Station 1902

[00:02] Speaker A: A warm central Pennsylvania welcome to our station 1902 podcast.

[00:07] I'm your host, Ed Mann, director of training and education for Providence.

[00:11] This podcast and our lively, live monthly webinars are just one way Providence gives back to those who serve our communities.

[00:20] Today, I have the pleasure and opportunity to connect with Ray McCormack.

[00:25] If you spend any time on Facebook, YouTube, or other social media platforms,

[00:30] you already know who he is.

[00:33] I became really interested in doing a podcast with Ray after seeing all the information about the hen nozzle.

[00:40] More on that later.

[00:42] Ray, welcome to Station 1902.

[00:45] I'm extremely happy to finally connect with you.

[00:48] Please introduce yourself to our listeners.

[00:51] Speaker B: All right, thank you, Ed.

[00:53] I appreciate the opportunity to be here and speak to firefighters wherever they may be.

[01:00] A little bit of my bio I suppose I should start with.

[01:04] I retired from the FDNY after almost 39 years. I was a lieutenant.

[01:12] I got out. They fired me basically because of COVID My. My job at the fire academy stopped, and I was like, okay, it's time to go.

[01:23] So I retired in 2020,

[01:27] and I've been very happy since.

[01:30] As you mentioned,

[01:32] I eventually got involved with this nozzle company called Hen High Efficiency Nozzles.

[01:37] And I've been doing my own stuff. Teaching, of course, that didn't stop. And I had a great last couple of years in the fdmy. I was able to write their engine company operations manual,

[01:52] and that was the last piece of paperwork I turned in.

[01:57] And it was a great opportunity and a nice way to leave a nice footnote.

[02:03] Speaker A: Well,

[02:04] I'm glad that you were on an engine company, because when I look back over my career that my most favorite position in the fire department was being an officer on an engine company throughout my career.

[02:18] So, Ray, I watched your speech from the fire department Instructors Conference in 2009,

[02:24] and the title of it was the Culture of Extinguishment.

[02:28] Let us spend a few minutes and talk about that speech and what motivated you to speak on that particular topic.

[02:38] Speaker B: Yeah, that's interesting.

[02:41] It's had several names, certainly.

[02:45] But,

[02:45] you know, I was sitting in the green room the year prior in 2008,

[02:51] and Bobby Halton, who was the editor and educational director for fdic,

[02:57] turned to me and he said, what do you think I said about what he said about speaking up there on the stage? I was like, oh, that's. That's pretty intense.

[03:07] And he was like, no, next year, you doing it?

[03:10] I was like, oh, my gosh. I was like,

[03:13] yeah, of course.

[03:15] That's the biggest stage in the fire service. And I was kind of flabbergasted, but I took the challenge and I wanted to write a nice speech, and I did, and it was delivered.

[03:30] And it was.

[03:32] Well, it still lives on,

[03:35] some people might say, in infamy, but it still lives on.

[03:39] And it was their most watched speech. And it brought out a lot of good points about the fire service. And I think the fire service needed a bit of a reset that was kind of in my head,

[03:53] and I tried to deliver on that. And basically, I contrasted the culture of safety with the culture of extinguishment, because we were going down a road that I thought wasn't going to serve us in the best way,

[04:06] and that was to really kind of like, over safety, what we were trying to do.

[04:12] And as we've seen since,

[04:16] we have seen a resurgence in the engine, the popularity of engine company work,

[04:23] a broadening of the culture of extinguishment. It was funny because maybe a year after, a buddy of mine ran a conference and he had written something about the culture of extinguishment, and it was kind of negative, and he was a buddy of mine, and I wrote him a letter,

[04:40] and I said, you don't understand what this actually is.

[04:45] And that became.

[04:47] I saved that and changed it a bit.

[04:50] And when Billy Goldfeder did his series of books,

[04:55] I wrote that as the first thing, the Culture of Extinguisher, because I wanted people to understand that it was an embrace of the engine company, which is,

[05:05] you will find in every city,

[05:08] no matter how small or how big, in that firehouse, there's going to be an engine company,

[05:14] and they are the heart and soul of the fire service. So I wanted to tell our people and encourage our people that we have a solution. You're carrying it into the building.

[05:28] There are many ways to use it, obviously,

[05:30] but trying to shield us from the dangers of firefighting by excluding us from doing our job or hampering us from doing our job unnecessarily was something I thought a pin needed to be put in.

[05:46] And it was. It was. It was very controversial.

[05:50] There was a lot of pushback.

[05:52] But I would say, hence,

[05:55] we have won that battle and we're better because of it. And I would just say there's also another title. It's called True Values of a Firefighter.

[06:08] And I just finished a book, writing a book. And a lot of that comes from the speech where I talk about the values of the firefighters, and hopefully I'll get it out by this summer.

[06:20] Speaker A: All right, great.

[06:23] So I do remember one Part of the speech. And I may not get it exactly right, but so I'll paraphrase it. And it was kind of like,

[06:32] you know, it's okay to be aggressive as long as you're well trained and you're not stupid.

[06:41] And, and I, I couldn't agree with you more. Right. You know,

[06:45] well trained firefighters that, that can be aggressive,

[06:53] but they don't have to be stupid when they're being aggressive.

[06:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I mean, even the word aggressive, aggressive interior attack, I've had people challenge that. I'm like,

[07:05] listen, there is a difference between regular attack and an aggressive interior attack. And basically it was aggressive interior attack.

[07:12] And some have never had it.

[07:16] There's a firefight that you could come against that is super intense,

[07:20] and you're really almost like fighting for your life.

[07:24] And if you don't move the nozzle and you don't advance or you, you can't advance, that's that battle.

[07:33] That's that battle that you have to be prepared for. And,

[07:37] you know, being aggressive doesn't mean reckless. That,

[07:41] you know,

[07:42] again,

[07:43] it was expected. The people that didn't understand the speech caught on all these negatives that they could try and, you know, upset it. But the message got through. The message got through to the fire service that we needed to take a step back and evaluate what we do.

[08:00] We can't.

[08:02] Look,

[08:02] the people that call us are desperate when they call.

[08:06] We have to show up well trained, well equipped and ready to go to work.

[08:12] And anything less than that is inappropriate and it's not serving the community that you're sworn to protect. So I think that message has gotten through.

[08:22] We have additional evidence based firefighting that's helped the cause move along too.

[08:29] And now you're starting to see the benefits of solid engine company operations and how they assist with search operations. So I knew all this. A lot of people knew it, but we were drifting away and I was trying to pull us back to center.

[08:44] Speaker A: Well, I gotta say,

[08:45] after.

[08:46] And I've watched that speech a couple of times and obviously I watched it in preparation for this podcast again.

[08:54] And I didn't take anything negative from your message in it. And I couldn't agree with you more. It was time for a reset and I think you reset things, so.

[09:03] Speaker B: Oh, thank you.

[09:04] Speaker A: My hat's off to you.

[09:06] Speaker B: Thank you.

[09:06] Speaker A: Thank you, Ray. I've heard about the dirty dozen engine company errors,

[09:11] and while we don't have time to take a deep dive into them,

[09:14] give our listeners the cliff note versions and let them know where they can learn More about them.

[09:22] Speaker B: Well, it's funny.

[09:24] At a special request, I did a conference in Texas. I knew the fellow who was running it, and he specifically asked for that program.

[09:33] And I only did it. I think I did it once or twice at fdic, and that's it. I packed it up,

[09:39] and so I had to find it, which was a bit of a pain in that, because I had been through, like, two computers since then,

[09:47] and I did find it,

[09:50] and I sent it to him so he could put it up on the screen.

[09:53] And then.

[09:54] Then it got lost in transit after that, so I redid it.

[09:58] And basically,

[10:00] engine company errors, the Dirty Dozen was just that. It was a 12 things that engine companies do on the fire ground through the. Through omission or commission,

[10:12] and they can come back to haunt you and take what should have been a routine fire and turn it on its head.

[10:20] So some of the mistakes are made not just by engine companies. They're sort of at the command level.

[10:26] There are personal mistakes firefighters make,

[10:29] and there's mistakes made by the company officer.

[10:34] And because it's never been written about,

[10:39] it kind of lives in this special place of, like, people are very much interested in it, but it's had limited air, so to speak,

[10:51] and that's fine. But I would just say attention to detail is always possible. I just did a class at fdic,

[11:00] and I knew I was dragging the crowd in a certain direction. I told them that everything first I told them, I said, you know, I wasn't always a firefighter.

[11:11] Okay, yeah, so what? You know, that's not uncommon. And then my next slide was everything I wanted to learn about stretching hose, I learned at the CIA.

[11:21] So now they're obviously thinking I worked at the CIA.

[11:25] So then the next slide is the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America. Now, I didn't work there either, but I went to dinner there. And one of the funny things is when that meal goes out,

[11:38] it's perfect. It's checked by the main chef before it goes to your table.

[11:44] And the attention to detail is something we can all do.

[11:49] You have to be systematic in your approach to firefighting.

[11:52] You have to have poise.

[11:54] That's another value that I think is very important. Poise.

[11:58] And you have to know your positional function and what you have to do.

[12:03] You have to be good at it.

[12:05] And once you are,

[12:08] you don't overlook stuff anymore. It's like you have a checklist in your head.

[12:13] The fire service gets funny about acronyms, you know, but sometimes an acronym is a bit of a checklist. And you don't have to remember what A stands for, what B stands for.

[12:23] But even if you just have that,

[12:26] you know, maybe you always check behind you to make sure that the line is not kinked when you have the nozzle. A lot of nozzle firefighters get preoccupied with just checking that the nozzle is wet and flowing, and meanwhile behind them, the hose is all kinked up.

[12:43] So the ability to look at a bigger picture and to check all the boxes as you go along is well within everyone's capability.

[12:52] You just have to develop the discipline to do it.

[12:56] And once you do that,

[12:58] the operation goes a lot smoother.

[13:01] Things getting well, we'll just talk about this.

[13:04] A hose line under a door, and then it gets wet.

[13:07] You are not getting that out from under the door without a lot of effort. If you can do it at all.

[13:13] You just turn what could have been a very simple bread and butter operation into a mess.

[13:18] And it's possible we have people on the other side of that door who are facing a fire and have limited to no water supply.

[13:26] So because you didn't check the door or you didn't shock it open or,

[13:32] you know, I teach this little trick of turning the hose on its edge and putting it up against the door frame. So if the door does close,

[13:40] it's not going to trap the hose underneath it between the door and the floor.

[13:45] So you have some recovery there even if it does close.

[13:48] So these are little things, but these little housekeeping details are critical, and they add up because there really are no little things.

[13:58] A little thing can become a big thing.

[14:00] So like I said,

[14:03] we have to have poise. When we're on the fire ground,

[14:06] we have to remember what our to do list is. I mean,

[14:10] you know, pilots use a legitimate checklist,

[14:14] and they don't always get that right either. But 99 out of 100 or more, they do.

[14:20] And because they realize the work they do is so important that to skip a step could cause a major problem. So they have a checklist. You know,

[14:32] I'll just tell you another story. People used to get upset, and it was unusual for me, too.

[14:37] When I worked up in Harlem, sometimes the chiefs would come up to the fire floor to take a look to see what was going on.

[14:44] And originally I felt like, oh, they're just checking up on you. They don't trust you. But no, it wasn't that. They wanted to just see for themselves how things were going.

[14:53] Because sometimes radio reports leave out a lot or leave something to the imagination.

[14:59] And that was just a habit of theirs. They wanted to double check. Anyway, they weren't like. It wasn't. It didn't matter who you were, they just did it. So it wasn't like, oh, they're just checking on Ray, or they're checking on someone else.

[15:10] They did it as a matter of course.

[15:12] And it was sort of like a checklist, if you will. You know, you. They had your back. They were making sure that what you need, you had and that you were.

[15:21] You were doing what you needed to do.

[15:24] So the system works if we pay enough attention to it.

[15:30] Speaker A: Thanks, Ray. It's very good perspective. And, you know, that poise and being systematic obviously comes from training often and training, right?

[15:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I've done hundreds and hundreds of drills in my career,

[15:49] and one of the things that I like to talk to young officers about is that,

[15:55] you know, try not to cover. And it used to drive me crazy. Even if I would see it in a fire magazine where there'd be an article about the engine and they would try and cover, like, everything the engine does in one article, and I'm like, first of all,

[16:08] that doesn't work. You need a lot more than one article to cover it.

[16:11] And sometimes officers, if they're given a drill, get a little carried away. They want to cover a lot of material.

[16:19] You're better off taking small bites. Cover something,

[16:23] cover it well,

[16:24] practice it multiple times,

[16:27] and now you move on to the next step.

[16:29] But trying to cover everything, you're going to have a limited amount of time or you do too much.

[16:35] You know, I never thought that drills should last too long because again,

[16:42] you lose the interest of the audience.

[16:44] Now,

[16:46] they may want to continue it on, and if they want to, that's perfectly fine.

[16:50] But I always felt like it was much more manageable if we took it in smaller bites.

[16:56] Speaker A: That's certainly great advice coming from a guy that spent 38 years in FDNY and most of it on an engine company.

[17:04] So to our listeners,

[17:06] pay attention to what the man just said.

[17:09] So, Ray, looking back on your time at fdny,

[17:13] how would you describe the culture inside the fire department when you first came on the job?

[17:19] And then how did the job in the department itself change over the course of your career?

[17:24] Speaker B: Oh, wow.

[17:26] Yeah.

[17:27] Well,

[17:27] FDNY has always had a very vibrant and rich culture.

[17:33] There are many things that occur off duty that increase the camaraderie and brotherhood of the fire service.

[17:43] And a lot of the things that we do are not have been passed down.

[17:49] Like we always had a picnic in the Summer for the families, and we would have a holiday party around the holidays, and the kids would come in.

[18:01] So these types of things, plus all the other activities,

[18:05] definitely allows firefighters to. If you like golfing, you could probably golf in a golf tournament every week in the summer.

[18:13] You know, there's no end to all the opportunities out of there. But as for a culture,

[18:18] the culture, in a lot of ways, has stayed the same.

[18:22] There are routines that they follow that they still follow 40 years later. You know, checking equipment that's done religiously, that is,

[18:31] companies don't skip that. They do it every day, every shift,

[18:36] and that's twice a day for fdmy. So our equipment gets checked twice a day,

[18:43] and we're able to find issues probably that other departments may not have because we have so many people,

[18:52] so many companies.

[18:53] So on a given night,

[18:56] there's probably 350 SAWs that are being checked throughout the department. You know what I mean?

[19:03] So we spot problems with the cords and things like that for the manufacturer pretty,

[19:09] pretty quickly. So we're doing a lot of R and D with all this checking. But the culture is very strong. It's unique. It is its own culture. FDNY has its own culture.

[19:25] It loves tradition.

[19:27] It values seniority, something the job doesn't officially do. But amongst the rank and file,

[19:36] seniority is important.

[19:39] The senior firefighter is very important.

[19:41] They are sort of like the conciliary between the officer and the rest of the firefighters. You know, if you have an issue,

[19:50] you basically talk to your driver or the senior man and let them see if they can handle it informally with the other firefighter. And if that doesn't work, then of course,

[20:02] we go to the next step. But it's really nice to have that someone there that says, I have this, Lou, I'll take care of it. Or they see something that they don't like, and they'll take care of it.

[20:14] So they understand that whole system of how that works. And the defined roles are what helps us.

[20:24] The firefighters have roles that they take very seriously and that supports the officer and the officers take care of the firefighters. That's your job.

[20:35] You stick up for them, even if they're.

[20:38] Even if they're not right, you still have to stick up for them. And,

[20:42] you know, you. You are there to defend them and to guide them and to make sure they get home.

[20:49] Speaker A: So, Ray, something that. That the fdny, and there's a lot of video of it and a lot of talk about it,

[20:56] is the kitchen table is still. Seems to be A very big part of the Chicago or the New York Fire Department. Would you agree with that?

[21:07] Speaker B: Yes,

[21:08] certainly.

[21:10] The meals are typically held as a group event.

[21:15] Now, obviously, modern technology impinges on that a little bit. And a lot of firehouses have tried to go to like a no telephone rule where we just sit down, we're lucky enough to have a meal uninterrupted.

[21:31] Let's enjoy the people around and not be filled with distractions of. Did you see this video or not?

[21:39] So where I worked the last 25 years of my career, the Harlem Hilton, Engine 69 and Ladder 28, they did not have a television in the dining room,

[21:51] so there was no tv.

[21:53] The only distraction you might have had was a phone. But they've. They kind of made sure that that was a thing of the past because they wanted everybody to enjoy it.

[22:04] I mean,

[22:05] technology is great,

[22:07] but. And you can bury your head in a phone, but there's a lot more to enjoy at the table than your phone. And the meal is a big deal. The.

[22:16] They cook the meal as a group.

[22:19] You know,

[22:21] they try. In most houses, everyone is in on the meal and it. It just makes for a great gathering.

[22:28] Speaker A: Certainly the reason I bring it up is as I indicated to you earlier, you know, I retired from the Air Force as a firefighter,

[22:36] and two years ago, my wife and I made a trip out west to visit some air bases I was on many years ago.

[22:45] One thing I noticed, we were in one firehouse at lunchtime, they had a very big dining room and it was five or six separate tables in the dining room.

[22:55] And there were three or four firefighters sitting there,

[22:58] each one of them at their own table by themselves on their phones. There was no conversation from one firefighter to the other. They weren't sitting in a group.

[23:09] And that was kind of disheartening to me because when I was on active duty, we had shift meals and we all sat down together most of the time.

[23:22] And then we went to the day room and the day room had these. Had this massive big screen TV and theater seating.

[23:29] And I asked the guy it was taking on his tour. I said, well, how often did they use this? He said, rarely. They all have their own bunk rooms.

[23:37] They all have Internet connections and TVs in their rooms. They spend their off duty time in their own private bunk rooms.

[23:45] Speaker B: And yeah, it's very isolated. When a firehouse is like that.

[23:50] I've seen that myself with the sort of like,

[23:54] once the meal is done,

[23:56] maybe even it's not a prepared meal, maybe people just Bring their own.

[24:00] And, you know,

[24:03] you gotta take a break from the. I love the phone just as much as anyone else, but there's a time and a place. You do have to break from it.

[24:10] And then the individual bunk area,

[24:15] we didn't have those in New York,

[24:17] so the firefighters were all together. And they also had sort of informal policies. Like, you know,

[24:26] you. You weren't supposed to be in bed. Like. Like,

[24:30] if you weren't doing anything else, you weren't supposed to be laying down.

[24:33] You know, we had other activities. You know, it just.

[24:38] I don't know, it's more like a group event than a solo thing. And those things creep in. They just creep in. It's not. Look, here's the thing. My buddy always said this to me.

[24:49] He said, you know, the fire department you join is not the same one you retire from.

[24:54] And that's true.

[24:56] You know,

[24:56] concessions are made, changes are made, and next thing,

[25:00] you go back and years later, and you're like, I don't recognize this place.

[25:04] So you. You want to slow that roll, if you can,

[25:08] by keeping certain traditions going.

[25:11] And sometimes people fight that,

[25:14] but it's actually good stuff, you know,

[25:18] I believe it is.

[25:19] Speaker A: I mean, you know, it's kind of like you're dependent on that individual to have your back,

[25:27] but you can't even sit at the same table and carry on a conversation with one another at mealtime.

[25:34] Like I said, it was very disheartening to me to see that, knowing what it was like when I was on active duty and we all sat down and ate together and busted each other's chops at meal,

[25:47] and,

[25:48] you know, we all sat in the same day room watching the same tv.

[25:53] I mean,

[25:54] when I first went to South Dakota, to Ellsworth Air force base in 1978, 79, we only had two TV stations on the TV in the day room.

[26:04] Speaker B: Yeah.

[26:05] Speaker A: And there was, you know, 15 or 20 people crammed into the day room. And then the argument was what we were going to watch that night.

[26:13] But we were together with one another.

[26:15] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. No, I. I miss that.

[26:18] Yeah. Yeah. No, that's the greatest strength of the firehouse is when you're with everyone, certainly.

[26:25] And like I said,

[26:28] they enjoy that.

[26:29] That's still,

[26:31] you know, that to not be that type of firehouse would be extremely rare.

[26:35] And they also do a lot of group activities. So.

[26:40] Yeah,

[26:41] so that hasn't stopped, which is good.

[26:44] Great, great.

[26:45] Speaker A: So,

[26:47] lieutenant, when you became a lieutenant, I'm sure it was a major transition.

[26:52] So what surprised you most when you first stepped into the leadership role.

[26:58] What was the big, the biggest awe shucks moment when you became a lieutenant?

[27:06] Speaker B: I don't know. That's, that's, that's interesting question.

[27:10] One thing was I kept comparing all the firehouses I went to with my previous house, which was Ladder 24 and Engine 1.

[27:20] And sort of,

[27:24] like I said, firehouses are basically the same,

[27:27] but there are many flavors to that.

[27:31] Each firehouse has its own personality. And once you're,

[27:35] you experience it a little bit when you're a new lieutenant, you bounce around. So you could be in a place for just the night tour or the day tour or do a vacation or things like that.

[27:46] So you get to see how they operate a little bit.

[27:49] And it depends on who you're working with. But I would say most of my tours were very pleasant.

[27:56] Only a couple of little things that happened that kind of made me go home and be a little angry, but,

[28:05] you know, probably because I didn't say anything when I probably should have.

[28:09] But you learn to.

[28:12] I watched a lot of covering officers come through and the system that FDNY has,

[28:19] everybody knows where they're supposed to be.

[28:22] It's.

[28:24] There are a lot of standard operating procedures, so it's not like you have to make it up as you go.

[28:31] And everybody knows the same playbook,

[28:34] so it eases some of the burden. But one of the.

[28:38] Probably the biggest thing I noticed was how firefighters acted amongst themselves and two officers. And most firefighters were good,

[28:52] respectful.

[28:54] And it just shows that the way they came up works. Like people say, oh, they forgot where they came from. Well, it's hard to do that in the FDNY because you're reminded of where you came from at every rank.

[29:10] And our system allows for even the chief of department to have taken an exam to get that title. So you may not like the decisions that come down from headquarters, but I'm not quite sure people forgot where they came from.

[29:26] You know, that's always the catch all if somebody doesn't do what you like. But one of the things that I learned later on in my career was that you never know how much like we.

[29:38] Something will come through that, you know, the rank and file really doesn't like.

[29:42] But you never really know what they've held back that could be worse.

[29:47] And so I give them a little slack.

[29:51] You, we don't know everything that's going on at the high, high level and what comes through we may find distasteful or not agree with. But there could be something worse that they've held back successfully.

[30:05] So,

[30:07] you know,

[30:08] with rank comes big decisions and more responsibility. And you know, one of the things that's nice to see is that they try and take care of our own all the way up,

[30:23] which is nice.

[30:24] Speaker A: All right, so that kind of leads into the next question.

[30:27] So,

[30:28] all right, you're, you know, you're a firefighter now, you're a lieutenant.

[30:32] How did you balance being accountable to your members while still being one of the guys?

[30:39] Speaker B: Yes. Well, you have to make that break because. Cause you're not one of the guys anymore.

[30:45] And I would give you an example such as you're joking around with someone and now it's their turn to respond back. And what they say is pretty cutting and that can happen.

[30:59] There's a lot of sharp witted fellas out there and it really stings.

[31:07] Well, you can't go out there and, you know,

[31:09] bombard this person now or find some way to get back at them administratively.

[31:16] So you have to be careful how much you interact in that regard, you know what I mean? Because they're going to zing you if you're open to it.

[31:28] And if you're open to it, then so be it. But if they get you good, you're just going to have to take it. Because to retaliate and blow them up really isn't appropriate for an officer to do.

[31:41] Even if you can. Even if you can.

[31:44] So,

[31:45] you know,

[31:46] having a good time with them is fine, but you have to know your limitations because you are not one of them.

[31:52] And we can't have a break in that either.

[31:57] You know what I mean? You shouldn't try and spend all your time with them. They need time away from you,

[32:03] you need time away from them.

[32:05] There is that distinction and you made it. You studied to get promoted. So you can't keep saying, oh, I wish I was a fireman, I wish I was a fireman.

[32:13] Well, if you really wanted that, then you shouldn't have taken the promotion.

[32:17] You know,

[32:18] I laugh. I mean, I've seen this with people,

[32:22] you know,

[32:22] I wish I was, you know, this is chief officer saying it. I wish I was a fireman again. Well then why'd you study?

[32:29] You know?

[32:30] You know,

[32:31] obviously you thought differently years ago, so it's just kind of comical,

[32:36] you know, understand.

[32:38] And I'm glad we have firefighters that stay firefighters their whole career. That's wonderful.

[32:45] Speaker A: So,

[32:46] so you kind of touched on it here a few minutes ago when you mentioned about taking care of our own. So how's the conversation around mental health and emotional resilience changed since you first joined the fire department,

[33:01] you know, 40 plus years ago to what you see today related to mental health and emotional resilience?

[33:09] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, there's been tremendous growth in those topics, certainly. And you know,

[33:17] certainly there is a brushing on the rug mentality still.

[33:23] You know, kind of like a suck it up thing.

[33:25] But after 9 11,

[33:27] the FDNY actually, it probably wasn't after 9 11. In fact, somebody told me it was after this fire they had in the Bronx. The. Oh my goodness, I can't remember, but like 88 people died.

[33:43] It was a social club fire where a guy took a gallon of gas. And.

[33:48] And anyway, so they had tremendous losses. Like 80 people died, maybe more.

[33:53] And they died right where they were at their tables at the bar and just asphyxiated. And they were starting to remove the bodies,

[34:03] which would be normal after a fire operation. And I think they told them to stop.

[34:09] And that's kind of like where our counseling started.

[34:12] And so we had counseling unit which would come to the firehouse, and it mostly be retired firefighters. And they would just say, hey, listen, you know, if you're having some issues,

[34:22] you know, the counseling unit is there for you. If it's super serious,

[34:26] you know, we can take you out offline and get you the help you need.

[34:30] So the net was there. The net was there if you needed it.

[34:36] But one of the things that firefighters are fortunate in, in my opinion,

[34:42] is that we see things that happen. That is true. And some of them can be gory and troubling,

[34:50] but we don't live with that trauma for long periods of time.

[34:55] We go to an incident,

[34:56] we see something that's terrible,

[34:59] but then we leave there. We don't live with the remains of that. So I think most firefighters will be perfectly fine in their career and, and not have any sort of,

[35:12] I guess, I don't know, do you call it behavioral mental health issues?

[35:16] But now if I was a nurse and I was taking care of badly burned patients and I had to debrieve them,

[35:25] that would be something that would be stressful and continuous, and I could see where that would.

[35:32] Would accumulate.

[35:34] But we do have the counseling available for people who need it, and that's important, certainly. But I will say that most of the things that we see,

[35:46] we don't have to live through it for a long period of time. So you have to balance what you see with all the good things that you can see.

[35:57] Speaker A: So that kind of leads to the next question. So what advice would you give to a firefighter who's struggling silently with the cumulative weight or effects of the job. You know, like you said, you know, you're involved with this situation now.

[36:13] You're not involved with it long term,

[36:15] but over the course of a career,

[36:17] this stuff starts to build up, if you will.

[36:21] What advice would you give to a firefighter that. That is struggling?

[36:26] Speaker B: Well, I mean, if they was struggling, certainly, you know, I'd tell them that they need to seek out someone besides myself.

[36:35] There's nothing wrong with listening, but I'm not professionally trained to give guidance on, you know, what you should do.

[36:44] So I would say that. But as we know,

[36:47] and I had three friends who took their own lives in one one year.

[36:53] So you just don't know.

[36:55] They keep the struggle to themselves with that outcome being the final straw.

[37:02] And I wish I knew,

[37:04] and we all wish we knew how we could have stepped in and stopped that.

[37:08] Speaker A: But

[37:11] Speaker B: I'm also someone who believes in the fact that these things are laid out already.

[37:17] And as much as we think maybe we would stop it, maybe that's what we were supposed to do. But if it's not written in the script,

[37:26] you're not going to stop it.

[37:27] Speaker A: Understand where you're coming from. So, Ray, let's jump into the hen nozzle. So give our listeners some background on how the hen nozzle came about.

[37:41] Speaker B: All right, so the hen nozzle was designed by an engineer, Sonny Seti, and he designed it out in California. He was home and had a lot of wildfires going on. His wife said, why don't you design, like a nozzle for these people?

[37:59] He had never designed a fire nozzle before.

[38:02] So anyway, he took a shot at it, made like a plastic molded one,

[38:06] brought it to a firehouse and showed it to one of the wildland fire and said, oh, yeah, this is great. This is not bad at all, but we need something with a solid stream, too.

[38:18] So he went back to the drawing board, and basically the blade, as it's called, the blade nozzle was developed, which is an expanding linear blade that comes out in the shape of a triangle.

[38:30] And then if you turn the dial all the way to the right, you get a solid stream. So he took what was a smoothbore nozzle,

[38:39] and because the way it comes out at the very edges, he banked the edges a little bit, and that gives you this wide triangular linear spray.

[38:50] So it's great for the wildland.

[38:53] Speaker A: And then.

[38:53] Speaker B: So that was their primary intent.

[38:58] And then I'm not exactly sure, but at some point they also recognized that this might work in A structural world.

[39:05] So I was at a conference, I was at firehouse conference in Columbus, Ohio,

[39:10] and I ran into Sonny and Eric Gida who was working with him. Eric was retired out of Sacramento,

[39:18] well regarded captain in that fire department.

[39:22] And I knew Eric from teaching.

[39:25] And so anyway, I get introduced to the product.

[39:28] They have a plastic nozzle and the laptop, that's it, that's like the whole operation at the table.

[39:35] And I said, you know, this is funny because I took a tip years ago and an inch and an eighth tip and I crushed it into an oval and it made a similar style spray.

[39:48] And I was trying to run it up the face of a building, thinking that if we had a wind driven fire,

[39:53] the wind would push it into the occupancy and take care of the fire.

[39:57] Well,

[39:58] it doesn't work that way.

[39:59] But I had made the tip and I was just discussing it with them. And then another fellow come by the booth that I knew, he said, I have the picture of that.

[40:08] It's from like 2009 and this is like 20, 20, 21, maybe the beginning of 22, I'm not sure.

[40:16] And so he has a picture.

[40:19] So I wasn't lying.

[40:20] And then I met with them the next day and they talked about the nozzle more. And.

[40:25] And then about five months later,

[40:28] I decided I would come on. I was an advisor initially and that was working out. And then I eventually said, you know what, I believe in this thing. I see how it works.

[40:40] It's great.

[40:41] I was on this path like almost 15 years prior,

[40:46] not quite,

[40:47] but I was on this thing at least 12 years before and nobody saw it, but I could see it. And so I was all in.

[40:58] Speaker A: So remind our listeners again, what does N stand for?

[41:02] Speaker B: High Efficiency nozzles.

[41:03] Speaker A: High Efficiency Nozzle.

[41:05] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, we have the whole gamut. We have all the different.

[41:10] Well, we got rid of sizes. We don't use,

[41:14] you know, circular diameters to the explain our products. We use flow.

[41:20] So that was another thing. We have a saying, flows, not fractions.

[41:25] Because getting past that,

[41:30] you know, we had the wildland and we have the structural nozzles. So I'll let you ask your question before I go on again.

[41:36] Speaker A: Okay.

[41:37] So with all your experience on an engine company, obviously you know about nozzles,

[41:43] water movement,

[41:44] where to place a fire stream,

[41:47] what sets the hen nozzle apart from others? I mean,

[41:50] so in all fairness, I have always been a super fan of TFT nozzles.

[42:00] So what sets the hand apart from an Elkhart or a tft?

[42:06] Speaker B: Sure. Sure.

[42:08] Speaker A: Or an Akron nozzle that's on the market.

[42:10] Speaker B: Sure.

[42:11] Well,

[42:12] several things. Certainly the blade pattern is a pattern we've never had before.

[42:19] So it, like I said, it's a flat linear pattern that expands and within,

[42:25] I don't know, 10ft, it's probably 8ft wide.

[42:29] So you get tremendous coverage. That's number one.

[42:35] And if you don't want that, you can taper it down to fit in between the doorway or a window, or you can go all the way to the right.

[42:45] And it's a tight, smooth bore stream, typical of a regular tip.

[42:49] So we have both. No one has taken the smooth bore stream and modified it or adjusted it like this before.

[42:58] So.

[42:59] Excuse me.

[43:02] Nozzle technology has been stagnant for probably about 50 years. At least.

[43:07] Fog nozzles came in.

[43:10] And why did they come in?

[43:12] You know, everything was a solid tip years ago, years ago.

[43:16] And then the fog nozzle came in because people wanted something different. They wanted some variety, they wanted choice.

[43:24] So now,

[43:25] more than 50 years later,

[43:27] the blade pattern shows up.

[43:30] Now it's not going to do gas capture, it's not going to do that,

[43:34] but it will do everything else.

[43:36] So what it provides the firefighter with is the ability to apply water in a wider area.

[43:44] So let's just say we had our solid stream and we were shooting that at a target.

[43:51] So that solid stream, let's say, gets to like 4 inches wide. When it finally hits, let's just say,

[43:58] well, that's fine,

[43:59] but the blade is going to be at like 8ft wide.

[44:03] There's no way you're not putting out more fire with the blade than you are with the solid stream.

[44:08] Because it's not the volume that's necessary, it's the dispersal.

[44:13] And every time a firefighter uses a smoothbore nozzle, they are aggressively shaking it around to create the fat droplets that we already have in the blade. It's pre distributed for you.

[44:28] So one of the great things is that when you use this nozzle, you're not going to get physically exhausted using it because the movement is totally different.

[44:38] You either go up or down. When you have the blade horizontal, or if you want to do it vertically, you just go from side to side.

[44:45] And you can just imagine you're covering a room very quickly. So I'll make the very simple analogy. I need you to paint that wall.

[44:53] Are you going to use a brush or are you going to use a roller? I mean,

[44:58] it doesn't get much better than that. And the other thing that we noticed, we were At a live burn together, Eric and myself. He was inside filming.

[45:06] They came in with the line. He had been waiting. They finally get in there. He was ready to bail out of there. It was getting hot.

[45:12] And they opened the line and they used the blade. And he said, I felt tremendous cooling right away.

[45:20] So we were analyzing it on the way home. We were talking to Dennis Laguerre on the phone. Dennis is also an advisor.

[45:26] And I said, dennis, I think it was cooling the gases on the way up because everything changed right away.

[45:35] So think about it. Imagine a pipe going through the smoke and hitting gases. Well, the only gases it's really going to hit are on the perimeter of the pipe and the pipe face.

[45:48] But if you take the bottom of that broom, let's say it's a broom handle that's going through.

[45:54] You take the bottom of the broom and shove it up there. And that broom gets bigger as it goes up.

[45:59] You're interacting with a lot more gases, your cooling gases on the way up.

[46:03] Your distribution pattern when it hits the ceiling goes out in a triangle, just like a solid stream does, but your impact zone is greater than. And then your expansion is faster.

[46:15] So there are a lot of very obvious things you can do with the nozzle that you can show people, hey, this is what it does on the ceiling. You'll see it.

[46:26] Just imagine that's a heated area. And then we also did.

[46:30] We did some live burns where we were trying to super challenge the nozzle. And we did,

[46:37] and we had great results.

[46:40] Look, the results speak for themselves. You can look at it through the thermal imaging camera. You can see what's going on. We have a lot of fire departments that are currently using it.

[46:49] And it's new technology.

[46:52] There's nothing to be worried about. There is no bad setting.

[46:56] If you had a flashover, you'd want this thing in the blade mode because you are going to cool and cover more than just in a solid mode. So.

[47:06] And I came up with solid bore nozzles. I mean, the fdmy, that's all they use, is smooth bore. So,

[47:12] you know, people say, well, I'm a smoothbore guy, so am I. Turn it to the right. If you want to use it that way you can. We also sell the tips.

[47:21] So, you know, if that's what you want, that's fine.

[47:24] The other thing that we came up with was Dennis came up with this idea for a back pressure increaser, which basically you charge the line at 75 psi, but only 40 goes out of the nozzle.

[47:39] 45.

[47:40] So there's an additional 30 pounds of back pressure that's pushed back into the hose line. What does that do? It adds rigidity.

[47:48] It pushes out kinks. It resists kinks. It allows the backup firefighter to push the line up to the nozzle firefighter without causing a kink in the line.

[47:58] And it allows the nozzle firefighter to have better control of the hose line.

[48:03] Because nozzle whip is one of the things that firefighters worry about all the time. Because that's when the nozzle comes back and hits you in the face because you moved it down.

[48:14] Now it comes back and gets you.

[48:16] It reduces all of that.

[48:18] It stiffens the hose enough to give you great control.

[48:22] And then the fact that it's only putting out 45 psi out of the tip allows you to have less nozzle reaction. And the combination of the better hose line and the slightly reduced nozzle reaction is a winning combination.

[48:41] When I read the reports from the demos,

[48:45] invariably the people that try the nozzle are.

[48:50] They are surprised at how easy it is for them to use.

[48:54] They are surprised at how it feels.

[48:57] Those two things, the way they interact, the 75psi to the nozzle and 45 going forward are a combination that can't be beat. And that's what's drawing a lot of people to the product and, of course, the stream choice.

[49:13] Speaker A: So the other thing that I've come across in watching the videos,

[49:19] and I've stopped by your booth at fdic two years in a row and watch the demonstrations.

[49:24] So the other thing that I keep hearing a lot about,

[49:28] and the hose manufacturers are doing a lot of clamoring about it now,

[49:32] you know, our hose is better matched with this nozzle than with that nozzle,

[49:36] so on and so forth.

[49:38] Have you found with the hen nozzle?

[49:41] There's one particular hose on the market that makes it an ideal marriage between the hen nozzle and a particular brand of hose.

[49:51] Speaker B: No, no, I wouldn't say that at all. What I would say is that

[49:57] Speaker A: you

[49:58] Speaker B: have to look at it in a sort of an unbiased way.

[50:03] The hose companies are trying to put out a good product,

[50:06] and they do. They put out good products. They also put out various products within their line.

[50:13] And some of their hoses,

[50:16] you know,

[50:17] moderately priced because of the features it has. And then they're sort of like cars. You know, the higher in the line you go,

[50:25] maybe the better performance you get out of the hose. But what the turbo, the back pressure increase, it does.

[50:33] It makes poor hose good.

[50:36] Good hose great,

[50:38] and really good hose even better.

[50:40] So there's,

[50:43] I wouldn't,

[50:44] I don't understand anybody having a fear of this combination that I talked about, the 75, 45,

[50:52] because it doesn't hurt anything.

[50:54] And we're not there to take a shot at the hose companies. That's not what this is about at all.

[51:00] In fact,

[51:01] they should embrace it. When you buy a car,

[51:04] let's say you buy a Tesla and they have, let's say Continental tires on there,

[51:11] they are basically telling you that that's a good tire for this car because they're putting it on there to give you a good ride.

[51:20] So I don't see the problem with the hose companies endorsing say the Hen Force or the hen standard nozzle with a turbo or any of our products because they are quality products that make their products look good too.

[51:38] Speaker A: Okay? So I gotta tell you, I'm looking forward to working with you and whoever to do your live webinar at the

[51:49] Speaker B: end of June

[51:52] Speaker A: and on water mapping water flow, the hen Nozzle. I don't care what we do it on.

[51:59] I just think there is so much more for the fire service to learn from your experience in FDNY and from the work that you've done with the folks at Hen Nozzle to show them, show the fire service some new technology.

[52:18] And as you mentioned, you know, it's the first time in 50 plus years there's been a substantial change in nozzles that we're using. So I'm really looking forward to the end of June when we do your live webinar.

[52:32] Speaker B: So, yeah, it'll be great.

[52:34] We're currently doing a class and I'm sure I will call on some of my fellow instructor,

[52:41] one of them to join me on that.

[52:44] And we do a thing called the engine crew Clinic, which is a class I came up with, which it basically involves the nozzle position, the backup position and the boss.

[52:56] And we have three lectures on that and we take our time with it and we want to fully explain all the different things that we think are important.

[53:05] And that's going to be a 12 hour class over two days. And we're getting some interest from the conferences already on it. And what it does is we,

[53:16] we do the classroom and we might do some what we call pad work, which is basically just an introduction to flowing,

[53:24] just to kind of knock the dust off.

[53:26] Some firefighters don't really do a lot of engine drills, so we teach them how to get into like a Camella lock and some basic stuff. And then the next day we get more involved with it.

[53:39] But basically it's about teamwork on the firing ground.

[53:43] We don't care about the hose bed it came off of. We don't care about what kind of stretch you do.

[53:48] What we're trying to focus in on is how do you work together when you're inside that building and you're doing an interior attack.

[53:56] And the reason why we concentrate on that is.

[54:00] Again, I'll get back to that. Is the true test of a firefighter when you have to go inside some,

[54:08] you know, hot, smoky building and operate that hose line because there's lives in the balance.

[54:17] That is the ultimate thing. So we train for that.

[54:22] It's not over the top.

[54:24] It's really about skill acquisition and teamwork. So we've done it a few times.

[54:31] People really like it.

[54:33] Yeah,

[54:34] I'm involved with a great group of people.

[54:37] They, they really care about everything. And we're going to give you some really good stuff. And it's experiential and it's also research based too.

[54:49] So.

[54:50] Speaker A: I don't drag hose anymore. Actually, I don't even chase fire anymore at 67.

[54:55] But I want to keep my eye open for this class and see if there's one near me.

[55:00] And if nothing else, I at least want to be able to stand around and observe it. Because even though I don't drive a fire truck anymore, I don't chase fire anymore.

[55:12] I still like to learn new things because I get to meet a lot of people in this business with Providence where I can talk about these things, but I want to know what the hell I'm talking about.

[55:26] So I'm going to keep an eye open for your classes.

[55:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

[55:31] Speaker A: And see if I can't get to one of them.

[55:33] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it'd be wonderful.

[55:37] The fire service is always evolving. We are not standing still. As much as people love to say that, we are definitely not doing that.

[55:45] And we can't because if we stand still, things are going to pass us by.

[55:52] And when firefighters don't have an open mind, that's a problem.

[55:59] When they're afraid to speak their mind, that's a problem.

[56:03] If something is better,

[56:05] you should be able to recognize it and at least talk about it so you know it. Change is hard,

[56:16] but so is staying in the same rut. That's hard too. In fact, it might even be worse.

[56:23] Speaker A: I couldn't agree with you more.

[56:24] Speaker B: You know, so.

[56:25] Speaker A: So, Ray, as we near the end of the podcast, I have to ask,

[56:29] if you were standing in front of a recruit class tomorrow,

[56:34] what message would you want them to remember from you years from now?

[56:41] Speaker B: Well, a couple of things I would say. Be open minded and engage in discussion.

[56:51] Read,

[56:52] read,

[56:53] read.

[56:55] Our firefighters don't read enough and I'm not sure why that is, but sit down and read something. There's been a change in the magazine style that very short articles.

[57:09] I picked up Bill Gustin's book at FDIC and it was extremely thick, large book.

[57:17] And then I remembered, yeah, that's right. Years ago Bill would write like eight, ten page articles. Those things are kind of like gone now, which is a bit of a shame.

[57:28] But read and then make the day at work about work.

[57:35] Not saying you can't have off time. You want to watch something on television,

[57:39] read, do whatever,

[57:41] that's fine. But make the business of your day when you go in there about work. And then if you have time to do your stuff, fine. But your stuff shouldn't come first.

[57:52] Speaker A: All right.

[57:54] So folks, to sign up for the online seminar and view our previously recorded webinars,

[58:01] visit the link that'll be in the Episode notes with this podcast.

[58:06] Share this podcast with your colleagues. You can send them our subscription link, also found in the show Notes.

[58:12] Join us on May 27th when I'll be doing a live webinar with Steve Hirsch, the chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council,

[58:22] to do our monthly online seminar when we're going to discuss firefighter health safety.

[58:28] We're going to dive into cancer, heart disease and mental health struggles during that webinar.

[58:33] Lastly, to our listeners, if you have any questions or need additional information,

[58:38] or if you have an idea for a future online seminar podcast,

[58:43] please email us at info at providentins.com Station 192 signing off. And until next time, stay safe for your family's sake.