Hazardous Materials Response

Before I started writing on the the Fire Service Warrior topics I published several articles on Hazardous Materials response. Below is one that was published by Fire Engineering in the May 2004 issue.

First-due fire companies will initially recognize many haz-mat incidents. Your engine crew may be dispatched for the "odor investigation," for example, and arrive at a construction site to find a drum leaking an unknown substance. Your truck crew may be assigned to investigate an "unknown alarm" going off, called in by a cell phone caller, of course, and find that it is a chlorine alarm at a local pool. It is the first-due company that will initiate the haz-mat response team's (HMRT) action and set the stage for the incident.

Members who aren't certified haz-mat technicians sometimes feel that there is little they can do between calling for the response team and that team's arrival. That is far from true. Taking small but crucial steps in the first minutes will dramatically improve the course of the entire incident. What, then, can our first-due responders, our awareness- and operations-trained personnel, do to make
this situation better without exceeding the scope of their training? They can keep themselves and the local civilian population out of the hazardous area and establish the incident management system (IMS).

The entire article can be found online: Engine and Truck Company Initial Actions

Give it a look.

A Cold Day

I wrote this about four years ago, in my first year with my current department. I'm in the process of working on my article on "Personal Condition", hope to share that soon.

Well, yesterday was a decent day. We caught a few runs: a Gas Leak which turned out to be nothing; an automatic alarm, which we got held up on; a reported car fire that was bogus and then at 4:30 this morning or so we caught a working fire. The building was a 2 story coach-house (garage below with living space above) about 50x20. Near as I could tell the 1st floor was ordinary construction and the second floor was frame. We pulled up as the second engine. I went to the front and helped finish flaking out the first line. I managed to get the Lieutenant who was stretching the line to give me the pipe (nozzle) for the initial attack.

As far as I am concerned there is no better place to be on the fire ground then the pipeman on the first line. You are going in to do battle with the enemy. The enemy is two-fold though: 1st there is the fire, which is a living, breathing, eating thing that will kill you to death if you let it outsmart you. 2nd there is the building you're in. You're working inside of a structure that is being degraded and destroyed the entire time you are in it. Today I put my foot through a step at one point and nearly fell into a hole in the floor. That and of course the only thing holding the building up (it's "gravity resistance system") is being eaten away. So, there is of course some need to operate swiftly and with purpose if you're going to be headed inside one of these things.

So, I started to make the stairwell. Smoke had banked all the way down the stairs so we were on air (using our SCBA [Self Contained Breathing Apparatus] from the get go and visibility was about 6 inches or so. I just stared making my way up the stairs. I got about 6 or 8 steps up and started to see orange. The glow or heat from a fire is usually your guidepost because visibility is so bad. You don’t want to start flowing water unless you are actually hitting the fire because all you will do is disrupt the thermal balance and make things worse.

The idea behind this is that fire, smoke and the rest do follow the laws of physics and that heat and smoke rise. So, it is considerably hotter at the ceiling level then at the floor (at times 600 or 700 degree different). If you randomly apply cold water to the ceiling you cool the super heated gasses and cause them to "fall", which makes visibility even worse and pushes toxic products of combustion down to the floor level. That will cause harm to any unprotected civilians that your brothers are still searching for.

I was moving one stair at a time. Open up, darken the fire down, shut down move. It is a pretty straightforward sequence. Once I made the landing at the top of the stairs, though I had fire burning on both sides of me. I just sat at the top of the stairs for awhile working one side and then the other until finally the fire was knocked enough to be able to advance into the room to the right. We began working out way deeper into the building. There was fire continually lighting up behind us which made our advance a sort of one step forward, two steps back affair. You never allow fire to break out behind you. Things like that kill firemen.

We got a second line up on the roof outside the area we were fighting the fire in and they we able to darken down a section that we were unable to reach. It wasn't a very hot fire, but it was shitty smoke wise. Eventually I used up my first bottle (each bottle is in theory designed to last 30 minutes. When you are really working hard 17 or 18 is more typical if you’re in shape.). I beat feet outside, changed bottles and was right back in. By this point my gear is soaked, my gloves are soaked and being outside just means icing up. There was still enough fire and heat trapped in the building that it was a whole lot more comfortable in there. I was back in, pulling ceiling (which we do to expose void spaces). Between your drywall and the structural members above there is a space formed by the framing lumber. In this case it was a 2"x6" Rafter roof so every 16-24" on center there is a 2"x6" board running front to back but the ceiling was dropped about 2" below that leaving a clear open void running the entire top of the building (the rafters will run the shortest distance between outside walls, so that "orientation" changes from building to building.) Fire was running through this area pretty fiercely. We pulled ceiling through out. The bathroom was fun to operate in. The toilet was literally overflowing with shit. Abandoned buildings like this get their water shut off and other utilities disconnected, but they become shelters for squatters and the homeless, especially in weather like this. Once we found that the toilet had been... heavily used, so to speak, we started another search to make sure that we didn't have someone in the building.

Searching is a very difficult task. You can't see and then you are wearing full gear and heavy gloves. Your senses are reduced to that of a blind, deaf, half-nerve damaged moron. It's easy to mistake the body of a person as a pile of clothing or the cushions of a couch. A couple of guys started a secondary search (which is a fairly comprehensive search begun once the fire is mostly under control). We had done a primary search as we advanced the line (a primary is a RAPID search of likely areas to find someone: close to doors or windows; sleeping quarters; paths of egress. 70% of victims are found in these areas).

Three air-bottles and 2 hours later we had the fire knocked down and got into overhaul. Overhaul is a process of checking for hidden fire and extension. We pull furniture and piles of clothes apart... anything that is dense and may be hiding from view smoldering fire. We open walls and ceilings if it hasn't already been done and we wash everything down pretty thoroughly. The best way to make sure you don’t have a rekindle is to soak the living shit out of everything. By this point my first pair of gloves literally have so much water in them that I have water pooling up in the fingers. I dump those in the rig before we start overhaul because I know that my hands will start to freeze now that the building is cooling off. The building was a loss; whoever had been squatting there probably caused the fire with some kind of warming barrel, or by burning trash in the sink or tub to keep warm.

Picking up was a joy. It is now, at 9:55 CST 1, degree outside, so this morning it was probably a couple of digress below zero. The streets are covered in ice. I was one of the few guys who managed not to fall. My gear is soaked so I am turning into a popsicle just by being outside and the fingers on my second pair of now wet gloves keep freezing so I can't move them. I have to mash my hands together to force the ice on the fingers to break. We have to pick up all the hose and drain it and roll it. Normally we put the hose back on the rigs, but in weather like this everything goes back to the station to thaw first. 2nd Shift brought the pick-up out to load the frozen hose on and about 7:15 (which is 15 minutes after shift change) we all headed back. It took till 8:30 to get everything back in service. Bottles refilled with air, frozen 1-3/4" handlines thawed enough to hang in the hose tower, 5" supply line drained, thawed and cleaned to re-bed. Fortunately we had all of the 2nd shift guys and about half our shift that held over so it only took an hour or so to get the bulk of it done.

So, I am a bit tired, my fingers are still a little stiff and my back and arms are a little sore... I need a hot shower and something to eat, but I am satisfied. I love working in the ghetto. I wish there was some more politically correct term that would to justice to the town, but ghetto is it. It's falling apart and burning down. As a fireman it is a great place to go to really do the job and to continue to learn. The officers I work with are good teachers and patient. The guys are super supportive and encouraging. I've never before felt so welcome, so quickly to a new fire department. This is a group of men who I am proud to work with and touched when they call me brother. I'm very happy I made this choice. Cheers.

A Few Updates

Just to keep everyone in the loop Fire Engineering magazine will be publishing my article "You Want Me To Do What? - The Psychology and Physiology of Firefighting" in December's Print Issue. I also have received word that they are going to publish my Situational Awareness article in an issue next year. I'm sitting down to work on "The Ready Position - A Fireman's Personal Condition". More to come.

Situational Awareness Part 2

It's a Team Sport

    Firefighting is a team sport. We are not operating as individuals, and as such the actions of the Team are vital in our ability to maintain Situational Awareness. We accomplish this through the use of our SOGs, knowing what our teammates are doing based upon the situation. Think about a successful NFL Football Team. If the Offense has any hope of moving downfield and scoring a touchdown the guy calling the plays, be it the Head Coach (the I/C), the Offensive Coordinator (the Ops Section Chief) or the Quarterback (the Group Supervisor), has to rely on the each member of the team to perform his assigned mission without needing to be micromanaged. What happens when someone misunderstands the play that has been called? The Quarterback gets sacked, the pass gets intercepted, or the running back does not have a hole to run through. That well conceived plan is only as good as the execution of the individual team members. NFL teams play 16 games a year for sure, but they practice from the end of July till the beginning of September to make sure everyone knows the playbook. I'm going to use the Baltimore Ravens 2009 Training Camp Schedule as an example (they are the first Team listed on the NFL's website). They began practice for the season on July 28^th with twice a day practices. The first full-day that the players were off was August 14^th. During this time the team practiced 26 times, had team meetings and a pre-season game. These men work hard to make sure they are prepared physically before the season starts and then develop their ability to play as a team through difficult, realistic practices. Is your fire department training that hard? Do your companies know what everyone else on the fireground is going to be doing based on well developed SOGs and realistic scenario training?

    A key concept on the fireground is Implicit Coordination, the non-communicated coordination of action that takes place on the fireground. One study, Implicit Coordination in Firefighting Practice: Design Implications for Teaching Fire Emergency Responders, by Zachary O. Toups and Andruid Kerne of Texas A&M examines this in some detail. The authors examine how firefighters use "complementary communication modalities, well-defined roles, and shared experience histories to implicitly coordinate their actions." These aspects of Implicit Coordination allow firefighters to maintain a collective Situational Awareness, which the authors of the Texas A&M study team "Team Cognition". Team Cognition is an example of Distributed Cognition, "a theoretical framework for investigating how information is coordinated within systems of people, artifacts, and environments", that applies to small group actions, like a Fire Company, or a Football Team. In Team Cognition, or Team Situational Awareness as I call it, we are aware of the actions of the rest of the team based upon the audible and environmental cues we are receiving. If we do not have 100% knowledge of everything that is happening on the fireground because of direct observation, then we "fill in the blanks" using the cues we observe.

    As an example Tom and Bill are assigned to the Engine; Tom has the nozzle, Bill is the back-up man. They arrive on scene of a reported structure fire to find a working fire in what appears to be the kitchen of a one story ordinary house. They advance a cross-lay into the building based on SOG. As they make entry visibility is limited to about two or three inches above the floor. Tom moves forward into the structure and Bill remains just inside the front door feeding hose in. Tom and Bill work together every third shift, they have been to dozens of fires together, and they know the actions the other will take. As Tom is advancing the line Bill is listening to the staccato sound of the nozzle opening and closing as Tom ensures the ceiling isn't too hot, and as he sweeps the floor to ensure that it is intact and cool enough to crawl on. Tom's progress is not slowed because Bill knows that Tom moves in increments of four to five feet at a time, so he feeds ten feet of hose into the house each time he feels Tom advance. This is all accomplished with out a lot of talking back and forth, no screaming "Give me more line" or anything else. They are practicing Team Situational Awareness.

Team Situational Awareness must extend beyond the Company level though to the whole of the Fireground team. We need to "see" the big picture through the inputs we are receiving from the entire operation. As the Nozzleman of the attack line I am using the senses I have at my disposal, to maintain my Situational Awareness, but I am also relying on cues from the other firefighters operating on scene. I am listening for the sounds of windows breaking, a saw on the roof, and radio communication about what is happening in front, behind, above, below and to either side of me. These cues are being monitored by me and my Company as we advance on the seat of the fire to ensure that the environment will remain tenable for us. At the same time other companies are taking their cues from us. The Truck searching the floor above the fire is listening for the sound of victims, but also for the sound of water hitting the ceiling level below them; cues that them to maintain the same Team Situational Awareness that I have: we are getting water on the fire and the ceiling isn't so hot that everything is turning to steam. They know that it is okay to continue with their assignment with out having to listen to a radio message from the Engine Officer or a direction from the Operations Chief to go ahead. You don't need to actually say in your mind, "because I hear water hitting the ceiling and falling to the floor the temperatures in here are tenable for us to continue our tactical advance to the seat of the fire," if you have "read the playbook", understand what is happening on the fireground, and can observe the cues that are presented. You are using Team Situational Awareness to help "Observe" what else is occurring within the structure and continue making critical decisions using the Boyd Loop.

There are causes of Fireground Fatalities that we may be unable to prevent. Developing the skills of our personnel to maintain Situational Awareness will give them a better chance of avoiding one risk factor that will more often than not lead to a fatality: disorientation. Realistic, challenging, scenario based training performed in single Company, Battalion and Mutual-Aid exercises allow firemen to develop the cognitive skills to maintain Situational Awareness and utilize the Boyd Loop to make life and death Fireground Tactical and Strategic Decisions.

Situational Awareness

    

The fire ground is a dynamic environment that is filled with threats to the fire fighter. These threats exist in a 360° "bubble", left and right, in front of and behind, and above and below the firefighter. In order to safely operate in this kind of environment we must develop the skill to maintain Situational Awareness (SA). The United States Coast Guard says that, "Situational Awareness is the ability to identify, process, and comprehend the critical elements of information about what is happening to the team with regards to the mission." In other words if you have Situational Awareness you constantly know what is happening around you, and where you are in relation to threats. Situational Awareness is a concept that is taught in many Warrior circles, particularly to Fighter Pilots. Fighter Pilots must operate in an environment where they maintain 100% awareness of where they are in relation to friendly and hostile aircraft, and be able to predict how an engagement will unfold. If they lose Situational Awareness they run the risk of a mid-air collision, of being shot down, or possibly of shooting down a friendly aircraft. None of these circumstances would be acceptable, so Pilots train constantly to maintain their SA. They do this in simulators, low risk virtual reality "games", as well as in actual flight operations.

As firefighters the need to maintain Situational Awareness should be obvious. Like the Fighter Pilot we operate in an environment where threats can come from any direction. We must know where we are with-in the "battle space", the fire building. We must know where we are in relation to the seat of the fire. We must know where the other members of our crew, and the larger fire suppression team, are. For a fireman a loss of Situational Awareness means that he no longer is aware of where he is in relation to the "bubble". There is a breakdown of his ability to monitor where he and his crew are in relation to the fire, or a safe egress. He is no longer able to accurately interpret the effectiveness of his actions, nor the effectiveness of the suppression and rescue efforts as a whole. A loss of Situational Awareness can lead directly to disorientation. Disorientation far too often leads to a Fire Fighter Line of Duty Death.

Situational Awareness is a cognitive skill; it can be taught. Depending on your fire service experience you may already be using an effective means of teaching situational awareness. The Wildland Firefighting community is very effective at developing the skills needed to properly maintain SA. The Structural Firefighting community teaches new recruits skills that help in developing and maintaining SA, but not as often with the deeper understanding of the cognitive process. We can begin the process of developing Situational Awareness in the classroom, by examining the elements that lead to maintaining or loosing "the bubble". Through classroom foundations we can develop an understanding how our brains collect and analyze data. The concepts presented in the classroom must be practiced in drill if they are to be used effectively on the fire ground. Even though we are saying that maintaining SA is essentially a cognitive ability it must be performed while physically being engaged in firefighting. It's like understanding the math behind friction loss calculations but being overwhelmed by the amount of activity on the first structure fire you pump; you can have all the knowledge in the world, but if you cannot use it effectively it is wasted. Being trained in Situational Awareness may mean life or death for some of our people.

The Elements of Situational Awareness

    To effectively train our personnel to remain Situationally Aware we have to start with laying out the elements that go into developing and maintaining SA on the fire ground. In order to have Situational Awareness you must be able to perceive a threat, comprehend the threat and predict what effect that threat may have on you. These elements: Perceive, Comprehend and Predict (or Project), form the cornerstone of maintaining complete Situational Awareness on the fire ground. We need to remember that Situational Awareness is a complex thought process and as such we need to break it down into manageable components when teaching it as a new skill.

Perception

    The first step in the cycle of maintaining SA is perception. If I am unable to perceive the conditions around me I am already at a disadvantage. A lack of perception is just another way to describe tunnel vision. In 12 years of attending fire service schools and teaching firemen, I have heard the statement: "Don't get tunnel vision" more times than I can count. The way I describe tunnel vision is that it is a cognitive focus on one particular aspect of a fire ground operation. That singular focus causes you to loose your perception of everything else that is happening around you. A lack of perception can start with the initial dispatch, your arrival on scene, or in the middle of an operation, because you have encountered a situation that begins to shift your heart rate from the "Yellow" zone into the upper regions of the "Red" or lower level "Grey" zones. We have to remember that the physiological effect of our heart rate being elevated because of anxiety has a direct effect on our ability to process cognitive information. Using techniques like four count "combat breathing" exercise to regain control of your heart rate are critical if you are to maintain the cognitive ability to perceive threats. Fighting the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) responses of anxiety becomes easier with training and experience. Teaching new firefighters, who hopefully aspire to be Fire Service Warriors, to control the SNS reaction will lay the foundation for them being able to maintain Situational Awareness.

Comprehend

    You can perceive a threat all you want, but if you cannot comprehend that it is a threat you can't do anything with the perception. Let's take pending Flashover conditions as an example. We understand that Flashover is violent event that is a regular occurrence at interior structural fires. There are signs that we can use as being indicative that flashover is likely: A great volume of turbulent smoke exiting a room (or the structure) is a sign that the heat inside is beginning to reach the point where flashover is near; Rollover and flame-over of the unburned smoke are also indicators that a flashover event is imminent. Do our people understand this? Can they comprehend these warning signs when they see them? If they see a significant volume of dense, turbulent smoke pouring from the doorway of a two-story frame at 1:00 p.m. can they articulate those facts, our will their thought process be, "that house is on fire"? One of the challenges that we all face is a lack of responses to structural fires and limited training time in burn buildings. As a whole the fire service is called on to deal with so many other tasks: EMS, HazMat, Technical Rescue, and Fire Prevention, that we are limited in our time and ability to develop our "Combat Senses". While all the aspects of our profession are important, and need to be practiced, we need to ensure that the high risk/low frequency skills of firefighting are practiced more frequently in a burning structure.

Predict (Project)

    Taking your comprehension of the perceived threats and predicting what the potential effects will be is the final element in having Situational Awareness. You have to perceive the smoke conditions, comprehend that they are indicators of impending flashover and then predict what will happen if you crawl head first into that doorway without taking some kind of action to mitigate the conditions first. So you pull-up in front of our two-story frame at 1:00 p.m. with dense, turbulent smoke exiting the structure and say to your partner, "Hey, that looks like it's getting ready to flash, let's hit it from the door way for a minute and until they pop the windows and we get some lift." You have the Situational Awareness that if you just crawl right into this threat environment you are going to get burned, and that you need to change the environment to make it "relatively safe".

Relative Safety

    Everything we do on the fire ground, or at any incident scene, is about maintaining "relative safety". We accept the fact that by crawling into a burning structure to extinguish a fire, or search for victims, or by going onto a roof to ventilate, or any of the other of suppression or support tasks we perform that we are doing something that is "unsafe". Our objective must be to maintain a "relative safety" by making decisions based on conditions that will allow us to accomplish our objectives without needlessly placing ourselves or our people into an untenable threat environment. Taking up our impending flashover example again if you are the Nozzleman, the Company Officer, or the Incident Commander you need to perceive, comprehend and predict what the effects of just having that initial attack line advance into the building will be. That Situational Awareness will allow you to choose a course of action that will help maintain the "relative safety" of the folks operating on the fire ground. If you're Standard Operating Guidelines (SOG) indicate that an aggressive interior attack is called for you must be agile enough in your thinking to realize that some kind of task must be accomplished first, to allow your objective to be met. You must change the environment so that it is tenable. By doing this you are using the Boyd Loop, the Observe, Orient, Decide and Act cycle I've talked about before, to choose the best course of action to mitigate the immediate threat and continue on with your mission. Situational Awareness is the skill set that allows you to perform the Observe and Orient functions of the Boyd Loop.

Disorientation

    The antithesis of Situational Awareness is Disorientation. Disorientation is the root cause of those Firefighter Fatalities identified by the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) as caused by being "Lost", and likely a contributing factor in those deaths caused by being "Caught/Trapped". In my article "You Want Me To Do What" I discussed the effect of anxiety reactions on increased Heart Rates and the impact those elevated Heart Rates have on the cognitive function. While there is no definitive reporting on the role anxiety reactions play in Fire Fighter Line of Duty Deaths (LODD), we can examine published reports of LODD and extrapolate how it may be related.

    For our purposes here I want to examine the NIOSH Firefighter Fatality Report F2008-34. On October 29, 2008 24 year-old Volunteer Fighter, Adam Cody Renfroe, became lost while operating inside a residential structure fire and was subsequently caught in a flashover. The cause of death was reported as smoke inhalation and burns but we must consider that Disorientation was the root cause. If Firefighter Renfroe had not become Disoriented he would not have become "Lost" and he may not have been caught by the subsequent flashover. In examining any LODD the last thing I want is to "blame the victim". It is important that we look at "mistakes" that were made though, and try to understand what cognitive process lead to the decisions that were made. Firefighter Renfroe had two years of experience with the Crossville Alabama Fire Department at the time of the incident; he had completed Department training on essential firefighter skills, but he had not been through Alabama's Volunteer Firefighter Certification Course. He was among the first three firefighters to arrive on the scene of the fire, and the "senior" man among the two firefighters who stretched the initial attack line.

    I can place myself into FF Renfroe's shoes. I've been a 24 year-old paid-on-call fireman. He entered the structure to do what he perceived was his job. He entered alone because he felt a sense of duty to act. His heart rate was already pounding from the adrenaline rush. We've all had this experience, you're either excited or terrified by what you are faced with. When he crawled in through the carport door to begin his fire attack he found himself in an incredibly difficult set of circumstances. The initial reports transcribed in the NIOSH report say that there was thick black smoke coming from the roof. The initial attack line was stretched, and "The victim and FF2, on air, walked into the structure through the carport door. They were approximately two feet inside the structure and were met by thick, rolling black smoke, but no fire. Quickly, they exited through the carport door taking cross-lay #1 with them". FF Renfroe then sent his partner, a member with six months experience, back to get a flashlight. NIOSH investigators state "FF2, still on air, entered back into the house through the carport door but could not see his hands or feet just inside the door." So, this young man, with minimal training, but a huge desire to do what he believed was right, entered an environment that rapid sent his heart rate skyrocketing into the "Grey" or "Black" zones. He exited, with his partner, but then reentered on his own? Why? We can never be certain. We can postulate though that when FF Renfroe, and his partner, entered the structure the first time that the response of his sympathetic nervous system (SNS) was engaged and his heart rate elevated in response to the perceived threat (the conditions). As we consider disorientation as a key factor in firefighters becoming lost we see that when the heart rate, as a result of anxiety, approaches 175 beats per minute that cognitive processing deteriorates, tunnel vision begins to occur, and there is often a perceived slowing of time. Why did he reenter the structure then with out his partner? Again there is no way to be certain, but a likely circumstance is that his SNS response caused him to perceive that it his partner was gone for an extended period of time and that the fire was getting beyond the point where it could be controlled. His SNS was screaming "Fight" because his personal condition, his assessment of himself, dictated putting the fire out. Unfortunately the circumstances of his position did not provide him with the knowledge, skills, or experience to fully perceive, comprehend and predict the possible outcomes of entering the structure. We must examine LODDs like those of Adam Cody Renfroe if we are to fully understand the importance of Situational Awareness and the critical role that Disorientation plays in Firefighter fatalities.

Training Situational Awareness

    The ability to maintain Situational Awareness is reliant on our training, our judgment and our personal condition. These factors must come together every time we are going to perform a high-risk evolution: structural firefighting, wildland firefighting, collapse or high angle rescue, or any of the wide arrays of emergencies we are called upon to mitigate. A lack of competency, or even a temporary lack of focus, can lead to a chain of events that may be catastrophic or even fatal.

Judgment

 

Judgment is defined as "the process of forming an opinion or evaluation by discerning and comparing." It is the ability to choose the "best" option to respond to a given set of circumstance. Developing a sound basis for making judgments, or "tactical decisions" on the fire ground is direct result of training and experience. Given the national trend towards a dwindling number of structural fire responses we must give our firemen the ability develop experience through realistic, live fire, training.

Personal Condition

 

The fireman who ascribes to the ideals of the Fire Service Warrior embraces the Boy Scout Motto, "Be Prepared". We begin instilling that idea of being ready into recruits on day one of the academy. Recruits are taught that they must have their equipment ready for duty, and are taught how their personal turnout gear is to be placed on the rig. We teach the idea of readiness when we work on developing SCBA donning skills, ensuring that the recruit places his SCBA into the "Ready Position" every time it is doffed. It is incumbent on the Fire Service Warrior to place himself in the "Ready Position" each and every day.

    There are countless trivial, mundane and down right serious matters that we humans have on our minds twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As firemen we are bound to bring those concerns into the firehouse. Minimizing the impact of distractions is important however if we are to concentrate 100% on the task at hand when we are fighting fires, caring for patients or cleaning the firehouse. It needs to be clear, if you are distracted when you are performing a high-risk evolution the likelihood of you, or another member of the team, being injured or killed rises. Distractions take away from your ability to maintain Situational Awareness, and a loss of Situational Awareness will lead to accidents and mistakes.

    The Fire Service Warrior sets out each and every day to be prepared, to be ready, for what ever will come his way: a structure fire, an EMS call, HAZMAT Training, a Fire Prevention lecture at the grade school or cleaning the small tools on the Engine. For the career fireman it is easier to be mentally and physically prepared for duty because you know when you are going into work; the drive in leading up to shift change is a concrete time where you can put your game face on. The on-call fireman must be able to set aside the thoughts and activities he is engaged in when the pager goes off and must to train to "flip the switch" and suddenly be in the ready position.

Personal condition is a combination of being mentally and physically prepared to perform the job at hand. If you are distracted by situations and circumstances you are placing yourself, and your brothers, in danger. If you are not physically fit enough to maintain the metabolic output required to perform any job on the fire ground you are placing yourself, and your brothers, in danger.

Training

 

    Training lies at the core of everything we do in the fire service. No one is born instinctively knowing fire behavior, building construction or critical thinking. We must provide our apprentice and journeymen Fire Service Warriors with the basic and advanced training they need to flourish. I will venture to say each and every one of us has seen the results of a poorly trained firefighter. It is a "twenty-year" mistake. In my experience training comes in three modes: formal, company and individual. Formal training is those classes which lead to our certifications and often times relate back to standards developed by the NFPA, OSHA or our State Fire Marshal's Offices. Company training is the day-to-day training that our Company Officers lead to make sure their people are prepared. Individual training is that study, research or experience that we develop on our own.

    Training our people to maintain Situational Awareness needs to occur across all three modes of training. We must begin with the recruit Fireman and train him (or her) in Fire Behavior and Building Construction, Tactics and Procedures for Fire Attack and Suppression, Ventilation, Search, and the Fire Ground Support functions. Once this foundation is laid, then we must take our apprentices and teach them how to put all of these individual concepts together and think critically about how they are interdependent.

    Effectively training our firemen to maintain Situational Awareness requires that we engage in realistic, scenario based training. We must push them to confront experiences that are difficult, that scare them, so that they can develop the ability to manage not only critical fire ground tasks, but also the inevitable anxiety reactions that occur. If you cannot keep yourself calm and focused, anxiety will lead to a loss of Situational Awareness. A loss of Situational Awareness may lead directly to Disorientation, which all too often leads directly to a Firefighter Fatality.

Embrace the Darkness

"...Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win." – Stephen King

I wrote the other day of the problem that so many have when attempting to reconcile our instinctual nature with the moral systems of organized religions. My belief is that in everything we do, choice is the deciding factor.

The First Credo in my Philosophical approach is:

One must acknowledge his animalistic feelings are healthy and acceptable. It is the choices you make in acting upon those feelings by which you will be judged.

Choice is the single most important factor in evaluating the actions of an individual. One of the greatest gifts that we possess as humans is the ability, and the inherent right, to choose. It is a very simple concept. You get to make a choice, every day and for every situation, deciding how you will respond to the world around you.

This leads us to the Second Credo:

Your actions and emotional responses to thoughts, or events are a choice.

The choices you make, in response to events that impact you, or the way you are treated are 100% with in your control. You can choose to relinquish control over your thoughts and your emotions by allowing yourself to react to the things that others do or say, but that is a choice. Rather than react we as individuals need to respond to the "slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" in a thoughtful and constructive manner.

At some point in each of our lives we have heard a friend, lover, parent or partner say, "You make me feel (fill in emotion)!" We each have probably said it ourselves. The reality is that no one can make us, nor can we make anyone else, feel a particular emotion. I can MAKE you feel pain if I pick up a baseball bat and hit you in the head. I can't make you feel worthless as a person. You choose to feel hurt or sad or worthless based upon the credence you give the words and actions of someone else. You relinquish a tremendous amount of personal power when you allow others to hold sway over you like that.

Of course, individuals are capable of saying things that are triggers for our personal hurts or insecurities. If my partner says, "You're a terrible father" I may begin to question my abilities as a parent. I may doubt the way in which I am raising my son. However that person hasn't made me feel like a bad father, they have simply said something which has flipped the on switch for one of my insecurities. I have chosen to react to by doubting myself. How can I respond though in a more effective, and beneficial way?

I don't react to the emotion of the moment; I pause, I consider and I respond in a thoughtful and emotionally neutral way. I may ask, "Why do you think I'm a terrible father." I may believe that the real issue is not my parenting because of my clear understanding of myself and instead ask, "Saying I'm a terrible father is mean spirited, are you trying to hurt me? Why?" Either of these responses keeps me from being wrapped up in the emotional assault and attempt to get to the heart of the matter. At other times I have found silence to be the best option. Just ignore the other person's silly bull-shit. The idea is that you are in control of you. You can choose to not be bothered.

Some people may be thinking as the read this, "Well that sounds good, but my partner is always being mean." Okay, why do you choose to stay with him or her then? It is your choice. Even if someone is holding a loaded weapon to your head and threatening to kill you if you do not do (fill in the blank), it is your choice. You may not like the options in front of you, but in all but the rarest of circumstances you have a choice. You are choosing to stay in a relationship with someone who is insensitive, mean spirited or just a jerk. Why? Well, usually we stay in unhealthy or emotionally damaging relationships because we do not feel worthy of the healthy alternative. We may say, "She's a bitch, I deserve better" or "God, he's just an idiot," but we have the ability to end that relationship. We choose not to. Why is it that we do not readily acknowledge our right to choose when it comes to "I have to…" or "You make me feel…"? I believe that there are two main reasons.

First, it is easier to blame someone else for our failing than to examine how we are culpable. We don't want to be responsible; we don't want to get in trouble. Think of the child who runs after unintentionally breaking a window. He is trying to avoid the pain that comes with being culpable for his actions. In dealing with our actions as adults it is less painful to blame our failings or misdeeds on the influence of others than it is to acknowledge our choice. If it is our choice then the buck stops with us. That is a heavy weight to bear and one that requires considerable strength of character and a tremendous amount of self esteem.

Second, most people do not have the knowledge of themselves to be able to truly understand why they make the choices they do. Many people do not own the fractured pieces of their self, of their subconscious which bring about the emotions that serve as the triggers for thoughts and actions. You must know yourself to be the best possible you. To own your self often means delving into the painful, darker corners of our experience and our soul to understand why we think and feel the things we do. You must find the shadow self, the occulted aspects of yourself that are so difficult, so painful, that you hide them from yourself.  This is hard; it is challenging and often requires the help of trained counselors, coaches or therapists in order to provide perspective and a safety net during the discovery. It must be done though in order for us to progress

So, in order for us to be able to fulfill the Second Credo:

Your actions and emotional responses to thoughts or events are a choice.

We must develop the skills to own our choices by owning "who" we are and how we have become that person. Some of those choices we made long before we could understand that we had a choice: events of our childhood, good or bad, that helped shape the foundation of the adults we have become. You have a choice how you will respond to those things in the now. Will you continue to react as though you have no choice?

We must accept our culpability for the choices we make and the impact that our behaviors can have on others. The only way to develop the strength of spirit and sense of self worth needed to acknowledge one's responsibility and culpability is through knowing oneself. This brings us to the Third Credo. They are not my words, but a quote that I live my life by:

"One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious." – Carl G. Jung

There is darkness with-in all of us. We have all experienced insults and injuries on the physical, emotional and mental fronts which have left us the scarred and battle weary travelers of life's roads. That is pain we must revel in. That pain, that experience, reminds us that we are alive. Often times I walk along the lake front, down in the surf zone, where the waves break across the shore. I delight in the feeling of the rocks under my bare feet. I know that the pain I was feeling was making my feet stronger. Another analogy is the old-time exercise mantra "No Pain-No Gain". When you are striving to be physically fit you will suffer. The suffering is good. The aches and soreness are signs that muscle is growing, bones are getting denser, and that you're mental toughness is increasing. Remember the Navy SEAL mantra: The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday.

That's the essence of Jung's statement, which I live so much of my life by. We can only grow and become the best people possible by digging inside of ourselves and uncovering the pain. We need to rip away the emotional scabs that are keeping us from getting to the real issues.

I don't think that the Third Credo needs much more elaboration, I believe that it is an understanding that one must find for oneself. Just know, that no matter how much it hurts, or how challenging it is, that you will be a better person. I've spoken so far of three credos:

One must acknowledge his animalistic feelings are healthy and acceptable. It is the choices you make in acting upon those feelings by which you will be judged.

Your actions and emotional responses to thoughts or events are a choice.

One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

Once you really are able to embrace these Credo's, once you have gone down the road of self discovery and self awareness, then you can begin to make the next step.

Life is monstrous.

All life exists by consuming other life, but it is only through knowledge and acceptance of the monstrous nature of life that we can being to accept all that upsets us as natural: war, famine, death… these are all perfectly normal elements of the human condition. Parents watch their children die; children grow up with out knowing the love they need and rightly deserve to help develop them as normal people; we loose family member to conflict or tragedy. These conditions tax each of us to come to grips with a new reality, but the reality is that the randomness, the pain and the challenge are normal.

There is darkness all around us. It can be pervasive at times in our lives. We only truly set ourselves up for failure when we imagine that this darkness is something abnormal, something that "isn't fair." Like Wesley's statement in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain, Highness. Anyone who says different is selling something."

You must choose to embrace the darkness. By knowing the darkness of your life you can begin the transformative quest of becoming enlightened.

 

 

Death & Dying…

"Have the courage to live. Anyone can die." – Robert Cody

Obviously with everything approaching in our lives Heather and I have spent quite a bit of time of later thinking about death. I'd say it has been the undercurrent of our conversations ever sense we met. We knew from our very first date that we both have spent plenty of time gambling with our lives. The "Gift" of Cancer that I talked about is the gift of knowing that you are mortal. For me it is the "gift" of knowing that any given day could be my last. I have held the dead and the dying in my hands. I have watched the life ebb out of people and considered it an honor to be there in those moments. Sometimes I may have been less than reverent, but that dark-humor is a way of dealing with the grief that you feel when a fellow person goes into the great beyond.

A ways back a friend of mine was dealing with the death of her grandfather, understandably it was challenging for her. Loosing someone you love is never easy, and the emotions that come forth are challenging and difficult and confusing. I gave her my take on death and dying over the last few weeks as she prepared for that difficult transition. As I was looking back through my blogs and writing I stumbled upon these words and thought they were worth revisiting. It is something I want to share. You never know when you're going to confront this, but we all know somewhere in the back of our mind that we will.

Death is inevitable. The old adage of "You can't get out of life alive," is trite when you hear it, but it is true. So, why are we so scared of death? The obvious reason seems to be a natural fear of the unknown. We are raised with certain beliefs: Heaven and Hell; Reincarnation or Nirvana; Nothingness or Complete Unity with the Universe, but there is no proof. Every major religion has spent time trying to "prove" their mythology of an immortal soul because as people we are terrified of there not being something after this.

I think that fear comes from people who are unable to accept that this may be their one and only shot. Think about it, what would you be doing differently with your life today if you knew 100% that when you died that the electrochemical energy that drove your brain would dissipate and you would just fade into nothingness and once those capacitors in your brain were drained of their reserves of oxygen and sugar? Would you be setting aside time to work on that novel you've always wanted to write? Would you quit working so fucking hard at selling real estate and spend a few more days with your kids a month? Would you say, "Fuck this I'm going to party like a rockstar?" What would you do different?

So, I ask you… why are you taking the risk? If there is something more after this great, but the creative source of the universe put in motion the events that have brought us here to this point today. Why are we waiting for a better tomorrow? Seize the moments you have.

A few years ago a friend of mine from "Church" (church at the time was Chicago Street Pub in Joliet) was murdered after "services". The last time I saw John he had finished having a drink with friends listening to music he enjoyed in a place he felt at home at. He didn't know that he was going to walk into the middle of a burglary and get beaten to death. None of us knew it… and each of us reacted differently. Ben was just glad that as the last person to see him he gave John a smile and hand shake; Kelly was glad she'd given him a hug; Shoes wished he'd come down that night. The fact of the matter is you never know when that last moment is going to come.

I live a life that regularly places me in situations where I may not come home from work. I love my job. I love the thrill of it, and I know that at any moment I may not get out alive. February 11^th 1998, my friend, Tony Lockhart of the Chicago Fire Department Engine Company 120 died in a fire at 106^th and Western Ave. I was there. I was at the wakes for Tony and Pat King (who died at the same fire), I was at the funerals. I wake up everyday knowing that I may die today, whether it is in some fiery hell-hole in the suburbs of Chicago or teaching a class of recruits at the tower in Champaign. I put my body in situations that are just screaming to get me killed. People ask me why I do it, and my answer is always this: 1. I like to help people. There is something satisfying about being there to help your fellow man when he or she is at their worst; 2. There is nothing more satisfying to a man's soul than taking on the elemental forces of nature and kicking its ass. You feel powerful and capable of doing anything; 3. Chicks dig it. That's always been my stock punch-line to get a laugh out of a serious moment. The excitement and thrill and adulation are nice, it is a grand experience, but I also have had to come to grips with the frailty of my own life. I have had moments where I though, "Oh, okay… so we are about to see what's on the other side." I think once you have lived through that you change your out look.

Death is not something I fear, because it is not something I can escape or avoid. I will die. It's actually a liberating realization. Much like the adage attributed to the Native Americans preparing for battle saying "Today is a good day to die." Once I knew that death was a certainty then there was nothing holding me back I decided to attack life with gusto. Why not party like a Rockstar? Why not write my screenplays and this Blog? Why not spend as much time with Liam as possible? Why not hop in the car and drive an hour to see our nieces? What could possibly keep me from doing those things? There are nights I sleep about 4 hours because there is so much living to do that I don't want to miss out. There are nights that jump into bed at ten, with Heather, to make sure I don't miss out on that embrace, that warmth, that sense of being safe and loved. I accept that my body may be sore some mornings or that I may be a bit tired. Living a purpose-filled life isn't as easy on the body at 33 as it was at 23; it will likely be harder in another ten years and harder yet ten more years on. That's fine; the wonderful thing about pain is that it reminds you, you're alive.

Let's get back into life. You need to learn who you are and do the things you want to do. What are you afraid of? If you always wanted to go skydiving… fucking go! If you get hit by a bus tomorrow, what will it have mattered if you took that sick day to go party?

Life is your choice. You can be timid and meek or you can go out and attack the world around you, own every room you enter and when it is your time there will be millions of people around the world who think of you and smile.

When I die I want those people who care enough to think of me to descend on Chicago with one purpose: Celebrate my Life. You can think back on playing Dungeons & Dragons with me. Remember being part of one of the countless Theatre productions I worked on. You can be sad that you wont get to do another Irish Car Bomb with me, but don't forget about the one's we did. You can miss watching those years when my eyes would narrow and my whole body engage when that Blond-9 walked by, but don't forget laughing at me every time I came back after crashing and burning on the approach. Remember most of all the unconditional love I shared with the most amazing woman in the world. It's going to be hard for Heather when she puts me in the ground, or up on the mantle (I hope many years from now), but she will know as I do that we celebrated and danced each day. Our meaning of life has been the experience of being alive. There is no greater Bliss!

When I die I want the old three-day Irish Wake. I want to be laid out in the living room. I want a band playing Irish rebel tunes. I want the Guinness and Jameson to flow. I want every person there to tell a story about me, raise a glass and say "He was a great friend." And at some point during the evening I want the band to strike up a chorus of "Finnegan's Wake" and when the row and the ruction begins pour that water of life on me and let's see just what the healing properties of Uisce Beatha really are.

Once upon a time…

That's the way most stories begin right? The best stories being with, "A Long Time Ago, In a Galaxy Far, Far Away…" but a bard far greater than I holds the copyright on that and the last thing I care to do is bring down George Lucas' wrath upon me.

We will go with once upon a time, though, to tell this story. I was raised Catholic and spent twelve years in Catholic schools. That experience was a good one for me. I was an altar boy, and went to mass, and for awhile gave thought to the Priesthood. Then I discovered the joys of the opposite sex and the Priesthood went out the window. Then I became enthralled with history and theology (as opposed to the "Religion" class I had most of my life) and began to see that there was more than one way to experience the grace of divinity.

Over the course of the last 15 years I have been on a spiritual and philosophical quest to define who I am in relation to the universe. I've pretty well got it within my grasp now and feel like it's time to start really sharing my discoveries of literature, spirituality, philosophy and life with those who care to listen. Much like any writer I bid you to follow and enjoy, but I will say this: I am not here to entertain a debate. You can read and think and ponder on my musings or you can chose not to. If you feel like you want to criticize me, you can leave. If you want to ask a legitimate question I will try to answer it. If you ask me what I perceive to be some kind of loaded bull-shit question I will mock you or ignore you, or mock and ignore you. Forewarned is forearmed.

The thoughts below were first published back in 2006 on a blog I maintained on MySpace. I've taken the time to update a bit and want to share with you the starting point in what can best be described at my philosophy, my way, my Dao.

The limitless source of the universe, the creative energy from which all of existence has spring, has placed me upon this earth to reach out to people. To explain the undercurrents of human interaction, and provide those souls seeking enlightenment with a perspective that may be of some help as they strive to expand their understanding of the world. This charge is a weighty one; I take the calling of divine inspiration to be a most serious cause. It is one that in order to avoid offending the great scholars and educators who have come before me I must commit the resources of my some times weary mind to with a rigorous intention.

There is an imbalance in this world. We are taught by our religions, our schools, our guardians and our mentors that we should strive to live a life of Virtue. Virtue is defined as "Moral excellence and righteousness; goodness". That is a wonderful sentiment, but there is a problem with it. There is a lack of balance in this definition. No one person can be "good" all of the time. We all experience feelings of hate, jealousy, selfishness, greed, sloth, lust and a whole host of human emotions that are sad to be "bad". They are not bad. Feeling lustful is not bad. Feeling hate is not bad. These are emotions that the creative source placed in us; so why is it "wrong" to feel them? The celebrated author, and man of letters, Samuel Longhorn Clemens in his writings as Mark Twain expounded upon this very point in his work Letters from the Earth. Think upon my point gentle reader before dismissing me.

The limitless source of the universe, by whatever name you call it brought about the conditions under which we have come into existence as we know it today. So, isn't it ludicrous to believe that that same grace would then condemn the very creatures which live lives based upon the desires it has imbued us with? Ah, the dilemma posed by the most common of religions. You must reject you very nature in order to find God's divine grace. Can't you hear them now: "Jesus died for your sins."

Really? Did he now? Well then, I should be good right? I can go forth and behave in the manner of Caligula or Nero or even El Supremo and "binge drink and fornicate" to my heart's content. I'm already saved. Thank goodness. I hear the argument now… "No, no, you must continue to live in the example the Jesus set for you!"

Oh, I'm supposed to work as a carpenter, live at home with mom till I'm thirty, and go out drinking with the boys the night before the cops pick me up and put me to death? It sounds like Jesus was a member of the IRA living in occupied Ireland to me, and I can live up to that example. The image of Jesus as the risen Christ, the savior of mankind and the holy son of a virgin birth is a construct of Paul. It is the view of a gentile with political aspirations who needed to set in motion a religion which would give his political aims justification. He succeeded by stealing some of the best parts of Zoroastrianism, melding it with Jewish teachings of a coming Messiah, and the continued lineage of King David. I applaud him for his creation of a faith which has been so incredibly successful in gathering adherents and in looting, plundering and dominating the globe for centuries. Why is it though that people do not see what Paul created for what it is?

The first reason that our view of Christianity can be said to be "clouded" is because we are so removed from the origin of the Christian faith that it is nearly impossible to relate to the circumstances and political climate of the time. The historical facts of the times are rarely presented without portraying the early Christians as having finally overcome their Pagan/Heathen oppressors through the Divine Inspiration of God and the acts of Martyrs. History is written by the winners. Secondly, Paul attached a very definitive reason for belief: hell. The idea of going to heaven or going to hell would certainly have been of even greater concern to man of the year 100c.e. than to the man of 2006. Why would this be? Modern man has become nearly immune to the "superstitions" that our early Christian era ancestors believed to be fact. We tend to be skeptical of that which science can not demonstrate to us, which is why half of us still can't figure out if we are supposed to eat eggs or not. Despite our tendency as a species to question the literal existence of heaven and hell, we have a cultural archetype that has been imprinted on the bulk of western society which still ties us to the concept of divinity as being dualistic and centered on the ideas of "Good" and "Evil". But, we must ask ourselves: what is evil?

We are animalistic creatures. We are here to engage in behaviors which will further our genetic code. That is the essence of our biology and the most basic building blocks of our DNA; we exist to recreate ourselves and further our clan. We are supposed to breed, carry heavy shit, hunt and gather, and generally behave the same as the cavemen did. That is the underlying potential energy stored in our genetic code. All the other "rules" we have come up with to structure societies have been a construct of men and at times in direct contradiction to our own natural impulses. We have in the last 2000 years developed some ridged social structures that are based upon social convention, politics and a need for human interaction to not lead to open warfare on a daily basis. So the first and most important credo of my philosophy is this;

One must acknowledge his animalistic feelings are healthy and acceptable. It is the choices you make in acting upon those feelings by which you will be judged.

Choice is the single most important factor in evaluating the actions of an individual.

 

 

Duty

"Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less." - Robert E. Lee

 

The wonderful thing about having a birthday is getting to revel in the fact that you have persevered and can celebrate another year of life. As someone who considers myself to be a semi-functional writer it also gives me a chance to pontificate about the things I think are important. I sat down to write this yesterday with a lot of thoughts on my mind and deleted it because I felt, "Who the hell cares what I have to say?" That's a pretty common thought for me as a writer. I realize that there is certain arrogance in thinking that anyone else actually cares what my thoughts may be. However, I have no way of knowing if I am going to say something that changes one person for the better, so I better use the talents that I seem to have and put down a few thoughts when I have them. Maybe if nothing else they will offer Liam something to look back on when I have shuffled off this mortal coil to help round out his understanding of the lessons I've been trying to impart. You never know how many birthdays you have.

I have always loved my birthday. When I was younger, like 30, it was about adoration and presents and people paying attention to me. No one spends eighty percent of their life writing and trying to be published if they want to be obscure. I've come to realize that there is something bigger worth celebrating; there is a certain triumph in the act of perseverance. I posted a quote of Nietzsche awhile back that I truly love, "That which does not break my back makes me stronger." I like that at 33 I am hitting my stride. I've been thrown challenges, and continue to face some monumental ones, but I have also known victory, triumph, love, and the supreme joy that comes from persevering. Teddy Roosevelt is one of my heroes. He was a man who dreamed huge dreams but knew that he needed to work with diligent effort to achieve his dreams. He once remarked that real life occurs between 30 and 60, because the young have their heads in the clouds and the old are filled with regret. I like to think that I have banished regret from my life, but we'll see what I have to say 27 years from now. I think though that as I look at my life a quote of his from a speech at the Sorbonne is one I have tried to keep ever present in my mind, "It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

As I look back on the past 33 years I do it with a fond reverence for each and every moment that has made me the man I am today: the failures much more so than the wins; the depths of despair that allow me to now appreciate the resplendent rapture of happiness; the constant struggle to find my way. Never did I feel there was a path before me. Each and every time that I chose to set out on a course it seemed to lead me to ruin, but when I gave up on the life I wanted to have, and opened myself to the course the universe has set out before me, then I have found success, happiness and joy.

If there is anything that I can impart to Liam it is this: Do your Duty. You have a duty to your family, to your community, to your country, and to yourself. It is the idea of Dharma, the Indian concept of a virtuous path that needs to be the guidepost. It's a lesson that I saw in the Star Wars movies, that was cultivated in me through Scouting and a youth filled with volunteering, and ultimately laid a foundation for wanting to serve in a meaningful way as an adult. My duty has led me to the fire service, a trade that has brought me joy as well as quite a great deal of pain over the years. That wasn't the life I planned, but it was the one the universe put in front of me to follow. I didn't grow up wanting to be a fireman. When it was first placed before me I can honestly say that I had to look it over several times and more than once I rejected the call to duty out of a desire to follow the plan I had for myself. Somehow though I never turned my back; I kept one foot in this life, and I was fortunate to have the chance to grow, stumble, and finally find my way. I have no idea where that path it is leading me in the fire service. I hope that I am being a dutiful servant of the cause along the way. I know that there are amazing challenges ahead and amazing rewards to be had personally, professionally, and spiritually as I continue on. I am thankful everyday to have this chance to grow and to serve a purpose. It's amazing what happens when you surrender to your nature; if you open your eyes, and quiet the mind, you manage to find your bliss.

That sense of Duty fills my experience. I oftentimes chose to behave certain ways out of a sense of duty, an obligation. For example, when my wife and I were first dating we talked about a sense of obligation to care for our parents, now and as they grow older. We recognized in each other a trait, an affliction of character, the rendered us nearly incapable of looking out only for ourselves. Aside from knowing that we must meet our obligations, and we do so joyfully because we know that it is part of who we are, we also fulfill our duty in many ways. Being there for our son; performing jobs of service; lending a hand to someone who needs it.

We have a lot going on in our lives right now. Heather is likely having surgery to remove the tumor on her skull-base within the next week. In dealing with this I have come to realize that if you embrace your duty it really is a beautiful expression of love. What else can you call the action of running into a burning building, or diligently working with a first grader to make sure she can read, or having a forty-minute conversation about the attributes of your kids Bakugan? Those are acts of love. In the same way ensuring that the woman you love, who you have chosen, knows that for good or for ill you will stand beside her, ready to fight. The next week will bring many changes in my life. Regardless of the outcome of Heather's surgery, our lives will be different. We expect for the better; being two crusty old-souls though we prepare. That preparation for what to do if things don't go "well" is out of love, out of duty, as well. It would be unimaginable to find yourself suddenly pitched forward into the most emotionally tumultuous time possible, and not have a plan in place.

 

A Gift

Saying goodbye is hard. There is a certain sense each time you say it that it may be your last chance to. My niece June hates to say goodbye. When it's time for anyone to leave she just ignores every attempt to get her to say goodbye. It's as if she senses that by not saying goodbye the moment, her reality hasn't ended. I understand that better now than I ever have.

Heather and I are getting ready for the fight of her life. We are looking her surgery in the eye and have to confront all the issues that go with it. There are the logistical issues of time off work and post-operative care, wills and power-of-attorney forms, bills and insurance paperwork. Then there are the far more challenging issues: are you going to be an organ donor, or donate your body to science; if you have a stroke and they say you're "brain dead" do you want to be left on a ventilator; what songs do you want played at your wake?

It is some heavy lifting emotionally. I will say this though, Cancer is a gift. Those words, that sentiment, is not some original thought of mine, or even my turn of a phrase, but it remains true none the less. Since the day Heather and I met I have felt that her experience with cancer formed for her an understanding of what matters in this world; an understanding we share because of my personal quest to look death in the eye everyday and let the specter of death know it does not worry me.

Cancer is a gift that liberates the patient and the caregiver to recklessly abandon worrying about the petty and petulant. You give yourself permission to say, "Fuck it" to all of the little silly bullshit trials and tribulations of daily life that we frail humans become so easily wrapped up in. Not to say that we don't get annoyed with one another because of the same mundane things that everyone else does, we do. I think when you live every day with the understanding that you don't know how many days you have left, how many birthdays or Christmases, or Mondays, if you really embrace the beauty of it you see that it is a wonderfully crisp sense of life. The meaning of life is the experience of being alive, and the gift of staring at death is that it reminds you to embrace being alive.

A New Direction

I've used this blog very sparsely since starting it.  Up till this point, I intended for it to be dedicated to my thoughts on the Fire Service and my passion for the way of the Fire Service Warrior.  Today I am shifting directions though.  I am a fireman, but I also consider myself to be a philosopher of sorts, and a spiritualist.  This blog is about me, about my journey and about all that makes up who I am.  It is about the fire service, about warriorship, about the discovery of self and the process of becoming a full and complete person.  No one who was to sit and talk with me would ever think that I am "only" a fireman.  The whole of me is comprised of many facets, and I hope by sharing those facets I may open someone's eyes to an idea that they may have not yet experienced.  If nothing else I hope to capture here the thoughts that I have penned over the years and continue to write. 

One of the gifts of my chosen career is the awareness that any given day could be the last I walk this earth.  I've buried friends, and read all too often about the passing of brothers along my path.  I would hate for what has literally been my life's work to be lost because of laziness on my part.  Maybe, this may exist for one reason only, to ensure that my son will one day be able to look back and understand more fully who his father was and who he became.  I think that is a worthy mission. 

So I will be posting thoughts, ideas, and writing from the past as well as things I am writing now, with a certain amount of editing so that my voice is coherent for today.

The Fire Service Warrior

©2007, 2009 Christopher Brennan

    

According to Webster's Dictionary a "Warrior" is "a man engaged in or experienced in warfare". I don't particularly agree with that definition. Through out history wars have been fought by peasants or conscripts for the most part, men, and sometimes women, who were forced to go and fight for, or over, someone else's land. To me the term Warrior has a connotation of the legendary 300 Spartans, the Knights of the Middle Ages, Rodger's Rangers of the French and Indian War, or the elite men of the Special Operations Command today. In my mind a Warrior is a dedicated professional, who selflessly volunteers to place himself between his neighbor and a threat. That threat could come from a foreign nation, a terrorist cell, a criminal, or even the effects of unrestrained fire. There are Warriors in the Military, in Law Enforcement and in the Fire Service. Having a Warrior's mind-set though isn't something that just happens. It isn't issued to you when you get your uniform. YOU must make a choice to be a Warrior. YOU must view your life, and your responsibilities, through the prism of the Fire Service Warrior.

This article is about a philosophy, a mind-set that allows you to measure your experience against a set of guideposts. It is my view of what each and every one of us who calls ourselves a fireman should aspire to. I'm going to use the word fireman here rather than the more gender neutral firefighter. You the reader need to be able to distinguish a particular meaning in what I'm saying. For my purposes a firefighter is someone who has a job working for the fire department, but may not have a love for the job that inspires them to be the best. We all have met people who are just in this job for the badge, the pension, or the time off. A fireman on the other hand is anyone, male or female, who has chosen to embrace the ideals of the Fire Service Warrior. A woman or a man who has raised their hand to say, "When this primal energy we call fire endangers you, your family, your home or community, call on me."

In order to accept that there is, and should be, a Warrior culture in the fire service you must first accept that firefighting is a form of warfare. Firefighting is combat. It is not a battle against another person, but it is combat none the less. A Fireman places himself in a position where he must risk his life to protect his community. That calling, that selfless willingness to place one's neighbors ahead of oneself is rooted in the same noble drive as our Warriors who defend our nation on foreign shores. The risk is the same. You are risking all that you, and your family, hold dear, you are risking your life, to protect those who cannot protect themselves. At times in our history the relative degree of risk has varied; during times of war our Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines have born a much greater share of the risk, but in times of tranquility it is our public servants who have shouldered the burden of securing our homeland.

There are those who may not have looked at the idea of Fire Departments being engaged in combat before. There are bound to be individuals who would philosophically disagree with the very implication that firefighting is combat. Yes, the fire service has assumed many roles beyond "just" fighting fires. Most Fire Departments around the country provide Emergency Medical Services; respond to Hazardous Materials and Technical Rescue Incidents, and provide other services to aid their "customers", their neighbors, who they have sworn to protect. It is a reality that those same neighbors see us first, and foremost, as being there to crawl down a dark, hot, dangerous hallway that is being ravaged by the effects of unrestrained fire to save their loved ones, to protect their property, and to salvage their possessions.

If we look at both the statistics and the environment that a firefighter may find him or herself in I believe that the analogy is not only appropriate, but essential if the Fire Service, and the public we serve, are to understand the role we play in our communities. In 2007 there were 118 Line of Duty Deaths (LODD) reported to the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA). Additionally the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) has estimated that 83,400 firefighters were injured in the line of duty in 2006, with more than half of those injuries, 53%, occurred on the Fire Ground.

This should not come as a shock but Firefighting is a dangerous profession. We take a young man and send him into a building were most of the time he wont be able to see, he cannot breath the air, which is filled with toxic gases, the temperatures he will have to work in can reach 1200° Fahrenheit at the ceiling, and he is wrapped in a coat, pants, boots, gloves, hood, helmet and self contained breathing apparatus (SCBA) that hinder his dexterity, his mobility, his verbal communication and his ability to maintain an awareness of the environment around him. Oh, and as an added element that most pervasive of physical forces, Gravity, is constantly exerting its pull on the structure that our Warrior is doing battle in so that if the building has been sufficiently weakened by the effects of the fire it is likely to collapse on him. If you don't see that as being "combat" then I think you are being naïve. Why is it important to acknowledge the correlation between the fire ground and the realm of combat, though? Simply put, if you do not see yourself as being engaged in battle then you are unprepared to accept the serious and challenging path that it takes to become a Fire Service Warrior.

The experience of the Fire Service Warrior is different than the commonly understood "Warrior" of the Military or Law Enforcement communities. Both the solider and the police officer have as opponents their fellow man, another human being, and as such have a very personal context to their conflicts. The enemy of the Fire Service Warrior is unrestrained fire. That enemy is personified by firemen and by poets as being a thinking thing. We give fire the anthropomorphic qualities one might find in an Orwellian novel. To quote Robert De Niro's character in Backdraft, "It's a living thing, Brian. It breathes, it eats, and it hates. The only way to beat it is to think like it; to know that this flame will spread this way across the door and up across the ceiling, not because of the physics of flammable liquids, but because it wants to." It is a catchy turn of a phrase, but there is not a fireman who, when battling to quench a stubborn fire, hasn't felt as though he was fighting a living beast. Fire isn't a thinking thing, it doesn't have an intellect, but it does have a drive. It has potential. The very nature of the chemical chain reaction that allows fire to spring into existence also drives it to consume all it can. As long as physics and chemistry come together in a way that will cause organic material to decompose and release fuel into a properly balanced environment of oxygen and heat the fire will continue. It will continue until we kill it.

As a fireman, a Fire Service Warrior, you have a responsibility to yourself and to society. The relationship between Warriors and the society they protect can be described in many ways, but the most appropriate I have heard is the way Dave Grossman, author of On Combat, describes it. He refers to the relationship as one of Sheep Dogs to the Sheep. The Warrior is the Sheep-Dog, there to manage the heard and to protect the sheep from the wolves. For us the "wolves" are the dangers that our neighbors, the Sheep, face everyday. It may be the danger that comes from not being able to treat a life threatening illness or injury, the threat posed by a spilled toxic chemical, or the danger of a building which is being consumed by fire. Regardless of the nature of the threat we must approach the situation with seriousness and focus.

    To be a Fire Service Warrior, we must approach each day with a focus. Whether we are cleaning tools, presenting a public education class, treating a asthma attack, or fighting a structure fire we owe it to ourselves and to our neighbors, our "customers" if you prefer, to be 100% present in the moment. Why? We, as firemen, have a sacred duty to protect society. We need to break that duty down to understand how the Fire Service Warrior deals with the two responsibilities.

First, we have our duty to ourselves. By "ourselves" I mean you as an individual, and the collective whole of the Fire Service Team. If you are not devoting 100% of your focus to the job that you are performing, then you are placing your life in danger. When you place your life in harms way you must be fully immersed in the intense and vital experience of the moment. The Fire Service Warrior must embrace the emotional, psychological and physical elements that he will confront at each and every fire. If you have not dedicated yourself to mastering your responses to these three elements, then you are increasing your chances of being hurt or killed. Why? By ignoring, or downplaying the threats that you may face you will not have suitably prepared yourself for them.

Emotionally there is a stress that we all experience when it comes to confronting some of the "horrors" that are the day to day reality of our profession. Now, this doesn't mean that we all break down because we confront emotionally challenging moments. Some of us are very empathetic; we literally feel the emotion of the people being affected by the incident: the patient or their loved ones. Others are sympathetic; we can relate their pain to ourselves but do not have a visceral experience of feeling it. It is important for each of us to understand how we react. We will all face an incident, or have an experience, that pushes the buttons of our emotional stress. The worst thing we can do is think that it won't happen. If we ignore our humanity, and pretend to be some kind of emotionless robot, we are depriving ourselves of the ability to cope. We learn how to confront challenging emotional situations by thinking about them before they occur. Just like mentally rehearsing the steps you will take if you have an SCBA emergency, mentally rehearsing how you will confront emotional challenges prepares you. Once the emotionally stressful moment occurs you have to live with it and hopeful deal with it in a healthy way. None of us are big on acknowledging our emotions. It isn't "manly" to say that something scared you or made you sad. That is perfectly reasonable. Acknowledging the emotional pain of a situation puts a nick in the armor that we all wear to hold it together when things are difficult. The reality is that we need to open up to one another. When people meet me and find out I am a fireman the inevitably they ask, "What was the worst thing you've ever seen?" I'm unwilling to answer that question. To me it is inconceivable that someone who has never had the experience of someone dying in their hands, or carrying a dead child, or having to pull a mangled body from a car wreck can fathom the totality of any experience I might share. It is simply an auditory "gawker". The only people I am willing to share those stories with are my brother and sister Warriors. That "family" knows what it feels like, smells like and looks like. Lt. Col. Grossman in On Combat says that "Pain shared is pain divided." This is why it is important to sit around the kitchen table after one of "those" calls and talk. A well timed tailboard talk, or kitchen table conversation, may do more good in the long run than a "debriefing" at a latter date. In Critical Incident Stress Management CISM) circles our tailboard talk serves that purposes of "defusing" the incident. It may prevent negative thoughts and emotions from taking hold. It gives the crew a chance to review what happened, what went well and what can be learned. Hopefully our firemen operated according to their training, their Standard Operating Guidelines (SOGs) and made appropriate tactical decisions. If this occurred and a life was still lost then the guys and gals can take reassurance that they did their jobs as they were expected to. The leader must reinforce that no matter how much we wish it were so we will not save everyone. To some extent we must all have faith that what is meant to be, will be.

Psychologically we must understand the effects of fear on our abilities. In my article "You Want Me To Do What?" I address the psychology of fear and the affect it has on our breathing, our heart rate and our ability to perform. Fear is a distraction. It is that part of your psyche that is like a crying child, it pulls your focus. Allowing yourself to be distracted by fear, allowing yourself to be afraid, is the first step in losing control. When you surrender to being afraid you lose control of your heart rate, your breathing and your ability to reason in the moment. You may literally become paralyzed by fear. A Fire Service Warrior must approach life threatening situations, which would cause fear in "normal" people, in a "Zen" like way. Firefighting should be an altered state of consciousness. The alert of the station alarm, or the pager on your belt, should mentally trigger your understanding that something outside of your normal existence is about to occur. In religious rituals the sound of the organ music, the lighting of candles, and the invocations of the celebrant are sub-conscious triggers that tell your midbrain that something "special" is going on. Those triggers are supposed to have sacred meaning which cause your mind to focus and set aside the "unimportant" thoughts. That initial dispatch should be the same thing. That should be the trigger that shuts off your thoughts about the fight you had with your spouse, how your kid is doing in school, and even of your parent who is dying in a hospital bed. You can come back to those thoughts later. They are important, but they are completely irrelevant right now. The initial dispatch should trigger your mind to focus on the task at hand. Learning to do this can be challenging though. We all get consumed in our thoughts. Learning to flip a switch to shut out those other concerns will come only with practice. I teach the process this way.

1. Don't move for a second or two. Picture the address in your head. Remind yourself what kind of buildings you have over there. Try and picture the block.
   
2. SLOWLY get up and WALK to the apparatus. If you jump up and run to the rig you get your heart rate up and allow that dump of adrenaline to engage your fight or flight response.
   
3. While walking to the apparatus being using the Tactical Breathing Exercise ("You Want Me To Do What?) Inhale for a four second count, hold it for four seconds, exhale for a four second count and hold it for four seconds. Get your breathing and heart rate under control. DON'T PANIC.
   
4. Don your Personal Protective Clothing. This should be a ritual itself. You should do it the same way every single time. I put my feet into my boots, one at a time, and pull up my bunker pants. Then I fasten my pants and pull the "postman" tabs tight to cintch the waist of the pants. I put on my Truckman's belt, my Vulcan light hangs on my right side. I don my hood and leave it up. I don my radio strap, and snap the sway strap to the ring on the right side of my pants. I don my coat, snap the closures so that my radio microphone is outside my collar, and then close the storm flap. I step up into the rig and slip into my SCBA.
   
5. In route I make sure my portable radio is switched to the primary fire ground radio. I ensure that the straps of my SCBA are snug and free of twists. I think about my riding assignment, my tool assignment and what my job will be. Then I just continue with the tactical breathing exercise and try to shut my brain down until I am on scene or hear the size-up of the first arriving company.
   

If you are the Driver/Operator you will have a different process; you will be thinking about your route to the fire, where the other responding companies are coming from, where you are likely going to have to position your apparatus. The Officer has a different process; he will be considering which SOGs affect his "short-list" of Tactical Decisions, how the time of day and the weather will affect the fire, and what Box number to call if he needs additional manpower. By giving yourself a ritual to follow you keep control over how your brain responds.

Physically we have to be prepared to confront the strength, stamina and agility challenges that firefighting present. Firefighting is a full-contact sport. Firefighters, as opposed to firemen, tend to downplay this. Why? There are a bunch of out of shape firefighters, and if they were to acknowledge the physical nature of the job they have they would have to do something about it. It is far easier to sit in the recliner, the "ass magnet" and watch TV, than it is to pursue a rigorous fitness regime. If we examine the actually work load of firefighting we might approach things in a different way. Firefighters expend metabolic energy, measured in Metabolic Equivalent Levels (METS), at the same level as Navy SEALs do. How many people in your firehouse would cut it as Navy SEALs? I probably wouldn't, I hate running, and can't swim too well, but I recognize the level of effort and physical strain that I will have to expend and try to hit the gym to make sure I am prepared. You need to find a resource for developing a fitness program that can improve your ability on the fire ground. I cannot say enough about the work of Coach Greg Glassman and the folks at www.Crossfit.com. They provide, free of charge, a Work Out of the Day (WOD) on their website and an immeasurable amount of free information about fitness training. If you want to have a fitness model suited to a Warrior lifestyle check them out.

Being prepared emotional, psychologically and physically to do our job is a critical aspect of fulfilling our duty. The elements we have addressed so far lay a foundation to help us meet the responsibility we have to our-self and our brother and sister Fire Service Warriors. We must now take up the duty we have to our neighbors, the people we have a sworn duty to protect.

The standard Fire Service risk assessment criteria heard over and over again is a variation on: "Risk a lot to save a lot; risk a little to save little; risk nothing to save nothing." Who decides what is "a lot" though? Obviously if you have a good working fire and as you pull up Mom is on the front lawn saying that her five year-old is trapped in his bedroom, most of us would say that is "a lot". A life is on the line, and as long as the building seems even moderately tenable we are going to try and make the grab and get the kid out. In the same vain we can all find some agreement that a building that is obviously vacant, no squatters, homeless people, or "security" to worry about, removed from any exposure is a situation that we are going to try and "risk nothing". There is no reason for us to be committing our people to fighting this fire from the inside. Sure, it is "fun", and we don't get many fires, but that is a dangerous level of bravado that cannot be tolerated. There is no reason to put anyone's life on the line for a building that should get bulldozed anyway. Our two examples are pretty clear-cut, black-and-white, examples of making those risk assessment decisions. Life doesn't often present us with a ton of clear-cut choices though. Let's consider a more likely scenario.

It is three o'clock in the afternoon, and you arrive on scene of a two story, wood frame building with heavy fire volume on the first floor, and turbulent, brown/black smoke venting from the second floor windows. You can see from the front lawn that the fire has involved the rear half of the building and is beginning to compromise the interior stairs. Neighbors are screaming from across the street that "the kids are home from school!" What do you do? Offensive Interior Attack; Vent Enter Search; Exposure Protection? There is no right answer. It depends on your department's capabilities, first in manpower, and standard operating guidelines.

If we use our "normal" risk management criteria, the real question is "what is the value?" Is this a "risk a lot" moment to you? Is this a "risk a little" moment? We all have to make this decision. It doesn't matter if you are the probie with six months on the job, or the 20-year Battalion Chief, you need to decided: what is this worth? Is it worth your life? Is it worth the lives of your firefighters? How you make that decision is going to be based on your values, your experience, and most importantly your view of what is an acceptable risk.

I can tell you this though: those people standing across the street expect us to go in there, and kick ass. They expect us to be willing to hang it out there, and try, even though it seems kind of "iffy". That is why they pay our salaries. That is why the public looks up to us. That is why we have a reputation that: politicians, corporations, and our local cops all would die for. We are the guys who make those selfless choices and do everything we can to save those things that are near and dear to our community. People love firemen. It seems corny, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting, but it really is true. They love us because we are the guys who do things no one else will. They love us because we rush into the very building they are rushing out of. We have to remember though that we didn't earn that reputation. Not one little kid who comes up to a fireman on the street knows that you are a good Nozzleman. No one knows if you, personally, are a good fireman or a total mutt. The reputation we enjoy was earned by the firefighters who came before us. They earned it with their blood, sweat, tears and many of their lives. We owe it to the legacy of those who have given everything to honor their memory. We owe it to our citizens to either live up to their expectations, or tell them exactly what we will and will-not do.

I'm going to go out on a limb here, and say this: We ARE supposed to risk our lives. Taking risks is part of the gig. You wouldn't join the Marine Corps and then say, "Hey, what do you mean you're sending me to Iraq? I didn't sign up for that!" Yes, in fact you did. No one put a gun to your head and said, "You will be a fireman." You picked this job. You stood up, raised your hand, and said "Pick Me!" If you are a career firemen you probably studied your but off to get certified as a firefighter, paramedic, or earn a degree, took a half dozen hiring tests, and did everything you could to get hired. You did not just wakeup one morning and find out that you were in a job where someone expected you to risk your life. The Fire Service Warrior has a moral obligation to his neighbors, to the community he has sworn to protect. It is not enough to say that you want to help people. In my opinion there is no room for "Parade Day" firefighters. None of us have the budgets to be a social club for people who want to play at being firemen, and I feel that it is an insult to the memory of my fallen brothers and sisters for anyone to receive the honor of the reputation they earned with out paying into the kitty for future generations.

Honoring the commitment we have made to our communities means that we must be proficient in our jobs and capable of tackling the difficult tasks that we are responsible for. The Fire Service Warrior must approach the study of his craft with a passion. He must strive to know all he can about his trade. When we train recruits entering the fire service we do so in an incremental way: Safety, SCBA, Fire Behavior, Building Construction, Forcible Entry and Ventilation are all taught as separate skills. To an extent it has to be this way. There is so much information for the new firefighter, who aspires to become a fireman, to master that it needs to be broken down. The challenge is that once you graduate from the recruit academy you have to put it all together. The fire ground is a dangerous, dynamic place, where multiple tasks must take place in a coordinated manner.

The world of the fireman has many factors which will effect his survival. One of our primary concerns must be the building we are fighting fire in; its construction, general state of repair and the contents inside it. In the classic text, The Art of War, Sun Tzu, a warrior philosopher who lived more than 2,000 years ago in China, tells us "Therefore those who do not know the plans of competitors cannot prepare alliances. Those who do not know the lay of the land cannot maneuver their forces." We must master building construction. The manner in which a building has been constructed has the single greatest effect on how fire will travel. It sets the stage for everything that we are going to do, and yet is one thing that we have the least amount of control over. We will often be conducting our battle in a building that we have never been in before. We have no control over the intentional or accidental acts of the builder, owner, occupant or arsonist, which change the intended use of the structure, or reduce its natural ability to resist the spread of fire. We must have an understanding of how the homes, taxpayers and commercial buildings in our district have been constructed, though if we are going to try to reduce the threat that the building itself poses.

We must also have a clear understanding of fire behavior. We have our strategy and tactics, and we need to approach the fire as though it does too. The "strategy" of fire is simple; to keep burning as long as the chemical chain reaction can continue. Understanding fire behavior allows us to understand the "tactics" of the fire. We cannot effectively match our tactics to the fire if we don't understand the tactic the fire will take. There are many factors that we must take into consideration when evaluating fire behavior. On a basic level we must be able to recognize what stage of development the fire is in. Most of us were "raised" with incipient, free-burning and smoldering as the stages that a fire progressed through. Now, we are teaching our recruits about the ignition, growth, fully developed and decay stages. Knowing what stage the fire is in, whether you refer to it as "free-burning" or "fully developed", provides a critical understanding of what might possible happen on the fire ground. If we are in the growth stage of fire development we should be prepared that we might have conditions which could lead to a flashover. If we have entered the decay stage we need to recognize that there is the potential for backdraft conditions to occur. Beyond understanding the stage of fire development we must understand how to read smoke conditions. Dave Dodson has done an amazing job of teaching the fire service about the "Art of Reading Smoke". The three key factors in reading smoke are the volume, velocity and density of smoke issuing from a structure. Understanding the relationship of these factors to fire behavior can help us stay out of situations which may rapidly deteriorate, or help us instinctively "know" where to find the fire and how to extinguish it.

We must be proficient in the skills we use on the fire ground. You have to know all there is to know about your SCBA: how it works, what to do if you have an emergency, how to take care of it. Our SCBA is the greatest tool we have for protecting ourselves and being able to take the risks that we have to in a calculated manner. In addition we have to know how to use our tools. What is the best way to pull ceiling if I have a plaster hook? How can I use my Halligan bar to remove a security door or the bars from windows? How do I decide what ladder to take if I need to make a rescue from the third floor? The only way to develop these skills is through training. With our recruit firefighters we conduct repetitive skills drills. They swing the axe a hundred times. They chock the door open every time they go through. They start the saw. We are building muscle memory. Muscle memory is the training with a skill until it becomes automatic, like signing your name. You repeat a particular skill hundreds, if not thousands, of times until you have so ingrained the steps that you don't have to think. Our skills drills during the academy give us this foundation, but we must continue to practice once we are "on the job". Tiger Woods may be the greatest golfer to ever live. He doesn't just pick up his clubs on Thursday and go play a tournament though. He plays every single day. He practices the act of hitting a ball every day. Our training program does that for us. If we confine our training to skills drills we would be far from proficient on the fire ground.

The skills that we learn must lead to scenario based training. We assign our people a riding position and a tool assignment and then give them a scenario they must accomplish. This is a learning tool. It allows them to understand where a particular skill may be used on the fire ground. It follows the natural flow of learning. Once the recruit has mastered the skills of donning and doffing his SCBA, his emergency procedures, and ways of reducing his profile through shifting or dumping his pack, then we can introduce him to the SCBA Confidence Maze. We take our recruit and send him and his partner into the maze. They must negotiate the obstacles they encounter: reduced profiles like a stud space in a wall; wire entanglements; simulated SCBA emergencies, like an Instructor turning off their cylinder valve. The point of these scenarios is to build confidence in the SCBA and the individual firefighter's skills. This should not be an easy evolution. When we introduce the scenario it is kept "tame", allow the recruit to go through the maze with a few obstacles, the natural reduced profiles, and simple wire traps. Once a basic understanding of the requirements is met then make them do it with a black out cover on their mask. As they become more proficient increase the challenges of the obstacles. If you have gotten folks who are highly capable go ahead and add heat. Each time we increase the difficulty our people will become more proficient in a skill.

Building on the individual skills and scenario training we need to develop Full Scale Exercise (FSEs). The FSE is where we let out people play for keeps. There are no "time-outs" unless we have a real emergency or injury. We give out assignments for the day and then let them handle what ever incidents we through at them. The FSE is where we can arrange for our firemen to arrive on scene of a building with fire, or simulated fire conditions, people hanging out of windows waiting to be rescued, access problems, and all of the challenges of the real fire ground. They have to figure it out. They must make tactical decisions, they must use their skills to solve the problems. The Chief's have to give the strategic goals, the Company Officer's must make the tactical decisions and direct their people and the Firemen must perform. These exercises should not be easy. They should allow our people to experience the challenges of the fire ground in a realistic way. In the Roman Army it was said that dill should be bloodless battle and that battle should be bloody drill. Train like you fight, fight like you train is another way of expressing that. It is important though that the people who design the exercises never think of it as a chance to show how smart they are. Our exercises should be challenging, but they must be winnable. I can design an exercise scenario that you absolutely can not possible win. What do you learn from that? Absolutly nothing, except that I am a jerk.

We are best prepared to fulfill our duty to our neighbors by being prepared and proficient. The only way to develop that proficiency is by constantly challenge your-self as a fireman. You must train your mind, and you body, to be prepared for the challenges that you will face.

The role of the Fire Service Warrior is a noble one. It is volunteering to stand between your neighbors and the threat of unrestrained fire. It is not an easy calling to live up to though. It requires a disciplined mind. It requires focus and thoughtful action. It requires an awareness of self, and your commitment to the society you live in. The Fire Service Warrior immerses himself in the history, the tradition, the skills and the knowledge of his profession so that he may fulfill the duty he has assumed. It requires a mastery of your emotional, psychological and physical state. If you strive to live the life of a Fire Service Warrior you set an example for those who come after you and honor the memory of those who came before. For me this is a never ending process. There is always another book to read, another class to take, some way that I can improve myself and my ability. I hope that the ideas I have laid out can serve as guideposts for you as you find your way along the path of the Fire Service Warrior.