Join us Sunday January 19, 2014 at 8:00 PM Eastern time as the panel discusses command consideration in various size departments.

You can watch the episode here or get more information here.

Watch live on YOUTUBE HERE.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

There is an awful lot of talk about stress in the fire service and I thought I would share some views here and get your input as well.

The most common thing we all think of is the Critical Incident Stress of a horrible or traumatic incident which has affected us. I think that most departments have come to realize this is a real issue and most agencies have taken some steps to correct and intervene in these situations. It is unfortunate that I still hear of cases across the country from folks who did not have a debrief after a very significant event. I also wonder about folks like myself that went through many years of a career witnessing these events and some of those old demons remain around maybe to pop up another day. There is a whole generation of firefighters still on the job everyday that did not have the benefit of CISM until much later in their career.

What about a different stress on the job? The stress caused by interacting with coworkers. Maybe interacting with folks who don’t feel the same way about the fire service as you might. Doesn’t it frustrate the heck out of you when someone doesn’t take this job seriously? How are you handling that and what do you do to personally cope with it?

When you come in early everyday with a cup of coffee for everyone and you check your equipment as the first task even before coffee, and you are relieved by a guy or gal at 2 minutes before shift change who reports out of uniform and can’t wait to get into the recliner and check their stock report and read the paper?

These are very real forms of job stress that relate to us. We must develop a personal coping mechanism to not be consumed about what is going on on “B” shift and what other folks around us are doing. If we let it it would eat us alive and I have seen a number of good firefighters consumed by this and become bitter and unhappy in their job.

What about the crystal ball stress of the job? That is the stress caused and created by who will become the next lieutenant. “When the chief retires, and captain Smith retires, I am number three on the promotion list and then Freddie will….. “Some folks will sit around the firehouse and expound and predict their career away and cause others to get involved in this frenzy. This serves no useful purpose, promotes talking negatively about everyone, and can whip a group or a shift into a frenzy. The system is what it is, accept it or change it, but theorizing doesn’t do anyone much good except get them all jacked up and bitter and they could have probably done that by themselves. Try to defuse these conversations while they are happening or walk away and do not let yourself become part of them. You will have a lot less personal stress.

Political stress. No matter how big or how small your department is, there will always be some problems with the local politics as it relates to the fire department. The city will reduce budgets, close fire houses, never give you enough manpower, and all that goes along with it. We need to be proactive and we need to be vocal in positively expressing our needs in a professional manner. After we have done everything within our power in the best manner we can, then we need to learn to let it go. I am not suggesting give up and not fight for what we need. What I am saying is if there is no movement, your continued pursuit and discussion in these matters will consume and eat you alive. I have seen good firefighters who no longer are valid in their positions because “This city sucks” or whatever their negative venomous attitude is toward city hall.
Do what you can do, but then get on with continuing knowing you have done your best.

Life Stress. The everyday get the kids around from event to event, the wife is working so you both have a job or maybe even two. There is no family time and any family quality time is spent planning and scheming how to get through the next week. You are both working hard, there are lots of bills and lots of demands and all of that has it’s cumulative effects.

I guess my message this week, was to point out that there are lots of stressors in our life that are affecting us, besides working in a very hazardous and unpredictable occupation. Let’s look at some ideas:

* Realize there are a number of things that could be stressing you in addition to the ones listed above.

* Know the signs of stress. Physical and emotional signs. Talk with your significant other and your coworkers and see if they have noticed any changes in you.

* Intercept these things by being able to recognize some of the things I pointed out. When you see that stuff happening at work and these conversations that will invariably be raised, then either sit back and chuckle, because you won’t be drawn in, or walk away. You will feel a lot better about it.

* Take time to take care of yourself. Go have some fun. Pay the baby-sitter and you and your significant other go out and do something fun.

You can be in control of your own stress reduction policy. Recognition is truly the key.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

SUNDAY EVENING JANUARY 12, 2014 8:00 PM EST

Join us on the Firefighting Weekly Roundtable by viewing on YouTube. We will be discussing the first alarm decisions, how to make the first alarm, safer and more efficient even while sometimes trying to do more with less.

We also how science might be affecting our decision making, if at all.

View us on the events page of google + HERE.

https://plus.google.com/events/c1sq6s2k62ier4l2mn526j2fu54

Watch on YOUTUBE HERE.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

Whether you are in a small department, or a large one the following two scenarios can be a helpful training suggestion. It also works if you are just able to affect the company or station house you are with.

I have approached this two different ways and either one has merit if you use the results in a positive and not a critical manner.

At your next drill, create a 25 question exam based upon your department’s SOPs. Give the exam without any warning, and be prepared to correct it somehow that same time. Give the troops a break and correct the test.

When everyone has come back, review the results as best you can. You will find that different members will have different results. They may be all over the place, they may be different by station or group or shift, and many will not even resemble what the SOP actually says.

The second way to do this is to pick and SOP that covers a particular topic such as first alarm response or something of the sort. Forward lay, reverse lay or some measurable practical topic. Gather the companies and just give the most basic simple command such as a simulated non emergency response to a target hazard and allow the drill to continue to whatever level you choose. When all companies return and come back in service, gather them up, and measure the performance at the drill directly to what the SOP says should have happened.

Again you will find that the results sometimes do not even resemble what they are supposed to do.

You can bet that what was expressed in writing or what was done at the drill is probably what will be done at the actual emergency scene.

As the training person you need to decide if the SOP needs to be modified (and sometimes they do) or if there needs to be reinforced training on the SOPs. If the incident commander actually believes that a certain set of procedures is going to be followed and in fact they are not serious safety issues will arise.

There is an old military adage that says, Train like you fight, and fight like you train.

Make sure that is what is going on in your department today, you might be surprised.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

Feel free to join us for our Sunday Evening weekly Roundtable Chat at 8:00 PM Eastern time.

We will be talking about what we will do this year, our fire service resolutions, what we expect to see in the service this year in terms of technology and procedures and tactics, and if there is anything we need to leave behind in 2013!

Watch live on YouTube and interact with the panel.

https://plus.google.com/events/c88mue479ofhp4heiriq3fco67k

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

How confused we sometimes get in the fire service when we try to overcomplicate things and we put a fire service spin on them because “WE” have to operate differently. This week I have some oversimplified thoughts for your consideration. Some of these are tactically related and some are in fact leadership and people related.

Use the ones you want, disregard the rest and feel free to send some of the ones you have thought of yourself.

I have been reading a lot about leadership and how to treat people. Good officers and bad officers. Hey I got an idea, treat others the way you might want to be treated. Ha! Stole that one from the bible I did. If people just treated others in a fair manner we would not have to have all of these complex management ideas and techniques. Just a thought.

Hold yourself and others accountable for your or their actions. If we started to do this more there would be a lot less problems in the fire service. The problem is that, holding someone else accountable can be an uncomfortable feeling for the moment, so we let it go. We need to do more. Simple.

Understand the new realities and science in the study of ventilation. Know when to vent, when to control the air flow, and always have a charged line available at the seat of the fire when you vent.

Preplan buildings and circumstances in your jurisdiction before the fire. They are a lot easier to view without all of that nasty smoke and heat. Good solid preplanning is a simple safety solution that is underutilized in the fire service.

Remember the fire doesn’t know how much manpower you have. Call the resources you need, from wherever you need them. No excuses. Operating with not enough people is our own fault not anybody else’s. Sure we all need more staffing but if your city, town or district wont give you the personnel, call for them at the fire when you need them.

Write disaster plans that are goal or resource oriented rather than incident specific. Forget that you are planning for a plane crash or a tornado, plan for the outcome. Mass casualties, big fires, wide spread destruction or what have you. Who cares what the cause was, plan for the outcome. You will have a better plan.

Train more than you feel like it.

Realize that your department wants to be full service to all of your people. realize that all of the special teams like haz mat and confined space are specialties and are exciting to do, but your department cannot be all things to all people. Do what you can with what you have, whenever you can do it. Sometimes all of these specialty functions take away from our core mission of fire and EMS.

Check on your people often and supervise them as you should. We often say in the firehouse that ” your mother doesn’t work here”. Maybe she should. She knew where we were, how to check up on us and made us tow the mark. Huh, what a concept for the fire service eh?

Riding lists are not accountability, really. I don’t know how this one got in here as a simple solution but I am leaving it in. A perfect simple accountability system costs about $ 100,000.00. The system costs less than $ 1000.00 and you should mandate and fire the first person who doesn’t participate in it. You will need the other $99,000.00 for legal fees but it will almost guarantee full participation in whatever system you choose.

Throw a lot more ladders than you normally would, it helps us get out of the building when we need to.

There are a million of these techniques and tips out there, but I truly believe the fire service is a very trendy organization steeped in culture and tradition. Just because there is some new procedure and technique out there, it does not mean we as the fire service should jump on it.

Let us be more concerned about simple solutions to complex problems instead of the expensive flashy ones with all of the glitz and glitter. We sometimes get too wrapped up in the “sex sells” and all that glitters that it blinds us from the obvious. When you have a problem in your department either operational in nature or personnel related, look for the root problem and the simplest solution possible.

It is a lot easier, and I have never known a firefighter that would not take the easiest solution to any problem.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

Ahhhhhhh,……YAWN!….Stretch….

Salvage training what are you crazy, we don’t do that we barely have enough manpower to stretch lines, now you want us to throw covers! I want to throw up!

Wait………Don’t stop reading yet!

Salvage is an often neglected part of our job for those very reasons….we don’t do it often enough, and we can barely have the manpower to do everything else we are supposed to do.

This week I have some random disorganzied thoughts about salvage and a couple of interesting ideas for salvage drills.

Like all the stuff on this training page, I am trying to plant the seed for a training and you need to make it grow and do something with it.

Why the hell do we always teach and say Salvage and Overhaul? One doesn’t have as much to do with the other as we would believe and before I leave the fire service we might actually separate the two!

Some occupanices might require salvage to become a higher priority: These might include libraries, churches, city and town halls, museums where records and articatcs might in fact be irreplaceable. I am not suggesting that we lose any lives for property under any circumstances but it certainly moves salvage up on the priorities in any of the above mentioned occupancies.

Think about salvage considerations when you are shoveling out people’s possessions into the front yard. That couch with the quilt on it is a smoldering wreck and it’s in your way, but to the owner that is the quilt that now dead aunt Sadie crocheted by hand.

Salvage drills mostly consist of pulling the apparatus out, showing folds rolls etc., and maybe trying to cover some furniture strategically placed in the day room. While I know most of these are necessary and are recognized as skills we need, I have yet to be able to do the “two man, inflate a throw- balloon method” that they teach in the essentials manuals. Usually I knock over a precious vase and stain and or ruin the eight foot normal ceiling that prevents me from doing that in the first place!

Train on rolls and folds that one or two people can do easily.

Empty the apparatus room / bay. Take a 10 foot step ladder and have someone stand at the top of it with a garden hose. Have other members form teams. Give them a designated task like the following: This is an overhead light fixture or pipe leak and you are unable to shut off the flow: The water must be directed out a side door or window. After the instructions start a gentle flow of water from the garden hose and let the crews make chutes, use ladders, pike poles, and catchalls to direct and divert the flow. When they are done, roughly chalk out the amount of spill that hit the floor. Start the next team as the first and chalk out their puddle. The group with the smallest amount of water on the floor is the winner. Things like this make it interesting challenging and more real life and your personnel will become very creative in their methods.

Take a garden hose, adapt it to a piece of 3/4″ copper pipe about 10 feet long. Make an irregular slice in the pipe with a sawzall or make a series of pinholes. Have personnel control water flow. By rotating the pipe in different directions the problem becomes serious.

Use sprinkler props and leaking overhead sprinkler prop pipes for salvage drills.

Using a roscoe smoke machine have two firefighters enter an area that is moderately smoky and return with simulated valuable items they can carry: Have the area stocked with wallets, purse, phtographs, insurance policy documents, business records, leger books etc.and other props that you devise., and then review what areticles they retrieve and discuss them with the group. This gets them operating under a mask as well.

We do still say we protect life and property don’t we? Well salvage is the property piece and by a little creative thinking you can do some innovative salvage drills that will make your troops at least think about it and be prepared to act when needed.

And as always if anyone else has any valuable ideas how to do salvage training safely and effectively, let me know and we will share them with others.

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

Santa is an Fire Officer / Instructor !

It is Christmas and I began letting myself think of what makes Santa so magical and wonderful even as adults. As I sat sipping my egg nog (No I am not telling you if it was spiked or not!) I had some interesting thoughts.

I ask you to indulge me for a few minutes and consider the following:

* Santa is looked up to and folks look forward to him coming into their life. Be the kind of person and officer that your personnel are happy to see. Be firm and fair but don’t ever let it be said “Boy are we lucky you weren’t there Capt.” Make your troops believe in you and lead and inspire them to want to work and wait for you.

* Santa brings gifts to everyone. Bring small gifts to your personnel. Give them parts of yourself and your knowledge and experience. Allow them to make small mistakes and give them freedom to make some decisions. These are all gifts you can give.

* Santa has a list of who is naughty and nice. Evaluate your personnel on a regular basis and tell them how they are doing in meeting your expectations. Know and understand what each of your personnel’s capabilities are and their level of training.

* Santa has lots of helpers. Make sure you surround yourself with people who will help you. Do not be afraid to delegate responsibility and authority to others. No officer or instructor is an island and when you begin to micro-manage you cause more damage then you can imagine. Have lots of helpers and get out of their way!

* Santa prepares 364 days for one night’s work. I hope that you train each and every day, because tonight could be the night that impacts many many lives. It could be positive or negative, but remember…..just like Santa, everyone is counting on you! Be prepared.

* Santa is never seen out of uniform. All right enough said!

* Although there is a “naughty and nice list” everyone gets a present. be sure that you make an attempt to share knowledge opportunities and experiences with all. Even the members of your department you may not be especially close to. Give of yourself to everyone.

* Santa takes cookies and milk from lots of folks. As an officer or instructor take a little something from all of those that you interact with. Do not believe that you are the only one who can give”presents”. Lots of folks have lots to give….be sure you don’t ever believe you know it all. Learn from others.

* Santa is very good at time management. Hey you don’t get all around the world in one night by sitting in the recliner watching TV all night you know! As an officer remember to make your time on duty count for all that it is worth. Not only is Santa watching but so are the rest of the troops and they have really good memories!

* Santa feeds and takes care of the reindeer all year long even when he is not using them. Make sure all of your apparatus and portable equipment is ready to go!

* Santa has kept up with the times. Although the origin of Santa is always debated, Santa has lasted for the ages. Make sure that you remain current with all of the latest and greatest trends in the fire service. Don’t get stuck in a time warp and repeat the same year over and over again. Be timeless and ageless. Not everyone really cares “about the way it used to be”.

* Santa is most appreciated by the children. never underestimate the power you have on new members of our profession. These “young folks” look at each and every move you make and attitude you foster. Make them all really believe in Santa.

* Santa always make sure he makes it home to Mrs. Claus. Enough said about this one too.

OK, so he is a little overweight and he knows that heart attacks can kill us, and I realize that the beard doesn’t meet the NIOSH/OSHA standard for wearing SCBA…….but you gotta admit Santa has some pretty good traits for an officer or instructor, doesn’t he?

Stay Safe, take care of one another, appreciate your families and please accept from me my sincerest wishes for a safe and Merry Christmas to all!

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

TRAINING WEBINAR

Firefighter Training that allows the firefighter to review firefighting concepts, enhance size-up and situational awareness on the fireground.
Some of the topics you will learn about size up, rate of flow, building collapse, electrical hazards, Building construction and much more.
The goal of this training is to make firefighters more alert and safer on the fireground.
This program allows for a small class size that will give the student individual contact and allow for questions and answers, and interaction with the instructor.
See the website at http://www.petelamb.com and click the links for the current blog and the podcast archives.

REGISTER FOR JANUARY 8, 2014 HERE. 7:00 PM Eastern time

REGISTER FOR JANUARY 11,2014 HERE9:00 AM Eastern time

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013

I pretty much hate the rumor mill and I truly believe it is detrimental in so many ways to the fire service, but I also know I am not smart enough to figure out how to make it go away. Hey maybe you don’t have a rumor mill or grapevine in your department, so this week’s commentary might not be for you. (Stop reading right now, I wanna talk about you later on in the piece!) It really doesn’t matter what you do to minimize, manage, or deal with it, the rumor mill exists and will continue to exists as long as one person hears a single piece of information prior to someone else, or prior to department administration being able to get it out there. I also acknowledge that while the rumor mill or grapevine will always exist I do submit to you that there are some things you can do to help the situation out in your own department.

Here are some basic thoughts: (Warning these may not get you any birthday presents or nuthin’ cause they are not real popular!)

When someone approaches you and says “the rumor mill says….” or “rumor has it….” immediately and directly ask where they heard it. More often then not they will not answer. In that case neither should you.

Try to be open and up front with information if you are an officer or department administrator. This will help to minimize the effects.

If you are an officer or department administrator know your personnel and know who you can have a conversation with, without it being spread throughout the department.

The simplest of all…….Don’t spread rumors yourself. Think of a time when you have been injured mentally or emotionally about some of the crap that may have been spread about you.

If the rumor mill is talking about other members, they are talking about you too. Make sure you know what they can say bout you. If you do good stuff and perform well on the job, then only good stuff will be said.

Build your reputation to be able to withstand the rumor mill. Each and every day behave in a positive manner.

What is being said about you at work? When you are out sick, or vacation is the shift happier? When you don’t make a meeting or company drill does it go smoother? When you miss a good incident do the personnel say “it’s a good thing you were not here cause somebody might have gotten hurt”. Are your personnel happy to see you take command?

All of the things I mentioned right here are being said about you today. Your work habits, appearance, and behaviors are all being talked about.

Make sure you behave in a manner that will make your mom proud when she hears the rumor about you!

Make sure you don’t get involved in spreading rumors about others. If everyone takes care of their own, then we can help make firehouse and the fire service just a tiny bit better, but each one of us doing the right thing!

Pete Lamb
Copyright 2013