¶ Firefighter Podcast With Devin and Houston
As always , today's podcast is sponsored by Fire Facilities . Makers of reliable all-American steel fire training structures built the way you train Fire facilities . Towers , burn rooms and mobile units help you prepare to respond and survive . Welcome back to 3-Point Firefighter Now . Tonight's guest is somebody you're going to remember from season one it's Devin Craig .
So Devin is a 20-plus year veteran of the fire service . He has been with the department north of Houston , texas since 2003 and an officer there since 2007 . He has spent seven years as a lead fire instructor at the largest fire academy in the nation . He is a proud member of the Georgia Smoke Diver Association .
He is also the co-owner of Trainer Die Fire Service Training . So with that , devin Craig .
Yeah , hell . I mean , we're about an hour apart . Maybe I could have sat down together with him .
Well , you know , I was down there teaching at Periland and I thought about getting a hold of you and they told me how far away it was . Yeah , it's , yeah , there's no driving across town when it comes to Houston .
No , no , and it's . It's weird because he's on the very bottom and I'm like on a very top .
So yeah , yeah , I tell you what I hate about Houston and maybe you can talk something about it . I hate the frontage roads . You gotta get rid of those frontage roads those use if something's across the street . You're driving 30 miles to get there . I hate it . Can you fix it ?
If that's the worst , come on . I mean , you get to drive 80 miles an hour , so how back in it be .
That's true . But when I was there they lost my luggage . First day I was there for teaching a 1403 class and they lost my gear and they lost my personal luggage . So they kept saying every day they're going oh no , no , it's on its way , we found it . So I didn't buy anything but underwear and toothbrush , toothpaste , that was it .
All my medicines were gone , everything . So every day they were saying that and I did not get it till I flew all the way back home Thank you , farwaith . I'd rather not say , because they're really shitty . And if I say United then you go oh , united is shitty .
So I'm not going to say it was United , because I know people go oh , united Airlines is so bad , it sucks . And then tell me their United stories at 3.Firefighter at gmailcom . Because I don't want to say United , it makes me uncomfortable .
Southwest , you got to go Southwest .
Two bags for free .
Two bags for free .
So yeah , southwest , though they nickel and down the shit out of you . Yeah , if you want to ride on the inside of the airplane , that's another 35 bucks . Yeah , that's , that's crazy . How have you been brother ?
Good man busy busy .
Well , I want to share a story with the people that may not know this .
¶ Technical Difficulties and Appreciation for Chief
I had a terrible experience with doing . I was trying to do lives on Facebook and it was a hot mess . The two people that I contacted one was Chief Frank Leib from FDNY . We had a wonderful talk . It never worked . The next person , another cool guy , devin Craig .
So you were so cool when I was struggling to get this and the live never worked , I finally just threw it away . I said you know it's not for me right now , but I want people to know just how cool you were . You're like , yeah , I'll do it . And then I was doing nothing but struggling and you were working around your garage .
You're going oh no , it's cool , brother , it's cool , it's cool , and you couldn't be nicer about it . So I wanted to thank you for that .
Appreciate it , no be no be , I understand You're the one doing the hard part . I just click a link and go okay .
Dude , I could figure it out , and I felt I was so embarrassed to talk to YouTube . I was like , oh my God . Well , leib was a little bit worse , chiefly because I recorded it . I mean , we talked , but it didn't go out . The whole time , none of it went out . Oh , so embarrassing .
And with you , I was like live with you , but I couldn't get it to do anything .
So yeah , he's a big deal , man , that's . That's good , you got to talk to him , at least .
I mean he has been on here before and I've got to teach up there at the rock twice and talk to him and he's one of the few people . To this day I still call him chief and I'm always nervous around him . Not because he's intimidating by any means .
He's the nicest , most genuine human being , but there's just something about him that I'm just like real quiet . We were at , a bunch of us were at a bar in Manhattan and it was like called McSorley's . It's one of the oldest bars and he was drinking beers with us or he's there with us . I didn't say two words to it and he'd already been on the podcast .
I mean , it was just . I talked to him several times during training . It's just something about don't you have anybody . That kind of makes you nervous a little bit .
Most , most cheese , for sure . I'm usually real quiet and well , usually I start with , hey , I'm sorry , and then , and then I tell him hey , look , now I apologize in advance . So we know this . I try to not scare them all . So .
Yeah , that , well , that's . That's one of those things my wife always says when anybody says , listen , I don't .
I'm not trying to be racist , but as soon as they say that you're like , well , they're about say something extremely fucking racist , yeah yeah , usually I'm like hello , I'm sorry about scare the crap out of you , but here we go , but it's gonna work . So I want to share with you what an idiot I am . So I've got , I'm doing a Houston month .
I didn't realize I was gonna be doing a Houston month here at 3.5 fighter , but right after you I have Chief Jacob Johnson , so they're snugged in there pretty tight and so I'm getting all the stuff ready . I'm really excited . You're the first guest in my new studio , by the way . We're in the studio , right , thank you . Brand new equipment , everything .
So I'm all excited . I get everything done . I do my little pre-roll like hey , one , three , point five fighters , and I guess there's Devon Craig , da , da , da , da da . But I forgot this chair squeaking there's , but I forgot to write down your questions . But I was gonna ask you something discussion points , not a big deal .
I go upstairs talking all lovely bride , and I go . I look at the clock and I remember I forgot to write these questions down . I'm like , oh shit , I gotta go and I ran downstairs . I'll lock myself out of my , my own studio here , yeah . So I tried everything , every gentle forcible entry I could cut .
Finally , because it was like 458 , I'm like shit , shit , shit . My phone was in here . I couldn't get ahold of you , so I was like crap , so I had to take the entire lock . It's all off right now on the ground Just for Devon Craig . That's . That's what I care about right there .
That's good .
I just know somebody's gonna come downstairs and see my doorknob and all the tools out in the middle of the floor and like what the fuck's he doing ? Do you have some of force one tree because he's bad at it ? What's been going on since I saw you , brother ?
We've been doing a lot , so we I think I think before I talked to you , I hadn't written the article . I wrote a article for firehouse and I think we're pretty well . It was about how to train people , which was cool .
We're gonna talk about that tonight aren't we , we are , we are .
I don't know what article that got on fire rescue one . It was pretty decent , it was okay and then been traveling
¶ Work-Life Balance and Firefighter Schedules
a lot . So I usually go about once a month . It seems like either do my own company or through a fast rescue . Those guys are great to me and let me go what kinds of fun places and teach that . So fast . To get bigger . So , and the what is ? The kids are getting bigger . So how old are there ? There's seven and eight , so there they're okay .
Nice . I didn't have to . I didn't start doing all that traveling until my kids were like my youngest now is 18 , so I picked a pretty good time . It just happened that way , because my wife would never let me travel and teach if we had kids that young .
Yeah , we do a lot of working out with stuff and and usually if I'm home , like right now , they're out of town . They're actually with my parents for the week . They took them , but normally during the week , when my wife said works , she works from home , I'm , I'm hundred percent here .
So I don't , you know , you got my , don't have my phone out or I might email or anything else , and we're running around doing stuff with little ones . So it's , it's . It's funny , because people talk about work-life balance and there's really not . It's 100% this , 100% that .
So , yeah , these are two things and and God bless my wife , she takes care of everything when I'm not here . So it's , it's . It's quite amazing .
So you know , in that the , the spouses of Firefighter instructors at travel , like we do , don't get enough adabos , because we leave them with everything Right and then we go off and have lots and lots of fun . Sure , yeah , we don't get , we don't buy , we don't get a ton of money . We're not driving home in Lamborghinis .
No , no , not at all . And I learned about two years ago that when I come home and you know the , the dishes aren't clean or the dog needs food or whatever .
I don't know how to say .
I don't , yeah , hey , hey , what did I do for 24 hours ? I wouldn't hear . So , yeah , I need to contribute right now . So shut up and do . It works out a lot better .
Wait , yeah , shut up to do it to her . Did she say to you no ?
no , I just smile and I'd say yes , ma'am , and you know , think I mean the whole house is still standing . You know , my kids are doing great , you know , and I and I was gone 48 hours . So there you go , right . So what do I ?
I've got a question for you Just hit me . I love your input on this and I just hit me when you said something . So what is your work schedule right now ? We were 48 96 . We've always were . I'm sorry .
I'm trying to get you know . We've been on it for like a decade and I don't . I don't even know that's right . It just seems like forever . We were not on that originally . Actually , when I first started working in my department which I worked there six months as a part-timer they were on the Houston schedule , which it's called different things , but it was a .
It was a four shift 24 on 24 off , 24 on five days off .
I they were on that original .
Yeah , that's what Houston runs , but it's four shifts . We moved from that to a 2448 and worked that for a long , for a couple years , and then the two neighboring departments to us went to the nine day , which is one on one off , one on one off , one on four off . When we moved to that .
We stayed that way for a long time and then we moved to this , and so I've worked three different schedules just at one department and I could tell you that the 496 is the best Okay .
So here's why I'm asking . I just before we started .
My union is looking into it , and so we're nowhere near making a decision with the union , even if they like it maybe the chiefs don't don't know yet , maybe they will , but it's a brand new thing for us and so people are coming into my office constantly and like what do you think and what are the benefits ? And all this , and I've never worked it .
So I wanted to ask you you say you like it , tell me about the transition and tell me what you like about it .
So the biggest obstacle we had overcome was how long can you work in a row ? So if you work a 24 or 48 , you probably can't work more than 48 hours because you're immediately going to go from 48 to work a 96 .
So we had to adjust to that and then , from an officer standpoint , on any other schedule I have to get them in , I think at the guys to the station 10 times on this schedule , five times , but five times a month I got to get these guys to work and then when they're at work , I got them . We're good .
You know , nobody had a flat on the way there , nobody got in sick . I got them and then learning how to adapt to the next morning nobody new is coming in .
¶ 48-96 Shift Schedule and Its Benefits
So we have we have shift changes . Six on day two , you're back up at six . So we have a couple of trucks to get busy . Sometimes Even those guys get up at six . Hey , check their rig out , do a little bit of this or that , and then hey , y'all made three calls after midnight .
Go , sack out for a little bit , come back and we do that and we're all open about it . I like the fact that it's easier to get guys in . I like the fact that my guys can drive farther . We have one guy north of Dallas , so he's driving four hours . We have another guy that's three hours . Two or three more they're three hours .
And of the 85 guys we have , on average they're an hour away . Any other schedule they're getting beat up in that they can't . They can't just survive the cost to drive back and forth so many times Versus these guys doing that . The downsides we've seen are if anything happens to them or we can't get a hold of them , we can't just drive by their house .
So like I'm not driving four hours to find out why this guy didn't answer the phone and where he's at which you ? It's funny , but in the fire service we lucked out and we know enough people that we had a guy that was an hour and a half away .
We called a guy , who called a guy , who got the fire department on the phone and said , hey , can you run by our house ? And they knocked the door for us . So it does work out . But same thing with like trying to schedule a class and this or that or you you don't want to schedule a guy to , hey , come to a class on your second day off .
Well , that guy just drive four hours home and whatnot . That's the big downside to see .
Who was your ? Why did you all want to move to that 48 96 ? That's a good question .
I don't remember what the original catalyst was . I think a guy really wanted to do it and then he he got on the there's a website , 496.com , and he , he started investigating it and then I think they just they , he kind of just swayed us all and we had a hundred percent buy-in .
That was that was our stipulation from the fire chief 100% , everybody's gonna like this . We're not gonna do it and we weren't . A lot of people do like a test year or whatnot . We weren't gonna do any of that if we changed . We were changing and since we've changed , three fire departments around us have changed it as well . So it's pretty cool , so it .
And then the we touch three fire departments that are full-time staffed and two of those are the same schedules us . So I know that who , I'm gonna make a run with these guys . And then the other department is 2448 and I know it's the same two crews because that schedule works in good .
What that's gonna be is gonna be a little bit of a challenge for us , because we're gonna be able to do that .
Um what about our ?
downsides , but what ?
what about like overtime ? So if you're working two days , is your overtime 12 or 24 ?
We're allowed to do . We don't have a cap on how much we can work first off , which is rare , um , but we're allowed to work it in 12 , 24 hour , whatever increments of that , any any 12 hour increment , same thing with time off .
We'll commonly have guys that'll take off just a night , the second night or just the morning , the first morning , and then work 36 on .
I well , I'm just really interested in that right before we start talking . I gotta I haven't read it yet . Our union president said something out about it . Um , because there is such a pushback . One of the questions I've got is and I didn't come up with this deputy chief Cron , my boss , made a really good point when he was talking to me about it .
He goes what about it ? To our point earlier what about the family ? What about the wife that has two little kids ? So now she's got to take care of two kids For 48 hours . That's a big . Did you have any issues with that ?
Um , we , we have a couple guys uh and I was in this boat as well whose whose wives work Monday through Friday . So if you work to Saturday , Sunday , which only happens every six weeks , that means that she didn't really see you .
There wasn't a day off together , but when my we were on 496 and both my kids were born and my wife and I had a very good , good working relationship with it , where the first Three days I was off , those nights I get up and get the kids .
So when the baby cried , I got up , and then the night before I went to work , and obviously too that I was at work , she got up and took care of the kids . Um , and we worked out that pretty well . Uh , what do you work now ?
So we work . I've heard it called the modified kelly or the detroit , where it's like , say , for example , it's monday , wednesday , friday off four days . Wednesday , friday , sunday off four days .
Yeah , that's , that's the nine day we worked before . So , yeah , that's the schedule I had just before this . Um , and what I didn't like about that one is if you got stuck on your middle day , you're stuck for three .
And then , two , we had a problem where you would , if you got , if you got smoked your your first day , or even your middle day , and you came home , well , you lost that in between day anyway , exactly . So it didn't . It didn't make any sense . The 496 is the best combination of Working those and having your four days off . So we know we get off .
It's four days . There's no , there is it the first day or second day or oh god , and I remember those days of that , that second day being rough and going man , I'm gonna go home . I got one more day of this , jesus , let's just be done with it . There's a lot of data on that website at 48-96 that does .
They would do all the calendars and figure out stuff about when you're home .
What's it ?
called it's 48 Dash or hyphen 96.com .
Okay , thank you .
There's a lot of departments in California that used it , and I think it's where it really began . So there was an apartment down here that was doing a 48 144 . They were on to off six and I think they stopped doing it , but it was a four shift schedule .
I was gonna say that that's gotta be more than three shifts . Yeah , oh yeah .
No , and I mean you never worked .
That , that'd be so cool though it would be good , it would be good , especially if you had like trade shift buddies where you'd work , oh , like a week or two , and then you don't work for a couple .
Exactly exactly . Yeah , no , and we were able in my area , just like Jacob can tell you to growth has been exponential . It's been nuts . So the ability to get guys further away , and these are the things that people look at on a flyer .
They look at pay and they look at schedule and they look at retirement Maybe , but that pay and that schedule , the first two things . So the telekid hey look , you're gonna work , you're gonna work 10 days a month , but you got to be here every third day . That's kind of sucks .
Hey , you're gonna work 10 days a month , you only got to come five times and it adds up . They figured that out .
So so those things help that that opens up your recruitment Really pretty , pretty big good friend of mine out in Glendale , private let's see , he's private , gilbert Pedroza . He has people that like live in in like Washington in order that fly in and out . So you do , I guess you can , you know , open that , that bucket up of better recruits .
I never thought about that one . That's really . I didn't mean to like take away your time on the podcast talking about 40 , no , but you can't have brought a little bit of it up . And then you talked about the kids . I was like man , this is a perfect question for this one .
It's funny because everybody is like that hey , hey , what do you work we want ? We started by going with that and I I don't know anybody , even us we had a hundred percent buy-in with the 50 or 60 employees . We had the time and we have one that doesn't really like it , but I don't know what schedule he was you'd like .
So Everybody loves it to the extent and it's it's an adaptation , especially in an admin role , because there's gonna be times where , like , they're gonna see you on Monday and then they won't see you again until the next week's Friday . So they have eight working , eight business days , they don't see you . So it's some getting used to that too .
What about Christmas Eve and Christmas ?
Day . Some departments do a swap , we do not . There's a department in our county that they swap . Chris , if you work both , they swap Christmas Eve and the day before . So it's kind of an agreement thing . We don't do that , we work , it's straight .
So now , that would suck bad , especially if you get low kids in it .
Well , and there is a downside to it . If you go burying in the calendars , if you work Christmas I want to say Christmas Day that means you work like July 4th , halloween , thanksgiving , you work all of them because I like how it works out . But I don't . I have to go through again . Look at the leap years and whatnot . See how it changes .
Well , I guess we should talk training . We talked a lot about shit . I appreciate you telling me Everybody I've talked to loves that schedule . It's just such a hot topic in my department right now a lot of great firefighters that you know it's a huge change to their , their family life and their second job or third job .
So I just kind of want to get as much feedback as I can . If anybody's listening and they want to send me some information , 3.5 fighter at gmailcom love to know . We don't want to makea Decision that is going to affect us permanently . You know that's a bad decision for us , but I've never seen anything bad about it . But let's talk training .
I like training , you like training . Now your co-owner of trainer die , the largest fire department discussion group , can I say that ? Is that true ?
Uh , we're probably . I know I know a buddy , kyle , his is big . We're probably second , third or fourth or something right there , I don't know . There's about 30,000 people there now and I don't know how yeah , but it took off pretty quick , didn't it ? It did Completely organically , completely on accident . It was really just for four dudes . We didn't .
We just said four guys that wanted to do it and it was . It was because we got lost in the abyss of of the internet , couldn't find classes . So four guys , kind of get to get them , did it and then About a week later there was a hundred people like , oh wow , do we know her people ? Yeah , we probably know those guys .
And now it's like and what's cool now is is when we go to approve people in the group , you'll see this thing . We're like You'll see 15 people from Massachusetts and they've all like they . Somebody there saw this , saw something in there and wanted it , liked it , and then next thing , you know , hey , look , spread it out .
So and we'll see there's some questions they have to answer . My chief recommended it . I'm a training officer , these kind of things , so it's pretty cool to see . And then that's that's the group , and there's the page where the rants are written and stuff that we're actually doing classes and that's about 10,000 people following it now . So , same deal . We don't .
We didn't mean that on purpose .
So what do you , what do you think it was that that drew all these firefighters so quickly to , to this particular page and to this particular group ?
I think there's a , there's a big group and it's that was outside training or at Converses , and very similar to the fools where , hey , I'm by myself , wait a minute , this , oh , I agree with that . Oh , okay , wait a minute . There's other people like me and I think it's spread that way . It's amazing .
The one of the posts that we did was about don't be an asshole and that got like a million likes in a Million , hundreds of shares , like what , and it was . It was just a thought a guy had , and and we happen to document it , and there it goes .
So so have you had any trouble with people from your department Looking at it and thinking you were talking about them ?
No , no , we know we've been really good . There's , there's four guys that have the ability to write in it and they , they all work in different places , so nobody works in the same one , you and you . Rarely we try to make it to where
¶ Anonymity and Unity in Fire Department
you don't know . It's us in that thing , one for anonymity for each guy and two Because nothing in there is directed at one particular person . Anybody that travels will tell you that every fire department has the same three or four dudes in it .
Mm-hmm , the same three or four shifts , the same problems is on different levels , and you can get that together and go well , that's the same thing . So you'll see that in the post . We , we don't get in there and talk about , hey , smoothborn novels versus fog novels , no , that's not . That's that's the arguments .
To have one-on-one with people and a lot of things you start to learn , or Just just based on what your department runs , you may , you may mask up on the truck . That's what you do . This is why you do it and you're not gonna change it . Okay , cool , let's not worry about that . So we try to keep it to where .
Hey look , this is just mental thoughts of , hey , you're you feeling crappy today ? How do you feel better ? How do you ? How do you get through the guys that are complaining ? How do you do those things ? And most of the stuff is organically written In pretty close time to when it's posted . So we try not to . We're trying not to write .
You know , warm peace with these things . We just want to have a good thought that people so that's part one with Devin .
Check back next Monday for part two . Our podcast today was sponsored by fire facilities . This made in America company is Dedicated to constructing top quality custom training structures to meet your needs . Make your training count with all steel structures that are made to last . Visit fire facilities comm for more details .