Ep. 042 | The Five Tools Every Firefighter Needs for Excellence w/ Nicholas Higgins

In this episode of the Priority Traffic Podcast podcast, I had the pleasure of interviewing Nicholas Higgins, a fellow firefighter, author, and podcast host. Our conversation revolved around Nick's journey into the fire service, the challenges of balancing firefighting with a professional career, and the importance of leadership, firematics, situational awareness, fitness for duty, and adaptability in the fire service.

Nick shared his experience as an author and the inspiration behind his book, 'The Five Tool Firefighter.' We discussed the need for self-leadership, continuous learning, and mental and physical well-being in the firefighting community. Nick opened up about his journey of becoming a firefighter and instructor, emphasizing the importance of mentors and continuous learning.

Throughout the episode, Nick encourages firefighters to prioritize their well-being and strive to be their best version. His insights and experiences offer valuable lessons for anyone in the fire service or considering joining this noble profession.

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For links and more, check out The Episode Blog.

Takeaways

• Leadership and self-discipline are essential for personal and professional growth in the fire service.
• Firematics, including building construction, fire behavior, and company operations, are crucial for effective firefighting.
• Situational awareness is critical to making informed decisions on the fireground.
• Fitness for duty encompasses physical fitness, mental health, and overall well-being.
• Adaptability is necessary to navigate the changing landscape of the fire service and embrace new technologies and techniques.
• Continuous learning, self-care, and seeking help are vital for firefighters' success and well-being. Having mentors and constant learning are crucial for personal and professional growth in the fire service.
• The Everyone Goes Home initiative is about supporting and mentoring firefighters to ensure their safety and well-being.
• The Firehouse Tribune is a platform for sharing knowledge and experiences in the fire service.
• Evaluating and sharing firefighting experiences is essential for improving skills and decision-making.
• Firefighters should prioritize their well-being and strive to be the best version of themselves.

Firefighting, firefighter, leadership, firematics, situational awareness, fitness for duty, adaptability, author, The Five Tools Firefighter, firefighter, inst

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Transcript

Chris Warden (00:06.278)
Welcome back to another episode of Priority Traffic Podcast, where we dive into the world of firefighting, explore the stories, insights, and lessons learned from those on the front lines. Today, we have very special guest, Nicholas Higgins. He brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the table. Nick, welcome to the show.

Nick (00:24.814)
Thanks for having me on Chris, I appreciate it. Glad to be here.

Chris Warden (00:26.434)
Absolutely. You're welcome. Glad to have you. Nick is a firefighter, author, podcast and host. I'm sorry, podcast host. And you're even a tax consultant with a passion for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of his fellow firefighters. He's served as a firefighter and instructor, and he plays a crucial role in training the next generation of heroes. In addition to firefighting duties, Nicholas is a creator of the Firehouse Tribune, a website dedicated to providing educational resources

and valuable content to the firefighting community. He's also an author of the Five Tools Firefighter Paperback Book, which offers an essential insights and tools to success in the field. Throughout his career, Nick has been a strong advocate for Everyone Goes Home initiative, emphasizing the importance of firefighter safety. He's also been actively involved with the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, working tirelessly to honor fallen firefighters and support their families.

In this episode, we'll explore Nick's journey as a firefighter, the lessons he's learned along the way, and the valuable contributions he has made to the firefighting community. We'll discuss the challenges of balancing firefighting with the professional career, the impact of losing a fellow firefighter, and the future of the industry. Stay tuned as we dive into this engaging and informative conversation with Nick LeSiggins on this episode of Priority Traffic Podcast. Nick, thanks for joining us today.

Nick (01:51.946)
Thank you Chris. I'm really happy to be here.

Chris Warden (01:53.67)
If you don't mind man, just start in give us a little background what kind of inspired you to get into the fire service and and take it from there

Nick (02:05.719)
It was kind of by accident. It wasn't something I planned on doing. I was in high school. I went to a Catholic all boys high school. And my sophomore year, I had to do a community service project for one of my classes that I decided to take an elective. And it was just to do something in the community to help out. So I actually got hooked up with the fire department right around the corner from my house.

Chris Warden (02:30.032)
Nice.

Nick (02:31.016)
and just said, can I just come and help? I just got to do this for hours, showed them everything, everything I had to do, give all the paperwork. And they're like, yeah, no problem. Just come on these nights and you can help the crews just clean up and, you know, different things around the station that we need to do. Well, I just thought it was going to be for a couple of weeks, which is all I had to do a few hours. The same night I went there, the assistant chief at the time,

I was like, I need to call my mom to get a ride home. You know, I'm only 15 years old. He's like, I'll take you home. Don't worry about it. So I'm thinking he's taking me in his truck and he pulls an engine out and it's like, get in. You can do that? Yeah, I can do that. Brings me back and hands me an envelope, a big, little envelope and said, just think about it. And if you want to be a firefighter, the door's open. So history just took its course after that.

and I ran with it and didn't even think twice about what I was doing and that was actually ironically the week after 9 -11.

Chris Warden (03:35.822)
wow, you got your first, was this the first time you ever ridden in a firetruck?

Nick (03:40.92)
First time I ever went near a fire truck. Yeah, I'd see them all the time, never went near them. I just was intimidated by them things. And just hopped in and sat in the front seat and just went home. Like it was nothing. That was it.

Chris Warden (03:53.659)
Yeah.

Looking back, how did you feel in that front seat? What was that like as someone who's obviously never been in one before, but knowing what you know now, how did you feel then?

Nick (04:07.138)
it was, I was like, I feel like I was on an amusement ride, you know? Like, I didn't realize I was sitting in this thing. I'm like, this is pretty high up. It's, it's cool. Like, this is, this is pretty fun, you know? Sure enough, next thing you know, I'm in the back seat, you know? So.

Chris Warden (04:12.763)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (04:29.936)
So was that your first experience? So that's obviously your first experience with the fire department. How long have you been in the fire service since?

Nick (04:36.323)
Yeah.

Nick (04:39.854)
Since then it's been 20 24 24 years. I would say it's 23 24 years at this point. Yeah That was a volunteer department and then it's not it's all combination where I'm at So it's all it's all the same. So we're all both just paid. There's everything so it's pretty cool

Chris Warden (04:43.61)
wow. And was that a full -time department? Like... Okay, got it.

Chris Warden (04:57.402)
Nice. Did they send you to a fire academy? Yeah.

Nick (05:02.06)
Yeah, a couple years later I went to the academy, but the best part about it was I was able to train with them. I had gear, I was able to do certain things, I was able to go on fire calls. So I was able to learn a lot of stuff. So when I went to the academy, wasn't that hard. I kind of had already an understanding of what I was going through.

Chris Warden (05:08.282)
Mm -hmm.

Nick (05:24.991)
They've coached me through it along the way because some of those guys would come back, know, haven't been instructors at the academy or whatnot. It kind of, you know, gave me the information I needed.

Chris Warden (05:34.608)
Dude, that's awesome. And we're going to dig more into your fire experience. so you've also you're a podcast host and an author. How did you fall into that?

Nick (05:48.455)
The author part was by again, it wasn't something I wanted to do. Well, I did want to do I did He's they always said I want to write a book and I Sat down one time and started writing a book on Another topic that I would speak I spoke out at Firehouse Expo a few times Critical thinking decision -making on the for the fire ground and for fire officers and I just couldn't put that into words I didn't have the discipline behind it so

Chris Warden (05:52.101)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (05:56.261)
Right?

Nick (06:16.086)
I was sitting at home during COVID and I was just thinking about my time as a baseball player, my love for the game, and my love for the fire service and how the two can kind of marry each other. And I put a survey out and the survey was in baseball. There's a term called the five tool athlete and it's different areas of baseball. And if you're all five, you're a well rounded athlete. So I said, what would make a well rounded firefighter?

Chris Warden (06:21.957)
Mm

Nick (06:45.102)
So I called up a buddy of mine who's also a firefighter and I started giving him this idea. And what we did, what I did was I wrote down five things that I thought was key to being a well -rounded firefighter. And in the survey, I wrote down 10 things. It had anonymous people that's blasted all over social media, newsletter, everything, and asked that same question. What would be well -rounded firefighter? And once I got to 100, I closed it.

pulled out the analytics and looked at it and saw that the five that I had was the same five that the majority of the people voted on. Which wasn't what I wanted. I wanted to have one outlier. One outlier. So I was like, you know what? I'm gonna start writing little articles on it, like each piece. And I sent it to a buddy of mine and I said, what do you think of this? He you have a book. So.

Chris Warden (07:24.623)
Nick (07:44.3)
he started editing for me steve green of the five one test force podcast he started editing this for me because he's also been in the field of education and what not so perfect person to edit all the grammatical errors and how to reorganize things perfect and calling other people up and asking them questions and just like diving into stuff with different parts of the book and the stuff i'm putting in and i just ran with it for like took me like

Chris Warden (07:47.597)
Awesome.

Nick (08:13.522)
six, seven months just to go through all the edits and organizing it put together and then I got with a designer and we designed the book and she had it done within a month. It was very, very fluid, easy conversation with this woman and the best part about it was she's in Los Angeles, California, but she's from New Jersey and her father or grandfather is retired fire chief from a town out here.

Chris Warden (08:25.797)
Wow.

Nick (08:41.228)
So she already understood what I was looking for because she grew up in the fire service. And it just kind of worked out that way. And I just kind of ran with it and put some things I like together and made a book out of it.

Chris Warden (08:44.656)
Wow.

Chris Warden (08:49.904)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (08:53.584)
So just real quick before we transition to the podcast, what are the five, what are our five tools that we're going to be talking about?

Nick (09:01.826)
talk about leadership discipline, but mainly leadership, the first chapter is on leadership, self leadership mostly. Then you're going to get into firematics. That is the bread and butter of the fire service. It's your building construction, your fire behavior, reading smoke, size up, pre -incident, during the incident, after accident, size up, and also company operations. There's a lot of other stuff in there talking about VCOVS and all the different stuff that goes into the firefighter objectives. Third,

And there's a specific reason I put it in this order. The third is situational awareness, followed by fitness for duty, which is not just the functional fitness that we've talked about, we've heard about for many years, but it has to do with sleep, nutrition, recovery, mindset, fitness as well as different parts of fitness, core strength, and then getting into adaptability, which is the last piece of the five to

Chris Warden (09:56.676)
Awesome. So give us a little bit of understanding why they're in that order. I feel like that's pretty important.

Nick (10:04.856)
So the first part is self -leadership. And I always refer back to a retired deputy chief, Frank Viscuso of Kearney Fire Department, also the author of Step Up and Lead. And he always would say, a leader of one could one day lead many, but if you can never lead one, you can never lead any. And that's actually how I end chapter two of the book, how I end leadership. And he's talking about if you can't lead yourself, you cannot lead anybody else.

Chris Warden (10:13.36)
Mm

Nick (10:34.028)
You can't grow as a firefighter, as a person, or whatever your profession in life is if you can't have leadership of yourself to get up every day, to do what needs to be done for your job, to handle the situations around your job, and become better at what you do. And that's how I transitioned that chapter into discipline. Because leadership and discipline, I feel, go hand in hand.

Chris Warden (10:58.33)
Nice.

Nick (11:02.53)
So without having self leadership, self discipline isn't there, but you need self discipline before self leadership. And that's why I made that the first chapter because leadership and discipline of yourself bring you into training and into becoming an actual better firefighter, which is the firematics. If you don't have discipline and leadership to pick up a book and read it, maybe building construction by Francis Brand again, maybe something on thermal imaging with Andy Starnes.

All these different books, have a hundred of them behind me, not taking the time to study, you can't get better at the job and understanding your objectives on the fire ground, objectives as your role in the firehouse, engine company, truck company, rescue company. If you don't know your role and understand all those attributes around it, are you really growing? Are you really becoming the best version and best firefighter you can be for yourself and for your crew?

Chris Warden (12:01.914)
Yeah. Being the leader and in the fire service and balancing obviously home life too, like that's a holistic thing, right? You can't just be just a good leader and not have a grasp on fire behavior, building construction, how to mentor somebody, how to teach somebody, right? Like there's a lot of people in the service who just think because you can tell somebody what needs to happen that you're teaching them well.

Nick (12:10.883)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (12:29.376)
There's a lot that goes into it and I think your book really nails a lot of the essential pillars, if you will, of what it means to A, be a really well -rounded firefighter, but to take on that leadership, like you said.

Nick (12:46.114)
Because you know I talked to some people about this and I was at a conference in Connecticut a few months ago talking on the book and one thing I said was is and there were Captains or different officers from different companies up in New England area and the one thing I said was You could know everything or you can know nothing, but if you're gonna give somebody in order to Go to just go to the roof, and I want you to prevent. I want the truck company to vent on

Chris Warden (12:51.163)
Mm

Chris Warden (13:07.854)
Mm

Nick (13:15.756)
the Charlie side. Well, first off, you need to know why you're doing that and why you're giving that order. If you don't understand truck company operations, ventilation with respect to building construction, fire behavior and reading smoke, you probably shouldn't be telling somebody to go vent the hole inside and on a roof and do any type of ventilation. So it's knowing the why behind it. And that's why I always say, like, if you don't understand the crux of the job, you don't have to be an expert in everything.

Chris Warden (13:32.517)
Right.

Nick (13:45.55)
but you have to understand enough of it to make decisions, understand what's happening around you, which leads into situational awareness, and be able to pivot should something happen on a scene. So that's how I developed number three, being situational awareness. You can't have situational awareness if you don't understand building construction, fire behavior, reading smoke, how to size up company operations, or even your role for that matter.

How are you situationally aware? know, being an outfielder in baseball, I have to understand the situation at the same time. If I don't understand a runner on first, a ball hit into the gap into right center field, that guy's going to try to get run it on first and to try to go to third. What's my best option if I'm cutting that ball off in the outfield? I have to know that. What I'm doing is I'm listening for cues from my infielders telling me, am I going to make the cut or am I going to make that try to make that throw to third?

Chris Warden (14:35.963)
Right.

Nick (14:44.738)
Sometimes I was a little bit selfish and I want to make that throw to third, but other times I'd have to know, this guy might go to third. I have to be ready to make a strong throw or I might have to be making a cutoff probably to the middle of the infield, near the mound, maybe, depending on the situation, depending on the runner, depending on how the ball is being cut off. So little situations like that and bringing it into perspective of the fire service. I'm actually gonna reference my book. It's like, you can't remember every little thing I ever write, but.

Chris Warden (14:57.925)
Mm

Chris Warden (15:12.422)
I wouldn't expect you to.

Nick (15:15.32)
But you've got to think about fire behavior. When you get into fire behavior, the one thing you understand is when you get to that fully developed stage, that's where you're going to have a flash over because everything comes to its ignition point and it's going to combust. Now, I was in a situation where that happened. I wasn't in a flash over, but I was in a situation where we went into a building and I was a young firefighter at the time. I was on the nozzle and we were putting out a kitchen fire.

Chris Warden (15:18.523)
Yeah, yep.

Nick (15:45.996)
What I didn't know at the time was how to read smoke. I had no idea. I was still very new. And my lieutenant's tapping me, tapping me. We have to go. We have to go. What happened was he was noticing in the soffits that everything was starting to roll. The fire was starting to roll and everything was getting very dark. It was getting to its ignition point. So we backed out and then we came out, split up a house. We had to come down the steps out the front door. The room flashed.

Chris Warden (16:12.752)
Okay.

Nick (16:15.0)
They thought we were in there. We were already walking out the door, situation, he knew the situation and he, he read the cues. If you can't read the cues, you wouldn't know that something was going to happen. And you wouldn't know the possibly ventilate if you're on the outside or potentially inside saying we need some ventilation here because there's potential for a flash over. You wouldn't know that if you didn't know how fire behaves in a particular structure. So that's why.

Chris Warden (16:19.47)
Right. He was reading the cues.

Nick (16:44.716)
The third part of it is situation awareness.

Chris Warden (16:46.702)
Absolutely.

Nick (16:49.304)
to get into the next part, fitness for duty. I love fitness. I've worked at a gym. I've been a personal trainer. It's something that I just kind of took things that work for me. I didn't give workouts. I didn't tell you how to do things. More so what I did was yoga, massage therapy, nutrition, sleep. These things are gonna help you perform better.

Chris Warden (16:56.409)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (17:16.239)
Absolutely.

Nick (17:18.018)
I'm not gonna tell you how to work out. I'm not gonna tell you what to work out with because you're, don't, you could read the book and be like, all right, I'm gonna do exactly what Nick said, but you might not be at the physical capabilities to do what I'm saying. And there's, who's assessing what you're doing. Are you doing it correctly? Do you have any underlying medical conditions that are preventing you from doing things? So I kind of held off with that, but I always felt that if you have to have some type of physical fitness in order,

to do the first three because that all plays along to be a self leader, self discipline, firematics, fitness goes into it. But you also have to have the right mindset. Mental, state all play, all go together. Your mental health and physical health are together. And there's been a lot of studies done showing that people who overcome addictions of any kind, a lot of them are addicted to cardio. They're addicted to running.

Chris Warden (18:03.366)
100%.

Nick (18:15.66)
biking long distance durations because it helps them forget and it gives them that endorphin high that they're craving. So that mindset is something that you need to have. And if you don't have the right mindset, we're never going to have the hundred percent attitude every day. But if you're not doing things to take care of your mind and doing the right things, therapy, talking to people, cold plunges,

Chris Warden (18:22.317)
Mm

Nick (18:45.61)
red light therapy, you're not going be able to get to that next level the way you would like.

Chris Warden (18:50.918)
Sure. Yeah. There are so many tools out there right now. And that like, that's why I started doing my podcast and having people like you on is to just to have that conversation about, you know, massage therapy. is huge. Yoga, breathing, movement, light therapy. There's just, there's so many options and this job brings on, let's just call it like weight, right? It adds so much weight to us outside of just regular daily life.

And if we can't shed that weight, it's going to accumulate. then we're, asking for an injury, either emotional, mental or physical. the decisions we have to make start to get questionable under a lot of mental and physical fatigue and stress. Right? So we, have to continuously reinvest in ourselves, just like you're saying in your book. think again, that having that situated right there to under under pin.

Those first three chapters is pivotal.

Nick (19:51.64)
Right. And you know, I've actually over time since COVID hit, obviously it's gone now, but when we were in that pandemic, that lockdown we had, New Jersey was rampant. But you know, I always had some workout equipment at the house. I had a gym right around the corner from me, but it shut down. So I'm like, I have a sandbag, I have some kettlebells. I would make the most out of this. And I started buying more kettlebells. I bought a rucksack, weighted vest.

Resistance bands, Macy's, Indian clubs. That's how I work out. That's what I work out with. A treadmill, a little mini treadmill, a echelon bike, I'm looking at it right now. I've got a red light therapy machine. You know, I've just recently got a cold plunge. So anything I can do, not just for myself, because at the end of the day, this isn't about me. I want to be able to, when I'm done being a firefighter, when it's all over, I want to be able to...

Chris Warden (20:23.364)
Mm -hmm. Me too.

Chris Warden (20:34.0)
Nice.

Nick (20:48.936)
still have a healthy life and you know we have the carcinogens we're exposed to and everything. I want to try to get be as healthy as possible but not just for myself. My wife uses the equipment. I want to set my children, a six now six year old and almost a two year old. You know he wants to work out. My mom bought him little mini kid dumbbells. You know I want to be able to show that you could have that lifestyle. You could still do what you want.

Chris Warden (20:50.328)
Absolutely.

Chris Warden (21:11.174)
That's awesome.

Nick (21:17.89)
but you could still take care of yourself the best way you possibly can because I don't look at working. I don't work out for the job. I train for it. I don't work out, train for it. And what I'm doing every day is to make sure that I'm trained for that and I'm trained for everyday life. That's I'm looking at I want to be bulletproof at the end of the day. I want to be able to tack on anything. If I have to get back on a punching bag a few times a week, I'll do that too. So it's just putting that all into perspective.

Chris Warden (21:32.475)
Mm

Chris Warden (21:46.448)
So you've got, we go from fitness right into chapter five. Probably one of the more, I can't say it's more critical than the previous four, but it's a mindset that I think more people need to understand and embrace, and that's adaptability.

Nick (21:47.234)
So

Nick (21:50.764)
Yep.

Nick (22:07.022)
Absolutely, you we always you've heard it. We've heard it for many years I've heard it all the 20 some years Firefighters hate change and firefighters hate the status quo We want change but we don't want to change anything and how many times have you heard? We've always done it this way. It's fine or We've heard the fires out Everybody went home. We're fine. But are we really fine?

Chris Warden (22:19.141)
Right, don't touch it.

Chris Warden (22:29.146)
Yeah. Or do it because I said so.

Nick (22:33.42)
That's another one, too, because I said so. And I put adaptability in there because you have to be able to understand that technology is changing, the world's changing, people are changing real fast. And we have to be able to, I'm just going to make this cough, sorry. man.

Chris Warden (22:43.844)
Mm -hmm. Fast, too.

Chris Warden (22:51.874)
You're good. Take your time,

Nick (22:57.742)
We have to be able to understand that. We have to understand that we're not going to fight fires similar exactly how we fought them 20 years ago with legacy building construction. Yes, the best way to fight a fire is to go through the front door. If that's the best option, the front door, stretch a line to the fire and put the fire out, open up, ventilate, and knock down any hot spots in there. And that's the best way to put a fire out. Transitional attacking, using thermal imaging.

Chris Warden (23:05.988)
Right.

Chris Warden (23:20.858)
Right.

Nick (23:26.904)
you're still going into a structure. You still have to be adaptable to understand that there are tools out there that are teaching you how to do things more efficiently, safely, and honestly, more economically. You know, it might be a little more money to buy, but at end of the day, if you can use a situational thermo imaging camera and you can understand what's going on in a room or a decision -making tick and understand how to follow that and follow that yellow brick road, you are saving time.

energy and resources just by using one tool that was at one point trained to me, this is what we use to search. But talking with people like Starnes and DeVito and everybody else, you're realizing it's not just for searching, it's for just about anything and everything just like the halogen is. The halogens in every everybody tool, everything tool, it's almost a thermo imaging camera, it just kind of looks funny. But once you come off that line of sight in that camera and you look around, look, listen, feel.

Chris Warden (24:03.727)
Right? Yeah.

Chris Warden (24:12.731)
Mm -hmm.

Nick (24:25.144)
you're gonna start understanding that really brought me to where I need to be. And being adaptable to that, being adaptable to people, understanding that people now wanna know why. Don't just do what I said. I'm not gonna do what you said. wanna know why you wanna do it. Well, asking me on the fire ground why I want you to do it isn't the right time. asking me after the fact, hey listen, I did this because of this, is why. But being able to adapt to cultures, everything and everything.

Chris Warden (24:28.058)
Mm

Chris Warden (24:43.632)
Right.

Nick (24:54.37)
and being able to adapt on scene properly, being able to pivot from, we had a rooming contents fire that quickly escalated into a structure fire. That's a pivot that some incident commanders have to take a step back and be like, what the fuck just happened? I don't know what to do. But other times, if you accept it, okay.

Chris Warden (25:04.464)
Yeah, for sure.

Nick (25:17.55)
This room and contents fire spread quick. I need to make a decision. I can't be reactive. I need to be proactive. How am I doing it? I have all my training, all my resources, everything that I've done. I went back through the 5 -12 firefighter, looked at firematics. Okay. I know what I need to do. I know how to make this decision. I pivoted from one thing to the next. Down firefighter, being able to adjust and adapt to hearing a mayday. That's another critical thing on the fire ground.

that it's not a matter of if, it's a matter of when it's gonna happen, and that's quoted by Chief Don Abbott of Phoenix Fire Department when he did the May Day project. It can happen anytime, anywhere, for any reason whatsoever. Just because you've trained hard, you're in best shape, does not mean you're inevitable, you're protected from a May Day. But how do you pivot from that? How do you pivot to make the decisions?

to get that firefighter out and still keep the fire where it needs to go because now it's a two different operation job at the same time. And how do you do that?

Chris Warden (26:26.96)
Yeah, we just doubled our job. Now, not only do we have a working structure fire, we also have a rescue. And not only is it, not to say that it's more important than a civilian rescue, but the pressure is, this is different. This is someone you live with and we will always commit every last resource we have to rescuing any trapped civilians and occupants. But when your brother or sister,

Nick (26:30.572)
Yes.

Nick (26:35.336)
Yes.

Nick (26:53.784)
Absolutely.

Chris Warden (26:56.506)
that person you break bread with and is there, it's different. And I only know that because I've been disoriented, haven't had to call it May Day, but the people next to you, when your life is on the line, that changes. Does that make sense?

Nick (27:02.702)
100%.

Nick (27:14.83)
100%. It's funny because it happened to me in a training evolution. was taking a rescue operation, a rescue company operations course. it was two straight, was classroom sessions and then two straight days of all fire, all live fire training. And we have a taxpayer in this one academy we're at and it has heat tiles around the room so it really get hotter. could have, you could.

Chris Warden (27:30.415)
Mm

Nick (27:42.658)
start doing rollovers, could do a lot of different stuff in this facility. And I don't know what happened to me, but we're doing a search of the hallway of the upstairs. I feel so ridiculous saying this happened in training, but I was going through with the guy in my class, and he was actually a friend of mine from another department. we just, went to college together and we firemen at the same time. So we happened to be in this course, and I'm going through and he's talking.

Chris Warden (27:59.771)
Mm

Nick (28:13.068)
I don't hear a thing. And he said, like, I see you. I was in the lead of the search. And I'm coming down the hallway. has a bathroom and a little bedroom off here with a back bedroom and a front room. And I'm going towards the fire room. And all he does is he sees my body just go flat to the ground. And he's like, he just saw the lights on my pack. he's like, what happened? I don't know what happened. I don't remember. I can't tell you what happened. All I remember was.

He grabs me, turns me around and drags me out and calls me a day. And I'm like, this is a train of us. Why'd you just call him a day? You were blacked out for, I don't know, a couple seconds. But I felt like a complete moron. I felt embarrassed, you know, amongst my peers. But it kind of opened me up and we feel like I don't know any of these people except maybe two people here.

Chris Warden (28:54.406)
Sure.

Chris Warden (29:07.632)
Right.

Nick (29:10.336)
Everyone else is from all over the state. These guys treated me as if they knew me forever. And I just, said, I pray to God, I pray to God I never experienced a May Day, not just me, like anyone, I'm ever on a scene and I hear someone call me. I pray to God I never hear it in a real life scenario, even in training. You know, I've seen people get hurt in training. was at, you know, trainings where people have been taken out because they've gotten disoriented, they overheated.

Chris Warden (29:14.79)
Of course. Yeah.

Chris Warden (29:24.698)
Yeah.

Nick (29:39.436)
you see how quickly you might not like that person personally, but you might be like, really pray he's okay or she's okay, you know? And it's different. It puts different mentality in your system. You see things at a different angle when that happens.

Chris Warden (29:46.608)
Sure.

Chris Warden (29:54.63)
Yeah, yep, it definitely puts a different lens on everything and you know, I can relate to that embarrassment or that shame, but you know, someone, I don't have a lot of experience. I haven't been in a Mayday, I haven't had to call Mayday. We've had a close call where the Mayday wasn't called, but we did have a firefighter fall through a floor.

I was on that scene. That was definitely scary. We all acted so fast. It was, it was incredible. But the, the shame and the guilt and the embarrassment, I that's a very curious to me because no one's perfect. Things happen. and you know, between the two of us, I just want to say you likely played a role in people learning a lot, right? You didn't get something happened, but

You know, I don't think we should ever be ashamed or feel embarrassed that something happened on the fire ground that we didn't have control of. And we, had to call a Mayday because calling a Mayday just means, Hey man, I need help. And we have Mayday's mental health, right? Like, Hey, I need some help here with this XYZ. And I just want people out there not to be afraid to ask for help. And that's what that, that Mayday is. And your, your, your buddy did the right thing.

Nick (31:20.76)
Yeah, absolutely. just hearing that, asking for help, a personal Mayday. The mindset, going back, it's really something that you have to really understand that it's not embarrassing to ask for help. A story one time when there was a, in the town I live in, I'm not a fire.

that I personally, my residence is the town across the river from where I'm a firefighter. But in this town, in another district, there was a line of duty. The guy was two years older than me. the hard part about it was it hit right close to home. And at the time that happened, I was getting ready to go into the academy. And just hearing that it was someone that was

in his early 20s, maybe at the time, maybe he's older than me. It scared me, because I know some of the people that were on that. I don't want to speak for any of them, but I know people that were on that call that day. you know, you feel for them. You feel for them in different way. You know, might not know people, but you can't say, understand. All you could do is say, I'm here for you.

You hope that they get the, you know, how they're affected by it. That they do the right things, get the help that they need as time goes on because it might not hit you next week, next month. It might hit you down the road. So little things like that. I've been affected by different incidents that I've been on. Seeing a friend of mine get killed in a car accident.

Chris Warden (32:55.846)
Could be 10 years.

Nick (33:07.368)
and we were the first ones on scene. didn't know it was him. I didn't actually know it was him until a couple days later because of how mangled the body was. you know, it's different things that you see and just having that mindset and having that ability to just say, I need to talk to somebody or I need to get the help. I need something that's very, very important for all of us.

Chris Warden (33:12.825)
wow.

Chris Warden (33:32.646)
Yeah, I'm really sorry I had to go through that and I would, I can't imagine how, how that would have felt. But, you're, you are so right. Like we have to realize that we're just humans out here doing this job that is requiring so much of us. And it's asking us to stretch and perform flawlessly all the time under often the worst circumstances.

Nick (33:40.952)
there.

Chris Warden (34:00.798)
We don't catch that fire right when we're trained up, we're warmed up, we're previously hydrated, we slept great, we don't get them then. We get them after we got our butts kicked all day, we're dehydrated, we're already wet, we're tired, we're a little bit sad, we're groggy, we're angry. That's when we catch the real career job.

Nick (34:01.422)
Absolutely.

Nick (34:18.062)
happens. Exactly. you know, talking to EMTs that just ride an ambulance, you think about one of my friends, he's no longer an EMT, he's doing some other work now, but he always would say, you know, we walk in to the worst possible situation, we're walk into a person, depending on what the situation is. doctors don't even see the stuff we see, we kind of cover them up until

Chris Warden (34:23.184)
Mm

Chris Warden (34:36.09)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Nick (34:46.914)
they get to the hospital. And I didn't understand what he meant until I started helping out, got on an ambulance and started riding with these guys and realizing you're going to suicide, you're going to shootings, you're going to OODs, you're going to things that I don't know if my mind could handle at all. And how do you go from, I still can't understand it, like how do you go from putting a fire out,

pulling someone out of a building, doing CPR, to just going back to the firehouse, taking your stuff off and sitting down. I just can't understand how our minds really do it and how the brain functions in that way and how it hits certain people as it doesn't. It's interesting. The mind's a beautiful thing.

Chris Warden (35:34.544)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (35:38.662)
Yeah. It's fair. Yeah, man. And that, mean that we'll take a little sidebar here, but that really, so the other day we had a train of pedestrian versus train extrication. we removed the person. They actually say their hand was safe. so they, they, some minor injuries, major stuff, but we went from that, got done with that, caught a CPR like three 30 in the morning. We're out, you know, zero sleep for the night.

And went home, took a four hour nap. The next day I was tired. Next day went to work. And today just like, wow, you mentioned that. I don't know how we handle that, but I know we have to through exercise, through sleep, right? Like doing those things, having this conversation with you telling, you know, that it's therapy for me. and it's, that's a really good question. And you know, maybe there's

Nick (36:33.486)
Right.

Chris Warden (36:39.728)
There's really good ways to manage, call the call, the call throughout the day. And then once you get home, maybe we offload at their journaling or, having that discussion with our wife or just telling somebody something. But yeah, man, that's, you're absolutely right. The body and the mind are incredibly capable, but it does start to break down if we don't take care of it.

Nick (37:04.302)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Warden (37:05.924)
So I want to move on a little bit. You've had a very extensive career. Can you kind of move us through your career and then how you kind of got into to, to, being an instructor even? Cause I know that's something I'm curious about being an instructor and I want to be able to help the future of the fire service.

Nick (37:25.128)
So, I became an instructor in the book. I talk about a former fire captain that I had. He'd always, he would see me at the firehouse, catch me in the bays or something. He'd quiz me and quiz anybody. He didn't care what their rank was, their seniority. He didn't care. Look at the upper ass, get me a halogen, get me a hook.

Chris Warden (37:30.01)
Mm

Nick (37:48.472)
get me a rabbit tool, get me, whatever came to his head in that very moment, and some of this stuff you're like, are you freaking kidding me? Like, I'm not really gonna get this. Well, I kind of always gravitated toward this guy because not only did he kind of hammer me, like I would mess up on a call or, you know.

Chris Warden (37:51.323)
Yeah.

Nick (38:14.208)
whatever, know, little things like bust my balls in a fire outside, always, always kind of like jokey with me and everything. And I always took a liking to him because he always pulled out more and pulled more and pulled more. And I realized like the more he's doing that, I'm like, hey, I want to take this class. I want to set up for this. So I'm like gravitating towards learning.

and i didn't really like learning at all until i got into this profession i don't really like school and certain subjects but i just kept wanting to do more and thought it was fun and then he becomes an instructor and now he's really turning on a lot of this teaching at the firehouse that's just like

Chris Warden (38:42.138)
Yeah.

Nick (38:59.23)
off the cuff training, you don't know when it's coming, you don't know what's coming out of his mouth and he's coming back saying I learned this and showing us things that he's taking from the academy he's at and bringing it back and who he's talking to, getting into all this stuff. So it actually inspired me to want to become an instructor myself because I thought like, well, he has a great personality, he's funny as hell.

Chris Warden (39:10.982)
Sure.

Nick (39:29.182)
and just knows how to talk to people. And I want to do that same thing. So I was like, I'm going become an instructor. And that's how I did it. And just thoroughly, thoroughly enjoyed it. And I didn't know what to do with the instructor certificates I had. I'm like, I got this, sir. Like, you know, how do I get to teach, you know, besides just the guys at my firehouse? How else do I get to teach?

So ironically, I switched houses and the captain there was like, hey, I work at this. We have our own academy at my department. It's not, you can't get certified as being a firefighter there anymore. They dropped that level for us. We'd go to county, but we can do all our own training there. So it's our own private playground. And he's like, hey, you got your cert. You know, you want to teach here? And I'm like,

Chris Warden (40:20.454)
Nice.

Nick (40:28.074)
sure what do gotta do? Like I guess you gotta send me a resume, you gotta interview, it's a whole process you know we're not just gonna take you because you you're with us. yeah I got an interview and interviewed me with another with the senior instructor and

Chris Warden (40:34.81)
Right, because you got a certification.

Nick (40:47.114)
it just took off and me and that senior instructor have been basically he's my mentor. know, to this day we don't, he's not at the academy anymore. He's doing his own consulting work. He's at the city department. He's also with me at the national phone firefighters, but he got me into that as well. So if it wasn't for him, really kind of given me that little window of opportunity and coaching me and training me and

Allowed me to work for him there and then work for him on his private consulting for fire a fire service personnel Get me with the N triple F and hooking me up with a lot of people And meeting people and just having that confidence to just be myself This conversation wouldn't be happening right now. This book never would have happened the fire officer never would have happened it all happened because this senior instructor

You know, it's like, let's do it, let's hire him, let's bring him in because he's always liked me. He's known me before that. I never really had interactions with him. We just knew each other from me being at that academy taking some courses, stuff like that. Never really spoke to him, but we were friends on Facebook because of all the connections and everything else. And we developed a real friendship after that. And I always looked to him for fire advice.

Chris Warden (41:45.702)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (42:03.344)
Right.

Nick (42:13.186)
Marital advice, children advice, any advice because it's just someone that I trust and who always guided me and got me to where I am now.

Chris Warden (42:23.814)
Dude, that's awesome. It's amazing when somebody believes in you more than you believe in yourself, what it does for you. know, and there's, when we talk about building our crew, our support system in life, having a mentor professionally is it's, it's, you hear the greatest leaders talk about their mentors.

There's a lot, would say a majority of people in the fire service don't have a mentor or don't want to be mentored or be a mentee, but the best of the best, they always reference their mentors. And I think it's invaluable to have someone who's been through the path before you, who can help you navigate your path. And dude, you're one of the lucky people who has a mentor.

Nick (43:18.562)
Yeah, and I've learned over time that it's good to have more than one in different facets. Like, I utilize different people for different things. But this one person, he is my one, my main, my go -to. But it's always good to have multiple people in different facets of your life to kind of guide you through different things. I just feel that if more people...

Chris Warden (43:23.928)
Absolutely.

Nick (43:47.206)
mentors in the fire service, I think things would be different. I think it should be part of the policy, know, coming on, you know, there has to be a mentor program for the young recruits. It has to be something. Captain Nick Baskerville, he was with me at the Firehouse Supreme for a while. He's off doing his own thing. He's a storyteller. I mean, this guy could tell stories, stand up there on stage and tell stories. He's out of Virginia. He talks about mentoring.

Chris Warden (43:56.55)
100%.

Chris Warden (44:01.093)
Okay.

Nick (44:16.866)
He does a great topic on that and that's truly what really inspired me his conversation and talking to him off the off the record He truly inspired me to kind of look at having More mentors and embracing the idea of not being ashamed to say yeah, I have someone helping me. I'm not doing this alone I have people coaching me people telling me no, man You better go sit back down because what you're saying right now isn't gonna work. I'll try this try that and you know

Chris Warden (44:36.314)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (44:41.401)
Right.

Nick (44:46.122)
That right there is someone who he needs to be focused on talking about that. If he came out and talked about a whole thing I'm mentoring in the fire service on a grand scale, people would take to it. Guaranteed.

Chris Warden (44:58.788)
And yeah, man, that's, it's definitely something like you said, we need, we need a system and you know, I've got some ideas laid out for my department. I haven't said anything because I'm just saving it. but basically you come in, you get a mentor and the expectation is you grow to be the mentor and you have a mentor above you and you mentor somebody below you. And that's, that's how the system should work.

Does it work? No. Does everybody want to do that? Typically not, but you know, I would, I would love for that to be the case because helping people is amazing feeling when people below you succeed and that you can help succeed on their own level. It's just, there's nothing more fulfilling. And I know that makes it sound like it's about me, but it's not helping people achieve for their sake is, is an amazing thing.

Nick (45:55.822)
Absolutely, really is. I enjoy it. I enjoy helping people. I try to mentor people the best I can. I don't force it on others. If they don't wanna take it, hey, it is what it is, but just know that if you wanna talk, I'll listen. might not like, sometimes some guys in my house will call me and say things. And I'm gonna tell them, you're not gonna like what I'm gonna say right now, but take it for what it's worth. Because if we're all agreeing, if we all agree, nothing's ever gonna get done.

Chris Warden (46:00.763)
Yeah, man.

Right.

Chris Warden (46:07.899)
Mm

Nick (46:24.376)
There's never going to be improvements, never going be advancements. There always has to be, I guess you could call it that party line. There has to be that party line where you're talking to two different sides of the fence and trying to marry that couple together in some way.

Chris Warden (46:35.216)
Yeah, the, the, the disagreements and the, like you said, that party line and maybe it's just civil disagreements and maybe sometimes it's emotional heated arguments, but that's what furthers the discussion. That's where one side learns something. Then that means the other side is about to learn something and it just continues to progress the talking points. And like you said, man, that's the mentor thing is, is huge. so let's pivot a little bit.

Nick (47:01.611)
Absolutely.

Chris Warden (47:03.558)
and discuss your perspective and understanding and your passion for the Everyone Goes Home initiative.

Nick (47:04.078)
See you later.

Nick (47:12.724)
Alright, yeah, so again, my mentor got me into that incident area was home program and I knew what it was for the most part before I got involved with it. I've met guys that I took classes with that I sat through their presentations and I signed the seatbelt pledge, all that kind of stuff. But once I got involved, I started to really see what this is all about. A little bit more, now you're in it, you're in the weeds of it.

Chris Warden (47:15.451)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (47:21.583)
Mm -hmm.

Chris Warden (47:36.485)
Mm -hmm.

Nick (47:40.993)
And I started to really understand that it's not just about the firefighters in the line of duty. It's about every firefighter in the fire service. It's about helping each other in the sense of mentoring other firefighters, guiding other firefighters for how to take care of not just themselves, but to take care of their department, to understand when they're mentally not.

Chris Warden (47:48.368)
Mm

Nick (48:11.104)
there to understand our physical out there to understand that there are stressors of this job that are going to get you and how to go about in combating them getting the help for them and should there be a god -forbidden line of duty that we are able to provide resources maybe not me because we have other programs out there that are catered to that called the

Chris Warden (48:11.483)
Mm

Nick (48:40.926)
I see the I see the buddy buddy programs that do that type of work. I'm not going to I'm not here to promote anything right now. But we're there to help the fire service in any way we possibly can. And you might not be an active firefighter that's out there doing it as an advocate. Some of them aren't someone retired but they are out there training taking the courses going across this country and

going to these summits and doing these things that are only helping to better the fire service. The 16 life safety initiatives, they're there for a reason. I mean, there are talks it's going to be some changes coming out of Pike, but they're put out for a reason. if you follow life safety initiatives and you put that in your firehouse, you're helping your firehouse. You don't have to be an advocate for the foundation.

or the Evergreen Host Home program, but you are helping that department by just understanding how to be safe and how to generally take care of yourself on the fire ground.

Chris Warden (49:51.45)
That's...

Nick (49:52.246)
And I just truly love what they do. And that's why I just keep doing it.

Chris Warden (49:57.126)
Dude, we need more people like you and don't ever stop when it comes to health and wellness, life safety. You know, there's, there is, there's two parts of the job. There's the, technical and professional aspect. Then there's the human aspect and we, we need to remember to support both 100%, not 50 50, but 100 100.

Nick (50:19.726)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Chris Warden (50:20.602)
So that leads into your personal contribution to the fire service, the firehouse Tribune. Do you mind kind of explaining how that came about and give us an idea of your mission and, just kind of brag about that. Cause it's pretty awesome.

Nick (50:37.396)
So what we did, what I did was, worked with my mentor. He decided to text me, he's like, I'm starting up my own training program. I wanna go and I wanna start training firefighters at their firehouses and do the incident command, all sorts of forceful entry training, fire medic training, EMS training, everything. And he's explained it to me and the finances and he'd share.

Chris Warden (51:00.454)
Mm

Nick (51:07.276)
all that background administrative stuff that you don't think about when you think of I have my own training facility, I have my trail, I have all my stuff, I'm gonna pull up to your firehouse, and everybody's gonna love me, because I'm gonna give you all this good hands -on training. You don't think about that administrative work behind it. And I was dabbling around with it a little bit, like maybe I'll do something, but there's so much of it around me in New Jersey.

Chris Warden (51:12.09)
Right?

Chris Warden (51:29.241)
Mm

Nick (51:35.756)
I want to be able to say what I want to say, write what I want to write, and I just said, I'm going to start a website. I'm going start a blog. Because that was popular back at that time. I started blogging and just talking about what I want to talk about that you're not really seeing anywhere else. And I just started always focusing on firefighter, firematic -related stuff, truss construction, all a lot of stuff I started to begin with.

Chris Warden (51:46.66)
Sure.

Nick (52:04.738)
But I always try to reference it back a lot in podcasts and different things. you know, then I started hooking up with Nick, Captain Nick Baskerville, he came on and I'm reading his stuff and his stuff's like gravitating. Like you just gravitate towards it. He's putting life into it and putting these perspectives in there. And that's when I started really thinking about where is this going? And that's how the final tribune started was I just want to have a place to

say what I want to say with no repercussions and just write out different things that I want to talk about for the fire service. And over time, know, contributors came and went. But back in, I don't remember, 2020, 2021, I'm on Instagram and I'm on my personal Instagram and and Higgins22, that's my personal Instagram.

And I get this message from this guy and I'm like, fireman Tom on a DM and it has this attachment in the thing. And I open it up and it's this long article. And I'm reading it and I'm like, it's pretty good.

It's pretty good man like where can I? Where can I go and read this he goes? Can you post it? so My brother said can I post it to you? I'm like, you know, we don't get paid here. So I don't have any I'm in fun free blog. That's cool and

Chris Warden (53:36.166)
Right. Yeah.

Nick (53:42.4)
over time, me and him just started collaborating together. Firehouse Tribune was already there. It wasn't like it is now. It was a little different and we just had, but we started to come up with how are going to revamp the page? How are we going to make the website different? And that's how we developed the Firehouse Tribune as it is today. He's like the lead man on the whole thing. He handles a lot of, he doesn't write a lot of articles as much, you know, cause he's doing a lot of our podcast station talk.

We have another podcast, it's called Station Talk. We came up with that because we were doing webinars and we were like, we're not getting a lot of people on these webinars. I'm tired of funding this damn Zoom. So you know what? People probably want to do it at their leisure and not do it live. So let's make this podcast out of it and put them on a podcast and then just start doing episodes. And we were doing one episode a month with a guest and he just started running with it.

Chris Warden (54:11.206)
Okay, yeah.

Chris Warden (54:19.812)
Mm -hmm.

Nick (54:39.5)
designed the logo for it, I took the Riverside thing, like I do all the background stuff for it. I'm not on every episode, he's not on every episode, so we're always bouncing off each other and that's really how the Firehouse Tribune kind of got to where it was, was once Tom came in, Tom Marciano, out of New York, it really kind of was like, now I have somebody here that's like, telling me yes, no, do this, do that, let's not do this, let's try and make...

Chris Warden (54:40.816)
Nice.

Nick (55:07.348)
throwing things out there not just articles, but content ideas and Different things and like made a Google calendar. We're gonna post on Mondays Tuesdays. We have all structured out and I started the five to a firefighter podcast November released the book February I restarted the five to a firefighter podcast on the recommendation of Jim boss of Firefighter Fox of Finland sees like hey, man

Chris Warden (55:18.576)
Nice.

Chris Warden (55:31.792)
Yeah. Yeah.

Nick (55:33.944)
You should do a podcast on your book and then just whatever happens, what happens with it. So I did the podcast, connected to the Firehouse Tribune. Everything links back to the Firehouse Tribune. And then we started Station Talk. And first question I got was, dude, are you getting rid of Fire, Five to a Firefighter? I'm like, no, separate podcast. Like that's not gonna be a lot of guests. Five to a Firefighter is not gonna be, it's gonna be limited guests. Station Talk is where you come on and we talk.

Chris Warden (55:55.78)
Right.

Nick (56:03.81)
We shop. We talk, you got a product, let's talk about it. You got a book, let's talk about it. Basically it's the Joe Rogan experience of the Firehouse Tribune. Just come on, let's have a conversation. Anything goes. No holds barred. We're not gonna tell you we don't agree with your beliefs. gonna tell you we with your Say whatever you wanna do. It's unfiltered, unscripted, unedited. Because when you're in the Firehouse, are you...

Chris Warden (56:17.307)
Right.

Nick (56:32.556)
being able to edit what you're saying as you're saying it at the kitchen table. No. So we're doing the same thing. We're having that conversation. People will say, Hey, I want to come on this show. What do want me to talk about? Whatever your heart desires. Here's the link. Pick a date, pick a time. We'll be there and let's make it happen. And you're on video. Make sure you have good wifi. Let's go. And what we learned was people actually enjoy it. We don't do a lot of them. We do one, two a month.

Chris Warden (56:35.792)
Right.

Nick (57:02.604)
because it is a lot of balancing schedules, my schedule, his schedule, the guest schedule. So we're coming back with another, another, we're not a season, we took August off just because vacations and different things, so life. So we'll have some stuff coming out in a couple of weeks, but that's how the Firehouse Tribune, it's a platform and anybody can contribute to it. You know, if you have an article, you write, man, can you post it on here? It's...

Chris Warden (57:04.134)
Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Chris Warden (57:13.776)
Yeah, life. For sure.

Awesome.

Nick (57:31.404)
I've just been jotting down my thoughts. Yeah, send it over. I'm not gonna edit it. I don't edit the person's stuff because that's their words. You know, I'm not asking for any cut of anything you make off of anything you say with this. Just post it and you could blast it all over the place you want. It's yours, you own the rights to it. It's just on my page as a, I guess as like a advertisement to you. We do that with Captain E .J. Henninger of building.

Chris Warden (57:35.526)
Sure, sure.

Chris Warden (57:49.158)
Okay.

Nick (58:00.194)
Firefighter Development, Chief Ryan Johnston of Maniac Fire Training, you know, when he has stuff, sends it on over and we post it. Because it's a voice. It's kind of like the players' tribune that Derek Jeter started. It's the same concept. It's a voice for the fire service, unfiltered, unedited. I mean, if there's things in there that you're attacking people, know, different things like that, that is a little, no, a little dicey. Hey man, I'm not doing that. Take it out or I'm not putting it.

Chris Warden (58:22.574)
Right, right. Little dicey.

Nick (58:29.966)
Never had it happen, never had it happen, but generally firefighters are talking, they're going to talk basically, they're going to stick to the topic at hand. So that's what it is. It's a platform for blogging. We offer courses, you know, we offer the 5 -2 firefighter program. The six tips to guide new fire officer, that's done by Chief Tom Marciano. He's done that at a few conferences and wants to get that locally in firehouses and online or in person. do the same with the 5 -2 firefighter.

Also a another course I did called knowing your role on a fire room. It's basically do your job that Okay, this is the first time I'm say this it's never been said anywhere else except with me and Tom to do your job knowing your own the fire ground is The sequel quote unquote to the five tool firefighter. So I am working on that as another book as a sequel I Kind of stole the concept it's a spoiler

Chris Warden (59:04.411)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (59:24.327)
Spoiler alert.

Nick (59:29.614)
Kinda still the concept from Jocko Willink when he didn't change, he didn't make an extreme ownership too, he made dichotomy leadership. I don't want people thinking I'm just talking about the 5 -2 firefighter, so it's a different book, unrelated to the 5 -2 firefighter, but comes from, is a derivative of the 5 -2 firefighter. So I'm working on that, I'm taking a lot more time on that, it's still in early stages. But I did a program on it with Steve Green, Andy Starnes, John Dixon, and Joe DeVito.

I did a portion of it and that's what the book's concept is on. It's knowing your role on the fire ground.

Chris Warden (01:00:07.238)
That's gonna be a good one. was, before we got on, was looking at that course on the website and I was like, that's gonna be a good one. So, your website, there's tactics, leadership, fire behavior, health and wellness, you guys have a lot of resources.

Nick (01:00:13.688)
That's gonna.

Yeah, it's.

Nick (01:00:21.344)
Yes. That's.

Chris Warden (01:00:26.394)
And that's going to be this firehousetribune .com, right?

Nick (01:00:30.446)
Thefirehousetribune .com. Yup, it has all resources. First page is the blog and it just goes from significant fires in the fire service. That was Tom's idea. We want to cover different fires so we research them. We write them up. No matter where it is, we're not trying to look for the biggest ones because every fire is significant in the fire service. We want to make sure that those firefighters do not go forgotten. And then just like you said, go and write down the list of all different types of resources.

Chris Warden (01:00:40.347)
Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:00:45.03)
Mm -hmm. Sure.

Nick (01:00:59.864)
who help firefighters in whatever they need helping.

Chris Warden (01:01:02.416)
Question, putting you on the spot. How many shifts do you guys have at your fire department? Two, three, four? Different shifts, four shifts, okay. When you catch a big fire, or let's just say a good working fire, maybe room and contents, maybe a little bit more, where there's some work, maybe a box, or what does your still alarm consist of?

Nick (01:01:10.2)
for.

Nick (01:01:24.962)
Consists, we have districts, it is Engine from us, truck from the head from the main house, engine from the other house Anything that is smoke condition on up is a box For a two alarm to a two district box to click close

Chris Warden (01:01:26.565)
Okay.

Chris Warden (01:01:37.125)
Okay.

Okay, so you made a very, very significant comment where you said every fire is important, right? Whether someone dies or everybody goes home and everything went perfectly. How valuable is it, do you think, to evaluate that experience and share that knowledge or disperse the experience to the people who weren't there?

Nick (01:02:00.568)
think it's highly important because you could be on that call and ironically I've actually had this conversation with somebody in my old in my other house so you could be on a call with a crew and the other crew may not be there they'll just think they went in to put the fire out but they're not gonna know what you exactly did in there

Chris Warden (01:02:05.348)
Mm

Chris Warden (01:02:16.378)
Mm

Chris Warden (01:02:22.021)
Right.

Chris Warden (01:02:27.525)
Right.

Nick (01:02:27.894)
what the mindset was, what the thinking was, what the tactics were in that building. When you start talking to other people, you could start telling them, well, when we went in, we advanced our entry quarter down a hallway, but heavy fire, started, understand we had to use a tick. We started doing oriented searches. We use search rope because, or taglines because you know what? There was a partial collapse.

Chris Warden (01:02:31.845)
Yeah.

Nick (01:02:56.31)
in the one room on the floor from the second floor into the bedroom collapsed through. Well, we had to search that room. So what did we do? We put a tagline on us to get a little bit in there just to kind of see is there somebody potentially in there that might have been part of the poker? Exactly. And they said to me was, man, if we never had this conversation, I never would have known the type of thinking that you guys went through because the stuff that you do on a call that if you don't share that knowledge.

Chris Warden (01:03:09.67)
poke around behind the door.

Nick (01:03:26.718)
One, you're not going to know what you did right, what you did wrong. You stretch your weaknesses. And how can you improve on that? And how can you utilize those for other people? we have a, I don't want to say the best behavior in it because we're kind of shaky with it, but we try to recreate situations that we've been in when we train. So we try to take our bay and we make it into a room or, you know, we go to our academy and our tower and we try to recreate what happened.

Chris Warden (01:03:45.102)
Okay. Sure.

Nick (01:03:57.228)
maybe not under fire conditions so we can see what we did right and kind of replay in our minds what happened and we do it from time to time because we believe in the after action review that post size up and that goes back into sharing that knowledge is your post size up because as you're talking you're talking out what you did you're talking out the good and the bad the pros and the cons

Chris Warden (01:04:12.912)
Right.

Nick (01:04:27.06)
And our one chief, he always would say, in the room, let's talk about it. It wasn't a fire. I don't really care. Get a piece of paper. Paper. Not even kidding, paper. Write down what went wrong as we're talking. What did he say? Write it down. And that's how we went about doing it. We don't do it all the time, much anymore. Kind of shy for me. But maybe we'll text each other with, this is what happened. blah, blah. We'll shoot pictures with like,

explanations of what the picture is like this is what happened here this is why we did this and you know long -winded answer

Chris Warden (01:05:06.288)
Dude, I appreciate it. And I'm, I'm, I would say I'm jealous. I appreciate the fact that you as a career department and anybody out there that does this, and when my department gets to do it and we do it, I really appreciate it. It's valuable, extracting experience or evaluating experiences is so valuable. And I don't know what you had. I don't know what you saw to make you think.

You needed to choose this hose line. what contributed to your thought process? What was going through your mind when you, why did you do this or what, what, why didn't you do that? Like that experience, we don't see very many fires anymore, right? Our fire prevention is up. The way fires happen is different. Like firefighters in America are seeing less fires at most stations. There's select few departments that see a lot of fire, right?

know, evaluated experience is the best. And when you can share that experience, you're just getting another version in your head to make a different decision off of in the future.

Nick (01:06:18.158)
Exactly, you know To go back on that about a year ago another crew they had a a box alarm into another to other side and what they had to do was they had to They were basically you're coming in an engine company and we need you to establish a water supply for us. We have a It was a type 2 construction if I'm not mistaken type 2 construction warehouse and the roof was burning

It started going and I wasn't there, but I saw pictures and our one chief was on scene and he calls me a couple days later. He's like, need you to as a train officer. we need to go over a couple of things. And he's like, I took notes on his call and like, would happen? He goes, well, we're going to share it and we're going to improve on it again. And it was like just simple things like, Hey, I noticed this one firefighter wasn't comfortable using a rotary saw. Okay, cool.

put a note in the book, we're gonna work on rotary saws. That's our topic for the month or the week. We're rotary saws. Hey, get used to it. Start them up, walk around with it. don't wanna kiss shit, know, make it work, you know? Understanding ventilation, cool. They might've had off day, they might've been tired, they might've just been confused because of organized chaos. You just don't know. But he noticed mechanically what was wrong. And I always take it as, I need to know.

Chris Warden (01:07:19.204)
Right? Yeah.

Chris Warden (01:07:25.19)
Exactly.

Nick (01:07:46.028)
What else is wrong? Is it they don't know or were there other issues going on that prevented them from doing it? And you know, I call them up. Hey, I'm not trying to call you out of the thing. Hey, I you had a little trouble to solve everything. Okay. And I, you know, I was just so overwhelmed, blah, blah, blah. You know, you know, we were calling for water supply. We were establishing the water. I was the pump operator. Then all of sudden being asked to take the saw and start it and go do that. I, my mind was all over the place because of the lack of mail.

Staffing that day man powers down blah blah blah. fine. Okay, you know, okay So you put that into perspective Okay, here's what we got to do here's how we're work things out. All right, great You weren't good with sauce. Here's what you do that guy over there is an expert on sauce. Talk to him That's how we utilize people talk to him or okay You're not good with sauce

Chris Warden (01:08:18.361)
Right, right.

Nick (01:08:43.63)
Take 15 minutes and show the crew how to operate this saw. They might know, but you don't. Teach it. All of a sudden, things are starting to change. People are starting to grasp. Like, I can, yeah. You need to get involved. The more involved, the better you get.

Chris Warden (01:08:46.533)
Alright, teach it.

Chris Warden (01:09:01.443)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, Nick, you know, it's been a very awesome conversation. I've actually learned quite a bit today. I do have one more question for you. With with the premise of my podcast being priority traffic, trying to get the word out, starting the conversations. If you had priority traffic for the audience, that one important message, clear, concise. What would you say your priority traffic is to the fire?

Fire Service audience listening out there today.

Nick (01:09:37.068)
No matter what you are, if you're a career, volunteer, part -time, it doesn't matter what you are.

Nick (01:09:45.208)
Do the best you can.

when it's time to be a firefighter. Don't make this your entire existence in your life, but be able to prioritize what's important to you as a firefighter and establish that and go after it and become that best version of yourself.

based on what you want to do with yourself because at the end of the day you're never going to see every fire, you're never going make every call, and when it's all done you're not going to remember them. You're not going to remember everything you've done. You're going remember some of the good, some of the bad.

Just enjoy the and take care of yourself before anything else and be able to accept that.

Chris Warden (01:10:42.48)
That's powerful. you know, taking care of yourself, being that self leader, investing in your knowledge, getting books, reading the books, your book, Five Tool Firefighter. I think it's an excellent read and I think we got to get more people reading it. Where can we get ahold of you? I know we have the website, the podcast, the book, but just run down real quick how we can get ahold of you, social media handles and all of that. So

Nick (01:10:57.87)
Thank you.

Nick (01:11:09.996)
Okay. So.

Chris Warden (01:11:11.674)
people listening can get your book and do it.

Nick (01:11:15.48)
Facebook, it's the Firehouse Tribune. LinkedIn, Firehouse Tribune. X, FH Tribune. And Instagram is the best spot, FH Tribune. That's the best spot where I'm most active, or we are most active, myself and Tom, are the most active. You could also email us at editor at thefirehousetribune .com, or if you really want to come on Station Talk, it's fhtribunepodcast at gmail .com is for Station Talk.

Chris Warden (01:11:24.026)
Okay.

Nick (01:11:44.91)
You know, N Higgins 22, that's my personal handle. can message me on LinkedIn there. I respond relatively quick because I do get the alerts on my phone, it pops up. So, the book, if you want the book. The best place is the Fire Offs Tribune. say that on every ending of the Five through Five Fire podcast. You get the book there or barnesandoldwool .com or Amazon.

Chris Warden (01:11:54.48)
Awesome.

Chris Warden (01:12:06.47)
Cool. Awesome. Nick, well, I appreciate you making time to come on and your story and the resources you're putting together for the fire service are commendable, necessary, and very, applicable. So again, thank you for sharing your wisdom with our listeners. It's been a pleasure to chat with you. Do you have anything else before we wrap it up today?

Nick (01:12:12.063)
Thank you.

Nick (01:12:27.416)
Thank you.

nah, I think I said a lot, so.

Chris Warden (01:12:36.498)
Alright brother, well I appreciate your time. I hope you have a great day and everybody listening, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Priority Traffic Podcast. We hope you enjoyed the conversation. Informative, engaging, and I hope it was inspiring. As always, stay safe and remember that everyone goes home. Until next time, this is Chris. Thank you Nick.

Nick (01:12:39.448)
Thank you.

Nick (01:12:58.158)
Thank you.