To go to conferences, you're you're you can't bullshit your way through it. Firemen will see through you in the first five minutes. And you kind of really only get one shot at your reputation in this business, so you got to make it count.
SPEAKER_00Firehouse Vigilance presents the weekly scrap, a podcast dedicated to the never-ending fight against complacency. Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance, it is weekly scrap number 359. My guest tonight is Brandon Chapman. He is a second generation fireman and has 17 years of career and volunteer experience and currently serves as the driver on Truck 17 in the city of Pittsburgh. He also holds the title of Assistant Fire Chief for the Stowe Township Fire Department and is a firefighter for the West Lanham Hills Volunteer Fire Company 28 of Prince George's County, Maryland. Brandon is a Pennsylvania State suppression instructor, teaches recruit school for the city of Pittsburgh, and is also a lead instructor for Butler County Community College. He is the co-founder and instructor for Grit Fire Training. And it is my absolute pleasure to have him on the show. My brother, Brandon Chapman, welcome to episode number 359 of the scrap.
SPEAKER_01Thanks for having me, Corley. I'm excited to be here and uh looking forward to this next few minutes here with you guys answering these questions.
SPEAKER_00It's going to be fun. The people are already logged in. There's a lot of hype for uh yeah, I think it started like 30 minutes ago for Western Pennsylvania. And so a lot of hype and a lot of a lot of good stuff. Anything I missed in the intro? Anything you want to add? Anything I left out?
SPEAKER_01Nah, that's it. Hit it all, all the important stuff.
SPEAKER_00Very good. Uh audience, get your questions primed and ready. There's already a whole lot of flexing arms in the chat. There's a whole lot of rocker horns and a whole lot of LFGs, and the questions are already coming in. Sam is here as always. He is watching chat. He is grabbing your questions. So get your questions in so I can throw them at Brandon and we can rock him on his heels and get him and get him scrambling. Okay. That's the plan. But all that being said, let's do the beautiful sponsors. Shopgarage.com. Listen, I love everything that this company is doing. They saw a need in the fire service and they stepped in. It was founded by a firefighter and it brings value to the fire service. You need to buy or sell an apparatus. They are the place to do it. And even more than a marketplace, they are a community. They connect the buyers to the sellers and create that community, connecting people and departments. So get connected and find the apparatus and equipment you need. Go to shopgarage.com. Everything in the fire service gets tested. Training, instincts, equipment. That's why Snaptight designs and builds its fire hose to perform no matter the challenge. Durability, packability, kink resistance. Every single line is tested before it leaves the factory. So you know you can count on it. Snaptight, it's American made and firefighter trusted. Visit Snaptighthose.com to learn more or find a distributor near you. Firefighter safety and accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours, no switches, no batteries, which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. All specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job. Use code Vigilance when you order. Use code VIGILINGS, save 10% on your order. Be seen on scene, identifier safety.com. And the last one, near and dear to my heart, Dane Yaw, one of my favorite instructors, Yaw on Fire. Go check out his website. If you need to bring in training for your officers to develop your officers for teaching them how to do interpersonal communication, for teaching them about scene say uh uh scene aware, situational awareness. I had to think of the right term. Situational awareness, man, one of the best instructors I know, super proud uh to call him a friend, yawonfire.com. Go get him booked for your department or your conference today. With all that being said, it's time to kick it to Brandon and start talking and start scrapping. So, my brother, you kicked off uh grit fire training, co-founder of Grit Fire Trading. Tell me, tell me how that came about, what it took, and the challenges along the way.
SPEAKER_01Man, so this started back in 2020, me and a group of my buddies, um Alex Pluto, Brett Greenley, Brett Greenley, and Don Baird. Uh, we just had a need for some different types of training in the area, and there just was nothing. And, you know, we came up with the idea, hey, we went, we had some ideas for some classes we wanted to pitch. And we had some people that wanted us to come out and we're like, hey, if we're gonna do this, let's try to kind of build a platform on it. And ultimately our our main goal at the beginning was to make an impact locally, right? And I think we've accomplished that um a lot, and we still continue to do that to this day. And I'm thankful for where it's taken us and across the country and got me on the scrap here. But you know, our main goal was to make an impact locally, and we did that for a while, but in 2020, COVID hit, so it's kind of hard to launch. So we really didn't launch it on social media until 2022, and that's kind of when we started taking off. But the thing about grit fire training is you know, we're not built around one person, we're built around a team. And my goal with it and our goal with it was to build a platform to gather the best instructors we could and give them the resources and the platform to go out there and teach what they're passionate about, what they believe in, and what they want to share with the fire service. It's not just built around one class, one person, um, anything like that. And the other thing we want to do is we wanted to show up and bring everything that we possibly can to do the class. So if you call grit fire training for a class tomorrow, we're gonna drive wherever you are and bring everything except the fire truck and a building. That's what I tell you. If you call me to book a class, I say I need a building and a fire truck, and we bring everything else with us. That's awesome. And you know, there's a lot of, you know, I see it out there all over the internet, right? Oh, someone's starting a training LLC stuff. And you know, some some people, you know, they're they're worried about that. And I've had some people reach out to me and I'll give them all the advice that I can give them to help them succeed and you know, push them forward and better it. But you know, um, some people have done that for me as well. So I want to pass that on and pass whatever I've learned along the way on to them and help them out. I don't really get worried when I see more and more pop up. They're either gonna weed themselves out or they're not, they're gonna be successful or they're not. And you know, to be fair, if I stopped doing what I was doing or we stopped doing what we were doing, whenever we had a bunch of naysayers, I would never be here today. Right on, right on. I love that support making the fire service better, and whatever that looks like, whoever that is, you got my support. So, and then you know, just build build upon it and we pride ourselves on the training we bring. And we I think we have a niche type of training that we provide to everybody. And I think that when you're looking for a training LC or someone to come out and do some training in your fire department, there's one out there for you. Ask them what they believe in, what they're teaching, where they're from, what their operational realities are, you know. Um, just because they're from a big city department doesn't necessarily mean that they're gonna be the ones to come out and show you what what to do, right?
SPEAKER_00Right on. No, there's a lot you said there that I that I want to dig into. I want to ask questions on myself. Uh from A, what it was like six years ago now, six years ago, to say, hey, I'm gonna start, and like you said, you started local. What would you say is your number one piece of advice if if there's a a person out there that says, Hey, I'm thinking about I am thinking about starting my own training company and and starting to put on classes? What's your one piece of advice to them? Uh and I won't limit you to one. You can give as many as you want.
SPEAKER_01I mean, the first thing I would say is like, do you think you have influence in your area? Immediately start with your area. Like, you can't start a training company and think you're gonna be at FDS you the next year, right? You have to kind of build up to that. You have to get picked for smaller conference conferences. So, what I would say is, do you have influence in your area? And are you gonna be able to put yourself on a platform and market yourself to get people to come, you know, listen to what you have to say or come and attend your class? Because if you can't do that locally, you're probably not gonna do that on the stage. And I'm not saying that it might not come at some point in your career, you just might not be there yet. Uh, the next thing I would say is look yourself in the mirror, and this is where a lot of people have a hard time. If you were standing in front of the classroom, are you gonna listen to what you have to say as a person? Right. Do you have that credibility in yourself, right? Um, and I think if you can answer yes truthfully to those questions, then I'll then I'll support you to do it. But you know, that start, don't have those um high expectations off the off the off the rip, right? Yeah, I can't tell you how many times we've got denied for a conference, how many class proposals I've sent in that got that got denied. Um, and then they'll slowly start coming in one by one by one. And the next thing you know, you'll get there. And you're either gonna make it or you're not. And you can't go out, especially if you're trying to get on the circuit or trying to go to conferences, you're you're you can't bullshit your way through it. Firemen will see through you in the first five minutes. Um, and you kind of really only get one shot at your reputation in this business. So you got to make it count. Got to make it count.
SPEAKER_00No, that that's and you touched on a lot of uh really good stuff there, especially the part about you only get one shot at it at your reputation. And and one thing that I've noticed there's a trend seems to be going on social media, and I that's a whole different rabbit hole, not run I really want to go down, but there is when you s when you step out and you decide, hey, I'm gonna do this thing, and you put yourself out there, the haters seem to come out of the woodwork. That was that your experience or yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, I'm sure to this day, I mean, I'm not sure. I know for a fact there's people that hate on what we do, don't believe in what we do. And there's people that do, right? And you have to be able to see through that. If you're not willing to stand on what you believe and take the repercussions of whatever that is, then you shouldn't be doing this as well, right? Because not everybody's gonna agree with you 100%. Um, you're gonna have your supporters, you're gonna have your naysayers, and you just got to push them to the side and keep going on.
unknownRight.
SPEAKER_00Right on. Right on. No, it's it's it's awesome stuff. Awesome stuff. All right, I'm ready to kick it. Sam is already collecting questions and they're coming in. So I'm ready to are you ready for your first questions from the audience? Let's hear it. All right. This was coming from Joe Gavita, which he was here early. He was here early to get his questions in. And he said, Brandon, what have you learned the most about yourself from teaching with the grit? And what have you learned about the fire service from teaching with grit? So two-parter to open up things. So go ahead.
SPEAKER_01What I've learned myself is that there is so much good things out there. Like the conferences, there's so much to take from it, more than just the fire training. The life lessons that I've got from the social events, the little tips and tricks of hey, here's how we do logistics at a conference. Those are the things that I found the most valuable from starting grit. Things that I never thought about. Like you can take all the fire instructor classes you want, but those are the those are the real nuggets there, in my opinion. And uh for the fire service as a whole, man, you you don't realize like how regionalized firefighting is until you actually get outside of it. Yeah. Right. And I know that's probably like a cliche answer, and everybody says that, but you have to get outside of your bubble, go out somewhere and learn something elsewhere, and you'll really see how big the fire service actually is.
SPEAKER_00No, it's great. Yeah, that that is a the the first point, A, is is a phenomenal. I hope everybody wrote that down. And then the second part of the regionalization. Like I I grew up in a silo, I worked at one department my entire career. And I had, I if you'd asked me, I thought that was the way it was everywhere.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00I it was just plain ignorance. I thought everybody had minimum four-man staffing. And you know, and I as you travel, you're like, oh, how do you guys get this done with two people or sometimes one person?
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And the point of advice I give that is like, so everything's regionalized. You go to a conference, you go to this, you go to your training or whatnot. I describe conferences as like junkyards, right? Just imagine you're at home and your firehouse, your your crew, your whatever is your project car that you're trying to build, right? So when you're out at these conferences, they're like junkyards. What can I pick from here that's gonna work on my car and make my car better? Maybe I found a new bumper that's better than the bumper I got on there, and I got to come back and throw that on, right? So you might go to a class and you might take one thing from that, but that to me, that's worth it, right? You're never gonna get better if you're not taking one thing from here, one thing from there, and building your own way. So, like I said, fire conferences are just like junkyards. Take what you can from them, build your own car.
SPEAKER_00Build your own car. I will call it a swap meet. Like you can actually take, you can give stuff to and swap.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's definitely there. That's even better. Yeah, you can give stuff back. It's just it's the car swap meet, trade parts.
SPEAKER_00Grit fire conference swap meet. Great opening question, Joe. Thanks for throwing it out there. And even better answer, Brandon. All right, Steve Mauch says question. We hear it used all the time, and it's in the name of your training company. But what does grit mean to you?
SPEAKER_01Uh, just like it says on the first t-shirts we ever brit we ever printed, grit means hustle, passion, perseverance despite difficulty. Right? You want the guys who are gonna go in there and get gritty with you when it gets hot, when it gets hard, when it gets tough, when you're in your second cylinder, that's what grit is. The guys who are gonna stay with you the whole time, they're gonna train with you, they're gonna get job done no matter what it takes.
SPEAKER_00Dude, I like the way you end it with despite difficulty.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Because it's not just the hustle, passion, and perseverance when it's fun, yeah, when it's enjoyable, yeah, but despite despite the difficulty.
SPEAKER_01You know, that that third fire of the shift or that commercial fire that's no longer fun because you've been there for eight hours, you gotta push through, you gotta have the grit to get the job done exactly like you said, not just when it's fun.
SPEAKER_00Hustle, passion, perseverance, despite the difficulty. Although third fire of the shift sounds like fun. I mean, obviously, it depends on your your your regular fire duty, but yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Truth.
SPEAKER_00There's a lot of truth to that, no doubt about it. That's true. I like it. They're asking for more definitions. Joe's coming at you again and says the word aggressive gets thrown around a lot in the fire service. What does aggressive mean to you and your crew?
SPEAKER_01Man, all right. So I know what everybody means when they say aggressive, right? They're oh, they're the guys that are gonna go inside, they're gonna do the search, they're gonna put the fire off on the inside, they're gonna cut the roofs. Like, you know, we all as firemen understand that what we mean by aggressive. I personally do not like to use the term aggressive. I hate saying an aggressive fireman. Because in my mind, if you go out and ask the public, right, all of the things that they expect a fireman to do, all of those things that we consider aggressive firemen, or what the public expects of us to do all the time, right? So when we say we have aggressive firemen and not aggressive firemen, we're setting the standard that there's two types of firemen in. And to me, there's just not. You're either a fireman or you're not. And if you're not, you need to find a new place to work or volunteer, whatever it is you might do. And I use the example of, you know, if your hot water tank goes out in your house, right? You don't call an aggressive plumber, you just call a good plumber, right? So when I call 911, I don't want an aggressive fireman, I just want a good fireman, right? So that's my take on aggressive. And I and I know like there's no ill will towards it when people use it. I understand what they're saying, aggressive tactics, aggressiveness, but I just think we need to stop saying that and just say we're firemen or and tell the people who aren't firemen, you're not a fireman. You either get become a fireman or you need to find your way out, you know.
SPEAKER_00No, I I do. I I get what I and I understand why it why why it gets used because the the standard isn't the same everywhere. Because it'd be uh it the the fire service would be amazing if it was like you said, yeah, like that would be ideal.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but I yeah.
SPEAKER_00I think uh Frank Viscuso says, My you know, I want my standard, my minimum standard to be so high that anybody who meets the minimum is a rock star.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00And that's that would be like wouldn't have just just a fireman, just a fireman.
SPEAKER_01Just be a fireman. I mean, that would be ideal, and I and I get, and that's probably a different level to wherever you are, but you know, as a person, just operate to the your maximum potential, whatever your department allows you to do. And that's kind of where you can that's the best you can do personally, is my advice with that.
SPEAKER_00I got a personal, not a personal question, but asking about a personal story, it sounds not personal. I don't know anyway. Joe Govita's saying, Brandon, can you tell people about the training building you guys put together? So an actual All right.
SPEAKER_01Um, so I don't want to, it's not my this again. Remember when I said grit is a platform for a lot of guys. Uh one of our guys is uh from the DC fire department, Stephen Robert, and he has this phenomenal search program that he's coming up with. And some people have passed on knowledge to him, and I don't want to steal a thunder of that, but we built a two-scale, two-bedroom apartment building, fully furnished, carpet, flooring, cabinets, furniture, everything, bathtub, shower. And we footed that bill, right? Uh with the grip fire training footed that bill. We did the class, and then we offer that to any local department around here that wants to go out and use it on their own free free will. So, you know, again, trying to give back locally as much as we can uh with that.
SPEAKER_00Dang. So is it like is it is it uh wood frame construction? Is it connex boxes?
SPEAKER_01It's like so uh another local volunteer for our department, they have um access to an old cafeteria. Pittsburgh's an old mill town, and it's old, like it's a type one building, uh, three empty floors, uh it uh industrial complex, and they didn't use it and they said, here you go. So we just framed out the whole second floor. I think I put between eight and ten thousand dollars into it.
SPEAKER_00Wow, okay. And then local departments can come in there and do do obviously non non-destruct, well, minimal destructive non-fire training, right?
SPEAKER_01It's more geared towards search training. If you do firefighter down training, you do some VES training, whatever, whatever you want to do with it. Um, obviously we can't flow water in there because it'll just warp everything. But yeah, and then the volunteer fire department that's areas in there, they kind of gatekeep it for us, and then that gives us the ability to host a class there whenever we want to do it, and just trying to give back in any way that we can.
SPEAKER_00That is awesome, man.
SPEAKER_01And being as realistic as possible, too. That's the other one, you know, trying to trying to crawl around your bay floor and do search training isn't the way to do it.
SPEAKER_00So and who is your cadre member that would, like you said, was he the lead on that?
SPEAKER_01Or yeah, he's Stephen Robert, he's a fireman on truck 17 in the District of Columbia.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_00Steve Bashcoming, I've got Joe and Steve back and forth, back to back. Uh, do you have people within your own department that are naysayers of your training? And you can go whatever direction you want with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I I probably couldn't tell you one person that's out there doing that that doesn't have that, you know. Um, but I would say there's far more people that support me than naysay me, I would say. And, you know, to the naysayers, I got no ill will against you. I I'm the type of person that, you know, just because you don't like what I'm doing doesn't mean we could disagree on something and still be friends, right? I don't have to see the way things are, you know, you might think that the Pittsburgh Fire Department is the only way to do it, and all this outside stuff I do is, you know, not worth it. And that's fine. You could think that, and we could still be friends. But yeah, definitely naysayers. And I just try to not let it bother me. When I was just starting it out and we got launched, man, I got it hard. Going to work was rough, but you know, we ate we ate the shit, you know, all of us did at work and wherever we were. And you know, some of the guys we brought on initially, uh, you know, we kind of told them, like, hey, are you prepared to you know eat the shit with us? And they and they said, Yeah, and and those guys forever have a spot in grit for that reason alone.
SPEAKER_00So right on, right on, bro. I love that story. I do. Uh nothing brings people together like uh shared adversity. Yeah. And it's one of the reasons. So sometimes someone will say, Hey, why don't you have so-and-so on the scrap? He's young, he's he's doing things at this department, and it's it's like, man, one thing you got to realize is the target you get put on you when you come on the show. Like it puts a massive target, and you're gonna catch you, you gotta be ready to catch some hell from those you work with. Oh, you think your shit don't stink, or what it'll insert whatever.
SPEAKER_01You're better than we are, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_01We don't do that here while you're learning that. Yeah, I could go on for hours about that.
SPEAKER_00Jennifer Williams coming at you. What is your perspective on the value of online training plus hands-on versus hands-on only?
SPEAKER_01I think it all comes in pieces, right? I think you know there is that component. There's nothing gonna beat going and getting the full sets and reps in, right? But you have to follow the the, you know, the crawl, walk, run method, right? So the online things like something like a building construction class or something that's very low impact, yeah, take that online, get that impact, get that, you know, theoretical knowledge in your mind. And but you have to go out there and put your hands on it, right? Uh, if you're not going out and getting the sets and reps in, you're never gonna be successful on the fire ground. You could sit through all of the, you can do every National Fire Academy class online, every community college class online, but if you're not on the drill ground doing it, it's not gonna amount to anything. But I think you have to mesh it together too, right? So, you know, sometimes, you know, everybody expects to go to a hands-on class and it's gonna be uh just full-on eight hours of hands-on skills, but you know, there's always that 10-15 minutes of the skill station that's hey, here's the reasons why behind this, or here's the science behind this, or here's my experience as to why we're teaching this, right? So it all comes hand in hand, and I don't think you could really do one without the other.
SPEAKER_00Great, great question, Jennifer. And again, great perspective. The mesh being the most important part. Uh, there's absolutely uh you cannot you cannot divorce the the two.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you gotta find a good instructor that can do both, right? I you know, some guys, oh, I'm a lecturer only. Well, that doesn't mean anything. You gotta be able to do both, in my opinion. You gotta do hands-on, you gotta be able to do the lecturing, you gotta, it's all inclusive as a fire instructor.
SPEAKER_00Right on. Luke Stevenson coming at you from down under. Here we go. Uh Australian accent. Uh the first step of implementing a change is often the most daunting. I that's not Australian at all. Yeah. Was there a specific point? Was there a specific point action change you made which felt like it broke through the resistance?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, actually, this is a kind of a big one, right? Uh prior to working for the Pittsburgh Fire Department, I worked for other departments and volunteered. So I Became a state fire instructor pretty early in my career at the Pittsburgh Fire Academy. And I didn't go to that. I didn't go and ask to work down there because I felt like I didn't have enough time on the job in Pittsburgh to go down there. Well, when the list of new state instructors came out, the battalion chief at the training academy saw my name on list and called me and said, Hey, I want you to come down and help teach recruits. So I said, okay, like he asked me. I feel like, you know, that's that's enough for me. If he wants me there, I'm gonna be there. And, you know, from that, I ate a lot of I ate a lot of flack for that. You're a new guy, you don't know, whatever. And so, so forth. So, fast forward, I think it was like the second or third recruit class I helped with. I was doing an engine company day, and I was teaching them how I have adapted. Pittsburgh, we pack our cross lays kind of weird, and I've adapted a way that I personally like to deploy it, different kind of from what we teach at the academy. I figured that out on my own. And one of the lead instructors kind of knew that I did that and said, Hey, I want you to show the recruits your way. So I started showing them my way. And, you know, through progression, they noticed that the recruits were only deploying the handline my way, right? So then they brought me aside and they were like, Hey, uh, how do you do this? Right. So then I taught them and I said, Hey, and if even if we can like make a few tweaks to pack this a little bit differently, uh, if we could pack it a little bit differently, it'll make this deployment a lot better, right?
SPEAKER_00So you can streamline you, you would you would work out on your own a way to streamline your deployment.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I was at a slow firehouse. I would just go out and pull hose lines by myself. Yeah. Uh okay. Kind of how it works. And you start off at a slow firehouse, and that's how I figured it out. But and then we made some tweaks with it, and they were like, all right, we're gonna do a rollout to the whole department on this training. However, you can't be involved in it. And I said, All right, that makes sense because oh, they knew if my name was attached to it, they would get a lot of flack and right. But to me, the ultimate breakthrough is that hey, it's just not my time yet, right? I'm gonna make an impact here. It doesn't, I don't need the credit for it. I'm making the fire department, making my department a little bit better. That's really all it was for me. And that was kind of that breakthrough moment of like, hey, I am a four-year fireman in a 700 guy department, and I just kind of changed how we are gonna pack and deploy our hand lines across the board. Um, and there's still some companies that do it the old way, and there's still the new way, and you know, but it's something better, and you know, it worked out.
SPEAKER_00Oh, that's awesome. Great question, Luke, coming from down under. The Luke Nuke, as we like to call them. T Hubler25. This is a general question. He says, Brandon, do you have any advice for new firefighters going to join the fire department soon? So there you go.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, enjoy your time as a new guy. Don't rush to get to the top. Don't rush to be an instructor, an officer, whatever your ambitions are. I support that 100%. But don't take for granted that time of being the new guy, that time of being new, that the feeling of having the fire service new to you, man. If I could get that again, it'd be crazy. It would just be just enjoy the time while you're in it and don't rush because it goes by fast. That's what I like. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, you will blink and you will be on the downside of your career and going, wait a minute, I'm still young. What happened? I don't understand. I don't understand. Uh, I'm gonna kick it off the questions for a minute and talk to you about predetermined one of my favorite things, predetermined assignments, SOP, SOGs, jogs. What do you mean by jogs? I'm not sure I've heard jogs before. POGs.
SPEAKER_01So that's kind of like a little bit of a regional thing, but to me, predetermined assignments are the best way to operate on the fire ground, right? And one of my good friends, Dylan Bell, I work with him, he's the engine company driver. He always says you have to anticipate to participate, right? So if you know the next step, you're gonna put yourself in a better position to affect change on the fire ground or whatever it is, right? And the example I give of that is like, you know, if your SOP says the third D engine company is gonna go to the rear, right? Uh, you know, and you don't know that you're gonna be the third D, or you don't know that the chief's gonna want the third engine to go there and you pull on the front street, you're putting yourself in a bad position. So when you have these predetermined assignments, you kind of have an idea when you're getting there, when the size that goes out already, got a two and a half story single family, right? You know, and my job as the guy on the back is to stretch a handline. I have an idea of what hand line I'm gonna grab, what length I'm gonna grab, depending on the neighborhood, right? Versus whenever I get there and the chief's going, hey, you do this, you do that, you do that. Now we have to stop, slow ourselves down, think of a plan, right? And you know, everybody goes up, we say, I, and I agree with this that no two fires are the same, and they're not, and I wholeheartedly agree with that, but we're doing the same tasks on pretty much every fire. You know, we're searching, we're ventilating, we're we're overhauling, we're throwing ladders, we're doing all of these skills. So if we can't figure out the priority of these and assign them in arrival order ahead of time, you know, why not? Why not just get that done? And and I think there's some deviations in there. Like to me, the first new engine should initiate a water supply and stretch a line. Uh, but you know, what I do believe in is if you take the knowns from the firefighter rescue survey, if the known victim, known location, hey, we're gonna bypass that, we're gonna go in, we're gonna go for search, and we're just gonna abandon our assignment, then the next engine company is gonna pick it up. I just think it takes that reaction time out of the fire gun and lets everybody go to work. I want it when guys are getting off the rig, as soon as the air breaks on, it's like a bomb going off and guys are just running out of the rig going to work and affecting change as fast as possible and getting their tasks done. And, you know, I think in in a volunteer setting, especially, you know, if you have these SOGs or SOPs 100% rent out step by step by step, when you get these newer, younger volunteer firefighters that are kind of inexperienced or whatever it might be, they have some sort of a plan to follow ahead of time and they're not just thinking on the fly. So that's where the JOG comes into. Um, it stands for joint operating guideline. And some departments north of my volunteer fire department came up with this idea of a standard operating procedure because in Pennsylvania, each little town has a fire department, and with that, they have their own ability to run a fire ground. However, so there's no um continuity between departments. You can go one place and do something and do another one. So they came up with this concept. Hey, we're gonna operate under this joint operating guideline. And I kind of brought that concept to my area here, and now I think 13 communities are are using that, and it kind of spread out. And you know, a few months ago, uh, we had in my volunteer firehouse, we had a younger crew, a driver who was 21, a lineman who was his first fire, backup guy was 22, the officer was like 23, and the duty chief that day was a 23-year-old kid. And I hate saying kid, but you know, they kind of are. And if you listen to that radio traffic, I promise you, it sounds like those guys have been doing it for 30 years. They're cool, calm, and collected. They pulled up, there's people screaming, there's kids trapped in there. They had water on the fire and search is completed in six minutes, right? And all that incident commander had to do was count out hey, you're the first new engine, because it's already outlined. Hey, this this engine does this, the second engine does this, the third engine does it this. And yes, that doesn't have to think about water supply, backup line, exposure protection search. It's already a it's already all outlined. So, you know, you just got to check the boxes and give out the assignments. I just think it's the smoothest way to operate on the fire ground.
SPEAKER_00Oh, I'm a huge fan. I mean, uh absolutely uh like I am absolutely a fan of predetermined assignments, uh, predetermined, I even even down to the engine company level of predetermined, and I call it default settings. It's the default, you can always change from the default, yeah, but having a default setting. And I'm a huge fan of not just engine companies, but all the way down to seat assignments too. But that's that's a whole nother rabbit hole.
SPEAKER_01And I think that's all part of it. You can't have a predetermined assignment and not have a seat assignment. You it goes the whole way down, it takes a lot of training, but everybody just focuses on what they're supposed to be. And I like to say strategy, tactics, and tasks, right? The strategy stuff is the command level stuff, the tactics are set by the company officer and the tasks are done by the fireman on the back. If you stay in your lane, the fire ground goes pretty smooth, at least in my experience.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, Red Sox fan had a question coming at you. He said, Brandy, can you explain how JOG's changed the game for the county, even being primarily volunteer departments? But I think you got to kind of cover that already. So Red Sox fan, he did get your question, and you did kind of get it asked there, but he did answer it. Relentless rescue coming at you says search culture has really come back hard the last few years. Where do you foresee it going in the next few years? What do you see as your part in that process?
SPEAKER_01Um, I'm gonna not say my part specifically, but grit fire training's part in it. I think the search program that Steve is on and where he comes from with that is gonna be a game changer um in the search world. And it includes all the stuff that's already out there. He uses UL data, FSRI. Um he uses, you know, the firefighter rescue survey. It's all in there and then it's adapted. And I just think, you know, like some of the missing components are architecture things. Like he talks a lot about like, you know, there's all these, there's only so many different layouts of of a building, right? And how can we effectively search them based on those sort of things? And I and I don't want to go too far into that because it's not my it's not my baby to talk about, but I think that our program that we're gonna have come out, and especially since we have that building there, uh, that's gonna be big for us. And I think you're gonna see more of that come out just more from grit, more in the fire service as well, without giving too much information out. Right on, right on. Steve Roberts, right? Steven Roberts, yep.
SPEAKER_00Steven, Steven Roberts. Okay, I might have to may have to get your contact info so I have him come on and talk about it. Yeah. So but uh no, I absolutely love it. Uh great question from Relentless Rescue. Luke Stevenson coming back at you. A lot of people let perfection be the enemy of progress. How did you draw the line under preparation of training and put it out there to start polishing based on real world feedback?
SPEAKER_01You cut out for a second there. What was the first part of it?
SPEAKER_00A lot of people let perfection be the enemy of progress. How did you draw the line under preparation of training and put it out there to start polishing based on real world feedback? In other words, waiting for it to be perfect before you went forward.
SPEAKER_01You're never gonna be perfect, right? Uh, your training, you're the your yourself on the fire ground. Nothing's ever gonna be perfect, no matter how you do it. The way I like to to to measure the success of a training or the success of a fire is I I think we timestamp it all, right? And if we could come up with, hey, this is a a good enough time to do certain things, like time to task, that's the ultimate unbiased way to say how a fire ground went. You know, if our time to task is a minute to water on the fire or what charge line going through the front door, I should say, or you know, we're saying a 30-second mask up time, right? Everybody gets so focused in on, hey, you have to mask up with your gloves on. I don't believe that. I just believe if, hey, the majority of the people are doing it in this time frame, I don't care how you do it, as long as it's in that time frame. If your glove messes up, your chin mis strap messes up, as long as you're still ready to go in that time frame, then you're good. You're never gonna get it perfect, but you got to set the standards in measurable ways that don't have feelings attached to them. Just because the fire ground didn't go the way you personally think it should have gone. Did we get everything done effectively and did we get it done in a time efficient way? Right. Were the searches done? Were the make were they done in um whatever time frame we set on that? Did we get water on the fire in whatever time frame that might be? So just add a stop watching your training and shoot for times and not for perfection because you're gonna have those mistakes in there.
SPEAKER_00I love it, man. And I do love measurable, measurable outcomes because how do you know what's good if you don't measure? If you I like what you measure improves. I absolutely 100% believe that. And I'm a huge fan of using the clock in training because if you don't like and and yes, every like there could be some weird circumstance that super delays like a really reinforced door on the forcible entry, just causing causing havoc. I've had those before on a on a on a structure, just completely threw everything off. But if you don't have, if it's just normal, what what is a good time and understanding that? Because then you can know, well, this was a bad time. Was there a reason for it? Yeah, we ran into these hoarding conditions right in the front door, you know, or insert whatever. But without a measurable metric, everything else is just, yeah, it was good enough. Yeah, it's good enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and to me, that's the only thing that we can control on an actual fire ground to measure, right? No one can go, no one sees the inside of from a bird's eye view of how your search went, right? You know, there's just again, if someone's out there and has it, put in the comments. But to me, time, time to time to task, time to completion of task, those are all the measurable standards for me. And we'll set those based on you know our past practices, what we do in training, you know, benchmarks uh from the commands perspective. Hey, we got water on the fire. So the last 10 fires, we had water on the fire in this amount of time. So, like, hey, this is our goal, right? Let's try to improve on that what we can. If we're outside of that, why were we outside of that? Why did we miss this time? Figure out the root cause, go back. And I always like to say it when I end any of my classes. I don't like to go to a fire and figure out what went well. I try to pick out what went wrong. Right. So identify deficiencies and develop solutions is the what I live by. What do we do wrong and how do we fix it for the next one?
SPEAKER_00Beautiful, man. Absolutely beautiful. Uh Steve Mount says, What is your view on time served versus experience? Do you need time on to have experience or are they each their own entity? So, what's your what's your take?
SPEAKER_01Uh, I know a lot of guys with a lot of time on, and I wouldn't take anything that they had to say, right? And I know some guys that have been on for five years and they're bang up guys, they put themselves in busy firehouses, they put themselves in the place to go and get that experience, then I would sit through their class. And I think, you know, there's just this whole thing, and I I get it. The grit fire training crew is young. I bet you our average age is 30, right? But we're picking from guys who are running in some of the busiest firehouses in the country, and not only are pretty much I want to say pretty much, I'm not off the top of my head, but I think every single one of us is a career firefighter, and every single one of us is also a volunteer. So not only are we going to fires on our shifts, we're out there going into them and our time off. So, you know, some guys at work will give me time for that. That shit doesn't count, whatever. But when you get the only thing about a volunteering career fireman that's different is how you get there, right? Once you're there, the job's the same. I don't care who you are, what you say, I'll argue that with anybody. You know, though time doesn't necessarily mean experience. And being in a busy firehouse doesn't also mean fire ground experience, right? Just because you took 6,000 runs, but you did 5,200 blood pressures doesn't make you experience the firefighting, right? No doubt about it. When you're trying to do that, like, you know, everybody knows somebody and read about them or read their biography, where they've been, um, ask around about them. You know, don't just take time on the job or time on the job in a big city as anything worth more than, hey, they're close to retirement. That's how I see it. Reach out, ask them. And you can kind of know that. You'll know that within a couple of minutes of talking to somebody of, hey, this guy gets it or this guy doesn't.
SPEAKER_00Right on. Right on. Jennifer Williams coming at you again from FSRI. What would you say to volunteer departments who don't believe in predetermined assignments due to the fear of they don't know who's gonna show up, who will be on the rig when they respond, that kind of thing. What's your what's your take on that?
SPEAKER_01I get that question all the time, right? And when I say predetermined assignments, it doesn't necessarily mean that you have to fill out all of the rules. You have to fill out what are the most priority ones to you. Okay. So if you're gonna go out the door with two people, whatever, in a fire truck and you get six on there. So we're just gonna develop it. How think about how that fire would go if you were gonna there tell them there step by step what you want them to do and just figure that out ahead of time and tell them. That's all predetermining it means. It just means you're not making the decision on the fire ground. You're making the decision when you get there. What I will say with that is you're gonna have to have a lot more audibles with less people, right? When are we gonna abandon the fire attack to go to search? Or were we gonna send all hands on fire attack versus not going to search? You know, those are the things that you have to ask yourself. It can be done in any staffing environment, right? Um, and you know with that, it's like people use understaffed as an excuse, right? And I don't think understaffing, I don't like that word because understaffing would be like in the city of Pittsburgh, we have four guys going to a fire every day for the last however long. And then tomorrow they take our fourth guy away, and then we're expected in that day to go to a fire with three guys. You know, hey, that now we're understaffed because we're missing our third guy. If you're a volunteer department that goes out the door with any between one to five guys on a rig at every time, you need to have a plan for all of that, right? So if you go to my volunteer firehouse, we have seating assignments for a three-man engine crew, a four-man engine crew, and a five-man engine crew. And it breaks it down like that, but the role of the rig stays the same and our audibles stay the same for that. So it's just how you're going to break it down, break it down a little bit further, add more resources if possible, but it can be done in any environment, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Right on. And I do like your take on it's not understaffed, it's just your staffing. So be good with what you've got.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And people say we're understaffed, we didn't do good. You're not understaffed, you're underprepared, right? Because you know for the last hundred, two hundred runs, you've gone out the door with two people. So you failed to recognize that.
SPEAKER_00And you're not saying they shouldn't fight for more staffing and and try to improve staffing and things like that.
SPEAKER_01But I also understand the side of that. Like I understand what it's like to be a volunteer. You know, I've gone to fires with two guys before, right? It's not ideal. I think everybody should roll out the door with four on a fire truck every single time, but that's just not the reality for a lot of the countries. So, you know, you just have to plan for what you're going out the door with and have a plan for it, and you can predetermine it. And it makes it a lot less stressful because there's no decision, there's there's some decision making, but you know, you're not figuring out who's stretching the line, who's doing the backup line, who's doing the search. That's already figured out ahead of time. So then you just react.
SPEAKER_00No, I love it. I I I I I again I can't say how much I'm a fan of predetermined assignments, seat assignments, all the way down to, and like you said, your staffing, and if it's variable staffing, that's where you have to have the variable audibles. And I think you articulated that very well. But I will springboard off what you said just to say to Jennifer, because one thing when I get this question, I always tell people, I think it's more important in volunteer organizations to have the predetermined assignments because you don't know who you're getting. And so, like I know when I rode onto the rig backwards, I could look over at the guy that I've been riding with for the last four years, and we could just share a look. And I knew what he was going to do and I was gonna do because of that familiarity. But when you don't have that and you don't know who you're getting, I think it's even more important that you have those predetermined assignments that everybody knows what they're doing and on the same page. Now, is the training there to make that happen? That's a whole nother question about the culture of that department. Yeah, yeah. Uh Austin Perry, 8417 coming at you says, Active duty Air Force firefighter here. Brandon, do you think having predetermined assignments hinders or aids the ability to pivot when necessary, such as when the fire ground takes plan A away?
SPEAKER_01I don't think so. I still think you your your company officers still have the ability to think, right? Everybody thinks that I'm taking that decision-making skill away from them. This is, you know, I hate to say this, Herm, but like the predetermines are bread and butter fires. If we get something, you know, that's outside of that scope, that company officer still has that ability to make an audible decision. Hey, we're gonna do this. And you can still kind of revert back, you know, maybe we're gonna go to the back of the building instead of the front of the building. So I don't think it hinders it at all. I think it gives you uh more I more of a more of a frame to work with in and you kind of just think about what your common obstacles are and try to knock those out. And then there's always the ones that we cannot account for, and that's where the human brain comes into effect, and you train your officers and their decision-making skills. And you know, we have times where our fire we kind of go completely away from the predetermined assignments because it just doesn't fit that, right? You can't write that plan for everybody, but you could write a plan that fits most, like you know, the fitted hats, one size fits most, right?
SPEAKER_00But there's some ones that don't fit in there, so right on big old domes, big old domes, big old domes, yeah. But the uh and the other part is too, I love uh, like I said, a huge fan of pre uh of pre-assignments, but the uh it opens up the cognitive bandwidth when everybody is on the same page and then they show up and it's not what they're expecting, but at least everybody's starting from the same sheet of music. And now they're now they're now they're improving. And I think it just I think it absolutely aids when the fire does throw you that curveball, when you're all starting from the same page, it's easier to it's easier to adapt.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and I think uh you know, for career departments, it's very easy to to to put that in there, right? They have the the constant variables in there. So volunteer departments and make yourselves cheat sheets, right? If you look in the front seat of all of our apparatus, there's a cheat sheet of like the responsibilities of every arriving assignment down to like, hey, this is what you do, what you do, what you do. Make the cheat sheets. If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. Fireman Piv, Kyle Piverall coming at you says, What resources can be used to show the benefits of predetermined assignments, especially when the current system is command-driven.
SPEAKER_01Man, that's a tough one. I guess I could, you know, say I I just that that example that I'll give you right there is that that young engine crew and command officer that I had, you know, a few months ago just be absolute rock stars. You know, we took that, we gave them a framework, they knew how to operate, you know, and then instead of that brand new command officer thinking about all the you know, water supply backup, all he had to do was monitor the conditions and get them the resources that they needed. The guys in the seats got off and did their job. You know, just go out there and look at look at the DMB area, right? Uh that DC, Maryland, Virginia, the whole area heavily operates on that. And they operate so well that you can go out of state, out of that county, wherever it is down there, and figure out what your assignment is because they all are operating on the same exact page. So that's the best example I can get. Look at those videos. Um, if you reach out to me on social media, I could send you some radio clips and and some resources to that, but uh I just don't see a downside to it.
SPEAKER_00Right on, right on. Uh pivoting back to your topics, and I want to talk about stretching, specifically getting reps in. On reported fires. What do you mean by it? Talk to me.
SPEAKER_01Uh, if it goes out as a box alarm or reported fire, uh, I believe in initiating a water supply and stretching a handline on every single one of them. And by initiating, I mean dropping a supply line. If that's your SOP, if you're somewhere in the rural area where you know hydrogen is in 500 feet or your tanker operations, whatever, but you can at least stretch a hand line on every reported fire, right? And that is a drill in itself, okay? That's going to give you a real rep on a real house. Your heart rate's up because you're going to an actual call. And then if you get there and it came out as a toaster smoking and the toaster extended into the wall, your line's already at the front door. You don't have to go back to the rig and get it. Right. People, I've got the naysayers as oh, the the public doesn't want you putting a line through their front yard or into their that's not true. They called the fire department. They expect the fire department to show up and do fire department things, right? You know, I wouldn't go running uh Minuteman through someone's house because their toaster was smoking, right? But you know, I could at least get it to the front door. And, you know, the whole adage of, hey, uh, well, what if we're not ready for the next run? What if I miss a fire for the next run? There's two, there's two options there. One, disconnect the line. You have plenty more, leave it there, throw it in the yard, go to the fire. Two, you spend probably 10 minutes after every run bullshitting to the company that's coming behind you because you haven't seen them all day, right? So while you're bullshitting, you know, about what you're having for dinner, throw the line back on. And it's literally happened that we've stretched on reported fires, and that same building has caught on fire, right? So they got a rep on a real structure that ended up catching on fire at some point.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_01And then for the younger generation, you know, you I kind of say you train the excitement out of it. You want them to be excited to go to a fire, but you don't want them so excited that, like, hey, they can't think or whatever. If they've stretched on a hundred reported fires, the 101st is a working fire, that stretch is gonna be a lot better than if they just stretched on their first fire. I can't see a downside to it. It's a company drill, whatever. And then I think there's some common sense that have to go with it, like in Pittsburgh. If there's six inches of snow on that, we're not gonna put hosing because that's just you know, kind of, but we stand by at the hydrant and go up and investigate in case it is on fire, then we can take our roll, drop the line, stretch the line to the front door, right? We're still in a position um to do the predetermined assignments. But you know, I just I think it's just the best practice you could possibly get is by stretching on those on those reported fires.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. No, and and it and it it uh makes me think like Andy Fredericks and his famous uh a garbage man doesn't get excited when he turns the corner and sees garbage, you know. And so a lot of people have taken that quote and used it in different ways. But like you said, if you've stretched a hundred times on reported, then you're gonna be better than if you've never. And I love it, man. I love the mindset.
SPEAKER_01And you know, those guys were fortunate enough, you know, Andy Fred, to go to fires all the time, right? There's very few places that are going to fire regularly like that anymore, you know. And the guys, you know, that what they want to come there, they want to be at the firehouse, they want to work, let them feel like they're being firemen, you know. Let let let let it play out. You know, it's not hurting anybody. You know, some of the busiest engine companies in the country do this, you know, taking in 6,000, 6,500 runs a year and they're stretching and dropping lines on every report of fire. There's no excuse.
SPEAKER_00Right on, right on, brother. Preach it. Preach it. All right, still coming back, looking at the questions. Relentless rescue says, Do you find that the volunteer departments are more on board or in tune with the info from FRS and FSRI and and and similar in comparison to the city? Like who embraces it more as you've traveled and taught?
SPEAKER_01Man, I think that's that's hit or miss all over. I think it again, it's regional. Some places you go and the volunteer departments are more squared away than the career departments, you know. Some places the career departments are, you know, way up here in the volunteer. I I really just think that's a regional question. You know, where I'm at in Pittsburgh, I think it's probably equal. You know, the city of Pittsburgh and all the surrounding areas are probably about the same. Um, you know, but if you go somewhere, I'm trying to think. I don't I don't know any examples, but I can speak for my area. I think it's probably about 50-50. It it's equal, you know, but there are definitely places where the the the volunteer departments are more bang up than the career, and obviously vice versa.
SPEAKER_00So no, I think that's a fair assessment because I think it comes down to the culture of each individual department and who's leading them and what they are what they're valuing and and instilling in their people, whether their career or volunteer. You could have you know leadership that doesn't give a crap about all the research in a either either department, and it'll show in the the the men and women on the line.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and you have to have the people that are going out and getting it. You know, you there's still people out there that all know what those things are in general at all, you know. Don't worry about volunteer. We gotta people like us gotta help spread that word.
SPEAKER_00Sam Gates got a couple questions for you here. I'm always worried when I'm not sure where they're going with it, but he says, ask Brandon where pushing hallways came from, and be sure to tell him I asked.
SPEAKER_01Uh man, it's just a joke. Like, we're just like, are you gonna push that hallway? You're gonna push that hallway. It's just kind of a you know, a question you're gonna ask. And no one wants to say, No, I'm not gonna push that hallway, you know. And we'll put videos up on YouTube at work or whatever on a on a crappy day for a drill, and we'll throw it out there. You pushing that hallway? Yeah, I'm pushing that hallway. What are you pushing that hallway with? What size line? You know, and I'm always like, Yeah, every fire in my mind's an inch and three-quarter line, you know. But uh, yeah, that that that that's it. He's on my shift at work, right on, right on.
SPEAKER_00And he wants to know what's the name of your boat.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna forego that one. I don't wanna, I'm not gonna put that on there.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah. All right, now the curiosity is really high. We'll see it in the after party. We'll see it in the after party with that one. Okay, there you go. Uh, I love it, man. And so one more, and I think you've already touched on this topic, and uh, I don't know if you have anything to add. Experience time alone doesn't make you experienced. I think you kind of answered that from the audience question.
SPEAKER_01So I didn't know if you I just I got you know, yeah, you everybody in the fire service is hyperfixed on experience, and I do think it's very, very much important, but we're you know, experience in what, right? You know, just because you're teaching doesn't mean you're an experience in everything, right? Some guy that could have been in a four-year fireman or five-year fireman might have experienced something that isn't a one in 1500, 2000 career fire incident, right? We should listen to what that person encountered and take that back. If you look at any other profession, they encourage research, they encourage education from all levels of what it is. Now, you know, you need experience on on certain topics. You know, you're not gonna be a four-year fireman going and teaching command and you never ran command of a fire, obviously, right? There there is that factor there, but just because someone is new to the fire service and or doesn't necessarily have all that experience doesn't mean that they don't bring some value to the table. Uh, I do think for the first couple of years, they definitely need to work on themselves and you know, two years, one mouth. But you know, if there's something unique that they're gonna bring to the table, who are we to, you know, to not listen to them? And who are we to say, hey, slow your rule? Right. There's there's the two sides of that, like, hey, maybe, maybe take a step back, right? But you know, experience is just relevant and it doesn't necessarily mean anything, especially years on the job.
SPEAKER_00Right on, man. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful. And with that, I'm gonna move it to one of my favorite questions, which is book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. I love to read, I love finding books, and I'm always looking for more to read. So tell me what books you think firefighters should read. Doesn't have to be a firefighting book, it could be anything you you think they should read.
SPEAKER_01Uh, I'm gonna give you kind of two here. Uh, I'm not really a big book reader.
SPEAKER_00We'll work on that. We'll work on that, Brandon.
SPEAKER_01I'm slowly into it. I try to read one here and there. Someone recommends it, but right on. Um the first one I would say is this a weird one. The guys at work, and I think I'm crazy for this, but it was on the promotional list. It was called Crew Resource Management. And there's a lot of good information in that one about how to, you know, utilize the crews to the best of your ability, right? And piece them together the way um that's efficient for all. Take everybody's strengths and weaknesses and build your team around that. Um, it's from the airlines, I believe it comes from. And then the other one I read, and I wasn't expecting it. It was John Norman working with Giants. And I expected that to be about high-rise firefighting or something like that. But it turns out that book, the Giants, are the people that he worked with in his career. And I think the relationships, man, those are what's gonna last whenever you're drop whenever you're not in the job. So relationships are super important to me. So that was a great book, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_00Right on, brother. Right on. And I didn't even I didn't even talk about your second generation. Are you second or third, or how many generations? I know you're second because I met your dad.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm second generation. Man, my old man is the reason why I'm here. I I would have never found this without him. I'm glad he took me to the firehouse, drug me along, and I really kind of didn't want to do it for a long time. So, you know, he kind of brought me along, and next thing you know, I was all in on it. So without my old man, I probably wouldn't be here. But my two brothers were also in the same volunteer firehouse, so it's kind of a family thing. Uh, and and I love going to fires with them. So I'm fortunate for that, you know.
SPEAKER_00That's awesome, man. No, that is. I wanted to I wanted to bring that up, and that's awesome. Uh all right, so we do a thing here on the scrap. It's called the five questions for firefighters. The questions change every so often, and I threw the curveball at you because you got the old questions, and I told you tonight, hey, they're actually these ones, but they're mostly the same with a couple changed. So, are you ready for the five questions for firefighters?
SPEAKER_01I'm ready for them.
SPEAKER_00There's no right answers, only your opinions, and the points are arbitrary, passed out by me with the help of all the scrappers. So here we go. Number one, you have a time machine, but it can only be used for one thing. You can go back in time and give younger Brandon one piece of advice. What would that advice be?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna uh give that same advice that I gave to that question. Slow down and enjoy it while you're in there. Um, I was very ambitious as a young firefighter. I wanted to go to the next level real fast, and I think I did it in a good amount of time frame, but I think I was more focused on moving ahead than I was enjoying the time while I was there. So that's what that'd be my advice. Go back, enjoy the time while you're in it.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful, man. And and you you kept it congruent, you kept it uh uh consistent. So I absolutely love it, man. Uh, max points on number one in slow down and enjoy it. Number two, it's job town. It's time. You gotta think of that scene from backdraft in route and responding, that cassette going into that cassette deck. What song are you playing while in route?
SPEAKER_01Well, first off, Corley, I think I'm too young to even know a song that's on a cassette deck.
SPEAKER_00That's fair.
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna say, I'm gonna fire up the Bluetooth here, and I'm gonna put on uh Meek Mills, Dreams and Nightmares. That's Dreams and Nightmares. Yeah, that's a hype song for me.
SPEAKER_00That will be, I think that's the first Meek Mills. I mean, Sam can verify. Yes, he does. So that is the first Meek going on the the play the Spotify playlist and Dreams and Nightmares. There you go, max points, and it'll be added to that playlist. You can find that playlist, by the way. I don't know where you can find it. There's links to it floating around on social media. Um number three, max points, by the way. If I didn't do it, one and two so far. Number three, cold weekend at the station. Rig checks are done, training is done, PT is done, food is cooking. In other words, it's a lazy day, but you're not being lazy because all the work is done. And you're sitting there in the day room clicking through what is the movie that you see, and no matter what part of the movie it's in, you finish the movie. What is that movie for you?
SPEAKER_01Uh Friday, for sure. But Friday, hands down. But I really wish, like when I read that question, man, I really wish that like you would said, hey, what's a show that you're gonna watch no matter what episode it would be? And it's hands down, rescue me.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_01Anywhere specifically the sensitivity training episode. Yeah, I was in the firehouse, so understand why I'm talking about that one, but man, that's that one right there.
SPEAKER_00I'll have to think about that. Uh, especially because you know, TV channels are dying, and so I it's streaming services now anyway. So we may have to revamp the question at some point. But Friday, absolutely uh killer, and that makes it uh three for three max points. Number four, what is the one habit that you believe separates average firefighters from exceptional firefighters?
SPEAKER_01I think a habit that I like to do is whenever I'm anywhere, I try to pick out the toughest job. Whatever I can see is the hardest job that nobody wants to do, or that is the least desirable thing to do, pick that job and do it. And that's how you're gonna make a good reputation for yourself.
SPEAKER_00You know, brother, that's solid. And it'd be good for a question number one going back and giving you. So if you're a young person going into the job, there's a solid piece of advice. Find the toughest job, do it, and build that reputation. Beautiful. Four for four max points, which takes us to the final question. The question that never changes there is heavy fire, there is searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on VES?
SPEAKER_01Nozzle all day, hands down. No discussion, no discussion. I'm gonna make it better for them. You know, what's there's no better spot in the fire ground than putting out the fire, in my opinion, you know. Um, but I think I can make affect the most change for the for the occupants, for the people searching. I think that's the biggest impact.
SPEAKER_00So I always try to guess if I don't know already. I always try to guess what the person's gonna say. But since you were on truck 17, I honestly thought you were gonna say the VES.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that this truck thing's like a small little curve in my career here. I'm I'm very close to ending up back on an engine company. So yeah.
SPEAKER_00Fair enough. Fair enough. That officially is five for five max points. Brandon Chapman, man, thank you for spending your evening with us. Thank you for filling so many like badass questions and with badass answers. If someone wants to get a hold of you, someone wants to find out more information about grit fire training. Uh basically, what's the best way to do so?
SPEAKER_01Uh, so I'll give my phone number out to anybody, but I'm gonna put it on here, but you can just reach out. Uh, it's on the internet. I guess that's not answering the question, but be chapman at gritfire training is my email. Any social media, Brandon Chapman or Grit Fire Training, just be careful. There's uh couple other grit type trainings. There's a grit first and a grit true grit fire training. Um, but we're grit just grit fire training. Reach us out on um any kind of social media and then be chapman at gritfire training.com. Beautiful, beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Uh with that being said, hit the housekeeping, go to patreon.com slash the vigilantes, become a vigilante because the vigilantes are awesome. That's why. And you get to be part of the Discord, which is what really makes it awesome. And being in there and talking to everybody, the unbelievable resource. Uh, not only that, like we got a fireway coming up Monday, a week from yesterday. We got one coming up on the 22nd. Huge announcement that I'm gonna be making for the vigilantes. I have a project and I'm not gonna uh yeah, I'm just teasing it right now because I'm unveiling it next Monday. And if you want to be a part of it, go become a member of the Vigilantes. Uh, it's like social media without all the bullshit that comes with social media. It's amazing, it's an unbelievably cool network. Uh, I can't hype it enough. So, anyway, there's the Vigilante meetups, and the coolest part is you get to be in the Vigilante after party, which is about to happen. Sam has sent out the link, and Brandon has agreed to come on the Vigilante After Party and be roasted for his performance on the scrap. And if you know, you know.
SPEAKER_01Corley, can I plug one more thing real quick? Always go. Yeah, I just want to um, for anybody who doesn't know the Jimmy Ellis training weekend, uh, that's near and dear to my heart. It's our local conference. Uh, in my opinion, it's one of the best conferences through and through all across the social events, the atmosphere, the hands-on training. It's in August. Um, it's probably about 40 minutes north of the Pittsburgh um metro area. Check it out, sign up. The classes are selling out quick. And uh, if you're an instructor or an instructor group out there, they do submissions, so submit for it and uh come out and support that event.
SPEAKER_00Beautiful. No, and it uh when's the registration open? Do you have any idea?
SPEAKER_01Or it's open right now. It's okay. Second weekend of August is the event.
SPEAKER_00Okay, yeah, it's getting it's getting it the year is creeping by or flying by actually. Uh next week on the scrap, it's time to talk about some deep leadership topics with one of the best, Steve Perborowski. I'm gonna butcher his name and uh but what he's gonna come on and teach us how to say his name properly. And then two weeks from today, it will be Mr. Dive Bar Aficionado, Dana Larkin, Fools uh treasurer himself. So you want to make sure and be here live with your questions. Treasurer secretary? Uh he holds an office with the fools, but I I love him, man. He's it's it's always a fun conversation, and that one will be awesome. If you have questions about fools, if you have yeah, well, not just that, but all right, enough jabbering from me. Uh let's get to the after party so we can roast Brandon. Thank you once again, uh Brandon Chapman, Gritfire Training, coming on, sharing your evening. Thank you for crushing the questions. Uh it meant the world to me, the scrap and the audience. So thank you. Thank you guys. Audience, you make the scrap magical each and every week. You show up, front row gang shows up, they get the questions in, you send beautiful questions at him so that he can crush them. Without you, it would just be me and Brandon talking, which might be interesting for a little bit, but you guys truly do bring the heat, and I appreciate it. Thank you for tuning in live every week. I love you all. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tone stays silent unless it is burning. This job is not safe. So stay smart out there. Thanks for listening to the weekly scrap. Please subscribe and please share. We'll see you at the next episode.