to be able to show them how quickly you can clear that three story building, using your nozzle and, proper, you know, application and techniques is, is amazing. And I think, yeah, I’ve got to change a lot of mindsets on that one for sure. And I think, like, I’ve even heard, you know.

00:12:06:17 – 00:12:18:24
Speaker 2
Yeah. Yes. The fog nozzle works like, probably, I’d say probably the best for hydraulic ventilation, but you can’t do it with the smooth BOREs. Well, you can do it with different stream applications. It’s just all about how you move it. Yeah.

00:12:18:26 – 00:12:20:05
Speaker 3
You can’t ventilate. Mr..

00:12:20:07 – 00:12:21:28
Speaker 2
Right. Yeah.

00:12:22:00 – 00:12:23:29
Speaker 3
Yeah. Just like, tell me where you fall in that debate.

00:12:23:29 – 00:12:50:10
Speaker 2
Yeah. For sure. No, I think you can’t. You can do it. Absolutely. With a smoothbore. You can do it with any, stream pattern. It’s just a matter of how how you apply it. Right. And making sure that you’re, you’re doing it properly. So when you look at actually FSR, I has done studies on different, you know, Erin, treatment of nozzles and different flows and, you can you can, efficiently vascular, effectively ventilate a structure with any sort of stream.

00:12:50:10 – 00:12:56:24
Speaker 2
So with the smoothbore, it’s just all about how you’re moving it to get that air treatment that you need out of that exhaust point.

00:12:56:27 – 00:12:59:18
Speaker 3
Just out of curiosity, just to show you the vortex.

00:12:59:20 – 00:13:13:21
Speaker 2
He did. Yes. Yeah. I have not in my department, but I did actually use it when I was, training with another department. And they had one, so. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was well to FDIC and to.

00:13:13:23 – 00:13:18:07
Speaker 3
Actually them three with action right here in that shot right.

00:13:18:07 – 00:13:25:08
Speaker 2
There. Oh nice. That’s the oh yeah FDIC National. Yeah.

00:13:25:11 – 00:13:27:09
Speaker 3
Team. Yes. Check it out.

00:13:27:11 – 00:13:31:05
Speaker 2
Yes. Like you can see the air movement. Yeah that’s perfect.

00:13:31:06 – 00:13:34:13
Speaker 3
This was our Nitro was actually speaking right now.

00:13:34:16 – 00:13:35:19
Speaker 2
Yes.

00:13:35:21 – 00:13:36:05
Speaker 3
Service.

00:13:36:12 – 00:13:37:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:13:37:06 – 00:13:39:19
Speaker 3
Yeah. We talked about.

00:13:39:21 – 00:13:40:24
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:13:40:26 – 00:13:58:01
Speaker 3
Good ventilation kind of big picture. What do you feel like is the most one of the most misunderstood tactics that you teach? Is that, that. Yeah. Just. Do you feel like it’s misunderstood? That. Yeah. That you really enjoy sitting in ActionScript cat.

00:13:58:04 – 00:14:15:08
Speaker 2
Oh, there’s so many. But honestly, I, I love being able to teach recruits because their minds are just, like, so open, you know, and it’s it’s easier to make change in that aspect of like when people are new and they’re fresh and they’re just are like so open to like soaking up knowledge and, and are moldable. All right.

00:14:15:08 – 00:14:37:11
Speaker 2
It’s it’s definitely more challenging to teach the old dogs that I teach an old dog new tricks. Right. You’re so set in your ways. Are, have, done things a certain way, but I think, the topics I’m most passionate about is definitely like water application. So using, like, surface cooling and, the approach of your stream, stuff like that.

00:14:37:14 – 00:14:55:01
Speaker 2
And also like, track whatever you want to call it. So many terms for a transitional ATtack, exterior ATtack, whatever. Right. But you see, fire, put water on it. Right. Like so many times it’s like, oh, we just got to go in the front door. We got to go in the front door. And if you see fire coming out of a window, put water on it.

00:14:55:01 – 00:15:11:28
Speaker 2
Right. Like I said, with the garage fire scenario, whatever you can deploy the quickest to get water on the fire is going to make it better for everyone. And I think the misconceptions over the years of like, oh, you’re putting you shouldn’t put water onto the fire. If there’s still victims in there, you’re going to see them out.

00:15:11:28 – 00:15:21:29
Speaker 2
You’re going to make it worse for them. But we know now that that is not true, that putting water on the fire Indian appropriate application makes it more tenable for everyone.

00:15:22:02 – 00:15:29:03
Speaker 3
Yeah. So I want to, share this video. Been doing just kind of like, like they do and, you know, NFL games on the.

00:15:29:03 – 00:15:29:25
Speaker 2
Live, right?

00:15:29:25 – 00:15:35:09
Speaker 3
Tell me how you’re breaking down what you think I’m like. Now what? What is so.

00:15:35:12 – 00:15:57:21
Speaker 2
So, I mean, yeah, we’ve got fire. Well, we’ve got smoke, but, Oh, there we go. There’s a fire. So yeah, we’ve got like a couple room involvement. Looks like it’s into the eaves. Spring up. So, Yeah, they are. They’re hitting it from outside and you can see, like the change in that conditions. Right? Like they got a heavy body of fire when they pull up.

00:15:57:23 – 00:16:22:23
Speaker 2
They deployed line. Nice tight stream, steep angle, up into that window and then into the eaves. And fire’s gone now. We got changing smoke conditions. Making it. Yeah. Better for if there’s people inside. But then now also for that fire crew to go in and do some overhaul, make sure it’s completely out. But you can see like that’s a perfect example of how quickly conditions can change with proper water application.

00:16:22:23 – 00:16:23:01
Speaker 2
Right.

00:16:23:08 – 00:16:26:26
Speaker 3
Interesting. Yeah. Did I show you that beforehand? No, it was a live.

00:16:26:28 – 00:16:28:25
Speaker 2
No, I that’s the first time I’ve seen that.

00:16:28:28 – 00:16:34:15
Speaker 3
Sean and Peter on Friday the gifted. I just like analyzing.

00:16:34:17 – 00:16:35:29
Speaker 2
Is there cool.

00:16:35:29 – 00:16:39:20
Speaker 3
Amy. We can’t thank you enough for taking the time to come out with us.

00:16:39:22 – 00:16:40:08
Speaker 2
Absolutely.

00:16:40:08 – 00:16:52:19
Speaker 3
Thanks for having covered a lot of different things from low pressure. Oh, yeah. Hit been in there from the outside and. Yep. Oh, yeah. I forgot to ask about that. Yeah, yeah. Just a preference where we takes get done. Like way for you.

00:16:52:22 – 00:16:55:29
Speaker 2
Yeah for sure. Yeah.

00:16:56:01 – 00:16:57:11
Speaker 3
Do you have a preference with the equipment.

00:16:57:17 – 00:17:17:22
Speaker 2
Yeah. So I would say like my preference would be a hand line just because it’s quicker to deploy set up. And I do feel you get a better approach of angle. You just have more control over it. I think it depends on, again, if it’s going to be a transitional thing where we’re using exterior water application in an offensive position.

00:17:17:24 – 00:17:36:05
Speaker 2
The hand line for sure, because then, you know, you can get a better position and then just make that transition from exterior to interior quickly. But I think the ground monitor, I will say, actually, I’m really familiar with the blitz fire because I’ve used that in every department that I’ve worked for. And, so glad you asked.

00:17:36:07 – 00:17:56:18
Speaker 2
I honestly, the biggest thing I like about it with monitors, a lot of them have side to side movement, not a lot have up and down vertical movement. The Blitz fire is one that does have it. And it just I like the yeah, the options to be able to adjust that because sometimes, you know, you do need that steep, angle.

00:17:56:18 – 00:18:08:04
Speaker 2
But you also sometimes depending on the size of the building, whatever the situation might be, you might need to get it down low. Right. And I find that, some of the other monitors out there don’t have that feature.

00:18:08:04 – 00:18:13:18
Speaker 3
So what’s a problem where that low angle comes in handy? Like what kind of fire?

00:18:13:20 – 00:18:30:11
Speaker 2
Yeah. So say it’s like a large open warehouse or something where you have, like, a a big open. You can see the fire, the body of fires down low. So when we talk about like steep angle of approach like in this video here, you can see that fire is floor to ceiling in that room. It’s up into the eaves.

00:18:30:11 – 00:18:47:13
Speaker 2
You want that steep approach for the proper water distribution on the surfaces. But say we’re in a big open area, high ceilings. You can see the body of the fire is down low, spraying your angle up high into a very high space. High ceiling isn’t necessarily going to give you the application that you need.

00:18:47:15 – 00:18:53:17
Speaker 3
Yeah. So this is also yeah, just learned so much more on firefighting from this time. I can’t wait to have you back on.

00:18:53:20 – 00:18:55:20
Speaker 2
Awesome. Well, thank you for having me.

00:18:55:20 – 00:19:03:20
Unknown
Curious to learn more about TFD nozzles? Check out the new Sortable Nozzle page at Ft.com. Slash shop.

Have a question? Ask Amy West!

E4 – Exterior Water, Nozzles & Low Staffing: Fireground Tactics w/ PJ Norwood

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

When and how to apply exterior water without compromising fireground aggression
Smooth bore vs. fog nozzle pros and cons for interior attack
Why water mapping is an efficiency booster that allows you to fight fire longer
Ground monitors, deck guns, and how to hit exposures
Smarter tactics for under-staffed companies and volunteer departments

P.J. Norwood serves on the FSRI Training Advisory Committee and is an FDIC speaker, co-author of The Evolving Fireground and the Director of Training at Connecticut Fire Academy.

View Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:05:13
Speaker 1
So in this video here, see if you know a three story wood frame private dwelling that is third floor

00:00:05:13 – 00:00:13:01
Speaker 1
or the flames tell us is what has already happened. We need to focus on the smoke so we can understand what’s going to happen.

00:00:13:01 – 00:00:28:01
Unknown
Our guest is PJ Norwood, director of training at Connecticut Fire Academy. He serves on Fhsaa Rise Training Advisory Committee. He co-founded Stop Believing, Start Knowing, and he co-wrote The Evolving Fireground. The guy knows his stuff.

00:00:28:01 – 00:00:34:25
Unknown
This interview was for firefighters who want to learn more about how to use exterior water without losing aggression.

00:00:34:25 – 00:00:37:03
Unknown
Nozzle choice in interior attack,

00:00:37:03 – 00:00:41:02
Unknown
how water mapping can give you a more efficient interior push,

00:00:41:02 – 00:00:43:23
Unknown
and how to overcome low staffing operations.

00:00:48:15 – 00:00:56:02
Speaker 1
All right. So this is really exciting. Today we have PGA number one from the Connecticut Fire Academy. We had an absolute blast and fully involved.

00:00:56:02 – 00:00:56:24
Speaker 1
thanks for joining us.

00:00:57:03 – 00:01:10:14
Speaker 2
Well, thank you for having me. Thank you for what you do to support the fire service, to give us the tools and equipment that we need to do our job successfully. And thanks for giving me the opportunity to speak on behalf of the Connecticut Fire Academy and film some of these great episodes. There.

00:01:10:14 – 00:01:21:10
Speaker 1
you’re the type of guy who you’re not going to draw a lot of attention yourself. But I know that you’ve got a good sense of humor, and I know there are things that irritate you about tactics that are out there in the fire service.

00:01:21:29 – 00:01:31:29
Speaker 1
What are you really passionate about? What do you feel like? It’s one of the most misunderstood tactics that you are on a mission to your home, just to help shed light on.

00:01:32:08 – 00:01:55:16
Speaker 2
You know, the direction I want to take. This is not necessarily the specific tactics, but it’s our understanding of tactics. You know, I was trained in the late 80s, early 90s by World War Two firefighters who were teaching us a very different fire at that time. And those are the tactics that I deployed. Those are the tactics that I used very successfully for many, many years.

00:01:55:19 – 00:02:13:10
Speaker 2
But the environment has changed, and how we need to go about our business has changed. It doesn’t mean that what we’ve been doing was wrong. It just means we need to change. You know our EMS partners of the fire service. They changed the standards for EMS and for CPR every year and every five years. Like, okay, they changed a standard again.

00:02:13:10 – 00:02:32:27
Speaker 2
We’ll we’ll do a different. We’re not doing it 5 to 1 anymore. We’re not doing the head tilt chin lift anymore. It’s okay. But as soon as we start to mention and a change in our tactics, firefighters get all upset and they get all really disappointed. And it creates this divide, right. And these arguments in the debates, while the debates are good because that’s that swing of the pendulum, right.

00:02:33:04 – 00:02:42:24
Speaker 2
Until we figure out where it actually needs to be. But I think today’s firefighters need to understand that we’re not fighting the same fire that we were five years ago, ten years ago, 20 years ago.

00:02:42:24 – 00:03:06:26
Speaker 2
North tactics be exactly the same. It doesn’t mean we should throw out our tactics. It means that we need to adopt those tactics to the new environment. And it gets extremely frustrating when we have some amazing professional firefighters with a career or volunteer doing some amazing work in their communities, but yet they’re not willing to look at the research to understand the research and learn how they can apply it better to their community.

00:03:06:29 – 00:03:10:17
Speaker 2
For those that they their served that they’ve sworn to protect.

00:03:10:24 – 00:03:19:21
Speaker 1
What’s one example of one? Some low hanging fruit that you’re like, you know what, guys? Why don’t we just make this one? This one changes. What’s one example of what you just explained?

00:03:20:02 – 00:03:37:29
Speaker 2
Yes. You know, one example. I don’t think it’s as controversial anymore, but is exterior water. You know, we were start talking about, you know, modern tactics and research based tactics. And we started to teach about exterior water. You would have thought the world was coming to an end, right? Because we’re not going to be aggressive firefighters anymore. We’re not going to be to go through the front door.

00:03:38:01 – 00:03:57:04
Speaker 2
And that’s not the case, right? Exterior water is not for every fire depending on your department. Depending on your resources, depending on the building construction, you may never utilize exterior water. However, it needs to be an option that you could default to when the right timing and the right situation because it’s only going to do good. Key States from FSR.

00:03:57:04 – 00:04:10:17
Speaker 2
I recently said in a podcast, the wetter the better, and the fire doesn’t know where the water is coming from. The goal of extinguishment is what? To get water into that environment as quick as possible. It doesn’t matter if it’s through a door, through a window, or down the hallway.

00:04:10:17 – 00:04:19:13
Speaker 1
why is exterior water information something that the firefighters kind of pay attention to just. But why is it something that you’re passionate about?

00:04:20:05 – 00:04:38:18
Speaker 2
Because water makes everything better. When we go back to our basic fire behavior education, we have the fire tetrahedron. And there’s only one real way as firefighters that we can impact that, and that’s cooling the environment. Yes, we can decrease the amount of air we let into the building, but we can’t go up and put an envelope or a balloon around the building and take out all the oxygen, right.

00:04:38:24 – 00:04:54:07
Speaker 2
So water is the key thing for us. We have to get that into the environment. And you know, there’s a lot of firefighters that are concerned about that tactic. They’re concerned because they’ve always been taught the negative side of it. And there’s no negative, right. There’s a right way to do it and a specific way to do it.

00:04:54:07 – 00:04:56:25
Speaker 2
But there’s nothing negative. It’s only positive for the environment.

00:04:56:25 – 00:05:19:25
Speaker 1
Tell me about what, what equipment choices you like to make. Some people up with, you know, exterior water application. They’re all about, the deck. Some people, you know, prefer to use the groundwater. It’s good for for fog. Just tell me about the different decisions that you advocate when you’re choosing equipment. Transitional or external water?

00:05:20:01 – 00:05:37:01
Speaker 2
It’s actually interesting. You bring up, extra water in the blitz attack, right? That was something I was trained on and was always acceptable and was okay. And doing a little research with some Chicago firefighters, we found that that I was actually originated in Chicago in 1976, and they started applying it in the 80s in Chicago and growing up.

00:05:37:06 – 00:05:54:06
Speaker 2
That’s an accepted practice. Use the deck on, do a blitz attack, flood the building with water and she can get your hand lines in place. So it is okay to flow all those GPS from a deck gun from the exterior, but it wasn’t okay to flow 150 gallons per minute from an inch or three quarter hose line. It just those are the things that I don’t understand.

00:05:54:13 – 00:06:08:25
Speaker 2
So as far as equipment, you want a smooth water, straight stream, you don’t want to use fog when you’re applying that water. You don’t want to move that nozzle around. You want to keep it tight in that window. Steep, steady and then seconds until that environment starts changing.

00:06:11:13 – 00:06:14:25
Speaker 1
My. Yeah. Yep. All

00:06:14:25 – 00:06:15:18
Speaker 1
right.

00:06:19:14 – 00:06:37:14
Speaker 2
you had some really interesting comments about the the equipment choice. Just, you know, walk us through, like, what? What different equipment choices you have to make when you were choosing or let’s say, you know, like first arriving tactics package.

00:06:37:16 – 00:06:58:24
Speaker 1
So we start talking about equipment. You think about first arriving tactics. My focus would be depending on your crew size and the resources available. How can you deploy your equipment the quickest and get water on the fire? Whether that’s a deck gun, whether that’s it, Infantry quarter and line. Right. That’s going to be really dependent on your engine company and your security services.

00:06:58:26 – 00:07:26:03
Speaker 1
And the thing that we also see often is many policies, procedures. After first stopping and grappling at a height, then that takes minutes. Many fires today don’t require that much water application if you’re doing it right. So I like that. First you go to the fire, start flowing water. Get that water flowing as quickly as possible into that environment and depending on the resources, depending on your crew, make up right.

00:07:26:08 – 00:07:30:15
Speaker 1
Make the best choices to get your gear.

00:07:30:15 – 00:07:43:21
Speaker 1
If you’re an exterior water smoothbore or straight stream right? You don’t want to use spot. You want to keep that nozzle, that stream pattern tight. You don’t want to want to train as little as you can.

00:07:43:23 – 00:07:54:24
Speaker 2
Interesting. So what do you, what kind of pushback is there when you say, okay, smooth board is the best for exterior. Exterior? What do you say to people? Are there any fog advocates out there?

00:07:54:26 – 00:08:08:17
Speaker 1
I don’t believe there’s any fog out, but we start talking about exterior water. I think that just, you know, kind of dispel the. I think the dispute between smoothbore and combination will probably always exist.

00:08:08:18 – 00:08:10:04
Speaker 2
Yeah, right.

00:08:10:06 – 00:08:17:00
Speaker 1
When we’re talking about research based tactics and exterior water and the fire service take truly understands the difference.

00:08:17:02 – 00:08:25:27
Speaker 2
One of my favorite parts about our visit to CFA was talking about water mapping. Tell me about your passion for teaching the art of water mapping.

00:08:26:03 – 00:08:50:02
Speaker 1
Yeah, thanks for that question. Yeah. So my prior service career, we’ve always studied research everything we can about water from the reservoir to the map. And that’s where it ended. Everything in between the pumps, the hose, the water distribution system, the fire hydrants. We’ve never looked at what happens to the water once it leaves the nozzle, when it leaves that nozzle.

00:08:50:04 – 00:09:10:05
Speaker 1
What’s the positive? What’s also the negative side. Right. Where’s the water going? Right. Does it matter if you do a C or no matter how much air in the training and how you place that stream into the room, it matters to make sure that you’re getting the water to where you need it with the least amount of water possible.

00:09:10:07 – 00:09:33:09
Speaker 1
And also something we never considered the least amount of stress on us, and the least amount of energy we can reduce our energy and water delivery. We can do more reducing our air consumption, which means we can push farther. And when you start looking at departments that are strapped as far as staffing, they don’t have big staffing. We need to figure out how we can do our jobs better and go further on the air that we have.

00:09:33:11 – 00:09:37:15
Speaker 2
What’s the most misunderstood part of water mapping?

00:09:37:17 – 00:09:54:01
Speaker 1
I think the most misunderstood part of water mapping is it doesn’t mean we’re keeping the website right. Water mapping is just a tool. It’s an understanding. It’s a knowledge. It’s not a tactic, right? Water mapping is not a tactic. It’s a knowledge base that helps drive your tactics.

00:09:54:03 – 00:10:00:01
Speaker 2
Interesting. Do you have a personal preference for nozzle choice on interior attack?

00:10:00:03 – 00:10:01:19
Speaker 1
Smoothbore.

00:10:01:22 – 00:10:03:23
Speaker 2
And you said that with no hesitation.

00:10:03:25 – 00:10:13:26
Speaker 1
Hesitations? Smoothbore or really tight? Compact. Straight story. Because I want to introduce the least amount of air to the air in training. It’s my environment.

00:10:13:29 – 00:10:26:04
Speaker 2
How big of a, how big of a concern is water droplet size? Some people are all about talking about the size of water droplets. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much does that matter to you?

00:10:26:07 – 00:10:34:25
Speaker 1
For me, I’m not a water nerd. Concerned about that? I just want that really tight stream package.

00:10:34:27 – 00:10:56:23
Speaker 2
You mentioned low staffing solutions. That’s something every fire department in the world is is facing is just. How do we get more with the resources that we have within a huge department, or a tiny department? What’s another, clever way that you would advocate for for overcoming a, personnel, you know, issue?

00:10:56:26 – 00:11:01:29
Speaker 1
I don’t want this to come across as I think should cut staffing or responding and performing.

00:11:02:21 – 00:11:09:19
Speaker 1
Staffing because we need all the staffing that we can get. Every fire department doesn’t have enough. Right? So I don’t want anybody to misconstrue that.

00:11:09:19 – 00:11:09:27
Speaker 2
Yeah.

00:11:09:27 – 00:11:37:16
Speaker 1
I’m saying, well, we can do more with less. Right. We have to do what we have to do with what we do right from the war. But making sure that you understand, understanding the environment, knowing where to charge your line, where to apply water, those low staff departments really need to consider utilizing exterior water in the right time, in the right place, and the right way is what help them with their interior operations.

00:11:37:22 – 00:11:40:12
Speaker 1
And ultimately it’s going to help the victims.

00:11:40:14 – 00:11:54:09
Speaker 2
Do you, get ground monitors? You know, that’s one one area that I’ve heard some departments are they love like the set and forget it, sort of, philosophy. How do you teach exposure protections or other ground monitor situations?

00:11:54:13 – 00:12:36:01
Speaker 1
Just in my apartment companies. We don’t want to first. So for us, we utilize that, don’t it? Well, it monitors very rarely put in place to ground monitor unless we’re setting up an elevated master space. However, my district. You’re right on Long Island Sound. A lot of small, lot of light on top of the channel. So when you start looking at the monitor, whole, the amount of radiant heat and how quickly these homes, the real potential exists to lose multiple homes, especially the first ten miles an hour when it’s going to be wind impact.

00:12:36:03 – 00:12:56:20
Speaker 1
So the utilization of ground monitors, especially those environments, to get that ground monitor in place, to do some of that exposure protection while you’re stretching, you start putting in place your entire operations is critical because, again, the wetter the better. So you have to get the in place. In some areas, you can’t reach down from the street.

00:12:59:09 – 00:13:00:21
Unknown
every now and again, you can’t

00:13:00:21 – 00:13:02:07
Unknown
get enough water out of the Ham line.

00:13:02:07 – 00:13:04:19
Unknown
Whether it’s a smoothbore or a combination nozzle.

00:13:04:19 – 00:13:06:25
Unknown
Sometimes you just need more punch on arrival.

00:13:06:25 – 00:13:08:12
Unknown
I’m Paul neely, a task force tips.

00:13:08:12 – 00:13:10:14
Unknown
I’d like to talk to you today about the blitz fire.

00:13:10:14 – 00:13:13:02
Unknown
Why would you not 186 degrees and packing.

00:13:13:02 – 00:13:13:21
Unknown
If you’re limited

00:13:13:21 – 00:13:14:19
Unknown
to only 50

00:13:14:19 – 00:13:21:09
Unknown
degrees, you may not be able to make that second story or third story window based on your close proximity of the monitors or the Baltic.

00:13:21:09 – 00:13:23:19
Unknown
This could be the difference between completing a rescue

00:13:23:19 – 00:13:24:28
Unknown
or making a body recovery.

00:13:25:05 – 00:13:41:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. I would love to hear more about your response. Or can you kind of give me the back of the baseball card, you know, as it were? Can you just tell me everything from the size the building construction, the the type of situations you face? Just what are the what are the ABCs of your response? District?

00:13:41:12 – 00:14:13:00
Speaker 1
That’s another great question. I think that I worked in a very district. We’re only 12.6mi² that long island south, bordering one of the largest ports in the state of Connecticut, the New Haven Harbor. We have a regional airport. We have Amtrak passenger cargo, I-95, the traditional light manufacturing and small light warehouses, communities and nursing homes or strip malls or private dwellings of one story, two story, three village blue frame.

00:14:13:02 – 00:14:31:18
Speaker 1
So it was great about the place that I worked. We had a little bit of everything, and our north section of town was very rural, so more small farms. You go from everything from, you know, downtown Main Street with strip malls to large homes right along the border all the way up to the whole section gets out. It just sits there about.

00:14:31:21 – 00:14:39:16
Speaker 2
But I know I’m sure you’ve got endless stories about just what’s one problem that you encountered that was really memorable.

00:14:39:18 – 00:15:06:04
Speaker 1
And I told them, I think the one major problem for staff is we would respond to fires on Main Street in East Haven, and we go to the one of the last couple of houses in the town, and we had to have the three with from with 12 firefighters, thankfully supplemented by our volunteers. The very next house in the city that will be the same day, same week.

00:15:06:07 – 00:15:25:16
Speaker 1
We have 20 to 35 full alarm. I saw my firefighters here and I did for many years, these amazing feats of effort to do the job for those in our community, and we put ourselves in places that we should because of the staffing issues that our departments, that many departments face.

00:15:25:18 – 00:15:37:08
Speaker 2
Was there in one particular fire you can remember that really stands out from the rest or one particular time when you were by yourself or anything like that. Just what was the most the stickiest situation you found yourself in? Yeah.

00:15:37:08 – 00:15:38:11
Speaker 1
So I’m going to give you two.

00:15:38:12 – 00:15:38:29
Speaker 2
Okay. Yeah.

00:15:39:00 – 00:16:04:13
Speaker 1
The sticky situation was really, a two parter. I there was no rescue. They weren’t coming. It was like black fire, black on the first floor. And I said, listen, I’m going to search the second floor. If you split, you know, breaking every rule possible, you need to split these two. Will you better keep low? We just get hot like this, but it’s, you know, splitting your your crew size.

00:16:04:13 – 00:16:22:09
Speaker 1
And I joked, now that I’ve stretched more lives in search of more sleep by myself. And then the other sticky, none of this sort of situation was challenging. When we had a plane crash, we had a private jet crashed into two private dwellings just outside of. Wow.

00:16:22:11 – 00:16:23:01
Speaker 2
Devastating.

00:16:23:04 – 00:16:46:27
Speaker 1
We lost two victims of the plane. We lost two young children, two young. The most that you know were alive. And the 12 firefighters fire was a jet there a of course, one of the hardest situations by anybody. Thankfully the city and this was done right on the city line is that we had a people which that.

00:16:47:00 – 00:16:47:20
Speaker 2
Wow.

00:16:47:20 – 00:16:54:07
Speaker 2
post so many interesting videos on your Facebook page, would you mind if I have you kind of give a live, color commentary of one of your

00:16:54:07 – 00:17:03:29
Speaker 2
your brain is automatically processing the information, whether it’s the smoke, whether it’s the flames. Tell me what you’re seeing in the video and how you’re breaking it down.

00:17:04:01 – 00:17:21:27
Speaker 1
I think it’s first important understand that as far as humans, our eyes are always going to focus on the brightest thing in front of. So our eyes are always going to focus on the fire or the flames tell us is what has already happened. We need to focus on the smoke so we can understand what’s going to happen.

00:17:21:29 – 00:17:48:06
Speaker 1
You’re going to go, actually, you’re going to, you’re going to choose tactics, employ tactics to you to get ahead of those goals. So in this video here, see if you know a three story wood frame private dwelling that is third floor attic space, ground ladders, a place to see good fire velocity, density in the smoke. You know, because those are things you want to look at outwardly.

00:17:48:09 – 00:18:06:07
Speaker 1
And where is this? Where is the stuff? We are your most dense areas where the areas of the highest velocity. And then not knowing this department, not know what else is going on, I have to ask, well, should we be flowing water exterior or should we be an interior but a third floor stretch like this? Okay, what’s a park?

00:18:06:09 – 00:18:15:17
Speaker 1
It’s going to take a few minutes to put in place if water. If fire was showing out that window on arrival. There’s nothing wrong with giving that a quick thinking outside before you advance,

00:18:15:17 – 00:18:31:06
Speaker 1
Whether that’s from a hand line, whether that’s from a ground monitor, whether that’s from a mounted deck gun. water in this environment is going to help because that’s not going to be a nice stretch. And like we said, key states the wetter the better and the quicker you can get water. Tomorrow it’s.

00:18:31:06 – 00:18:33:29
Speaker 2
Going to be so you’re grabbing a smooth more.

00:18:34:02 – 00:18:55:10
Speaker 1
Smooth four inch and three quarter four seconds foot flow that line in that window. Steep, steady. You’re going to be moving it around seconds until you have a change. Then you have to ask, are we going to bring that hose stretch another like dry my department. We’re going to stretch dry as far as we can go. I know that’s not an accepted practice in a lot of places, right.

00:18:55:16 – 00:19:09:07
Speaker 1
But one we’re running, which is 1 or 2 making that stretch. We’re going to stretch that line dry at least to the first floor, maybe the second floor. Once we have smoke, then we’re going to mask up. We’re going to call for water and we’re going to.

00:19:09:09 – 00:19:16:26
Speaker 2
I feel about 20% smarter than when I, started this interview. PJ, this is awesome and I can’t wait to have you back on the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

00:19:16:29 – 00:19:26:13
Speaker 1
Thank you for giving me this opportunity. Thank you for coming to camp. Fire Academy is the great academy that everybody and we appreciate the support of TFT throughout the fire.

00:19:26:15 – 00:19:28:06
Speaker 2
Awesome. Thank you so much.

00:19:28:06 – 00:19:36:06
Unknown
Curious to learn more about TFD nozzles? Check out the new Sortable Nozzle page at Ft.com. Slash shop.

Have a question? Ask PJ Norwood!

E3 – High-Rise Firefighting: Lessons from Chicago’s Fireground w/ Tim Walsh

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Live-burn, hands-on high-rise training
Solving standpipe problems under pressure
Bleeder valves, hose flow, and gear evolution
Smoothbore vs. combination nozzles in real fires
Tank water, transitional attack, and smart ventilation

Tim Walsh has had a decades-long career in Illinois firefighting, from Chicago Fire Department where he was Chief of Special Operations, to Illinois Fire Service Institute to his current role with the Burbank (IL) Fire Department.

View Transcript

Transcript:

Fully Involved Podcast Episode 3

Tim Walsh (Illinois Fire Safety Institute and Chicago Fire Department, Ret.) is Speaker 2

Gordon Voit from the Fully Involved Crew is Speaker 1

Speaker Name Start Time End Time Text

Speaker 1 00:00:00:11 00:00:16:03 So Tim Walsh from the Illinois Fire Service Institute. Tim, you do so much for so many people. I want the chance to kind of turn the spotlight on you for a moment and talk about your journey and what you’re passionate about. But first of all, thanks so much for joining us. You’re a very generous man.

Speaker 2 00:00:16:11 00:00:18:18 Oh, thanks for having me, Gordon. I’m happy to do it.

Speaker 1 00:00:18:24 00:00:43:06 So I’m curious to know, and I love one of my favorite things about you is you’re just honest. You get Tim every time. There’s no, you’re not going to feel towards you. Say there’s so many different directions you can take. I emphasize enjoying so many hours in the day. What’s one, tactical lesson aspect of firefighting that you really want to emphasize?

Speaker 2 00:00:43:06 00:00:44:03 And,

Speaker 2 00:00:44:03 00:01:15:18 yeah, I think the majority of the instructors that teach for us are in it for all the right reasons. So we’re not for profit. There’s a lot of flash to bang for profit training companies out there, and we don’t feel as instructors for the Illinois Fire Service Institute that a firefighter should have to come out of pocket for way more than a day’s wage to receive some really good, hands on, beneficial training that will hopefully prolong their life and prolong their career, and maybe save the life of a civilian or another firefighter.

Speaker 2 00:01:15:20 00:01:42:20 So hands on, real training. It’s a dirty job. It’s a laborer’s job. The training has to reflect that type of work that we do on a daily basis. And all of us in leadership positions at the institute were mentored by good people like John McCaslin, who was very, courageous and worked in the southwest suburbs for a long time, former Marine and Vietnam, who kind of brought us all into the Institute.

Speaker 2 00:01:42:22 00:01:58:03 I mean, we were lucky to work for him, and he had a great work mentality. No frills. Say what you mean, don’t sugarcoat anything. If you make a mistake, own up to it like a grown man or a grown woman and get on with it. But that’s kind of the way that we operate there, and that’s what we feel.

Speaker 2 00:01:58:03 00:01:58:19

Speaker 1 00:01:58:22 00:02:11:03 So I love to hear about your high rise training. This is something that really sets you apart from all the other training work stations. Just tell me about it for size, relationship with high rise.

Speaker 2 00:02:11:06 00:02:32:06 Yeah. So there’s really no live fire standard for required structured training and a high rise. But we were able to get in the last year two high rises, one in Itasca and one in Glenview, where we actually did Class-A live fire training. We put about, 2000 firefight hours through those two props over 12 days. And the ability to be able to burn in those props safely.

Speaker 2 00:02:32:13 00:03:00:20 Have an instructor tail each company that went in allow them to operate under their real vessel piece that that we’d use in a high rise room, mid rise fire to be able to flow water with a two inch or 2.5in and bring them up to the standards that we talked about, and then do some testing with other companies to be able to test the Bresnan nozzle in a live fire aspect, to be able to test different types of floor below pipes and a live fire aspect, and actually get hands on putting that fire out in a real situation is really beneficial.

Speaker 2 00:03:00:20 00:03:16:14 Like we were just talking about a minute before I worked in the loop in the city of Chicago. When I was employed there, I was a captain, squad one, and we were able to go to high rise fires. And high rise fires aren’t fun. And if you talk to any big city firefighter, they’re going to tell you, you know, you can’t jump out of the building.

Speaker 2 00:03:16:14 00:03:30:03 You can’t get out of the way. Wind impacted fires are huge. As to the way that you operate. And if you haven’t done it and you haven’t gotten exposed to it, it’s going to be cumbersome for you if passed, if it happens to you.

Speaker 1 00:03:30:03 00:03:49:28 Well, we’d love to pick your brain again. You’re a very humble man. But you’ve done some incredible things. And with high rise, you know, firefighting. And what better place to do it than the city of Chicago? Yeah. By the way. Yeah. So I want to know, just, like face by face. So we just, you know, 3 or 4.

Speaker 1 00:03:50:03 00:03:51:18 Yep. All about my rights.

Speaker 1 00:03:51:18 00:04:11:18 This is something that, you know, our audience and social media is thinking a lot about, you know, so first phase is, you know, arrival and making the hook ups. Tell me what’s a common problem that you, that firefighters experience with making the hook and just the arrival phase before you go inside?

Speaker 2 00:04:11:18 00:04:27:03 Yeah. So I think before you go inside, you have to have good building in tow. But in a big city that’s pretty hard to figure out. You can’t get to all the buildings and to walk through each and every building, as most instructors require you to do in a smaller village or a smaller city. That’s that’s a probability,

Speaker 2 00:04:27:03 00:04:28:18 in a big city,

Speaker 2 00:04:28:18 00:04:30:01 that’s not always probable.

Speaker 2 00:04:30:03 00:04:49:10 And most of those buildings, up until Covid had 24 hour occupancy, even commercial buildings had people that were working late into the night or early in the morning. So to assume that because it’s a high rise commercial occupancy, that there’s nobody in the building, those floors still have to be searched. So you have to arrive with the appropriate pot.

Speaker 2 00:04:49:10 00:05:05:18 A map of manpower, that’s the biggest thing. So if you’re not upgrading your alarm and the initial aspect of a confirmed report of a fire, you’re going to be chasing that fire because of this, because of the time that it takes to get from the ground to the upper levels, to be able to perform your tasks.

Speaker 1 00:05:05:21 00:05:18:27 And, as far as, how did the park itself or the kind of the bank, like your high rise bank, evolve over time because you were. And we’ll get into your your origin story in the fire service?

Speaker 2 00:05:19:03 00:05:19:08 Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:05:19:14 00:05:20:18 Just as far as

Speaker 1 00:05:20:18 00:05:24:09 the equipment, how did that evolve from the time you started to the time.

Speaker 2 00:05:24:11 00:05:24:18 Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:05:24:18 00:05:48:26 So the high rise base got heavier from the time that I started because they started to add things. But companies like yourself and some of the other nozzle manufacturers have streamlined the equipment that’s gone in the bag. There’s a new device out there that it’s actually a wrench. I believe it’s called a fast wrench, that pretty much you don’t have to bring a bunch of tools in, because it highlights everything that you could probably see in a high rise, including stem.

Speaker 2 00:05:49:03 00:06:12:28 You can turn stems with it, you can bust off caps with it. And then the other issue, too, is in a large metropolitan city, depending on where those high rises are, they’re physically abuse from the outside of the other buildings. So the FTC connection gets abused. It doesn’t have covers. There’s junk thrown in it. So it’s very, time and place specific as to how you’re going to work and whether it even really works.

Speaker 2 00:06:13:00 00:06:30:03 So if the FTC connection on the outside of the building is inoperable, now you have to make that stamp standpipe connection on the first floor, and you have to know where those standpipe boxes are. And if there’s nobody there to show you that, you kind of have to figure it out on the fly. And then the systems that are installed, the installed systems in the building changed over my career as well.

Speaker 2 00:06:30:06 00:06:55:18 So now you can control the Hvac from an iPad like you’re using here today for our thing. And if you don’t know how to do that and pressurized the floor below on the floor above to keep smoke spread, then that becomes an issue. Smoke spread is what kills people at high rises, usually not the fire. And the vast amount of smoke that it’s creates because of the plastics that are involved in all those buildings, creates a problem for the occupants.

Speaker 1 00:06:56:10 00:07:08:29 So we’re outside. Let’s say that, you know, we’ve got a been set up. You start to make the push inside on the staircase. What’s a common problem? On the staircase, getting up.

Speaker 2 00:07:09:03 00:07:31:26 So NFPA and you will have done a lot of tests about the, the gallons that you need to attack a high rise fire. Right. And the issues that we see in a residential high rise, it’s compartmentalized. Right. So you have drywall walls or plaster walls and some of the older buildings. So you can keep it contained to a small area, usually, unless it’s a big new apartment building with wide open floor space.

Speaker 2 00:07:31:28 00:07:56:05 But in a commercial building, sometimes you have, interior stairwells from floor to floor and big wide open buildings. And during the big boom of open office complexes where people are supposed to be able to talk to each other from a far distance and not be sequestered in their office. Now, you can’t overcome those BTUs once that building starts to burn, and it’s really just a contents fire, because the building’s made out of steel and concrete.

Speaker 2 00:07:56:08 00:08:16:22 But there’s so much stuff in there that can burn paper and things that people keep on their desk, that there’s no way that you’re going to overcome it. So some of the fast attack systems that you guys have to be able to do that. The high rise back now with the bleeder valves in the standpipe kit in case there’s back pressure, because I’ve seen hoses get caught underneath doors as people were leading out.

Speaker 2 00:08:16:28 00:08:27:18 There’s been some really good changes in the way that we operate and what we carry, because the tragedies that have happened all across the country by people that go to high rise fires.

Speaker 1 00:08:27:24 00:08:34:03 Here’s the, you know, you bring up the bleeder valve. Yeah. Can you tell me more about that problem? What have you faced?

Speaker 2 00:08:34:03 00:08:55:09 So I actually faced that in a high rise fire in the city when I was the captain. Squad one we responded to a high rise fire was a residential, high rise building, on the North Shore. And as the company was leading out to go down the hallway from a protected stairwell because the stairwell was full of smoke and fire already before they could clear the doorway, there was two doorways.

Speaker 2 00:08:55:09 00:09:15:11 The doorway to the main hallway, and then a fire door to the actual hallway where the of the apartment fire was. The hose got caught underneath a steel door that was encased and masonry, and as the line was being charged, it drove the steel door up into the jam, and there was no way that we could force the door.

Speaker 2 00:09:15:11 00:09:43:26 We had a hydraulic ram, we had forcible entry tools. Halligan sledge. We could not get a purchase point on that steel door. So we actually had to do, something that’s pretty unsavory and illegal. And Chicago Fire Department terms. Way to go. Down on the floor below, over to the other stairwell and get the hotel line and for people that don’t know what a hotel line is, that’s a pre-position pretty crappy piece of hose that’s in the standpipe box for residents to fight the fire with.

Speaker 2 00:09:43:29 00:09:55:18 So we utilize that hose to go pass the initial hose team to just get a knock on the fire. And then we were able to get the the original two and a half unstuck from that door jamb, and we were able to put off the rest of the fire.

Speaker 1 00:09:55:18 00:10:04:18 So we’re basically in a NASCAR situation and you blew a tire, and instead of the pit crew putting another tire out there, like, we have this donut from a Honda Odyssey that.

Speaker 2 00:10:04:22 00:10:06:03 100%. That’s what happened.

Speaker 2 00:10:06:03 00:10:07:18 I got yelled at by the

Speaker 2 00:10:07:18 00:10:22:01 chief operations when I came down because I told them that’s, you know, we did something that’s kind of unsavory, that’s not allowed. But we were really out of options at that time. We had a hose team trapped on the other side of a fire door with an inadequate fire stream.

Speaker 2 00:10:22:04 00:10:31:18 And at that time, nobody had a bleeder valve and their high rise survival kit. And now all the companies in the United States are offering that with everything that they do, including TF2.

Speaker 1 00:10:33:06 00:10:40:24 Okay. So we’re let’s assume we made, safe connection to the standpipe. We’re at the apartment door.

Speaker 2 00:10:40:24 00:10:42:04 Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:10:42:07 00:10:56:03 Tell me about your experience. It’s, you know, Chicago of an engine company that’s doing this, or, sorry, a truck company that does the search, and then the engine company coordinates after they find the fire. Like, what is that? What is the search and, suppression?

Speaker 2 00:10:56:05 00:10:57:03 Yeah. So, yeah,

Speaker 2 00:10:57:03 00:10:58:18 I’ve been retired

Speaker 2 00:10:58:18 00:11:00:18 for five years now, but as I remember the order now,

Speaker 2 00:11:00:18 00:11:02:03 I haven’t been on a high rise fire in a while.

Speaker 2 00:11:02:03 00:11:11:03 The fire investigation team is made up of an engine and a truck company that proceed up to the floor below the fire and kind of get the lay out first before they figure out how they’re going to attack

Speaker 2 00:11:11:03 00:11:11:05 it.

Speaker 2 00:11:11:12 00:11:12:18 And then they move that down

Speaker 2 00:11:12:18 00:11:29:15 that hallway. As a team, the rescue companies, the squad companies for the city of Chicago usually deploy their six person company, two people with the hose line, two people on the primary search on the fire floor itself, and then two people on the primary search on the floor above, or the apartment directly above the apartment that’s on fire.

Speaker 2 00:11:29:18 00:11:59:10 So we have a good amount of manpower, usually about 8 to 10 people, to get that primary hose line down the hallway. But the weight of the water in the two inch, the 2.5in, if you don’t drill with it, it’s a little overwhelming. It can be moved pretty quickly with practice and drilling, but you have to practice those drills and zero visibility with some heat involved because it’s it can be untenable if the fire is beyond the door and if it’s a wind driven situation, which is very paramount.

Speaker 2 00:11:59:10 00:12:21:00 Now these days, you have to take that went into effect. So you may have to force, the, purchase point inside the drywall and the building and get a little water on the fire before you can force the door and make the turn to get into the room. So water is definitely your friend up there. And if you don’t have it and you don’t bring it with you and you don’t bring enough firepower to the battle, you’re going to have an issue.

Speaker 1 00:12:21:03 00:12:26:13 What’s your, spousal preference when you’re when you’re in the room and it’s time to. It’s time to get little.

Speaker 2 00:12:26:13 00:12:27:03 One, right?

Speaker 2 00:12:27:03 00:12:53:26 Smoothbore without question, is the way you want to go for that? There are some nozzles, some new nozzles out on the market now that we don’t recommend. I think if you talk to any high rise firefighter from any big city, FDNY, LA, Baltimore, anybody that has over ten story buildings you want the most amount of water, with your hose attack package that you can possibly get from that standpipe, and you’re getting 500 gallons per minute at every standpipe feed.

Speaker 2 00:12:53:29 00:13:03:03 So at some of those bigger, nozzles that we’ve talked about that don’t require manpower to hold them, like what you guys build. What’s your model called again?

Speaker 1 00:13:03:20 00:13:07:03 In this, you’ll hear me talking about that. Yeah. Just. Yeah.

Speaker 1 00:13:07:03 00:13:07:24 Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:13:07:26 00:13:20:18 Yeah, yeah. So. And some of the pre-positioned, like, tripod systems that don’t require somebody to actually handle it. If the fire’s too far out into the hallway to give it a knock so you can march down the hallway. So now if you have to get another line right

Speaker 2 00:13:20:18 00:13:22:03 on that standpipe, now

Speaker 2 00:13:22:03 00:13:26:02 you’ve got to go another floor below or if there’s an additional standpipe on the floor below.

Speaker 2 00:13:26:02 00:13:36:18 Now you have to get that hose there. So a 200 lead out becomes very cumbersome. And if you have to go further than that, you have to have the person power to get that hose up, up the stairs and down the hallway to the scene of the fire.

Speaker 1 00:13:36:26 00:13:41:27 Give a favorite tip. Last time was going to be on every tip ever made for.

Speaker 2 00:13:41:29 00:13:42:03 An

Speaker 2 00:13:42:03 00:13:59:28 inch and a quarter shut off pipe. Smooth bore. Nothing fancy because the other issue is sometimes with nozzles you get rocks and debris in some of the older buildings, so it has to be able to flush it out very quickly when you flush that standpipe. And a lot of times newer firefighters don’t flush that standpipe when you’re 40 storeys up long enough.

Speaker 2 00:14:00:00 00:14:11:03 And that standpipe probably has not been flush since they built the building. So that means people have been sticking shit in those standpipes for 40 years, and now you’re relying on that water to come up 40 floors.

Speaker 2 00:14:11:03 00:14:12:18 So it’s kind of a

Speaker 2 00:14:12:18 00:14:18:18 crapshoot. There’s some companies now like the Firefighter Air Coalition that’s working with nozzle companies like TFT

Speaker 2 00:14:18:18 00:14:20:03 and some other air

Speaker 2 00:14:20:03 00:14:29:08 companies to see if we can change the building code and standards to provide air in the hallways that firefighters can hook up their SCBA to and do some other things.

Speaker 2 00:14:29:14 00:14:35:18 So I think that the the mentality and the culture is changing a little bit to make it safer for firefighters.

Speaker 1 00:14:35:18 00:14:41:22 That’s the biggest mistake that I had an inexperienced firefighter with making the rounds when it comes, when it’s time to put out the.

Speaker 2 00:14:41:22 00:14:43:03 Fire, turning

Speaker 2 00:14:43:03 00:14:45:03 off the nozzle, you don’t even have to go any further.

Speaker 2 00:14:45:03 00:14:46:18 So once that nozzle

Speaker 2 00:14:46:18 00:15:03:17 goes on, once you leave the safe area of the stairwell and there’s fire in the hallway, that nozzle stays on and that nozzle doesn’t go off until you feel conditions change. I don’t think a lot of instructors talk about that. They talk about coating the floor and coating the walls and coating the ceilings.

Speaker 2 00:15:03:19 00:15:32:03 But if you’ve been to enough fire fires, you can actually feel the conditions change in the building as you move. And if the conditions aren’t changing and the water is coming down on you and it’s hot, that means you’re outrunning your water coverage. So old school techniques still work. A thermal imaging camera is paramount up on that fire floor to make sure that you’re not outrunning your coverage and the ability to flow water the entire time you’re there until you get ahead of the betas is paramount.

Speaker 1 00:15:32:26 00:15:39:19 And then ventilation is the key points that you try to drill young firefighters.

Speaker 2 00:15:39:21 00:15:40:03 Well, we’re

Speaker 2 00:15:40:03 00:15:45:03 not taking any windows in a high rise building until we have the fire under control, right. Because that’s just going to cause an

Speaker 2 00:15:45:03 00:15:46:18 issue, especially if you’re on

Speaker 2 00:15:46:18 00:15:49:03 the windward side of the building. That’s just going to add fuel to the

Speaker 2 00:15:49:03 00:15:50:18 fire. So if

Speaker 2 00:15:50:18 00:15:57:01 we can control it well, like we talked about before with the Hvac system mechanically and get it done that way, that’s a better option.

Speaker 2 00:15:57:03 00:16:12:29 Once the fire is under control, you can probably take a window, but you still have to get permission because flying shards of glass coming down 40 stories are going to hurt civilians, and you don’t know how far that’s going to go or hurt other firefighters that are on the ground trying to get more tools and equipment up to the fire floor.

Speaker 1 00:16:13:03 00:16:19:14 And then as far as like the techniques, some people like smooth boards. Not a good place.

Speaker 2 00:16:19:14 00:16:20:03 No, I

Speaker 2 00:16:20:03 00:16:39:27 disagree, I disagree, I think I think if you have a smoothbore attack nozzle and a high rise kit, if you have bale that smoothbore nozzle, you and I agree on this. I think we’ve talked about it before. You can get enough ventilation to get that done. Are you going to get it full ventilation or not. But you could always carry a combination nozzle in your high rise bag and switch out.

Speaker 2 00:16:39:27 00:17:02:18 If you have the ability to do so. It wants the fires under control. So using nozzles to ventilate is something. Hydraulic ventilation was a big deal in the Chicago Fire Department. We mostly had combination nozzles. Now I would say we’d have a 50% comp compliment of, smoothbore and combo combination nozzles, but getting a handle on the fire and cooling the area is more important than the initial ventilation.

Speaker 1 00:17:02:22 00:17:08:09 And I got about ten more questions. But I want to talk about your origin story, the fire service.

Speaker 2 00:17:08:11 00:17:08:17 Yeah,

Speaker 2 00:17:08:17 00:17:09:17 I had a good run, man.

Speaker 2 00:17:09:17 00:17:11:02 I had a I had a good

Speaker 2 00:17:11:02 00:17:22:28 run. So we lived in Chicago till I was about six years old, at 89, to laugh on the Saint Ethel Reeder Parish. And then we moved to the suburbs. My dad was, general contractor who was building homes at the time. So I moved to Hanover Park.

Speaker 2 00:17:23:03 00:17:38:17 I kind of figured it out early that I wanted to be in the fire service, so I went and knocked on the fire station door in Hanover Park when I was 16, and luckily they had a cadet program there. So I got hired right away. And at that time there wasn’t paging systems or was plucked around boxes.

Speaker 2 00:17:38:17 00:17:41:02 Some of the older guys will be able to remember that it’s

Speaker 2 00:17:41:02 00:17:42:16 about as big as your computer.

Speaker 2 00:17:42:17 00:17:44:02 And it was before there was pagers,

Speaker 2 00:17:44:02 00:17:48:02 and I used to put it on my dresser. It was like, no, don’t joke this big, this

Speaker 2 00:17:48:02 00:17:49:17 thick. And that’s how you were alerted

Speaker 2 00:17:49:17 00:18:00:02 to a fire. It was, volunteer fire department, like most firefighters starting their career. And I stayed there to go to EMT school. I kind of fudged my age a little bit

Speaker 2 00:18:00:02 00:18:01:17 so that I made sure I got in the first

Speaker 2 00:18:01:17 00:18:01:28 class.

Speaker 2 00:18:01:28 00:18:04:02 I was able to because my birthday was in June.

Speaker 1 00:18:04:13 00:18:04:26 Rounded.

Speaker 2 00:18:04:29 00:18:05:17 I rounded

Speaker 2 00:18:05:17 00:18:18:17 up a little bit so I could get in early, and then I went to paramedic school there as well at Sherman Hospital and Elgin, and then they started to hire full time guys there, but everybody that was being hired was probably around my age. They were like from 20 to 30 years of age,

Speaker 2 00:18:18:17 00:18:20:02 and I’d always wanted to

Speaker 2 00:18:20:02 00:18:21:02 work in the city.

Speaker 2 00:18:21:04 00:18:41:16 So I went and put my name on the city paramedic list. I was hired as a paramedic in the city and, June of 1986, and I worked at a couple other fire departments between that time and Hanover Park before I got hired. And, the city I worked in, Palace Fire Protection District and East Joliet Fire Department, as a firefighter paramedic.

Speaker 2 00:18:41:19 00:19:01:05 And then I did ten years on the ambulance and the city of Chicago till they ramped up the cross training program. And then I was lucky enough to get assigned to a very busy engine company out of the academy. When I crossed over, that was going to provide care as well. 116 at 59th and Ashland. And then we had a bunch of guys get promoted and I wasn’t able to get promoted.

Speaker 2 00:19:01:05 00:19:09:03 I didn’t have enough time on the job, so I was able to cross the floor to squad five, which is one of the busiest wrestling companies in the city. And it kind of took off from there.

Speaker 2 00:19:09:03 00:19:10:18 You know, there’s a big thing I knew and

Speaker 2 00:19:10:18 00:19:16:27 I talk about this all the time. You know, the fire service is just coming around now to flowing water.

Speaker 2 00:19:17:00 00:19:34:03 Like as much as you can, as fast as you can when you pull up on the scene. I was lucky to be raised in the fire department when the old salts already knew that they were like, hey kid, whatever you do when you cross that floor, leave the pipe band. Do not turn the pipe off. I don’t care if the fire commissioner himself tells you to turn the pipe off.

Speaker 2 00:19:34:08 00:19:49:13 I don’t care if we get wet. The hose line is our only protection. As long as you’re flowing water, we can overcome the BTUs in the room or the hallway or the giant space that we’re going to. And if we can’t? Then we leave that pipe on and we back out of the room until we can get enough water to overcome that.

Speaker 2 00:19:49:13 00:20:05:03 So I was very lucky to be on a busy engine company where it was nothing for all three of us to have our own hand line at a at a fire. Fast. Spreading fire is a big thing in Chicago utilizing tank water before we had a positive source to keep the fire in check was a very big

Speaker 2 00:20:05:03 00:20:05:23 thing.

Speaker 1 00:20:05:26 00:20:07:09 You were drafting in the city?

Speaker 2 00:20:07:12 00:20:07:18 No,

Speaker 2 00:20:07:18 00:20:11:18 no, no weather systems in the city of Chicago, but just utilizing tank water. As soon as you pull

Speaker 2 00:20:11:18 00:20:13:03 up before you have a

Speaker 2 00:20:13:03 00:20:15:03 positive start. So they were 500 gallon tanks

Speaker 2 00:20:15:03 00:20:16:18 and we were doing that. They’d been

Speaker 2 00:20:16:18 00:20:26:05 doing that there since the 1960s. You know, they saw a benefit, the older guys on the job that were breaking us in and utilizing tank water.

Speaker 2 00:20:26:05 00:20:29:03 And they learned that from the construction of the expressways

Speaker 2 00:20:29:03 00:20:30:18 and the city

Speaker 2 00:20:30:18 00:20:33:18 they started. They didn’t have tanks on the engines that

Speaker 2 00:20:33:18 00:20:35:03 so they used to have to

Speaker 2 00:20:35:03 00:20:48:02 lead out supply line to put out car fires and tragedies when they’re building the Kennedy, the Eisenhower and the Dan Ryan. And they were like, hey, this is working really good for, construction and the city.

Speaker 2 00:20:48:05 00:20:51:18 It will probably work really good on residential fire buildings as well. So then they

Speaker 2 00:20:51:18 00:20:53:03 started putting

Speaker 2 00:20:53:03 00:21:07:23 smaller tanks on on the engines and then they settled on a 500 gallon tank. And anybody that’s into the job knows you only need about 300 gallons to put out most residential fires. So we had bosses that would tell us, you’re pulling up with 500 perfectly good gallons of water.

Speaker 2 00:21:07:26 00:21:09:03 Why aren’t you using it?

Speaker 2 00:21:09:03 00:21:10:18 Right. So there’s a lot of companies

Speaker 2 00:21:10:18 00:21:27:03 you like utilizing tandem and nurse companies to come in and supplement that, that tank water until you get a positive source. But the Chicago Fire Department had been already doing it for 30 years, but now it’s like the latest flavor that guys are teaching and new construction cadres don’t realize the history of where it came

Speaker 2 00:21:27:03 00:21:28:19 from.

Speaker 1 00:21:28:22 00:21:34:18 What’s the most misunderstood thing about I mean, I assume you’re getting it new, like exterior application?

Speaker 1 00:21:34:18 00:21:36:03 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 00:21:36:03 00:21:38:18 What’s the most misunderstood thing about engineers?

Speaker 2 00:21:38:22 00:22:06:03 Well, there’s still guys out there say, you know, we’re not we’re not ever going to do transitional. I think that’s important. There is no always and there is no never in the fire service. It’s a tool in the toolbox that’s utilized. But there were guys on our job that were putting out 16 story project fires, which were masonry buildings, room and contents fire because they didn’t have an operable standpipe with a deck on from 15 stories below, just so they could get a knock on the fire and control the smoke spread

Speaker 2 00:22:06:03 00:22:07:18 and save the civilians in the

Speaker 2 00:22:07:18 00:22:08:05 building.

Speaker 2 00:22:08:07 00:22:18:18 And it works effectively. And duck guns have been used for a very long time in the city of Chicago to get water through a window. If the fire’s out of the box, we like to say, put it back in the

Speaker 2 00:22:18:18 00:22:20:03 box. So when you can do that with

Speaker 2 00:22:20:03 00:22:22:18 an outside stream, it’s not an always tactic,

Speaker 2 00:22:22:18 00:22:24:03 but it’s not a never tactic

Speaker 2 00:22:24:03 00:22:24:20 either.

Speaker 2 00:22:24:23 00:22:28:03 And you all real guys that took math

Speaker 2 00:22:28:03 00:22:29:18 and science in high

Speaker 2 00:22:29:18 00:22:37:18 school and college have proved it to be effective, even though the naysayers all across the country don’t utilize it.

Speaker 1 00:22:37:25 00:22:41:07 And I feel like we could go for another two more hours.

Speaker 2 00:22:41:07 00:22:41:18 Oh, I

Speaker 2 00:22:41:18 00:22:44:18 don’t want to do that. Nobody wants to listen to me run my pie hole for two hours.

Speaker 1 00:22:45:12 00:22:59:06 Many things from this, from this discussion, from this conversation. And, number one on the list is that we need to have all these conversations because you have so much experience and welcome. And it was just awesome to get a glimpse.

Speaker 2 00:22:59:09 00:23:00:03 In your life. Well, you know,

Speaker 2 00:23:00:03 00:23:11:03 I, I had good mentors, I had good people that raised me on the job. I have three sons on the job now. My son Brian is in Arlington Heights. My son Kevin is Chicago, and my son Patrick is in Milwaukee.

Speaker 1 00:23:11:11 00:23:13:09 Wow, that’s a good Chicago name.

Speaker 2 00:23:13:12 00:23:13:18 Yeah.

Speaker 2 00:23:13:18 00:23:15:18 Well, you know, when you’re when you’re an Irish Catholic

Speaker 2 00:23:15:18 00:23:16:18 kid in Chicago, you

Speaker 2 00:23:16:18 00:23:18:03 don’t get a small list of

Speaker 2 00:23:18:03 00:23:19:18 names to choose from. And I

Speaker 2 00:23:19:18 00:23:22:03 have nephews on a job in Schaumburg in Oakland.

Speaker 2 00:23:22:03 00:23:23:18 So the the family

Speaker 2 00:23:23:18 00:23:25:18 went from a copper, a copper orientation

Speaker 2 00:23:25:18 00:23:26:18 to now all

Speaker 2 00:23:26:18 00:23:27:18 firefighting orientation.

Speaker 2 00:23:27:18 00:23:29:03 So so we have some

Speaker 2 00:23:29:03 00:23:34:27 skin in the game and all all of my nephews and my sons are into the job and into training and taking classes.

Speaker 2 00:23:35:00 00:23:39:03 And I think if any young firefighter, no matter where they are in the country or the world,

Speaker 2 00:23:39:03 00:23:40:18 you got to go to training,

Speaker 2 00:23:40:18 00:23:51:10 you got to you got to talk to other departments. You got to see what works, what doesn’t work. And then you have to be smart enough to to deep down, dig into it and make your own decisions as an adult as to what works best for you.

Speaker 2 00:23:51:16 00:23:54:03 And that’s how you get off the job healthy.

Speaker 1 00:23:54:12 00:23:55:25 Tim lost your legend.

Speaker 2 00:23:55:27 00:23:58:16 Oh, I don’t know about that, buddy. That’s very generous.

Speaker 1 00:23:58:18 00:24:01:18 And we’re going to have a lot more to hear from you up next.

Speaker 2 00:24:01:18 00:24:02:18 All right. Thanks, Gordon. I appreciate

Speaker 2 00:24:02:18 00:24:03:01 very much.

Have a question? Ask Tim Walsh!

E2 – Apartment Fire Mistakes That Cost Lives: Search, Water Supply & Nozzle Tactics w/ Payton Owens

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

Rebuilding trust and brotherhood when your department culture falls short
How to fight smarter in 3-story apartment fires—including common mistakes and nozzle tactics that matter
Managing water supply when hydrants fail and why low-pressure nozzles are gaining traction
The role of social media in building real connection across the fire service
How to break personal and generational cycles—and lead with purpose both on and off the fireground

Payton Owens is a leader in the Atlanta Metro fire community. He is a Captain with DeKalb County (GA) Fire Rescue, runs the Metro Atlanta FOOLS social media platform and founded Brothers Serving Brothers, a non-profit that helps firefighters in need.

View Transcript

00:00:00:00 – 00:00:06:18
Speaker 2
Homeless, beaten, molested, drug addicted parents, you name it. It’s kind of happened to me growing up.

00:00:06:18 – 00:00:17:12
Unknown
Heavy stuff from our guest today, Captain Peyton Owens from DeKalb County fire Rescue in metro Atlanta. He shares his plan for how to fix what he calls a brother hood problem.

00:00:17:12 – 00:00:20:09
Unknown
He shares tips for how to master apartment fires.

00:00:20:09 – 00:00:26:22
Speaker 2
So victims for one, I don’t know the layout of this, but if we’re putting a dart gun through that window

00:00:26:22 – 00:00:30:02
Unknown
It’s episode two of the fully Involved podcast.

00:00:32:17 – 00:00:38:12
Speaker 1
Peyton, you are a I like to call you the ringleader of the Atlanta firefighting scene.

00:00:38:12 – 00:00:45:15
Speaker 1
first of all, let’s just talk about your origin story. How did you get involved in the fire service and of your roots in the Atlanta area?

00:00:45:17 – 00:01:00:06
Speaker 2
Yeah. So, the whole social media thing, it all this story ties in together, and I’ll try my best not to make it long. But I don’t even like social media. Like, it’s just one of those things I didn’t like. But

00:01:00:06 – 00:01:08:18
Speaker 2
we have to adapt to change, right? And you have to reach to youth. And nowadays you hear a lot of people complain about the youth and they say, oh, these young kids are coming in.

00:01:08:18 – 00:01:28:15
Speaker 2
They don’t know this. They don’t know that. Well, they learn different than you did. We had encyclopedias that that we can look information up. Now you pull your phone out of your pocket and you can look it up right now. So the whole millennial arguments, dumb to me because Gen Xers raised millennials, so you only have yourself to blame and so on and so on.

00:01:28:17 – 00:01:29:10
Speaker 2
So

00:01:29:10 – 00:01:44:12
Speaker 2
I really got plugged in, hard on social media last year, and it’s all for my love of wanting to push the brotherhood forward. And, that stems from childhood.

00:01:44:12 – 00:02:02:23
Speaker 2
So I grew up, very poor. Homeless, beaten, molested, drug addicted parents, you name it. It’s kind of happened to me growing up. We lived in a for LTT for a few years, public housing, trailer parks, you name it.

00:02:03:03 – 00:02:25:00
Speaker 2
It’s it’s that happened to me. You know, my my parents, you know, the product of, the 70s. My mom was 15, my father was 17. They were young, didn’t really know what to do. You know, just stuff where, father put me in the trunk of a car when they went to the crack house one time, he forgot about me.

00:02:25:01 – 00:02:49:17
Speaker 2
He remembered five days later and came back and got me, so at 16, worked a third shift job, finished up high school, went out, moved out on my own. And, my wife and I had a child earlier. I was 21. She was 19. And, we both said, hey, we got to do something different. We get we’re bringing a child into this.

00:02:49:19 – 00:03:10:18
Speaker 2
We both are the first ones in our family to have a high school education. Insurance with a job, a 400 1KA college education. So we we broke the cycle, so we thought she went into nursing. She is a DNP. She is so much smarter than me. And I don’t deserve her but known each other our entire lives.

00:03:10:20 – 00:03:31:02
Speaker 2
I needed to do something, and, 911 happened. And growing up the way I did, I wanted people to look at me the way I looked at these heroes. And so I got into the fire service, and I thought that I had beaten the odds, broke the cycle of what? My family was here. I’ve got this great job.

00:03:31:02 – 00:03:55:23
Speaker 2
The best job in the entire world as a firefighter. And to go and solve people’s problems was awesome for me. Right? And so I’m in the service for several years. 2017 rolls around. We had some stuff happen. Unfortunately, my wife’s grandparents were killed by her cousin, and, he did some brutal things, but I had to break that news to her.

00:03:56:01 – 00:04:18:20
Speaker 2
Two days later, her Achilles tendon ruptured and she had to have surgery and was bedridden for 12 weeks. And, so and doing all that, I went on FMLA. This was in February of 17 and March of 17. I had not received a phone call in four weeks from anyone checking on me. How are you doing? What’s going on?

00:04:18:22 – 00:04:40:05
Speaker 2
Finally got a phone call from my company officer, but his first statement out of his mouth was I said hello. Hey, when are you coming back to work? One that’s illegal. You’re on FMLA, and two, how unethical I was. I was devastated, I hung up the phone, didn’t even say anything, I was devastated, I thought I had broken the odds.

00:04:40:07 – 00:05:03:13
Speaker 2
You know, beat life at its own game. Hand me, handed me all these things, and I made lemonade out of it. Right. And this job that I loved, that I thought I was a part of, a brotherhood was. And letting me down. And so I stayed out for six months, got my man right, talked with my wife, decided to go back and, she said, are you sure?

00:05:03:13 – 00:05:24:12
Speaker 2
I said, yes, and the reason I went back because I never wanted anything like that to happen to anyone again. So if I ever hear of a fireman out or a notice I had seen them at work, I call and check on them. I want to be that one phone call that that says there is a brotherhood. And, that’s where being a part of our local union comes from.

00:05:24:14 – 00:05:52:00
Speaker 2
I’m passionate about their teaching, instructing, Metro Atlanta Fools, our fundraising platform brothers serving brothers. And, that’s why I’m plugged in is, because I want people to know the brotherhood is alive. It’s here. It’s okay to take a picture and posted on social media. It’s okay to be passionate about this job and and to want to do it and be proud of and wear a t shirt.

00:05:52:02 – 00:05:56:05
Speaker 2
But all that being said, you got to put in the work.

00:05:56:07 – 00:06:07:01
Speaker 1
Well, first of all, mic drop and the interview right there. Can anybody thank you so much for sharing that. It’s that is heavy and beautiful and.

00:06:07:03 – 00:06:08:08
Speaker 2
Well, thank you.

00:06:08:10 – 00:06:11:15
Speaker 1
Again. It takes guts to be that.

00:06:11:17 – 00:06:12:10
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.

00:06:12:12 – 00:06:14:16
Speaker 1
And you’ve got the biggest biceps of anybody here.

00:06:14:21 – 00:06:17:01
Speaker 2
Yeah, I don’t know about that, but.

00:06:17:03 – 00:06:42:22
Speaker 1
I just think that that’s a cool example that tough guys can in. Thank you for us. When it comes to the technical part for the job, tell me just a little bit about what it means to be at Camp Tony. Firefighter. Give me a look back at the face for kind of what the Camp Tony is. What kind of building construction, how many, stations are in?

00:06:43:02 – 00:06:48:00
Speaker 1
You know, the county just what are some of the ABC? Yeah, camp fire front.

00:06:48:02 – 00:07:09:13
Speaker 2
So one, we’re we’re top tier in Georgia, and everybody should think that about their department and their station and their battalion and their crew and their shift. You know, it just keeps trickling down. You should have the best crew on the best shift in the best battalion at the best department in the best state. And so, I truly believe that about the cab county.

00:07:09:13 – 00:07:30:01
Speaker 2
We have a long, rich history here in Georgia. The metro Atlanta falls were brought in by a DeKalb County firefighter, several DeKalb County firefighters, but once specifically Bill Craddick, he brought it in in 2000, and he died in the line of duty in 2006. And he taught firefighter safety and survival and RIT. He was very passionate about that.

00:07:30:07 – 00:07:48:07
Speaker 2
And we’ve continue that tradition and still teach his class today through metro Atlanta Falls. But, DeKalb just has a long history of hard nosed, just down and dirty firefighters. Right. We’re.

00:07:48:12 – 00:07:49:17
Speaker 1
Complex.

00:07:49:19 – 00:08:15:16
Speaker 2
Everything. So we have everything from Dunwoody all the way down to to, Stonecrest Stone mountain area, 270mi². We have 26 stations. We have about 750 firefighters, three shifts. We still run 2448. We are I think we have two quints left, so we’re phasing those out. Our trucks don’t have pumps anymore that are coming in.

00:08:15:18 – 00:08:34:03
Speaker 2
You just got two new tillers. We had the first southern TDA to be built since, like the early 80s, when they got back in the TDA game, it was here at FDIC on the showroom floor three years ago. That is the truck I ride on at station 23. Best station in DeKalb County. Best truck crew. Best engine crew.

00:08:34:05 – 00:08:59:15
Speaker 2
They’re absolutely wonderful. They’re all passenger. They want to learn, they want to go to fires. And. Look, we don’t want anybody. Stuff destroyed. But if a fire happens, we want to be the ones who show up. And, DeKalb does have a pretty significant heavy fire. Load my apartment. Our my territory has 82 apartment complexes in it, which is why we have a tiller.

00:08:59:17 – 00:09:21:23
Speaker 2
We have 107 different languages. So it’s, the number two area in the country where refugees come over outside of Seattle. And then Utah is right up there with us in Clarkston, Georgia. Vertical apartment. Yeah. So, we have everything from your garden style to your two, three split, two on the front, three on the back.

00:09:22:01 – 00:09:47:09
Speaker 2
The majority of stuff is breezeway, but we do have a lot that, that are three story and has a stairwell in the front, but you can only access the other side from from the Charlie side. So we ride our territory a lot. We hose stretch a lot. You know, getting the younger guys to be able to judge that distance, choose the right hand line.

00:09:47:11 – 00:10:18:19
Speaker 2
The right nozzle, whether it be a smoothbore fog nozzle. Yes. So I’m a fog nozzle guy straight from the start, you know, that is more so my nozzle of choice. Especially if it’s in the attic, then, I definitely, definitely want to choose, a fog nozzle, but with Sean Gray teaching me a lot of things with Ewell and things like that, you know, going down a hallway with a fog nozzle and 30 degree pattern cover covering floor, ceiling and walls.

00:10:18:21 – 00:10:42:21
Speaker 2
They do show studies. If it’s just a room and content that’s ventilated. Yes, you do push heat and smoke out, but we can, you know, effect a victim’s airway in the room next over. So, I think a fog nozzle is still a good choice if we can start getting in and compartmentalizing things first. And, that just kind of goes and starts.

00:10:42:23 – 00:10:44:19
Speaker 2
That’s a good thing.

00:10:44:21 – 00:11:02:15
Speaker 1
So I’m curious. You know, I love to get kind of, glimpse inside your brain. I love talking to people who are so passionate about this. I’d love to show you a video and just kind of let you do, like, a John Madden. And if you’re going to, you know, we’re talking about two, three story apartment buildings.

00:11:02:15 – 00:11:24:11
Speaker 1
This is a very familiar problem. The firefighters, experience. Not everybody is in New York with 100 story building. Most of America is going to be an apartment fire on the second floor. So tell me, where does your eye immediately go to this fire here. Is that the smoke? Is it the flames or what are you reading in this situation?

00:11:24:13 – 00:11:45:19
Speaker 2
So pulling up on on this, My eyes, the flames are the flames. I don’t need to look at them. They’re they’re already blowing out. My big thing is this Ave here coming up. Smoke blowing out, kind of covering up. It’s already in the attic. It’s trying to bust out of the attic, and, that’s that’s where my eyes are going to.

00:11:45:19 – 00:11:59:07
Speaker 2
Windows open. Is vented fires coming out? It is what it is. I don’t need to look at that. I don’t need to get caught up in that. I need to get caught up in where the fire is not yet, and try to get there and stop it from spreading. We see it coming out of the, the roof here.

00:11:59:07 – 00:12:24:10
Speaker 2
So for me, this is a fog nozzle all day long going in and dropping rock and. But because in an attic, if it’s if it’s starting to burn through as we get there and I take a smoothbore up there, that solid stream is going to go through that hole and water the grass and, you know, as this aerial ops, this area right here spraying the line, and it’s just going to shoot out.

00:12:24:12 – 00:12:47:06
Speaker 2
And we’re not we’re not getting the conversion that we need. And in an attic, could there be life of there? Absolutely. Firemen could play the game their favorite game. What if they’re second favorite game is I would have but I would want to go up, drop sheet rock and and get, 30, 45 degree fog up in there and create create more steam, smaller water

00:12:47:06 – 00:12:53:21
Speaker 2
droplets, get in there and put this thing out and keep it from spreading, which when it looks like they’re doing, they’re getting good conversion.

00:12:55:01 – 00:13:06:04
Speaker 1
Tell me about, What monitor what you’re using monitor in that situation, Brown or Decker either. Either. Neither.

00:13:06:06 – 00:13:16:10
Speaker 2
So victims for one, I don’t know the layout of this, but if we’re putting a dart gun through that window and we’re talking thousands of games and a lot of RPS.

00:13:17:03 – 00:13:40:08
Speaker 2
And we hit a victim with that, or we knock down loose debris or a cabinet, a dresser, and we blow it into these, these victims and hurt them. That’s we’re not doing our job. And so if we could get a crew in there and start putting water and clear search and put a line in place to hold the fire back, clear a search, and then if we needed to go to that gun.

00:13:40:08 – 00:13:48:17
Speaker 2
Cool. But, we we definitely. I don’t like putting that gun through a window until I can confirm there’s no victims inside.

00:13:48:21 – 00:13:50:12
Speaker 1
What’s one of the biggest mistakes

00:13:50:12 – 00:13:55:17
Speaker 1
that you see young firefighters made of a three story apartment?

00:13:55:18 – 00:14:29:16
Speaker 2
Is clearing the structure first. Like, we get so small to a flame, we go to a lot of apartment, to fires in the cab. Just like Chicago’s great at high rise. We’re great. We’re we’re we’re probably one of the best. We are the best at apartment fires in the southeast. No doubt we go to a lot of them, and we cut them off early, but, getting the the rest of the victims or potential victims, residents out of their homes and cutting that thing off in the attic, lot of common attics and apartments.

00:14:29:18 – 00:14:40:13
Speaker 2
And people want to go to see the fire instead of getting something open and a breezeway, cut the path of clear the structure and then going and start and trying to take that fire.

00:14:40:15 – 00:14:54:22
Speaker 1
What kinds of water mapping discussions do you have over time? Why don’t you close with strong grace and sort of the school of thought? You mentioned, you said 30 degree angle.

00:14:54:22 – 00:14:59:07
Speaker 2
Was that a 30 degree fog? Yeah. You know.

00:14:59:09 – 00:15:04:01
Speaker 1
Tell me about an angle of attack. How does that come into play head on?

00:15:04:02 – 00:15:27:16
Speaker 2
Like, we don’t stretch draw hose lines for sure. I’m not a big slowing as you’re going. I think it can slow you down, but, we want we want that line charge, and I want a direct hit on attack. Conditions warrant. We start seeing fire fingers or snakes, whichever you call them in your region.

00:15:27:19 – 00:15:49:05
Speaker 2
We got to open that. We got to open that barrel up. And, you know, we know that there’s no cases of firemen that’s died with an open belt in a flashover because it can’t flashover. Right. And so, getting to the scene of the fire as quickly as possible with that nozzle, I don’t care which nozzle you use.

00:15:49:05 – 00:15:52:02
Speaker 2
Get to see the fire.

00:15:52:03 – 00:16:05:06
Speaker 1
So looking at the other end of the equation, tell me about water supply. Is there some time you can remember where the hydrants either failed or you have low pressure? Or tell me about supply issues.

00:16:05:08 – 00:16:07:20
Speaker 2
So, yes.

00:16:07:22 – 00:16:09:16
Speaker 1
Do you respond in, in rural calls.

00:16:09:18 – 00:16:29:12
Speaker 2
So I don’t but I do like a part time where, have shuttled I’ve done shuttle operations. I actually have a video of me pulling up on a old, Freightliner mid mount, and, we drafted from the swimming pool and hit it with a deck gun. Thanksgiving of 23.

00:16:29:13 – 00:16:31:08
Speaker 1
What was the key to making that happen?

00:16:32:09 – 00:16:34:20
Speaker 1
How did you how did you get water from the swimming pool?

00:16:34:22 – 00:16:59:11
Speaker 2
Drafting. Right. Yeah. So we just pulled in the backyard and, through two sections of, hard suction hose over and. No, no, no, no, I put a little strainer on it, but tied a break to it there, and it was just there to cap it down. And, we went about it that way. But, we do have a barber and complex in the cab where we don’t maintain their hydrant.

00:16:59:11 – 00:17:15:19
Speaker 2
So once it gets into that private property, it’s up to them. And to save money, they do go to the entrance and they’ll turn down the, the valve coming in. So there’s not as much pressure. And that does cause problems.

00:17:15:21 – 00:17:18:17
Speaker 1
How do you overcome pressure?

00:17:18:19 – 00:17:45:11
Speaker 2
So we, we had a wonderful, wonderful. He was a captain or firefighter all the way through. Captain ended up making, par seven at our department, which is. And, shift chief. Bill Smith, God rest his soul, he, he was huge on water supply and, was huge on getting water to that that the engine second and engine better be getting a water supply.

00:17:45:11 – 00:18:17:04
Speaker 2
And we had issues in the past where that second engine wanted to bypass that assignment and get in there. Hydrants fail. And so. So, Chief Smith made sure that we knew how to get a water supply. So we have a hydrant that fails. Wasn’t good. We have worked over the years to make sure we know how to one get some three inch to that first engine from that second one sitting there, start nursing and then that buys us some time so we can grab a second hydrant, reverse layout and pump it.

00:18:17:05 – 00:18:18:16
Speaker 1
To use and take those.

00:18:18:17 – 00:18:20:04
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.

00:18:20:06 – 00:18:21:22
Speaker 1
And some people say I don’t need a new take.

00:18:21:23 – 00:18:47:23
Speaker 2
So, so we have, we only carry, our five inch intakes on the front bumper of the seat man side and the seat side. So we don’t have any intakes on our driver panel because we want that free and clear. Unless a line has to come off right there. We carry three cross sleighs. But but yeah, I do like a lot of the new stuff that’s came out.

00:18:47:23 – 00:18:55:11
Speaker 2
We don’t really other than just a, sports adapter, a 45 degree turn down. We hook right to that.

00:18:55:13 – 00:18:58:09
Speaker 1
What do you miss? If you don’t, they’re going to take.

00:18:58:11 – 00:19:23:21
Speaker 2
Water all right? Yeah. It’s, It’s, it’s just one of those things that that you need it. Well, why would you not, you can be on your side. You can. You can on the driver’s side. Hook up and you can be ready. And that hydrant opens, you can press or you can turn whether it’s manual, electronic or whatever, and have that and that water intake coming in right then.

00:19:23:21 – 00:19:27:02
Speaker 1
So very interesting.

00:19:27:04 – 00:19:53:10
Speaker 2
So one on one problem I do see is, newer drivers that switch over from tank water to hydrant pressure and opening that intake valve and taking it in, it’s, you know, we still run TPMs. I know a lot of people use pressure governors and they rely on that too much to relieve that pressure. But we’ve got to have drivers that think so as you’re opening that you need to get back on those lines.

00:19:53:13 – 00:20:14:13
Speaker 2
Those guys are own guys and gals. As firefighters are on and be able to reduce that pressure as it comes in and then start opening that line back up once your pressure regulates coming in. Because and those firefighters on in that nozzle take a beating even with 50 PSR nozzles now and and reduce nozzle reaction.

00:20:14:15 – 00:20:20:01
Speaker 1
You know anything about low pressure solutions and just that whole conversation.

00:20:20:03 – 00:20:46:22
Speaker 2
So I like it. If they could make a fog nozzle it’s 25 because I’d I’d be all for that. It’s just it’s better if we can reduce what we’re pumping these lines and take nozzle reaction off. They move into the seat of the fire quicker. And, with that nozzle reaction, if you don’t train on it all the time and you can’t move this nozzle forward because it’s so much pressure pushing back on you, what ends up happening?

00:20:47:00 – 00:21:15:02
Speaker 2
There’s there’s one way to alleviate that. And it’s gate back on on your bale. And then your driver sees that he’s working his rear end off and you know, he didn’t know you get it back. So he sees reduced pressure. He pumps it up and so if we could get some lower pressures and know that we could pump these things a little lower and get the same volume of water and lines could flow and go, you could open a line up and hold it in one hand and move it forward.

00:21:15:04 – 00:21:16:21
Speaker 2
That’d be great.

00:21:16:23 – 00:21:22:02
Speaker 1
That’s awesome. So tell me, this is how we met. First was on social media.

00:21:22:03 – 00:21:22:13
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.

00:21:22:16 – 00:21:24:23
Speaker 1
Started posting things you say?

00:21:25:01 – 00:21:27:22
Speaker 2
Yes. I’m so excited about it.

00:21:28:00 – 00:21:31:15
Speaker 1
Please explain why you’re excited about.

00:21:31:17 – 00:21:56:03
Speaker 2
So, excited. And the Thursday as, Because being as plugged in with social media as I am, I love sharing people’s videos of the great work that they do. And we all share a lot of our stuff as well. But I like to highlight when firefighters do great things. I’m a huge component of vertical ventilation, a huge component of going through the front door and attacking this thing.

00:21:56:05 – 00:22:19:09
Speaker 2
Huge component, searching viable space for. Yes. And and, when you post these videos, you say, man, these guys did a great job. Atta boy. The trolls come out, and I get there’s a lot of bots out there and people just are trying to beat their chest or drive people to their page or be the one, one guy that you know knows more than you do.

00:22:19:13 – 00:22:44:11
Speaker 2
And it’s all good. But it’s also, disheartening to to see this. And what where people lack is that they think because what they do in their department and their bubble, that that’s the only way to do it. And going on the roof works in DeKalb County, but it may not work in rural Georgia, where they only have engines and they have four engines show up.

00:22:44:11 – 00:23:09:04
Speaker 2
But there’s only six people, you know, manpower. And I get it. Or maybe out in, the Phoenix area. And I’m not saying they don’t go vertical. I just know the the building construction roofs are different with these clay tiles and things. It may be harder to get up there. Not these tiles. All. And so, searching, like, maybe it doesn’t work.

00:23:09:06 – 00:23:35:08
Speaker 2
And where you are, it works for us. Doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Just means you need to train on it or, get outside your bubble and see that there’s different tactics. And just because your SOGs, your SOPs are your way of doing things where you are doesn’t mean that it’s wrong. And that’s why I love what you guys have coming out, going around and talking to people and showcasing their and highlighting that.

00:23:35:10 – 00:24:05:12
Speaker 2
So maybe we can at least start having the conversation that it’s okay to have different tactics. They work as long as it keeps the citizen safe. Number one, and the fire goes out number two and then keeps us safe. Number three mission always. You know, mission always. Firefighter second, it’s Chief Mo Butler, but mission always. Right. And, our safety comes third.

00:24:05:14 – 00:24:16:06
Speaker 2
And, it doesn’t matter what your tactic is, as long as it’s safe and does those things in complete submission, then it’s okay. Keep keep running that tactic.

00:24:16:08 – 00:24:22:09
Speaker 1
What’s the tactic you’re looking forward to seeing? That’s an episode that you want to see. The series?

00:24:22:11 – 00:24:43:06
Speaker 2
I would just, I’m always it’s always funny seeing West Coast and East Coast firefighters. You know, I feel like we have that, that battle, no matter what it is. If it’s, rap with Biggie and Tupac or, you know, firefighters, what’s a tanker? What’s a tender one has the wings. One doesn’t. Depends on where you are.

00:24:43:08 – 00:24:51:10
Speaker 2
If you say, tender has wings, you’re wrong. But it’s okay. Yeah. My.

00:24:51:12 – 00:24:53:13
Speaker 1
Yeah. Tell me why that’s wrong.

00:24:53:15 – 00:25:17:23
Speaker 2
It’s just a, a verbiage thing for me, right? Tenders. Tenders are on wheels and and tankers fly, tankers fly and, water out west. We don’t really have wild land around here. And, a tender is just that is tendering that engine. So, it’s, a verbiage thing for me, but yeah, just, you know, I know the East Coast is huge on ladders.

00:25:17:23 – 00:25:44:18
Speaker 2
You look at, fire from Boston or anywhere in Massachusetts. There’s six ladders on every side of the building, all at different angles, all at different heights. Then you go a little more west, let’s say Texas, and you may see a ladder. And Boston guys will see this one, this one video of this fire in Texas where they have a ladder and you’re like, oh, you’re wrong.

00:25:44:20 – 00:26:10:18
Speaker 2
Well are they you know, the two stories with, converted attic on the East Coast needs all those ladders. They’re chopped up, a newer construction house in Texas where there’s a boom of residential. It doesn’t need all those ladders. Big open space. It’s, I want a slab. You know, there’s no basement, and it’s easy egress on that.

00:26:10:20 – 00:26:14:02
Speaker 1
And we’re. Peyton, is there anything we didn’t cover? Okay.

00:26:14:04 – 00:26:41:08
Speaker 2
No, I just, Man, I can talk about this stuff all day, and, I just want people to be passionate about the job. If you if you decide you want to take the oath, whether it’s volunteer or paid, you still, we were not drafted. There’s no fire service draft. So if you’re choosing on your own to serve the citizens of wherever it is, give it 100%.

00:26:41:10 – 00:26:58:17
Speaker 2
I had a mentor tell me one time, I don’t care what you do in life. You’re a ditch digger. Be a ditch digger, but be the best ditch digger out there, you know. Have pride in your work. When you’re done digging that ditch, it should be symmetrical. It should be smooth. And, you know, don’t just throw dirt it, though.

00:26:58:18 – 00:27:08:20
Speaker 2
Throw dirt. Know why you’re doing it. And it’s the same thing in the fire service. Love your community, love your your station, love your department, and love your brothers.

00:27:08:22 – 00:27:11:07
Speaker 1
Amen to that pain. Thank you so much for coming on.

00:27:11:10 – 00:27:13:11
Speaker 2
Yes, sir. Well, thank you for having me.

00:27:13:13 – 00:27:18:10
Speaker 1
County. And what’s, what equipment do you want us to bring? To play with.

00:27:18:14 – 00:27:43:00
Speaker 2
All of it. So, my personal opinion, the blitz fire is probably by far the best, best, best piece of equipment you guys have have made the blitz fires are awesome, especially the one that oscillates on its own. I love that, I love the angles that they get down there. Almost shooting straight ahead doesn’t move. You know, strip mall fires.

00:27:43:01 – 00:27:45:23
Speaker 2
Wonderful. I’ve used them several time. I’ve has.

00:27:46:01 – 00:27:47:11
Speaker 1
The strip mall fires.

00:27:47:13 – 00:28:12:04
Speaker 2
Taking those windows out and setting up unmanned. I can put it there as flow and water where I need it to flow. Water. Don’t have to sit there and have someone, monitor it because it’s not going to move. That thing’s not going to have once I pointed at locks in is good to go. I can use that firefighter somewhere else instead of just using my manpower to babysit a monitor.

00:28:12:06 – 00:28:34:21
Speaker 2
And it because it’s doing what it needs to do. I was on hazmat for several years and, I’ve had fuel spills, fires where we’ve used the blitz fire school dating, throwing foam foam through it, throws that nice blanket down. You can kind of control the speed of how fast it goes back and forth, how far, you know, just like a fan.

00:28:34:21 – 00:28:38:00
Speaker 2
And, it’s just great. Great product.

00:28:38:01 – 00:28:39:09
Speaker 1
If you use the foam.

00:28:39:10 – 00:28:40:15
Speaker 2
We have.

00:28:40:16 – 00:28:41:07
Speaker 1
Schools.

00:28:41:08 – 00:28:41:21
Speaker 2
Yes, sir.

00:28:42:00 – 00:28:43:04
Speaker 1
Interesting.

00:28:43:06 – 00:28:57:00
Speaker 2
We have, you know, it’s got the low pressure setting, for us. We’ve found the low pressure setting works better throw in foam with it, but, yeah, it works great. Now. Nothing against any manufacturer but

00:28:57:10 – 00:29:02:07
Speaker 2
but they’re also, they’re also like a Cadillac, old.

00:29:02:10 – 00:29:10:15
Speaker 2
They’re 27ft long. They weigh 27 pounds. So they’re, they’re hard to use. I mean, they are not.

00:29:10:17 – 00:29:18:19
Speaker 1
Yeah. What? So tell me about a problem. Like, why would you ever need one attack? You might be able to get them. Go tell me why even.

00:29:18:21 – 00:29:38:09
Speaker 2
Yeah. So you can scoot back further from your structure. And we’re talking about a strip mall fire. We’re always worried about, that that, partition wall up top may be falling off. And if I can’t get down past that 45 degrees, you have to get pretty close in order for that angle to get inside that strip mall fire.

00:29:38:11 – 00:30:00:05
Speaker 2
But if I can scoot back and have it at a better, straighter angle, I don’t have to worry about that collapse on. And, you know, we’ve seen that several times, in the past, just last year, you know, Houston had a line of duty, death, six feet from the building, some material falling on a firefighter.

00:30:00:07 – 00:30:33:18
Speaker 2
We all seen burn, right? The Detroit documenting documentary years ago. And the firefighter that struggled with, with being paralyzed after that collapse and was just so close. But if we can scoot back and be a far away, if we’re defensive, then then, that low angle definitely helps on that. Hazmat. If I need to bank it off or something and drop that foam, then sometimes I need that low angle because, you know, tanker fire.

00:30:33:20 – 00:30:43:08
Speaker 2
Right? And stuff going to burn down low. And, that 45 is going to shoot right over, and I’m just going to do the rain down method and waste my foam.

00:30:43:10 – 00:30:53:13
Speaker 1
Okay, cool. So we’ll bring down a truck full of what’s fires. Yeah. Camp. And are we going to eat, Jason’s. You can take that. Jason’s. No.

00:30:53:15 – 00:31:16:07
Speaker 2
No, no. So barbecue’s always good, but we’re going to get outside the city a little bit. Come over Athens, Moore, where I live, and, mama’s boys probably going to have to be me. The spot. So mama’s boys over in Athens is great. They do biscuits, biscuits and gravy, French toast. They do a peach marmalade on their fridge.

00:31:16:12 – 00:31:18:01
Speaker 2
French toast.

00:31:18:03 – 00:31:19:12
Speaker 1
I mean, it’s good stuff.

00:31:19:15 – 00:31:21:06
Speaker 2
Yeah, absolutely.

00:31:21:08 – 00:31:24:18
Speaker 1
Peyton, thanks so much. Thank you, sir, and it was a real pleasure.

00:31:24:20 – 00:31:26:14
Speaker 2
Yeah. Thank you so much for having me.

Have a question? Ask Payton Owens!

E1 – Myths That Are Holding Firefighters Back: Sean Gray on Nozzles, Water Mapping & Fire Attack

This episode is for firefighters who want to learn more about:

The truth about steam expansion, exterior streams, nozzle selection, and myths that still hold firefighters back
How water mapping, nozzle movement, and stream placement make or break fire attack effectiveness
Why tools like smooth bore nozzles and low-attack monitors like the BlitzFire give firefighters better control on both residential and commercial fires
Real-world fire behavior reading, troubleshooting flow problems, and how new research is validating evolving search tactics
Sean Gray is on the FSRI Training Advisory Committee and Advisory Board, is an FDIC speaker, co-author of The Evolving Fireground and a Captain in the Cobb County (GA) Fire Department.

View Transcript

Speaker 1: Alpha Delta corner of the home system.

Speaker 2: Have you seen this video?

Speaker 1: Before? Never seen it.

Speaker 2: How are you that good?

Speaker 1: I guess because I’ve watched a lot of videos—watch a lot of game film.

Narrator: Our guest today is Captain Sean Gray from Cobb County Fire in Georgia. He’s a national instructor. He’s an author. And we’re going to answer questions like: Are we teaching steam expansion wrong? What myths are out there about exterior streams? And how can you overcome line flow problems? We’re debunking some common wisdom you’ve been taught with the debunker himself.

Speaker 2: All right, Sean, when I saw you, I said I got starstruck because we had the great fortune of shooting—I think it was five episodes—with you.

Speaker 2: Really appreciate you giving us some pearls of wisdom.

Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me for that. It was really special to be in Cobb County and to be able to film that. So we’re super excited to see them come out.

Speaker 2: Tell me about what we did, just for those who don’t know. I mean, what do you remember about that day? What was our mission?

Speaker 1: The mission is to get some short snippets of exactly what you can do with your nozzle, and how extinguishment is really the key to everything. We were trying to show all the different ways—from interior to exterior streams, to streams while people are in the middle of searching—all of that. But not be afraid of water, and really try to talk to the fire service about that. To be able to search opposite of hose lines. That’s something we haven’t done in a long time because we thought we were going to get injured by streams. So we’re trying to educate people that they’re really not all that harmful.

Speaker 2: So tell me what is misunderstood about that?

Speaker 1: The misunderstanding is that in some of our textbooks it used to say steam expands by 1,700 times—so when you put water into a hotter environment, if someone’s in there searching, you could push fire or steam and gases onto other firefighters, causing injury. That’s simply not the case. We now know you get massive gas contraction when you put water on the fire. Those gases contract—they don’t expand as we previously thought. These old stories stuck in people’s minds even though they hadn’t experienced them. So now we’re taking research, applying it to experience, and making sure firefighters know better, faster, safer ways to operate.

Speaker 2: How do you approach controversial topics? You’re not afraid to speak your mind—even if it’s not a popular stance.

Speaker 1: About 15 years ago, exterior streams were very controversial. I was one of the first to put together a class and get out there speaking about it. I got a lot of hate—especially on social media. I created the “Stop Believing, Start Knowing” Facebook page, which was very controversial at the start. Now over time, with more research, the conversation has evolved. Many of the people who originally spoke against it have done a complete 180. That’s encouraging. I felt confident because I had research to back up what I was saying.

Speaker 2: I know you’re a big Q guy. Where do you fit into that national nozzle conversation?

Speaker 1: With today’s technology and low-pressure nozzles—smoothbore or fog—I don’t care which one, but if you’re using fog, make sure it’s set right. I tell my new guys to check every morning that it’s all the way to the right—straight stream, not fog. But I prefer smoothbore because firefighters can’t mess it up. It’s just open and close. Fog takes more finesse. You can still do hydraulic ventilation with a smoothbore, so I stick with it because it’s simple and effective.

Speaker 2: Your partner in crime, PJ Norwood, is a big water mapping guy. How important is that to you?

Speaker 1: Water mapping is huge. In my class, I show a video from Cobb County where a firefighter with 8 years on the job hadn’t really been trained on water mapping. He flowed water into a window but whipped the nozzle all around—didn’t let the stream work. The fire wasn’t extinguished. Then they went interior and got hung up in hoarding conditions. A rookie showed up, it was his first fire, and his nozzle movement was perfect—because he had trained on the water mapping prop. He did a textbook knockdown from outside with smooth movement, and extinguished the fire. It made all the difference.

Speaker 2: What do haters usually say?

Speaker 1: Some people say, “Why do I need to know about water droplets and how they move?” Old manuals used to show water hitting the ceiling and dropping straight down like tennis balls—that’s not how it works. Water moves across surfaces and takes out heat and gases, ultimately removing flashover conditions. You still have to get water to the base of the fire, but understanding how water behaves is essential.

Speaker 2: Alright—you’re on a desert island with a bunch of firefighters. You get one nozzle. What do you take?

Speaker 1: 7/8″ smoothbore tip, no hesitation. It flows 160 GPM and is very manageable on a smaller hose. We’ve used that flow to put out big fires in research burns. It’s not about needing massive GPM—it’s about putting water in the right place and having the hose maneuverability to do it.

Speaker 2: We haven’t talked much about monitors. What common problems can ground monitors like the Blitzfire solve?

**Speaker 1

instead of naming it speaker 1 and speaker 2 can you please have them listed as Gordon and Sean? or whatever the professional way to do it would be?

Absolutely — here’s your cleaned-up transcript with timestamps removed, paragraph formatting applied, and speaker names professionally labeled as Gordon and Sean, based on the context of the episode:

Sean: Alpha Delta corner of the home system.

Gordon: Have you seen this video?

Sean: Before? Never seen it.

Gordon: How are you that good?

Sean: I guess because I’ve watched a lot of videos—watched a lot of game film.

Narrator: Our guest today is Captain Sean Gray from Cobb County Fire in Georgia. He’s a national instructor, he’s an author, and we’re going to answer questions like: Are we teaching steam expansion wrong? What myths are out there about exterior streams? And how can you overcome line flow problems? We’re debunking some common wisdom you’ve been taught—with the debunker himself.

Gordon: Sean, when I saw you, I got a little starstruck because we had the great fortune of shooting—I think it was five episodes—with you.

Gordon: Really appreciate you giving us some pearls of wisdom.

Sean: Thank you so much for having me. It was really special to be in Cobb County and film that. We’re super excited to see it come out.

Gordon: Tell me about what we did, just for those who don’t know. What do you remember about that day and our mission?

Sean: The mission was to get short snippets of exactly what you can do with your nozzle and show that extinguishment is the key to everything. We covered interior and exterior streams, water application during search operations, and emphasized not being afraid of water. We wanted to show that it’s okay to search opposite the hose line—something we got away from because of fear of injury from streams. We’re trying to educate firefighters that water isn’t as harmful as we thought.

Gordon: What’s misunderstood about that?

Sean: A lot. Some textbooks used to say steam expands 1,700 times when water turns to vapor, which made people believe putting water into a hot environment could injure searching firefighters by pushing fire or steam onto them. That’s simply not the case. We now know it causes gas contraction. Once water hits the fire, gases contract— they don’t expand. The steam injury idea came from stories passed around the firehouse, not personal experience. Now we have research to back this up. Combine that with experience and you make firefighters better, faster, and safer.

Gordon: You’re not afraid to take controversial stances. How do you approach that?

Sean: About 15 years ago, exterior streams were very controversial. I was one of the first to build a class around it and speak publicly. I took a lot of heat—especially online—so I created the “Stop Believing, Start Knowing” Facebook page. It was very controversial early on. But now with more research and real-world validation, things have evolved. Even people who spoke out against it have since come around. It’s encouraging to see that shift.

Gordon: I know you’re a big fan of the Q. Where do you fit into the national nozzle conversation?

Sean: With today’s technology—low-pressure nozzles, smoothbore or fog—I really don’t care what you use as long as you use it right. If it’s a fog nozzle, I tell my guys to check it every morning and make sure it’s on straight stream—right, not left. I personally prefer smoothbore because it’s simple and hard to screw up. It’s just open and close. Fog nozzles take more discipline. And you can still teach hydraulic ventilation with a smoothbore.

Gordon: Your partner in crime, PJ Norwood, is big on water mapping. How important is that to you?

Sean: Water mapping is huge. In my class, I show a video from Cobb County where a firefighter with eight years on the job flows water through a window but whips the nozzle all over. The fire didn’t go out—just got knocked down. Then the crew got stuck inside due to hoarding conditions. A rookie—on his first fire—showed up and did a textbook knockdown because he had trained with the water mapping prop. He didn’t know any different. His nozzle control was perfect, and he got complete extinguishment. That’s the power of training.

Gordon: What do the haters say?

Sean: A lot of them say, “Why do I need to know about water droplets and how they travel?” Old training manuals had pictures showing water hitting the ceiling and dropping like tennis balls. That’s not what happens. Water moves across surfaces, cools gases, and eliminates flashover potential. You still need to get water to the base of the fire, but understanding what the water is doing is critical.

Gordon: Alright, you’re on a desert island with a bunch of firefighters. You only get one nozzle. What are you bringing?

Sean: 7/8″ smoothbore tip, no hesitation. It flows at 160 GPM and is easier to manage on a smaller line. We’ve put out massive fires with that flow in research burns. It’s not about needing more GPM—it’s about placing water in the right spot and having maneuverability.

Gordon: We haven’t really talked about monitors. What’s a common problem you think monitors—especially ground monitors—can solve?

Sean: A good example is a warehouse fire in defensive ops. Standard monitors shoot up into the ceiling, and that water just bounces off. It doesn’t extinguish anything. With the Blitzfire, you can get the nozzle angle really low—right onto the burning fuel. That gives better extinguishment. It’s engineered to allow you to get lower than most monitors.

Gordon: And what happens if you can’t hit those fuels?

Sean: You’re basically wasting water. You can try to flip the monitor sideways to get a better angle, but it’s a workaround. Why not design a nozzle that can hit what you need to hit?

Gordon: The mechanics matter too, right?

Sean: Yeah. With higher flow rates, monitors can walk or shift. But you guys figured out how to engineer around that, so you can aim low and still maintain stability.

Gordon (paraphrased): On my department, we had a call where we had to work from the street because we couldn’t get close. The deck gun couldn’t get under the eave, and we didn’t have a ground monitor. Had to use handlines—and we struggled. We just didn’t have the right tool for the job.

Paul Neely (TFT): If your monitor won’t go below 10 degrees, you can’t make the front door, the windows, or the garage. You’re limited.

Gordon: What’s the last problem you encountered like that?

Sean: There’s one on almost every fire. That’s the nature of firefighting—constant problem-solving. But one of the most common is thinking your flow rate is off when it’s actually a kink in the line. I always tell my firefighters: when you check your stream at the front door, you need to know what proper flow looks like. If something’s wrong, it’s usually a kink, not the pump pressure. Before you call the pump operator, fix your line.

Gordon: Alright, let’s put you in Madden mode. If I show you a video, can you break it down live?

Sean: Sure.

Gordon: This one’s from your “Stop Believing, Start Knowing” page.

Sean: Alright.

Gordon: Your eyes go to a bunch of different things right away—how does your brain process it?

Sean: First, I’m looking at the size of the building. We’ve got heavy involvement in about a third of the front. Don’t let the light show scare you—this is an inch-and-three-quarter fire. We don’t need massive water. People take “big fire, big water” too literally. Not here. This is a 1,500 sq. ft. residential structure. You need maneuverability. I’d hit this from the exterior first, then go interior, pull ceiling, and get water into the attic. But there’s also a lot of searchable space—windows off to the left. We’ve got power lines popping too, so you need to be situationally aware. But yeah, this is an inch-and-three-quarter line all day.

Gordon: Some folks get nervous about the smoke, though.

Sean: Yeah, but this fire’s showing itself. If it were just smoke, I’d look at the volume, velocity, density, and color to read it. But this one is already through the roof—it’s giving itself away. That alpha delta corner is where I’d go.

Gordon: You’ve seen this before?

Sean: Nope. Never seen it.

Gordon: How are you that good?

Sean: I watch a lot of videos. Study a lot of game film.

Gordon: No wonder your page has 273,000 followers.

Sean: Yeah, and it’s all about evolving the fireground. We’re working on the second edition of The Evolving Fireground now. I’ve contributed to other books too—like the fire behavior chapter in Fire Engineering’s Firefighter I & II textbook.

Gordon: What can we expect in the new edition?

Sean: More research. The search chapter, for example, is based on what we do in Cobb County. Now the FSRI search study validates it—closing doors, VES, getting victims out windows first. We’ve been doing that a long time, and it’s great to see the science confirm it.

Gordon: Favorite chapter?

Sean: Probably the fire attack stuff—lower GPMs, hose maneuverability, getting water in the right spot for effective extinguishment.

Gordon: When’s it coming out?

Sean: FDIC 2026.

Gordon: Can’t wait.

Sean: Thanks, man.

Gordon: Sean Gray, thank you so much for joining us.

Sean: Thank you—really appreciate it.

Gordon: It was a pleasure seeing you in Cobb County with your crew. Excited to share your knowledge.

Sean: Thanks for coming down. Appreciate it.

Have a question? Ask Sean Gray!

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