Checklists Won't Save Your REMS Team

You can tell who looks tough. You can't tell who will endure — and that gap is where fire crews break.

In Part 2 of our conversation with John Hennessey — retired Air Force officer, former Booz Allen Hamilton program manager, and one of the architects of Dammeron Valley Fire Rescue — we follow the thread from special operations selection culture straight into the unforgiving reality of wildfire operations and modern fire service leadership.

This half goes deep on what actually keeps firefighters alive and teams sharp: standards over hype, daily practice over vibes, and why complacency is the fastest way to get hurt or fall behind.

What we cover:
- Why "looking tough" tells you nothing — and why cadre still can't predict who quits on day one
- The "false summit" trap, and treating every plateau as a reason to push harder
- Earning credibility when you're leading experts who outclass you technically
- What the Waldo Canyon and Black Forest fires teach about wind, ember storms, and structure density
- Wildfire mitigation, Firewise assessments, and the home ignition zone details most residents miss
- The real limits of structure protection when water and time run out
- REMS team realities on remote terrain — scouting routes, staging smart, and building a PACE plan
- Why checklists are not capability — and what "good" looks like when you're holding a patient overnight with no helicopter
- The case for tighter REMS standards that measure performance, not shopping lists

If you care about wildfire preparedness, structure protection, emergency medical response, or leadership under stress — this one's built for you.

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0:00 Never Satisfied With The Status Quo
1:15 Why You Cannot Spot Quitters
5:45 Earning Credibility With Elite Teams
7:42 First Real Taste Of Fire Service
8:50 Waldo Canyon And Black Forest Reality
11:34 Firewise Home Ignition Zone Walkthroughs
16:16 Forsyth Fire Night One Lessons
18:20 REMS Planning For Remote Rescues
26:52 Train Daily And Build Real Standards
36:20 Retirement Goals And Vision 2030
39:23 Final Thanks And Wrap Up

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Here's something that some people have misunderstood. It's on our website where we talk about we disrupted the fire service. You know, we disrupted the fire service within our own organization. We flipped it on its head. And we are still kind of doing that. We are never satisfied with where we are. If you get to a point where you're satisfied, well, what's next? Nothing. You're gonna step back. So there has to be that you may get to that plateau, but hopefully it's a false summit and there's more to do. I figured it's like week three or four, there was a Hell Week. You're in the Air Force, you can't call it Hell Week. But that was at the time, that was five days. So the only thing we would know, Tyler, is that typically like on the third day of Hell Week, that would be the last morning where you get the rash of quitters. You quit, you quit. You're done in any in any of them for the most part. I've been retired now 26 years, but it was a great assignment working with those real combat warriors, um, learning from them. I think it made me a better leader uh just working with them and watching them work.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

I had a question from a while back in our conversation. When you're doing the PJ in doc, how good was your picker at on day one of seeing the guys like he's gonna make it, he's not? So that's funny you asked that, yeah, Tyler.

SPEAKER_01 1:29

Um, so I just want to be clear, I don't want to overinflate my role at the PJ school. I was I was the officer responsible for for that side of it for the MAGCOM that I led. The the real PJs, the real combat controllers, the real EOD specialists and technicians, they they ran the schoolhouse. Okay. Um there was a time when this colonel came from Randolph Air Force Base uh to come take a look and sit down with the instructors and all that, the cadre. And uh he asked that very question. He looked at all of them and said, Now I've been there now a year. And uh he said, I bet you guys can know on the first day who's gonna make it through PJ Combat Control in Doc. And I just shook my head. And all the instructors went, Nope.

SPEAKER_06 2:19

You get surprised every time. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, yeah. You get you get Brennan come in with all the muscles and everything else. Failing. And then you get the 130. Yep. He he wigs out in the first two, three weeks, right? I quit. And then the and then the skinny guy's 135 pounds who's revived. He ain't quit. And to watch it was unbelievable. Um, to watch the psychology behind it, uh, to watch it get in somebody's head that they want to quit, you know they're gonna quit. Um it was it wasn't it was one of those assignments where learning from my cadre on what they wanted in the field with them, irrespective of which career field it was, right? TAC P didn't matter. Um, SEER. Um it it was assessment and selection. There is a choice there. Um, they did have the standards that they had to meet and all that, and and they didn't change them. Um if you miss it, you miss it. Uh but uh one thing we did do in that two years I was there, it's all different now. Today it's completely different. When I when I was there, um indoc and some of the other training um all had a certain number of weeks. So indoc uh in Pariscue Combat Control was combined, and everybody went through the same Endoc and it was ten weeks. And then there was a Hell Week. Uh I forget it's like week three or four, there was a Hell Week. Well you're in the Air Force, you can't call it Hell Week, you gotta call it something else. But that was at the time that was five days. So the only thing we would know, Tyler, is that typically like on the third day of Hell Week, that would be the last morning where you'd get the rash of quitters. Um but you quit, you quit, you're done. In any of them for the most part. I've been retired now 26 years, but it was a great assignment working with those real combat warriors, um, learning from them. Um I think it made me a better leader uh just working with them and watching them work. So yeah, it was a blast. But nope, you you can't tell. Yeah, it's not the guy element. I mean, yeah, I think today this is it's still the same. It's like 90% attrition. It's crazy. And and that's just to get into the pipeline. Yeah, right. You're just trying, you're trying out to get into the pipeline, which is another 18 months or whatever it is today.

SPEAKER_04 4:38

Trying out to try out.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

Yeah, and I had great superintendents, great, on the CCT side and on the PJ side. Those senior NCOs, uh, senior master Rod Alney and Mass Sergeant Craig Schowers. Awesome guys, awesome guys. All the experience in the world. I'm just a satellite engineer guy, right? And here I got this assignment. I've got to figure out how to earn the respect of these guys because they're like, oh, it's the geek over there.

SPEAKER_04 5:00

Do you have any imposter syndrome there?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

No, I didn't. I I knew what my I I knew what my role was um when I got the assignment. All of my officer assignments except the first one, I I actually chose. Oh no. And this one I chose because it was gonna stretch me as a leader. Um and so, and it did. It did.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

Cool. Again, everybody's missing out because I've heard some awesome stories from John about his time there. The Michael Phelps lookalike destroyed the swim and then like couldn't do a single pull-up. You sneaking up on those guys in the woods, guys running through the what did they run through on that final run? They were coming through the uh like the med debt or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 5:45

Oh, yeah. One of one of my instructors, I was retiring at that point and all that. And uh one of my instructors, it was their final 10-mile grad grad run, graduation run. And uh, so by that time, after two years, I was pretty close to keeping up with everybody in the beginning. Forget about it. It wasn't happening. These guys are animals, right? Including the students. I mean, it's crazy. But we're on a I was on the 10-mile grad one, it was the last grad run, it was the last one I was gonna do. And uh um Sergeant Faye kept going, oh, we're gonna go run through the clinic. Let's run, let's go through the clinic. You know, they're singing Jody's all the whole 10 miles they're running. So I kept saying, No, no, I'm not gonna get fired while I'm trying to retire. And I'm running through the clinic. So they worked on me and worked on me, and I went, Yeah, I'm retiring. What the hell? So I said, All right, I don't want to hear anything. We're gonna just gonna shuffle our feet through that clinic. So we went right through that clinic. Those guys were all carrying their rope and uh that uh, you know, represented the PJs and control combat controls that came before them, which was pretty inspirational. And we ran through that clinic, and of course it was packed that day. Uh, and everybody's watching, what is this? And we came in one door, went out the other, and there's this BMT flights wanting to come into the clinic. They had to wait for us to get out. I went right to my boss and said, Yeah, you might get a phone call. Here's what I just did. So yeah, it was uh it was cool.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

Some airman's getting dental. He's like, what is happening?

SPEAKER_01 7:16

It was fun.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

Yep, it's good stuff.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

That was a good way to end my career working with those guys. But yeah, I I have all the respect in the world with them, you know, with them and and for them and what they do and their families. And because you you guys know you're Marines. I mean, these guys are gone forever. Yeah, they're just not home. So anyway, I all of that is what brought me, helped me in the fire service all these years trying to apply it. The ironic thing is I didn't know when I had um I commanded a range support squadron at the Utah Test range. Um and and I got that assignment uh kind of betting that things would happen. And if I showed up, it was gonna happen, and it did. And uh but the interesting thing, you know, when you're up there and you're working, the there's all kinds of other people that pretty much kind of run everything. When you get into that, when you start getting into that senior captain 04 uh realm, um you just gotta you just gotta learn from everybody else who knows knows the business uh that you're actually in. And fortunately, that's when I got introduced to the fire department. We had 10 firefighters in a fire department on the range that worked for me. And those guys were always training, which is I loved it. I found myself kind of hanging out with them in the fire station a lot um when I wasn't busy doing everything else I had to do because they were always training, whether it was on chemicals or something. We had a lot of chemicals out there. Um but yeah, it was it was great. That was my first introduction to the fire service.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

There is a fire you talk about quite often. It was Cameron Peak. Was that the fire that was pretty large out there? Or thinking another?

SPEAKER_01 8:56

No, no, it was uh it was called Waldo Canyon.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Waldo Canyon.

SPEAKER_01 9:01

There were two fires in Colorado Springs. One was Waldo Canyon in 2012, and then 50 weeks later was the Black Forest Fire. Yeah, those are pretty large in Colorado Springs. 300 some art homes on Waldo Canyon were lost. Um that thing, down sloping winds, moved right into Colorado Springs and took out Mountain Shadows community. And then there was uh Black Forest fire, which destroyed over 500 homes uh in Black Forest, north of Colorado Springs, all with literally within a year by two weeks. Uh so it was a tough time in 2012, 2013.

SPEAKER_02 9:32

How was your experience on that on the Waldo Canyon?

SPEAKER_01 9:34

Waldo Canyon um as the fire chief, excuse me, as the fire chief, you know, I stayed in my district. My guys went down to support with an engine. Um so and we were effectively a lookout until that fire turned north, and then eventually, and we we um evacuated everybody from our mountain community. They had never been evacuated before, Manitou Springs evacuated as that fire started coming down and then it turned north. Fortunately, it kept going. Fortunately for us, unfortunately for the other homes in uh Mount Shadows. Um Black Forest is the one that was the eye-opener because you showed up and there were engines coming from within a, I don't know, 200 mile radius of Colorado Springs. And as they all came in, we got our assignment when we went up there, and they just said, go to this street, save what you can. I mean, I've never had an assignment that just says go save what you can. And then it was it was at in at night in the dark, and uh you drove into your your area within your division, and it was like foundation, foundation. Oh, there's a house.

SPEAKER_06 10:40

Just doing structure protection.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Not even structure protection. We were saving what we could. I mean, we were not posting up anywhere. There was no water. The water distribution system uh completely um with drained by everyone left.

SPEAKER_02 10:56

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

It was it was very sad. I mean, there's you know, you sit there, you're trying to do the best you can, and they had evacuated everybody. But when you when you're sitting there, it's like save what you can. It's like, okay, there's nothing to save there, there's nothing to save there, and all of a sudden there's a house. Then you finish that one and do the structural protection stuff without staying there and just throw everything off the deck and all that, and then go to the next house and the next house. That's what that whole first night was like. 60 mile an hour winds. It was crazy.

SPEAKER_02 11:20

So do you feel like it was probably similar to a Palisade scenario where it's just well Palisades was obviously worse, but oh yeah, absolutely. And even though, I mean, did most of these homes do fuel mitigation around their properties or was there pretty heavy fuel loading?

SPEAKER_01 11:34

So the issue, as you know, I do firewise assessments, um, home ignition zone assessments, uh, for Damron and other communities that that want me to come by. And I've been studying Dr. Jack Cohen and others at the Missoula Fire Science Lab for years, and I learned how to do this in Colorado working with the state forester's office and all that. And so, and then you just study it and you you you you you listen to the lectures that they do sometimes. And um, Dr. Cohen has got so many videos on structure protection that residents can do um online, it's incredible uh the the value of what it is that he's put online. And so I think from that perspective, um learning how to do all that, and then knowing that even residents that that uh have done everything, there's no guarantee, right? And those guys, and I mentioned those those doc those Dr. Cohen and Dr. Corles, for example, Steve Quarles, I think is his name, you know, there's studies that have come out of Berkeley where when you have structure density, that's not a good thing. So, you know, one structure's gonna light off another structure and all that kind of stuff. So you don't have structure, and that's the highest problem area that you could have in a community if it exists. But it's the ember shower, those fire brands that really will get will get somebody. Um, and when you have downsloping winds on a fire, like we had at Pine Valley on the Forsyth fire, it just comes down and just attacks the community. It's those fire brands that are creating, you know, that those spot fires uh one after the other. And when this home gets just gets pummeled with them, and you've got these little bushes right underneath the window, the bush catches on fire, cracks the window, now the windows open, and then it gets inside the house. Yeah, it's what are you gonna do? So I've I've spent the last year and a half now as the fire marshal for Dameron doing just dozens and dozens and dozens of these firewise assessments for people's homes.

SPEAKER_06 13:38

Are they surprised after you give them that?

SPEAKER_01 13:40

Oh, I've had I've had Brendan, I've had everything from people dropping F-bombs at me. I'm not cutting that down. You're bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

It's just a juniper, let it go. Right.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

That's my favorite tree to no. Thank you for coming. Um, we didn't know, we appreciate it. And so, and then you've had everybody in the beginning, in the middle, um, especially in the beginning, where you know, you just start talking. Okay, here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna start in zone one, I'm gonna go to zone two, then I'm gonna go to zone three. You're gonna stay with me. I'm gonna show you all these things. I'm gonna check your house, make sure your house is hardened, I'm gonna look for any gaps that exist. It's not as simple as just you got class A roofing material and you got class A siding. Yet you got all these holes in there because of things you installed on the home and all that that that are gonna cause the embers to attack the house. So yeah, it's it's it's you just don't know. So you you you educate the public, you teach them the concepts of the firewise program that the federal government has created, which is kind of the national standard. Um, you give them information exchange, everything you can give them, hand it to them. Um and now we do um community wildfire workshops at Damrond Valley three times a year. So uh we get up and we talk to the residents, and then it's been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. I think the last one we had was like 80, 90 people show up. And some of these people are regulars, they come every workshop just to hear what's new, what's happening, what what do I have to think about. But uh it's it's it's all good. And I and I and I enjoy that. And I asked the residents one time, what do you what would you like us to do? Would you like me to just put this information on the internet and you can read it? Or do you prefer this? No, we'd rather come listen to you.

SPEAKER_06 15:28

So um they've they're believers now in this whole construct of wildfire mitigation and they know they're at risk with the more horror stories, whether it's Colorado Springs or Palisades or whatever. They're at risk. Their investment is at risk, their lives are at risk. They're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

Well, you look and we have a senior community in Damron Valley, so when you look at um, you know their focus needs to be on getting out of there. Right? I don't need you standing on your roof with your garden hosed going like this, right? Right? We're there 24-7. We will call the army to come as needed. Um and Damron is in a high-risk buyer area. Uh just look at the insurance policies that are getting canceled. Uh insurance fees are going up, all of that.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

So Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think like the Forsyth fire here last year was a wake-up call for a lot of people. Oh, yeah. I mean, how many structures did we lose? I thought it was like 12 or 13. I think it was 12, yeah. I that I remember being up there because Danbro called me. He was up there that night and I was on the phone with him. I saw the uh the smoke and the column come up. I'm like, are we going? He's like, Well, uh, we'll see if the wind shifted 20 minutes later. This thing is ripping towards town. We're like, all right, we're going. Yeah. Me and Travis showed up uh on the ambulance as the only medical resource before the CIAMT or CIMT even showed up three days later. And that first day, uh I somehow we had the Silver State uh hotshot crew, I see there. And we within an hour were digging line around the fire station in Pine Valley to save it. And they're grabbing drip torches and lighting everything off. I was like, this is rad. Like it was it was a rodeo that first day. But yeah, just a freak wind event.

SPEAKER_01 17:10

Of course.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

Shifted the right way, and then you know, dry conditions because we've been in a drought here for forever. And then uh, I mean, there were spots where Hurricane Valley had some firemen, structure guys, right? And they had their engine out on the road. He had the hose and he was opening the nozzle, you could see where the siding melted, and then there's a part that's like semi-okay, and then it melts on the other side because that guy was sitting there with the nozzle just taking the heat from that that flame front. I was like, unbelievable. Like it was it was a wild, we heard propane tanks popping. It was a good fire. Well, obviously, unfortunate, but for somebody who does the job, you know, you train for it and you're you're like, Yeah, that was combat that night. Yeah, it really was. It was incredible stuff. And then, you know, it migrated, ended up migrating up into the mountains, and that's where we ended up. Because I spent a full month on that fire. It was over two weeks on the first uh half of it, and then you know, another two weeks with our REMs team up there getting flown in with the hot shots, sleeping with a hundred other dudes up in this meadow. There were there were no poop spots left. That was that was that was combat for us up there.

SPEAKER_06 18:16

So you guys are getting flown in with your REMs gear and stuff, yeah, right? So, what was that like? Because that's not as common for maybe some of the REMs teams out there as that weight consideration comes into play there.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

So it does, except you're the REMs team. So there's other things you have to take up with you, right? It's not just your 14-day campaign bag and your and your in your pack and a hand tool. Um, we have to take up all our med packs, and that's gonna weigh what it's gonna weigh. Yeah, right. Um, and then anything else that we think we need as the REMs team. So that really didn't come into play in terms of uh questioning what our stuff weighed because they would just bring our stuff with the next helicopter that came up. So eventually we get everything. Um but we got there uh and they gave us a day to just start driving around, look for different you have to scout out a little bit. Yep, it's all part of the pace planning, right? How are we gonna get off this thing if we gotta get off, right? Um so we literally drove around the Pine Valley Mountains uh looking for different avenues off the top if we couldn't get a helicopter, things like that. And so um the once we got on top, uh, after they decided, okay, we need to put guys up there because someone had gotten hurt, too many divisions up there that are spread way out, like Brennan alluded to earlier. Um, I think the one REMs team with a bunch of PJs that was up there was pretty far away from where that guy got injured, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:43

Yeah, but they had that IWI. Uh somebody on the IHC had fallen and sustained a TBI during the fall, and they had hit them up. And I remember listening with the with you on command to why everything was going on. They were over an hour out by foot. Uh, and they just, I mean, short hall showed up before they could even get up to them.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So that was they were spread too thin. So that's when they said, You guys are going up there, and they said, Yeah, you'll be back in a few days. Well, it didn't happen. Uh, we spent the whole the whole time up there.

SPEAKER_02 20:10

Yeah, came down.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

But it was it was, I'm telling you, it was great for a number of reasons. One, uh the team, especially Brennan as a paramedic, um, who had the experience before was able to articulate to the division supervisor here's how spread thin we are when your division is out working every day. You need to get a med mod up here. And oh, by the way, there's a med mod down there on standby. Um try to grab them because we could use their help up here. And then they brought up what, a paramedic and another EMT, or there was some others that got that got brought up too. So now we had we literally had our division covered, and it was great. And you know, we'd get up on high, and our our goal would be to head downhill to the to to the IWI.

SPEAKER_06 20:57

It's definitely easier going down. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:58

I mean, just think smarter, right?

SPEAKER_06 21:01

And so you saw that gap there like with the division, and you talked to your division leader, Tax.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

I remember what resources we had up there. I know for sure we had it was Boise IHC, there was another IHC, and then Salt Lake City type two, but I they've got their IHC status now, is my understanding. Yeah, they had their own med EMS folks with them, but they didn't have the stuff that we're then we had the Fish Lake regulars and uh I think another crew when we first got up there, I forget where they were from. So I mean, we had five hand crews and we had four medical personnel on one REMS team, and they're literally spread out over miles. So we're like, yeah, we'll go recon in our first day recon. And man, I mean, dude, we hiked our butts off. I don't even know how many miles we put in that first day. I was like, this is this isn't gonna work. So yeah, we went and talked to division and the division we worked for, man, she was a uh a former Boise shot, one of the best divisions I've ever worked for. Yeah. She was incredible, like just a go getter. Like, knew her stuff better than anybody. I mean, there was a day I remember waking up and we're like, Where did Division go? She had gotten up at 2 30 because she's like, I just had a feeling. She had hiked down the line. She's like, Yeah, it moved just like I thought. I was like, You've been up since 2.30, too.

SPEAKER_03 22:13

Dang. And then she obviously lit.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Yeah, she's incredible. You know, the guys need lunches. Uh, there was a problem with the helicopter and get lunches. And she literally slung these things on her hand tool and carried in 15 lunches like miles down the line. I'm jeez. That's super cool.

SPEAKER_01 22:28

We asked when she wanted help, but she's going, no, I got it. Type of leaders, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:31

Like you were talking about. It's phenomenal human being. You can see it. So she was killing it, and I was like, hey, you know, we we really need some more resources up here. Because if you have an IWI here, we're not getting there. If it happens over here, we're not getting here. Here's our plan right now.

SPEAKER_01 22:42

You gave her a solution, too. Right. You have a solution.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

I think that's what made it easier. Right. We have a medmon at staging right now. If you're good with it, I'm gonna call the Med L and I'm gonna do what I can to get them up here. She's like, I have one requirement. They need to be fit. I was like, Copy. We got it. Yeah, I mean, you know, that I could go on about that. I have my opinions. Yes, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

Yeah, be careful.

SPEAKER_02 23:04

So we had uh we had those guys flown up by name requests, and we knew them. It was uh Johnny Deal and Cody Green, guys who work for NIMS, phenomenal. Uh so we got them up there and we, you know, we created the med plan, went and briefed Allison or uh division, said, hey, this is the plan that are here, we're staged here. If anything happens, this point on, this point on, there's what we're doing. Helicopter, tail to tail with a life flight. We've talked to Medel, they've got the number. I mean, this med plan was airtight. It was phenomenal. And then having Johnny up there too, I mean, he's a nerd, right? Like he's awesome. He's uh doubt doing stuff in the Philippines, overseas, constantly doing that type of stuff. So we're able to sit down and say, hey, you know, what do we have in our narc box? I've got this, you've got this. Here's our pace plan. If somebody gets hurt past pumpkin and we have to sit on this guy overnight, here's the drips, here's what we're gonna be doing, uh primary alternate. I mean, it was phenomenal. One of the best like med plans I've we've ever put together. So awesome experience, really cool. Because we had Lau with us, and that was his first REMS roll, I think. So he really got to see right off the bat, like, welcome to Rams, yeah. And again, you know, we were hiking up these mountains every single day, hiking up in the morning, staging up top. If anything happened, when we get to go downhill. But the terrain was awful. And there was the only way in and out was by helicopter because you know, the Medels sitting in their tent were like, hey, carry them down this uh this trail going down to Oak Grove Cramped Count. And we're like, there's no way. It's not the trail you think it is. Like, look at those the those contour lines on that map. They're that they look like they're one line for a reason. There's 15 of them packed in there. So, I mean, because who one of the hotshot crews hiked down that that next day?

SPEAKER_01 24:48

Down that summit trail and they said they wish they didn't do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

When you have an IHC telling you, don't go down. I'm like, yeah, copy. So it's it was a that was a great role. Really learned a ton from it. I think one of the things we got pigeonholed into was like, hey, we're gonna we spent a whole night going in saying, all right, here's our flight weight, here's what we're taking to kind of make this more minimalistic. And then we got up there and the Hell Attack guys were like, if you need something, just do it. Yeah, man. I mean, these IHCs had like solar farms up there. I mean, you're talking 15 solar panels hooked into a power station so they could run their Starlink. So I think for medical, like if you're really able to articulate the need for a certain thing, like get it done. And John and I have kind of been shooting back ideas back and forth because I was thinking about putting together a pull-on field care box, something to fly in that's got a Bivi, an extra sleeping bag, maybe if you've got a vent, then bring it up there with you as well, just in case you have that patient you got to sit on overnight. Because if you can't get a bird, you can't get a bird. What are you gonna do? Um, we did have a couple of like greens slash yellows that could have easily become reds. You know, we had that guy with the abscess on his foot. I'm like, I'm not even gonna deal with this. Like, you're gone, man. I don't want to be behind the eight ball up here. So we had to organize some flights. We had a guy with a ruptured wisdom tooth, he was dying. And that's when me and Johnny started throwing back and forth. All right, man, I don't want to pop my bark box, but you've got tordol, let's try this first. And if he wakes up in the middle of the night just in panic, because again, we were bass pumpkin, and we can't get him down. Like, oh, what's our plan for treating this patient long term long term until the morning light comes and we can get a bird on the ground? So it was uh it was a great fire. It was really a lot of good lessons learned. Did the tordol work? He was good. We gave him I gave him something else before, and uh just a couple of those like you know tricks of like, hey, just bite this and something else and some wax, and he was all right, but yeah, we got him out.

SPEAKER_04 26:49

So nice.

SPEAKER_06 26:52

A lot going on up there. What's your comparison between that role and like a role with another contract company, REMs-wise, between structure, standards, gear, anything?

SPEAKER_02 27:02

It's all the same in the sense that any REMs team could be asked to do that, right? Um, in terms of how agency cooperators differ from private contractors, again, there's there's no set standards in RAMs at this point. Obviously, John was uh super open to me coming in and saying this is how we operate because of you guys, right? Right.

SPEAKER_06 27:23

So I was curious.

SPEAKER_02 27:24

Went to this prevail course, man. This this eight mil is nice and light. You guys can you imagine us hiking up those mountains that we did with 11 mil and a bunch of steel carabiners, added another 40, 50 pounds at least between the four of us.

SPEAKER_03 27:40

I don't want to. Why are you doing this?

SPEAKER_02 27:42

Yeah. It would have been brutal. So again, it it comes down to individual teams and and the departments and what they want to do and what their knowledge base is.

SPEAKER_06 27:51

Well, it's cool to know that the departments kind of have some pull on what they want to do. They don't there's not some big standard that you guys have to follow to a certain point, and you can kind of make it your own business, like you said.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

Well, it doesn't, you know, everything we all, you know, a lot of us come from the structure side, right? That that's a round peg, square peg trying to go into the opposite hole. It doesn't work that way. You've gotta you've gotta evolve and you've got to learn, right? Um you know, we're we got we had nine and a half mil, we're all compliant with everything that we had. Um I love the idea of that Brian's now pushing to go into the eight mil uh based on what we're gonna be dealing with. Um but you have to you have to really understand that you're there for somebody else. You know, we're not there to look cool, um, we're not there to carry all kinds of cool toys and things like that. There's a there's there's a mission that we have when that IWI kicks off. Number one, you gotta get there quick. Number two, you have to, you know, if the line medic is already taking care of things, that's fantastic. We got our role. Uh, we know what we're gonna do. That's a different pack that we're gonna bust open and start setting things up to get this guy out, or just be ground, you know, ground contact for the the short haul, or however, however we set it up. But every day I think, and we learned this all last year with all of our assignments. What can we do better from the previous assignment? And so, and we did that. We would we come home. Hey, we this is the list of stuff that we said we needed. We went and got it. Now it's in our cash. Um, there were some other things that we wanted to do, and just in terms of as a team, we made those changes. Um working with other uh EMS personnel on the fire, you kind of got to be out there embracing people. Uh Brendan's great at that his personnel, he's very jovial and all that. So he'll break the ice no matter what, right? So and that's how it worked. And so seeing that, seeing how effective that is, everybody else gets to see that and say, hey, we are all the same team. Um you bring ilities that I expect to see. Uh first of all, I expect to see them on my team, but the illities that other people have who come to the dance, um, do they match ours? All right. Uh, because if you've got weaknesses and you can't deliver, then it falls back to us to make up for it. So uh I think I think overall, all of our assignments that we've had have been pretty damn good. Um the Forsyth fire, he was talking about the the div soup that we work for. Um she would every ops brief, she'd look at the REMS team and go, All right, what do you guys got set up for today? I mean, we had that spot to speak about, all right. And the paramedics would say, Here's what we're doing today. You know, in the event we have need patient care, whatever, here's where we're gonna be, here's where they're gonna be. Uh, and that was every morning. It was fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 30:47

Well, she ended up leaving about halfway through our our tenure up there, and another division came in, and I think like he was blown away. And he mentioned when he was going down, he said specifically, even in our eval, this is the new standard for medical resources for me. And I think what blew his mind the most was the fact that every day we would give him a briefing. Hey, this is what our plan is to get somebody out based on where there's these guys are looking or working. I don't think he's ever had that because how many times do you see a single resource guy just show up sit in the truck and division doesn't even know where he is? Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

So that's the well there was another side to that. The other piece was, and and even Allison saw this, um, we trained every day. Once everybody made it to the field, to their line uh in the division, then we rolled out. We were always we were always last out, let them get to where they need to be so we could figure it all out. And we were last in all the time.

SPEAKER_05 31:40

Every time.

SPEAKER_01 31:41

But every day, these div sweeps that are out there um humping a ruck saw us, we were training. We just weren't sitting around on our packs, right? Busting into our MRE or whatever. We were up, uh we had ropes out. Um not that we were we were conflicting ourselves where our equipment was out, um, but we had enough of it out to train. And so all last year on every assignment, we did that. Anytime someone drove, you're not gonna see at least a Dameron Rems team sitting in the truck. If I can sit in the truck and just hang out for an hour, well, I can also be in the back of the truck talking about EMS, a cardiac call, um doing some rope work um with a Spock and a rope man and a small piece of rope. And we did that all the time. I mean, we're not going anywhere for two weeks around here. Might as well train every day, and we did. And everybody notices that. When we were in South Carolina, we were we also were working out every day. So when they pulled everybody in because it was raining, um, we're outside of our our cache, and um Brennan's showing everybody how to use a mace and all that. Next thing you know, we get another bunch of people come over wanting to work out with us, and uh then some people came over with some instruments and started playing it. My goodness, you wouldn't have thought it was a wildfire. I'll be honest, I was a little nervous about that. As soon as the banjo and the all that came out, I'm like, okay, I know we're just hanging out right here because it's not good out there, but it was a little over the top. Unfortunately, we were still lifting, so that was fine.

SPEAKER_06 33:16

It's awesome stuff. Yeah, and you got to train in the areas too because your anchors are different, the soil materials, like everything's different with the places you go. So having that spare cash to do trainings uh is not only good for just you dib driving by and seeing, but for your awareness of that med plan you're making. Um you gotta know those things.

SPEAKER_01 33:35

And there was one other, you know, opportunity we had. I remember we were set up way up high. Um and I and they were doing that that test burn. Yeah. And I remember telling the REMs team, I told our guys I said, okay, here's the trigger point. That thing gets over that trigger point there, we're getting off this peak. Uh we don't need to be up here. So as always, do your REMS team members have enough experience on the fire. The fire is still there, right? You're just not out camping doing cool rope stuff. Um, there is a wildfire there.

SPEAKER_02 34:11

Yeah. So I think that's a a big missing piece that you know we're so excited about. The ropes and the medical. Oftentimes we might overlook the fire sense that comes with years of experience of being an FFT1 or an engine boss, understanding where to be and where not to be. You know, back to that team. By the way, like a phenomenal team, right? Four PJs. They can do anything in the world, but they're way cooler than me. I would trust them to do any job better than me. But one of the things it was funny because one of the Hell attack guys had a story about him where they were all down there at night and somebody had lit a fire and they were like, guys, you know there's fire over there, right? They're like, Yeah, it's cool. It's cool, right? So I think just coming in with a little bit more fire sense and having that under your belt is going to change how you might operate as a REMS team as well.

SPEAKER_01 34:55

Yeah, you've been getting that because you've been out with our brushman.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Yeah, yeah, trying to get as many engine rolls as I can in to get ink in the task book and to really understand wildland fire behavior better than I have been because again, this is this is year six for me. And the past five years, I feel like the past two are the ones where I really like got the uh the medicine and the ropes down well enough where I'm like, okay, I'm gonna start dabbling in the wildland fire behavior uh knowledge and and the hell attack. And I mean, the rabbit hole goes deep. You can do a whole bunch of stuff, but really understanding that and getting in, getting it in where you can is is huge, I think.

SPEAKER_01 35:32

I would like to see the standards tighten up um you know, coming out of Boise when they establish these standards for REMs teams, um, put a little bit more I mean the PAC test is the PAC test, but that is not what a REMs team from a fitness perspective needs, depending on where you get deployed. Yeah. And so I think down the road, if there's a strategic plan to be developed for future REMS teams, even if those REMs teams now become an asset for natural disasters and things like that, uh, there has to be a a tightening up of those kind of standards. Telling me I gotta have 22 carabiners and whatever, okay. Anyone can check that list and go to REI and buy that doesn't mean you I got all the stuff. That doesn't mean I can do what I got to do when it's time to do it. Yeah. So cool.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

Yeah. Well, uh for your app, I wanted to ask, you said it's really important in business and the fire service to set goals and measure your progress. Do you have any goals for 2026 and how are they coming along?

SPEAKER_01 36:32

For me?

SPEAKER_04 36:32

Or the department?

SPEAKER_01 36:33

Oh, well, mine is to travel more. Okay. Actually, do the retired piece of retirement?

SPEAKER_06 36:42

Yeah, yeah. So then where's the first place on the travel list then?

SPEAKER_01 36:45

So we my wife and I did start traveling uh a couple years ago. We went to Greece for the first time. Uh my ancestors are from an island in Greece, and so that was nice going to that island and all that. Went to Greece again. Uh this year we're going to Italy. Uh, so I I am trying to do a better job um traveling for my wife. Uh, you know, I've been talking about it, but I'm a workaholic and she knows that. Um, but I'm really trying to just kind of let things go. If next year all I do and I'm not the fire marshal and they just Brennan calls me up or someone calls me and says, Can you go on this REMs role? I think so. Let me check my travel schedule.

SPEAKER_04 37:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Um, I'd I'd like to I'd like to at least do that. Um as far as the department is concerned, we are still in our in our journey of getting to Vision 2030, of course, right? Replacing all of our antiquated apparatus, uh, getting getting more tight on the the paid staff side where we have a real A, B, and C shift with minimum staffing that's required. This is part of that journey, right? Slowly building up your budget that can handle those kinds of things. So I think in 2027, you'll see that see that uh be the targets for the department. But Chief Reefer, who took over for me, he sets those those goals and all that for the department. But I know he's going down that path. Um trying to get closer and closer to satisfying our key performance parameters that I mentioned earlier. So and here's here's here's something that some people have misunderstood. It's on our website where we talk about we disrupted the fire service. You know, we disrupted the fire service within our own organization. We flipped it on its head. And we are still kind of doing that. Um we're not we are never satisfied with where we are. If you get to a point where you're satisfied, well, what's next? Nothing. You're gonna set back. And so that's not how we think, not how I think. Um, and old Chief Reefer doesn't think that way. So there has to be that you may get to that plateau, but hopefully it's a false summit and there's more to do. So um if you think about it in a business sense, that's how it looks. If you're just gonna do the status quo and it's just you know, hey, we're gonna survive, uh, you're not gonna survive. You'll be out of business really quick. So, and uh the fire department's not gonna go out of business. It's something we need. Like a cell phone. Everybody needs a cell phone.

SPEAKER_04 39:14

Gotta have it.

SPEAKER_02 39:15

All right. AI is smarter than my firefighters. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 39:18

Yeah, and firefighters.

SPEAKER_04 39:21

Anything else from either of you guys? Oh, this was all. Well, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_06 39:25

This is super cool. You had a lot of interesting stories. I could see uh you being back on here to talk about more of this. Yeah, can't wait to dive into that. And if you don't get out with the department, you can hit Minute Man up. We'll we'll get you on there. Oh, yeah, all right. Retirement gig.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

My wife will love that.

SPEAKER_06 39:41

In between travels, it'll it'll have fun the next one. Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate you. Appreciate it.