Steve-O: welcome back everybody. I have the privilege to sit down with Steven Kathy. He's a career fireman for the last ten years, based out of Florida, six years in his current department. He specializes in forcible entry and through the lock techniques. He shares these and all of his skill set and his passion to his department and then through his platform. If you haven't seen it on Instagram, you're under a freaking rock. Your locks don't work. First of all, coolest name freaking ever, right? For any sort of business, forcible entry guru or anything along those lines. But my brother. Steve, thank you for being on the show. Thanks for taking time out of your day, dude. I really appreciate it. Did I miss anything,
Steven: So
Steve-O: butcher anything in your bio, or is there anything you want to add, my brother?
Steven: No, not really. I do want to add a quick shout out to my buddy who actually came up with the name. So my buddy Kyle Foley, he recently left us to go work down in Jupiter, he actually came up with that name. It was his idea for me to even start the Instagram, so I gotta give him a shout out for that.
Steve-O: Absolutely. Good brother right there. And like I said, great, greatest freaking name ever. You know, that that should be the name of every forcible entry class under the sun. So, dude, we connected over Instagram. you have a huge following. Your forcible entry videos are just top-notch. Just because you're, again, a fireman's fireman. You talk like us, you look like us, you work like us, and then you execute the work. In our area right now, there's been a huge push on forceable entry because for some reason in our culture it was never a priority. The last couple of years it's
Steven: you
Steve-O: become one, thank God. Copper State Fools, we've been trying to teach as much as we can, bringing bringing everyone up to par. How did you get into this realm in your region? Did you kind of have a similar issue where you were seeing a lack of? Or is it just something that, man, you were like, dude, forcible entry is my jam. I love talking about it. So kind of what's your story? How'd you get to where you're at right now, brother?
Steven: I'll tell you it's a I won't go into too much detail, but specific fire I was on is actually what got me going with it. Starting the fire service a little late. was 30 or 31 when I started with the paid fire department. You know, I was four years in the army. I did years of construction. I was a barber for almost 10 years. And then I got into the fire service. And so a little bit later in the game. you know, I'm trying to play catch up with the younger guys. But we went on a specific fire and couldn't make entry on the door. I'm a rookie at the time. My officer is trying to coach me through it. I clearly know that this isn't happening. He's giving me the wrong direction. I just go with it, right? Well, it ends up being it's a multi-unit fire in the partner complex. We've got three or four units and we're not making entry into any of them. so that ended up to me was an issue. That was kind of the catalyst that really started with like, I need to learn this and I need to learn it well. And then, so I went out outside and started taking force-pointed classes on my own, going to hot classes, going to conferences. And then that is also what led me down through the lock. Like, hey, here's these other options too, that in certain circumstances could be faster and less damaging. it was just kind of it just kind of played from one thing to another. So I just ran with it. I made that my focus for a long time. And then that just kind of built some seams, I just kept on with it.
Steve-O: And I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I've done plenty of things on the fire ground or lack of experience where after the fact I'm like, God damn, I wish I knew better, I wish I was a better fireman, or I wish I had a better skill set. usually out of embarrassment. And again, you didn't say that word but when you realize crap, this is something that I need to get into because I'm lacking, I feel like I'm lacking in the skill set and I wanna be good at it because I mean you know you know just as good as anybody else. You can't do shit 'til you get inside the building.
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: so forcible entry should be our our number one priority, honestly, because you could stretch every line in the sun and throw every every ladder, but you got to get in the building. So outside of our ladder buddies, you got to get that door open, at least for the engine crew. So when you started ramping up and saying, Hey, you know, and I love what you did. if you listen to what Steve's saying, He went outside, started taking conferences, started taking classes, everything else, tried to absorb all that information. When you started coming back to your department, did you get any sort of push? Yeah.
Steven: I almost want to say it's a generational split. So a lot of the older guys that were already set in their ways, they were like, nah, we don't need that. You know, I'll just boot the door. I'll just boot the door.
Steve-O: Yeah. Yeah.
Steven: And if you've been in the fire service long enough, then there's been at least one door that's embarrassed you. so, know, booting the door isn't always the answer. For the guys that were around my age or a little bit younger, there was a lot more positivity with it. There was a lot more buy-in. So it just really depended on who I was associating with and who I was talking to. The older generation wanted nothing to do with it. The younger generation wanted everything to do with it.
Steve-O: So when you when you started bringing it back, was that something that you were able to go to your training facility and just start running all the guys through? Or did that take the did that take a lot l or a long process to get, say, upper management command officers to buy off to say, hey man, this is valuable for the guys because our personal experience was same kind of deal. The old timers, somehow, and it's not something that we came up with, but somehow it was established, hey, you got the fifteen plus and then the 15 under and we're marching
Steven: you
Steve-O: out 15 years with our department because a lot of guys came from different areas and stuff like that or less than fifteen years in the department and it was it was a divide that fifteen and under were like your guys. You know, hey I want to learn it all. I want to be I want to be badass and like we always jokingly say outside of doing a really good job if you do it really good and you look good doing it, dude you're fucking winning. then the tail end was the exactly what you're saying. Hey man I'll just build I booted it for the last twenty-five years. I'm good. A lot of things we're learning, If you boot that door hard enough and blow it out the hinges, you have
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: a freaking uncontrolled flow path at that point too, which backs with a thousand freaking things of data that you could kind of shove down these guys' throat. But when you
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: how was that process to get the upper management to buy off? And then when they did, how long did it take to get all those guys up to speed? Because I know you work for a pretty big department.
Steven: So I'll say this. I mean it had more to do with some of the older really respected guys backing me. Yeah, this this whole ball really started rolling just a few years ago for me personally, and it was because of really well respected guys vouched for me. you know I've always been hey, if you're not going to listen to me that I'm going to teach the guy next to me or teach the guy behind me and some of the guys above me started, I guess, just taking notice. And then, you know, some things happened in our department where they're like, hey, I think the administration started to see that, hey, guys aren't where they thought they were. And they, so they brought in some people together and they're like, hey, we're going to bring in the best of the best that we have in our department. And, you know, a couple of the older guys just vouched for me and were just said, hey, If it has to do with through the locker for Splendor, you really should look at this guy. You should bring them in. so they did. our, our, they were training administration reached out and said, Hey, we want you to come out and just kind of show us what you know, and we'll go from there. And so that was really it. And it was a little, it was a little slow moving at first. And then I think some guys started getting a buy-in and at first they were like, who's who's this firefighter and why is he? trying to teach us, know, I'm a ladder captain or I'm an engine lieutenant. What am I going to learn from a firefighter who has been with our
Steve-O: Mm-hmm.
Steven: department for just a couple of years? Nevermind that I came to this department with several years experience, you know, for this department, I had nothing except for the word of really well-established guys. So once that happened, once they vouched for me, once they pushed for me, I guess they believed in me a little bit. The ball started to roll and then I was able to kind of put my own feet on the ground and start moving. But if it wasn't for those guys, it wouldn't have happened.
Steve-O: Dude, that's that's great. So you obviously you got backed by the freaking senior dogs that were well respected, so it pushed you through. You're able to bring it to your department, which is awesome, but when or how did you decide, hey, I need to bring this to the next level, let me start social media, get an Instagram, start making videos, YouTube, whatever the case might be, when was what clicked over there where you're like, I want to share this outside of my region?
Steven: So again, I'll go back to my buddy Kyle Foley, a lot of guys in the fire service, especially in Florida know who he is. It was his idea. We're personal friends and so on my personal Facebook, all my personal social media is private. If I don't personally know you, you're not on my personal page. So Kyle's on my social media and I'm posting these little through the lock videos and. on today's episode of your locks don't work and I'm showing how a shove knife works or today's episode of your locks don't work. I'm showing one of the through the lock techniques. So I was posting a lot of those videos just to my private page and my stories and Kyle got to talking one day at training and he's just like, man, it would be cool if you Start a post snap for other guys for our friends and our coworkers and for other guys to see and I didn't think anything of it. I was like, well, yeah, but my stuff's private and I don't want my page to be public and he's just looking at me like I'm stupid and he's like, just start another page and I was like, alright, but what would I call it? And still looking at me like I'm stupid. He's like, call it. Your locks don't work. You've already been calling it that and so I didn't think anything of it. You
Steve-O: Ha ha ha.
Steven: know, I go fine. You know what? I'll start this page. It'll be a reference page. If somebody asks me a question, I'll be able to go, hey, go to my Instagram and look at video number five. And cause in my head it was, I was going to get a hundred friends and a hundred coworkers following me and that was it. And nothing was going to be anything. And then literally overnight it exploded. which was crazy. But again, it was guys like Kyle and, and, guys like the older. the guys in the job that have vouched for me, they started pushing that page and I didn't even know it at the time, but they started pushing the page to their friends and other coworkers and it just literally just started to blow up. So I had no idea. And again, if it wasn't for those guys, none of this would exist.
Steve-O: great story. So literally the brothers helping brothers I know it resonates with all the listeners because we all I mean, let's be honest, we're we wear helmets for a living, you know, and I do the same thing. It's sometimes it's the most obvious shit. You're like, shit, you know, it's I was waiting for you to be like, I know I could have two pages, you know, like I could have a second one? shit, like cool. So dude I love all the training videos you post. I mean it's it's everything under the freaking sun. So outside it's because
Steven: you
Steve-O: there's There's freaking so many. What is what's your jam? Like when it comes down to just
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the forcible entry side, either teaching or video wise, what certain like individual modality that is like, man, this is like my go to every single time when I meet somebody, I want to make sure they know this. Is there like a certain aspect of forceable entry that you absolutely just love showing guys every single time? Because it's we we usually all have that one thing where it's like that eye opener because every time we teach it, guys are like Like, what the f why didn't I think of that? That makes sense. Is do you have anything like that with the forceful entry, buddy?
Steven: I think for me, it really comes down to just tool orientation. I'm a big specs guy. when, like, let's say we get a new rookie at the station, I want them to know every spec of every tool. So. He needs to know how long that halogen is. He needs to know every dimension of the halogen. He needs to know how much it weighs. He also needs to know which orientation is which mechanical advantage. And so I don't think there's a specific technique. What I really like to do is when guys have questions, I just try to fill in the blanks and answer the questions. I really do love teaching and perpetuating this knowledge, because it's not proprietary information. You know, this is something that someone else showed me and I just really love. pushing it to the next guy. But as far as like what my biggest thing is, I would have to say just understanding the tool and its orientations and how it affects your motion through the doors. So I'm big on numbers, not because I want someone to memorize every number there is, but it's the way I put it is, disorientation is the big number and that orientation is a small number. And so if you're struggling with the big number, going to struggle more with the small number. And so just trying to get guys to understand tool orientation to kind of help them flow through the process. If that makes sense.
Steve-O: that's that's huge because it it makes complete sense. And you know, we talk all the time. You watch any sort of forcible entry video when they start talking about tool identification, mechanical advantage, and everything else, and it's thoroughly important because what side of the tool is designed to do what function between crush, pry, wrap, whatever it is, right? But like you're saying, if I'm using a tool at a fifteen one mechanical advantage and I switch it to a six to one, expecting it to be easier, Because I don't know shame on me so as soon as you teach those guys I love it I never looked at it like that because we beat in guys' heads all the time like the fundamentals drives everything else you can't do the cool shit until you're literally amazing at the fundamentals and I never thought about for the forcible entry side prior to the verbiage of gaps at force and everything else To actually just break down the tools so they really understand because we talk about the mechanical advantage, but I never thought about spinning it that direction where it's like, hey, if you're utilizing my if you're utilizing your Halligan bar in the orientation where you have the most mechanical advantage and you switch it because you're struggling, it's not gonna be easier. So we we talk about it all the time. If your tool's set and you have the appropriate mechanical advantage and you're applying force and it still doesn't open, you can increase the force by adding a buddy, Leverage, whatever Whatever the case might be, but I I dude, I love how you break that down for guys. So with your videos, especially online, you work a bunch with a a ton of different doors. I see you with the alpha door, which I've had limited experience on, and I think it's freaking stellar. We have a bunch of access to a bunch of different doors. One of our neighboring departments has a couple alphas, so every time we get a chance to, we try to suck it in for a while. with the props, We and I understand they're getting better as time's going on, but there's still training scars that encompass props. how do you combat that as an instructor? because you know these doors. So how do you combat that to try not to build that training scar? obviously all we're trying to do is build muscle memory with reps over and over and over again. So how would you combat those training scars that you can't avoid because it's just how the prop is built?
Steven: Yeah, so a lot of that I think comes with talking. You know, when I teach, I talk through quite a bit. I can go on Rantz pretty easy. Anybody who personally knows me knows that. But a lot of talking. So if we're on a door prop, I may emphasize, hey, the door prop is going to act in this order today. You're going to do this and this and this. And what I want you to do is I, you know, You're gonna do this thing on this door prop because that's the way that the prop is gonna react But I want I'm gonna stop you and I want you to do this other thing instead because this other thing instead relates to a real door And you know, so some people cheat the doors like we've we've all seen there's doors out there that have big springs And so we're gonna end up crushing the door in getting a huge two inch gap setting the axe head in there, you know, and it's like, well, that's not realistic. So I don't want you to crush the door in. I want you to push the door out. So we're not going to do any on this door. know, sometimes there's the red P E B door out there, the enforcer that's out there. I'll take not my most favorite door, but I'll take wooden blocks and I'll shove them into the Springs so that they can't. push the door into the prop and get that bad technique. But I think a lot of it just comes with talking and reiterating over and over and over again, okay, hey, that's gonna work for this, but it's not gonna work in the real world and here's why. So I think a lot of it's just trying to push the information to these guys that, hey, this is for muscle memory, but we're gonna keep it simple. And some of these really cool fancy techniques don't work in real. on real doors or in some situations and some of them do, but you have to tweak them differently. every class is different. Every door is different. It just depends in any unit you've seen it. Every door prop has different reactions.
Steve-O: we I've had Tons of personal experience on the exact door you're talking about. And the only advantage I find with those springs is when we're teaching recruit level firefighters that when they go to force, because we let them do it because you and you know as well as I do, they're gonna force it the wrong direction. You know, and
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: as soon as they figure out the inward and you switch an outward, they're gonna force it the wrong way again. But the only good thing about the springs is it's a very visual cue where then you can stop them and be like, where's the force being applied? and they can actually and then I can grab their tool, do it like they are, and they can watch those hinges, I mean dramatically move. But again, you're right, that's that's unfortunately a huge training scar from the door. And
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: it's it's it's not our favorite door either. And but unfortunately it's whenever they come out and it's the latest and greatest and whoever has the purse money and that's the time to buy it. That's Usually what you end up getting, but you just you just
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: work around I'm I'm a big fan of the woods doors just because or any company that makes something where you're applying and building the wood around it.
Steven: So.
Steve-O: just because it flexes a lot. So I I like the I like the flex without the break. So they they get a little discouraged sometimes.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: so what's what's your favorite door right now, brother?
Steven: I don't know if I've got a favorite. I've got several that I really dislike, but I'm not going to talk about those. But you mentioned flex on the doors, so I'll just mention a couple doors that I really like the flex on. Forceful Entry Inc has a really good door. They can, you can add in and take away different props setups on it, and there's a good amount of flex to that. The doors from Fortune Fireco. they have a decent amount of flex and their full size doors. Both those companies are full size doors. So when I'm teaching stepping into the door, booting that bottom corner of the door, pushing that to create that flex so I can get a bigger gap. Those are the kind of doors I like. Tradesman Fire has a really good door that flexes quite a bit. Both Tradesman and Forrestal Fire Co. they also have the wooden crush zones and trades. Tradesman also has the ability to put in a wooden doorstop so you could possibly blow the doorstop out on theirs. So those are, and then 1335, they have a very, just a very straightforward door, but it's a full-size door and it allows for flex so you can train on that. So those are just some of the doors that I like training on. There's many other doors out there. there's a handful of doors that I haven't even gotten to play with yet. So, but I would say those I think I mentioned four, those would probably be my top four. So we'll see with that. I've gotten to work with a lot of the four splint tree ink doors quite a bit lately. And the more I work with them, the more I'm starting to like those a lot. So.
Steve-O: I love any door that's a full door because it we'll we'll talk about that red door for a second. It Literally like a fireman freaking 12 inches, right? Fuck from from the ground. It's and you try to tell someone, hey, this should be your step one, and you can't even demonstrate it because there is no door there. You can stick your entire leg underneath the thing. And I I can't understand why any company makes doors that aren't like that. Have you I've seen I've seen a ton of your videos and at some point you had transitioned and I'm gonna call it the bantor, and please correct me if I'm way off. But I post a Shit ton of training videos, also. I'm I'm pretty much on the ground ladder side is what I like to showcase the most, and I get so many freaking nonsense comments. like literally, I did a whole thing on a modified painters carry to show a way to get a freaking 24 or 28-foot ladder down a diminishing alley or
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the side yard or something along those lines. And literally, like I'm getting a comment, did you check for overhead obstructions? And I'm like, Are you fucking kidding me? So I'd Saw a video, it was the first one I saw you with a real door. It might have been a trailer, and it reminded me of our buddy Mitch. And I know you know him from Fire Mall because I see you with the Chicago ads, Greatest fucking tool ever, personal opinion. I I personally own one, bought it with my own money with the tech hammer. That's my officer compilation. But outside of that, he does the same thing because he'll read a comment and he'll make a video and dog him. Hey, and it doesn't work, whatever the guy's saying to do. He's like, Hey, hey, Steve, what do I do now? What do I
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: Do now, you know, it doesn't work, but I felt like you're kind of going down that route, which I fucking love the banter. so how do you get because there's a lot of guys listening that have zero access to real doors, how do you get doors? Is there any way that you can kind of coach guys up and like or some way to build a prop where they physically put a real door in? Have you have you messed with any of that stuff? And then what was your experience with the real doors and being able to make videos on them?
Steven: So, I mean, as far as, you know. Going back to Mitch real fast, think that's actually how me and him clicked because
Steve-O: Yeah.
Steven: we both will, basically if a guy's talking shit to us, we're gonna talk shit back to him. And I think that's really how mine and Mitch's friendship started. And then I've gotten to work with him a handful of times, which has been great. so, and actually I think we've done, me and him have done one or two videos together where we were shit talking, somebody shit talking us at the same time. But as far as getting real doors, I've gotten lucky enough that calling demo crews, you know, and seeing, hey, this building's coming down tomorrow. Hey, do you mind? It's coming down at 8 a.m. Hey, at 7.45, can I go break your door real fast? It's coming down anyways. And they're like, yeah, okay. Okay, cool. Hey, do you guys wanna see this? Okay, and I'll have one of them hold the camera.
Steve-O: Nice.
Steven: And so I've been lucky enough that some of those guys, some buddies of mine that run demo will call me and I'll tell my wife, hey, me and my stepson, we gotta run out the door real fast, we'll be back in 20 minutes and we'll go do a
Steve-O: Yeah.
Steven: quick little video. So I've just gotten lucky and I think that's all it really is. I think a lot of my social media success has been pure luck. But for guys that can't get a hold of doors, I would say, and this is something that some of the old guys told me is called demo companies, called construction companies. Anytime you see that little construction site box go up in somebody's front yard, open the box, call the number, see if they'll let you come through 30 minutes prior to demo. You know, they're tearing it down anyways. Most of the time they don't care. Sometimes they like to watch and so. I've had a decent amount of success doing that and that was advised to me by some of the really old old guys that were really well respected. So I just kind of took what they told me and ran with it. So my advice to get doors is literally. Go around and call people if you see a construction. If you see a demo site going up, make the phone call before they start destroying everything. You might be able to use it for a day to do a search drill. You know some guys might be able to do. Depends on what they're comfortable with you doing, but you know, through the lock, let me, let me have 10 minutes to do it through the locker room or 10 minutes to do a force voluntary video or give me an hour to run my, my buddies through a search drill. And those crews will are typically pretty good about it, at least in my area.
Steve-O: That dude that's awesome. So I was just listening to and I'm curious to your tool compilation when it comes down to through the lock. Is that something you keep? Do you have a little pouch you keep in your bunker pants? Or I out here when we run EMS we put on you know what we call brush pants. It's just EMS pants and typically that's
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: where guys would keep because that's where we're gonna be using that respectful entry. Where do you keep your tool kit at? Because I was just listening to a guy from I think he's still on the job in New York City, but he's talking about probies in In their area, and he goes, Hey man, we'll have a freaking Mayday call. He's like, and then afterwards, we're going through and picking up twenty twenty screwdrivers, five pairs of pliers, everything else because they're trying to get to their webinar and all their crap. And his, he's a he's an old timer though too. He's like, Hey man, I care the bare freaking minimum. He's like, but he gave a really good reference to one of his back step guys that he said is super dialed in. He would have literally a pouch, you know, on the back step with them, and depending on what the call was, that pouch went in the pocket, you know.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: And he's like, shit, hey, it's it's a worker, he hears it or there's a column, you know, he's not taking his freaking respectful entry tools in his i in his pocket from there. He's g gonna grab his webbing, rescue rope, whatever the case might be. but
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: we're you know, how do you carry your tools? Do you prefer a certain type? Do you put in your pocket? Kind of what's your what's your jail?
Steven: I've got a small little travel set that I keep in my wallet. I have a little mini shove knife and a mini lockpick set I keep in my wallet. My wallet's usually on me, so I always have it. But on duty days I carry a piece of Mylar plastic that I keep in my cargo pocket and I carry a shove knife that has a pocket clip on it. most of your residential, at least in where I'm at, 90 % of your residential can be opened with either a shove knife or a piece of Mylar. I like to think of the Mylar plastic as a shove knife for inward swing doors, right? Your shove knife is gonna operate on your outward swing doors, your Mylar is basically your inward swing door shove knife. So I keep those two things on me, plus what's in my wallet. On the rig, I have a full through the lock bag that has everything in it. residential and commercial, I have a really big bag on the rig, but I always keep my mylar and my shove knife in my duty pants and then in my bunker pants. There's an extra. Shove knife and extra piece of mylar which you know you go to a fire alarm and all the doors are locked. And so I'm like, well, I don't want to run back to the rig to just grab a piece of plastic so I have an extra one in my in my bunker pants as well. but that's where I carry my school comp.
Steve-O: Dude, no solo plastic things are awesome.
Steven: They are, it's pretty awesome. I forgot who, know, it's become pretty popular over the last couple of years, but I forgot who introduced me to that years ago, and that was a game changer. Most of your residential, most of your fire alarms in a commercial building can be, you can make access with just either the plastic or the shove knife. And so always make sure I have those on me. And then I always make sure that the full bag of tools is on the rig, not too far away.
Steve-O: I know I got I got contacts with Williams Key, he makes one in a little tub and then I think Jobtown Tools or whatever, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other companies, but yeah, those
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: dude, those little plastic things is funny too, because they even tell you these are for inward swinging residential doors. They work on outward swing commercial doors because I've I've used them at my academy, locked everything outside of a deadbolt, obviously, And
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: just played with them like man, they work on these too. And again, it's the size of I don't even know what to call like just tiny little fucking tube. You can throw it in anywhere. And they're cheap. So dude, those are those are freaking awesome.
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. You know, drop down tools has him Williams keys has them. Modus has them sparrows lock picks covert instruments. So. And you know I I I buy. an array of things from all of those companies and they've they've they make. Good good products, so any one of those will will definitely help you out.
Steve-O: Well, I'll I'll ask you a question because I'm in the state of Arizona. we have inclement weather when it comes down to heat for the most part. Then we have what they call haboobs, which is a freaking dust storm, right? And then monsoons,
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: which is just heavy freaking rain, and this area is not designed to absorb rain, so it just everything floods. But we don't
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: have legit weather issues. So I had I had done a I had posted a video a little while back and I garage door cuts showing guys cuts with the K twelve, K 14, different blades, and then my preferred, which is a a chainsaw. And I just wanted to show guys it was an option.
Steven: Mm-hmm.
Steve-O: So I had a gentleman from North Carolina reach out to me and was just like, hey man, what about? He goes, our garage doors have bracing for hurricanes and inclement
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: weather, whatever. And I go, dude, I'm a garage door guy part-time. That's why like I got into this jam. But with all that, I'm like, I've never heard of that. Can you send me a picture? And sure as shit, a couple minutes later, he sends me a picture. I'm like, cool. Hey, I'll take our prop, I'll mock that up, and I'll show you because I know it will, because I know the type of material that
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: These braces are made out of. So your area, you get legit freaking nasty hurricanes. I have zero experience with extra sort of reinforcements. So for your area, what kind of issues do
Steven: you
Steve-O: you guys run into with forcible entry with hurricane doors, windows, and please excuse my terminology because I just don't know the right words for them. So if you kind of explain to the audience what you guys have to deal with because of I is it a building code thing? I don't even know.
Steven: Yeah, yeah, so a lot of it has to do with building code because of the hurricanes and what we're seeing in like, for instance, in South Florida because of building codes, we're seeing a lot of outward swing doors on residential now and we're swing doors are going to be a thing.
Steve-O: No shit.
Steven: Yeah. And we're starting to see if they're starting to creep up to the North Florida area as well. Some of the New York apartment complexes are doing outward swing only now, so yeah, we have a lot of hurricane bracing and actually it's funny to say that Army buddy of mine is a firefighter out in Arizona and he hit me up one day and we got to talking about making entry on garage doors and he's just like yeah, just just. You make two cuts and you flap it over. don't, I don't understand why you're struggling so bad with it. And it didn't click to me that you guys don't have a bracing out there. and so, you know, it's basically the same tactics. It's just, you're going to add in one or two extra steps to make that deeper cut. and, know, dealing with hurricane bracing and now the, a lot of hurricane windows, we're starting to see hurricane windows as a bigger thing. Now we're starting to see. I don't know what the actual term is. We generally just call them Florida doors. It's a residential door, but it has hurricane glass in the center. And then it's reinforced inside of the door. And then you'll see a header lock and a footer lock on it as well with the deadbolt and its outward swing. And they can be a pain. usually for that, Sal's are our best friend. I'm like with hurricane bracing depending on who who teaches it to you. We might end up doing a step cut where you know we'll make our our box cut and then we'll go in two to three inches. We'll make another vertical cut and then that will expose the hurricane bracing so we can drop the saw in deeper. Some guys like to just make their box cut then bring a sawzall in with a long sawzall blade to cut through the bracing. There's a couple different tactics that. that have become pretty popular over here with getting through those. Either way, they're pretty quick. That hurricane bracing isn't impossible. It's just so deep that you can't make it with the sole on a single pass.
Steve-O: I gotcha. Now with your your windows, so you kept referring to hurricane glass, is that like a laminate or a l a lexane glass? What what is that? And then can you
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: break it or is that something you have to cut and be mindful of it it kinda gluing together and binding your saw? How's that work?
Steven: Yeah, so I mean, I'm not. I'm not an expert on the windows. I'm actually trying to recently just got with some guys in South Florida that are firefighters down there and then some guys that actually install windows down there. So I'm actually trying to learn more about him right now. I didn't know this until recently. There's different levels. You know you're going to go from a single pain lamp or a dual pain laminate to multi pain laminates to bulletproof and everything else. So I'm trying to learn more as well, but basically you're not just going to hit it with a tool and it's going to break. Some of the older glass you would have to beat on it and beat on it and beat on it. And then it would eventually break. Now when you beat on it, it just spider webs, but all that, those internal pains are still intact. So you're not really breaking through them anymore. Your best bet is to get a saw, you know, your, our battery operated saws are pretty good for the Windows right now.
Steve-O: Wow, so I mean that's a crazy concern. In in your area, just and and I know you're already preemptive saying, Hey, you're not the window guy, but I just gotta ask, do you does your area your or your department, do you guys search through windows, V E I S, V E S, targeted search, whatever the case might be?
Steven: Absolutely, and especially
Steve-O: You do
Steven: yeah, and especially for my area being in North Florida, depending on what side of town you're on or what department you work for in the North Florida area, you might come across a lot of that or very little of it. You know we have beach fronts and so the guys that are going to initiate a search at the beach. They might they might have a harder time going. You know through the window first. So versus the guys near the river or out on the rural areas where, know, they're just dealing with regular glass, they can pop, pop the, the sash and just go. So yeah, we, are. Training on and actively, working through V E I S or VES, whatever anybody wants to call it. It will just really come down to those crews and how they have trained for their specific area. My, my department in general, there's so much different construction. that one crew on one side of town might have a completely different tactic than another crew on another side of town.
Steve-O: it's fair enough. I mean, we say it all the time. firefighting is regional and it really is. it shouldn't be when it comes down to the fundamentals, but it absolutely is when it comes down to building construction and then additional things. Like take any of the guys that I work with, and they would be lost when they would come down to a hurricane glass or hurricane door because something that we've never even been exposed to. So that and that's what I was wondering. I'm I'm thinking in my head as you're saying hurricane glass, going, Man, I'm on twenty-four inches of real estate on a extension ladder. Like how much ass can I get behind this and can I even break it or like you're saying, do I need to bring up a little like Milwaukee or DeWalt freaking battery powered rotary saw and be able to whip it out from there? It's just something I've never been exposed to. So I'm I'll have to take a deep dive on on that for sure. But I mean that's gotta
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: be it that's gotta be difficult for you boys.
Steven: Yeah, I mean, I'll say that you're absolutely right. Like the fundamentals, you know, everybody should should be on the same page as the fundamentals. My buddy Pablo, he always says the building gets a vote. And I think I think that really helps you kind of change your tactics. You know, if you're working in a certain area and you have 90 percent of that area is one type of building construction, you're going to adjust your tactics for that. And rightfully so. So yeah, the building always gets a vote.
Steve-O: Yeah, I love it. Like we we tell guys all the time, the most dangerous thing is usually the building because everyone's you'll ask like super green dudes and you're like, hey man, what's the most dangerous thing on the fire ground? And they'll be the fire be like, wrong. You know, I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: know what the fire does. I know exactly what it does. I know how to stop it, I know how it eats, I know how it moves, I know all these things. The building is what gets us
Steven: you
Steve-O: in trouble because that's how the fire travels through. Void spaces, you could insert whatever, the building being compromised and coming down. The building's usually what kills us. not
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: typically the fire, but so your region that you work in, what do you and you probably already kinda alluded to it, are you more single family dwellings or is it high rise or do you guys have fucking everything under the sun?
Steven: We're on that you you basically have everything. High rise warehouse hazardous material sites, single family, residential's multifamily residential's a lot of apartment complex, historic neighborhoods where the houses are over 100 years old all the way up to. We have construction going up right now. That's going to have the latest, greatest hurricane codes. So. Just about anything you could imagine we have. We have multiple high rise sections in our city. So, know, sumps and then, you know, we have a rural area. The outer area is a pretty rural. So those guys might be fighting trailer fires where the downtown guys are fighting high rise fires. The beaches guys are fighting, you know, multifamily dwellings with with up to date hurricane codes. And so, and then, you know, the core of the guy, might have some warehouse fire stone in there and everything else, you know, so yeah, I've seen every type of construction there is. And I'm pretty sure our city basically has it.
Steve-O: That's gotta be I'll tell you what, that's gotta be a fun place to work just because I feel like you could spend an entire career and not be a master at any of the the building types because it would just take that long to be able to get it would be interesting because you're it would force you to be that constant learner because hey man, I'm gonna go down to whatever station three today. Shit, station three is all mid rise and high rise. Fuck man, I'm rusty. I gotta get up to speed, you know. And I again I don't know how your guys are staffing or your your your work model goes if you guys rove or anything like that, but that's that's gotta be a freaking Awesome place to work. So with the the forcible entry side.
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: I'm sorry. Go ahead, brother.
Steven: Now that you're good, go for it.
Steve-O: on the forcible entry side, I feel like guys are fifty fifty. and I I'm really just more curious on your why on this. So as you're teaching and then starting to implement into the field, and then just you personal, when you're on a job, when you're forcing the door, are you typically masked up or no mask? And then why? Would you teach that or why would
Steven: I think it depends.
Steve-O: you prefer that or not prefer that?
Steven: I'm not I'm not for against either of them. I think that the situation dictates. If
Steve-O: Mm-hmm.
Steven: if I'm back seat and I'm the first apparatus on scene and there's a fire blowing out and we need to get inside, I'm probably masking up as we're rolling up to the house or masking up as I'm going through the yard to the door. If. Third or fourth on scene and we're just. And we're standing writ and we gotta go pop doors to soften the structure. Then maybe I'm not wearing my mask. Even if even if I see a little bit of smoke, so the situation depends. One thing I'll say is my gloves are always on. I mask up with gloves on, so my gloves are always on. The only thing I have to do is put my mask on so. If I'm first and I know I'm going straight to the door. I'm not wasting time. I'm gonna go ahead and mask up as we're as we're pulling up into the yard or I'm asking up as I'm going through the yard. But if if we're not if if I know that I'm not immediately going in as soon as that door opens then then yeah, I might wait if I'm going to be doing some yard work for a minute, then I'm probably going to do the yard work without the mask. It you know on average, you know. It's going to take me about 10 to 15 seconds. to mask up and I know for some guys on social media, 10 to 15 seconds is too long, but whatever, I'm getting old, so.
Steve-O: Yeah, we dude, I I'm a firm believer if you can mask up with your gloves on and be ready to work in under 20 seconds, you're doing a fucking great job because I've seen many, many dudes over the last 20 years take five seconds to do this to be able to get that sweaty ass hand into because
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: yeah, because that's how it is, you know, because they take it off, they've already done some work, so they're already drenched. You guys have freaking probably a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity. you know, during your summers, so those boys are freaking sop and wet. I'm a huge component of that. but I love what you said because that's kinda how we teach. I prefer, and again, this just personal opinion, I prefer not to just because physical blinder and then my position, I'm not a knob guy, so I'm not going in that first dude down there. But I love what you said. It depends, you know, because hey, can I do more work and mask up as we're, you know, hitting
Steven: up
Steve-O: the freaking air break and I'm going going in? Absolutely. I've heard Guys, where their department says you must like it's a SOP, you must be masked up and breathing air while forcing, which personal opinion is the most ridiculous garbage I ever heard of. I actually
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: had an episode, Kenny Roman, which is a guy from the valley. He had a mayday. His mayday was an out-of-air emergency. Legit, he ran out, almost freaking died, because his department, their mandatory thing was, you will be masked up on air, and he had gone to That commercial building, And he admits it too. He goes, listen, bro, he goes, we got the rabbit tool and it works. So he goes, My traditional forcible entry method went this garbage because all these commercial buildings, that rabbit tool slid in. Guess what? That
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: day, the gap was too tight, couldn't get it in, went back to forceable or traditional forcible techniques, was rusty, entered the structure, At half a bottle.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: And I'm like, and again, he ran out of that was his emergency, was an out-of-air emergency. So it drives me crazy when guys are like, I will always have a mask on and breathe in air because and their argument is, hey man, I popped that door and I met with a full exhaust. Yeah, dude, I get it, right? But that's why we do door control. Shut that freaking door, turn your back, mask up, turn around and go to work. That's again, Steve Orsini's personal opinion. But dude, I l I I love how you look on that. Is there anything else you kind of want to add to that mask up, size up, kind of forcible entry?
Steven: Yeah, I mean, you know, And you just set it size up right? mean your conditions are going to dictate as well. If if if I'm running up. Hose line crews going through the front door because the front door was already open. Okay, I'm going to run to the back door. Well, at the back door, I don't see a whole lot of smoke and a whole lot of fire. So maybe I just go ahead and pop the door as I'm popping the door, right? As I'm setting my gap, as I'm flexing the door, do I see smoke coming out of the cracks? Do I see fire coming out? Can I feel heat? You know, those are going to be things that I'm thinking about. Prior to me doing that final pop and then being met with that exhaust. So. The situation is going to dictate the fire conditions going to dictate and as I'm running up to the door or anybody who's forcing the door, they should be doing a size up. They should be reading the fire. They should be reading the smoke. They should be reading the building and then you know you determine from there what what is the best course of action for you. If if I'm running up to this door and there's fire coming out of the top, I'm probably going to mask up. But. If that condition isn't there, then maybe I'm gonna keep breathing fresh air for a little bit longer.
Steve-O: Yep, why not? And it's it's what Steve's driving home right now is being that forward think environment period the end. And it's it's hard to get guys to understand sometimes, especially the old heads, of the amount of information we need to absorb in a very, very small period of time because
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: of our fuel loads, our new building constructions, like what you're facing, things like that. Time is Definitely not on our side. We're figuring out that shit on arrival or as we're entering the structure. We're in pre or current flashover conditions. The old timers didn't have that shit. You know, like
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: my ex-father in law, old fucking salty fireman from Bridgeport, Connecticut, back in the freaking warriors. Like, I I would have killed the work in the generation that he worked in because he was on a squad and they just went from job to job to job. They would take up, they'd leave, they'd jump another fucking box, and I'm like, I am so fucking jealous. But he would literally be like, Steve, you Guys are fucking pussies. And I'm like, what? He goes, first of all, he's
Steven: you
Steve-O: like, death of the American Fire Service, no mex. And I'm like, explain yourself. And his reasoning is, hey man, you guys are getting burned now because before we'd feel that heat on our ears and no, we're going too deep. Now you guys push too deep, and that's why you're getting burned. I'm like, dog, that's not the
Steven: .
Steve-O: case, dude. We are going into houses that are made of gasoline. He's I'm like, the furniture is freaking gasoline. He's like, well, fires aren't hotter. And I'm he's a thousand degrees is a thousand degrees. I'm yeah, but. But we hit a thousand degrees as we hit the structure compared to they were on their third bottle when they're in and they
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: had legacy construction. It's just a completely different dinosaur. But those are the guys, or at least that mentality, because my ex-father-in-law taught our current, you know, command staff, battalions, senior captains, and that's how they think. You know, so
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: it is hard. I I believe it's difficult to start changing those guys' mind. The new guys are easy, you know, because they
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: they see what you're doing. They're like, That's fucking badass and they're they're on board. So I think, through attrition across the country, I think collectively we're just gonna get better as an American fire service. I mean, I
Steven: And wait.
Steve-O: I'm I'm sure you're seeing the same thing in your area, brother.
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, not not to fault the old guys, but the old guys did. 202530 years and it worked for them. So why would they listen to the guy who's only been doing the job for five years and he wants to change? So I get where they're coming from. I think it. You know, maybe maybe some of the older guys, especially that after they've retired, they don't get the exposure they used to. They may not understand. our point of view as a younger generation of guys. We are dealing with fire, but we're dealing with different aspects of it than what they dealt with. So I don't blame them at all from going, well, I've done this for 25 years. It's always worked. Okay, well with newer building construction and different codes and different layouts and different gear and different fuel loads, it's not working for us the way it worked for you. And that's understandable.
Steve-O: You're you're speaking to the choir, but I really hope guys are resonating with that because the dudes that listen to podcast are the hard chargers and are frustrated because every single one of us are facing the same issue right now. but I love the fact that we have guys like you pushing the pace and there's a shit ton of people that are watching. So man, that's that's fanning across the country right now. Before we get into the why, because I really want to find out, 'cause you you alluded to it and it wasn't in your freaking bio, your prior military
Steven: All right.
Steve-O: You used to cut hair for freaking 10 plus years. That would have been cool to freaking tell the audience about. But we're gonna get there in a second. Is there and I know we I know we hit forcible entry with a super wide freaking brush because I want guys to go to your locks, don't work on Instagram, watch your videos because we could talk all day long until you see the videos and really how freaking good you are as an instructor over a screen
Steven: you
Steve-O: is amazing. you can absorb that information. Is there anything you just kind of want to leave the audience when it comes down, at least your mindset? On forcible entry, brother.
Steven: Really off the top of my head, not really. I mean, as far as forcible entry goes, I mean, just learn your tools and you learn your building construction. know. your door frame construction, your door construction, your locks. Just learn them because every door and every door frame and every lock setup is going to cause that door to react differently. Just because plan A for you may be booting the door or plan A for you may be baseball bat swing on the door. Don't write off all those other options because eventually one day you're going to end up in a situation where plan A isn't working and you need to. You know, roll to plan B plan C plan D and that's the biggest thing for me is to have multiple options. I get guys busting my balls on all the time on well. I'll just put the door or I'll just baseball bat swing the door and OK OK well. What happens when you have to force multiple doors in their metal frames and your the pike on your halogen is all is all jagged and twisted around it off because you don't take care of your tools like you're not going to baseball mess with that door. Don't lie to me. Why? So You know, just just explore as many options as possible when it comes to forcing doors. Every time you get the chance to get on a door prop, force it a different way every time just just to get different reaction. And then as far as through the lock goes, not everybody is going to agree with me, but I'm a big firm believer that through the lock is professionalism. You know that that's the part of the job. It's it's not a it might not be as sexy or as or as fun to talk about for some guys, but. To me that it's almost more important that fire alarm or that medical call, or that welfare check, the through the lock stuffs really important, you know. I the way I say it in my city. If you go to a medical call and you boot the door in in a regular middle class neighborhood in my city, that's at minimum $1000 of damage. How is grandma who's living on a fixed income, who her kids are grown and they're living across the country, her husband is dead, she's living on her social security, she's eating cat food off salt and crackers because inflation is going through the roof. How is she going to fix that door? How is she going to secure that door afterwards? All because some guy wanted to get back to the recliner of two minutes faster. I don't believe in it. So, you know, the situation is going to dictate what type of entry you make, but I think through the lock is very important, especially for the community. So explore options, explore through the lock options, explore all your different forceful entry options, explore all your different tools. Everybody wants to talk about, this halogen is better than that halogen. Okay. Put it in your hands, put it on the door and figure out which one works best for you, your crew in your area.
Steve-O: Yeah, to hit on and it doesn't matter if you're career or volunteer, you're you sh you it's still a professional firefight. And I know we're not talking about fighting fire in this instance, but that that's exactly what it is. Because guess what? Br let's break it down to we always want more shit. Cooler trucks, more equipment More dudes on the truck, everything else. Guess what? Grandma Schmerkins, You booted her door in. Is she gonna vote to give the fire department more stuff? No, hell no, she's not. Compared to even if you had to destroy her knob, or her deadbolt to be able to unlock it to get in, that's $25 fucking dollars, She is gonna believe
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: that and tell all of her friends and praise you until the day is done. And guess what? When that boat comes around for more money for the fire department, her and her entire bridge community is freaking checking yes on that box. I mean it it it is what it
Steven: Yeah, one percent.
Steve-O: is because without the public we weren't we're not gonna be there. You know, there's no reason to be here if it wasn't for the public. So take fucking care of And I'm sorry I stepped on you, brother.
Steven: No, no, I mean, that's exactly it. You know, here in the state of Florida right now, we're talking about an amendment that's going to take away property taxes for homeowners. And they're all about to vote on that. Well, guess what's on the chopping block is funding for public safety. And we've come out and said, hey, a lot of us aren't supporting this tax cut right now because there isn't a 100 % black and white defined way secure funding for public safety. So again, what happens when grandma goes, you know what, I could use a tax break. I don't want to pay property taxes anymore. I own my own home. Screw the fire department. They've broken my door three times. So what is she going to do? She's going to take her break. She's going to stop paying her property taxes because some dude, and then next time she needs help on a lift assist, she's going to call her next door neighbor and he can just boot the door in. yeah, I mean, you hit it exactly. It's like without the community support, our profession doesn't exist. we can help them help us by being a little bit more professional and being a little bit more caring to their property and to their situation.
Steve-O: Alright, well I I I hope that resonates with everybody. Please, like I said, check out check out Steve on Instagram. Your locks don't work. It's a freaking wealth of knowledge. Throw it up on the freaking big screen at the station one day and just go through the things. He's entertaining as fuck too, which is awesome. So it it it's fun. And then you can, you know, call the chief and say, Hey man, we're out of service fucking training and enjoy a fucking video and learn something. So you had said so I wanna know the why, Everyone's got a different story, but you said you self admitted like hey you came into the fire service later in life. I did too. I was in the military also. So you said four years active duty army, is that correct? Was that fresh out of high school?
Steven: No, actually I did a couple of years of construction first. you know, I decided to bounce around and not grow up. So I ended up doing four years in the army. was actually stationed in El Paso. I was out there with the first armor division for four years. And then I came home and became a barber, you know, thanks to the GI bill. And I didn't even want to be a barber. I did it just so could collect money from the GI bill. was, I was working the front door. I was doing bar security at some sketchy strip club and a couple bars. And then I was bouncing around traveling with my buddies at playing bands was like, cool, barber school three days a week. I can collect the GI bill from it. And so I went and then that eventually led me to liking being a barber. Ended up working in a shop, a buddy of mine opened and I did that for a long time. And a lot of my clients ended up being firefighters from the department I work for now. And they, were really encouraging of like, Hey man, you got to get out of here. You got to, you got to get a more of a physical job. And I was just like, yeah, I mean, I could, but this is a fun job. Honestly, barbering was a, was a really fun job. I do miss it. Um, but you know, as, as a kid growing up, I wanted to be a firefighter. I, you know, I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be an astronaut. I think those are the top three jobs that most little guys want to do. And at that point I already did one. I was too stupid to do the other one. And then, well, then I had the opportunity to be a firefighter. So I ran with it, you know, and I was like, you know, I'll never go to outer space, but I'll get to fight fires. And it's worked out for me well, you know, so, and then my little, it's awesome seeing my little guys, you know, they just came to the station yesterday and they had to put the helmets on and they had to play with the tools and they had to run around. It's just, it's, it's amazing seeing them just Want to do what I'm doing and then you know that that just kind of makes drives me a little bit more to be a little bit better. You know, not only as a firefighter because I want to leave the department a better place so that when I'm on my way out and my boys are on the way in, I'm leaving them with a better place. But also just as an as an adult and as a father just want to be a good example. So I know that's a little off subject, but. But yeah.
Steve-O: No, no, it's a hundred percent on subject because we wanna know why. Why'd you why do you want to do this job and now we know why you love it so much too and all the benefits and dude I I agree everything it makes sense now be hearing your backstory because literally your picture for this episode is you in for a door holding the Chicago ads and right on your freaking shield is brass knuckles. And I'm like, I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: wonder what that story you said you're a bouncer in a couple of makeshift places, now it now it all makes sense and you're a big fucking dude, so yeah, it what a freaking what a cool, colorful career so far. So how you have
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: ten years total in the fire service now. I and I'm just curious, if know what you know now, go back to eighteen year old Steve, is this something that you you would have wanted to do from the get go or would you have gone through the military all over again?
Steven: tell you, I was kind of a hothead as a younger guy. would have done it at 18 years old. I think I probably would have gotten fired by the time I turned 19. So I am
Steve-O: Ha ha ha.
Steven: thankful that I didn't ruin that opportunity by jumping in it earlier. But if it wasn't for the Army, I wouldn't have gotten the GI Bill. I wouldn't have been able to even afford fire school or EMT school. And so, you know, at 18, it wouldn't have happened, but if it would have, I probably would have been fired by the time I was 19. So I'm glad that happened later in life for me.
Steve-O: And for the guys that don't know, and I'll have Steve elaborate because I only know about this much of Florida, but those guys have a completely different system when it comes down to certifications than everything else. I believe, and Steve will correct me, it doesn't matter if you have every cert on your son, if it's not from Florida, they don't give a fuck and you have to pay for it out of pocket before you can even get hired. Is that how it works or?
Steven: Yeah, so you know you have to have EMT, Fire 1 and Fire 2 to even drop an application right, but that EMT and that Fire 1, Fire 2 have to be state. It's my understanding that if you're coming from out of state, you might possibly be able to challenge the test if it's a pro board, but you know the state of Florida is on the same level. From my understanding, I could be wrong. Somebody will correct me. But it's on level with all the pro board stuff, but you know, the state of Florida isn't going to just take pro board. So yeah, I actually had a buddy in fire school that I'm on the job with now. He was an Air Force firefighter for 10 years prior to getting out. And then we went through fire school together because they wouldn't accept him as a pro board firefighter.
Steve-O: I gotcha. And we kinda do the same thing here, but w the guys can challenge the test and and things along those lines coming over as quote unquote lateral. They could go through like an accelerated academy, but they still have to go through ours.
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: and I did the same thing. Shit, I had eleven years back East as expression officer. I came out here, start all over again, almost at year ten now, but I had to do everything. I went through a fucking full academy. They didn't give a they didn't honor my fire one and two, they care less. They're like if it wasn't
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: from the state of Arizona, they're like pounce it and I was a tech the whole night. They wouldn't take my hazmat tech, they wouldn't take my TRT. I'd do it all over again. I'm like, well, but dude, it's I struggle. The reason I asked you about the military is I struggle with that because I did six years active duty and I look back and I always say, hey man, hindsight's 2020. I wish. I wish I did this job when I was 18, like fresh out of high school and did it. But dude, I'm in the same boat. I was a fucking asshole. And if it
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: wasn't for the military, it made me grow up. And
Steven: Correct.
Steve-O: honestly, I don't believe I would have been hired in my first department if they didn't offer. For military preference points. I I honestly believe that's the only reason because it was my first time testing. that's the only reason I made the list is because I had that 10-point preference and was able to get into that and then go to the academy and and you know the rest is history from there. But yeah, I would like I said I was just curious because man, I I wish I wish I knew how cool this job was a long fucking time ago. I mean I knew it was five years old, I just didn't know it, know it, you know.
Steven: Thanks.
Steve-O: So we know the why. We we know why Steve got into the fire service. and he's doing a fucking killer job, so traditions. This podcast exists to promote the fools. We have a chapter out here, Copper State Fools. We out west, especially in my region, there's a lot of American Fire Service traditions that have either gone by the wayside or never really transitioned from the East Coast, where I believe, especially the Northeast Coast, where it's extremely steeped in the American Fire Service. We just don't have it out there. And it's something that I missed and a bunch of my buddies missed. And we started this program and started trying to reinstill a lot of the traditions of the American Fire Service. So my question to you is.
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: and it doesn't have to be your department or your region. What's your favorite American
Steven: you
Steve-O: fire service tradition? But more importantly, why? Why do you love this tradition so much?
Steven: I'd say so, you know, talk about fools. I'm a member of First Coast Fools out here in North Florida.
Steve-O: hell yeah.
Steven: We just recently got the chapter back up and running again after it went on a hiatus for a while. So just wanted to shout that out. But I mean, honestly, I think when it comes to traditions and you know, maybe you'll agree, maybe you won't, but I really think family time right around mealtime is probably one of my favorite traditions. I think it's important that you break bread with your brothers and sisters. and, and, know, it, really kind of, it should, right. It, it should break that rank barrier. Um, you know, we're all equal at the dinner table. And so I think that's one of the best traditions I think it has. And, know, it even pushes into my home life where, I've got a mixed family and, um, you know, we're, pretty busy. Everybody's pretty busy. And, the one thing we do is we sit at the table and we eat dinner together and we talk and we have our family time. So that's probably one of my, favorite traditions. think it's one of the most important traditions is to be able to sit down, break bread on a even level with, with everybody and just have that one-on-one time.
Steve-O: I love it. Yeah, and it's I mean that kitchen table has so many different facets like crew bonding, therapy, freaking training. You can you can do anything in that kitchen table, but you hit the nail on the head. There is no rank at the table. If you have a chief in your house, hopefully you're sitting down with the boys to eat and you should be talking shit to just like he's talking shit to you, right? Until those tones go off and then you know, then he went back from, you know, Rob to freaking chief again, but it's okay. But I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: do I agree with you. I love that kitchen table. I'm just curious in your area do you have an issue with because I've kind of seen a trend in the newer version of the American Fire Service where guys are like, Hey man, I'm good, I brought my meal prep, for those guys, you still make sit down and eat with the boys, or is that not even an issue in your area?
Steven: No, they'll still sit at the table if they're not eating or they have their own meal plan or whatever the case is, they're still sitting at the table. And then if they don't, you know, it's kind of a, it's one of those things. I mean, obviously sometimes there's a reason why somebody may break away from the table, but if it's, if it's just one of those guys, yeah, you might, know, you might, well, okay. Hey, he doesn't want to sit with us. He doesn't want to eat with us. He doesn't want to talk with us. I mean, what's, what's going on? Why does he want to be a part of us? Um, but 99 % of the time, regardless of what somebody has, they're sitting at the table and we're all breaking bread and we're all doing our thing together. And I think that's great. And I would really hate to see, but you know, I have been at stations where they don't eat together. Everybody will cook their meal separate. They'll go to a different corner of the station and they'll eat separately. And you can tell the morale of that station. You can tell the camaraderie of that station. You can tell the level of, motivation, the level of training at those types of stations. And so, yeah, I think the dinner table is a very important aspect of the fire station and how that crew runs.
Steve-O: It is and I I I'll add one more thing to that too, I believe, from what I've seen, is those same crews also don't perform as well in the fire ground, personal opinion. And it's because they don't have that. They're not jailed. You know, they could they could be they could be four to eight to twelve guys depending on that house or whatever, and they're all fucking studs, but nobody's on the same page because they don't hang out with each other. You know, you
Steven: Correct.
Steve-O: could take the worst house in the entire city with the eight to twelve guys and they'll outperform Because they're all buddies. Yeah, and again, that's that's just what I've seen and that's what I believe. But dude, that kitchen table is badass for sure.
Steven: I'm right there with yeah. Yeah, I agree with you 100 % on that.
Steve-O: All right, dude. So I know you are 10 years into the service now. So, dude, I'm gonna freaking catapult your freaking paycheck, your career. I'm gonna add a bunch of zeros. I'm gonna promote you. I'll promote you to what we call the commissioner of the world, fire chief of the universe. And on top of that promotion, you get that one magical wish on that genie lamp. It happens right now. Zero sweat equity, instant gratification. You change something in the American Fire Service. What would it be? But why? Why would you change? Add, delete, whatever this is.
Steven: I mean, think that's a tough question. mean, you talked back about how a lot of firefighting is regional. And I think there's a lot of issues that are regional. So it's kind of a tough one. But I definitely would want to emphasize more training. Actually, one thing I would do, some guys might hate me for it, but I think physical fitness standards need to be mandatory. a, a yearly or bi-yearly physical fitness test needs to happen. Everybody takes a, a PT test to get onto the job and they don't take another one and they end up dying of a heart attack and 50 pounds overweight. so the one thing I would change is, is physical fitness standards. They w they would be mandatory, mandatory PT tests. And there's going to be some guys are going to hate that about that, but, you know, it's a very physical job and I want my buddy next to me to, to go home. And I don't want him to fall out and then put me in jeopardy. And, you know, and we're supposed to be professionals. I kind of hate that wearing backwards hats is considered unprofessional or having your t-shirt on tucked is unprofessional, but the guy wearing the six XL button up that hasn't seen his belt buckle in 10 years, he's professional because he's got his button up on. So the one thing I would change is there would be mandatory physical fitness training, mandatory physical fitness tests. that you would have to continue to do in order to stay on that job.
Steve-O: N in your region, do they have that or no?
Steven: No, there are surrounding departments. So for my department, we have an incentive run. You have to run a mile and a half in a certain amount of time and you get a pay incentive if you meet that time, but nothing is mandatory. It's all volunteer. There have been, I know there are some other departments just south of us that tried to implement physical fitness tests and that got shot down by their locals. So, you know, it's one of those things. I don't know if we'll ever be able to change that, but that would definitely be at the top of my list.
Steve-O: It's a dude, it's it's a great that's a great wish and great answer, and I and I agree with you. My biggest shock culture wise outside of being regional because going from east coast to west coast was you know I started my career in the East Coast. That's the only fire service I knew. I just assumed that my department was the same way across the country. That's just, you know, I was I was too naive,
Steven: you
Steve-O: too young to look into anything else. And this was also like shit, I think when I first got on we were just getting like Next Tels and shit like that. You know, like
Steven: .
Steve-O: there was no smartphones. But
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: We we would make this joke, you know, I've said it a couple times. Guys would say, and it sucks, it's a joke, but it's it was the truth though. Hey man, the best shape I was in my life was the day I graduated the academy, which sucks. when I came out here, we did my department and I can speak for my department in my region. They hold our culture says physical fitness is a high priority. sometimes it's a little bit too high over other things that should probably not necessarily trump
Steven: you
Steve-O: it, but at least be at the same level of physical fitness. But I came and I started looking at the guys. I'm like, I haven't seen a single fireman that's overweight. I'm like, what the fuck's going on out here? And then we go through this part of the hiring process in my department. We go through a combine. It's basically a weekend where they kick you in the balls for eight hours a day and they want you to smile and say, Yes, sir, okay, have some more. And then you want to help everybody out. But they're trying to see your true character, is what they're trying to do. And I'll never forget day one, minute one. I had this old salty captain come out, and he's a little guy. I mean, skinny, short, and I'm looking at him, and it's what we do. We're bros, right? We saw. Everybody up, and I'm like, okay. And he's all like, all right, guys, I'm gonna take you on a quick warm-up. So I'm thinking exactly, hey, we're gonna probably do a jog or something like that. He literally destroys us for 20 minutes, and I'm
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: fucking spent. And I considered myself like 10% elite back in my old department compared to the majority of the guys, and I'm getting worked. This guy is older than me, he's smaller than me, he's definitely weaker than me, and he is fucking running me, running
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: circles around me. I was embarrassed, and I'm like, What the hell? But out here we do. Do that. We do a yearly physical that involves a stress test, EKGs, flexibility, push-ups, sit-ups. I mean, you name it. The crazy thing about it though is these guys out here think that's normal. And I'm like, hey man, we're it's that's a minority across the country. Guys don't have that, and it's and it sucks, but Even even though it's mandatory for us and say, hey man, I had a shitty year, I got divorced, I gained fifty pounds, you know, I started drinking too much, my health went to garbage. I go for that yearly physical and I don't meet my standards where I need to be be on the truck. I don't get fired. The department says, all right, here, here's a freaking trainer, here's a nutritionist, Hey, you can't be on a truck, you're light duty. We're gonna work with you physical therapy the whole nine, and you have a year, we're gonna get you back on the truck. You know, and that's how it should be across the country. Hey, we're not throwing
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the guy to the side. We're gonna say, hey man, we wanna help you out because not only do we want you to be a high performan while you're here, but dude, when you retire, we want you to drain that freaking pension system. That's my goal, you know, retire
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: and drain that freaking thing. You know, unlike the the majority of us, unfortunately, and and I know you see it too. The guys retire two to five years later, they're fucking dead. It sucks. You know, they do anywhere 25 to 35 years and they enjoy two years of retirement. It's not fucking fair. You know, and it's it's our lifestyle, it's it's our exposures. There's there's a multitude of things, but man, I I I agree with you, dude. The the physical fitness standard across the country, I believe that and a schedule. And again, this is just Steve Orsini. I wish the international would come out and say, Hey man, yearly physicals mandatory, right? Set the metrics, make them achievable, you know, set the metrics, and then the department can maybe slowly increase them if they if they choose to. And then again,
Steven: Mm-hmm.
Steve-O: personal opinion, the union should come out across the country and say, our guys should work any sort of twenty four seventy two schedule period the end because of the rest, work, sleep cycle. That could be tens, fourteens, twenty four seventy two, one on one wh however you want to work it, but That should be the fucking schedule across the country. But no one will ever fucking pull that trigger because as much as a union is our friend, and you know this as well as I do, they have to listen to everybody. And unfortunately that freaking load that's overweight can't do the job. He gets a megaphone because
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: he pays dues just like I do, and they need to do do justice and take care of him just like they take care of me. so it sucks. So we unfortunately have to protect the fat lazy guys too, which stinks, but it's just a reality.
Steven: That's the truth.
Steve-O: I appreciate your time. We're we're already over an hour. Thank you for coming on the show. Dude, thank you for what you're doing for the American Fire Service as a whole. I can't wait to see your future videos. I literally watch every single one of them that come through because they're they're just amazing. So if you're not following them
Steven: Appreciate it.
Steve-O: right now, follow Is there anything you want to tell the audience how they can reach you? Anything like that, before we sign off, brother.
Steven: not really. I mean, yeah. If you want to go give me a follow, anybody has any questions, they can always just message me. I'll talk about any of these subjects as much as you guys want. So go, go follow me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Tik Tok, and, feel free to reach out to me any way you want.
Steve-O: that's awesome. Thank you for spreading the knowledge, And what Steve said earlier in the episode, Everything's random, man. He didn't invent any of this stuff. Someone taught him. He's elevating the platform. Watch his videos. Bring it back to your house. Practice with the guys until you're freaking dialed and then executing on the fire ground. Then teach the next dude. You know, that's all we're
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: looking for right now. So, my brother, thank you so much. Keep kicking ass and fucking breaking doors. And we'll catch you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.
Steven: So
Steve-O: butcher anything in your bio, or is there anything you want to add, my brother?
Steven: No, not really. I do want to add a quick shout out to my buddy who actually came up with the name. So my buddy Kyle Foley, he recently left us to go work down in Jupiter, he actually came up with that name. It was his idea for me to even start the Instagram, so I gotta give him a shout out for that.
Steve-O: Absolutely. Good brother right there. And like I said, great, greatest freaking name ever. You know, that that should be the name of every forcible entry class under the sun. So, dude, we connected over Instagram. you have a huge following. Your forcible entry videos are just top-notch. Just because you're, again, a fireman's fireman. You talk like us, you look like us, you work like us, and then you execute the work. In our area right now, there's been a huge push on forceable entry because for some reason in our culture it was never a priority. The last couple of years it's
Steven: you
Steve-O: become one, thank God. Copper State Fools, we've been trying to teach as much as we can, bringing bringing everyone up to par. How did you get into this realm in your region? Did you kind of have a similar issue where you were seeing a lack of? Or is it just something that, man, you were like, dude, forcible entry is my jam. I love talking about it. So kind of what's your story? How'd you get to where you're at right now, brother?
Steven: I'll tell you it's a I won't go into too much detail, but specific fire I was on is actually what got me going with it. Starting the fire service a little late. was 30 or 31 when I started with the paid fire department. You know, I was four years in the army. I did years of construction. I was a barber for almost 10 years. And then I got into the fire service. And so a little bit later in the game. you know, I'm trying to play catch up with the younger guys. But we went on a specific fire and couldn't make entry on the door. I'm a rookie at the time. My officer is trying to coach me through it. I clearly know that this isn't happening. He's giving me the wrong direction. I just go with it, right? Well, it ends up being it's a multi-unit fire in the partner complex. We've got three or four units and we're not making entry into any of them. so that ended up to me was an issue. That was kind of the catalyst that really started with like, I need to learn this and I need to learn it well. And then, so I went out outside and started taking force-pointed classes on my own, going to hot classes, going to conferences. And then that is also what led me down through the lock. Like, hey, here's these other options too, that in certain circumstances could be faster and less damaging. it was just kind of it just kind of played from one thing to another. So I just ran with it. I made that my focus for a long time. And then that just kind of built some seams, I just kept on with it.
Steve-O: And I don't wanna put words in your mouth, but I've done plenty of things on the fire ground or lack of experience where after the fact I'm like, God damn, I wish I knew better, I wish I was a better fireman, or I wish I had a better skill set. usually out of embarrassment. And again, you didn't say that word but when you realize crap, this is something that I need to get into because I'm lacking, I feel like I'm lacking in the skill set and I wanna be good at it because I mean you know you know just as good as anybody else. You can't do shit 'til you get inside the building.
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: so forcible entry should be our our number one priority, honestly, because you could stretch every line in the sun and throw every every ladder, but you got to get in the building. So outside of our ladder buddies, you got to get that door open, at least for the engine crew. So when you started ramping up and saying, Hey, you know, and I love what you did. if you listen to what Steve's saying, He went outside, started taking conferences, started taking classes, everything else, tried to absorb all that information. When you started coming back to your department, did you get any sort of push? Yeah.
Steven: I almost want to say it's a generational split. So a lot of the older guys that were already set in their ways, they were like, nah, we don't need that. You know, I'll just boot the door. I'll just boot the door.
Steve-O: Yeah. Yeah.
Steven: And if you've been in the fire service long enough, then there's been at least one door that's embarrassed you. so, know, booting the door isn't always the answer. For the guys that were around my age or a little bit younger, there was a lot more positivity with it. There was a lot more buy-in. So it just really depended on who I was associating with and who I was talking to. The older generation wanted nothing to do with it. The younger generation wanted everything to do with it.
Steve-O: So when you when you started bringing it back, was that something that you were able to go to your training facility and just start running all the guys through? Or did that take the did that take a lot l or a long process to get, say, upper management command officers to buy off to say, hey man, this is valuable for the guys because our personal experience was same kind of deal. The old timers, somehow, and it's not something that we came up with, but somehow it was established, hey, you got the fifteen plus and then the 15 under and we're marching
Steven: you
Steve-O: out 15 years with our department because a lot of guys came from different areas and stuff like that or less than fifteen years in the department and it was it was a divide that fifteen and under were like your guys. You know, hey I want to learn it all. I want to be I want to be badass and like we always jokingly say outside of doing a really good job if you do it really good and you look good doing it, dude you're fucking winning. then the tail end was the exactly what you're saying. Hey man I'll just build I booted it for the last twenty-five years. I'm good. A lot of things we're learning, If you boot that door hard enough and blow it out the hinges, you have
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: a freaking uncontrolled flow path at that point too, which backs with a thousand freaking things of data that you could kind of shove down these guys' throat. But when you
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: how was that process to get the upper management to buy off? And then when they did, how long did it take to get all those guys up to speed? Because I know you work for a pretty big department.
Steven: So I'll say this. I mean it had more to do with some of the older really respected guys backing me. Yeah, this this whole ball really started rolling just a few years ago for me personally, and it was because of really well respected guys vouched for me. you know I've always been hey, if you're not going to listen to me that I'm going to teach the guy next to me or teach the guy behind me and some of the guys above me started, I guess, just taking notice. And then, you know, some things happened in our department where they're like, hey, I think the administration started to see that, hey, guys aren't where they thought they were. And they, so they brought in some people together and they're like, hey, we're going to bring in the best of the best that we have in our department. And, you know, a couple of the older guys just vouched for me and were just said, hey, If it has to do with through the locker for Splendor, you really should look at this guy. You should bring them in. so they did. our, our, they were training administration reached out and said, Hey, we want you to come out and just kind of show us what you know, and we'll go from there. And so that was really it. And it was a little, it was a little slow moving at first. And then I think some guys started getting a buy-in and at first they were like, who's who's this firefighter and why is he? trying to teach us, know, I'm a ladder captain or I'm an engine lieutenant. What am I going to learn from a firefighter who has been with our
Steve-O: Mm-hmm.
Steven: department for just a couple of years? Nevermind that I came to this department with several years experience, you know, for this department, I had nothing except for the word of really well-established guys. So once that happened, once they vouched for me, once they pushed for me, I guess they believed in me a little bit. The ball started to roll and then I was able to kind of put my own feet on the ground and start moving. But if it wasn't for those guys, it wouldn't have happened.
Steve-O: Dude, that's that's great. So you obviously you got backed by the freaking senior dogs that were well respected, so it pushed you through. You're able to bring it to your department, which is awesome, but when or how did you decide, hey, I need to bring this to the next level, let me start social media, get an Instagram, start making videos, YouTube, whatever the case might be, when was what clicked over there where you're like, I want to share this outside of my region?
Steven: So again, I'll go back to my buddy Kyle Foley, a lot of guys in the fire service, especially in Florida know who he is. It was his idea. We're personal friends and so on my personal Facebook, all my personal social media is private. If I don't personally know you, you're not on my personal page. So Kyle's on my social media and I'm posting these little through the lock videos and. on today's episode of your locks don't work and I'm showing how a shove knife works or today's episode of your locks don't work. I'm showing one of the through the lock techniques. So I was posting a lot of those videos just to my private page and my stories and Kyle got to talking one day at training and he's just like, man, it would be cool if you Start a post snap for other guys for our friends and our coworkers and for other guys to see and I didn't think anything of it. I was like, well, yeah, but my stuff's private and I don't want my page to be public and he's just looking at me like I'm stupid and he's like, just start another page and I was like, alright, but what would I call it? And still looking at me like I'm stupid. He's like, call it. Your locks don't work. You've already been calling it that and so I didn't think anything of it. You
Steve-O: Ha ha ha.
Steven: know, I go fine. You know what? I'll start this page. It'll be a reference page. If somebody asks me a question, I'll be able to go, hey, go to my Instagram and look at video number five. And cause in my head it was, I was going to get a hundred friends and a hundred coworkers following me and that was it. And nothing was going to be anything. And then literally overnight it exploded. which was crazy. But again, it was guys like Kyle and, and, guys like the older. the guys in the job that have vouched for me, they started pushing that page and I didn't even know it at the time, but they started pushing the page to their friends and other coworkers and it just literally just started to blow up. So I had no idea. And again, if it wasn't for those guys, none of this would exist.
Steve-O: great story. So literally the brothers helping brothers I know it resonates with all the listeners because we all I mean, let's be honest, we're we wear helmets for a living, you know, and I do the same thing. It's sometimes it's the most obvious shit. You're like, shit, you know, it's I was waiting for you to be like, I know I could have two pages, you know, like I could have a second one? shit, like cool. So dude I love all the training videos you post. I mean it's it's everything under the freaking sun. So outside it's because
Steven: you
Steve-O: there's There's freaking so many. What is what's your jam? Like when it comes down to just
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the forcible entry side, either teaching or video wise, what certain like individual modality that is like, man, this is like my go to every single time when I meet somebody, I want to make sure they know this. Is there like a certain aspect of forceable entry that you absolutely just love showing guys every single time? Because it's we we usually all have that one thing where it's like that eye opener because every time we teach it, guys are like Like, what the f why didn't I think of that? That makes sense. Is do you have anything like that with the forceful entry, buddy?
Steven: I think for me, it really comes down to just tool orientation. I'm a big specs guy. when, like, let's say we get a new rookie at the station, I want them to know every spec of every tool. So. He needs to know how long that halogen is. He needs to know every dimension of the halogen. He needs to know how much it weighs. He also needs to know which orientation is which mechanical advantage. And so I don't think there's a specific technique. What I really like to do is when guys have questions, I just try to fill in the blanks and answer the questions. I really do love teaching and perpetuating this knowledge, because it's not proprietary information. You know, this is something that someone else showed me and I just really love. pushing it to the next guy. But as far as like what my biggest thing is, I would have to say just understanding the tool and its orientations and how it affects your motion through the doors. So I'm big on numbers, not because I want someone to memorize every number there is, but it's the way I put it is, disorientation is the big number and that orientation is a small number. And so if you're struggling with the big number, going to struggle more with the small number. And so just trying to get guys to understand tool orientation to kind of help them flow through the process. If that makes sense.
Steve-O: that's that's huge because it it makes complete sense. And you know, we talk all the time. You watch any sort of forcible entry video when they start talking about tool identification, mechanical advantage, and everything else, and it's thoroughly important because what side of the tool is designed to do what function between crush, pry, wrap, whatever it is, right? But like you're saying, if I'm using a tool at a fifteen one mechanical advantage and I switch it to a six to one, expecting it to be easier, Because I don't know shame on me so as soon as you teach those guys I love it I never looked at it like that because we beat in guys' heads all the time like the fundamentals drives everything else you can't do the cool shit until you're literally amazing at the fundamentals and I never thought about for the forcible entry side prior to the verbiage of gaps at force and everything else To actually just break down the tools so they really understand because we talk about the mechanical advantage, but I never thought about spinning it that direction where it's like, hey, if you're utilizing my if you're utilizing your Halligan bar in the orientation where you have the most mechanical advantage and you switch it because you're struggling, it's not gonna be easier. So we we talk about it all the time. If your tool's set and you have the appropriate mechanical advantage and you're applying force and it still doesn't open, you can increase the force by adding a buddy, Leverage, whatever Whatever the case might be, but I I dude, I love how you break that down for guys. So with your videos, especially online, you work a bunch with a a ton of different doors. I see you with the alpha door, which I've had limited experience on, and I think it's freaking stellar. We have a bunch of access to a bunch of different doors. One of our neighboring departments has a couple alphas, so every time we get a chance to, we try to suck it in for a while. with the props, We and I understand they're getting better as time's going on, but there's still training scars that encompass props. how do you combat that as an instructor? because you know these doors. So how do you combat that to try not to build that training scar? obviously all we're trying to do is build muscle memory with reps over and over and over again. So how would you combat those training scars that you can't avoid because it's just how the prop is built?
Steven: Yeah, so a lot of that I think comes with talking. You know, when I teach, I talk through quite a bit. I can go on Rantz pretty easy. Anybody who personally knows me knows that. But a lot of talking. So if we're on a door prop, I may emphasize, hey, the door prop is going to act in this order today. You're going to do this and this and this. And what I want you to do is I, you know, You're gonna do this thing on this door prop because that's the way that the prop is gonna react But I want I'm gonna stop you and I want you to do this other thing instead because this other thing instead relates to a real door And you know, so some people cheat the doors like we've we've all seen there's doors out there that have big springs And so we're gonna end up crushing the door in getting a huge two inch gap setting the axe head in there, you know, and it's like, well, that's not realistic. So I don't want you to crush the door in. I want you to push the door out. So we're not going to do any on this door. know, sometimes there's the red P E B door out there, the enforcer that's out there. I'll take not my most favorite door, but I'll take wooden blocks and I'll shove them into the Springs so that they can't. push the door into the prop and get that bad technique. But I think a lot of it just comes with talking and reiterating over and over and over again, okay, hey, that's gonna work for this, but it's not gonna work in the real world and here's why. So I think a lot of it's just trying to push the information to these guys that, hey, this is for muscle memory, but we're gonna keep it simple. And some of these really cool fancy techniques don't work in real. on real doors or in some situations and some of them do, but you have to tweak them differently. every class is different. Every door is different. It just depends in any unit you've seen it. Every door prop has different reactions.
Steve-O: we I've had Tons of personal experience on the exact door you're talking about. And the only advantage I find with those springs is when we're teaching recruit level firefighters that when they go to force, because we let them do it because you and you know as well as I do, they're gonna force it the wrong direction. You know, and
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: as soon as they figure out the inward and you switch an outward, they're gonna force it the wrong way again. But the only good thing about the springs is it's a very visual cue where then you can stop them and be like, where's the force being applied? and they can actually and then I can grab their tool, do it like they are, and they can watch those hinges, I mean dramatically move. But again, you're right, that's that's unfortunately a huge training scar from the door. And
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: it's it's it's not our favorite door either. And but unfortunately it's whenever they come out and it's the latest and greatest and whoever has the purse money and that's the time to buy it. That's Usually what you end up getting, but you just you just
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: work around I'm I'm a big fan of the woods doors just because or any company that makes something where you're applying and building the wood around it.
Steven: So.
Steve-O: just because it flexes a lot. So I I like the I like the flex without the break. So they they get a little discouraged sometimes.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: so what's what's your favorite door right now, brother?
Steven: I don't know if I've got a favorite. I've got several that I really dislike, but I'm not going to talk about those. But you mentioned flex on the doors, so I'll just mention a couple doors that I really like the flex on. Forceful Entry Inc has a really good door. They can, you can add in and take away different props setups on it, and there's a good amount of flex to that. The doors from Fortune Fireco. they have a decent amount of flex and their full size doors. Both those companies are full size doors. So when I'm teaching stepping into the door, booting that bottom corner of the door, pushing that to create that flex so I can get a bigger gap. Those are the kind of doors I like. Tradesman Fire has a really good door that flexes quite a bit. Both Tradesman and Forrestal Fire Co. they also have the wooden crush zones and trades. Tradesman also has the ability to put in a wooden doorstop so you could possibly blow the doorstop out on theirs. So those are, and then 1335, they have a very, just a very straightforward door, but it's a full-size door and it allows for flex so you can train on that. So those are just some of the doors that I like training on. There's many other doors out there. there's a handful of doors that I haven't even gotten to play with yet. So, but I would say those I think I mentioned four, those would probably be my top four. So we'll see with that. I've gotten to work with a lot of the four splint tree ink doors quite a bit lately. And the more I work with them, the more I'm starting to like those a lot. So.
Steve-O: I love any door that's a full door because it we'll we'll talk about that red door for a second. It Literally like a fireman freaking 12 inches, right? Fuck from from the ground. It's and you try to tell someone, hey, this should be your step one, and you can't even demonstrate it because there is no door there. You can stick your entire leg underneath the thing. And I I can't understand why any company makes doors that aren't like that. Have you I've seen I've seen a ton of your videos and at some point you had transitioned and I'm gonna call it the bantor, and please correct me if I'm way off. But I post a Shit ton of training videos, also. I'm I'm pretty much on the ground ladder side is what I like to showcase the most, and I get so many freaking nonsense comments. like literally, I did a whole thing on a modified painters carry to show a way to get a freaking 24 or 28-foot ladder down a diminishing alley or
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the side yard or something along those lines. And literally, like I'm getting a comment, did you check for overhead obstructions? And I'm like, Are you fucking kidding me? So I'd Saw a video, it was the first one I saw you with a real door. It might have been a trailer, and it reminded me of our buddy Mitch. And I know you know him from Fire Mall because I see you with the Chicago ads, Greatest fucking tool ever, personal opinion. I I personally own one, bought it with my own money with the tech hammer. That's my officer compilation. But outside of that, he does the same thing because he'll read a comment and he'll make a video and dog him. Hey, and it doesn't work, whatever the guy's saying to do. He's like, Hey, hey, Steve, what do I do now? What do I
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: Do now, you know, it doesn't work, but I felt like you're kind of going down that route, which I fucking love the banter. so how do you get because there's a lot of guys listening that have zero access to real doors, how do you get doors? Is there any way that you can kind of coach guys up and like or some way to build a prop where they physically put a real door in? Have you have you messed with any of that stuff? And then what was your experience with the real doors and being able to make videos on them?
Steven: So, I mean, as far as, you know. Going back to Mitch real fast, think that's actually how me and him clicked because
Steve-O: Yeah.
Steven: we both will, basically if a guy's talking shit to us, we're gonna talk shit back to him. And I think that's really how mine and Mitch's friendship started. And then I've gotten to work with him a handful of times, which has been great. so, and actually I think we've done, me and him have done one or two videos together where we were shit talking, somebody shit talking us at the same time. But as far as getting real doors, I've gotten lucky enough that calling demo crews, you know, and seeing, hey, this building's coming down tomorrow. Hey, do you mind? It's coming down at 8 a.m. Hey, at 7.45, can I go break your door real fast? It's coming down anyways. And they're like, yeah, okay. Okay, cool. Hey, do you guys wanna see this? Okay, and I'll have one of them hold the camera.
Steve-O: Nice.
Steven: And so I've been lucky enough that some of those guys, some buddies of mine that run demo will call me and I'll tell my wife, hey, me and my stepson, we gotta run out the door real fast, we'll be back in 20 minutes and we'll go do a
Steve-O: Yeah.
Steven: quick little video. So I've just gotten lucky and I think that's all it really is. I think a lot of my social media success has been pure luck. But for guys that can't get a hold of doors, I would say, and this is something that some of the old guys told me is called demo companies, called construction companies. Anytime you see that little construction site box go up in somebody's front yard, open the box, call the number, see if they'll let you come through 30 minutes prior to demo. You know, they're tearing it down anyways. Most of the time they don't care. Sometimes they like to watch and so. I've had a decent amount of success doing that and that was advised to me by some of the really old old guys that were really well respected. So I just kind of took what they told me and ran with it. So my advice to get doors is literally. Go around and call people if you see a construction. If you see a demo site going up, make the phone call before they start destroying everything. You might be able to use it for a day to do a search drill. You know some guys might be able to do. Depends on what they're comfortable with you doing, but you know, through the lock, let me, let me have 10 minutes to do it through the locker room or 10 minutes to do a force voluntary video or give me an hour to run my, my buddies through a search drill. And those crews will are typically pretty good about it, at least in my area.
Steve-O: That dude that's awesome. So I was just listening to and I'm curious to your tool compilation when it comes down to through the lock. Is that something you keep? Do you have a little pouch you keep in your bunker pants? Or I out here when we run EMS we put on you know what we call brush pants. It's just EMS pants and typically that's
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: where guys would keep because that's where we're gonna be using that respectful entry. Where do you keep your tool kit at? Because I was just listening to a guy from I think he's still on the job in New York City, but he's talking about probies in In their area, and he goes, Hey man, we'll have a freaking Mayday call. He's like, and then afterwards, we're going through and picking up twenty twenty screwdrivers, five pairs of pliers, everything else because they're trying to get to their webinar and all their crap. And his, he's a he's an old timer though too. He's like, Hey man, I care the bare freaking minimum. He's like, but he gave a really good reference to one of his back step guys that he said is super dialed in. He would have literally a pouch, you know, on the back step with them, and depending on what the call was, that pouch went in the pocket, you know.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: And he's like, shit, hey, it's it's a worker, he hears it or there's a column, you know, he's not taking his freaking respectful entry tools in his i in his pocket from there. He's g gonna grab his webbing, rescue rope, whatever the case might be. but
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: we're you know, how do you carry your tools? Do you prefer a certain type? Do you put in your pocket? Kind of what's your what's your jail?
Steven: I've got a small little travel set that I keep in my wallet. I have a little mini shove knife and a mini lockpick set I keep in my wallet. My wallet's usually on me, so I always have it. But on duty days I carry a piece of Mylar plastic that I keep in my cargo pocket and I carry a shove knife that has a pocket clip on it. most of your residential, at least in where I'm at, 90 % of your residential can be opened with either a shove knife or a piece of Mylar. I like to think of the Mylar plastic as a shove knife for inward swing doors, right? Your shove knife is gonna operate on your outward swing doors, your Mylar is basically your inward swing door shove knife. So I keep those two things on me, plus what's in my wallet. On the rig, I have a full through the lock bag that has everything in it. residential and commercial, I have a really big bag on the rig, but I always keep my mylar and my shove knife in my duty pants and then in my bunker pants. There's an extra. Shove knife and extra piece of mylar which you know you go to a fire alarm and all the doors are locked. And so I'm like, well, I don't want to run back to the rig to just grab a piece of plastic so I have an extra one in my in my bunker pants as well. but that's where I carry my school comp.
Steve-O: Dude, no solo plastic things are awesome.
Steven: They are, it's pretty awesome. I forgot who, know, it's become pretty popular over the last couple of years, but I forgot who introduced me to that years ago, and that was a game changer. Most of your residential, most of your fire alarms in a commercial building can be, you can make access with just either the plastic or the shove knife. And so always make sure I have those on me. And then I always make sure that the full bag of tools is on the rig, not too far away.
Steve-O: I know I got I got contacts with Williams Key, he makes one in a little tub and then I think Jobtown Tools or whatever, and I'm sure there's a bunch of other companies, but yeah, those
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: dude, those little plastic things is funny too, because they even tell you these are for inward swinging residential doors. They work on outward swing commercial doors because I've I've used them at my academy, locked everything outside of a deadbolt, obviously, And
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: just played with them like man, they work on these too. And again, it's the size of I don't even know what to call like just tiny little fucking tube. You can throw it in anywhere. And they're cheap. So dude, those are those are freaking awesome.
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. You know, drop down tools has him Williams keys has them. Modus has them sparrows lock picks covert instruments. So. And you know I I I buy. an array of things from all of those companies and they've they've they make. Good good products, so any one of those will will definitely help you out.
Steve-O: Well, I'll I'll ask you a question because I'm in the state of Arizona. we have inclement weather when it comes down to heat for the most part. Then we have what they call haboobs, which is a freaking dust storm, right? And then monsoons,
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: which is just heavy freaking rain, and this area is not designed to absorb rain, so it just everything floods. But we don't
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: have legit weather issues. So I had I had done a I had posted a video a little while back and I garage door cuts showing guys cuts with the K twelve, K 14, different blades, and then my preferred, which is a a chainsaw. And I just wanted to show guys it was an option.
Steven: Mm-hmm.
Steve-O: So I had a gentleman from North Carolina reach out to me and was just like, hey man, what about? He goes, our garage doors have bracing for hurricanes and inclement
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: weather, whatever. And I go, dude, I'm a garage door guy part-time. That's why like I got into this jam. But with all that, I'm like, I've never heard of that. Can you send me a picture? And sure as shit, a couple minutes later, he sends me a picture. I'm like, cool. Hey, I'll take our prop, I'll mock that up, and I'll show you because I know it will, because I know the type of material that
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: These braces are made out of. So your area, you get legit freaking nasty hurricanes. I have zero experience with extra sort of reinforcements. So for your area, what kind of issues do
Steven: you
Steve-O: you guys run into with forcible entry with hurricane doors, windows, and please excuse my terminology because I just don't know the right words for them. So if you kind of explain to the audience what you guys have to deal with because of I is it a building code thing? I don't even know.
Steven: Yeah, yeah, so a lot of it has to do with building code because of the hurricanes and what we're seeing in like, for instance, in South Florida because of building codes, we're seeing a lot of outward swing doors on residential now and we're swing doors are going to be a thing.
Steve-O: No shit.
Steven: Yeah. And we're starting to see if they're starting to creep up to the North Florida area as well. Some of the New York apartment complexes are doing outward swing only now, so yeah, we have a lot of hurricane bracing and actually it's funny to say that Army buddy of mine is a firefighter out in Arizona and he hit me up one day and we got to talking about making entry on garage doors and he's just like yeah, just just. You make two cuts and you flap it over. don't, I don't understand why you're struggling so bad with it. And it didn't click to me that you guys don't have a bracing out there. and so, you know, it's basically the same tactics. It's just, you're going to add in one or two extra steps to make that deeper cut. and, know, dealing with hurricane bracing and now the, a lot of hurricane windows, we're starting to see hurricane windows as a bigger thing. Now we're starting to see. I don't know what the actual term is. We generally just call them Florida doors. It's a residential door, but it has hurricane glass in the center. And then it's reinforced inside of the door. And then you'll see a header lock and a footer lock on it as well with the deadbolt and its outward swing. And they can be a pain. usually for that, Sal's are our best friend. I'm like with hurricane bracing depending on who who teaches it to you. We might end up doing a step cut where you know we'll make our our box cut and then we'll go in two to three inches. We'll make another vertical cut and then that will expose the hurricane bracing so we can drop the saw in deeper. Some guys like to just make their box cut then bring a sawzall in with a long sawzall blade to cut through the bracing. There's a couple different tactics that. that have become pretty popular over here with getting through those. Either way, they're pretty quick. That hurricane bracing isn't impossible. It's just so deep that you can't make it with the sole on a single pass.
Steve-O: I gotcha. Now with your your windows, so you kept referring to hurricane glass, is that like a laminate or a l a lexane glass? What what is that? And then can you
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: break it or is that something you have to cut and be mindful of it it kinda gluing together and binding your saw? How's that work?
Steven: Yeah, so I mean, I'm not. I'm not an expert on the windows. I'm actually trying to recently just got with some guys in South Florida that are firefighters down there and then some guys that actually install windows down there. So I'm actually trying to learn more about him right now. I didn't know this until recently. There's different levels. You know you're going to go from a single pain lamp or a dual pain laminate to multi pain laminates to bulletproof and everything else. So I'm trying to learn more as well, but basically you're not just going to hit it with a tool and it's going to break. Some of the older glass you would have to beat on it and beat on it and beat on it. And then it would eventually break. Now when you beat on it, it just spider webs, but all that, those internal pains are still intact. So you're not really breaking through them anymore. Your best bet is to get a saw, you know, your, our battery operated saws are pretty good for the Windows right now.
Steve-O: Wow, so I mean that's a crazy concern. In in your area, just and and I know you're already preemptive saying, Hey, you're not the window guy, but I just gotta ask, do you does your area your or your department, do you guys search through windows, V E I S, V E S, targeted search, whatever the case might be?
Steven: Absolutely, and especially
Steve-O: You do
Steven: yeah, and especially for my area being in North Florida, depending on what side of town you're on or what department you work for in the North Florida area, you might come across a lot of that or very little of it. You know we have beach fronts and so the guys that are going to initiate a search at the beach. They might they might have a harder time going. You know through the window first. So versus the guys near the river or out on the rural areas where, know, they're just dealing with regular glass, they can pop, pop the, the sash and just go. So yeah, we, are. Training on and actively, working through V E I S or VES, whatever anybody wants to call it. It will just really come down to those crews and how they have trained for their specific area. My, my department in general, there's so much different construction. that one crew on one side of town might have a completely different tactic than another crew on another side of town.
Steve-O: it's fair enough. I mean, we say it all the time. firefighting is regional and it really is. it shouldn't be when it comes down to the fundamentals, but it absolutely is when it comes down to building construction and then additional things. Like take any of the guys that I work with, and they would be lost when they would come down to a hurricane glass or hurricane door because something that we've never even been exposed to. So that and that's what I was wondering. I'm I'm thinking in my head as you're saying hurricane glass, going, Man, I'm on twenty-four inches of real estate on a extension ladder. Like how much ass can I get behind this and can I even break it or like you're saying, do I need to bring up a little like Milwaukee or DeWalt freaking battery powered rotary saw and be able to whip it out from there? It's just something I've never been exposed to. So I'm I'll have to take a deep dive on on that for sure. But I mean that's gotta
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: be it that's gotta be difficult for you boys.
Steven: Yeah, I mean, I'll say that you're absolutely right. Like the fundamentals, you know, everybody should should be on the same page as the fundamentals. My buddy Pablo, he always says the building gets a vote. And I think I think that really helps you kind of change your tactics. You know, if you're working in a certain area and you have 90 percent of that area is one type of building construction, you're going to adjust your tactics for that. And rightfully so. So yeah, the building always gets a vote.
Steve-O: Yeah, I love it. Like we we tell guys all the time, the most dangerous thing is usually the building because everyone's you'll ask like super green dudes and you're like, hey man, what's the most dangerous thing on the fire ground? And they'll be the fire be like, wrong. You know, I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: know what the fire does. I know exactly what it does. I know how to stop it, I know how it eats, I know how it moves, I know all these things. The building is what gets us
Steven: you
Steve-O: in trouble because that's how the fire travels through. Void spaces, you could insert whatever, the building being compromised and coming down. The building's usually what kills us. not
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: typically the fire, but so your region that you work in, what do you and you probably already kinda alluded to it, are you more single family dwellings or is it high rise or do you guys have fucking everything under the sun?
Steven: We're on that you you basically have everything. High rise warehouse hazardous material sites, single family, residential's multifamily residential's a lot of apartment complex, historic neighborhoods where the houses are over 100 years old all the way up to. We have construction going up right now. That's going to have the latest, greatest hurricane codes. So. Just about anything you could imagine we have. We have multiple high rise sections in our city. So, know, sumps and then, you know, we have a rural area. The outer area is a pretty rural. So those guys might be fighting trailer fires where the downtown guys are fighting high rise fires. The beaches guys are fighting, you know, multifamily dwellings with with up to date hurricane codes. And so, and then, you know, the core of the guy, might have some warehouse fire stone in there and everything else, you know, so yeah, I've seen every type of construction there is. And I'm pretty sure our city basically has it.
Steve-O: That's gotta be I'll tell you what, that's gotta be a fun place to work just because I feel like you could spend an entire career and not be a master at any of the the building types because it would just take that long to be able to get it would be interesting because you're it would force you to be that constant learner because hey man, I'm gonna go down to whatever station three today. Shit, station three is all mid rise and high rise. Fuck man, I'm rusty. I gotta get up to speed, you know. And I again I don't know how your guys are staffing or your your your work model goes if you guys rove or anything like that, but that's that's gotta be a freaking Awesome place to work. So with the the forcible entry side.
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: I'm sorry. Go ahead, brother.
Steven: Now that you're good, go for it.
Steve-O: on the forcible entry side, I feel like guys are fifty fifty. and I I'm really just more curious on your why on this. So as you're teaching and then starting to implement into the field, and then just you personal, when you're on a job, when you're forcing the door, are you typically masked up or no mask? And then why? Would you teach that or why would
Steven: I think it depends.
Steve-O: you prefer that or not prefer that?
Steven: I'm not I'm not for against either of them. I think that the situation dictates. If
Steve-O: Mm-hmm.
Steven: if I'm back seat and I'm the first apparatus on scene and there's a fire blowing out and we need to get inside, I'm probably masking up as we're rolling up to the house or masking up as I'm going through the yard to the door. If. Third or fourth on scene and we're just. And we're standing writ and we gotta go pop doors to soften the structure. Then maybe I'm not wearing my mask. Even if even if I see a little bit of smoke, so the situation depends. One thing I'll say is my gloves are always on. I mask up with gloves on, so my gloves are always on. The only thing I have to do is put my mask on so. If I'm first and I know I'm going straight to the door. I'm not wasting time. I'm gonna go ahead and mask up as we're as we're pulling up into the yard or I'm asking up as I'm going through the yard. But if if we're not if if I know that I'm not immediately going in as soon as that door opens then then yeah, I might wait if I'm going to be doing some yard work for a minute, then I'm probably going to do the yard work without the mask. It you know on average, you know. It's going to take me about 10 to 15 seconds. to mask up and I know for some guys on social media, 10 to 15 seconds is too long, but whatever, I'm getting old, so.
Steve-O: Yeah, we dude, I I'm a firm believer if you can mask up with your gloves on and be ready to work in under 20 seconds, you're doing a fucking great job because I've seen many, many dudes over the last 20 years take five seconds to do this to be able to get that sweaty ass hand into because
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: yeah, because that's how it is, you know, because they take it off, they've already done some work, so they're already drenched. You guys have freaking probably a hundred degrees and a hundred percent humidity. you know, during your summers, so those boys are freaking sop and wet. I'm a huge component of that. but I love what you said because that's kinda how we teach. I prefer, and again, this just personal opinion, I prefer not to just because physical blinder and then my position, I'm not a knob guy, so I'm not going in that first dude down there. But I love what you said. It depends, you know, because hey, can I do more work and mask up as we're, you know, hitting
Steven: up
Steve-O: the freaking air break and I'm going going in? Absolutely. I've heard Guys, where their department says you must like it's a SOP, you must be masked up and breathing air while forcing, which personal opinion is the most ridiculous garbage I ever heard of. I actually
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: had an episode, Kenny Roman, which is a guy from the valley. He had a mayday. His mayday was an out-of-air emergency. Legit, he ran out, almost freaking died, because his department, their mandatory thing was, you will be masked up on air, and he had gone to That commercial building, And he admits it too. He goes, listen, bro, he goes, we got the rabbit tool and it works. So he goes, My traditional forcible entry method went this garbage because all these commercial buildings, that rabbit tool slid in. Guess what? That
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: day, the gap was too tight, couldn't get it in, went back to forceable or traditional forcible techniques, was rusty, entered the structure, At half a bottle.
Steven: Yep.
Steve-O: And I'm like, and again, he ran out of that was his emergency, was an out-of-air emergency. So it drives me crazy when guys are like, I will always have a mask on and breathe in air because and their argument is, hey man, I popped that door and I met with a full exhaust. Yeah, dude, I get it, right? But that's why we do door control. Shut that freaking door, turn your back, mask up, turn around and go to work. That's again, Steve Orsini's personal opinion. But dude, I l I I love how you look on that. Is there anything else you kind of want to add to that mask up, size up, kind of forcible entry?
Steven: Yeah, I mean, you know, And you just set it size up right? mean your conditions are going to dictate as well. If if if I'm running up. Hose line crews going through the front door because the front door was already open. Okay, I'm going to run to the back door. Well, at the back door, I don't see a whole lot of smoke and a whole lot of fire. So maybe I just go ahead and pop the door as I'm popping the door, right? As I'm setting my gap, as I'm flexing the door, do I see smoke coming out of the cracks? Do I see fire coming out? Can I feel heat? You know, those are going to be things that I'm thinking about. Prior to me doing that final pop and then being met with that exhaust. So. The situation is going to dictate the fire conditions going to dictate and as I'm running up to the door or anybody who's forcing the door, they should be doing a size up. They should be reading the fire. They should be reading the smoke. They should be reading the building and then you know you determine from there what what is the best course of action for you. If if I'm running up to this door and there's fire coming out of the top, I'm probably going to mask up. But. If that condition isn't there, then maybe I'm gonna keep breathing fresh air for a little bit longer.
Steve-O: Yep, why not? And it's it's what Steve's driving home right now is being that forward think environment period the end. And it's it's hard to get guys to understand sometimes, especially the old heads, of the amount of information we need to absorb in a very, very small period of time because
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: of our fuel loads, our new building constructions, like what you're facing, things like that. Time is Definitely not on our side. We're figuring out that shit on arrival or as we're entering the structure. We're in pre or current flashover conditions. The old timers didn't have that shit. You know, like
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: my ex-father in law, old fucking salty fireman from Bridgeport, Connecticut, back in the freaking warriors. Like, I I would have killed the work in the generation that he worked in because he was on a squad and they just went from job to job to job. They would take up, they'd leave, they'd jump another fucking box, and I'm like, I am so fucking jealous. But he would literally be like, Steve, you Guys are fucking pussies. And I'm like, what? He goes, first of all, he's
Steven: you
Steve-O: like, death of the American Fire Service, no mex. And I'm like, explain yourself. And his reasoning is, hey man, you guys are getting burned now because before we'd feel that heat on our ears and no, we're going too deep. Now you guys push too deep, and that's why you're getting burned. I'm like, dog, that's not the
Steven: .
Steve-O: case, dude. We are going into houses that are made of gasoline. He's I'm like, the furniture is freaking gasoline. He's like, well, fires aren't hotter. And I'm he's a thousand degrees is a thousand degrees. I'm yeah, but. But we hit a thousand degrees as we hit the structure compared to they were on their third bottle when they're in and they
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: had legacy construction. It's just a completely different dinosaur. But those are the guys, or at least that mentality, because my ex-father-in-law taught our current, you know, command staff, battalions, senior captains, and that's how they think. You know, so
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: it is hard. I I believe it's difficult to start changing those guys' mind. The new guys are easy, you know, because they
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: they see what you're doing. They're like, That's fucking badass and they're they're on board. So I think, through attrition across the country, I think collectively we're just gonna get better as an American fire service. I mean, I
Steven: And wait.
Steve-O: I'm I'm sure you're seeing the same thing in your area, brother.
Steven: Yeah, absolutely. And you know, not not to fault the old guys, but the old guys did. 202530 years and it worked for them. So why would they listen to the guy who's only been doing the job for five years and he wants to change? So I get where they're coming from. I think it. You know, maybe maybe some of the older guys, especially that after they've retired, they don't get the exposure they used to. They may not understand. our point of view as a younger generation of guys. We are dealing with fire, but we're dealing with different aspects of it than what they dealt with. So I don't blame them at all from going, well, I've done this for 25 years. It's always worked. Okay, well with newer building construction and different codes and different layouts and different gear and different fuel loads, it's not working for us the way it worked for you. And that's understandable.
Steve-O: You're you're speaking to the choir, but I really hope guys are resonating with that because the dudes that listen to podcast are the hard chargers and are frustrated because every single one of us are facing the same issue right now. but I love the fact that we have guys like you pushing the pace and there's a shit ton of people that are watching. So man, that's that's fanning across the country right now. Before we get into the why, because I really want to find out, 'cause you you alluded to it and it wasn't in your freaking bio, your prior military
Steven: All right.
Steve-O: You used to cut hair for freaking 10 plus years. That would have been cool to freaking tell the audience about. But we're gonna get there in a second. Is there and I know we I know we hit forcible entry with a super wide freaking brush because I want guys to go to your locks, don't work on Instagram, watch your videos because we could talk all day long until you see the videos and really how freaking good you are as an instructor over a screen
Steven: you
Steve-O: is amazing. you can absorb that information. Is there anything you just kind of want to leave the audience when it comes down, at least your mindset? On forcible entry, brother.
Steven: Really off the top of my head, not really. I mean, as far as forcible entry goes, I mean, just learn your tools and you learn your building construction. know. your door frame construction, your door construction, your locks. Just learn them because every door and every door frame and every lock setup is going to cause that door to react differently. Just because plan A for you may be booting the door or plan A for you may be baseball bat swing on the door. Don't write off all those other options because eventually one day you're going to end up in a situation where plan A isn't working and you need to. You know, roll to plan B plan C plan D and that's the biggest thing for me is to have multiple options. I get guys busting my balls on all the time on well. I'll just put the door or I'll just baseball bat swing the door and OK OK well. What happens when you have to force multiple doors in their metal frames and your the pike on your halogen is all is all jagged and twisted around it off because you don't take care of your tools like you're not going to baseball mess with that door. Don't lie to me. Why? So You know, just just explore as many options as possible when it comes to forcing doors. Every time you get the chance to get on a door prop, force it a different way every time just just to get different reaction. And then as far as through the lock goes, not everybody is going to agree with me, but I'm a big firm believer that through the lock is professionalism. You know that that's the part of the job. It's it's not a it might not be as sexy or as or as fun to talk about for some guys, but. To me that it's almost more important that fire alarm or that medical call, or that welfare check, the through the lock stuffs really important, you know. I the way I say it in my city. If you go to a medical call and you boot the door in in a regular middle class neighborhood in my city, that's at minimum $1000 of damage. How is grandma who's living on a fixed income, who her kids are grown and they're living across the country, her husband is dead, she's living on her social security, she's eating cat food off salt and crackers because inflation is going through the roof. How is she going to fix that door? How is she going to secure that door afterwards? All because some guy wanted to get back to the recliner of two minutes faster. I don't believe in it. So, you know, the situation is going to dictate what type of entry you make, but I think through the lock is very important, especially for the community. So explore options, explore through the lock options, explore all your different forceful entry options, explore all your different tools. Everybody wants to talk about, this halogen is better than that halogen. Okay. Put it in your hands, put it on the door and figure out which one works best for you, your crew in your area.
Steve-O: Yeah, to hit on and it doesn't matter if you're career or volunteer, you're you sh you it's still a professional firefight. And I know we're not talking about fighting fire in this instance, but that that's exactly what it is. Because guess what? Br let's break it down to we always want more shit. Cooler trucks, more equipment More dudes on the truck, everything else. Guess what? Grandma Schmerkins, You booted her door in. Is she gonna vote to give the fire department more stuff? No, hell no, she's not. Compared to even if you had to destroy her knob, or her deadbolt to be able to unlock it to get in, that's $25 fucking dollars, She is gonna believe
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: that and tell all of her friends and praise you until the day is done. And guess what? When that boat comes around for more money for the fire department, her and her entire bridge community is freaking checking yes on that box. I mean it it it is what it
Steven: Yeah, one percent.
Steve-O: is because without the public we weren't we're not gonna be there. You know, there's no reason to be here if it wasn't for the public. So take fucking care of And I'm sorry I stepped on you, brother.
Steven: No, no, I mean, that's exactly it. You know, here in the state of Florida right now, we're talking about an amendment that's going to take away property taxes for homeowners. And they're all about to vote on that. Well, guess what's on the chopping block is funding for public safety. And we've come out and said, hey, a lot of us aren't supporting this tax cut right now because there isn't a 100 % black and white defined way secure funding for public safety. So again, what happens when grandma goes, you know what, I could use a tax break. I don't want to pay property taxes anymore. I own my own home. Screw the fire department. They've broken my door three times. So what is she going to do? She's going to take her break. She's going to stop paying her property taxes because some dude, and then next time she needs help on a lift assist, she's going to call her next door neighbor and he can just boot the door in. yeah, I mean, you hit it exactly. It's like without the community support, our profession doesn't exist. we can help them help us by being a little bit more professional and being a little bit more caring to their property and to their situation.
Steve-O: Alright, well I I I hope that resonates with everybody. Please, like I said, check out check out Steve on Instagram. Your locks don't work. It's a freaking wealth of knowledge. Throw it up on the freaking big screen at the station one day and just go through the things. He's entertaining as fuck too, which is awesome. So it it it's fun. And then you can, you know, call the chief and say, Hey man, we're out of service fucking training and enjoy a fucking video and learn something. So you had said so I wanna know the why, Everyone's got a different story, but you said you self admitted like hey you came into the fire service later in life. I did too. I was in the military also. So you said four years active duty army, is that correct? Was that fresh out of high school?
Steven: No, actually I did a couple of years of construction first. you know, I decided to bounce around and not grow up. So I ended up doing four years in the army. was actually stationed in El Paso. I was out there with the first armor division for four years. And then I came home and became a barber, you know, thanks to the GI bill. And I didn't even want to be a barber. I did it just so could collect money from the GI bill. was, I was working the front door. I was doing bar security at some sketchy strip club and a couple bars. And then I was bouncing around traveling with my buddies at playing bands was like, cool, barber school three days a week. I can collect the GI bill from it. And so I went and then that eventually led me to liking being a barber. Ended up working in a shop, a buddy of mine opened and I did that for a long time. And a lot of my clients ended up being firefighters from the department I work for now. And they, were really encouraging of like, Hey man, you got to get out of here. You got to, you got to get a more of a physical job. And I was just like, yeah, I mean, I could, but this is a fun job. Honestly, barbering was a, was a really fun job. I do miss it. Um, but you know, as, as a kid growing up, I wanted to be a firefighter. I, you know, I wanted to be a soldier. I wanted to be an astronaut. I think those are the top three jobs that most little guys want to do. And at that point I already did one. I was too stupid to do the other one. And then, well, then I had the opportunity to be a firefighter. So I ran with it, you know, and I was like, you know, I'll never go to outer space, but I'll get to fight fires. And it's worked out for me well, you know, so, and then my little, it's awesome seeing my little guys, you know, they just came to the station yesterday and they had to put the helmets on and they had to play with the tools and they had to run around. It's just, it's, it's amazing seeing them just Want to do what I'm doing and then you know that that just kind of makes drives me a little bit more to be a little bit better. You know, not only as a firefighter because I want to leave the department a better place so that when I'm on my way out and my boys are on the way in, I'm leaving them with a better place. But also just as an as an adult and as a father just want to be a good example. So I know that's a little off subject, but. But yeah.
Steve-O: No, no, it's a hundred percent on subject because we wanna know why. Why'd you why do you want to do this job and now we know why you love it so much too and all the benefits and dude I I agree everything it makes sense now be hearing your backstory because literally your picture for this episode is you in for a door holding the Chicago ads and right on your freaking shield is brass knuckles. And I'm like, I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: wonder what that story you said you're a bouncer in a couple of makeshift places, now it now it all makes sense and you're a big fucking dude, so yeah, it what a freaking what a cool, colorful career so far. So how you have
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: ten years total in the fire service now. I and I'm just curious, if know what you know now, go back to eighteen year old Steve, is this something that you you would have wanted to do from the get go or would you have gone through the military all over again?
Steven: tell you, I was kind of a hothead as a younger guy. would have done it at 18 years old. I think I probably would have gotten fired by the time I turned 19. So I am
Steve-O: Ha ha ha.
Steven: thankful that I didn't ruin that opportunity by jumping in it earlier. But if it wasn't for the Army, I wouldn't have gotten the GI Bill. I wouldn't have been able to even afford fire school or EMT school. And so, you know, at 18, it wouldn't have happened, but if it would have, I probably would have been fired by the time I was 19. So I'm glad that happened later in life for me.
Steve-O: And for the guys that don't know, and I'll have Steve elaborate because I only know about this much of Florida, but those guys have a completely different system when it comes down to certifications than everything else. I believe, and Steve will correct me, it doesn't matter if you have every cert on your son, if it's not from Florida, they don't give a fuck and you have to pay for it out of pocket before you can even get hired. Is that how it works or?
Steven: Yeah, so you know you have to have EMT, Fire 1 and Fire 2 to even drop an application right, but that EMT and that Fire 1, Fire 2 have to be state. It's my understanding that if you're coming from out of state, you might possibly be able to challenge the test if it's a pro board, but you know the state of Florida is on the same level. From my understanding, I could be wrong. Somebody will correct me. But it's on level with all the pro board stuff, but you know, the state of Florida isn't going to just take pro board. So yeah, I actually had a buddy in fire school that I'm on the job with now. He was an Air Force firefighter for 10 years prior to getting out. And then we went through fire school together because they wouldn't accept him as a pro board firefighter.
Steve-O: I gotcha. And we kinda do the same thing here, but w the guys can challenge the test and and things along those lines coming over as quote unquote lateral. They could go through like an accelerated academy, but they still have to go through ours.
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: and I did the same thing. Shit, I had eleven years back East as expression officer. I came out here, start all over again, almost at year ten now, but I had to do everything. I went through a fucking full academy. They didn't give a they didn't honor my fire one and two, they care less. They're like if it wasn't
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: from the state of Arizona, they're like pounce it and I was a tech the whole night. They wouldn't take my hazmat tech, they wouldn't take my TRT. I'd do it all over again. I'm like, well, but dude, it's I struggle. The reason I asked you about the military is I struggle with that because I did six years active duty and I look back and I always say, hey man, hindsight's 2020. I wish. I wish I did this job when I was 18, like fresh out of high school and did it. But dude, I'm in the same boat. I was a fucking asshole. And if it
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: wasn't for the military, it made me grow up. And
Steven: Correct.
Steve-O: honestly, I don't believe I would have been hired in my first department if they didn't offer. For military preference points. I I honestly believe that's the only reason because it was my first time testing. that's the only reason I made the list is because I had that 10-point preference and was able to get into that and then go to the academy and and you know the rest is history from there. But yeah, I would like I said I was just curious because man, I I wish I wish I knew how cool this job was a long fucking time ago. I mean I knew it was five years old, I just didn't know it, know it, you know.
Steven: Thanks.
Steve-O: So we know the why. We we know why Steve got into the fire service. and he's doing a fucking killer job, so traditions. This podcast exists to promote the fools. We have a chapter out here, Copper State Fools. We out west, especially in my region, there's a lot of American Fire Service traditions that have either gone by the wayside or never really transitioned from the East Coast, where I believe, especially the Northeast Coast, where it's extremely steeped in the American Fire Service. We just don't have it out there. And it's something that I missed and a bunch of my buddies missed. And we started this program and started trying to reinstill a lot of the traditions of the American Fire Service. So my question to you is.
Steven: Okay.
Steve-O: and it doesn't have to be your department or your region. What's your favorite American
Steven: you
Steve-O: fire service tradition? But more importantly, why? Why do you love this tradition so much?
Steven: I'd say so, you know, talk about fools. I'm a member of First Coast Fools out here in North Florida.
Steve-O: hell yeah.
Steven: We just recently got the chapter back up and running again after it went on a hiatus for a while. So just wanted to shout that out. But I mean, honestly, I think when it comes to traditions and you know, maybe you'll agree, maybe you won't, but I really think family time right around mealtime is probably one of my favorite traditions. I think it's important that you break bread with your brothers and sisters. and, and, know, it, really kind of, it should, right. It, it should break that rank barrier. Um, you know, we're all equal at the dinner table. And so I think that's one of the best traditions I think it has. And, know, it even pushes into my home life where, I've got a mixed family and, um, you know, we're, pretty busy. Everybody's pretty busy. And, the one thing we do is we sit at the table and we eat dinner together and we talk and we have our family time. So that's probably one of my, favorite traditions. think it's one of the most important traditions is to be able to sit down, break bread on a even level with, with everybody and just have that one-on-one time.
Steve-O: I love it. Yeah, and it's I mean that kitchen table has so many different facets like crew bonding, therapy, freaking training. You can you can do anything in that kitchen table, but you hit the nail on the head. There is no rank at the table. If you have a chief in your house, hopefully you're sitting down with the boys to eat and you should be talking shit to just like he's talking shit to you, right? Until those tones go off and then you know, then he went back from, you know, Rob to freaking chief again, but it's okay. But I
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: do I agree with you. I love that kitchen table. I'm just curious in your area do you have an issue with because I've kind of seen a trend in the newer version of the American Fire Service where guys are like, Hey man, I'm good, I brought my meal prep, for those guys, you still make sit down and eat with the boys, or is that not even an issue in your area?
Steven: No, they'll still sit at the table if they're not eating or they have their own meal plan or whatever the case is, they're still sitting at the table. And then if they don't, you know, it's kind of a, it's one of those things. I mean, obviously sometimes there's a reason why somebody may break away from the table, but if it's, if it's just one of those guys, yeah, you might, know, you might, well, okay. Hey, he doesn't want to sit with us. He doesn't want to eat with us. He doesn't want to talk with us. I mean, what's, what's going on? Why does he want to be a part of us? Um, but 99 % of the time, regardless of what somebody has, they're sitting at the table and we're all breaking bread and we're all doing our thing together. And I think that's great. And I would really hate to see, but you know, I have been at stations where they don't eat together. Everybody will cook their meal separate. They'll go to a different corner of the station and they'll eat separately. And you can tell the morale of that station. You can tell the camaraderie of that station. You can tell the level of, motivation, the level of training at those types of stations. And so, yeah, I think the dinner table is a very important aspect of the fire station and how that crew runs.
Steve-O: It is and I I I'll add one more thing to that too, I believe, from what I've seen, is those same crews also don't perform as well in the fire ground, personal opinion. And it's because they don't have that. They're not jailed. You know, they could they could be they could be four to eight to twelve guys depending on that house or whatever, and they're all fucking studs, but nobody's on the same page because they don't hang out with each other. You know, you
Steven: Correct.
Steve-O: could take the worst house in the entire city with the eight to twelve guys and they'll outperform Because they're all buddies. Yeah, and again, that's that's just what I've seen and that's what I believe. But dude, that kitchen table is badass for sure.
Steven: I'm right there with yeah. Yeah, I agree with you 100 % on that.
Steve-O: All right, dude. So I know you are 10 years into the service now. So, dude, I'm gonna freaking catapult your freaking paycheck, your career. I'm gonna add a bunch of zeros. I'm gonna promote you. I'll promote you to what we call the commissioner of the world, fire chief of the universe. And on top of that promotion, you get that one magical wish on that genie lamp. It happens right now. Zero sweat equity, instant gratification. You change something in the American Fire Service. What would it be? But why? Why would you change? Add, delete, whatever this is.
Steven: I mean, think that's a tough question. mean, you talked back about how a lot of firefighting is regional. And I think there's a lot of issues that are regional. So it's kind of a tough one. But I definitely would want to emphasize more training. Actually, one thing I would do, some guys might hate me for it, but I think physical fitness standards need to be mandatory. a, a yearly or bi-yearly physical fitness test needs to happen. Everybody takes a, a PT test to get onto the job and they don't take another one and they end up dying of a heart attack and 50 pounds overweight. so the one thing I would change is, is physical fitness standards. They w they would be mandatory, mandatory PT tests. And there's going to be some guys are going to hate that about that, but, you know, it's a very physical job and I want my buddy next to me to, to go home. And I don't want him to fall out and then put me in jeopardy. And, you know, and we're supposed to be professionals. I kind of hate that wearing backwards hats is considered unprofessional or having your t-shirt on tucked is unprofessional, but the guy wearing the six XL button up that hasn't seen his belt buckle in 10 years, he's professional because he's got his button up on. So the one thing I would change is there would be mandatory physical fitness training, mandatory physical fitness tests. that you would have to continue to do in order to stay on that job.
Steve-O: N in your region, do they have that or no?
Steven: No, there are surrounding departments. So for my department, we have an incentive run. You have to run a mile and a half in a certain amount of time and you get a pay incentive if you meet that time, but nothing is mandatory. It's all volunteer. There have been, I know there are some other departments just south of us that tried to implement physical fitness tests and that got shot down by their locals. So, you know, it's one of those things. I don't know if we'll ever be able to change that, but that would definitely be at the top of my list.
Steve-O: It's a dude, it's it's a great that's a great wish and great answer, and I and I agree with you. My biggest shock culture wise outside of being regional because going from east coast to west coast was you know I started my career in the East Coast. That's the only fire service I knew. I just assumed that my department was the same way across the country. That's just, you know, I was I was too naive,
Steven: you
Steve-O: too young to look into anything else. And this was also like shit, I think when I first got on we were just getting like Next Tels and shit like that. You know, like
Steven: .
Steve-O: there was no smartphones. But
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: We we would make this joke, you know, I've said it a couple times. Guys would say, and it sucks, it's a joke, but it's it was the truth though. Hey man, the best shape I was in my life was the day I graduated the academy, which sucks. when I came out here, we did my department and I can speak for my department in my region. They hold our culture says physical fitness is a high priority. sometimes it's a little bit too high over other things that should probably not necessarily trump
Steven: you
Steve-O: it, but at least be at the same level of physical fitness. But I came and I started looking at the guys. I'm like, I haven't seen a single fireman that's overweight. I'm like, what the fuck's going on out here? And then we go through this part of the hiring process in my department. We go through a combine. It's basically a weekend where they kick you in the balls for eight hours a day and they want you to smile and say, Yes, sir, okay, have some more. And then you want to help everybody out. But they're trying to see your true character, is what they're trying to do. And I'll never forget day one, minute one. I had this old salty captain come out, and he's a little guy. I mean, skinny, short, and I'm looking at him, and it's what we do. We're bros, right? We saw. Everybody up, and I'm like, okay. And he's all like, all right, guys, I'm gonna take you on a quick warm-up. So I'm thinking exactly, hey, we're gonna probably do a jog or something like that. He literally destroys us for 20 minutes, and I'm
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: fucking spent. And I considered myself like 10% elite back in my old department compared to the majority of the guys, and I'm getting worked. This guy is older than me, he's smaller than me, he's definitely weaker than me, and he is fucking running me, running
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: circles around me. I was embarrassed, and I'm like, What the hell? But out here we do. Do that. We do a yearly physical that involves a stress test, EKGs, flexibility, push-ups, sit-ups. I mean, you name it. The crazy thing about it though is these guys out here think that's normal. And I'm like, hey man, we're it's that's a minority across the country. Guys don't have that, and it's and it sucks, but Even even though it's mandatory for us and say, hey man, I had a shitty year, I got divorced, I gained fifty pounds, you know, I started drinking too much, my health went to garbage. I go for that yearly physical and I don't meet my standards where I need to be be on the truck. I don't get fired. The department says, all right, here, here's a freaking trainer, here's a nutritionist, Hey, you can't be on a truck, you're light duty. We're gonna work with you physical therapy the whole nine, and you have a year, we're gonna get you back on the truck. You know, and that's how it should be across the country. Hey, we're not throwing
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: the guy to the side. We're gonna say, hey man, we wanna help you out because not only do we want you to be a high performan while you're here, but dude, when you retire, we want you to drain that freaking pension system. That's my goal, you know, retire
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: and drain that freaking thing. You know, unlike the the majority of us, unfortunately, and and I know you see it too. The guys retire two to five years later, they're fucking dead. It sucks. You know, they do anywhere 25 to 35 years and they enjoy two years of retirement. It's not fucking fair. You know, and it's it's our lifestyle, it's it's our exposures. There's there's a multitude of things, but man, I I I agree with you, dude. The the physical fitness standard across the country, I believe that and a schedule. And again, this is just Steve Orsini. I wish the international would come out and say, Hey man, yearly physicals mandatory, right? Set the metrics, make them achievable, you know, set the metrics, and then the department can maybe slowly increase them if they if they choose to. And then again,
Steven: Mm-hmm.
Steve-O: personal opinion, the union should come out across the country and say, our guys should work any sort of twenty four seventy two schedule period the end because of the rest, work, sleep cycle. That could be tens, fourteens, twenty four seventy two, one on one wh however you want to work it, but That should be the fucking schedule across the country. But no one will ever fucking pull that trigger because as much as a union is our friend, and you know this as well as I do, they have to listen to everybody. And unfortunately that freaking load that's overweight can't do the job. He gets a megaphone because
Steven: Yes.
Steve-O: he pays dues just like I do, and they need to do do justice and take care of him just like they take care of me. so it sucks. So we unfortunately have to protect the fat lazy guys too, which stinks, but it's just a reality.
Steven: That's the truth.
Steve-O: I appreciate your time. We're we're already over an hour. Thank you for coming on the show. Dude, thank you for what you're doing for the American Fire Service as a whole. I can't wait to see your future videos. I literally watch every single one of them that come through because they're they're just amazing. So if you're not following them
Steven: Appreciate it.
Steve-O: right now, follow Is there anything you want to tell the audience how they can reach you? Anything like that, before we sign off, brother.
Steven: not really. I mean, yeah. If you want to go give me a follow, anybody has any questions, they can always just message me. I'll talk about any of these subjects as much as you guys want. So go, go follow me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Tik Tok, and, feel free to reach out to me any way you want.
Steve-O: that's awesome. Thank you for spreading the knowledge, And what Steve said earlier in the episode, Everything's random, man. He didn't invent any of this stuff. Someone taught him. He's elevating the platform. Watch his videos. Bring it back to your house. Practice with the guys until you're freaking dialed and then executing on the fire ground. Then teach the next dude. You know, that's all we're
Steven: Yeah.
Steve-O: looking for right now. So, my brother, thank you so much. Keep kicking ass and fucking breaking doors. And we'll catch you guys on the next episode. Have a good one.
