Disclaimer. We'd like to know before the start of this interview that the opinions about to be expressed by the guest of tonight's Getting Salty Experience Podcast are that of the guest and do not directly or necessarily reflect the views of the host of the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
You're listening to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast.
Hello, no Mike Milner in the chat. Welcome back to the Getting Salty Experience Podcast, the only one that brings the fly house, kitchen table, guys like Frank Leeb Billity with the mustache and mister Chris Stewart to you flyout kitchen table and everything that goes with it. Ruffy, Ruffy, the new ship saved up young looking baby face.
Well just as God does.
Oh what he sounds waiting to see if somebody else said something.
You know what I think, Gods. I think he was at death Store and it's like, I gotta do something to make myself feel younger.
Bro.
He was knocking on the grim Reaper was ready to let him in and let me go get my bead shaved up so I look young again, to feel better.
All right, I feel great, I feel great, excellent, feeling good, baby.
So not as good as leave, not as good as the Chief, but I.
Feel nobody ever feels good as Chief going for himself. We got Billy with the mustache year right, Guns.
Yes, we do.
You anyway, so.
Keep going.
I made made a much special push button just for you, just for him.
You got his own push button. We'll like to welcome the Chief, Chris Stewart to the show Phoenix Blazing Hot Arizona, and we're gonna talk about two more flies that you must know, right.
Mister one hundred and twenty two degrees, mister, he's mister heat.
I wanted to done good over there. Cool.
Oh my god, No, he's not.
I don't know if anybody does. He's not good. I wanted no good thing. I came are good idea?
Yeah, well, what commercial we got to play today? Guns? We only have armitect Armata.
And we have the this this other one that you know our guests in the corner would like to share with us.
Okay, let's get it go. We'll play that one. At the end, we'll space.
Yeah, at the end.
All right, let's let's do Let's get from Vince here.
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And yes, Mike Bild, the Hall of Flame is cool. We're talking about maybe trying to get down there to do a show. Before we get started, though, I think we definitely have to take a moment of silence please for the souls and the families of the people that were lost in that horrific plane. Chris, Sophie, don't mind. Let's take a brief moment of silence. Amen, guys. Well, with that guns, we need to get Patriot and then we're gonna dive right into Chief Stewart's fire.
All right, So here we go.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
As you guys know, this is where we get this from thirty five. As you must know, Billy Golf out of Frank Leeb and friends. You guys will be at Indie, right, They're gonna try to do something there when we get as many guys from the book as possible to come in. I believe, right. We don't have a time or a date yet, right, guys.
I'm gonna have a book signing, and as soon as we know the date, we'll get it to you guys, I know you'll be.
There, and Louis will be there.
Yep, we should have. We're hoping at least half the contributors will be there.
So awesome, And how's the book sell going. They're still flying off the.
Shelves, that's what they're telling Frank and I. They're astounded. I mean, when we came up with the idea, like we told you in the previous show, it was kind of a no brainer.
So We're glad it's taken off, you.
Know, and a lot on Amazon correct, Yeah, Amazon, Fire Engineering books and wherever you wherever good books are sold as.
This and this is a great Yeah. So let's get anybody else before we dive into the chief story here. I believe it's a supermarket fire correct number eight.
Yeah, yeah, Frank, And I can just do a little intro, is that?
Yeah?
Absolutely, that's what I'm saying.
I mean, I'll give it to you from my perspective as a subourbon fire guy. This is the fire that we really realized that we can pretend all day long we're going to be a fast team or rit team. But until we saw this fire, we saw the challenges. Phoenix went to him back then when it was Bruno and Don Abbott, and then.
They did all these studies afterwards to truly see what does it take and what was a wake up call? It really was Brett Tarbor who did this fire. It was a horrible, horrible fire, but this one made us rethink what rapid antervention, what fast teams are. Large area search, at least in my generation, was like, hey, wake up, you got three knuckle AADs outside the building. That's not a fast team.
They got to be trained, They gotta understand what they get into, and I think that really woke up.
A lot of them.
So Frank.
Yeah, I think.
Just to add on, I'm going to talk a little bit about a person who wrote the chapter on this.
A really great, great fire ups to firefighter.
Know him.
I've known him now for several year. He's the real deal. I'm happy that you contributed to this, and I.
Know you're you worked under under Brunosini, so as they say, right, you're a disciple, and I know you have a lot of really good insight and you shared it in the book.
We appreciative it at and we'll dive right into it.
But just before you do it, I just want to make a quick mention that fire number five in the book was the telephone fire, and we're approaching the fiftieth anniversary of that. I know I'm on the show a lot, but I don't think i'll be on before the fiftieth anniversary, So I just want to to just bring the awayness that February twenty seventh will be the fiftieth anniversary of that fire. So just keep all the responders their families and the generational impact that incidents have.
That is certainly a classic example of it. But Chris, it's all yours. Thank you, my brother.
And just to add out to that quick, Chief, we did a show with Danny Newton and on the telephone far so if you want to go back and check it out and learn what it's all about, I employee you go back and take a look at that.
It's the guy too, Dan, He just passed away a little while ago, but he was like the main guy who kind of brought that to the forefront. And then he worked with Chief Leave at the Rock and they got that all squared away. So that was a really special thing.
So all right, Chief Stewart, have at it, buddy.
Well, thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity to be on here. And it was pretty fantastic to be able to participate in this book. Obviously the book means something, right, if it's if it's if it's flying off the shelves and firing and engineering is having a hard time keeping up with the distribution and the printing of it. That's that's a fantastic thing. And and especially since it's benefiting the charities that you guys.
Picked to do that.
That's that's outstanding, and it's and it's legit. And I'll just say in the class I was doing and last week in Hamilton County there just outside of Cincinnati, we used the book to as as part of the class, and we pulled ten of the fires out of there
and and had and broke that. There was about one hundred students and broke them up into groups and had them go through it, and we started talking about all the things that we were seeing, some consistencies we were seeing across these the fires that we had selected, and and and just making sure that the students become aware of it. So, man, the book's fantastic, and I'm I'm pretty honored and kind of amazed that I'll get to
be a part of it. So I appreciate that the fire I wrote about and liked to talk about as the Southwest Supermarket fire happened March fourteenth, two thousand and one here in the city of Phoenix, and really the result of the fire cost Brett firefighter Brett Tarvor, his life.
But there there was there were two other firefighters that came out of the building and respiratory arrest and luckily they they were, they were able to get them back and uh and actually both of those guys came back to work and one of them, one of them recently passed from uh you know, long long term illness, but he was able to work quite a long quite a long time. So uh yeah, so it it it like all these fires do impacted more than just the folks
that you know, that that they're remembered for. And that's that's a picture of Brett right there. Brett and I were actually kind of the same generation the Phoenix Fire Department. He was the class right after me. Uh so we we came on together and kind of were working our way through the system together.
Uh.
Fantastic firefighter. And one of the parts of the story, he's a big giant man. He's about six five and weighed, you know, two hundred and seventy five pounds. So it was that didn't that didn't help getting him out of the building, right. I wanted him at every fire I went to, but when we were trying to when when the crews were trying to move him, and that that
that made it for a challenge. So this fire was in a grocery store kind of an old community grocery store in the southwest part of Phoenix had been there since the fifties, which, by the way, in the city of Phoenix is old. I realized, we live in a pretty new city and most most everybody, at least you guys that participate in here, know about old cities. We really don't. So this is an old building to us.
And and actually thankfully it was an old building for us because it tolerated more fire conditions than any of the modern construction would tolerate these days here in Phoenix. So this, this grocery store had basically an anchor store and a very small strip center. There were three other occupancies. They're connected to it. The kind of in the grocery
cart kind of surrounded these two other occupancies. There had been a kid who had been arrested in the store for shoplifting a few days earlier, and he was he was kind of pissed, and so he came back and lit the the trash and the cardboard boxes and stuff back on the loading dock on fire. And this all came out in the investigation and and and whatnot after after the incident. So, uh, the first du engine is actually out. They're they're they're down at the shop getting
getting something fixed. They dispatch a still assignment, which is one engine for us in this system. And uh, and so the second deuce headed in there, the first new engine and the first new battalion chief actually see a column of smoke, you know, they're they're they're headed back into the neighborhood and uh, they start heading there and then it quickly gets upgraded as as the smoke starts to grow. So this building, uh, the way it's situated,
it's facing east in in Phoenix, it's not well. The commonality the common weather pattern here is in the afternoons we get winds out of the west and uh, and this happened to be one of those days where we had some more significant winds. So as you can see here on the on the left hand side where those where those power polls are, that's the loading dock area where the fire was started. That also happened to be
the windward side of the building. There's a roll up door there, there's a couple of man doors, and there's also some events that that lead into that back storage area of the grocery store. So so Engine twenty four shows up, They stretch lines back there. They've got lines and power lines had dropped down in there, so they had some arcing, so they were they were really kind of slowed down actually being able to get back there
and get water on the fire. The fire burns for a little bit, uh, the wind is down definitely impacting it, and it extends up into the trust loft there above the storage area and then starts working its way across the attic space of that building. So when Engine fourteen arrives, they show up with actually a couple other engines right on their heels, and they go to work trying to
figure out exactly where the fire is. Some of the second and third new company wasn't as familiar with the building as the first new crews were, and they went into these other occupants he here on the Alpha bra Alpha Bravo corner, thinking that they would take them back to where the fire is. They realized that those were separated from all the other spaces in the grocery store, so they actually had to come out and then make their way into the grocery store itself.
Stretch of hold on Chief one second, so the building on the left in that left corner that has the roof. That's separate occupantcy. That's why roof is still intact there.
Exactly. They don't communicate at all.
There's no entrances into the store exactly. It's an old Hase hardware It was a clothing store and a beauty shop in there. And yeah, they don't have any connection into the grocery store at all.
Okay, problem they went in there first, obviously.
Yeah, absolutely, So Battalion Chief arrives, he he, he initiates, or he takes command from Engine twenty four, starts directing companies and trying to figure out exactly where where this fire is and where the best way is we're going to be able to get to it. Engine twenty four stretches in through the front door, and while they're in there, they're starting to look for the fire above them. So this is two thousand and one. This is pre tip cameras. This is before you know, a lot of the a
lot of the better technology that we have now. And it's also happens to be before we had a lot of information about fire behavior and and wind and a lot of the other conditions that really really you know, kicked our tail this day. And so while they're back there trying to locate the fire. They come to a spot there they get lines charged on the inside and they start trying to get water up into that trust loft in the back. They're having a difficult time getting water in there.
They're trying to.
Find the space, the space where they can actually get to the fire. They were talking about like twenty to twenty five foot ceilings in there. We've got steel Joy's trusses up there, and then there is those openings on
the windward side. The wind is starting to pick up, and the wind's starting to you know, kind of severely impact the fire behavior inside that building, and the conditions are starting to get worse and worse, and to the point where the guys that are working in there say, literally within thirty seconds, it goes from being able to see, you know, a fair distance through that grocery store to smoke smoke to the floor and they're having a difficult
time seeing their feet. And at that point they had been functioning in there, working in there a little while and recognized, hey, we're not getting this. Conditions are not getting better on the outside. The incident commander decides, hey,
we're going defensive. Is this one's getting us. So as the crews are transitioning out of the building, they have zero visibility, they have a lot of hose line in there, probably way too much hose line actually, and they start to exit out that front side of the grocery store.
In that process, firefighter Brett Tarbor and firefighter side Joy, who they're the backseat firefighters on Engine four team, they get disoriented and get off, get up, lose contact with their hose line, and they are like, okay, well, we know how we got in here. We're gonna we think we know which way to go, and they end up heading in the wrong direction, end up running into that back wall and Brett now at this point has low
air alarms going off. Uh, And Brett and Ci get separated, and the first may day call comes out from from Brett. And this really was before, you know, we were way more proficient at calling may day's, being very very uh, you know, informative, I guess it would be the right word when you're calling may day's. And so essentially his may day is, Hey, I'm in the back of this store, I'm really low on air and I need some help.
And so at that point the crews had that had just exited the building immediately react to that, and they go back in. Unfortunately, they go back in and many of them were already in the bottom half or the bottom third of their air as well, so in uh and so the incident commander ends up assigning some more companies to go and try and respond to this may day, knowing where he is and knowing what you know, from
what position he came in on. He Brett ends up running out of air and uh he he he removes his mask, so now he's breathing you know, super toxic air. He's becoming very hypoxic. A couple of firefighters, i know, the company officer of Engine twenty one and a couple of other firefighters actually get a hold of Brett and
now he's behaving, you know, erradically. He's being he's combative, and they're like, hey man, you've got to come with us, and and he starts to come with them, crawling out on the line, and then he pushes them away and goes in the other direction. So he's not he's you know, he's now so you know, confused because of the environment that he's he's not able to help himself and and
by the time they locate him again, he's unconscious. He actually does not have his uh uh, he doesn't have his bottle and his mask on, doesn't have his helmet on, his jacket is half off, so he's trying to try. You know, when when you're in those throws, there's no you know, you don't make you're not making any sense in what you're doing. So that was actually one of the reasons why we ended up being so difficult to
remove him from the building. So over the next twenty five minutes or so, cruse work both from the front side and the Bravo side to get him out. They decide that they're going to take him through the side.
It's a shorter distance to get out of the building, but it's the back of the grocery store and a grocery community grocery store that had just gotten you know, their their delivery, and so the back of the store is just stacked up with racks of soda and produce and all this, so it's very very difficult to get through. In the end, multiple multiple crews work on getting bred out of the building. Like I said, two other firefighters
working on him looking for him. End up coming out of the building in respiratory arrest because they just worked, so they worked past their air, had to remove their masks, take that smoke in. Luckily, they're found quickly and removed from the building. In total, there's thirteen may days given at this incident, from what we believed to be three or four. We're not one hundred percent sure exactly how
many people communicated may days. And then he ultimately comes out of the building about the fifty minute mark.
Of this incident.
So, like, like Billy said, a lot of the things that we draw from, well, there's a ton of things that were actually drawn from this incident, and we can talk about you know, as many as as many as you guys would like, but uh, really there's the The number one thought was is there's no way that building should have lasted that long and and tolerated that. One of our one of the responses was, is they're starting to work on the building, is hey, we need to
ventilate this thing. We need to try and get as much of this smoke out of here. But what we have is wind driven conditions. We're not we can't manage the wind impacting this. We end up taking all the glass on the front. And I and I'm speaking from a from a position of this is, this is what we thought was best at the time, and those we this is everybody in the Phoenix Fire Department, right, And so the incident commander is like, all right, we need to get that glass out on the front. There's a
truck company on the roof cutting ventilation holes. And in the end that those actions of drastically increasing those exhaust points and having wind driven conditions where the fire was, we end up flashing that that twenty six thousand square foot grocery store over and like, I don't I'm not super familiar with any space is that big that have have have flashed over very often? Right, And so as we're removing them out the back, they've got fire over
their head. The grocery store now is burning like mad. And it got to the point where the chief in charge that had been put in charge there that brobo side when engine one and or excuse me, when engine six and ladder one went in and he goes, hey, listen, if you guys don't get him out, we're stopping like you are the last ones going in. We are not gonna We're not gonna kill a bunch of cruis in here.
And and that was met with the resistance that you guys would think it was met with U but it obviously did something for those crews because they got him out and uh and and and knowing those those crews, knowing them very well, like they were there, they were both crews I want coming to get me and so highly motivated, very skilled, and and very fit. And so they end up getting him out of the building just in time, within five minutes or so, we lose a
significant part of the roof. And and then and then we go.
On just really important point that you know and the that at that.
Time, and I think that you're trying to say what we know today and what we knew back then, right, two different things almost And that time and previous opening up was always a good thing, always a good to open it up, get it open, get it open. And this was one of those first fires in that as we started to learn most of the time we want to get it open, but there are times where we need to manage that a little bit better.
Right Is that fair to say.
Yeah, that's one hundred percent, And that's that's one of the things that I wrote in there is Okay, what do we know now right? And what what helps us? At that point, ventilation was ventilation. We considered ventilation as part of cooling the environment. What we know now is ventilation will only cool those compartments if you're actually putting water on the fire, if we're actually getting control of the fire itself. Because you add air, it's gonna get bigger,
it's gonna get worse. And as Dan Madrakowski's say, it doesn't get rid of the smoke, it's gonna make more smoke. So so those those one hundred pounds brain guys at FSRI, I, uh, you know, they've been trying to help us a lot. I don't know. Uh, you know, we got pretty thick skulls in the fire service. So it's taking us a little while to kind of learn learn these things that they're trying to teach us. But yeah, that's one hundred percent.
Uh the truth, Billy is is and and and we wrote and I'm gonna I also part of me wants to brag on the Phoenix Fire Department because what happened afterwards, But there was a report that was written, an internal report was written. It came out one day short of a year and in the back with some very clear stuff about what we think we did right and what we think we need to improve.
And one of the things.
We wrote about was we needed more ventilation, and and we know that's just not the case now and and so, but the other things we said about fire attack, getting water on the fire, the volumes of water, all those things that, I mean, we we could have been We were one hundred percent right at that point, but we just didn't know what we didn't know about ventilation. And there's a there's a story that goes back.
And we got a lot of feedback. Uh, just chief, So let me let me ask you this.
So, looking at that building, that looks like a pretty deep building, right, So those guys made it to that office area, right, they made it to the manene area or whatever that was.
Well, it was actually really the butcher shop yep.
Okay, So what was like was the fire in like a ceiling area or was like what was the issue with them not actually getting water on the fire if they were in the general.
Area all the way in the back there?
Yeah, so it's uh, in the in the storage area, it was a mix of wood and steel in that roof. It was all burning above them. It was not burning down in any of the stores, but all the fire was above them initially, and that's how it moved across that that store. And it was all an open open uh.
There was drop ceiling in the in the grocery store part of it was open in the in the storage room part and it just traveled through that that that open space, and it was all all all connected, that attic space, connected from side to side from the back.
Chief. Did you say it was a wood trust.
It was actually steel trust. Throughout the grocery store there was some there was wood decking and then a little bit of wood trust in and over the the storage area there where the closest to where the fire started.
Okay, any Chris, So you know you mentioned the Phoenix Fight apartment.
You know they had tactics and all it was you know on really on March fourteenth of two thousand and one, that was the way everybody did it, no matter where
you are. And I think you know so when when we approached you about writing this chapter, you the way you wrote the chapter is really a really good lesson plan of what we've learned, Right, and it's so when we when we look at a fire like this in with twenty twenty perfect vision, we're able to look at and examine what we what, we know, what we know,
we know, what we didn't know, we didn't know. And I think the evolution of not only Phoenix Fire Department, but everywhere right residential tactics on commercial buildings, ventilation with suppression and coordination of that. I love this statement you made the building tolerated fire conditions. And I know you know I sat on the fire structure panel and we sat there in front of commercial buildings as we were burning these and in some cases learning lessons and in
many cases reinforcing lessons that we had already learned. So this chapter is incredibly important in the story because it really meshes together the experience of your department at that fire and the research and where we are today and how the fire service has improved because of this fire, not not just the Phoenix Fire Department. And I think when you think of a fire, that you must know when we're able to have so many takeaways from it is the true value and the true way that we
never forget. Firefighters such as Brett Tarver.
I really appreciate you saying that I agree. And that was kind of the intent at least, you know that we had in our mind and and you and I have talked about it, and and so that was the goal. I will say that it wasn't a mistake or it wasn't it wasn't an accident. What happened afterwards, right, because I happened to work for probably the most progressive fire chief that uh, you know that we've seen, maybe maybe
ever and uh. In his position was that uh and and and he said it the next morning, so he was actually out of town teaching. Uh, they call him up. And and as as the guys who called him up said, hey man, we had to call the old man and break his heart. We we we lost a firefighter. And so he jumps on a plane overnight, comes back lands that pick him up. He said, hey man, let's go there right now. So head head over to the fire uh fire investigators there they take him through and and
right then and there his decision was all right. Every company over the next three days on duty is walking this building and uh, and so we were Phoenix is the kind of the big city in this in the in the valley here. But we've got like twenty other agencies in around us, and we all work in a we're all dispatched by the same place, and we all work without boundaries. It, you know, it is like a
big system. And so everybody in that system walked it the next three days, and his goal was I don't want any nonsense going on in the firehouse going Yeah, that wouldn't happen to us. You know, that was that's that, that was them, that in us, that was nothing. He everybody's going to get the same sense of walking through that. I can tell you what the back of that grocery store smelled like when we walked through. I know, I can visualize the whole thing. And it leveled the playing field.
I think it was one of the smartest things I've It leveled the playing field. And really, for the next five years till he retired in two thousand and six, we were one hundred percent of an organization focused on, all right, what do we gotta do to not have this happen again? And then he was already notorious, and I mean that in the best way, you know, for being out there and talking to folks and being a part of the Fire Service. So he was like, hey,
we're sharing everything. Nothing is getting swept under the rug. We're not going to talk about this. I want everybody to learn from So literally, that report comes out, it gets shared with the world. Every time we do something or we figure something out, we're sharing it. And they were talking at FDIC every time they could. They were talking at any place they could, you know that would actually have them talk about the incident to be able to describe, you know, what we're learning about this. I
was a brand spanking new company officer. Tom Higgins was a captain of Engine fourteen that day. He and I were on the same officers list, and and and we got promoted just a few months apart. So I had been a captain for eleven months. Tom had probably been for eight or nine months. So like, my connection to him going through this is I'm like, hey, man, I'm I'm in his shoes. This could happen to me tomorrow or me and my crew. I don't I want to do anything I can not to have that happen to
my folks. I gotta be good for them. So and I don't think I was in the least bit special in that there were a lot of folks in the department thinking like that, and so we spent the next five years trying to figure it out. And and that's the one of the things, like in our religious society today and you know, all the other distractions and nonsense going on, it makes it's probably way more difficult in
today's environment. But like, if I had to be a boss going through that, I don't see any other way to do it than than all right, we're going to be an open book. We're going to talk about this, and I want the fire service to benefit from it. Take it what, take what you need. Well, we don't ram it down anybody's throat. We don't want to do anything crazy. But like there there's stuff here that firefighters
can learn from. And if it if it's somebody else from getting screwed up, or it helps another part fire department actually do a good job.
Then then yeah, man, that's.
That's what we need to do. For Brett Tarvor and so. And Brett's picture actually is in the front page of our Operations manual, so so our our our ops Procedures has Brett's picture on the on the first page. And so it's and it's named after him, because what's in there, he still is impacting what's in there today?
You got a question, Coop, I got a question, good Chief, I want to while you were talking. It just like things that stick after me. And again, I don't know much about this fire. I wanted to come into this like totally spontaneous. So with the report of what you
learned afterwards. When the order was to remove everybody, was like, I've we've all been in that situation where we're operating in the store or we're operating in a big area wherever it is, and the chief says everybody out, and inevitably what happens is people start nicking on the line right or whatever they get they get to get the line out right. But meanwhile you have people who were searching around. You have a lot of stuff going on.
So it was always, you know, my thing, and I learned this from guys that I work with, was just to make sure we had everybody the line, that the nozzle was the last thing to back out right, and you make sure we have everybody and we move out in an orderly fashion. Somewhat in orderly fashion obviously unless it's really getting silly. But it didn't seem like that was the case here. I mean, you said it went to zero, but it wasn't like they had a tremendous amount of heat or anything.
I don't know for a fact, but was was that something that they.
Discussed Where was ass is and elbows getting out or did they start to move out in orderly fashion and.
It was just that he was off the line or something like that. How did that happen?
That's good question. So I think there's a few things at play here. When they when they first stretched their line back in there, they stretched dry, and that's something we don't we try not to do now. And so when they stretched in dry and good conditions, they also brought in probably way more hoes than they needed to. So they ended up with with some loops in there, and the aisles of the store ran front to back, uh you know, as you're looking in the front door.
So they stretched these lines down there, they've got loops of line. When the line gets charged, it expanded out, started knocking displays over. Things are coming down onto the hose and starting to create some difficulty there with kind of coming out on the hose. They they started, i think based on based on interviews and and what has been discussed with those crews when they started moving out.
I think it starts did it in orderly fashion, but I think there was a little bit of oh ship creeping in and and getting distracted and then they're then they're encountering uh you know, things that have fallen on the line, and there it gets them distracted, loses contact with the line because I think they were getting a little bit impatient, like hey man, we need to get out of here, and and and and I think that
played a lot into it. And so, uh so, yeah, what we took away is we're going to do everything we can not to stretch and dry. We're gonna do be way better at estimating our stretches so we're not bringing a way more hoes in the in the occupancy than we need to do.
Yeah, didn't following that and you put all the companies through there, didn't. You guys spend years with Don Abbott and others trying to figure out how long a stretch and.
How many people it takes and can you touch on that a little bit?
Yeah, so you know that it kind of got termed as the recovery, and I don't know where that came from. That was just the name of it. And so we put together this committee and you know, like fire departments do, and there were folks looking at the command level there and there were folks looking, you know, down at the task level. And at the task level, we were looking at being better at getting in and you know, true commercial tactics all what I'll call commercial tactics versus single
family residents. We are a we are a built out single family home for you know, as far as you can see and one story typically single family homes as far as you can see, ranch style. And so that's where we go to fires. That's where we go to ninety percent of our fires. And then we we we did some we did we do fires and commercial buildings, but I think for the most part we had gotten
lucky at a fair amount of those. And then so we worked on that stuff, and then we worked on hey man, when something goes bad, how what is the best way to get people out of that, out of the hazard zone, and and that help order is probably the best thing. So you know, there have been this focus on you need writ companies or fast companies, whatever whatever the terminology is going to be and you need
people coming from the outside. Ind well, I do think that matters, and they do have to have training, they need to be properly equipped, extra air, all that type of stuff. But we ignored who's working on fixing that may day first, and that's usually the individual that's involved in it if they can, and the crew their crew, and the crew is working around them. So now we
need to build a system. The better the better manages the may day part of it with crews on the inside and crews from the outside and doing a better job of managing air. Like So this fire is where the heads up displays in in our in our masks come comes from. This is where the fall and firefighter harness comes from, in the in the in the in the back top of our coat, right see and remove fullham and remove folks. So there are things that we learned both from the firetack get lines in being smarter
that way and managing our air. And then all right, when we do have something stupid happen, how are we going to get people out of there in the most expedient The term that came out of it is rapid intervention.
Ain't rapidly is yeah, which it's not right. It's still a challenge and d I D right. The drag rescue device is the device you was speaking about. What came of that?
So knowing the time to task, how long it takes to do something, how many people it takes?
Right, all different things to consider.
How fast is rapid intervention, if we don't if we don't know how long it takes to remove somebody out in the normal condition for how many people?
To all of all of.
That, Hey, I want I want to read a line from what Chris wrote in the book Real Quick, as many smart folks have been teaching, if you engage agent a fight on the fire ground, your tactics suck.
That's great. I mean, that's a great line.
I love that, right because it's about you know, being better and making sure that you have the best tactics based on what we know today.
Yeah, bring in as much water as you can tolerate. That's really our only shot.
Was there a lot was Was there just one line in the building at that time or did they have multiple lines in there?
There were actually two lines, and then then the line that had been working on the exterior fire two lines inside the building and another another point that I think is connected to what Frank said you what you asked is is uh, I don't have any evidence from the interviews, from a NIOSH report, from personal conversations that one drop of water was flowed after the may day was called.
So I absolutely get firefighters, we are all going to respond to that may day, right if we're in and around that, we have the ability somebody's got to keep flowing exactly, and and so uh that that that's a that's an important takeaway I think from this. We we part of this thing was figuring out how we're going to manage may days because uh, the first thing we did is like, man, we need to exercise. We got what we've got written down in policy and what we
how we think this is going to work. And so we did and it didn't work, and and and and again more credit to Bruno is he instead of saying, hey, you have to make these work, he's like, all right, well, what the hell is going to work? Like what do we actually need to do? And so they they invested the time and money and effort in companies figuring it out.
And I think, uh, well, I don't think we necessarily there isn't a perfect thing, right, but we figured out for us what works way more effective of lee and uh. And it was line level guys, it was officers, it was firefighters saying this is stupid. This we this is not gonna work, and then going okay, then let's figure it out. And and they had a bigger hand in fixing it, as you know any of the bosses did. And and I could I say thank you to those
bosses because they listened. And that's on. That's that's not super common. I think we can we can all say that there's a there's a it's only a small percentage that of bosses that have that level of ego to to be able to respond that way and and uh and and actually really figure something out.
You know, Chris, It always makes me think.
In the eighties, Ricky Pierce died in the line of duty in Phoenix and it was a tigerling explosion. They were cutting into the tank and exploded.
He was on the arm.
Yeah.
And so we saw ran into Bruno at one of the our conferences and I said, I got to tell you, I'm stunned that you're sharing all this information, and in his classic fashion, goes, well, the attorneys are gonna find out anyway. In other words, share what you know, right, And the same thing here you're saying that he's not worried about attorneys. They're going to find us anyway.
Here's what we did right, here's what we did wrong. Here's how we can fix it.
So whether it's Tricky Pierce or Brett Tarbor, they matter. Their deaths matter, right that that's what you're talking about.
Yeah, And it's one thing.
Go ahead, go ahead, you I was.
Just gonna say, it's one thing for you know, you can write that stuff on walls and put it in your policies and do all that other stuff. But it's another to walk the walk. And uh and and I know that guy was like, I can give you a list as long as my arm of of times he was walking the walk.
That's who you want.
Yeah, yeah, I'll tell you.
I've like everybody, we've been to supermarket bars and things that. You know, like you said, you don't go to a lot of well, when you get to like you said, it can get shitty really fast. And I remember, especially later on in my career, I remember telling guys like that, we're younger in the squad, Like, uh, you know, I don't like what's going on that we could be looking around for it, poking halls everywhere, you know, they would have lines in there whatever. And I remembering guys like,
you've got a straight shot from here. If you can't see, you've got a straight from here, Like I would just leave something with it if I was going somewhere else, or keep the lining between your feet.
You know, even if you're just because a lot of times you're.
Just standing around, you know, as a squad, let's say, or a truck, you know, waiting for people to do something, if you're waiting for something. And I always used to give these like little things like cause, like you say, it goes bad in thirty seconds, right, and you don't have time to figure that out, like if you're not paying attention to those things while they're you know, while you can see, you know what I mean, you know, you know, thinking about the search rope. But these guys
had the line already. But the search rope for me was it was a non entity for me, you know what I mean. That's for later when you have to come and search for somebody like to you know, like unless you're looking for the fire or something those things always get fucked up, you know what I mean. Like sounds like a great plan until you try to implement it in a you know, a thousand square foot whatever the heck it is.
You know, some big building. It's never worked, and it worked, you know what I mean.
So just it's the little thing that I always felt you had to you know, you go to the floor above, you take the glass, you look out the window, you see where you are, get it, you know, put a ladder right here, all right, now, I could do a better search when I'm above the fire, right as opposed to just getting up there and just searching around and you don't know what the You're in the middle of the room, and then the thing gets hot and then holy.
Shit, I don't have a place to get out.
So you know, even in those types of fires, those types of things, I always felt like, you know, and and that's what stuck out to me when you were telling, you know, not pointing fingers, not doing it thing, but you got to be like really aware of especially if you're not putting water on the fire, you know what I mean. Like that that was to me. If if you've got minutes going by and you're not putting any water on the fire. That was the first thing I said to you, like, are you putting.
Water on you know? You were like, now we don't, We're not putting water on the fire.
I'm like, are you you.
Know what do you got? Chief?
Chief Lea built? What do you got ten ten to fifteen minutes nowadays? Like before, it's it's no way of if you're not put water on the fire?
Right good?
Yeah, doesn't take long.
So just you know, Chris said, you know, the building was built in the nineteen fifties, So think about some.
Of the newer buildings.
When we go to these large volume stores and maybe let's say we go for alarm ringing right or or an order or whatever, and we show up, what do we do? We immediately say nothing shown and we ramp down the response, but.
Nothing showing at these these are huge. If you then you.
Show up somebody, that's about the only time trow.
Yeah, think about you can have If you have somebody showing on arrival, you have a significant fire. So by saying that nothing showing on arrival, we could be potentially setting us up. If there is a fire, it may just not have grown to where we see it because it has a lot of volume to fill up before we see it. Just an unrelated point, but still a good point for this topic.
I think too that sometimes time could be a funny thing, like you could be in there and you think you're in there for a long time, but you're really not. And there are sometimes that vice versa, right, you kind of get the time gets kind of lost, you know sometimes, so you may not you may think you're in there for a while and you're not. And you may think you're in there for a short time, but in the meantime, you've been in there for three, four, five, six, seven minutes.
You don't have water on the fire yet, So very hard to keep count of time.
But what we do in our area is from the time of arrival, the dispatch starts a ten minute time and then at your calls command every ten minutes, you're ten minutes into this twenty minutes.
That's good for that guy, but for the guy inside searching.
And has got it, yeah, that command's got to let them know that. And that's that's the issue, is that guy, right?
Yeah.
Actually, one of the things real is that that New York too, I never realized they do that you know time that you know, time of your incident is whatever.
So I never realized that they do that.
In New York, time stamps are very common now.
So one thing I'd like to say, why this? I think this book's important. So I find you know, I ended up being the training chief for a while and doing other things. Right, so I'm teaching and teaching in the college system there. That's kind of you go through
the college system working on your promotion stuff. And and uh, I was actually a little bit shocked the first time I had a class and in a tactics and strategy class for aspiring company officers and maybe one hundred people in the class over a couple of nights, and I asked a class, hey, all right, how many of you were on the job when this happened?
Nobody?
Wow.
And so now it dawns in me this is just a story, Like we've reached a point in time where this is a story. This is not this is I don't have emotional None of these young young guys and gals have emotional connection to it. And I'm not saying this is bad or anything, but now it's not it's
not in their head like it's in my head. And so the key with books like this and training and the stories that you guys are putting on is so stinking important that this information gets passed and shared so that the folks that are paying attention they can even though it wasn't like being there, they can gain pieces of knowledge, like like you're talking about Lou for I don't there's something that for some reason I don't like this, and this is.
Something about it.
Yeah, no, I agree with that. I think that that's one of the things. I feel like we definitely when when.
We listen to the podcast and they listen to guys like yourself, and they listening to the guys that were interviewing, and they get a piece of their life, you know, especially at jobs, whether they were at ning to do death or whether they were at a job that you know, we lost kids or whatever it is, and they tell those stories that that I think it is the most beneficial a thing that comes out of the show, right to fool around and break balls, but in the end,
you know, it's always about learning. Even myself just listening to this, I feel like all this, you know, stuff's coming at me and I have all these thoughts as if you know, I want to teach somebody and like, listen to the I want to listen to the audio.
I want to you know, and and go through the whole process, because if you don't learn, like you just said, you're going to make the same mistake, you know, and that's that would be a shame, is if you don't learn from from the path, right, especially if somebody passed away.
For sure.
Why I was so appreciate of you guys hosting so many of these certain fires, which is as a companion to the book, these podcasts let you hear from and get your additional information about these fires, like in real time, because you know, through a great degree experiences are transferable.
You weren't there, but we could learn. There's a lot you could learn about it and the different.
Nuances of the incident that the next time you're out the door, you're going to operate more efficiently effectively, which would lead to safely, which leads me to I just want to talk about one more line that I want to quote Chris on in in where you go for turn on investment in training and fire ground operations is preventing they made it and yeah, knowing knowing, knowing your job and doing your job right, and and that's how we do that by training.
So there's a lot of good nuggets in there, but those are just two.
It is when you when you read these stories, their first hand stories, not somebody investigating the fire. Who's just everybody in your book has been at these fires. So second hand knowledge, right, it's awesome. Guy's a smart, loud, you know smart, every chief smart.
From those fire investigations that have participated in that process, and not every single thing makes it into the final report, right, you know, so we certainly get some different nuances from it from people who were there and that firsthand knowledge that you know, especially the you know, time is on our side that some time has passed, so we can really call out what was the true lessons learned from from some of these incidents. So, uh yeah, we appreciate, uh chiefly do a lot of the uh.
Fire departments around the large fire departments, if they have a lot of duty to death, are they similar to what.
We do in the f d n Y.
So that's a good question, but no one does. Now, no nobody does the way the FDNY does because.
Of our resources that we have have big our safety command and stuff like that. But I would say that the Brett Taba fire is probably the closest thing that an organization has done on their own independently. But you know, Nios and others that come in and investigat really has been a part of several of those investigations.
But you know, a smaller department doesn't doesn't have.
The resources to do that, so they rely they rely on outside places to do it. But one of the things is when we were picking the books to be the stories to be in this book, you know we did have departments that, to use Chris's terminology, that would have preferred to just sweep it under the rug and not have anybody learned from it. So the stories that are in the book, the people that have have put
themselves out there to write it. But so appreciative because there is no doubt about it that this book, these stories save five fighter and prevent injuries and deaths on the fire ground.
There's no doubt about that.
How many times, Francis, did you did you go over the line of duty like in the FDN Y those reports did and listen to the and listen to the oil like how many countless times?
Like with the guys right for drill or whatever.
I mean, it was countless times that we would go over that stuff, whether it was Atlantic.
Avenue or whatever.
It was all the all the audios when they started doing that, we used to drill on that all the time, just to you know, if we got new guys to the squad or we got new guys to the company, we would go over that and over that and over that all the time, because you can't forget that, otherwise you could repeat it.
Give us the watch outs right, the things that we should be aware of the fact that on the firegrounds are among the lowest that there's ever been, and that is because we pay attention to what's happening on the fire ground and our tactics, our strategies.
Some of the things that we do it don't do nowadays.
We've learned from losing firefighters on the fire ground, and I've said this a.
Bunch of times, we've done a great job in doing that. We're not we're not there yet.
We still we have to make sure we're paying attention to the fire ground because we want to keep that number as low as we possibly can make it. But then when you think of how the other stuff. But we're still losing fire righters to cancer, to cardiac, to suicide, to PTSD all these other things. So we we have to keep our eye on the ball on making sure we're safe on the fire ground and look at all these other ways for losing our brothers and sisters off the fire ground and bring the total number.
Of line of duty deaths down.
But we've done a great job, and books like this and stories like this and experiences like this that we pass along continue to keep Hopefully we'll continue to keep those numbers well on the fire ground.
You know.
And we may have a great point there too, Frank that that that we did reach out to certain organizations and they said, no, we don't want to participate. Hey, we really don't want to talk about it. Things like that, And that also ties into the fact that a lot of people don't realize NIOSH is not a requirement. A department can refuse NIOSH. And there are a couple of very significant line of duty deaths that's the last couple of years where the Carvin said, no, we don't need NIOSH.
We're fine.
Really, wow, crazy, there's so much to learn from those events.
Why would you do that? I don't know that.
I couldn't imagine. I can't imagine why.
Like I said, there's so much to learn from those events and things like it would be talking about just so much information that needs to be passed along, but it doesn't happen again, or maybe stop it from happening again.
It's between that ego and what Brunos said. The attorney is going to find out anyway.
Yeah, Bruno is one one of his more famous quotes, his egos eat brains, and that uh works right here.
I thank you.
I like that.
I like that. Uh well, thank you, Chris, thank.
You, thank you my pleasure man, I greatly appreciate it. I did what you guys do, And any chance to tell this story, I'm excited.
So how many we killed?
Now?
How we got down? We got about eight? Right? Six or eight?
Uh?
Yeah? Really asked me that in an email last week? How many? And I didn't get back to him. Yet. We've done.
We've done a bunch of Chris, thank you. Now we're doing another one tonight, aren't we we are?
So you guys are ready, I'll give you my story.
Chris, you walk out, I'd be happy to stand around.
Heck you so I'm gonna start off by saying, I know Mike Milner is in the chat and Mike was at that far, So Mike, if you have anything to add, feel free. That day I got to work with so many greats. Captain Murphy was my captain that day. But in rescue for you had John Gain, Mikey Milner, Brian hickey Ford, a lot of great guys. I only had seven years on the job at that time. It was a fahie, right. It was Father's Day, June seventeen, two
thousand and one. It was a really hot day and we had a fairly young crew because Father's Day usually you left the guys who had kids get off and you had worked. So it was a Sunday we were doing. We had the kitchen on Sundays right roofe. We're in the middle of the doing the kitchen and has Matt run came in. Has Matt one down in a storia. So the squad is the has Matt tech backup to has Matt. So it was the Captain John Flynn working
and has Matt. Pete Brennan was working detail over there, Timmy Reagan, a couple other guys and in the squad. It was Captain Murphy, Adam Rand we lost on nine to eleven. Was driving in the back was Timmy Garretty had the nozzle. John Berna at the backup I had to hook.
And Timmy Murphy.
Timmy Murphy, thank you. I had the control. So the run comes in and funny enough, Captain Flint says John to Dennis Murphy, this it looks like it's nothing over there. It's a supermarket with the smell of an odor of gas or something, and he says, we'll just take it in, and Cat Murphy is not. It's our box. We're taking it in. So we have two pieces. We have the first piece and we have a second piece has Matt Tender, and the two guys driving that has Matt Tender were
myself and Timmy Murphy. We turned out to go down towards the supermarket, and all the companies right in that area, all the first two up because were at the supermarket, and Uh I had worked in Latin one sixteen for a while, so I knew a bunch of the guys who will first do there, and a couple of them were over. We had to actually edit this a little chiefly right in the book. A couple of guys were breaking my shoes. Just got Joey Vascilla was breaking my
shoes about the bread wagon. He's like, what do you got some loaves of bread for us? Coobs, I'm like, no, I got, I got your sister in the back, ye son.
The second pie. Goodness it tip this bad boy over going around.
Oh my god, it was a bread wagon. It looked like a bread wagon.
Grimaldi like the whole thing was gonna.
Hostess cupcakes, bobile, you know what I mean, stuff like that. So as we're pulling up, sure enough, Chap Flint says, we got it. You guys can take up. And I remember making two rights. We made one right both of us, was the story Bullvard twenty first Street, and another right. And I turned to Timmy Murphy and I said to him, then I smell fire something. There's a fire around here somewhere.
Two seconds later, some woman and a carriage came running out, fled this down and said to Captain Murphy, I think the hardware store his here is on fire. So Captain Murphy jumps off. He says, Cooobs, go ditch the second piece up this block, get out of the way. Adam, take the hydrant over here. So, and this is also a common theme you're going to see here that I say all the time. Tactically, you could do every single thing right, and this job could still kill you and
humble you in a second. In a second. So Captain Murphy jumps off, he goes I see him go in the it's a hardware store with apartments above. He goes up there. Then I see him go around the back. Radios to Adam to transmit to ten seventy five. We've got a fire in looks like the basement of this hardware store. Now it was one story, but in the back it had that ramp going down to the basement.
So evidently what had happened and some kids were playing in the back and they knocked over a candy gas lean and went under the door and made its way to the water heater, and when the water heater kicked on, the fire started. So we were there by ourselves after we transmitted to ten seventy five, because all the companies were still at the Hazbat Run stuck on the halsback box. So we were there for a good amount of time.
And I believe my kid chime and I believe Rescue four was in Manhattan doing something, so we were there for quite a long time. But we did, like I said, everything tactically correct. So we acted as an engine and a truck because there was no trucks. The engines on the scene. We cut the gates, rolldowns, we pulled down the rolldowns. We pulled off two lines, one for us, one for the next for the third d company coming in.
We forced the door, We charged the line, got to the top of the stairs, and just as that was happening, other companies started to come in. There was a light smoke condition on the on the first floor. Nothing to worry about. Cat Murphy said to us, which is correct. We're gonna take the stop top of the stairs. We're gonna protect the guys down there, and we're gonna let the next guys take the They can get the fire. I can hear it crackling right behind the door in
the back. Other companies come in, and the problem was that they could not force that rear door. There was a steel door that had that igle eye and that goes down across the back door, and they could not force that rear door. So this is where I was listening to Chief Stewart, I'm saying so many things familiar to his fire. I was like, oh my god, that happen. The same thing happened here.
Man.
So just like Louis has said before, trust your gut right, because when the first two companies come in, what are they doing? What do they want to do? Rough squad, get down the stairs. Squad, get down the stairs. Squad, get down the stairs. But when Captain Murphy opened up the door, the entire rickety old wooden staircase was lined with tiny propane bottles and nails and screws, and maybe there was a walkway about this wide that was the
hardware store, tiny walkway. He's like, I got a bad feeling. We're gonna do what we're supposed to. Sit here, protect the stairs. We're gonna let them take the door in the back. So as time goes on, it seems like it's taken a long time. Cat Murphy opens up the door and we got this greenish blue flame that comes jetting out of the stairs. Quickly closes the door and he's like, I could see him saying that he's feeling he's correct, like, we're gonna stay here. We're waiting. We're
waiting and they cannot take it. So he tells me, you can't do me a favor, grabbed the hook and they had all those plate glass old windows in the front. Take all the windows, which is what the chief was saying, right, take the windows. That's all we know is vent right, even though we don't have water on the fire yet, it was starting to get shitty down there. You had to get down to your knees. We still weren't on we still weren't out on our cylinders, so we were
kind of cheating a little bit here and there. Took the glass, and now we had the pressure of other companies trying to get us to go down the stairs. And at one point, I remember this like it was yesterday, Cat Murphy took a guy's face piece, pulled it off and said who the fuck is this? And he said who he was? He is, Shut the fuck up. This is where we're staying right now. Boom puts her face peep back on a guy's face cut and say boom. So at one point it was taking so long they
tried the Hurst tool in the back. They could not get the door in the rear, so the chief chiefly who was the chief in sock. He was a really big guy. He died on nine to eleven. No, he was a little guy. This guy was a mountain of a man. He was a big Dudemranue. So he comes in and I know how big he was because he kept stepping on the back of my leg because he couldn't see me, And like, man, that's a big dude.
So he says to Captain Murphy, listen, they're not gonna be able to get to the back door of you guys. Have you guys used your air You're gonna have to make a push downstairs. So Captain says to everybody, check your bottles, let me know what you got. Everybody's like, we all got full bottles, cap we're ready to go. So at that point, I remember turning on my bottle and I remember Brian Hickey yelling like I smell gas,
I smell fin and I smell gas lean something. And as soon as he said that, it felt like somebody had flipped the switch and you were sitting behind an airplane jet engine. It was just like boom, and the floor came up, everybody came down, and everything went black. And if there's one thing that I could share with everybody that you think you would never do. But I, unfortunately I am ashamed to admit it. But from cheating, like like you were saying, from cheating on it, I
was felty. It felt a little disoriented. So when the blast happens, I felt even more disoriented. It was pitch black, couldn't see nothing, a lot of screaming, a lot of yelling to give the may day. I actually ripped my face piece off to give the may day because I was in a sheer panic takeover and God forbid, you know that had been an atmosphere and I'd take two breaths and I'm down. You know, you have to try to no matter how hectic or crazy or insane it gets,
you got to keep your wits about you. Because that was absolutely the wrong move to make. So where we came in now, I couldn't see the front anymore, but I could see a tiny, tiny little circle of light, and I can hear some voices, and I just started crawling slowly towards the voices, and then I couldn't crawl no more. And believe it or not, has about one came to the box and I had guys as much as we make fun of the guys and has Matt.
I had, Dennis Scauzo, Timmy Reagan, and I don't remember who. Oh, George Howe actually dragged me out. And when I got out there was Captain Murphy laying down on the side. He had torn his acl. John Bernard tore's acl, Timmy broke his ankle, and I broke my kneecap and we actually came out exposure to the entire wall was gone, came down and when I came outside, hold out for
a minute there with Gonzo. So if you see where it says approximate location of the stairway in the building, that's where the stairway was that we were at the top of. Now people keep they kept asking him, did anybody how how did fay he get to the basement? Had to fay he get to the basement. I remember
seeing him. I went out to take the windows. I remember seeing him coming out from one of the apartments above and I can I can't remember exactly, but I vaguely remember seeing him at the top of the stairs. Victim one and two is where the is Harry Ford and John downing from one sixty three company. Yep, they were. They were working on the windows when I went out there, I believe, Mike. Mike can tell if that's correct. And
the the door, I thought it was the windows. They were trying to get them, and the entire side of the building fell on them, and uh. As I came out, I also saw the sign for the building. The actual side for the building was on the ground, and I can see feet sticking out of it. And as we came down, the guy's like, there's a guy under there's a guy under there. And I wound up being that guy, Joe Vascilla, who I told him his sister was in the back of a bread van. Believe or not. That's
how crazy that is. They pulled the rest of us out and the thing just took off like like a tinder box. I remember they tried to stretch lines in there, and maybe about I'm gonna say two minutes in for being out, maybe three minutes a little longer. I could hear. I don't know. If he had the ions, Mike, you would know. It said the rescue irons to rescue. I'm under the stairs, come get me, And that was faith,
he remembered. I remember it was faith. He remember, I think he had the ions and then he put out wait a little longer, and he said it again, rescue, ions to rescue. I'm under the stairs, come and get me. And that see Mike says, he helped get Joe out. Yeah, that we're working on Joe. He was underneath and that's the only thing that said. And he got some some back, was a little some of the balls in his back
and crushed and stuff like that. But he survived because the sign fell on him and the debris fell on top of the side and he wasn't crushed by the falling debris. So like in the hindsight, I said, I feel like we did everything correct. We dropped the two lines, we took the roll down gates, we stood at the top of the stairs. And no matter what, you can do everything right, but it can come get you at any time.
Man.
Mike was on the second floor.
Yep, I remember that. I remember that. That whole thing guy's talking about.
You know, Brian was in the squad with us, and then he transferred off to the rescue. I guess, you know, a year or so into it, and uh, they were saying how calm he was just talking and saying, you know, I'm under the stair, you know this and that, and the guys were trying and trying and trying to get down the stairs, uh, to get to him.
But it was just burning too hot down there, and I guess they weren't putting. You know, I couldn't get water on the fire.
I know Ray down yet I had heard Ray Downey had a line.
If Danny I help, I help.
Showed up with his dad John and the voting from home.
Yeah, and uh, he tried to get down there and and then it just went silent, and uh, you know, you think to yourself, my god, what the hell was going to guy's mind?
Just like you know what Roof opposite to me? Like I told you, I was in a parent fakey because he was seasoned. He had the confidence that his guys were going to get him. He was calm as a cucumber, like rescue for iron. I'm under the stairs, come get me man, just like that.
Like, yeah, that was in that.
I keep trying to get a coverage over the dateline story they did for that whole year for.
The ft and one.
If you guys remember mm hmm, that's where it interview came into play. It's again, it's not one of those things gives me this goosebumps.
But what happened with that? Remember it was when the building went over, just the force of the blast set the chief. I think he was already mess bound and everybody was just disoriented. It was just you know, so there was like total pandemonium outside. Nobody had control at that time.
I mean I remember talking to Catin Murphy about that when I was getting promoted. For years we talked about that, and then when I got promoted. You know, how do you make that call?
Right?
What's he's standing at the top of the stair right, we're in the FDNY. We all go down the basement he was in. You couldn't pick a better company in the companies he was in with thirteen one, seventy six rescued too squad to it right?
Let get another one to eleven. I mean, the guy's been.
To season five and he trusted his gut that something wasn't right to go down there. You know, had they gotten the door or had it been it easier to get in the basement, we probably wouldn't even be talking about this fire, you know what I mean? Like it was just the fact that we talked about with the with the the chief that it just kept going and going and going and going, and whenever that happens, it's just nothing that happens. Man, It's just it's just not good.
You said, Lyad feeling. Had we gone down there, I think he would have took us the first two company, first two truck and rescue Ford down the stairs and we would have lost time any more. Guys, I truly believe that because they were popping off. The bottles were popping off. Every time we opened the door. We can hear the propane bottles exploding. So you know, we would
have led everybody down there. And I tell him all the time because he he kicks himself a little bit, but Captain old time, you saved my life.
Man.
You said you saved at least three companies lives that day because you felt something of you, trusted your gut and you and not only that, companies were pressuring them to get down the stairs, you know, get down the stairs, squad, get down the stairs.
Well that's what I always felt like, as a boss, how do you how do you fight that?
Right?
Because in the end you could succumb to pressure right, like you can't and people do right. So how did you know he trusted his experience, right, He trusted himself And and you know, I always felt like you had to trust your gut. And that's where that all came from when we were you know, as as we got more and more time on the job is and I used to teach that to my guys. You know, trust your gut. There's a real your body is telling you this is no.
Why no?
You know, your mind is seeing something, your eyes are seeing something. You have to trust that and you have to make sure that you should act on right.
If Louisa mentioned something, that's that's the toughness or the guts of the officer to say no or yes or whatever. Mike mcnamie and Worcester right, nobody else is going in.
Yeah, that's another one great point they wanted.
They wanted to hang them at that. You say, we saved all the guys lives.
Yeah, yeah, no doubt. That's a great example, Billy, really it is. Another thing I wanted to bring up was Pete Brennan who lost on nine to eleven. He was working in Hasmat and one thing I do remember is that Pete was off of running around a building and they were calling him because hasn't got another run to another borrow and like, Pete Brennan, come back to the hazmat unit right now.
You know.
And then when the building exploded, Pete got on the handy talkie and Cole for two rescues. We have multiple members down. I mean you can find it on YouTube somewhere. The transmission cools a Q company.
The other time.
Yeah, it was guy on the job, you know what I mean, Like.
Yeah, yeah, the same time as me seven years. So one thing I don't understand, though, I don't know if you have any insight on this, chief, Why did they knock down that building immediately?
I don't know why they knocked it down so quickly. That's a good question. I don't know the answer to that.
Yeah, sounds like man, Yeah, I mean sounds like a cover up, certainly.
I mean there were other fires right where the buildings were removed pretty quickly.
Banke Avenue Atlantic was the one at seems like we've gotten a better handle on that.
Was that that doesn't happen uh anymore?
Right, Oh kind of kissed me off to uh, you know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but at least to something that you say to yourself, why would they tear this billy downy three days after the fire?
You know, yeah, I don't know.
I was just gonna say, just to go back to that quick, like stay to yourself. You're a chauffeur and you're outside the building, and you know, looking at inside the building. You know, you've been to jobs where you're standing outside You're like, damn that fucking shitty in there, man, you know you're out side, and then the next thing you.
Know, you know, you know it just right there, you're looking at that like you know.
Yeah, it's like God, damn, you know what.
Uh to have those guys get killed outside, you know and get crushed, you know, it's just especially those two guys, you.
Know, Harry Ford, that's silliness, you know what I mean.
But uh, like you said, even the guys that you mentioned on your you know, working in has Been and Squad threey eight, like Alden names that we've heard, you know, knowing, you know, knowing them.
Mike, I was working. I was a firefighter in Squad seventy at the time.
I was scheduled to work that Father's Day, but I had children and Celia Thompson or could swap the day for the night for.
Me, So she wound up working.
But Mikela, thanks for chiming in and giving us a little bit of a little bit more to the story.
And stop at my booth like on Saturday. You know what we're gonna do. Give you up.
Hey, Coobs, you worked a while after this, So what was different for you when when you worked, because this wasn't the last time you went on this type of round.
I'll tell you. I left this pot out I forgot because we're talking about season, and I remember getting back, came back from the what's it the burn Center, First Avenue or whatever it was. I had a couple of burns on my back and I come into the firehouse and right away Hank senior man grabs me and I'm beside myself. I just told me the fay he died. I'm crying and I'm all upset, and he said, and it didn't make sense until like tonight when you guys
said it. It was so amazing that you said. He says, you know, this may not make you a more senior firefighter, but it will make you a more seasoned firefighter, and I understand what he meant at the time, but now I kind of I understand what he was saying absolutely. And to answer your question, I had had to get back in a hurry.
Chief.
I came back and my Lieutenant Garry was saying, don't come back yet. Don't come back it, don't come back yet, stay out, stay out for six months. And I was like, if I don't come back now and get back in there, I'm afraid I'm gonna sit here and think about it, and I'm not gonna be able to do it mentally anymore. I'm not. So I needed to get back and I got back just in time for nine to eleven when I was supposed to work, so you know, you go figure. But I needed to get back and get back.
What the brant came back from that job and he got killed in nine to eleven.
Right, he didn't tap out, I don't think because he was the chauffeur.
Oh no.
But for me, I had to prove that I could get back on the rig. And no, I'll be all right, you know, because I was. I was shaking. I'm not afraid to admit it. I was shaken. By the job. So once I got back, I got my first run, get my first job out of the way. I think I did the right thing by coming back. I wouldn't sit home and I oh go on like duty wasn't having it. I had to get back in there.
I appreciate about that, right, because it's not just the it's it's not just the brothers or sisters that we lose that get killed in the line of duty. It's the it's those that get injured. It's those that are there on the scene. When something like that happens, there is such a the impact is not isolated. It's far reaching and generational, and when you're involved in it, you know, listen. It's why Loo says, we drill on these, we train on these, to make sure that we pound the message.
Into you because it's important.
Because think about it, we could go back if we could change the trajectory one time and make it where a department, a community, whoever doesn't have to go through this, you know, because it's not just the people that get killed, it's everybody else that is fighting to get back to work full duty.
Murphy and ended Chaptain Murphy's career. He could come back at ended a couple of careers.
So yeah, that's just that's why I come from that, right, I see that. I was just thinking of that.
Yeah, you know.
Right, we want to get back.
That's why I you know, I kid you about this, but if this saves one light life, it's worth every single page that's printed in here, man, And I think it's going to save more than one life. That's why I truly believe in this book. I'm not just greasing you either. You know what I'm saying.
Book, these conversations that we have, we will make a difference with these guys.
Appreciate that.
So I appreciate guys coming on here and telling their stories too. I love it.
We got a couple more we're going to work on as well.
I want them all, Billy, give me them all. There's a lessons to learn.
Another books, got.
Another one coming.
He's retired.
There's nothing there's nothing being done right now. But I'll tell you what, man.
The fire service to brothers and sisters, Billy and myself, we exchange emails when we get people either sending us resources or that we may not be aware of for a fire or you know, we hope that Chris Stewart and with the class that he went through with there's deliverables for that that we could share those on the website stuff like that.
But we also have people that are telling us.
I've said several stories and so has Billy about hey, if you do another thirty fires, this this is a fire that you should feature people offering to write the chapters. So man, the brother and Sisterhood of the Fire Service never disappointments.
Yeah, Frank and I are are going to be doing a four hour class on the book at fdi C as well, either Monday or Tuesday.
I forget which day, but sure's Tuesday.
So when I get there, you.
Know, yeah, look at the comment from Mike that's dead on right.
I'm sure it's just absolutely deal with that, Yeah, I said, I guess who knew?
Who knew ninety days later what you would go through and what the nature?
Right?
We thought that was a big deal.
And then then the other plane crash that they following me that in the two thousand and one.
Was yeah, November, Yeah, how was that that one too?
Queens that went down the rockaways man.
Yep, yeah yeah, yeah.
But uh, switch gears a little bit really quick question. You guys said that the book is going crazy getting a lot of feedback. Is there anything in particular that standing out as far as feedback, not just people wanting to contribute to it, but is there any information of as far as an impact that that's making anybody, Any relatable stories that you could share real quick?
So I think there's overview story that I would just say is that.
We know that there's departments that are that have purchased one for all of their offices. We know of the apartments that said they're going to put it on a promotional exam. We know like what Chris Stewart is doing with the book where he goes and he and he divides chapters out to the people, and that's what we want, right, So the book is a starting point. It's not the
end all be all of the fires. In fact, we were very careful, right because when you write a book in hindsight about fires that killed some of our brothers, you walk a fine line, right, correct of how.
You portray that.
But yeah, yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
So there's a lot so some of the takeaways that we have mentioned this in some of the other other podcasts that we've done with you where we could put the Nios top five well communications in every single one of these But if we don't make it where we weave a tapestry within the thirty fires of all these different things. So I don't want to have the same takeaway in thirty fires or ten different fires.
So and this one, Chris, Chris Stewart's fire is a great example of that. We took the lesson, We took.
That fire from twenty some odd years ago right and applied what we know today to it and came up with takeaway that were not available in two thousand and one in two thousand and two, so we have the benefit of that time to be able to pull out these takeaways. If we wrote this book in two thousand and five, the takeaways for Chris Stewart's fire would be significantly different than the takeaways that are today. And that's the case of several of these fires. But again, that
tapestry of the thirty fire is blended together. Taken all of the takeaways from each of these fires, we'll give you a layer to drill on for the entire year without duplicating too many times too many of the lessons that are learned.
And when we get feedback about individual individuals who read the book or and they say, well, there's a common theme among most of.
Them, or a fire investigator says, you know, you should have hit more on this point. I get it, but we hit it on another fire, and we hit it on a couple living fires.
But I'll tell you what, I'm led.
By the feedback when we have people that have investigated a dozen or more fires and they're telling us that they loved the book, that they love the lessons in it, and that it's about.
Time, you know.
Really, that's you know, and the feedback from family members and others that have been at fires and said, you really really hit the mark. From the feedback seeing the brothers and sisters that are on here that are learning,
that's that's what it's about. Billyon and myself talk often this book was a laborer love and as we've got to know, you know, and Billy, because he's investigated so many fires and because what he's done with the Secret List, he has a vast network and knew a lot of the incident.
Commander is going into this, so I knew and knew some of the people.
That were going to be on it, and just the overwhelmingwhelming willingness of people to come on and share.
Their story, because there's there's always.
A risk when you come on and do this, but that someone won't like a word just said or the way you portrayed your fire or something. But you know, we best honor off Ball and by remembering the lessons that they provide and by reinforcing them and making sure that we have done every single thing we could to make sure that that type of situation never happens and somebody doesn't have to go through that. As Koobs you
said it before, right. To be able to save one life, prevent one injury, then the effort is worth it.
Ye pulls up at a fire tonight that's at a grocery store and they listen to the show tonight, maybe we're going to make that bridge for them and make them understand what happened at.
Plant to Seed.
Just plant the seed and watch a girl baby. You know what?
Rough, I think that the Chief Leave is working on being put on the FDNY Mount Rushmore. I think he wants to mugg the Mount Rushmore the FDNY. Can we make that.
Happen right next right next to Croker, He's gonna get Croaker?
Who else you got got Croaker?
Martin? I just want to be on leaves.
Back and say did you let me down?
I just want to be on the Getting Swalty Experience podcast Mount Rushmore and so.
You're on You're on it right now.
I mean, look, I gotta be on here ten times? Now? How many times I came in here today?
I thought this was another Frankly retirement show.
There he was, was trying to another guy throwing darks.
Actually, everybody, wait, you held on for that for an hour and a half.
Everybody leads, Let's let's play one more commercial before we get out of here. Guys, I know it certain affiliated.
We might know somebody who knows affiliated. Here we go.
The First Responders Center for Excellence is a not for profit organization dedicated to protecting their lives and livelihoods.
Of first responders.
Their education and research initiatives aim to bring greater awareness and understanding the challenges to the health, safety, and well being of firefighters, EMS personnel, and other first responders too. They are an affiliate of the National Fallen Firefighter Foundation.
All Right, we talk about mental health all the time. We talked about it a little bit tonight. By all means, it's available. It's not like it used to be with something to be ashamed of. But I'm going to add one extra layer to that. So all these things that you go through, all these things that you try to compartmentalize, all these things that go on in your head, and the horrific things that you see, you may not think it, but you bring it home sometimes to your wife and kids.
So I know the FDNY offers services for kids, on for your wife. So don't hesitate to bring them in and let them talk about because you may be you know, laying stuff on them that they don't know how to handle you, maybe, you know, shoveling off some of the ship onto them, and they need to talk to somebody. So I know it's available in New York, and I'm sure it's available in other cities. So get yourself checked out. Bring the wife, bring the kids, Bring Louis, bring chiefly,
bring everybody. Don't be afraid. It's not shunned, it's not frowned upon anymore.
Surey let me I'm going to add I'm going to add to that as.
Well as I knew you would.
Yeah, that's right, we've.
Got a conference.
Yeah, let's go.
The First respond a Center for Excellence in conjunction with the National QUM Firefighter Foundation, is going to be hosting a suicide a mental halt and suicide awareness symposium in Nashville, Tennessee. We have an opening reception on March nineteenth at the Country Music Hall of Fame, followed by a day and a half of just amazing speakers that'll be there.
It's three hundred and fifty dollars.
It courses more to put on the show than than the course of admission we have. The hotel room rates are less than half that they normally are in Nashville. The hotel stepped up to the plate and took care of us. Follow us on social media. We've posted about it. I know Billy's gonna put something out on the Secret List soon about it. And the spots is, we're about halfway full on the spots that.
Are available right now. But jump on board, come hang out a couple of days.
What are the dates?
March nine and twenty first is a great town?
Is the is the first night?
Yeah?
Maybe maybe they want to fly in a couple of celebrities speakers rough you know, on the on the arm. You know what I'm saying. Put them up in a hotel or something. You know what I'm saying.
Come on, I'll tell you what. I'll give you a booth, I'll give you I'll give you a table. I hear they play.
Both kinds of music there.
They do.
The Western sticking to your grandma.
Is all right?
Listen before we get out of here, Ghanza, where are we going to be Tomorrow, Frida, Saturday and Sunday. Oh, here he is. We will be there, Lee we Unfortunately, you'll catch me and Louis at the Nasau Coliseum Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Come out and see us. You don't have to buy anything. You just come shoot the breeze and I'll probably prush you to buy something, but anyway, just come to shoot.
You buy something.
Support the show, support the show, and one more gons.
Alright, here we go, mister Lancaster boom May.
We'll be going to Lancaster. Is leave gonna do that one?
I don't know.
Sixteen May, Sixteenthsburg and Harrisburg. If you come, they have a great smoke. Den Monica will take you out for a steak. Chiefly Monico that's all I got. Thanks for coming on, guys, I appreciate it. Love these show, love them, love and love them.
Let's get a show today. We gotta show Monday. Sore we do?
Oh we do. Yeah, we got to show on Monday. So we'll see you Monday, not Thursday. We'll tell you all about the show and how we got Mike building the drunk in the booth. All right.
Again, thank you Mike Milman for your input tonight as well.
Christ thanks so much your knowledge is I appreciated your comments.
Thank you, guys, Thank you you number one, number one, number.
One, Yes, thank you. All right, we'll see you Monday. Until then, stay a long and go all.
Right, everybody with the big one. Thanks again, guys. All right, guys, have a good night.
Be safe.
That's it.