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00:00:13.413welcome to the b shifter podcast.
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00:00:13.792Today.
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00:00:24.812You have uh john vance here in studio, I've got chris stewart and then uh from zoom, we've got josh bloom and gischer Gary.
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00:00:25.393You know what?
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00:00:33.182Let's start off with you real quick and just let everybody know who you are, because this is your first time on the B Shifter podcast.
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00:00:34.146So we want to welcome you.
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00:00:43.322You're one of our lead instructors, pivotal to the word getting spread out on the East Coast, but why don't you let everybody know who you are and give a little bit of an introduction?
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00:00:44.685Yeah, thanks, jv.
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00:00:47.030So I appreciate you inviting me on here today.
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00:00:48.192My name is Gary Fleischer.
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00:00:51.850I'm a district chief with the Worcester Fire Department.
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00:00:56.350I've been a firefighter here in Massachusetts for about 30 years.
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00:00:58.691I've been in Worcester about 35 years.
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00:01:10.024I've been in Worcester about 25 years and we started doing blue card here about four years ago three to four years ago and coordinated that.
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00:01:17.649We're still doing the program, coordinated that program here and became a blue card instructor last September Nice.
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00:01:25.188Yeah, february of 21, in the blizzard, in the middle of COVID, what a time to do it.
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00:01:29.683Yeah Well, we're really happy to have you here today, gary, and thank you.
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00:01:43.564Thanks for sharing some information, and today we want to talk a little bit about critical fire ground factors that, specifically, you have a lot of experience with, particularly because of the age of the community that you serve.
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00:01:51.835But we think it's a great conversation for all of us to be a part of, because we have a lot of these buildings in different parts of the United States.
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00:01:53.826You could end up mutual aid at them.
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00:02:08.765There are some different critical fire ground factors that we need to consider when we're particularly looking at some of these older type buildings, and we just don't get into it enough, but there are entire cities populated with these buildings.
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00:02:27.314I think if we just kind of talk about I think Gary just describing kind of what these types of structures are, for them it seems to be like they're fairly common in his neck of the woods, both in his state and his region, right, and there's no shortage of fires in these right.
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00:02:38.413So we need to be able to kind of talk about what's critical about them, how they're put together, what causes us heartache, what is critical information we need to have about them.
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00:02:59.296And then let's talk about some of the tactics that they regularly deploy in these, because regardless of your incident command system, you've got to put into play tactics that match the critical factors the building and the fire and smoke conditions and maybe the life safety and maybe the arrangement, because these are built close together.
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00:03:03.829So all of those things kind of go into coming up with a decent incident action plan.
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00:03:05.652Thanks, chris.
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00:03:14.003I think maybe the best thing I can do is just to kind of describe the housing stock that we have around here.
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00:03:33.350So what we're kind of targeting in this podcast, I think, is these two and a half to maybe four story wood frame residential units wood frame residential units, and I think the key why this becomes so important to us is the construction of how they were constructed and what we find inside of them.
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00:03:43.622So, particularly with us, we're known around here for our three-deckers, and in other parts of Massachusetts they may call them triple-deckers.
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00:03:45.931They're all basically the same thing.
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00:03:55.835So what it is is a three-story, basically an apartment, three apartments, and they all sit right on top of each other.
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00:04:02.050So the third-floor kitchen is above the second-floor kitchen is above the first-floor kitchen, and so on.
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00:04:03.413With all the other rooms.
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00:04:05.567They have a very small footprint.
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00:04:13.132They're generally on a very small parcel of land, so you've got a lot of people that can occupy a very small parcel of land.
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00:04:16.550Now the key with the buildings are they're pretty old.
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00:04:49.081I think the first ones we ever have heard of were around the 1870s, but primarily between 1890 and 1920, they built just the lion's share of these things and you find them in these old New England cities and towns that often had large mill buildings or factories and they were used for the staffing to live there for the factories.
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00:04:58.168So of course, back, you know, in 1900, nobody had cars these are blue-collar workers they didn't have horses, they had to walk to get wherever they were going.
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00:05:03.903So these three deckers were built very close together in the neighborhoods where the factories were.
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00:05:18.016These three-deckers were built very close together in the neighborhoods where the factories were and the people were able to walk to work, and not only that, but their kids would walk to school, they would have neighborhood stores, the neighborhood barbershop, they would walk to those.
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00:05:34.283And one of the phenomenons we see is that generally immigrants from certain countries all land kind of in the same neighborhood and they end up all kind of working at the same factory because they all speak the same language.
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00:05:57.954So we have like, for instance, of vernon hill, where we have a lot of these three actors is, uh, a big section of it is is polish and they had a lot of Polish people there, and so the only time they would leave if they left the neighborhood to go somewhere, they'd have to take a trolley or a streetcar or, you know, take the railroad to go somewhere.
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00:06:02.750Well, you could have fooled me, because you've already busted one myth.
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00:06:16.091I always imagine those being large homes that were then chopped up into an apartment, but for the most part, they were always intended to be separate units within those triple deckers, is what you're saying.
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00:06:17.454Yeah, absolutely.
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00:06:20.529There's a couple different stories of how they were built.
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00:06:46.781There are stories of the factory owners actually buying the land and building as many of them as possible and then selling them back to their own employees for their own employees to have a place to live and two income apartments where other employees of that factory could live, or potentially some level of their family, their family, their brother's family or their sister's family.
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00:06:58.132And then we've also heard stories about people buying them on their own and then moving the whole family in on three different levels to pay their mortgage together.
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00:07:09.432So there's a few different ways we've heard they all got built, but I believe the factory ones the most, because they're all concentrated on where there was a factory at one point in time.
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00:07:12.382So most of them on.
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00:07:18.069We've noticed like there'll be a consistent with the living units on each floor.
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00:07:27.846Then you've got like an outside porch or outside patio, I guess, on each floor, right, and they tend to be towards the alley side, right, gary, if I remember this correctly.
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00:07:54.973Yeah, they all have similar floor plans, but for the most part there's usually a front staircase and often will either have a front living room that faces the street or they would have front porches that face the street and then they would have a back staircase that you can either find inside what they call a shed and when I say they I mean the people that grew up in them.
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00:08:05.324They call it a shed so you would have rear stairs, kind of enclosed from the weather but not heated, and then like a storage room on their back porches, if you want to call them back porches.
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00:08:23.470And then in other cases we have completely wide open porches that are just made of pressurized lumber, so the house would take up pretty much the width of the lot minus maybe five feet on each side, so we have an extreme exposure problems.
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00:08:37.844They're generally close to the street and the only yard area they end up with is in the back, so they could use the back for the kids to play or, you know, to have a cookout or even have a garden, but that would be the only open space that they would have.
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00:08:47.413There was no need for a driveway because nobody had cars most of them have basements and kind of the heating systems and stuff like that down there.
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00:08:50.447We're in basement land Again.
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00:08:51.991You know these buildings built.
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00:08:57.288You know the most of them built between 1890 and 1920.
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00:08:59.634The basements are called fieldstone foundations.
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00:09:02.481So they're stone wall foundations.
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00:09:12.230And they're called fieldstones because the farmers would go out and clear the trees and make farms and that land would be full of stones in their fields.
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00:09:30.645So they would clear all the stones off and builders would take them, dig a big hole in the ground, stack the stones up and that would be the foundation for that construction, for that construction and typically balloon frame, or is there stops on every floor for if there was a basement fire?
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00:09:33.211No, you know what they're balloon frame.
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00:09:50.972So let's you know, if we look at it the way our company officers look at it right, they're going to do a strategic decision-making model every time they arrive on the scene and the first step in that is for them is always going to be sizing up the incident using their critical fire ground factors.
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00:09:55.510I won't go into all of them, but I think there's a couple of really important ones.
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00:10:01.668So first is, before we get to that construction, john, first is the occupancy.
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00:10:12.283Almost 99.9% of the time these are apartments that people live in and oftentimes a lot of people live in.
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00:10:23.594Generally they were built three bedrooms, one bath, but we've seen that cut up to five bedrooms, usually on one floor or not usually, but sometimes on one floor.
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00:10:29.182Floor, or not usually, but sometimes on one floor.
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00:10:31.886So definitely doing searches is going to be high on our priority list when we get those.
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00:10:38.947And we do have some buildings that on the lower floor, whether it's the first floor or sometimes the basement.
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00:10:58.067That's where they had these neighborhood businesses like I talked about earlier the local barbershop, the market they were in the basement of these.
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00:11:00.955Or the first floor of these tenements, these three deckers, and you know what?
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00:11:01.756Very often bars.
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00:11:13.302They just made bars out of the basements of these things and they were very popular, you know, even at 7 o'clock in the morning when they guys got off the night shift from the wire factory and they would stream into somebody's basement bar, but that's.
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00:11:21.708We still have some of those, some of those businesses are still around, but now everybody has cars so that the neighborhood markets and stuff aren't nearly as popular as they used to be.
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00:11:26.511So that's pretty much the most of our occupancy.
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00:11:34.197Critical fire ground factors, john, like you were asking, then construction becomes a huge one with these.
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00:11:47.673So if you can picture the turn of the century, we had so much lumber available in New England that it was a very cheap way to build.
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00:11:56.313And this is virgin, old growth lumber, really thick, sturdy pieces of wood.
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00:12:04.086And they would build the shell of these buildings with two by fours Now that's nominal size.
00:12:04.086 -->
00:12:05.107That is literally two inches by fours.
00:12:05.107 -->
00:12:05.652Now that's nominal size.
00:12:05.652 -->
00:12:06.559That is literally two inches by four inches.
00:12:06.559 -->
00:12:11.827No kiln, dried, no planing or sanding.
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00:12:17.683These are rough, cut big, two by fours and they're 30 feet long and they'll bring.
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00:12:31.413I don't know how they did it, but they would build a wall 30 feet tall and they would stand it up on top of this field stone foundation, tie all those four walls together and that would give you the exoskeleton of that building.
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00:12:39.384And then, instead of having, you know, platform construction like we have now, you build the first floor, you build the second floor on top of it.
00:12:39.384 -->
00:12:46.995What they would do is they would literally hang the floors off of those outside studs.
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00:13:10.649So, as you can see in this picture here, there's a ribbon board that they would miter into the 2x4s the ribbon board was a 1x4, and they would miter it into the inside of the 2x4s and then they would rest the joists right on top of those and nail them into the studs, and they would do this for every floor.
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00:13:37.254So what that leaves you is this plenum space, this vacant space in that stud wall that would go from the basement all the way up to the eaves in the attic, and that's, you know, that is our balloon frame construction and that is one of the biggest issues we have with this, and I think you know, you guys know, from your parts of the country you probably have some form of balloon frame construction, correct?
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00:13:56.080Yeah, you know a ton of the conversion of, you know, homes that regular one-story or single-family homes that were built in that same time frame but are now being converted to two or three or four apartments just because people aren't necessarily wanting to live in those homes.
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00:14:05.529So tons of balloon frame and then other vertical shafts in there, right, because they're trying to get other types of HVAC systems and all that room into there.
00:14:05.529 -->
00:14:09.230So it's that construction and void space and understanding what that really is.
00:14:09.230 -->
00:14:15.033So you pull up on something that's original, with plaster and lath, still, that was 90 years old.
00:14:15.033 -->
00:14:25.534We're going to have to handle it and deal with it and have a whole different set of critical factors than something that's that old but been gutted and now it's four separate apartments.
00:14:25.534 -->
00:14:38.355So I think we're seeing that from well, where you are all the way to, as we talked about a little bit earlier, in California, san Francisco and some of those other places all around Seattle.
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00:14:50.154Gary, with the way the floors then are set and kind of hung in there, how does the roof truss and the roof system then go on top of the walls?
00:14:50.154 -->
00:14:54.951Is it basically sitting on those four exterior walls or how does it tie in?
00:14:56.200 -->
00:14:56.701Yeah, it's.
00:14:56.701 -->
00:14:59.389Basically it sits on the top of those walls.
00:14:59.389 -->
00:15:00.451It overhangs.
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00:15:11.091Most of these buildings have usually a pretty good eave, and where we run into trouble is when the eaves are not made of solid wood.
00:15:11.091 -->
00:15:40.428When the wood's been removed which is really common here in the Northeast to reduce ice buildup, what they'll do is they'll remove the eaves and they'll put in a vented soffit there and they'll cut a ridge vent along the top of the roof to allow the cold air to flow up underneath the roof so that none of the snow on these roofs melt and then refreeze into ice and cause ice dams.
00:15:40.428 -->
00:15:49.232So that's obviously a perfect place for propagation of fire, especially with auto exposure on the exterior.
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00:16:05.818If you have a fire on the second floor, a bedroom window, and it pops out that window and starts burning up the exterior, we know that we're going to end up in the attic in this place, like Josh said, we have all the things that he mentioned.
00:16:05.818 -->
00:16:10.626You know the wet walls, the pipe chases, the chimneys, these, you know these were built.
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00:16:21.150They had big, giant, behemoth coal furnaces in the basement, wrapped in asbestos, and it heated steam that heat the whole house.
00:16:21.150 -->
00:16:27.086So there's a chimney that runs right up through the middle and before I was again on the fire department.
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00:16:37.371I was an electrician's apprentice and doing a work in a three-decker is so easy because you can just drop the wire right down next to the chimney, go from the attic all the way to the basement.
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00:16:40.950That's exactly where you know where our fire's going.
00:16:42.495 -->
00:16:43.558There are some other issues too.
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00:16:45.522I mentioned auto exposure, right.
00:16:45.522 -->
00:16:53.009So what they used to side these houses with through the years.
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00:16:59.397I don't really know the time frame, but we still have houses that are sided with asphalt siding.
00:16:59.397 -->
00:17:07.285It's just like a roof material, but they put it on the side of a house and you can imagine how that burns and it's pretty ugly.
00:17:07.285 -->
00:17:08.409So what do they do?
00:17:08.409 -->
00:17:11.769They cover it with vinyl, which really doesn't do anything for us.
00:17:11.769 -->
00:17:12.400So what do they do?
00:17:12.400 -->
00:17:13.701They cover it with vinyl, which really doesn't do anything for us.
00:17:13.721 -->
00:17:24.152Now there's one picture here that John can show you, where there's two of these buildings side by side, and the one closest to you with the brown stripe that's an asphalt-sided building.
00:17:24.152 -->
00:17:29.576So you can imagine if we had an outside fire there, it's going to run right up that asphalt pretty quick right into the eaves.
00:17:29.576 -->
00:17:39.882But the building that's just past it.
00:17:39.882 -->
00:17:40.624It's kind of a brown color right.
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00:17:41.928That building has asbestos siding, so it's the complete opposite.
00:17:41.928 -->
00:17:49.685You couldn't light it on fire if you tried, um, and in any case, a lot of times it was interesting to find these two next to each other that somebody hadn't covered in vinyl siding.
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00:18:09.446We see a lot of the vinyl siding hides what's actually underneath there, and I guess the only other thing maybe to point out is you kind of look through the pictures is these three and two, three and four story buildings as you move closer to the coast.
00:18:10.340 -->
00:18:24.714So Boston and some of the suburbs, primarily these are flat roof buildings, which means they have a drain in the roof that goes down through those pipe chases all the way out into the sewer line.
00:18:24.714 -->
00:18:26.285The drain roofs up.
00:18:26.285 -->
00:18:30.692Now in central Massachusetts, where we are, we have a heavier snow load here.
00:18:30.692 -->
00:18:45.555So most of our buildings are either a gable-end roof or a hip-shaped roof and we can kind of tell you know when we go to them, how much difficulty the attic's going to be, based on the type of roof that we have.
00:18:45.555 -->
00:18:49.041If you can imagine, a gable-ended roof is pretty easy to get into and use for storage.
00:18:49.041 -->
00:18:51.845A gable-ended roof is pretty easy to get into and use for storage.
00:18:51.845 -->
00:18:57.851So it's going to have plank flooring which is very difficult to overhaul from the third floor.
00:18:57.851 -->
00:19:01.654If we have a hip roof, those are very difficult to get into.
00:19:01.654 -->
00:19:04.237You're bent over and crawling around.
00:19:04.237 -->
00:19:10.711So there's generally not a lot of storage up there and very little flooring that you would have to worry about.
00:19:12.240 -->
00:19:16.432So that's basically some of the oh and the arrangement.
00:19:16.432 -->
00:19:18.144Right, you had mentioned that earlier, chris.
00:19:18.144 -->
00:19:18.928That was the other issue.
00:19:18.928 -->
00:19:23.251A lot of these are very, very close together.
00:19:23.251 -->
00:19:28.791We have a picture here of three of them that are side by side.
00:19:28.791 -->
00:19:31.970This was in Boston somewhere and you can see how tight they are together.
00:19:31.970 -->
00:19:43.125Incidentally, that one in the middle of this picture, this came off a wheeler's website that sold for $1.35 million for one of these things, so I hope it has gold faucets.
00:19:43.125 -->
00:19:47.731I'm not sure why you'd buy one for $1.35 million.
00:19:49.839 -->
00:20:22.109So when you guys start responding on these like you do regularly, even the simplest fire you know, a kitchen fire, food on the stove, pot of meat, whatever that is, even that you can you're at a distinct disadvantage where you can easily get fire extension just from those types of things right, and so that being super diligent about checking for extension, even on something that you show up that actually may have nothing showing it, becomes a pretty significant thing for you guys.
00:20:22.109 -->
00:20:23.605Am I guessing correctly?
00:20:24.881 -->
00:20:26.825Yeah, any substantial fire.
00:20:26.825 -->
00:20:38.054We have a lot of ceilings to pull and a lot of walls to open up, and it's not, of course it's an old building, so it's not just sticking your hook through some sheetrock.
00:20:38.054 -->
00:20:44.428You know, it's mostly plaster and wood lath, which is a lot of work.
00:20:44.428 -->
00:20:47.854In some cases we have the metal lath.
00:20:47.854 -->
00:20:52.527We don't see it as much, thank God, because that stuff is really difficult.
00:20:52.527 -->
00:21:01.721But yeah, I mean that's, you know, the critical fire ground, the critical fire ground factor of the fire really.
00:21:01.721 -->
00:21:04.286And where is it originating from?
00:21:04.286 -->
00:21:21.500You know, because if that fire is originally in the basement and it has reared its head in a third floor bedroom, it just goes to show you how important it is for us to do those 360s by our first arriving company officers.
00:21:21.500 -->
00:21:29.163Look at conditions in the basement, because that could have started on any floor and popped out on any floor.
00:21:29.163 -->
00:21:45.289Same thing with a lot of the fires we have in these buildings originate in either the front or the back porches and if you don't get there quick enough and put water on it, a front or a rear porch fire is going to the attic.
00:21:45.289 -->
00:21:46.664There is no doubt about it.
00:21:46.664 -->
00:21:51.049That is where it's going to end up If you don't get some water on that thing fast.
00:21:51.049 -->
00:22:01.633To end up if you don't get some water on that thing fast.
00:22:01.633 -->
00:22:06.444So as far as our tactics for these, we got to get quick water on them.
00:22:06.444 -->
00:22:08.875As you do almost anything, we have to get water very quick on them.
00:22:10.519 -->
00:22:14.170We've been fighting these fires for a long time, long before people talked about FRSI.
00:22:14.170 -->
00:22:17.369You know, attacking from the outside, transitioning to go to the inside.
00:22:17.369 -->
00:22:20.164We've had company officers for years.
00:22:20.164 -->
00:22:27.395When I came on and was a new guy, they would tell you hey, pull 50 feet at two and a half off that one guy.
00:22:27.395 -->
00:22:29.362You're going to knock this outside fire.
00:22:29.362 -->
00:22:32.989You know, fire down from the exterior and the rest of the crew is going to take an inch and three quarter and advance it to the alpha side.
00:22:32.989 -->
00:22:36.069When we're going to knock this outside fire down from the exterior, and the rest of the crew is going to take an inch and three-quarter and advance it to the alpha side.
00:22:36.069 -->
00:22:42.868When we're ready to go, you just shut that off, drop it and you're the fourth guy on the line or the third guy on the line.
00:22:43.800 -->
00:22:46.592To go back to something you said about 360s and size up.
00:22:46.592 -->
00:22:56.061So, with these being as close as they are together, what's the normal operation for getting a 360 if you've got them this tightly?
00:22:56.061 -->
00:23:03.147Do you have to depend on other folks other than the initial company to get the 360, or is there opportunities for them to do that?
00:23:04.611 -->
00:23:08.643We still push the company officers to do 360s.
00:23:08.643 -->
00:23:11.778Generally you're I mean they're not attached.
00:23:11.778 -->
00:23:14.358There's always room between the two.
00:23:14.358 -->
00:23:20.923It could be anywhere from five, maybe five feet on the smallest.
00:23:20.923 -->
00:23:22.816It's maybe a little bit bigger.
00:23:22.816 -->
00:23:30.285It's usually enough for both households to have a be able to walk down the side of the house to a little bit larger.
00:23:30.285 -->
00:23:36.561A lot of people have put driveways in, probably in the 30s and 40s when cars became more affordable.
00:23:36.561 -->
00:23:44.828So outside of maybe fences, there isn't too much usually to stop you from doing a 360.
00:23:44.828 -->
00:23:46.953It certainly isn't big enough.
00:23:46.953 -->
00:23:58.576If you run into a fence on one side, you're just going to have to go back around the alpha and down the other side and you should almost always be able to put eyes on Charlie because it's a staircase.
00:23:58.576 -->
00:24:02.144It's regularly used, so it's usually very accessible.
00:24:03.550 -->
00:24:04.134That makes sense.
00:24:04.134 -->
00:24:10.317That makes it nice to have a better idea of what's actually going on before you're stepping foot in the building.
00:24:10.910 -->
00:24:13.419What's the access like to the individual units?
00:24:13.419 -->
00:24:15.798Is it outside, inside?
00:24:15.798 -->
00:24:18.479How do you access each individual unit then?
00:24:20.671 -->
00:24:29.742So generally the front stairs are finished stairs that are usually completely enclosed.
00:24:30.443 -->
00:24:43.911They're not in a heated space but they're completely enclosed and they usually wrap a little bit up and then there'll be a apartment door at each landing and then the staircase continues up to the next floor.
00:24:45.031 -->
00:24:55.465You know, as you look at pictures of these, you'll see the front corners of the buildings that you don't see any windows, or you see a very small rectangular window or a specially shaped window.
00:24:55.465 -->
00:24:57.477That's where your staircases are in front.
00:24:57.477 -->
00:25:18.042The back staircases are the ones that we really have difficulty with, because some of them can be inside that shed enclosure, some of them can be outside external porches made of pressurized lumber, but if you can imagine, when you don't feel like taking your trash out, that's where it's going to end up.
00:25:18.042 -->
00:25:36.500And there are some apartments that are extremely difficult to access from the Charlie's side and, in fact, some cases where they never use them, so they may put the refrigerator in front of that door.
00:25:36.500 -->
00:25:49.383Ultimately, those are probably the most challenging ones that we have, when we know what we got to do, we know where we got to go and we're getting there quickly, but we're hindered by something that's blocking our way that we don't expect.
00:25:50.009 -->
00:26:37.805Based on conversations that you and I have had and then you've had with other folks here is, when you get fires in these, you and your department have had to really kind of resource and be able to deploy, based on being able to cover a lot of tactical positions you know in a quick amount of time, right, and so so talk a little bit about how you guys respond to these and what kind of what your priorities are with getting folks into the building and and because I vividly remember you saying when I, when I first asked you about it, he goes well, think about having fire in the in the basement, first, second and third floor in the attic and trying to get to them all simultaneously You're like, oh okay, yeah, I get the problem Right.
00:26:37.805 -->
00:26:39.770So talk a little bit about that.
00:26:40.391 -->
00:26:40.692It can.
00:26:40.731 -->
00:26:42.555Yeah, again, it can be very difficult.
00:26:42.555 -->
00:27:02.153Uh, if it's in a place that you know, if it's a fire that's started externally and when I say that I mean, like you know, the rear, the rear porches, which are more or less outside um, sometimes it's a little bit easier because you know that you could put a line on the outside, put some water on it, maybe prevented it from getting into the attic.
00:27:02.153 -->
00:27:11.380But, uh, you know, as we know, it's balloon frame construction, so, just as easy as it can, it can come up from the basement and go into an apartment or go into the attic.
00:27:11.380 -->
00:27:15.474It can just as easily come off the rear porches and go into the apartment as well.
00:27:15.474 -->
00:27:18.222So we have to get primary all clears on those.
00:27:18.222 -->
00:27:51.416Um, so what it basically means is, uh, doing your best size up, doing your best 360, trying to determine the lowest floor of fire, advancing a hand line to that and quickly having you know while you're advancing the hose line, you're doing primary search and fire control and hopefully you have another company with you, especially if you have smoky conditions, to do a more thorough search while you're trying to track down if you have a fire in that apartment or if you have extension, so hopefully we're going to have another.
00:27:51.416 -->
00:27:54.901It usually ends up being a ladder company or our heavy rescue company.
00:27:54.901 -->
00:28:22.479We try and do assignments to get a search crew on every floor and we try our best to make sure we have a hose line available to protect them, because over the years we know about our line of duty deaths but we've had so many near misses and guys jumping out of windows and we really need to make sure we get those lines up there and they're not preoccupied by something else.
00:28:23.109 -->
00:28:39.116So where it's really important for us and where I like to try and influence our company officers is we want smart thinking company officers and the key is when they pull up in their first due.
00:28:39.116 -->
00:28:42.223We want them to own that incident.
00:28:42.223 -->
00:28:45.759We want them to do a quality initial radio report in the truck.
00:28:45.759 -->
00:28:51.313And then, hey, once you open that door you don't know what's going to happen to you next.
00:28:51.313 -->
00:28:56.594Is Mrs Smith going to come running up to you and tell you that her child's on the second floor?
00:28:56.594 -->
00:28:58.901People are going to be pulling you in different directions.
00:28:58.901 -->
00:29:04.853So you give that initial radio report so everybody's clear what you have going on before you step out and get distracted.
00:29:05.374 -->
00:29:15.913Your company knows exactly what you guys are doing, what your IEP is doing, and then you've got to break free and get that 360 done after you get some critical information from witnesses.
00:29:15.913 -->
00:29:21.680But of course they want to tell you what they had for breakfast before they tell you exactly what they see in that building.
00:29:21.680 -->
00:29:23.247It's real difficult.
00:29:23.247 -->
00:29:42.997It's the hardest job here is to be that number one IC and then, as they're doing their 360, we really want them to start giving assignments while they're going around the building before they get in the IDLH and they're talking with a face piece on.
00:29:44.180 -->
00:29:46.315We know we have a lot of tasks, chris, you just said it.
00:29:46.315 -->
00:29:51.278We're task saturated at that point, start giving out some of those tasks.
00:29:51.278 -->
00:29:55.820So if you're IEP plus two plus three plus four, that's great.
00:29:55.820 -->
00:29:59.099You know that if you didn't tag water supply you're going to need one.
00:29:59.099 -->
00:30:01.069Get that right out before you're done in 360.
00:30:01.069 -->
00:30:22.289If you've got a ladder company coming up right behind you, spot to your advantage, set up the truck and have your crew meet with my crew for primary search of floor two, whatever floor you're going to, and maybe even the next company coming in to take a line off our truck and advance it to the floor above us, primary search and fire control.
00:30:22.289 -->
00:30:31.664So I mean, some of these are, hey, every fire is different, but a lot of those first few things you do are the same all the time.
00:30:33.550 -->
00:30:37.740Yeah, you're referring to the slide that shows up regularly in day one.
00:30:37.740 -->
00:30:41.376Our presentation right those standard conditions.
00:30:41.376 -->
00:30:53.698So there's a typical standard thing that your officers are evaluating in these incidents early on and then they're starting to apply that standard action of getting companies in the right place.
00:30:53.698 -->
00:31:04.759The fire can be in you know any given spot of the building, but it becomes that fairly standard process of getting them in place to manage all the places that you kind of expect it to go right.
00:31:05.661 -->
00:31:06.342Yeah, definitely.
00:31:06.342 -->
00:31:09.116And again, the fires aren't always the same.
00:31:09.116 -->
00:31:17.124So you know, if we wanted to base people's functions on their arrival order, it's just it's not going to work for us.
00:31:17.124 -->
00:31:39.039Because you know, if you say your first two ladder company is going to go to the floor fire and do a primary search, and while that first Duke company advances in there they realize hey, this fire is actually on floor one, not on floor two, then you know they're moving up into a spot of you know where they're not going to be protected by a line.
00:31:39.039 -->
00:31:43.900So they need to be told by the, you know, incident commander hey, we need you on this particular floor.
00:31:44.951 -->
00:31:57.942And you know the other issue we see is typically here the second-due company is responsible for water supply and then your third-due company, almost always just by happenstance, is pulling the second line off the truck.
00:31:57.942 -->
00:32:14.906So if you're not first-due's using TLOs, there's a real good chance that that water supply gets missed.
00:32:14.906 -->
00:32:23.518Because you know, hey, who was number three, who was the third guy in Three engine company officers all raised their hand at the same time.
00:32:23.518 -->
00:32:24.942I was there, I was there, I was there.
00:32:24.942 -->
00:32:33.955So that's why we like to do orders using TLO and directing it to where the necessity is.
00:32:33.955 -->
00:32:37.859Where's the first location and function we need to handle?
00:32:39.711 -->
00:32:49.174Gary, you said something earlier, I think, in what you just mentioned there about making sure you're giving assignments in TLO and, being specific, that first new company officer owns it, right?
00:32:49.174 -->
00:32:52.115So, uh, I was.
00:32:52.115 -->
00:32:58.222I had some time earlier and I was perusing through this.
00:32:59.872 -->
00:33:36.885It looks pretty new yeah 1946, uh series of books and specifically I was looking at this reading some things that I bought this when I was 18 years old, became a fireman, but it's the entire series of uh, firefighting tactics, engine company operations, all of that, um, and in the firefighting tactics piece it says the incident commander must organize and assign companies based off of what they see, the facts, the facts that they can identify and what they perceive.
00:33:37.049 -->
00:33:43.976And it's like that was 1946 from Lloyd Layman, right, and it's like it circles right around.
00:33:43.976 -->
00:33:54.519So there's nothing new that we're talking about here and it goes back to that thinking piece of what is the problem and what's keeping us from solving the problem, and that's where we need to use our resources.
00:33:54.519 -->
00:34:06.201So I think that's really important for people to think about and consider, because a fire on the first floor, one of these three or four story buildings, is different than a fire on the third floor.
00:34:06.201 -->
00:34:14.442And then considerations that it's always going to be vertical fire, spread right, just like any moose balloon frame If it's in the attic, it's in the basement, if it's in the basement it might be in the attic.
00:34:14.442 -->
00:34:19.242So just having that understanding of what that all really means.
00:34:20.789 -->
00:34:21.811You're going to have to time it out.
00:34:21.811 -->
00:34:22.532I got to go on a run.
00:34:22.773 -->
00:34:25.155All right, hey, gary, thanks, gary, thanks, man.
00:34:25.155 -->
00:34:29.380Okay, be safe, all right we appreciate you, Gary.
00:34:29.420 -->
00:34:31.324Thanks Be talking to you soon.
00:34:31.503 -->
00:34:32.164All right, thank you.
00:34:32.164 -->
00:34:39.297So, gary, there had to go on a run, but we continue on it.
00:34:39.297 -->
00:34:46.521He gave us some great information, I think, about the kind of construction they have, and it's just not germane to them because that's all over the place we can run into it.
00:34:46.521 -->
00:34:51.755I certainly see it with some of the older buildings in my community.
00:34:51.755 -->
00:34:57.152You know not to speak for Gary, but, josh, do you know what their particular fire problem is?
00:34:57.152 -->
00:35:02.474Is there a high likelihood in the Woosta community that you're going to get fires in these a lot?
00:35:03.677 -->
00:35:12.579Yeah, I mean if you just look at their, if you look at their history and then you pay attention, like we do, to you know people who are customers of what fires are going to.
00:35:12.579 -->
00:35:29.797Uh, they make a significant amount of fires in these buildings and I had the opportunity to spend quite a bit of time there and we're actually, chris and I, are going back there in june to do some, some other training with them and we're going to spend some time, uh, in the community and take a look at some of their buildings.
00:35:29.797 -->
00:35:46.554But as you drive around, as Gary said, you know there was building after building after building of those and, as we know, just the that density alone leads to elevated fire threat.
00:35:46.554 -->
00:35:50.123Right, that's Just with how many people are living there.
00:35:50.123 -->
00:35:58.135And then you know Gary kind of alluded to it Maybe they're not taking the best care of things and they're throwing garbage, you know, here, there and everywhere, and it's not necessarily everybody.
00:35:58.269 -->
00:36:15.240But if we look at some of their line of duty, death reports, their internal reports and their other reports that have been written, you know you can see that some of those places had been modified or cut up or weren't in the best condition.
00:36:15.240 -->
00:36:18.880So it is a big fire threat for them.
00:36:18.880 -->
00:36:28.157And you know one thing that they do for sure is they put a ton of resource there in a very short period of time.
00:36:28.157 -->
00:36:47.619But when you start thinking about their community and you know four stories or three stories of wood frame that's 100 years old, with asbestos or not asbestos, but cellotex shingle on the outside of it five feet apart, you either get right on it or you're going to burn the block down.
00:36:47.619 -->
00:36:50.543You either get right on it or you're going to burn the block down.
00:36:50.543 -->
00:37:05.400So, and you know as you drive around up there, there's not a lot of residential blocks missing anywhere, because they understand their threat, they understand what they're up against and they have a deployment model to address it.
00:37:08.210 -->
00:37:09.454Yeah, so they've got a.
00:37:09.454 -->
00:37:22.110In talking to Gary and talking to the other folks there, they have a very strong culture of we have to get there and we have to get water on things early.
00:37:22.110 -->
00:37:37.880Right, he talked to it about the back porch fires and slowing down the spread into the house and into the attic space, but then when that fire is on the interior of the space is getting lines in quickly, the life safety thing is critical for them.
00:37:37.880 -->
00:37:53.798Absolutely right, these could be densely populated areas, but it has to have a good balance, and they're talking about having to have a good balance of we've got to get water on the fire simultaneous to us looking for the victims.
00:37:53.798 -->
00:37:54.981That we don't have.
00:37:54.981 -->
00:38:00.106We don't have the luxury of looking around for folks and then dealing with the fire.
00:38:00.106 -->
00:38:07.239We've got to coordinate these actions either simultaneously or incredibly close to one another.
00:38:07.860 -->
00:38:19.282And then, once they start to control the fire is in order to support those search operations and maybe even victim removal is they've got to have an effective plan for some ventilation, right?
00:38:19.282 -->
00:38:21.597And how are they going to do that?
00:38:21.597 -->
00:38:28.056And it doesn't appear that vertical ventilation very often, definitely on the lower floors, is an option for them, right?
00:38:28.056 -->
00:38:29.675And so it's interesting.
00:38:29.675 -->
00:38:44.001I am looking forward to hearing more about how they ventilate, the role of hydraulic ventilation has for them and because you know, when you've got buildings so close to one another you may or may not be able to hydraulically ventilate effectively and depending on the window arrangement.
00:38:44.001 -->
00:38:46.414So they I know they have it.
00:38:46.414 -->
00:38:50.170I'm super interested in hearing you know more about how they do that effectively.
00:38:51.833 -->
00:38:55.641Well, we'll for sure get Gary back on because he's a good guest.
00:38:55.641 -->
00:38:57.871We have labeled him a good guest.
00:38:58.572 -->
00:39:01.039You know what I'm I'm bummed.
00:39:01.039 -->
00:39:01.699He had to go Cause.
00:39:01.699 -->
00:39:13.764I wanted to ask, now that he's actually been on the podcast because he's subjected his kids in the car listening to the blue card podcast so much what his kids are actually going listening to the Blue Card podcast, so much what his kids are actually going to think of him being on the podcast now.
00:39:13.969 -->
00:39:19.778And I think his kids' names are Robbie and Joe, right, and they get sick of hearing my voice.
00:39:19.778 -->
00:39:21.856So now you get to hear your dad's.
00:39:21.856 -->
00:39:25.152Yeah, that's good, all right, before we go guys.
00:39:25.152 -->
00:39:26.295Timeless Tactical Truth.
00:39:26.295 -->
00:39:29.385Yeah, all right, let's do it before we go guys.
00:39:29.385 -->
00:39:30.949Timeless tactical truth yeah, all right, let's do it.
00:39:30.949 -->
00:39:40.932Timeless tactical truth from alan brunasini.
00:39:40.932 -->
00:39:42.297And today we have the two of hearts and these are back in stock.
00:39:42.297 -->
00:39:46.273We sold them all out, all of them were sold out, but now we have them back in stock at bshiftercom.
00:39:46.273 -->
00:39:47.094Two of hearts.
00:39:47.094 -->
00:39:53.465The ic is responsible for all command functions all of the time.
00:39:53.465 -->
00:39:58.079Simply, command functions define the IC's job.
00:39:58.079 -->
00:40:09.092So it's interesting, gary was talking about IC number one getting off the truck and having to instantly be in the mode where they're now responsible for all eight functions of command.
00:40:09.434 -->
00:40:16.045The thought and consideration and maybe one of the larger pushbacks we get, instantly be in the mode where they're now responsible for all eight functions of command.
00:40:16.045 -->
00:40:23.414The thought and consideration and maybe one of the larger pushbacks we get from you know departments and individuals is, you know we're asking too much of the initial arriving company officer.
00:40:23.414 -->
00:40:39.637Well, I think the cost is too great not to put that responsibility on them and, like Gary said, from the very beginning, taking ownership of the incident, taking ownership of the evaluation size up and all the elements then that connect in a strategic decision-making process.
00:40:39.637 -->
00:40:48.525So they're coming up with a decent plan from the very beginning, based on some important critical factors that they evaluated.
00:40:48.525 -->
00:41:00.280Not just that, they made assumptions about to get people in the right place to come up with a plan and deploy companies fast so that they're getting water where it needs to go early.
00:41:00.280 -->
00:41:03.360They're getting the searches done early where they need to.
00:41:04.913 -->
00:41:12.023So we hear that argument or that that that you know pushback of it's too much.
00:41:12.023 -->
00:41:13.753Well, I tell you what man.
00:41:13.753 -->
00:41:16.440You listen to Worcester and you listen to a lot of other places.
00:41:16.440 -->
00:41:24.398There are company officers showing up, as I see number one that are doing a hell of a job and they're hitting the bar and they're going over the bar.
00:41:24.398 -->
00:41:31.373You know considerably because they, because it matters, they care and they've actually trained to be that good.
00:41:32.396 -->
00:41:43.731I think when we get that pushback sometimes of the they can't do it, it's because the truth is they can't do it because they've never been exposed to a system to teach them how to do it.
00:41:43.731 -->
00:41:47.518They glorified firefighters.
00:41:47.518 -->
00:41:53.065Right, I'm just responsible for my company, I'm just going to do what I'm going to do.
00:41:53.065 -->
00:42:51.976Well, when the expectation is that the organization says you're the first due company there and you're the first due company officer and that you're going to establish command and that you're going to be in command until relieved by that later arriving chief, and we trained them, laid out an expectation and we trained them to do that, then you know, we see that performance on the other side of it and we've heard audio from you know, worcester and hundreds of other fire departments now that are very successful, with company officers doing great size ups, developing great incident action plans, uh, being prepared to assign three and four and sometimes five companies themselves before a chief gets there for, for whatever reason, out of the district, delayed, you know, whatever it is, um, so that I think that that that's the piece, right, it's like it's too much, they can't do it.
00:42:51.976 -->
00:42:59.717And if I like to go back to the, well, if somebody's not there making decisions, then what it goes back to the.
00:43:00.818 -->
00:43:01.561You're freelancing.
00:43:01.561 -->
00:43:03.411I mean, it's a, it's a freelance.
00:43:03.411 -->
00:43:06.456Everybody's going to do whatever they want to do.
00:43:06.456 -->
00:43:07.898So well.
00:43:07.938 -->
00:43:10.324Hey, we'd like to thank Gary Fleischer for being with us.
00:43:10.324 -->
00:43:41.722He had to leave for a run, but he gave us a lot of good information while he was with us and we'll get back with him very soon and continue this conversation, because I think there's a lot to be offered from different construction and then definitely his department, their transformation into an excellent blue card department, using these critical factors and really talking about them and I think you know from the way that Gary talks, you know that his company officers and his other chiefs know the building construction.
00:43:41.722 -->
00:43:46.282They're smart company officers, so now they have that system to work within.
00:43:46.282 -->
00:43:52.376Hey guys, thanks for being here today Josh Bloom, chris Stewart, thanks, jv, appreciate it, see ya.
00:43:52.376 -->
00:43:55.398And Gary Fleischer, thanks for being here too.
00:43:55.398 -->
00:43:57.036We'll talk to you next time on V-Shifter.
