Technology
Developing Meaningful Command Training
In this episode, we explore the critical topic of developing meaningful command training for incident commanders in fire departments. Join instructors Kevin Burgess and Frank Malta as they share insig...
Developing Meaningful Command Training
Technology •
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Interactive Transcript
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Tonight we're gonna be talking about a subject
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that I know is very important to many of our instructors
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and of course, many of our friends out there
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and that's developing meaningful command training
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and what does it look like in departments,
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training their incident commanders,
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what's good look like, what's bad look like.
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And tonight I'm joined by our instructors,
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Kevin Burgess and Frank Malta
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and we're gonna be sharing a little bit about things
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that we've done in our different departments,
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things that we've seen on the road
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and trying to give you guys some ideas.
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If you're looking to kind of tweak your command training
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or maybe even develop your first stuff.
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So, you know, that's gonna be what we're gonna be getting into tonight.
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I'm talking about here, let's kind of identify the problem first.
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And yesterday actually Chris Mollendor, also from Frederick
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and I were out in Lee Summit, Missouri,
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doing a command program for a bunch of departments
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around that area.
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And, you know, the conversation kind of kicked off,
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talking about some of this because one of the things
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that I kind of began identifying is I've started this thing now
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when I go to classes around the country
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and you've heard it and everything where I'm like,
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hey, you know, here in Alaska or here in Florida,
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wherever we are, you know, you guys got firefighter training,
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you have sure to, you know, you got hazmat training,
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oh yeah, technician level, right?
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You got stuff where people can hang off buildings
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upside down on ropes, sure enough, right?
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You got stuff where I can go play in a trench
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or get in a confined space.
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And of course, everybody has all these things
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and then I'll kind of ask them and say, you know,
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all right, well here in your state then,
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like what classes that you go to to be the person
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in charge of the fire, right?
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We have firefighter training, we got driver operator training,
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we got, you know, technical rescue and hazmat training,
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but the experience that I've seen
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and I've been a firefighter in six different states now
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and I think we've taught in most of the rest of the states
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is like, you know, I'm not keeping hard data on it,
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but what would you guys say?
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Like 90% of states don't even have a curriculum, you know,
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for command officer training, is that pretty accurate?
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At least.
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Yeah, no standard or no certification
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or nothing the state offers for it.
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Yeah, and, and you know, I don't think Maryland
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still does at this point do they?
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So I know like recently they've incorporated like
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some simulation stuff and some of the fire officer
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programs through Miffrey,
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but as you can imagine, you know,
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these are state written programs that, you know,
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central Maryland's very different from the Eastern Shore,
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it's very different than Western Maryland.
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So, you know, it's a program that's written to encompass
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everyone.
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So though it's something, you know, in my opinion,
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I think it's missing the mark.
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Well, Frank, you kind of mentioned that in Fredric,
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I mean, that you're literally just kicking off
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the new program today.
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Can you tell us a little bit about what you're doing,
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how you got there, you know, what this,
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you know, where Fredric County is and why you're there?
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Yeah, sure.
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So I guess to start like the Command Concey thing,
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like we had dabbled in it for years,
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nothing very formal.
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We had like some of the early versions of like
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the simulation training, like the ones you played with like,
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you know, Xbox controller.
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And for its time, like it worked,
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but it wasn't like on a formal, like in time interval
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that the hell often you had to do it,
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it wasn't mandated.
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It was kind of just something like,
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hey, let's go give this a try.
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And then in 2021, you know, no secret,
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we had a lot of duty deaths.
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Fire on 95 San Ball Road took the life of Captain Josh Lair.
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And, you know, so there was a report like with any line
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of duty deaths.
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And within our internal report,
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it made mention of strong consideration should be
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into running a Command Concey program.
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So, wrote the job description, got the position approved.
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We hired a guy who's absolutely emphatic
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about incident command.
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And then we started the very arduous process
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of building the program, which was, you know,
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acquiring the technology, you know,
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two dozen iPads, the software, headsets, TVs,
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you know, all the stuff.
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And then the research portion of it,
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you know, where we visited a lot of places,
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we went to Montgomery County,
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which for the state of Maryland was probably like the pioneer
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of incident command, or at least the formalized incident command.
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We went to DC, who's got a great program,
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and a Ronald County, a great program.
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So we visited a lot of places and kind of saw what they were doing.
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And then, you know, took some of those ideas
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and made them work here in Frederick County.
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And I'd like to think, took some of those ideas
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and made them better.
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So yeah, we built it out, we wrote policies.
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You know, for the program, kind of explaining how it was going to go,
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what you were going to need to do to be able to sit for the,
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the, the, a competency.
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So we require 12 hours of continuing education every year,
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to even sit for it.
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You know, explaining the ground rules, you know,
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if you're not successful, you know,
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you'll have to remediate.
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And you know, once you get to so many remediations,
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and you know, then you have a conversation at the fire chief
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and maybe come to the conclusion, it's not for you.
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But yeah, you know, just, and then just building out the program
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is coming up with realistic scenarios that jive with,
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you know, your policies and procedures.
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And as much realism as possible, you know,
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and not to get too far ahead,
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but I think there's a lot of programs where, you know,
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the incident commander essentially starts the scenario
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and everything rolls out with him being there,
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which has sold them the case around here.
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So, you know, we have a delay, we have a response, you know,
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to the simulation location,
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where they have to listen to radio transmissions,
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do run route reorganization, you know,
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acknowledge, you know, missing information on some of the
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on scene reports and stuff like that.
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So it's as much realism as possible.
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And then we have a whole room full of role players
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that are playing the different units on the box alarm.
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They're reading off of a script,
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but there's also somebody in the room that's like
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the the myster, if you will, who serves like
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when things have to be ad live,
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they're the one to make that decision
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so that it condistates as uniform as possible.
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And everybody's getting a similar experience as they can.
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And it works out really good, you know,
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if the unit that you are a role player
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for is operating on the inside, you're wearing a mask.
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If, you know, if your units are at a position
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or making noises, you know, we have a soundboard
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that inputs noises to the distractions,
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so trying to make it as realistic as possible.
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Yeah, that what that's gotta be fun, like a soundboard.
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The first thing I thought when you said that
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is like, you remember the old megaphone from Radio Shaq?
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They had like 99 sounds and stuff like that.
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Yeah, that's what I need.
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The so you mentioned like 12 hours of continuing education,
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I think.
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So what does that continue education look like?
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And it also like so for a,
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like this program is for both new and existing ICs, right?
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Correct.
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And so is there a, especially for new ICs,
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how is there a training program that goes with it
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to like get them ready for the evaluation?
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Yes, well, so for starters, like new ICs,
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like all of our people that are on a battalion chief list
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of the acting battalion chiefs,
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they go through like a,
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their version of an OCS
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and there's simulations built into that.
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That's also part of their workbook.
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You know, when to get out of OCS,
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they gotta do so many ride-alongs,
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they have to do so many simulations and stuff like that.
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But yeah, leading up to the competency,
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do you guys hear that echo in the background?
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It's echoing like crazy on mine.
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Okay.
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All right.
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So, but anyway, I'm sorry.
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So to, when it building up to the competency,
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you know, there's certain we are mandated,
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you know, by policy to offer 36 hours worth of conned a year.
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And, you know, so we do that,
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but we have some that are mandatory.
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And so I guess to differentiate between the two,
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if you take anything that's, you know,
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incident command, safety, leadership, tactics,
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all that stuff applies, right?
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So like that would count towards some of your conned,
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but then we also have mandatory stuff,
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which is kind of like stuff that's specific to,
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to what the competency is gonna be.
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Now, we don't let people know ahead of time,
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like what it's gonna be, but, you know,
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we put, may put a lot of emphasis on the gas leak policy,
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or the structure fire policy, or an MCI policy,
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which forces people to get in the books
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and review the material ahead of time, right?
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So there's different ways you could look at that,
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like are you letting the cat out of the bag,
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or is the wind even bigger,
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because you're forcing people to get in the books.
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So, so yeah, that's how that goes.
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You know, people, because we do this for a better career
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and volunteer.
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So, you know, how in a volunteer fire service,
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if somebody steps down and they appoint, you know,
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a cheap officer made way through the year,
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then we have the ability and we will run a simulation,
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like out of off schedule, if you will, to accommodate them.
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And then we kind of prerate the conned.
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So, you know, if they get picked up and, like,
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may or June, and the competency is in August,
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then they're just responsible for however many hours,
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leading up the months, leading up to the competency,
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if that makes sense.
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So, you brought up a good point there.
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I'm sure some people are curious about is,
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so you have both career battalion chiefs
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and assistant chiefs, you have career chief officers,
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and then you also have volunteer chief officers,
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you know, does the same standard apply to both of them?
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Oh, yeah, so, you know, we have our policies,
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you know, like our training requirements,
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the whole ranks was recently revamped within the last,
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you know, year or two, so that there's parity
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across, you know, both sides, which, in my opinion,
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like, there's no other way.
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And, yeah, for them to be able to function as chief officers,
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they gotta go through the competency.
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So, yeah, so the same applies across both sides, for sure.
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Well, you wanna talk a little bit about
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kind of what we're doing here in Salisbury,
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or what we've been doing?
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Yeah, so I'll start with kind of what I went through
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and why, you know, we made changes, you know,
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when I was getting checked off as an acting battalion
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six, seven years ago, we would just do ride time.
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Like, you took a test to be a captain and all that,
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and you'd get promoted to captain.
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If they wanted you to be an acting battalion chief,
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you would ride with your battalion for, you know, six,
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ten shifts, I don't remember precisely how much,
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how many shifts it was, but, you know,
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I would be riding around with, you know,
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a battalion chief with 20, 30 years on the job,
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and I would be asking, okay, what about this,
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or how do you know that?
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And I would get like, you just have to do it.
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And to me, that seemed insane, because, you know,
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when I, my first day of the academy,
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when I said, how do you get the hose off the truck,
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they were like, we're gonna teach you.
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You know, we're gonna show you how.
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There's an algorithm to it.
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There's steps to it.
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And when it came to command,
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it was kind of like, you got to, you know,
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this whole idea of like, you got to smell it,
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you got to feel it, and you got to get, you know,
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your cigar out or whatever,
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and you'll just figure it out.
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And to me, I was thinking like, okay, that's great,
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but like, what if my first fire doesn't go so good?
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Like, I can understand the idea of like,
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20 years into commanding these fires,
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I have this good gist of it.
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Right.
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But what happens if the first couple fires go back?
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Do the matey.
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And I don't know what to do,
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because I've never experienced it before.
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And so that was very nerve-wracking to me,
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and not to put down the chiefs that I rode with
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or anything, you know, they were doing what happened to them.
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You know, they got thrown in a car
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and the guys before them kind of told them the same thing.
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Like, get out here, kid, and figure it out.
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And that's why I like, you know, kind of what we move to,
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to try to get people as many reps as we can.
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And, you know, the other thing is
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as an acting bataiian chief today,
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like how many realistically, how many fires
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am I gonna be in command of a year?
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Could be none, could be 10.
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So what we do now is we do very similarly
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to chief Malta and Frederick.
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We do simulation training.
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It's mandatory annually.
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It's a five-day class annually
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for every command qualified officer has to attend the class.
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And anybody who wants to be an acting bataiian
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can take the five-day class as well.
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It's two days classroom and three days of simulations.
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It's everything from, they have to be checked off
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on every building type, a Mayday, a tactical withdrawal,
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and a defensive fire operation.
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They have to pass everyone.
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I think it's like seven or eight distinct things.
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They have to pass.
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Yeah.
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And then quarterly, we do the entire shift
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does simulation training.
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Kind of the, I don't want to repeat exactly,
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almost exactly what chief Malta was describing
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of the bataiian chief could be the first one there
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or the last one there.
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They really are driving the vehicle
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with real radio traffic happening
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and added noises and Maydays
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before they get there and all kinds of things.
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And so that's quarterly, there's an opportunity
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where each shift is probably gonna run six simulations.
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So if they have a bataiian chief and two acting,
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they would each get two simulations a day
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or something like that.
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Well, and you know, like I'm just thinking
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of random things while you're talking about that.
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I mean, was this year, I think we added
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into the bataiian program, the class and everything
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that there are written exams every day.
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And you know, I mean, it's, you know,
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and I mean, I don't think there be a,
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there not be a, the question's on a real.
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You don't know the answer.
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It's a problem.
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And I think it's important that, you know,
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part of this stuff is if you're gonna be
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the person, I was raised in an environment
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where like if you're gonna be an officer,
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if you're gonna be a chief, well,
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then you better know, you know, everything
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everybody else knows you better, you know,
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you don't, it's not an ego thing.
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It's not like, oh, I'm the big bugles I gotta know.
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But like if you're firefighter knows the SOG's better
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than you do, how are you in a better position
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to command the fire?
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You know what I'm saying?
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Like you've got to be an expert
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and you've got to understand the details.
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And like, you know, I want our chiefs
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to know the policies inside now, you know,
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and you know, I want them to understand
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the concepts inside now.
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Because that's what we've tried to do.
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And obviously a lot of what we've done,
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you know, what I've done in the departments
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I've worked for is kind of bled over
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into what we're teaching here is like,
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I don't want people to understand what to do.
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I want them to know how to think, you know, like,
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I can, I like in it all the time to the pumping thing
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and Frank's an engine guy, he's heard me say this before,
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but like, you know, the new fire trucks,
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they all got the electronic, you know, pump controller
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on it and it's got a preset button, you know,
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and the preset button is probably set to whatever
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is necessary for the crosslay.
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And I mean, so why are we making all this big rig
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of the roll, you know, why am I trying to teach these guys
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how to do math on a fire ground?
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Just put it in pump, bro, and hit the preset button.
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How, you know, how many fires you could put out
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just by hitting the preset button?
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Probably most, probably most, but the problem is, you know,
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is that if that's all you understand,
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if you just know this, how to do this thing,
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and one night you pull up on a fire
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and it's one of those scenarios where you've got to get
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water out of a rock and, you know, charge seven hose lines
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with five discharges and you've really got to understand
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the real mechanics and the real math
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and the real concepts behind pumping,
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you're gonna be shit out of luck and ain't gonna happen
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because all you know is the preset button.
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And the same thing is with command, right?
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Is, or really, probably with anything,
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is if you just are regurgitating what you said
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every, every other fire or you're just repeating
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what you heard the guy before you say,
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like the scary thing is that'll probably get you through
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a bunch of fires, but if you don't really
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understand the concepts one night,
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you're gonna be way out of your league.
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And as I said, as I always say about command,
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the scariest thing about command is you can command a fire
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however you want to and you can command,
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your command post can be wherever you want it to be.
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You are almost certainly not gonna be the person
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that gets killed on the fire ground.
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You know, it's gonna be one of your people.
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And I think that's the most terrifying thing
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for any incident commander is to think about
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that what I might do or not do personally
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on tonight's fire might get one of my guys killed.
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You know, and that's, you got to understand the concepts.
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Yeah, 100%.
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And I think there's a lot of parent command out there
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where we're just doing whatever it is we heard
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on the radio as captains or whatever we were taught.
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I think there's a lot of where we are sitting here
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with random check boxes like make sure
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I get the power company on the scene.
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And I don't think that we're really diving down
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to like what Chief Malta was talking about earlier with,
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do you know, do I have, you know,
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too many people doing the same thing?
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What thing am I not doing?
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What is the problem in five minutes?
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And one of the things I really like
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about the way we do sims is like sometimes like,
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we never know what sims are gonna be like.
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I could have all my companies arrive exactly
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like they're supposed to and there could be no problem.
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But a lot of times like I'm sitting in the buggy
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and I'm nervous because I've run fires
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where you were controlling it
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where half of my companies were on a pin-end.
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You know, I got there and they was, you know,
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seven volunteers parked.
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There was people hanging out of windows.
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There was a Mayday and you know,
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a lot of people think, well, that's crazy.
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Well, the time that all that happens to me better,
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you know, the first time better not be out of fire.
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Because, you know, I better have trained and prepared
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and thought through a lot of that
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because if it, you know, the first time I ever
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command a Mayday is out of fire,
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it's probably not gonna go very well.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So, and I think, you know, I think like KV brings up
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a valid point, right?
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Like, command, I think people always,
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people that do it, they end up laying up short
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because the Mayday, right?
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Like that's, you got to train for it
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and I don't know if some people are scared to do it.
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Like, don't want to jinx themselves
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or whatever the case may be.
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But that's absolutely a very intake
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or part of commanding a fire, right?
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Because it typically happens with minimal to no notice
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and you got to react and that's whether you're
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at Teams in place, whether you know,
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all your companies are on the scene,
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whether you're even on the scene.
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And the fire doesn't care to do what it does
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and you're the one that's got to react to that.
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Yeah.
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I think a scary thing that really, you know,
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makes that exponential is, you know,
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the three of us are frequently in an environment
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where we're going to have multiple chief officers
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on the scene.
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And so you got somebody else to lean on.
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You got somebody to watch your back to catch what you miss.
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And we know from traveling around the country
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that a large majority of guys out there,
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they're commanding very challenging fires
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completely by themselves.
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And they got no help, they got no aid,
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they got no chief officer in the rear,
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they got no division supervisors or anything like that.
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And they're doing the best they can.
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Things we've seen in command training.
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If you want to really mess someone up,
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give them unit numbers that they're not dealing with.
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And it doesn't have to be like some crazy number
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just if you don't have an engine five,
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put an engine five in there and they're like,
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what?
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You know, as blow in their mind,
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or you mentioned it earlier,
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the other thing that we saw is when we started doing
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the drive around the block thing,
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that floored some people.
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Like they were in the buggy
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and they had their command board out
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like the radio in their lap.
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And I'm like, all right, when this thing gets dispatched,
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you have to drive around the block.
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And for us, it wasn't like the block
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at the training academy.
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It was a city block.
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And our headquarters fire station is on a street
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where things can be pretty wild sometimes.
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And so having to go up and around that block,
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you can see some wild things while you're doing it.
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And but that's like you were saying,
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Frank, that's that real world challenge
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of having to drive yourself,
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having to be in the wrong lane of traffic
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while you're listening to where companies are going
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and remember it when you get there.
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Oh, yeah, man, you think it happened.
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The street's blocked.
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You get held up by a train.
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You know, you get behind a track
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and trail or on a street that they can't pull over.
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You know what I mean?
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Like there's so many different variables
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that can cause that delay.
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You know, in a perfect world,
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if you always showed up with the first two engine companies,
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but that around here that's sold them the case.
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Right, right.
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And I think in anything that we're talking about,
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what you guys are alluding to here
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is you need to make it as real as possible.
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You know, if you're just going to sit
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and listen to your guys call me days,
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they need to put their mask on
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and you need to go to wherever it is you command fires from.
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And it needs to be that.
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If that's out in the cold, in the rain,
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and next to a running engine,
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that's what you need to go do it.
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And like Chief of Saiyan,
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like if you're going to drive whatever works
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you're going to fill out,
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if you're running fake boxes or false boxes or whatever,
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and you're going to command them
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or whether you're doing this full simulated fire,
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do it right.
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Cause I'll see, I'll see even in Sims,
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like people will be like,
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well, I don't, you know,
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I don't need to sit in the car.
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I'll just sit in the classroom.
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But like, well, you're not going to command this fire
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from the classroom.
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You know, you need to, you need to do it real life.
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Yeah.
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And I'm not saying there's not a time to like walk crawl run,
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like we talk about like learning how to fill the board out.
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But if you're going to do these things,
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you need to do them as realistic as you can.
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Get those, get those reps as close to what it's going to be like
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as you can, because you can't just make up the bad fire.
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Mm-hmm.
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Or you certainly don't want to.
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You want to go, you know,
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if you have a lot, you say it all the time,
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if you've got a ton of practice running Maydays,
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maybe, you know, maybe you should look at your operations.
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Yeah, I mean, if you've gone to so many real Maydays,
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you're good.
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Yeah.
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You don't need to practice it like, okay,
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but maybe there's another issue there.
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You know.
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And like, the other thing is, you know,
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don't always make your simulations go like a perfect fire
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where everybody takes their assignment
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and everything goes great, you know?
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Have somebody blow an assignment,
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have somebody lose water in their line,
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have, you know, people trapped in the rear
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and you got a tough door that we can't get.
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We need somebody around here, you know, put the pressure on it.
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I'm not saying that's where you start,
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but it's absolutely where you should end up.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well, I mean, I think the whole theme kind of what we've been
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talking about tonight and everything is like,
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you know, people that are on the bay floor,
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people that are listening in a podcast and stuff like this.
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Like, you know, these people are in the job.
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They're out there forcing the door prop six times a shift.
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They're out there stretching lines off the rig.
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We're off the prop.
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They're doing mask up drills in the bay.
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And I think, you know, we're on a good swing
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in the fire service right now,
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where we see motivated firefighters, you know,
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really kind of looking for the better mouse trap, right?
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They're trying to, they're trying to get a better skill.
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They're trying to get better at the skill that they have
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and they're putting a lot of work into that engine
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and truck company level tasks and tactics.
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And we need that.
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That's the heart, that's the heart of the fire ground.
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Like I said, the command doesn't put the fire out.
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The engine and truck work puts the fire out.
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So we don't want to minimize that.
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What we need to add to that is we need to add to that
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the passion for the command training.
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You know, we need to have, I say it all the time,
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like, you know, you take these high performance,
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high energy engine and truck companies
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that are out there training and preparing every day
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and they're working their ass off
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and their rock stars on the fire ground.
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If you can take them and pair them with an incident commander
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that is as passionate and as skilled at strategy and tactics
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and command and control as they are at engine and truck work
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and you put those forces together on a fire ground,
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that's where you can do some exponential things.
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And that's, you know, I would like, I think we're on an upswing.
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I think we're getting some momentum
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with the command training and the command interest nationwide.
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But I think we can do better.
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And I think that's the next place
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that the fire service needs to go.
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So you just finished listening to a portion
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of one of our members only podcast exclusive on the Bay floor.
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The Bay floor is our special firefighting community
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where we can get like-minded firefighters together
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away from the noise of traditional social media
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to talk shop and talk about what really matters.
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We look to bring our members a lot of special content
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and training tips and resources,
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including our live webinars, our members only podcast,
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training bulletins, as well as the ability to interact
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and discuss with other like-minded firefighters.
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One of the things we bring to our community
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is these private members only podcast
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that allow us to get a little bit more in depth
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and address the questions and concerns
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that you guys bring to us in a more private environment.
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So if you like what you heard,
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then make sure you jump on the bayfloor.com
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to hear the rest of this conversation
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as well as being able to access our podcast from the past.
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In the future, our upcoming webinars, training bulletins,
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and all the other training resources
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that the Bay floor has to offer.
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Make sure you check us out on the bayfloor.com.
Topics Covered
command training
incident commanders
firefighter training
command officer training
continuing education
simulation training
Frederick County
realistic scenarios
incident command program
fire service training
training requirements
leadership in firefighting
fire department policies
emergency response training
fire chief competency