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Bob: All right. Welcome everybody. We officially have a name to this podcast. We've elicited some input from our listeners and have decided and you may have seen it already on Spotify or Apple Music. is 303 the pit. An homage to station one. and where the beginnings of this podcast occurred. So welcome, thank you for listening. I'm surrounded by a bunch of local heroes and we'll introduce them here shortly. I wanted to quickly talk about some of the intent and purpose of this podcast. Basically we're here to tell some stories, lessons and culture of the Fatal Fire Department. and pass them down in ways that we always have, which is sitting around this table here. and listening from personal experiences and learning some lessons from those experiences. So let's go ahead and pour yourself a cup of coffee and let's get this thing going. I am Bryce Owsley. ahead and introduce yourself, Marty.
Marty: Hello everybody, this is Marty Stryfler. Thank you for that lovely intro, Bryce.
Flood: I'm Braden Flood.
Bob: the right and the
Flood: E. Brighton Flood.
Bob: I know it's confusing, there's two braces in the room. We called Score Dizzle by the people in this industry, local industry. Thanks for being here. Next we
skordal: Yeah. from.
CKIII: Carl Keller.
Bob: third. Trace. Do you write that out typically? ⁓
skordal: The third.
CKIII: All the time, I am not my father.
Bob: All right, today we're kind of taking what we talked about last episode, if you tuned in, which was and courage. ⁓ And we spoke a little bit with Chief Curry about how sometimes it's hard to about some of the cool things that we do. So we thought it would be an apt time to talk about a specific call and how things went well, how things may have been better and what we learned from those. Overall, this was ⁓ a success we want to really highlight that for guys that were involved. ⁓ yeah, anyway, let's get to it. 2020, November there was a structure fire dispatched ⁓ just down street here from station one very early in morning, slash late at night. I'm sitting here with incident command of that scene as well as the first arriving officer. So we're really interested to get their perspectives. ⁓ of the things that they saw, felt, learned, ⁓ ⁓ pass that on to our listeners. So let's talk about what you guys are doing. Sleeping, I imagine, right? ⁓
Flood: sleeping hard.
skordal: Well, I don't think it was a busy night
Bob: So calm night,
skordal: I don't recall getting just run ragged in this, dropped off. I remember getting pulled out of sleep. Yes.
Bob: Quickly. For those that don't know, Station 1, ⁓ which the first arriving units came from, it is a open sleeping area when the tones drop, it is a very awakening scenario. ⁓ spotlights.
CKIII: Swim into the circle.
Flood: Yes, yes.
skordal: It's special experience.
Bob: Chaos, which is loved and also hated, I imagine.
Flood: Yep. Yep.
Bob: So you guys are sleeping soundly. You get awoken at roughly 3 in the morning. A little after. You get dispatched. You guys are on the go. What's next?
Flood: So we get dispatched. And I can remember on the dispatch thinking we had a working fire right out the bat. think dispatcher sounded different like jacked.
skordal: Yeah, and the key was that they could hear people inside.
Flood: Yeah, and they said, part of the dispatch was there were people screaming.
skordal: took it to like level 20.
Flood: Yep. so that we were definitely jacked up like getting into the vehicles, getting to go. The original dispatch said one, had us going to one west center, coming out of station one is to the right. ⁓ actual address 601 ⁓ to the left. So all took off to the right. And then it was quickly corrected. and we were told where it was, which was... so we basically did a lap around a short block to get down there. Yeah.
skordal: Yeah, that was a quick turnaround.
Bob: You talked about this a little bit for the listeners. There maybe shouldn't be, but there is a difference of a structure fire call and one that you know is a real deal. I think internally, you know, your adrenaline goes up a little bit more, kind of get a little bit more amped, you know, so hearing you say that you knew from the...
Flood: Yeah. Yep.
Bob: Very little signs of the dispatcher and whatever else. Interesting.
Flood: Yeah, calls that like something in your gut just tells you even though it doesn't sound like anything different, just something about some things are saying, well, this call wasn't that, it was blatantly obvious, but had something significant.
skordal: And anytime they add multiple colors, it's usually legit. That's real.
Flood: Yep.
Bob: and maybe a little bit of time too, right? Like, happens at 3, 2 in the morning. People are usually asleep, so if they're calling 911, it's real deal. All right, so you guys get dispatched to the wrong address, you turn around. For those that aren't aware of the geography here, Station 1's kind of, you know, sitting atop a hill, if you will. And they went right, which is the opposite way from the fire. But the fire was downhill. So you guys made that quick U-turn and headed downhill. Yep. Not far.
skordal: Not part at all.
Flood: Probably it, I mean, probably had added two minutes our, the thing, you know, from the time we would have gone out, we would have ⁓ been in a minute ⁓ at And just to go right, make the block, come back down the hill, probably ended up being a three minute response time instead of ⁓ one minute time. which then already puts you, you're already feeling. A little angst, you know, like, dang, we started this off on the wrong foot.
skordal: especially when you feel like it's real. Small mistakes feel like very big mistakes.
Flood: Yeah.
Bob: Especially for you, the first arriving company officer. You know, it's right down the hill. I don't know what the scenario was, but I would imagine that you were still getting your gear on, to figure out what's going on.
skordal: share. 100%. Because either direction, the dispatch we
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got was very close to the station. So it wasn't like they initially sent us across town and we thought we had time. We didn't have time where we first went, and now we really didn't have time where we're supposed to be.
CKIII: Either way, you're still getting sorted by the time you're arriving.
Bob: That's a lot of information too for those that don't understand to try to compile a very short amount of time from ⁓ dead right? mean, you're probably having great dreams about nice weather, golfing, something. Now you're awake, fully awake, adrenaline pumping, trying to listen to ⁓ this person on the radio. So what's going through your head, Squirtle?
skordal: something. think the biggest thing, kind what we started with, is that they had confirmed people. They could hear people inside. And I mean it takes it up because you know that it's pretty much guaranteed. There's somebody in there that needs to get out and you're going to have to do it and quit. And yeah, and when we showed up, there was a lot, a lot of fire. So it was a two-story apartment complex, three units on top, three units on the bottom, and a wood deck, like a landing for the second floor. And when we showed up, it looked like the entire second story deck and above was fully involved and ripping. And there were people standing in the parking lot and there were some doors open down low, like the lower had come out, people down low. So we pulled up and we actually had four guys on the engine that day, which is rare. And which is also why I feel like we didn't do much during the day because you all know if you have four guys on a truck, you're not going to do anything. ⁓ right. ⁓ almost guaranteed. You're not going to do anything. I think the benefit or the one thing that the ⁓ fire god, so to speak, had going for us is I had a brand new rookie as my fourth man.
Flood: What?
skordal: a guy from a different shift working overtime as my second firefighter. And Eric Nix was the backup driver. And Dave was off on vacation. Of course. Of course. It was the perfect recipe for something like this. Yeah. But they did a phenomenal job. So yeah, we pulled up, pulled the line to the landing on the second story, started doing fire attack. And it was Travis Dover and Jose Hatton that were on the... And when they started, you couldn't see the middle apartment. There was so much fire the deck and at that center section that you really couldn't see anything. But the unit to the left... was not fully involved. I could see the door over there. So they got started with fire attack right there. And I said, I'm just going to go check this apartment real quick and I'll be right back. So I walked over there, did a quick walk around, came back. And then when I came back out, they had knocked down the fire on the outside of the deck and then moved in to the center apartment. And I followed them in there and that's where they had the first two victims right there.
Bob: It's gotta be wild, know, in Fayetteville we
operate typically with three guys on a rig. So when you have four, it's typically a good thing, right? But your situation, you didn't necessarily know all the capabilities of ⁓ other three guys.
skordal: Yeah, well, hadn't had some time on. I felt comfortable walking away just for a split second and then coming back. But super proactive of them to get that knocked down and just go ahead and move right in. Yeah, was awesome.
Bob: super cool. So you're entering into the party and you're presented with victim number one.
skordal: One and two. Yeah, if you come in, it was a very small unit. So you walk into the living room. It's like living room, kitchen, open area. Then there's a hallway to the left. So it's a very quick jog right into the hallway. And then in the hallway, if you're standing in the hallway, there's room to your left, room to your right. Very short hallway. And they were right there on the left. They had a gentleman that was still breathing. It was a male and a female face down on the floor. We just happened to, there was no rhyme or reason. They had him and they were starting to scoot him to the door. So we just picked up and went. He came out. I believe Aubrey York was at the door at that point. He was with youth safety. ⁓ And then him and I believe Spinoza was driving the rescue and helped get several of the victims down. But I know for sure the first one down. Now you had to get not only the victim out of the house, but then down the stairs to the parking lot. And then so, yeah, so we passed that off and didn't know this, but as soon as we brought the first patient out, enough of the fire was out. directly to the left of the door, I'm talking at the threshold, the deck had completely burned through. So there is a gap in the deck that you, bigger than you can step over, so I'd say at least six feet wide, that cut off that middle apartment from the next apartment to it. They lit lit up. because it was just burning. All you saw was fire. And so, which created a problem later because then once we found victims, rescue one was been intersearching the apartment adjoining that one. And they came in the, I believe the back, the back window. Yep. And heard that we needed help getting victims out. So they came out the front door to get to the next one. Couldn't get to us. Cause they were cut off by the hole.
Bob: Damn.
skordal: Yeah, there's a problem.
Bob: We don't have that in training situations.
Marty: was just thinking through, like intensity of effort. You guys get there, I think for anybody in our audience that's doesn't understand just the sheer effort on the front end to get off the truck, get a line stretched. Now you throw victims in the mix. I've just, that's all jumping out to me as I'm listening to you talk. I'm just knowing is all of us here doing the job. That's just a lot of work and you have an extra person, but it's, it's not only that it's our training scenarios. In this case, we're talking through one victim or two, but this is a situation where you got a lot coming at you. So I just want to kind of hit on that as I'm listening to this, because you guys had your hands full.
skordal: Yeah, for sure. And it was a situation where, you know, it wasn't three kids. It was three grown adults. And it warranted multiple people to help get them out. Now, granted, it was not that far of a distance. But I mean, it's nighttime. They're in their PJs, loose clothes. It's a hot environment. Their bodies are sweaty. They're hard to hold on to. It's a task.
Bob: large right i mean they were they were large individuals it's marty's point i think adds a another layer not that one needed to be added but
skordal: Yeah.
Flood: Yeah, we don't do a lot of training with 250 pound plus dummies. Slick dummies.
CKIII: slick, right? Not grab handles on them, right? I also think about, you know, Marty bring up the amount of work. I think about the time factor, right? From when you exited the front right seat of the apparatus, you had all of these things to process and deal with. Like, probably not a lot of time had passed, right? I mean, super compressed time frame.
skordal: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, I mean, so much so that like, I believe and I apologize if I get some of this a little bit off, but once we got the first victim out, we went to go back in and I happened to look up and at some point the ceiling had dropped because I mean, there's insulation in there, mid-shin, everywhere in the living room and the attic had lit off above us. And had Dover kind of spray it back when we went for the second, second or third. And by that time, I think we did end up having help. think for the second, part of rescue one was there. mean, all you see is faces. ⁓ remember seeing a few faces, but part of rescue one was there. think engine six got on it, and there may have been somebody else. I apologize if I'm leaving somebody out. But we definitely had hands for the next couple of patients, which was a huge benefit. But when we went in for the second, we were still under the impression that we only had two patients. ⁓ There's still a ton of smoke. But by the time we went, we got the first person out and went back in for the second, the smoke had lifted enough to, once you went in the hallway, I kind of peeked to my right and the third victim was laying in his room. They were both right at the doors.
Bob: Do you guys still have active fire? I mean, you just talked about.
skordal: So I would say yes. I told Dover to keep that fire back that way, because when we went back in, it still had lit off. Because they made a quick knockdown on the front, and then moved right in. And then we switched gears straight into trying to get them out.
Bob: And all this is happening off of, you know, tank water. Did you guys run out at any point in this?
skordal: Yes. I don't believe so, looking back. mean, there were other things happening outside of that. There were a lot of other moving parts that were going on that, I mean, I
don't remember because I was doing other things. Task oriented, as they say. But yeah, mean, Braden can probably speak to some of that as far as, I mean, so much so that I ⁓ back and read the report. And when they said, I saw in the report that somebody had cut a vent hole. I had no idea. It's like a job,
Flood: You
Bob: I was talking to JD briefly about his experience and to that point he said, number one, he said he was very proud of how everybody operated together. He was very surprised and the example he gave was he remembers being inside the apartment relatively by himself, right? You and maybe one other guy with fire blazing and he said the next thing I looked up and there was a dude standing in the kitchen looking at me. He was like, Where the hell did you come from? He's like, I came in the window. He's like, sweet. You it's like never would have thought there was people.
skordal: I was cool. I was talking to Tanner today and and I said I'm pretty sure I saw you in the window of the back of the house where you've been in her searching into the sink because it was right above the sink it was a window that was Yep
Flood: I'm
Bob: That's awesome. So you have some accounts of having ⁓ supply issues on top of this. you're presented with a, ⁓ to the people that aren't familiar, ⁓ is kind of a priority, right? We, ⁓ in midst of fire, we'll go in and get people out if we can. ⁓ Clearly presented with fire before the people, but... your tasks switched to.
skordal: Especially when the first person you come across is still breathing. Right. Yeah. So that immediately, I mean, that takes it up even another level. It's not only, we got to get these people out, but we can save these people. Like truly save these people. So I mean, it ups the adrenaline, the speed, like we got to go now, now, now, now, And yeah, it was... ⁓ It was a great group effort and just get one out, go, get one out to go. And then the outside crews helping them get them from the second story down to the first story. mean, the task wasn't done just getting them out the door. Now you've got to get them down a flight of stairs.
Bob: How exhausted were you?
skordal: Very. But really the adrenaline was so high, probably didn't... My body did not recognize it until after I was probably halfway through my report and was just like, ⁓ my gosh, that just happened.
Flood: Quiet.
skordal: higher.
Bob: So presented with three victims. ⁓ think it's interesting that you didn't know that at the time. ⁓ was kind of a consecutive discovery, if you will. You ⁓ that problem, now what?
skordal: I think after the third, we got the third victim down, they had, I don't know if they had it for the second, but I know they had it for a third because we all came down. They had a scoop stretcher to get the third and final person down the stairs. And they immediately started doing CPR. And I think coming down the stairs ⁓ with third, my fiber alert started going off. And so we just... Once that was situated, we got the patient off transported, the bottle, take a deep breath, helped with overhaul and cleanup.
Bob: So let's transition a little bit to Braden's perspective. You got all these guys doing what they're trained to do. obviously significant issues hand. You have fire attack, you've got people on the roof cutting holes, you've got people going in windows of a building with multiple entrances and windows. ⁓ So track of those people ⁓ is of the priorities for ⁓ an scene commander. I'm sorry, incident commander, I was seeing backwards. So what's going through your head?
Flood: I had not only different perspective just being in my position, but we also parked in a horrible spot. So we could come down the hill and as you're the building, we're looking at the ⁓ Charlie Delta corner of the building. It's right on the corner of the street. And we went to the state on this, because where they shot down and the rescue was going down, they were just, I think they were in front of us, then us, and then the rescue was behind us. I knew the rescue was going to need to get down in there. So we just shot to the right and ended up basically, I was on the Delta side, correct, Charlie side of the building looking at it. So I never saw anything going on in the front. I do remember telling myself like... take a deep breath, you know, like ⁓ you so nervous watching your guys do the work. I'd much rather be the guy going in and telling guys to go in. ⁓ I see the fire, how much there was, still didn't know about victims. I mean, we had the reports from initial dispatch, but nothing confirmed from our guys yet. Like at this point, ⁓ they're still like getting the truck. We position in the back. I know it's going to be offensive because we're assuming people are in there. So I know right off the bat we're going to have to go offensive on this. In hindsight, of my probably biggest screw ups was as we pulled out of the bay when we're getting the reports of people screaming inside, I should have right then asked for a second alarm. We didn't have second alarms then like we do now. Or I could have just said second alarm and got two rigs and a second battalion. We didn't even have second battalion then. I eventually asked for another unit, but it was after they told me that they had found victims. And so the time it takes for that other unit to get there, and it was only one unit. And just from previous experience, I know the amount of work it takes to just to move one victim that ⁓ can't have enough people on scene, much moving three, you know, three big folks ⁓ is lot of work. I've thought about this. We got really lucky that that was an outside stairwell. ⁓ Because you guys that normally wouldn't be inside able to help.
skordal: ⁓ absolutely.
Flood: get that done. And so you had safety officers and drivers without gear on and the RIT team, all those guys were helping. mean.
skordal: There is, I can't stress enough, there's a whole other operation getting those patients
down the stairs. Yeah.
Flood: Yeah. Anyway, so needed more people long before I called for it. And I remember kind of going through my checklist in my head and looking at my paper and who I had coming. You know, and you're thinking water supply. And I was like, I need to get water supply. I need to get a second line. And I wanted to vent. I could tell there was fire in the attic. I can't remember if I signed. Because I knew I had rescue. ⁓ said they got on scene. They were going to vent or search the one apartment. We didn't know which apartment the people were in. They came around to the backside where I was. I could see them ⁓ vent and are searching that apartment three on the top. I didn't know what the I mean, I know they're fighting fire doing their thing up front, but I can't see it ⁓ commander's awful feeling like you feel like you're flying the ship blind, you know. I think if I had seen the situation. And had better eyes on it, I think I would have made the call for more help sooner. Because I can't I can't recognize the amount of work getting done up there. And I remember them at saying, need help. think he said, we're going to need more help. And then somebody else said it like, either an Aubrey or somebody on the outside trying to get the victims down. because even when you get them down and then it takes now two people are doing CPR with that victim, right? So that takes two people away from helping get the next two out. I think that I kind of. been able to see that, would have had to recognize it faster. And I would have probably registered like more ambulances. I didn't do that fast enough to like, us three, four ambulances here. We need one for each victim and then one for our guys, right? I didn't do any of Not quick enough, I should say. But then it's a lot of like trying to keep your cool, pay attention to what's going on, I'm watching the smoke and the fire. I assigned ladder six ⁓ And just they're like trying to set up the ladder to get to the roof on the Charlie side. And I remember Brock has got chainsaw out. cool. Then I see him over and he's like cutting a tree down. It just seems so odd to me at the time. But he was trying to create room for that ladder to get shoot through there. So he's trying to do that real quick while they're swinging the ladder. But they get on the roof and they're cutting a hole and I can they basically got flames through and I remember thinking I want them off the roof. I couldn't get them off the roof fast enough if that makes sense. Like I'm saying it and I want them off. before I set it. And they did, they cut the hole and they got down, but there was good fire blowing through it. So I knew we had, those guys were gonna have had fire over their heads, but I felt good about the hole now, like that was gonna help take some of that heat and pressure off of them in there. And then it's a lot of like not knowing because I can't see and I'm just, it's based on reports, but I know they're busy. So I'm not trying that to be like, what's going on? know, give me a can report, you know, asking all that stuff. The guys were doing a really good job. But I noticed was how calm everybody like talked on the radio. he was, Bryce was smooth on radio. never sounded like sounded like he was working, but not panicked. Like, I got work to do and I need we need we're gonna need more help, you know, kind of a response which gave me a lot of confidence. Just the way when they ⁓ when guys are talking to you calmly, you just feel better. Because I can't see I'm just going on that I'm hoping they're seeing the right things. I'm trying to pay attention to the smoke and the fire and make sure that I feel like getting a handle on this and we were, you know, was definitely, we were getting knocked down on the fire. was just, I knew it just a matter of like getting enough people, enough firefighters to get the victims and I didn't know what that looked like on the other side, the chaos that was going on. I didn't know anything about the hole. remember when the rescue, when we got victims, ⁓ here knew, when he confirmed that we had victims. And I remember Fenton, Brian was the captain on the rescue. I saw him go in, the vendor search, two guys go in, him and his firefighter. And then they report victims. And then I hear Brian say, We can't get to them. We have to go back out. And I'm so confused. I'm like, I didn't understand all of a sudden they're like crawling back out the window and I'm thinking, what are they doing? Like, like go, go out the front. But he's like, he's saying he can't. I, know, I was like, okay. it was, it was an interesting feeling of like, cause I didn't know anything about the whole, didn't know anything about what was going on up front, but you just keep trusting your guys.
skordal: Yeah.
Flood: It's nerve-racking for sure.
skordal: And so thankful that nobody had a misstep, because I can't stress enough how much at the threshold of the door that hole started.
Bob: Yeah, that's what a 20 foot ish drop. Enough to get seriously.
skordal: Yeah, yep. Yeah Yes, and you had I don't know how many guys in there and pulling Awkwardly pulling victims out of there and everybody managed to steer clear and there was a lot of vocalization between us Working like watch out for the whole watch out for the whole watch out for the whole but that is definitely a mistake on on my end for not Chiming up and saying like advised There's a massive hole next to the store.
Flood: I think all you guys on that side were aware of it at that point, know, it was like blatantly obvious, is anybody working there? But to me, it was not. Which is one of those like when you're trying to paint the picture as an instant commander in your brain and you're sitting on that side. And I know they say you should be able to run a scene. I disagree. you know, I want to be able to see what's going on. I want to get the best view. typically ladder six will pull up and block everybody's
view and every other rig. does a really good job of being my eyes as my safety officer. we got ⁓ on he immediately was ⁓ shoots and shoots around there and he'll typically like do ⁓ another on top of the first hand captains. ⁓
Bob: Railer egg?
Flood: he'll go in and he's gonna give me more information. If he thinks I'm missing something, he gives me a great picture typically. But he was also task saturated. He's trying to play safety officer and meanwhile he's also trying to drag victims down a stairwell. ⁓ just had to have, literally I think everybody there. RIT, water supply, whatever your assignment was. I think other than ventilation, because they were on that backside venting, think everybody there had like hands on helping ⁓ them down the final steps and out there and then start helping.
skordal: It seemed like it, yeah.
Flood: with CPR and take care of the patients, patient care and helping central and doing that whole thing.
Bob: the, listening to you talk about this, what's the of ownership ⁓ as the commander the success or failure of a scene like that? What's it feel like?
Flood: That's a question. I worry more about the failure. If there's success, it's because they're doing the right thing. If I'm not paying attention, giving them the right information or putting them in the wrong spot, it weighs more on me of screw-ups than it does of thinking of like, I can help them be successful. These guys are, you I kind of jokingly say like, if I didn't show up on scene, the scene would go exactly the same way. a lot of truth to that, because I think these guys are that good. It's amazing to watch and see them do their thing. think our guys are really good at that. Knowing what, you know, if somebody pulls up, they already kind of know what needs to be done before I'm saying it. You can already watch them start. in that way or they're already grabbing a hydrant before I even get the words out, right? As they're rolling in, they're like telling me they've got the hydrant. And a lot of mine is like just trying to make sure we don't miss anything. Making sure, you know, I don't get anybody hurt and making sure that they have enough resources to kind of do what they want or they need to do. I don't know that I've ever felt like if it went really well that I did anything to help with that. Usually it's because the guys did really good work and that was the case with this ⁓ So I always look at it terms of what I could do better how I, know, like that call, I just saw what I did wrong. Didn't get them the resources they needed fast enough. They still did work like they always do, but it was cool.
Marty: I was just kind of chuckling myself. We talked about in the beginning where, you know, we're rolling at what we perceive as heavy on rigs. You know, we got four people on a truck and, you know, celebration in the streets. And then, you know, listening to this all pan out and, you know, we go to a ton of public educations or state station visits and people want to know why. Why are you guys sending, you know, so many rigs to a motor vehicle? I was a motor vehicle accident or, you know, a fire. And then we're rolling through all the all these duties.
Flood: Yeah.
Marty: that have to happen on the fire ground. And that's before we even encounter victims. And that's like a whole added layer. So it just, that was like a, it just fascinates me because, you know, we can't get enough people and we can't get enough resources. And especially too, when you have something like this or the incident complexity starts spooling up, it's just, ⁓ yeah, it's a whole thing that I think people outside our little world, you know, wonder, it just seems probably excessive from the public, but. Once we start really throwing this all into the mix, it's...
Flood: Yeah, I mean, to those that don't know listening, like, and Fayetteville, get engines, ⁓ ladders, ⁓ a battalion chief on a structure fire. ⁓ And a rescue can sometimes replace a ladder. the rescue can operate in an engine capacity as well. So we kind of, ⁓ they'll kind work in there. we Typically our typical assignment gets you 17 people and with everything that has to go on Like that's just barely enough just barely enough To get the basics done and that's before having to deal with any kind of that's not significant fire You know, that's not anything like that ⁓ I've learned that over over my career is
CKIII: victim much less plural victims. Yeah.
Flood: Yeah, so yeah, getting more people, ⁓ 17 people not enough to get real work done. Although we did it. Yeah, we did it. ⁓ a, you know. situation with three victims and got them all out.
CKIII: So I have a question. It's like several times both of you, Braden specifically mentioned like, trusting your guys, right? And all of us had a conversation recently about trust, right? And how that weaves in and out of our job and living together and working together and all that. And I think about like, maybe you hit on some of this, but like, you're super confident in your guys, right? You trust them. Like, how does that impact your ability to hold space for command, right? Like if you didn't trust them, what does that look like?
Flood: ⁓ I don't know how you would do that. I think what you would end up doing is micromanaging.
CKIII: Have you ever experienced that in your career?
Flood: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. ⁓ But we're at such a different level now with these guys and where they're at. And, you know, I hope I don't hurt anybody's feelings, but like, you always have like every battalion chief, and if they say different, they're lying, has like certain guys they count on a little extra, right? And ⁓ it's just like, for me for a long time, it was Richard Aslitsa, know, freaking 30 year captain ⁓ a ⁓ know, that guy was under him for a long time. knew how he thought, you know, how he operated and his experience was phenomenal. And so if he was inside and he was like, fires out, I knew, fires out, right? Like, didn't have
any questions. And it's not that the other guys aren't, I don't mean to take away from, you know, the seven year captain, but he's seven year captain. I trust him. but as a seven year captain. Does that make sense? There's still really good dudes and they're gonna give a hundred percent, but there's difference. And what's interesting on that fire, because ⁓ has kind of just slid right into that role for me as no one, and Bryce worked under Richard both on duty and off duty, doing ⁓ it like that, you know,
skordal: very long.
Flood: the experience, the construction background, learned a lot from Richard. it was a natural, like when he's down there, I felt totally confident on that call and who was there. I mean, I had Fenton on the rescue. He was at the time, what was that? He's a 20 year captain at the time. Had 100 % confident. I actually everybody on that scene, every one of those captains, Jimmy Vineyard, was what 22 year captain, James Luther, year captain. getting something. I think the second end, my second alarm engine that came in had the youngest captain on it. But yeah, I had a ton of like really experienced captains working on that scene. Chris Fallon was, Holy smokes, was every bit of, he was probably 22 year captain. So I had a lot of experience out on that. getting the work done, which makes a big difference. It makes you feel good about what's getting on. I didn't have to, I worry about them making good calls or somebody seeing the right things and making the right decisions.
Marty: My ⁓ narrative brain is just spinning right now. was thinking about this story, the larger story. What we do is, you know, I was just slowly like, spearing that out. So, you know, ⁓ call itself, I think we can all agree. And we talked about this last podcast, we kind of like re-baseline our norms, but this is a crazy story with a lot going on. ⁓ And we come into this, it's like we're reading a book and we're coming in midway through. Like Dispatch just kind of like pops something up. Hey, okay, you guys are asleep. Great. Boom. Here's a crazy event. By the way, you guys are in it now and you're in it over your heads. And we have to go in and make meaningful and impactful change. And you guys went in and effectively did that. And just the outcomes of that. and what can be taken from this event and what we can take forward with us. I think this is, yeah, it's just, I don't know, I was just kind of reflecting on that as everybody was talking and sharing this stuff, our own story that we have here, this specific event, and then what that looks like as we start to pull things out of it into our collective, the organization, the wisdom. and knowledge that we have. We talked about senior captains and I don't know, there's just a lot. This is awesome to listen to and there's a lot that can be pulled from.
Flood: Bryce, when me and you were talking today, I think a good point, I touched on it a little bit, I wanted to hit it again, is the way we train to rescue
victims compared to reality.
skordal: Yeah, we were talking about that. You're always told to be mindful of your surroundings and stuff like that when you're trying to do this stuff. Everybody always gives an example. If there's a chair, why not put them in the chair and wheel them out? It's not something you think of. They were laying in a bedroom, there's bed sheets. Roll them up in a sheet. Things like that, now you got handles.
Flood: Yeah.
skordal: So many of those things, I I picked this whole thing apart for gosh, forever. I came up with all sorts of crazy ideas of what we could have done different. I mean, ultimately, I'm happy with what we accomplished. But you can always change it up, do better, think outside the box. But also, to that note, like we don't, we don't train that way, too. You know, we train in a metal box. Furniture, there's no usable furniture. You know, so that's maybe we could, you know, start adding bedsheets.
Flood: Yeah. Concrete floors.
skordal: Something like that.
Flood: And then maybe like you get like, I don't know, 60 pounds of wet insulation and throw it on the ground. Yeah, yeah.
skordal: Yeah, I mean, why not? Trudge through it. But yeah, just that you're always, you always hear, you know, be observant, think about your surroundings, things like that. boy, I can tell you from experience, it gets tough. It just, tunnel vision, especially in that particular situation, you're thinking about one thing and one thing only, and it's get them out, get them out now, get them out fast. But, know, sometimes that quick glance, that quick idea might help just a little bit more.
Bob: This is great. I think we should take a break here in a second. I do love the idea of what you're saying with, you know, hindsight's 2020 and understanding what we can do with that hindsight. I think after this break, we'll go into that a little bit more. All right, we're back. Thanks for staying with us for those who are listening. just got done talking about kind of a really cool, lengthy. ⁓ labor intensive call. We haven't really talked about the after effects of that call yet. ⁓ I kind of want to get into a little bit about, you know, spoke on how crazy it was and exhausting ⁓ ⁓ out. People are outside that were trapped inside. And now what? Right, you're going back to the stations. This was the... Arguably, at what time did you guys finish that call up?
Flood: I think we can. Yeah, 630.
skordal: The sun was coming up.
Bob: 630 going home at eight.
Flood: Yes, some. Maybe we'll get home by then.
Bob: I suppose. So you guys go back to the station and are you, you go to the coffee table and what's it like?
skordal: Honestly, there was no coffee table for me. I was clicky clacking on a computer trying to do a report. Then when I got done, I went home.
Flood: I do want to like say something about this. you know, it wasn't, This wasn't like a joyride because two people did lose their lives in this Two got transported. One was called on the scene. ⁓ And so it wasn't, ⁓ I want to make this sound like ⁓ everybody high-fiving because that was not the case. ⁓ While they did an outstanding job and
Bob: Yeah.
Flood: I don't believe like there's anything different would have made the outcome different. But I do think so ⁓ does make the. The after action kind of feeling. Both like they did good work. ⁓ I was like. Beyond proud of the work they did. Proud dad kind of feeling right like your guys just kick some serious ass. ⁓ ⁓ And also like they got to do what every single one of us want to do but you said to be a fireman. That's it That's the job go to a fire and so there was like this like both like man, it sucks Feeling of like that not everybody made it But also proud of my guys for the work they did and the way they handled themselves So, and I can remember thinking like, did like ⁓ ever got excited or jacked up on that call. ⁓ everybody that talked on the radio, ⁓ was all cool, calm and collected. And so going back to the station and it's, you're kind of like, think Bryce you said at the beginning of this, I don't know if we were on air or not, but you said, holy shit, that just happened. When you get back here, because it doesn't set in till you're kind of sitting in my office and I was like, wow, that was a hell of a call. ⁓ don't get a lot of those in your career. So ⁓ it's both I'm proud of my guys, but also like ⁓ that sucked we lost people. That sucks.
skordal: certainly makes you pick it apart way more.
Flood: Yeah.
Bob: Yeah, was gonna ask you, Squirtle, about that particularly. think this career puts you in a lot of bad positions. I maybe said that wrong. You see a lot of things that ideally no one would want to see or be a part of, right? And that's fine. We know that going in. And that's pretty... widely accepted throughout the fire service that that's gonna be the case. The effects of that still real, regardless of your preparation or what you think you're prepared for. ⁓ know ⁓ on some personal experience ⁓ that kind of situation, you have a flood ⁓ emotions ⁓ At least in my case, a lot of what ifs.
skordal: ⁓ 100%. Yeah.
Bob: and you know the temptation to dwell on the bad instead of the good. Yeah. So guess what's your experience or your take ⁓ that?
skordal: It, I mean, it's certainly a battle because I mean, if you look at the fact that we did lose two people, it makes it real easy to be like, did I do everything I could do? Did I do it the best that I could do? Ultimately, I would say yes. I mean, super proud of Dover and Hatton for, you know,
Flood: Yeah.
skordal: I stepped over here to try and multitask because I knew that Dover was coming, even though he was new, he was coming from a background. He had been in it. Hatton's had time on ⁓ I was confident in leaving them for that split moment ⁓ then ⁓ back around and seeing that they advanced in. It's like, yeah, guys. ⁓ Like, it. ⁓ And going in they already found one ⁓ and now time to go to work. But, you know, when
the work's over and you're kind of left with that... Yeah, success, you're proud, kind of what you were alluding to, Braden. There was a lot left due to the fact that two didn't make it of those dwindling. ⁓ we do it all the way? Did we do it to the best of our ability? Was there something we missed? Is there a training aspect we ⁓ If we would have done this, would have done better, you know? But that's ⁓ something don't drudge up till it's all over. ⁓ I will still say over and over that everybody did a phenomenal job. It's just one of those things that once you're out of it, you're removed from that, and then you can look at it, oh my gosh, it is so easy to pick it apart. And if you don't pick it apart, I don't think you're trying to do all the things you want to do to learn and expand on it. I if you walk away from something like that and you're not picking it apart, that's a little scary to me.
CKIII: Yeah, that's kind of the thing I want to pick up on now too is thinking about that of like, you mentioned picking it apart and like, you're doing that yourself, right? In part to process the things that Bryce was talking about that we all process in our own way. then the other piece too is you're a professional, right? You're an operator. You're an operational guy that does dangerous shit for a living, right? And like, think about this of like, You know, you're a company officer and part of that is formal and informal teaching, right? You mentioned having these young guys coming behind you that performed outstanding on the fire ground, right? And I'm thinking about the, talked at break about the gift that Braden had of 148 years of service just amongst his officer corps on that fire call. ⁓ we're losing that. Think of the names you mentioned right now that are gone. Or leaving. Promoter. Right? Oselietse, 30 years, gone. Jimmy, 30 years. May promote. If not, he's gone in two years. Fallen, 20 plus years, gone. You had 148 years of fire ground experience amongst your officers only on that call. And so we talked to Break about like,
Flood: Yeah, promoted. Or leaving. Yep.
CKIII: What's that look like here in this place in five years from now? You're not gonna have, you're battalion chief and you have his job in two years. No pressure. All the pressure. You know, what are you gonna have? How many years of experience amongst your officers are you gonna have there, And so like we can't manufacture the experience piece, But how can we offset that? To me, it's training, right? It's what you're talking about. You pick it apart and we, how do we learn from these things? Right? And so the things we've been kicking around have been like, you know, what's, what's the process for that? And like, we have like this thing I think about is like, since the dawn of human time, right? We're living in tribes, having to do dangerous things just to stay alive. That's where we all come from actually. Right. And like, how did that information get passed down from the gray hairs to the, the youngers, right? It's telling stories, right? and it's something near and to my heart of like, We do that all the time, but are we doing that as well as we could so that we're constantly learning these things and passing those on? And you have the AAR component, so after action review. Some people may or may not be familiar with that. That's a formal process of doing the picking it apart and telling the story to see, know, it sustains. What went well, what didn't go well. So I'm hit you with a quote and then I'm hit you with some questions. us walk down this parallel journey of thinking about storytelling and what it does for us individually and collectively in the fire service. And then the AR is a tool, right? Which I know, Braden, when you started, like, that was done. We have some, we can probably go into that a little bit, what that looked like, right? And then we're not, we haven't consistently done it for a while, right? So, talked about this, is a good quote on this. We can't fix what we do not talk about. And we don't talk about what we don't see. And so the question to me is like, how are we seeing more about what we're doing well or not? And to me, it's what you're talking about that picking it apart. And so like picking it apart and kind of put you in the hot seat a little bit right now, I'm thinking like. If you went to yourself like right now in this moment, if you could talk to yourself five minutes for that tone drop, are there things that you would tell yourself in preparation for going to do that all over again right now? Back up and punt, you're doing it three minutes from now with the gift of time and hindsight.
skordal: 100%. Being aware of what you went through, point A being the truck, point B being your patient. What do you need to get that person out? Like I said, we had a... Everybody got down, there were hands on deck to help them, but there's probably more efficient ways. If you can recognize, holy crap, I just drug a hose up. fly to stairs, a landing, okay, I can get them out of the house, but we gotta go back down the stairs. So something as simple as calling for a stretcher or stokes or something up at the top of the stairs, because we're have to get these people down and fly to stairs. Those type of things. Being more observant of your surroundings, such as grabbing a blanket off the bed. Something to that effect. Freeze up. more hands to do more things, potentially. And then the communication piece of, know, Brayden being a little bit blind, which I guess if you're operating inside, you can kind of just always assume that, whether it's true or it's not true, the relaying of important information so that he's not left in the dark. If for some reason he is parked, we've, you know... We've got victims, we have a hazard just outside the door. We're going to have to bring him down a flight of stairs. We need a Stokes basket. We need people. That paints a clearer picture. Yes. I mean, it doesn't
have to be lengthy, but those key things so that he's not left in the dark. Now he's like, okay, well, I can't see it, but I can kind of see it now. I'm getting an idea of what's happening. I think those things were left out.
CKIII: and shared operating picture for everybody.
skordal: I mean you had plenty of guys on the front side that were seeing that acting on it, but for his seat, that's reliable information. That's important stuff to do.
CKIII: Mission critical information. Same question to you. You get to talk to yourself three minutes before you go do this all over again. What comes up,
Flood: Bring more than you need. You know what mean? that you hear it all the time in every class, right? Like, ask for more early. You can always send it back, right? then the other thing would be is, ⁓ ⁓
CKIII: Yeah.
Flood: Do what you have to do. I gotta tell myself like... DayRinger was really big about you don't leave the truck, Chief DayRinger. And there's a lot of benefits to it. I mean, I'm not gonna argue that, do what you have to do to make sure you're getting the picture you if you're not, then do something. Get out of the truck, walk down there, run command from down there. And there's the, which didn't, that scene didn't need it, but the, you know, bring your presence to the scene. You know, now we're doing like the alpha division kind of thing, the calm, the chaos. And I think that guy can have that at the door and like, you can create that, that calm for the crews that are jacked up coming in. And you just talk to them, look them in the eye and tell them what you need them to do and create that calm. can, you know, I think you, If I need to, I can create that. I didn't need to on that scene, but I would still like, I know like I would have gotten in a position where I could have laid eyes on it. I should have seen it right away. Like this is not working. And then knew it.
CKIII: It's contagious, right? Yeah.
Flood: And it was like, was like glued in that seat and I shouldn't have been, I should have been okay with like get out, lay eyes on what's going on. These guys are, they got more, you know, my safety officer can't be a safety officer. So things just weren't operating the way we would want them to operate. So I need to learn to adapt outside of what's comfortable or what I've been used to, or I think it would have been worth a a butt chewing from Chief Dayringer. You know, he would have said anything like that was wrong.
Marty: Yeah.
Flood: Brad wouldn't have said anything. He would said, did what you felt was right.
CKIII: Right. We do things because of doctrine. That's like organizational culture. Right. We do that because of why we do it. And sometimes that doesn't make sense. doesn't. Sometimes it needs to go out the window. Right.
Flood: And that piece of like that, like what is that? Like think outside the box. Don't be afraid to think outside the box to make it happen. I was always good with that when my hands were on things. I'm
not good at that sitting in a truck on my hands. It's hard to do.
Marty: Right.
CKIII: Different space. Yep. Two of the questions here just to prime the pump for you fellas on as we're drilling down a little bit In what ways did you feel prepared like you were confident you're prepared to do the mission like you guys showed up you did work How did you feel? Looking back that you were prepared for this
skordal: mean, for me, partially just experience being on multiple big fires. mean, obviously not the component with having victims in it, but just that exposure to showing up to a call, big fire in your face, short distance from the station, like that stressor I had experienced. Along with regular training with your guys and the capabilities. of your guys fell into ⁓ some of those decisions and not hovering over your guys, having to stay with them, that's being able to split up just a little bit, not let them run wild, but if you've got to do something, feel confident that you can step away for just a second to check something over here and come back and not worry that they're going to go off the rails or something, you know. But just having that confidence. to be able to do some stuff and spread out just a skosh and cover more ground.
CKIII: That comes back to me to trust, right? We talked about it before the break, that you trust your guys to do the work. How did you feel that you were prepared for that call?
Flood: You know, at that point.
Marty: Go ahead.
Flood: run as a captain, those calls as a captain, which I think helped a lot. I learned a lot from other BCs that I watched and listened to run calls. learned a lot from those guys. guys remember, mean, Travis Bodry was like a.
Marty: Yeah. ⁓
Flood: What do you call that? The at front of the symphony. What's that guy called? Conductor. He was a conductor. conductor. Yeah, man. I ⁓ listening to him on a fire ground. So there was ⁓ like that that I listened to that think helped me. And lots of them. not...
CKIII: Yeah
Flood: He was just one that sticks out as always being like really smooth on the fire ground. So I think that helped. then, you like you said, you pointed out, like I had a lot of help. had a hundred and almost 150 years of experience. Made job pretty easy. I remember Chief Harden called me and he said, man, you sounded really calm. He you sounded good. He's like, you never got excited. I said, because I had the guys on the, the guys I had on the call, like I didn't have to be like. So that helps, that helps your confidence a ton.
CKIII: You mentioned botery. We talked to Greg about a great botery-ism when I first promoted as a captain, and was telling me this. And like, Bryce, you completely epitomized this. And then you had to take the bag as well. Talking about summarizing our job is, all of us in the fire service, especially the company officer initially, is making life or death decisions on a compressed time frame without all the information. Like, that's the job, right? Like, you stepping off the truck and having all you had to deal with, like, falling back on your training, but making life or death decisions on a compressed timeframe right now, right now, with that all information.
skordal: Also, if you work with Richard O. Sleetza for as long as I do, you make a decision.
Flood: ⁓ Make a decision. do make a decision.
CKIII: Right now We need to do a whole episode on decisiveness and decision making because that's the thing, right?
skordal: That man will make a decision and solve the problem.
CKIII: I love it. And that was instilled in you. And that had an operational impact on a bunch of people. sure. All right. So next question on this, and then we'll dive into AR a little bit, is in what ways were you unprepared, do you think, for that call?
skordal: I guess in some ways, I think we kind of had a side conversation on this is, you you revert back to your training and you always say be aware of your surroundings and that, you know, the comment of we train in a metal box. There's furniture, but it's not usable furniture. There's not usable tools to assist you in a way as far as patient removal and some of those things. And I'm sure we could come up with other things that you can use things around you for, but... That is something that I feel like is lacking in some of our training scenarios. You just don't have that ready available. So that when you're in a position where you should be observing in that way and you need to look around to find something to assist you, and it'll only take a second, you don't train that way.
CKIII: Got it. Yeah, that makes total sense.
Flood: Yeah, when we promote here. you just kind of handed the keys and you know, it's like if you never took a single driving lesson in your life, your dad just hand you the keys and say go drive, you know, the store and go get whatever and see in a minute. Yeah, like that's kind of what it feels like a little bit like you're like, I watched dad drive. Yeah, I got to watch other guys do it, but I've never driven, right? Never. We don't do a good job of like, let's go drive out here in this big field. where it's safe to drive. And if you screw up, just, you know, you're often you're in a big field. Before you get the Daytona 500, right? Like, so yeah, I mean, and I remember often, like saying that I wish you know, there was more and there's not a lot of classes. ⁓ this day, like if you get out there, like, there's not a ton of some out there, but there's not a lot of
CKIII: before you hit the Daytona 500.
Marty: ⁓
Flood: like just run a scene kind of class, like teaching you how to run an instant command and all the various, all the different kinds of scenes you can run. And I'm sure it's hard to do because if you take people from all over the country to try to run a scene, well, everybody's got a different, like what I'm thinking I'm going to show up on the fire ground with and what your department over in California is going to show up with or New
York guy shows up and he's like, he's got a hundred guys to my 17. we're going to run a scene very different, right? So it's hard. anyway, I think we could do a better job of training house even, right? Just run our battalion ⁓ captains, they're that role, like run them through tabletop, tabletop, tabletop, over and over and over again.
CKIII: So what's interesting to me is I'm hearing out of each of you with each question is like the things that prepared you and the things that you felt limited your preparation were the same in the sense of experience and training. Yeah. Right. And so like we can still to your point slide the slide the needle right potentially with the training thing. Experience is concerning because we're losing all these guys all these years. Right.
skordal: I would also like to add that our training now, as opposed to what it used to be, is far superior. So it's more just finding new things to add that we haven't maybe thought of.
CKIII: So I think this is critical too, and I forget about who all is listening to this thing, right? Like I take it for granted, it's folks dressed like us. In my current role in the department, I've been bumping into more and more like, ⁓ interact professionally with people that don't do what we do, right? That's part of my job. And we have to like lobby on behalf of why we need more people or stuff or things. We had a bond project go through, right? And part of that was ⁓ kind of augment our training facility, right? There's a lot of discussion around like, why do you guys need to train so much? And why do you need these people? Why do you need this, that and the other? And it's like, you know, we're highlighting the very real mission critical aspects of the role of training. It's not just something we do because it's fun and we want to go play with our toys, right? It's as a very real, direct impact on life safety for both our crews and more importantly, people who are out there to help. I think we understand that we take that for granted, but I'm not sure that's fully. ⁓ out there in listener land awareness.
Flood: I don't know how true it is. mean, but they say like, so a five year guy now will fight less fire than I fought my first five years, but the fires he's fighting are more dangerous.
CKIII: Yeah, faster. More deadly, but faster, right?
Flood: So he's getting less reps, dealing with higher consequences. Right. That's ⁓ bad mixture. Yep.
CKIII: And that's Well, again, like you said, we've got an aggressive training program here. I'm grateful for all the support we get. And we just got to keep pouring the coals to that. Yep. So thinking about stories, can you guys in this moment think of stories that coming up in your fire service career, you heard a story about a call, and it stuck with you? Or in hearing that story, you pluck something out of that. You're like, when I see that, when I feel that, I'll know. Or. I'll strike that second alarm out the gate when I hear confirmed victims, right? in this moment now, do you guys have any stories that are kind of lingering out there that impacted you? God, I'm sure they're
skordal: I just have to think about it. mean, every experience with people impact you. I can't think of like a specific thing on scene, but like, you know, working with Richard and he's very construction mindset. Like, he's got freaking X-ray vision when he walks into a house and he finds problems so fast. It's crazy. Like, guys like that, that knowledge base that you don't necessarily think about, but you take for granted, just like... building construction can lead you to the solution of a problem so fast because you know how it's laid out. You know how a house is wired, where the problems are, all the things that you just don't think about if you don't look into that type of stuff. And as well as just like the overall specialty guys. know, there's specialty guys in every aspect of our job that just know it inside and out and sideways. And those guys are always cool to be around because you always learn something or are inspired to be like, man, I need to learn more. So I don't know if it's a specific call or instance that has a takeaway. It's always just little nuggets from everybody you're around. For me, anyways, I can't think of one specific thing that just... jumps out, it's a lot.
CKIII: But think what you're pointing out to is still that same piece and like a smaller version of like that little individual, like micro doses of mentoring. Yeah. Right. You're with Richard on a house and he's like, hey, see this. This means that. Right. And that sticks in there somewhere. Right. That wasn't like a formal class you went through. What a book you read. Right. Do you have anything that comes up to mind?
Flood: So I have a story. ⁓ Ron Wood. was told and it's obviously been a while so I apologize if I butcher this story. not a hundred percent accurate but the way I understand they have a house fire. ⁓ Working house fire. Ron Wood goes in. Absolute, you know, zero visibility kind of and does the search in a house with zero visibility. gets through search, put the fire out as the smoke rises. ⁓ It was and then it was set up for it sounds crazy, but either for us to cause, to make it worse ⁓ or, there was buckets of gasoline, five gallon buckets of gasoline spread out all like in a bedroom and like he crawled over a bed ⁓ that a five gallon bucket of gasoline on it and didn't spill the bucket. Like, ⁓ he on purpose and crawled around like searched a room, somehow managed not to spill buckets of gasoline that were in there. Anyways, I do remember thinking, well, a couple of things is always expect unexpected stuck with me. Right? Like that was like, you just never know what we're crawling off into. Not that you can be like going into everything thinking like there might be a bucket of gasoline on this bed. But yeah, I I guess like that story, I remember hearing it and trying to process like, how's that happen? And then
the other part of it is like, sometimes man, like you gotta be lucky in this job. You just gotta have, you gotta get lucky. So those were like, that's a story that sticks out in my head is, you know, crazy story that, and a couple of things that stuck my head from over. Expect the unexpected and sometimes you gotta get lucky.
CKIII: Yeah, I like it. I want to go back to Bryce's Pick It Apart and we'll talk about AAR first a minute and probably wrap it up in interest of time here. I think about your internal process, Critical Call asked me, so, hey, what could I have done better? that constant playing the movie again and again and again and again. And then as you discover those things for yourself or for your crew even, Those lessons learned for yourself are absolutely worthless if you don't share them. Right. And so that's also to me what kind of AAR comes in. Like to me, think storytelling is an informal version of that. Right. Like we sit around the coffee table, you talk through your process. Right. Hey, guys, you know, come after a call. I used to do this. Hey, if we do that again, what we do different. Right. You know. But if we're not as an organization to Braden's point of like the op tempo as far as fires is decreasing. they're getting more dangerous, more deadly, right? So to me, the onus on the organization, we've got to be really, really good at supporting the picking it apart, right? And then harvesting those lessons learned and then pushing those out to our guys so that, you know, I can learn from something I've never seen because I learned it from him, right? So the AEO process, big picture, right? It's like, you know, question one is like, what was the plan? What did we think was going to happen? Right. Well, you knew we had something on fire. Right. And we have confirmed people in there. Holy shit. Right. It's happening. This is a real deal. And then you get there and then like, what actually happened? Well, a lot of things. Right. You walked us through it. Victims are out the gate. Heavy fire. Crews helping from the Charlie side. V.S. And they can't get to the Alpha side to help out. Right. And then looking at that like, OK, what were the environmental context, environmental things that impacted? The incident commander couldn't see. He's trying to wrap his head around the picture, right? He can't see. He talked about the communication aspect. If we're looking at these, like are there things that we've talked through here for this call in your mind that were like, okay, you know what? Down and dirty from a tactical perspective, right? Three foot world working the problem to incident commander and everything in between. Things that we did really, really well, right? What are sustains that we did well on that? that we want to make sure that the guys coming up behind you guys, Braden, you haven't even met yet. They're not wearing this shirt yet that you want to make sure that they're still good at that long after you're gone. What comes to mind? Just popcorn, some stuff out there.
skordal: Some of it was the aggressiveness in which we attacked that scene. ⁓ mean, largely because we knew that there was somebody in there. That doesn't mean that we don't have to lose that just because we don't know. So that aggressiveness, drive, knowing your guys enough to have some confidence in them to do some stuff. Not necessarily just cut them loose, but just... if you train with your guys or even if you just talk with them around the coffee table or know their background, you're like, ⁓ this guy's got some experience or he's got a few years on, you you have either a reputation or something that gives you a level of confidence that if you do get into something, you can kind of let them go a little bit. I think that's important. And then just... I don't know, just work through the problem the best you can. I don't think that falls into the aggressiveness. Just go, make a decision, make something happen.
CKIII: Yeah, keep the momentum on your side as much as you can, right? ⁓ Braden, what you got,
Flood: Yeah, mean, it's similar, like the aggressiveness. It's always on. I see this on all our fires like our guys are really aggressive. I don't know how to say this because it's gonna sound opposite of what I'm trying to say. So like they move aggressively, but think slowly. don't, that's not, then that comes out wrong. Cause they're not thinking slow. I think the guys, they knew what they had to do. So it, ⁓ I the scene probably slowed down for them. Probably like two year guy, that scene is probably absolute chaos and they're like out themselves and So I think it's like, sometimes guys just one thing that always saying I've always said is remember this is not our emergency. Like their emergency. Stay calm, cool, take a breath, breathe, orient, act, right? make a decision, we can go to work. And that's what our guys do really well. They take the snapshot, they take that breath in, get a feel for what has to get done. And our guys at it, or into it, and then they freaking go after it. ⁓ I would just say that's like that, whatever that takes, to like carry that on. This would be good.
CKIII: I did some training with a guy a year or so ago and super high performing guy and a group he was with always talked about like being absolutely like totally protecting the last 20 % of your bandwidth, right? Like full tilt boogie, give it your all, but protecting that last little 20 % to allow you to do that, right? I'm still aggressive and I got the op tempo in my favor, the momentum's in my favor, but I've got enough awareness. to not outrun my headlights to be able to make solid critical decisions that are under pressure. And that also ties into your fitness, ties into your stress inoculation, that ties into your training. It's going to all increase that.
skordal: think another positive that came out of that, and it kind of goes into with the being aggressive, but there are a lot of people on the
outside throwing solutions to a problem without being told.
Marty: looking for work.
Flood: Looking for work. Looking for work.
CKIII: Taking initiative, looking for work.
skordal: You know, I mentioned that I should have asked, being aware of the path I took to get there, to ask for certain tools to help people get those people down the stairs. I didn't, and it still got done. Nobody told them to do it. They saw it. They saw a problem. They saw it fixed. They did it.
CKIII: Yeah.
Flood: There were ladders thrown all over that building. After it was over, all the windows, just about every window had ladders at it. There was ladders on that, because you couldn't, if you ended up on that other side of the deck, there was no access down. Ladder was thrown up there. Ladders were just thrown all over that place. That got done, I can't tell you who did it.
skordal: And there was a lot of that going on.
Flood: But I remember looking afterwards and Aubrey was saying, he remembers like walking the back way, like weaving his way around all ladders. And he was like, when did this happen? Right? Like looking for work, you know, guys were like, how do I help the situation and going out and doing something? Yep.
skordal: I think that's a huge positive.
Marty: that jumped out at me, you're talking about sustains and it's arguably something I think that I that just kind of I've come to the realization on is the whole asking for help or additional help, which you already hit on Braden ⁓ ⁓ yeah, the whole second alarm piece I can think of and probably Bryce were relatively, you know, junior in this audience. But the first couple of years here, like a second alarm, it have been a Kentucky ass beater for you to ask for free. ⁓
CKIII: the
skordal: More people will like that.
Marty: You better have some shit going down. And funny now, and I ⁓ there was like a ⁓ of turning point for that. ⁓ think closely to maybe this fire, ⁓ where it just wasn't normal for us, ⁓ think, just from my ⁓ experience here. You know, and I think that's a positive thing. And I think it's just something that we're calling, we're getting it, and it's proactive. And, you know, our brothers and sisters to the north, you know, I think... call it a lot more often, you know, on a 900 square foot residential is the first thing you see on freaking KNWA, you know, two o'clock in the afternoon, they really want you to know it was a second alarm, but I think all jokes aside, sorry, I had to dog on that a little bit. Just saying. Anyway, no, ⁓ much love to everybody. But yeah, I think that's a really something great that is a sustain and I think we're already doing and I think that that bleeds out, know, decisions you made or things that you're putting out that the command level, I think, we're already starting to see the effects of that. So there's really power in doing these and this is good stuff. ⁓
CKIII: sure. The flip side of this sustained coin and we've talked about a lot of this. So Bryce is going to be the head of the stick for time probably. Bryce. Bryce Owsley. Yeah, I'm flanked by Bryce's is the improves piece. Like anything that you haven't mentioned so far yet. Right. And like in having this going down memory lane on this call and then thinking about paying it forward to the next generation of guys that haven't seen this yet but will at some point see a call like this. Right.
skordal: Sounds good, by the way.
CKIII: What are the improvements, either individually, crew-wise, collectively, organizationally, like what you got for it?
skordal: I mean something that we haven't talked about that we're starting to talk about now is just exactly what we're doing. I mean this happened several years ago and we did have a meeting immediately following that but I certainly could have done a better job just crew wise just inventing all those things that I internally was thinking and picking apart and now like putting this stuff out there and knowing the importance of sharing all these things.
CKIII: It's the actual review process. The actual review process. It's coming, right? I think collectively we recognize that we need to do a far better job than we've done, arguably ever, with this. And you're doing it. You guys are doing this right now, this process. I don't want to lose this thread. I'm gonna come back to think it's mission critical to allow this to even happen in a second. What do you have for us on any improves we haven't talked about in your perspective?
skordal: Yep.
Flood: There's no wrong idea, right? Like throw it up there. Like the big dream is more personnel on a truck. We can affect more rescues, make bigger difference, more people on a truck. That's, yeah. I mean, I get that everybody wants that, you know, and it's it's a problem, but I'm just like, that's on there. Cause I now I have more people on the scene faster. Even with the second alarm, those trucks are that much further out.
CKIII: Right.
Flood: as opposed to like, the first in trucks are there because they're the fastest there and if those have more people on it, that we're, we're making more happen quicker. So dream I know but ⁓ Yeah, I mean that's... I'm sure I'm just missing something. There's a bunch that I'm sure we need to improve.
CKIII: It's all good. So what I want to hit on with that though, that's this process is impossible without a couple of things and y'all have named one of them already multiple times, right? Like to me, the trust process, right? So like for us to come together, ideally we're all in the same room, right? You deal with a table, hot wash on scene. Ideally we do an actual formal no shit AAR after a critical call like this for a number of reasons. But like a couple of things are a recipe. critical ingredient is trust, right? So my uncle says like, we move at the speed of trust. And if we don't trust each other, and Braden, I know early in your career, when AARs are being conducted, I would argue in not a healthy, functional way, not a
supportive way, not a generative way, right, that shuts people down, right? They feel they're somebody's out to get you, you know? There's no trust. ⁓ I feel like we're in a good space, I think, at least in this department, increasingly to have trust where people can communicate in that fashion. And the other piece to me also is another quote from a guy is, ego is not your amigo. Right? And we have to be professionals, right? And like, you may have to set your ego at the door because it's all about me being better as a firefighter, me being better as a company officer, us being better collectively, because at the end of the day, you know, this is huge to me. Why are we here? Like, why are we here? We're here to help people that need us in a major way. And we have to do dangerous stuff to affect that sometimes. like, those things have to come together for us to collectively learn in good way. And you've experienced when those weren't held, the space wasn't held, it wasn't facilitated in a way, where there was trust, right? And people were worried about hurt feelings or having real conversations. Or worried about their ego. And their ego got in the way of actual growth. of both themselves and us collectively as an organization, which actually could prevent somebody from surviving something. Right. Because the organization's not growing.
Flood: just to speak on like what I've seen. I think it's a hurdle to overcome, but yeah, there's definitely like I've seen kind of the ups and downs of AARs like goods, bads, we did, we seemed to have changed it over the years and we went through the phase of like, it was out to point out what we did wrong. And then it was very ⁓
Marty: ⁓
Flood: Nobody but got hurt. put the fire out. Great job. ⁓ became a lot of frustration when it was all about like the good stuff we did. There was frustration, a lot of frustration, almost as much as the other side. When we felt like you're getting called out, the other side of it is like when you come in, it's just all the good stuff. And then the guys are like, what's the point of this? ⁓ were like, and so that's I think that kind of died out last was ⁓ it just all this fluff and that meaningful. Cause you know, maybe somebody didn't recognize what he did wrong and then somebody didn't point it out to to, you know, and there's a way to do that. I'm sure healthy, right? Like ⁓ there's technique for this, but I think it's important to like both like point out what we did really good, but also like we gotta be willing to your point. Get rid of your egos, be willing to accept some feedback of like what we could, what I could have done better, right? Like what did I mess up that I didn't recognize that I messed up? And that being okay with that, the big boy conversations, but that's hard sometimes. And especially in a group setting. so maybe the technique is ⁓ a one-on-one beforehand so that that person can then talk about themselves. I know. I don't know the answer to it, I've seen it all kind of different ways. I've seen the really formal, take the pictures, do the big write-up. And I've seen that like talk about it afterwards. the best things were like when guys own their mistakes. That's how I learned. And I know we keep talking about him. It's probably because we're so close to him. But Richard, I remember towards the end of his career, we had a fire over in the old part of town over there in like Washington. was like around Christmas time. And we all sat around after the fire, talked about what went wrong, right? And then Richard turned around and stood there and like pointed at the house and gave a construction lesson to like, and I watched him. I just stood back and it was like this beautiful moment and there's like six guys and they're all these young guys and he's like educating them on why that did what it did and it was freaking brilliant and I remember I knew he was you know he was like a year away from leaving less than a year I think at that time and I was like ⁓ it broke my heart but like that was like a really cool I was like that was like one of the coolest after actions I've seen he was like took these young guys and like taught them right there on the scene of why that fire did what it did and where the voids were and that, and explained the construction. was cool. It was cool. So I've seen it all and there's a lot of good stuff there.
CKIII: It's awesome.
Marty: Yeah, the traditional org view of, you know, we're looking at the deficit based approach or we're finding all the problems and identifying those. And I think there's definitely like a balance to your point when we are, yes, we're identifying the problems, we're also approaching in a generative manner. So looking at them as opportunities for growth and, you know, that's, I think really the fine line. to your point where we want to be productive in our efforts, that happens with identifying our strengths as well as our weaknesses and trying to take that and move it forward in a productive manner. maybe reframing things as opportunities for growth.
CKIII: For sure. Yeah.
Bob: All right guys, thank you so much for being here. Certainly very grateful for your insight and for being vulnerable and offering something to this process that we have named 303 The Pit. It's beautiful thing. Again, thank you for our listeners being here and we'll see you next time.
Flood: Thank you.