Join Andy Starnes and Chief Schwalbe as they discuss the best ways to be efficient during fireground search training and how to become a better fire instructor.
Grant Schwalbe is the Division Chief of Operations at Estero Fire Department in Fort Myers, Florida, and has served with the department since 2003. He is also an Instructor for When Things Go Bad, Inc. and has taught at FDIC, The Orlando Fire Conference, Wichita HOT, and Fire Rescue East. He’s published several articles in Fire Engineering Magazine. Grant is passionate about Search, Engine Company Ops, Firefighter Survival, and RIT. Grant is an FL Instructor 3 and has earned an Associate’s Degree in Fire Science and a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration.
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00:00:03:07 - 00:00:17:07
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I've always said that the best way of breaking down all the fire tactics and methodologies and ICS in the world, two things which one's faster? Take the victim away from the problem or take the problem away from the victim.
00:00:18:26 - 00:00:36:26
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
It's a simple formula. You treat the student with respect. You understand that nobody wants them in front of their peers. So before we ever have the students do anything as instructors, we're in here in your and we're going to develop the skill for them. That way they can see that we're willing to fail in front of.
00:00:41:21 - 00:00:59:24
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
To back again for another episode of Rapid Fire. We'd like to thank our guest, Mr. Grant Schwalbe, or I should say, Chief Grant Schwalbe now, and I'd like for him to tell us a little bit about himself. He's a I like to consider him a good friend of mine. I've run into him a few times and had some great conversations with him.
00:01:00:05 - 00:01:21:09
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I've known him more on social media than I have in person, but I've had the pleasure of meeting him recently. At a couple different conferences, I got to meet his family. I applaud his efforts in the work he's doing, and he's a solid family man first and a firefighter second, which I think is something we all can look at and say, That's the type of person I need to be, but my family first.
00:01:21:09 - 00:01:41:07
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So I appreciate that about you, Chief. And I'd like for you to share a little bit about your background, your history. And I also notice that you've been a very, very busy man lately between training and family events. So that's awesome. I'm glad things are going well for you. So tell everybody a little bit about yourself, who you are, what matters to you, and what you're most passionate about.
00:01:41:20 - 00:01:59:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I'm just fortunate enough to be getting to do the job that I've wanted to do since I was a little kid. My parents really encouraged me to find something that I love doing and find a way to make money doing it. I had some people that I ran into over the course of my life. The guys at the Volunteer Fire Department were good.
00:01:59:16 - 00:02:18:13
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
There was a volunteer fireman that lived a couple of houses down from me and I remember there's a big fire in the city that I grew up in. I grew up in just a small town, Perrysburg, Ohio, outside of Toledo. And it was one of those towns where they got a couple, two or three guys on duty and then everybody else was volunteer for coming from home.
00:02:18:19 - 00:02:46:25
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So the big boom was able to go off. And I always ride my bike up to the fire station and the trucks when they would go around corners would spill water. So if I didn't know where the fire was, I would just follow the water markets until I could get to the fire. And I just watched the guys and took pictures and in about 1993, I joined the Explorer Post, did that for a couple of years as I was finishing up high school, couldn't wait to get out of high school and start doing what I wanted to do, graduate high school.
00:02:46:25 - 00:03:19:28
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And then I got on the volunteer fire department. Perrysburg That was and got on part paid went through EMT and medic school a lot of like part time EMS jobs, part time fire jobs until I finally landed a full time job in 97 in Springfield, Ohio, and then eventually ended up getting hired full time in Perrysburg City. That was my lifelong dream to work for the fire department that I grew up following, chasing on my bike about 2001, my wife's high school sweetheart, and she said, I'm not staying in Ohio for my entire life.
00:03:20:04 - 00:03:42:27
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And we came down to visit my family, then fly to Florida, and she fell in love with the nice weather compared to the Midwest, where every day seems like it's a season. So I started trying to get a job down here. What attracted me down here in Fort Myers and ultimately a sterile Florida was that they were not trained on transport by aliens engines.
00:03:43:07 - 00:04:06:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So I got hired down here No. Three and promoted pretty quickly and spent 16 years as a lieutenant on that Engine 43 and just loved every minute of working with the guys and the women of the fire department. And more recently, just in the last six months, I ended up getting promoted to Division Chief where I oversee operations and training for our department.
00:04:06:00 - 00:04:24:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So that seems like a great position for you based on your passion. And I'd like to say that you were born to search for people. If you were following the water tracks from a kid all the way to now, you're now you're searching for people in a fire and teaching people how to find them. You already you're already tracking people back down on your bike.
00:04:24:26 - 00:04:29:03
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So you knew how to do it back then. You just didn't know that was recalling that, you know.
00:04:29:08 - 00:04:55:28
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Very true. Very true. That's all. Yeah. But you know, along the way, I had some good mentors that not only showed me the right way to be a good fireman, and I use that term maybe as a not as a male versus a female, but as a pure craft. Sometimes we water down things, I think, because as we now get into the 2020s and, you know, the firefighting is just a pure craft.
00:04:55:28 - 00:05:12:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So if I say fire and I'm not saying that to offend anybody, but, you know, I had some mentors early on that really taught me what it was to to do the job and to do it well. And then, you know, along the lines, I kind of got an appetite to teach a little bit because I just wanted to inspire people to be better.
00:05:13:21 - 00:05:30:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And then I got a whole nother host of mentors that taught me the right way to teach. And, you know, I've been fortunate enough to to get the opportunity to do that. And now I feel like it's my turn to give back to people also and to the teach and that the fire service.
00:05:30:01 - 00:05:45:28
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So my well said and you and I both believe the same way that a generous person shall prosper. So you you're given something and you're giving back. So I applaud you for that. You're taking the investment people have given in to you and turn around and giving back to the fire service. And that's evident in the way you teach.
00:05:45:28 - 00:06:03:29
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I was I was blessed enough to be at Carolina Fire Friendship Days and watch you guys work there, which was really cool for me, too. A lot of times as teachers, we don't get to be the student enough. And I was fortunate enough. I had a day where I got to hang out and watch you guys work and learn and watch baseball, watch everybody.
00:06:03:29 - 00:06:11:08
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And it was it was very encouraging. I was I was actually charged up and a better instructor the next day because you guys had me all fired.
00:06:11:08 - 00:06:11:20
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Up, you.
00:06:12:14 - 00:06:33:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Know that. Which was really neat because I was watching. I'm like, Man, that's a great way of teaching that. And I like the way you said it. They taught me how to teach. I think it's it's extremely important. Those are your listening. The most of the people were interviewing are instructors or teachers in some way. But it really matters how you teach, not what you teach.
00:06:33:10 - 00:06:50:21
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Someone told me a long time ago, it's not that you're a subject matter expert, but you have to find a way to make the subject matter. You have to be passionate. It has to be important to you. You have to have your Y. Which leads us into our next question, which is why did you get into teaching this?
00:06:50:21 - 00:07:06:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Why do you why are you so passionate about teaching search? You teach you already said you teach a lot of different things and you hang around some really awesome people, which is great because I believe in hanging around great people. They build you up. But what's your why? What got you into it? Help us out with that.
00:07:06:19 - 00:07:36:02
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Then going back to the matter. So we everybody is taking the classes and sometimes maybe you're overwhelmed by which information an instructor gives you. Maybe it just doesn't flow quite right. Couple of people that I could really say, Paul Cappo was a big mentor of mine there in Fields in my chapel and they teach me something different. You know, Paul Campo taught me a lot about the mental aspect of teaching and kind of the crawl, walk, run.
00:07:36:02 - 00:07:55:15
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We need to show them something, you know, a skill in isolation, and then we need to show it how it relates and then gradually build them up. Because if you don't know how to force a door in it, just bunker pants and gloves, you're certainly not going to do it when you got an instructor screaming at you and you're doing it part of a whole scenario, you know.
00:07:55:16 - 00:08:17:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And then I look at, you know, I took Aaron Fields class, the nozzle forward, and I was blown away like I had information overload. I learned so many skills, but I love how he breaks it down into threes. Every skill, you know, there's three ways to go vertical and you're going to encounter three, three different ways to move holes.
00:08:17:20 - 00:08:40:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And when you start breaking that down, oh, my gosh, everything is really simplistic. And both of those guys poured into me on the subject of search. I said, you know, Sparks, we're getting it wrong. I feel like I was getting it wrong. And I can go into a couple of stories that that kind of led me to the path path of search.
00:08:41:09 - 00:09:08:04
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
But we really just need to pause and slowly teach people. We really just have to break things down in its simplest form and learn the skill, learn how it relates to something else, and then gradually up the pressure where they are going to use it. My chapel taught me the progression that you grunt, you go and you watch somebody else teach, and gradually you're given more and more opportunities to get that chance.
00:09:08:04 - 00:09:24:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So you might just be cutting wood for the foreseeable corridor, and then you're going to be able to do a little skill and gradually all the way up to lead and how you treat your other instructors. So, you know, he kind of really put that on my heart as to how we build something bigger than just one instructor.
00:09:25:12 - 00:09:45:18
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And it sounds like to me, to Chief, that you you've been a lifelong student. There's it's not just about the teaching that you've had great people around you that you've been constantly observing is what I'm picking up on. And then you're turning around and taking the best pieces of those individuals that what they taught you and then putting your spin and doing what air thought that prophase that associate.
00:09:45:18 - 00:10:02:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
If they were a lot of times in training we tell somebody something than we expect them to do it right the first time and then we're yelling at them because they didn't get it right. And that's I mean, we wouldn't do that with our children. We wouldn't put them on a bike with no training wheels and they've never even rode a bike.
00:10:02:00 - 00:10:23:25
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I heard somebody say it in our leadership class recently said, that's not micromanagement. When you're holding onto your kid, when they're wanting to ride the bike, they got all the energy, all the enthusiasm. They have no experience. And it's our job to give them the experience and skills. And it sounds like to me that's what you've done, is collectively taken that lifetime of skills and experience that they've shared with you and your turn around and sharing it.
00:10:24:10 - 00:10:42:27
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
The way that you know how in a very structured format, which helps people learn. And I appreciate that because I've been on the opposite side of that, where I've had somebody just throw something at you, expect you to master it the first time, and it's not a fun class to take that way. I don't know about you. If you've had that experience.
00:10:43:14 - 00:10:44:25
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You wind up.
00:10:44:25 - 00:10:45:14
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Here you go.
00:10:46:24 - 00:11:09:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Yeah, certainly not. Rob. Lenny, who I was teacher with when when we saw you up in North Carolina, taught me, too, that when you do the final scenarios, you really need to have the objectives in mind as you build the scenario, especially in search. It's not enough that we we can't throw 15 dummies into a building. They pull them all out in 3 minutes are awesome.
00:11:09:22 - 00:11:31:21
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
If they pull them out in 20 minutes, they they suck. We actually need to have measurable skills so that you can nudge the student whether they got the concepts such as life, fire, layoff, you know, are they getting down and get under the smoke? Are they calling out for the victim? And that's as simple as nothing is having a live victim in the interest of sake.
00:11:31:23 - 00:11:53:14
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
But, you know, that's something that's measurable. And, you know, we teach where you find one victim, look for another. So put two victims together. And if they only find the first, you know, they missed that skillset. So as you build these these scenarios make it measurable. And sometimes they're going to outsmart the scenario and they're going to go, Man, I never would have thought about that.
00:11:53:14 - 00:11:59:28
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
That's awesome. You want and other times you just need to give something to students more than you did great. Or you did that.
00:12:01:03 - 00:12:23:10
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I think that's important. And I think what's missing in my travels and learning is people are just as passionate about how they teach versus just knowing how to be extremely skilled. But I admire the fact that you are doing that. You're turning around and saying, All right, we know what we want to teach. We're trying to teach, search the most efficient way.
00:12:23:10 - 00:12:57:29
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And it's not that forgive me, the Johnson Bartlett textbook way. We're trying to teach it the way that we're actually going to go in and get people and give them a chance of survival. But you're also putting a lot of effort into making sure that they understand the objective, that they grasp it, that they did. They fully get it in a non stressed environment and then they, like Rob teaches you amp it up a little bit and you add a little bit more stress and you keep doing that until you see some form of, you know, not mastery, but they're grasping and that you feel like when I let them go, when I let go
00:12:57:29 - 00:13:08:29
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
of my kid without the training wheels, they're going to ride and they're going to ride well on their own. And they're probably going to pick up things like you said and teach someone else. That's the goal.
00:13:09:05 - 00:13:27:18
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
It's a simple formula. You treat the students with respect. You understand that nobody wants to look dumb in front of their first. So before we ever have the students do anything insincere fuckers, we're in gear in their backs, so we're going to do all the skill for them. That way they can see that we're willing to fail in front of eyes.
00:13:27:18 - 00:13:53:27
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I know in your travels you've probably seen instructors try to explain to a student how to do something, and then the student is the test subject for for the rest of the students. So when they screw up, they're the ones that feel stupid. I don't think that's fair. That's not a good way to start a class. So we tried to demo all the skills and then we let the students in their pants and a minimal amount of dress do the skills back when they can actually see.
00:13:53:27 - 00:14:14:03
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So search is a big one. All seems silly, but we both have time where we go. We try to build a house layout just out of pallets or jersey barriers or something. That way we can teach the skill and then we can let the students mimic exactly what we did. Because a lot of times that brings up questions to say, Hey, what about this?
00:14:14:03 - 00:14:32:04
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Hey, this guy was in front of me here. How should I have done this better? Because they can't do it when they can see. They're certainly not going to do it. When you smoke it or you stress them up, let's just be patient and let them learn those skills. And if you don't get to everything you're going to teach them everything they know, not everything you know in the time allotted.
00:14:33:12 - 00:14:36:20
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So be careful not to shove them with too much information.
00:14:37:22 - 00:15:03:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I think another thing that I'd like to bring up that you do that we may have the luxury of in in our training environments that we sometimes don't have in the department. Sometimes we can focus just on one topic and one skill, and we have more time to focus on that. Whereas when I do an in-service with my department, they want us to do all of these objectives and this little tiny bit of time and it's like, check the box, move on.
00:15:04:14 - 00:15:25:17
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Where to me, we're not grasping and getting the full benefit, the training. That's why I think it's so beneficial to go to classes where I'm just focusing on search, I'm focusing on maybe even focusing just on the standard primary search, on, you know, on playing single story house or I'm focusing on just the inner search part. I'm focusing on that one aspect and getting better at it.
00:15:25:17 - 00:15:41:29
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Whereas a lot of times they go in and like you said, they don't only throw a lot of information at you, they expect you to do all these task well and you get to do them one time. How good am I going to be at something if I do it one time at one in-service per year?
00:15:42:27 - 00:15:44:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Nah, that's really not.
00:15:45:00 - 00:16:02:04
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I think you guys get it. It's about drilling and sets and reps. Once they've got those objectives down, give them more opportunity to practice and fail there and be encouraged when they fail, not beat them over the head if they do, because that's not going to allow them to grow or learn or get better.
00:16:02:11 - 00:16:17:24
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We kind of bring our search curriculum down into a couple different areas. Through one, we want to teach them the basics. We want to teach them how to crawl. We want to teach math, okay? To search without a tool, you need a tool with you in case you get into trouble. But tools still have feelings, so you got to feel with your hands.
00:16:18:11 - 00:16:36:29
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We've got to teach them where we use the tech there. I know that's the arena we don't get to too in-depth, but we want to make sure that it's got its place in there and that we don't leave that out. We teach how to drag victims, because if you've never dragged a victim before to do fine, you can go into brain freeze because you don't have a plan to get them out.
00:16:37:03 - 00:16:56:08
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We looked at M.S. runs that we run as examples on on how victims are found. It's either your head first, head up or head down. So if we have simple plans to get that done, we show them a couple different options and then we let them practice it. That way. That part's done. And then when we're breaking down our searches, we like the splitting oriented search.
00:16:56:08 - 00:17:18:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We group that into one thing, you know, basically entering from the front door we have as swimming where we also have a windowless in there. And then we cover the engine or a hasty search because there's a lot of departments, even big well-staffed departments. There's areas in stations where you're going to be on your own for four or five or 10 minutes, and that we can't just wait till that search gets done.
00:17:18:07 - 00:17:30:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So we try to throw all those things together or we teach them individually, but we tell the context they're going to use each. And I think that really helps helps us students understand right now. I understand where this fits in.
00:17:31:16 - 00:17:58:01
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And I think I think that was one of our our bullet points for discussion was breaking down this this subject and how you teach. But more importantly, when you break this down for the student to grasp it, why is it important that firefighters understand that we have to be fundamentally sound? You know, I'm I'm a tech guy, but I tell people all the time, if you're not fundamentally sound with thermal imaging cameras, a force multiplier.
00:17:58:13 - 00:18:17:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So if you're still set at zero ten times zero zero, it's not going to help you. Right. You have to be fundamentally sound in the basics. So why is it important when we look at the data that you're involved in, like the firefighter rescue survey to your Teaching to the Grabs podcast, tell me why you're so passionate about it.
00:18:17:26 - 00:18:30:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But more importantly, what's the data saying? What do we need to pass along to firefighters if I'm good at this, what is it going to yield a result? How is that going to help me help the citizen? What I swore to do. Right. Help help us out with that.
00:18:31:01 - 00:18:54:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Well book publishers are in the publishing business, so that's the first drawback. Then something that's got a good sales pitch or somebody that can write well can go ahead and put some stuff in there. And what's shown in a lot of those books isn't best practice and certainly is not the way in all my travels. I asked guys, Do you like it as the textbook?
00:18:54:07 - 00:19:15:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And everybody's like, No, all right, let's just say what we're actually doing. And that's been a real struggle. It's almost like Don't Ask, Don't Tell, but nobody wants to say what happens behind that door when the Chiefs can't see what we're doing. We're not staying on each other. You know, OSHA says we need to stay in contact 1 to 3 ways when we're in a hazardous environment.
00:19:15:09 - 00:19:35:18
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Voice, visual or touch. Why the heck would fire school teach touch and leave it at that? We need to put things in context. The guys understand. How would you want them version for your family? Spread out and cover our house as fast do you can. All right. Andy, what allows you and your crew to spread out further from each other.
00:19:36:03 - 00:20:00:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Well, the conditions, right? We've got a pot on a stove with light smoke, we're going to spread out, we're going to search the house pretty quick, whereas zero vis, heavy heat. We're saying a lot more close together. What about my comfortability with my partner? You know, I'm teaching search with my buddy John Lockwood. If we're searching a house, we teach this stuff all the time so we can move through the house pretty quick because I know what he's going to do before he does.
00:20:00:18 - 00:20:16:13
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I know where he's supposed to be and we're going to cover a house pretty quick. Whereas if I got probie on my rig, I got to watch out a little bit closer to let don't know where this guy's going to go and then your level of experience. So yeah, conditions, crew, comfortability, level of experience is going to dictate how far we spread.
00:20:16:18 - 00:20:33:03
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And you look at the numbers and the numbers are saying, hey, it's like in the seventies, seventies or 80%, if you get a pick about within the first 6 minutes, the survival rate, you know, after that, it starts dwindling. All right. It will be actually got to get things done pretty quick. So what's the most efficient means to do that?
00:20:33:08 - 00:20:49:19
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
How are we searching that we've talked about a little bit ago? You know, are you searching with a tool? Fire Academy tells you to swing the tool or doesn't have feelings. You actually got to put your hands on things to see what they are. I mean, how do you tell you got kids, kids rooms get messy. You start swinging a tool.
00:20:49:19 - 00:21:13:24
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You have no idea what you're going to find. Just get in and do that. Every fireman that I talked to says they search with their hands, say they split. If they possibly can. They also say they're going to open up windows if it's going to aid the search. If you missed it, UL is doing some awesome stuff, but they have people so scared that if you open up a window with a fire, the house is going to explode because you change the vent profile.
00:21:14:03 - 00:21:35:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
et' not pausing long enough to see what the common sense search what's what's the first thing you do after we get fire knocked down and the search is all clear? Most of the time it's a command and say open it up let's kill it. Well, what if we've got water on the fire? Why can't we vent as we go? If that's going to help me find Gary's Mom
00:21:35:08 - 00:21:55:03
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
a little bit faster. Open up the window. What if the conditions get bad, Grant? Shut the window or shut the door. If that can aid you in finding somebody a little faster, by all means! Folks are getting it wrong from the beginning. And then we've got the greatest information age- ever - anybody can be a mentor.
00:21:55:03 - 00:22:16:02
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
There's so many things on Instagram, on Facebook, teaching companies, YouTube, you can find all these different tactics and techniques to do everything. But when do we pause and connect the dots to say, where does this actually fit in? My wife is funny. She she always has told me it's like you can't microwave eggs and I'm like that seems weird.
00:22:16:02 - 00:22:36:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
it seems like you shoud be able to microwave eggs, but there's got to be some truth to it or whatever. And I just took it as, you can't do that. So the other day, I Googled it. Cause like, this doesn't seem right. And it's just you can't microwave a uncooked egg because there's no whereas the goo expands, it's going to blow up. Okay. And that makes sense.
00:22:36:18 - 00:22:52:23
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
But if you have scrambled eggs that you're heating up, of course you can microwave it. So it's one of those things that we take a little bit from here, a little bit from there, and we never paused long enough to put everything all in a nice package that makes sense in our brain. I'm not the best search guy in the world.
00:22:52:28 - 00:23:05:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I'm pretty good at taking a lot of information in and trying to put it back into a way that makes sense to people. That's my gift, if you want to call that a gift. But that's that's pretty much it.
00:23:05:12 - 00:23:36:02
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Your gift is something that's much needed. It's called being able to make things experientially relevant to people. Grant If I come to you with technical data and I don't put it into a phrase or ways that make sense or you can use what good is it? That's not just knowledge, what you're talking about. You have an understanding. You understand the person you're talking to and you understand, like you said with Aaron, I can give them different ways to do this or different ways to explain it to them, because you have kids, you understand this better than most.
00:23:36:29 - 00:23:54:09
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
What if your child doesn't understand it the first time you explain it to them, you explain it a different way. You try something different. And I think that's not just a gift. That's a blessing to be able to do that, because a lot of fire service instructors, they just this way, next, this way, next. Well, what if they don't get it?
00:23:54:11 - 00:24:13:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
What are you going to do then? How are you going to explain it in a way that helps that firefighter? And you know this from working with Rob, with Teddy, they have a way of identifying skill sets early on. Like maybe this guy's not the most skilled one in this one is. They still deserve our attention, right? The type, A-plus with the switch.
00:24:14:03 - 00:24:42:20
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
That firefighter deserves attention. But what about the novice who doesn't have a good support system back in his fire department and he's just as motivated. But he doesn't have the skills, but he wants the skills, but he's struggling. I think that gift that you're saying you have is extremely important because fire service needs to listen. We need more humble instructors who are passionate, but they're more focused about the mission, the message and not the messenger.
00:24:42:20 - 00:25:01:25
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Not it's not about me, not about you. There's that firefighter in front of you getting all that attention so that when he leaves your class, he may make a difference tomorrow or today because of the investment you made in him or her. That's phenomenal. So don't don't put that gift down in any way, shape or form. That's an incredible gift to have.
00:25:02:01 - 00:25:06:01
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
It's also a good parenting skill. So I'm sure that helps you in parenting, too.
00:25:06:01 - 00:25:28:29
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So I learned more with communication and teaching and leadership through my kids than anything I feel like they said, you know, about six months before my experience, something at work, my kids are going to put me through the ringer and do the same thing to another thing I was thinking about. You asked some of the stats and things. I've always struggled with where we start our search.
00:25:29:03 - 00:25:56:27
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
and finish our searches. In the books it's like, you know, go closest to the fire and then heat rises. So should I check above next and try to put all those things together? You know, we start looking at the numbers where kids were found and I use numbers from two places I'm not directly involved. The Firefighter Rescue Survey, although I'm a huge fan boy and I send everybody, everybody I can to them and I take everything I can out of them.
00:25:56:27 - 00:26:21:13
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And if anybody does a firefighter rescue survey plus to do a ground podcast, I'll gladly interview them. But those guys are doing awesome work. So they're my number one source for for getting my information on taking what's actually happening and putting it down to the what we're doing in class. And then NFPA, that's four or five of your studies, all the categories aren't replicate it in firefighter rescue survey.
00:26:21:13 - 00:26:44:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
There's a couple different ones that I like but that's that's kind of the other the other area that I like. So looking at those numbers logically, who's in the most amount of danger? Those closest to the fire, right? So we try to teach people go to the fire first and then we look and say, what were people doing prior to succumbing to the products of combustion?
00:26:44:15 - 00:26:59:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And most of the time they're trying to escape. So the way I explain to people is if we enter the front door and we just go to the side of the fire, we hit the people in the most amount of danger. But 36% of the time the victim was trying to escape. So we're going to catch 36% of victims.
00:26:59:21 - 00:27:18:26
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Then you look at the numbers, depending on what survey you look at this 45 to 50% of the time, they're finding bedrooms. So if we go from the front door to the fire, we make our way into the bedrooms and then we catch everything else. We're we're shooting for that top 80, 85% rate from the get. And that seems to just make sense to me.
00:27:19:05 - 00:27:34:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So if you're teaching searching, you're not looking at the numbers. It's just a theory. And I don't just go off of theories. I like to look at something concrete because we do that in sports, right? If you're a defense and you're playing an offensive football, you can to see what the percentages of running and who they throw to the most.
00:27:34:00 - 00:27:42:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And you're going to pick your defense accordingly so. If search is the name of the game and we're here for them, we should look at those numbers and then plan accordingly as well.
00:27:43:05 - 00:28:04:24
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Well said. But the thing that I think that you're honing in on is it's not I search the same way every time is that I show up with that data, that knowledge and those skills. And I say, What am I about to deal with? Is this the single story, three bedroom, cluster bedroom home or split bedroom home? Is this a two story house at three in the morning with kids trapped upstairs?
00:28:05:07 - 00:28:26:08
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
That makes a difference in how I search and where our search to fires downstairs. I'm going to try to get upstairs and get to those kids quicker and get the line in place. All that comes down to what critical thinking is. John Norman says circumstances have to dictate procedures. Right thing you point out, too, is not everybody is going to have the staffing that your department or my department has.
00:28:26:08 - 00:28:44:23
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You know, we show up with 27 people in the first 6 to 9 minutes where I know guys who show up first do with two, and that's all they got for 10 to 12 minutes. As Kyle Rahming says, it's two in fire out. You know, there is no two in, two out. They may have to do things differently than we do, but they all have to be fundamentally sound.
00:28:45:00 - 00:29:07:28
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And that those numbers you're talking about help them knowing, hey, you know, if I just look historically at every big, bad, huge fire that's happened in history, where did all those people run? When something went by the door, they came in and at three in the morning where you and I are going to run, we're going to go to our kids rooms and we're going to run to the door we probably always use, right?
00:29:08:18 - 00:29:08:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Yeah.
00:29:09:00 - 00:29:26:18
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So we fell to our base level. So you said it. Well, they're trying to get out and we're trying to get in. Our paths are going to intersect. And that's that's what we call the greatest chances for success. And I think when our instructor says, he says, I'm going to shrink the target, right? So I got a big house, but I'm a shrink.
00:29:26:18 - 00:29:49:10
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
The target by saying due to this data, I know the pathway to the fire, their egress point, the bedrooms between that and the fire, I may find 80, 90% of the victims. That's awesome. And then I can work after that. So I don't think it's a right or wrong answer. I think it's a situational answer with well-trained firefighters who can make good decisions based on what they see when they show up.
00:29:50:00 - 00:30:07:05
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And hopefully, like you said, I have the crew that I feel confident that I can split them and let them go. What David Mellen says, he said, with good skilled crews searching and I've got a camera, too, we've been social distancing since 1998. So you go you don't want from me. I don't have to hang on to your boot.
00:30:08:03 - 00:30:08:22
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I go, I.
00:30:08:22 - 00:30:33:19
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Just need to know where your path right here could be by by simply by radio, because we've got pre-arrival assignments that we've trained well together. Yeah. You know, you bring up a good point, though. I mean, not all departments are well staffed and have the resources that we do. So what does that mean to them? Well, dude, if you're on the line, you've got a 36% chance of rolling across the victim, just advancing to the fire.
00:30:34:00 - 00:30:52:28
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So you don't think that those officers need to have a conversation with their nozzle and say, this is if you run across the body, this is what I want you to do. You hold the fire. In fact, I talk about, well, how do we do one contract? Let's practice it in the bay today, because the fire that scenario is not going to wait until you're properly trained to get it done.
00:30:53:12 - 00:31:14:25
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Do the numbers change because you have lower staffing? No. But how can we buy them some more time? Put more on the fire and let's close some doors until we can get those rooms searched. That buys them some time. I wish everybody had the staffing and the manpower we do, but just that that's not the case. But we can certainly learn from from all those numbers who at least have had some plans in place.
00:31:16:04 - 00:31:33:24
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And that's that's the key is we all need to realize our environments are different based on our resources. I may be talking to a guy in the middle of nowhere and he's first due with two or three people if that. And he doesn't know who he's kidding. Is he getting the two 25 year old young kids who have no experience?
00:31:33:24 - 00:32:00:05
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Is he getting the 30 year old who's got some experience? Is he getting the 65 year old guy who's not going to make entry? I don't know. I don't need to be so judgmental on other people's tactics as much as did they have the right resources in training and education prior why don't we as a fire service say this, instead of telling everybody apart on social media when we see something wrong, you know, we tear up the textbooks all the time about, you know, outdated.
00:32:00:05 - 00:32:20:01
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
It's not right. Why don't we as instructors say, what did that department miss? What did they not get? Did they not have proper training? Somebody reach out to them, say, I'll offer training to them, I'll help them and I think that's why it's important we talk about what you're doing and how you're doing that, because a lot of people get the basics.
00:32:20:22 - 00:32:35:23
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But I cringe when I say this. But if you're relying on your fire department to give you all the training, you're going to find yourself in trouble because you, as a training chief know how many subjects do you have to train everybody on throughout the year? How many?
00:32:36:28 - 00:32:57:17
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Yeah, it's a lot. How do you get quality time with all the crews? I mean, we're just we're just building a fifth station right now and currently I can do two crews in the morning, two in the afternoon that hit every day, every month. But I know at city departments, you're lucky to get three or four blocks of training a year and then everything else is relying on the company level.
00:32:57:17 - 00:33:22:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So you're hundred percent right. No. One, you got to go out and speak, seek that training, whether it's at conferences or, you know, even just seeking online. That's all you can do. I mean, there's conferences every weekend in every corner of the country, but I know even then, cost and being able to wear your gear are barriers to students to be able to do that.
00:33:22:07 - 00:33:44:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So, you know, we're on a podcast string. I'm a podcast guy, so you can listen, you can listen to all these podcasts and you can get all that information, but you can't skip over that opportunity or the mental pause you need to have to actually connect the dots. Yeah. What's that mean for my department? If I could, I want to ask a question.
00:33:44:17 - 00:33:49:14
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
What's like hydrant spacing in the majority of your department's area?
00:33:50:12 - 00:33:55:04
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You said what's the spacing of hydrants in my area? Yeah, they're typically 500 feet.
00:33:56:21 - 00:34:04:02
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And who's typically doing your searches on a regular alarm? A single only residential in your area.
00:34:04:16 - 00:34:25:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But we have basically our response model shows up with 3 to 4 engine companies, A ladder and A, B, C, and if it's upgraded, you get a rescue additional engine and possibly an additional ladder depending on the type of building. But a single family dwelling, you're going to show up with engine ladder back first do and technically you're going to have an engine and a ladder engine doing fire attack and ladder doing search.
00:34:25:28 - 00:34:45:27
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
That's the way it's supposed to work. But sometimes you end up with the engine company doing the search as well. We've had engine companies got holes and roof. It really depends on the order of arrival. Those resources, you may say so-and-so's your fourth new engine, which assuming they would be right, but what if they don't arrive? What if they're second that they're going to assign them based on their order of arrival?
00:34:45:27 - 00:35:04:04
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So first one's going to be fire, attack and search. Unless it's immediately a rescue mode situation where I got people hanging out of windows. But you're going to have a fire attack initiated and a search initiated right off the bat. That's your first two critical priorities they're going to have in someone's establishing a water supply if they haven't laid in, depending on circumstances.
00:35:04:26 - 00:35:26:17
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I'm blessed to work with people that think so. When they come in, they see a hydrant. They may catch the hired, you know. Maybe the next do company is our staged reverse out depending on what they see. But the first two companies are doing fire, attack, search right off the bat. So that's the beauty of that. When I worked at Station two, I was blessed that as Engine and Ladder two, we would set up, do our size up and start our initial attack.
00:35:26:26 - 00:35:44:20
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Ladder two would already be doing the primary search before. Our line even went in the front door and Captain Nixon would come out and say, Hey, fires in the Charlie, Delta corner structure, throw ladders around the outside for you and start ventilation on your call. I worked with somebody who was just amazing.
00:35:45:02 - 00:36:03:05
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
There is nothing better than a third chest in front of the house that can tell you where that fires at because if you search behind the hose line, that suck too! Plus, if they throw water on it, your conditions don't necessarily improve. You know, your visibility gets worse. You get a little bit of a temperature spike, that eventually comes down.
00:36:04:03 - 00:36:23:08
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And that's awesome stuff. You know, you look down in our area and our our hydrants in residential areas are between 800,000 feet apart and we don't have truck companies or squads. So so our response model is first due is to go fire tacs; second due should always hit the hydrant, regardless of who has a ladder on top is going to do truck functions.
00:36:23:22 - 00:36:46:05
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And you know you hear a lot of people like hey, second engine should always hit the hydrant, man. We're here for them. We don't have the time, nor do we always need a hydrant. So we do the booster backup model and that gets that second unit. And to force the door to get those searches done quicker. So you're right, you know, and online, everybody beats everybody up.
00:36:46:05 - 00:37:04:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
But if you pause long enough to say, what did you do and why do you do what you do that everybody can explain it. Some people go, I don't know. That's what the chief says. It's our job as chiefs and trainers to say apply some critical thinking here, because then you're going to know if you if you have a good base, you'll know what bottom out.
00:37:05:03 - 00:37:08:24
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
If you have a good base, you just throw a dart blindfolded.
00:37:09:22 - 00:37:26:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And that's the key is being able to when I show up, if things are not in place, those critically thinking, well-trained firefighters can call an audible and make a decision based on that. But I think also being able to adapt based on those circumstances are a big, big deal. But you just said I may do a booster backup.
00:37:27:06 - 00:37:45:08
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
What's that mean? If you got 500 gallons of water versus they got a 750 or a thousand? You know, those are those are circumstances that improve my ability to make that initial attack without even worried about the hydrant for a little bit. You know, my department, I got a 500 gallon tank. If they're flowing water, they got 3 minutes and they're out.
00:37:45:18 - 00:38:08:02
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So we have to establish a water supply pretty quickly if we have significant fire. But we are hitting those tactical benchmarks, as you said, life and then incident and property conservation. So life is always first. I've always said the best way of breaking down all the fire tactics and methodologies. And I see us in worlds two things which one's faster?
00:38:08:08 - 00:38:25:15
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Take the victim away from the problem or take the problem away from the victim. So, you know, can I come out the window and there is nobody in there and that's it. And then we search the rest boom. Done or is it put the fire out and I got 75 non-ambulatory nursing home patients on this side. I better put the fire out.
00:38:25:15 - 00:38:27:27
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I don't want to drag 75 people down the stairs. Right.
00:38:28:08 - 00:38:29:05
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So, yeah, no.
00:38:30:14 - 00:38:54:19
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
No, no bueno there. So I think that's where we we have to come in and start thinking. And the data, though, helps us, just like building construction helps us and street school helps us. But when you were talking about the firefighter rescue survey and groups that are teaching search, let's just let's change the narrative for a minute and and think about those that don't have access to what you have or what I have.
00:38:55:06 - 00:39:28:02
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
How could we help them? They don't have a training budget. They don't get to go to conferences. What would you tell the young firefighters like, man, I want to get better at search work. Where can I go? What information, what podcast, what? What can I do to get better until I get to go to, you know, a class with you or a class brothers in battle class with any of these phenomenal people I know, or Basil or Rob Blasetti or Sean Duffy, those guys that are doing a phenomenal job until they get there, I don't want to leave them hanging right.
00:39:28:24 - 00:39:50:12
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
What resources and information would you share with that young, motivated firefighter who feels they're stuck in their department right now and they want to do a better job, but they're working. They've got two kids and, you know, they want to do it, but they're they feel like they're stuck. What would you what would you tell them? Because you you've been a lot of places and taught a lot of places and have a lot of experience you could share with them.
00:39:51:16 - 00:40:14:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So I would tell them, get a hold of me grantschwalbe@gmail.com, just get a hold of me and I will share absolutely everything that I've got. Hope you can put lesson plans together. I know Justin McWilliams is like, you know, Shawn, everybody will share my goal. My goal in teaching isn't to be out on the circuit and be away from my family all the time.
00:40:14:22 - 00:40:33:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
My, my, my faith and my family and my fire department needs to get the best of me and I. But I want the message to be shared. So share that it wait three days and then call it your own. That's cool. I think that's the coolest part about what's going on in the social world right now is there's no egos.
00:40:33:11 - 00:41:08:27
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And if you take it, Dustin Martinez, Justin McWilliams, if you take anybody's class, you're almost going to think that we're just sharing PowerPoints. It's that similar, which is really cool. So we're really trying to find best practices. I do a podcast called the Grabs Podcast. I don't do a lot of talking, but I interview people. We've got about 85 sounds recorded and any time we can get a hold of somebody that's willing to share their story of a grab, we just interview asking a series of questions and we try to keep it pretty simple, like it's two firefighters sitting at the kitchen table.
00:41:09:09 - 00:41:31:03
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Tell me about it. I won't even ask about what the call was prior to us sitting down and having the podcast, because I don't want it to be too scripted. I had a lot of stuff I've learned from interviewing, you know, nearly 100 people in there. Their stories, it's you see what works and what doesn't work, the commonalities, and then you just start grouping things together.
00:41:31:24 - 00:41:54:01
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Doesn't take a lot to find a buddy to drag. If you can't get a buddy at the firehouse to do it, you can drag your kids around there. Totally, totally loved playing firefighter. So do that. Practice crawling crawling around on tripod instead of crawling on all fours. Once you establish those good things and you can incorporate those into your workouts, you can get £100 sandbag for next to nothing.
00:41:54:27 - 00:42:19:29
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And so you can work on other lifting techniques and things. Doesn't take a lot to do to do the build up powerhouse to go through a practicing search. You know, we gotta go on EMS calls. So when your on EMS calls, take a chance to look at the house, talk with your crew. If we were to split, how would you split this house or just walking through?
00:42:19:29 - 00:42:44:15
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You know, she's got abandoned structures in here area, walking through and doing those searches. We don't have to do a big smoke out drill. I'm a big fan of officer led searches because typically the officer that's most comfortable in the environment. But the other thing it does is it eliminates two way communication, because if I've got a probe that's going in, our younger firefighter, he's going to tell me what he finds as we go through the house.
00:42:45:05 - 00:43:06:18
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Right. And then hopefully he can explain it. Well, I can understand and I have to give him direction. If the officer leads, I can dump him in a room and go search this room. I figure out where he's going to go to next. He goes, Hey, look, the rooms clear the other room on your right. And it allows for one way communication would save 10 seconds here and there, all through the whole house.
00:43:06:27 - 00:43:28:10
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And the speed is the name of the game. That's the easiest way to do it. You don't have to buy the fancy smoke machines. You can buy a DJ smoke machine and that will do just as good. You know, I love the fancy fire simulators and all that. They're awesome because they crackle and you can go buy a $20 LED light spray painted orange to simulate the glow.
00:43:28:10 - 00:43:43:17
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So now you look for the seat of the fire that you look for your bedroom. So there's ways to do it on a shoestring budget for sure. But yeah, reach out to me. I'm happy to to let you know what's worked for us or what has worked for us. And we've got a pretty good search document. I know Clackamas has a great search document.
00:43:44:00 - 00:43:55:14
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You know, the resources are out there. You just got to be willing to look and email people. And the coolest part is everybody's willing to share the missions about the civilian victim, not egos of instructors.
00:43:56:03 - 00:44:17:03
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I'm into that. And I think you also hit on your methodology there when you're going through ways that they can train you. We're talking about a crawl and a walk methodology because they didn't have to have live fire just to practice sets and reps. You know, they could be in bunker pants, gloves and helmet to start with and work through search and then put them in full turnout gear and let them work through that.
00:44:17:20 - 00:44:35:21
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And I think it's important to do that. We talk about, okay, a lot of us do a lot of sets and reps, including myself, and just coat pants or or pants and short coat. But we need to make sure that the firefighters understand. Hey, ergonomically, when I put on this air pack and I put on all this stuff, it's a different ballgame.
00:44:35:21 - 00:44:54:09
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I always compare it to. It's like we went into Wal-Mart and went to the the Sportsman Bass Fishing section and got one of those treble hooks off and just drag it through Walmart. You're going to catch something while when we're crawling through who knows what environment, all the stuff on us, we're like a big fishhook and we don't know what's going to get caught on the TIC, you know?
00:44:54:09 - 00:45:14:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So it's important that not only do they do the pallet drills where they're going to through the rims, but that's also a great opportunity for them to put stuff in their way. Because I don't know about your department. My department's been bad about just having open rooms with very little furniture. And like you said it, well a little bit ago, I want you go out my 12 year old's room and see how clean it is right now and crawl through there.
00:45:14:00 - 00:45:31:12
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So if you come out, you don't have a teddy bear and something else hook to you, possibly a skateboard that's to you when you come out. You know, and I'm one of those guys that hates the little stretchy strap on the tip and that thing gets hooked on a baseboard and breaks. And it's good that they put all their stuff on after they've done that.
00:45:31:12 - 00:45:59:21
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So they know, hey, it's going to be a different ballgame when I have everything on and I go head first to the window or I crawl through here and I turn this corner and catch this in my eagle on my helmet catches this wire. They need to experience that as you teach. I think in the class that I witnessed before, they fail in a real environment so they know what to do if they get hung up, if they get stuck because the likelihood of that's going to it's going to happen.
00:46:00:07 - 00:46:20:10
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You know, we're not crawling in this perfectly clean concrete floor, metal wall burned building with nothing in our way. You know, we're going in hoarding houses. We're going in. Who knows what? We don't get to pick. Do it. You don't get to pick. I want to go in a fire right after my workout, after I've had a shower and my food settle you do you get to pick that?
00:46:20:10 - 00:46:20:29
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Because I don't.
00:46:21:26 - 00:46:52:17
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Know. Once you get that skill set down, you got to put on the gear. You got to put on the air pack and you're going to stick because your body doesn't react same way. The crawling is a little bit harder. So I'm a big fan of gear workouts, too. It's I'm not talking about power cooling and when you're in your gear, but I'm talking about add a tripod, crawl at a sandbag drag, put a sandbag over a yoke or something, or just climbing over a box to simulate the window.
00:46:52:17 - 00:47:12:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So you got to pick some, some things that mimic what we do in the fireground. So you just get comfortable and you want to feel comfortable, but you also want to figure out where your brain shuts off because it's a 100% a spot. And I know with me one forties, I function very good. Once I hit 150, I can 100% health in my body.
00:47:12:14 - 00:47:50:09
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And then once I start getting stupid and I know this when I do my gear workouts, I can't count the reps anymore. So the cool part is if you do a gear workout with a partner and you can start getting up workload and tap out before you hit the rack or before you hit 60. If you always keep the calm or at least able to count the reps, you know, and it's something big that we where we teach oriented search, ideally, we'd love to split the split search, but ultimately the bosses are responsible for the tempo, the crew integrity, finding a way out and the crew safety.
00:47:51:03 - 00:48:14:05
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
If your switching off every room, you're not thinking about those things. You're just trying to recover and not die off with that with that fast heart rate. So, you know, I'm sorry, but you know, you're going to be searching like a crazy dude and your heart rate's going to get hot. You know what? I'm watching your back, and hopefully this is going to be 5 minutes of stock and you're gonna come out.
00:48:14:05 - 00:48:37:21
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We're going to be done. But I kept my eye on what my objective was time. And as an officer, I can search and be part of the active search only as much as I can. Still keep my eye on all those other things, not let my heart rate spike. So that's how I explained that portion. But you got to be in gear and don't wait down your gear with a bunch of crap.
00:48:37:26 - 00:48:57:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I like to carry as little things as possible with the most amount of uses. So, you know, I carry cutters, I carry like a seven foot kind of double frame. It's not because I can use that for a ton of different things. I carry something I'm not a big advocate of doing. Webbing drags or anything like that, but sometimes you bring in a victim upstairs.
00:48:58:03 - 00:49:06:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You're going to need to have that something. And I really I carry a box light and a curious pair of flashlight. That's about all I carry. What do you usually carry with you?
00:49:06:18 - 00:49:24:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You know me. I'm will have a camera and I'll have probably a little situational awareness. Cameras like cops have a throwdown gun. I got one hidden away. I've got a pair of pliers, I've got two lights. I've got a helmet. Light for what? Air and field calls reading like tangled up. I'm watching smoke. And then I got a right angle light that can look underneath there.
00:49:24:10 - 00:49:38:28
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And then I've got a mail out kit that my department makes me carry. So I eat up an entire pocket and depending on if they have it stolen or not. I have a pair of wire cutters that seem to disappear out of my locker about once every six weeks. I'm not sure why, but I also alternate gloves out.
00:49:38:28 - 00:49:53:17
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I got two different pairs of gloves because I've noticed that I like my gloves a certain way from dexterity and being a sort of on and off. And when I do a lot of training, I know you experienced this too, that you get wet and I need another pair of gloves. I got two hoods for those bad days.
00:49:53:17 - 00:50:12:16
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You can swap us out as a battalion chief. I'm not taking the beaten that the guys are, but when I'm doing training, you're soaking wet sweat all day. You're wearing that gear. And I think it's important. What you stressed was a damn. I comfortable in my gear. We don't all wear the same gear. We don't all wear the same air pack right.
00:50:12:16 - 00:50:35:25
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But if I'm not training in that gear, I'm not going to be good in that gear. Assaults my post something earlier I thought it was really good. He did a bunch of stairs and then he did a VES drill with his heart rate all jacked up. You know, Greg Nixon used to do it to me. We would do these crazy little CrossFit workouts and then he would make me try to an interlocking long tail bowling hanging from the Smith Machine Bar.
00:50:36:07 - 00:50:52:15
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And I messed that up, like you said, because if my heart rate hit 160, 170, I was out and I had to do what you did was recognize that and say, okay, I need to back up, take a breath now I can tie the knot. He was good about that. He was also good about making sure that we knew how much air we had.
00:50:53:00 - 00:51:10:16
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
He would purposely make us breathe our air bottled down till the vibralert stoped and count every year. How many breaths did you get this year at 44 years old. 45 years old. You know, 46. I'm 47 years old. How many breaths do you get when the vibralert stops? Because, you know, a lot of people when their vibralerts.
00:51:10:16 - 00:51:36:17
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
stops, they panic, right? So, you know, but you just said, you know your body, you know your crew, you know your gear, you know your tools, you know what you're doing. All that adds up. That's a wonderful multiplication addition problem that comes out to someone who's going to do a better job in search because they started off with the basics with no gear on and work their way all the way up to wearing that gear and working with that gear on.
00:51:36:17 - 00:51:46:12
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And they know where their tools are. And I don't know about you, but I like to keep mine in the same place. I don't move them. They're always in the same pocket because I'm OCD, you know.
00:51:47:03 - 00:52:07:04
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And we are even to the fact of how we set up our gear. And we we do bailout kits for our department, too. But I selected we just do a 40 foot eight middle rope and then we keep a controller and a cheap we teach people to be ropes slides. But I want you to be able to use it for anything you wrote for two years or buy a new one.
00:52:07:04 - 00:52:22:17
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
It's 40 bucks. That's fine. But if I give you a kit that's only for bailouts, that's not very useful and you're not going to use and it's going to weight you down and you can only use it for one thing, if you use it for training or you even look at it, you get in trouble in some departments.
00:52:22:24 - 00:52:43:21
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
That doesn't make sense to me. So how we set up our gear is our bailout pocket for the rope is on our left, our left leg, and then on our right leg we put a tool pocket so you can keep cutters and whatnot, cutters and tools. So we go for life, right, to fight. And you know, you thought we were teaching the entanglements.
00:52:44:03 - 00:53:04:08
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So what do people typically teach when you get entangled? You know, first you're going to stop, you're going to back up, then you're going to get down and you're going to try to swim through it. Well, we typically teach you to swim through on your left side because your high pressure hose come off on your left side so you can't get entangled and can't get untangled.
00:53:04:16 - 00:53:22:03
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
The next thing in the doing is cutting. Well, if your high pressure hoses up by the wires and you've cut your high pressure hose, there is no trick for that. So keep your high pressure hose down. That's why we put the tool pockets on the right side. So we really try to we try to build our gear with a lot of that thought in mind that we can teach you.
00:53:22:15 - 00:53:41:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
We can only teach you the skill, but our gear back up there and even if you only put your your your tools in that pocket, because that's the only pocket that has a tool, perhaps because what we do and so we've done that with radio pockets. You know, guys, we were having problems with radio pockets and the ejection rate of the radios.
00:53:41:15 - 00:54:03:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You read the Fairfax study, they were having issues with that. So we had trouble getting close to where the radio straps that we finally just said, guess what, we're going to take the radio pockets off and then you're going to have go with the radio straps. And it kind of worked, you know, even if the you can't take somebody's gear spec and say, oh, Chicago, they have awesome gear.
00:54:03:00 - 00:54:26:15
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I'm not just doing Chicago this. We don't have the same weather in Florida as they do in Chicago. It is hot, it is muggy. So we needed to find a gear that was breathable, though. I want thermal protection 100%, but I also need protection for my guys in black gear on I-75 for 45 minutes. They're more likely to go to have a heart attack than they are to get burned.
00:54:26:22 - 00:54:43:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So we needed to try to find something that was the right balance. So, you know, put put effort and thought into everything you're doing, whether it's teaching something, whether it's putting your gear, gear together, whether it's packing a rig, you kind of do things with some thought. And I think we missed that a lot in the fire service.
00:54:44:15 - 00:55:00:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I think you said it well, too, is that if I just make this my pocket for bailout kit, then that's all I can use it for that that's not really practical. And you said that. Well, with the gear, the gear doesn't just have to protect me in a fire. We're more likely to get run over on the interstate these days than anything.
00:55:00:11 - 00:55:16:18
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And how many calls do you run each day that are not fire related, that you're putting your gear on and your gear soaking wet with sweat? Does it breathe? Well, I mean, you and I are getting the same age bracket. What happens to us no matter how much we work out, if we wear gear that doesn't allow us to breathe, it puts more cardiac stress on us.
00:55:16:18 - 00:55:39:10
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Right. So you're looking after your firefighters by making your gear, your tools, everything more. It's more of a functionality side of it that it can be used for more than one thing. I'm not just carrying a hammer, I'm carrying a leather mantle with that makes sense. I can do more. And I think that's the beauty of that, because we're not going to just pigeonhole ourselves into saying, well, this pocket only for bail out.
00:55:39:10 - 00:55:56:20
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Well, I'm not bailing out. But once a year in our bail out drills, the rest time, it's just there and it's a lot of weight. We've had guys get in trouble because they're taking them out. They don't want it in there and they're going back to what they used to be. So why not have things that are basically multifunction?
00:55:56:26 - 00:56:07:25
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You said with the rope. I think that's beautiful. I think that's a great idea that they we're not limiting our firefighters. And I do like the idea that you took the radio pocket away. That's a genius in that respect.
00:56:08:08 - 00:56:29:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I guess like me on that. They want to add it and whatever it solves 90% of my problems that also we did with gear. Now it's like 93 degrees, 100% humidity in Florida. So we've got a great PC culture going on with the fitness. So guys will just be working out the base and I'll man like just getting after it.
00:56:29:29 - 00:56:53:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So what else sit on the rig a couple times. It's like you'd be 25 minutes into a workout and you get dispatched for a fire. And so you go in and you're like, Micah, I am dying. Just like the way their buddy Larry McCormick from Chicago was telling me a story because he's on a squad and he's like, you know, we were talking about gearing up and it's like, you know, sometimes I just I ride across the town and I know it's going to take me 2 minutes to gear up.
00:56:53:14 - 00:57:14:07
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So I'm going to wait until I get 2 minutes out and then I'm going to gear up. So that was something we started. When we started doing with a crews, the first thing we did was we did a workout and then I put my gear on immediately after and then my partner waited 3 minutes and then they put their gear on and we took the temperature readings right after the workout.
00:57:15:07 - 00:57:37:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And then 5 minutes after we gear in, I went right from working out to putting on the gear and my other partner waited like three, three or 4 minutes and then put on his gear. And it was amazing how much cooler he was just by waiting that time so that our next step was, all right, how do you keep your gear in your bag?
00:57:37:14 - 00:58:01:12
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Let's just time how long it takes you to put put it on there must. My guys are like, I've been in a house 2 minutes and, you know, that was going, you know, going down the road and gearing up. You know, it's keeping your seat belt as best you can in doing your thing. So what that told me as an officer was, all right, if it takes you guys 2 minutes to gear up in the rig, they can count on me to give them a four minute notice.
00:58:01:23 - 00:58:29:06
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Hey, we're 4 minutes out that way. If whatever we're doing, working out just general work, they know they don't got to put the gear on for a 12 minute drive if we've got a long response. So to me, I think that's a boss looking out for his guys and actually thinking a little bit ahead to say we gear up immediately and then we always ride the subway as cool as they possibly can be until they're going to go to cool things that we did that encourage people.
00:58:29:06 - 00:58:37:23
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Just try and see it's not going to lie. You're going to do the Top Gun thing and if nothing else, it's just kind of fun but might make you a little more effective.
00:58:38:03 - 00:58:55:01
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But I think the other thing that should be pointed out too is what to do your heart rate while you were waiting, right? Because I used to do charity stair climbs all the time. I would wear everything when I was doing it. And one of the guys from Denver who started it smacked me when I was convinced there was a good what are you do it?
00:58:55:22 - 00:59:20:28
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I said, What do you mean? He said, Take your coat off, take your helmet off and hang it on the back of your model, because that's what they were doing. They were wearing everything he said, you're still carrying it. He's not wearing it. So my heart was like 175 with my coat on, I take it off, climb 15 more flights of stairs and it dropped my heart rate drops because now I'm cooler, sweating and cooling and you're giving your guys a couple of minutes to do basically reset.
00:59:20:28 - 00:59:36:21
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
I mean, I don't know if you believe the same way I did, but I think fire service wise, we're just a bunch of interval trainers. We work really hard, stop reset, work really hard, stop reset. And that's what you're doing is allowing them to reset for a second, let their heart rate drop, cool off, put their gear on and go back to work.
00:59:36:21 - 00:59:37:12
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
You even set it.
00:59:37:28 - 00:59:54:01
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Up for 4 minutes. Yeah. We got to some in response. I'm gonna give you three, three, 4 minutes AC and then put your stuff out. We're going to go to work, but that's ultimately better for everybody. Yeah, but you're thinking they got to prove to me that they're good with putting on their gear. You got to be quick with the mask.
00:59:54:06 - 00:59:57:23
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
You got to be quick with all those things because seconds count and you.
00:59:57:23 - 01:00:01:07
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But they earned your trust before you allow them to do that. I think that's the difference.
01:00:01:23 - 01:00:16:15
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Yeah. The trust me that I'm looking out for their best and I'm not saying don't gear up when you're going to automatic fire alarms. Those are some threats that we can't miss out on. But I've got your best interests at heart that before I'm going to put you in that environment, I want you as good as we can.
01:00:16:15 - 01:00:21:11
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Does that mean I'm not going to work out or on shift? No, no, that's stupid. But we got to be smart with everything.
01:00:21:11 - 01:00:46:16
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
No, nothing. That's well said as being. The whole point of this is must be smart with our training, with our our teaching, with everything we do, and take the data for for search and apply that to those skills and allow us to be smarter in those search those search efforts, no matter if you're well-staffed with 25 people in the fire ground or two, that doesn't mean you still can't get it done.
01:00:47:01 - 01:01:07:26
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
But having that data, having that skills and having someone like yourself who's looking out for them and giving them that feedback is what's going to make us a more successful team when we're searching for the people we swore to protect. But in in as we close out this today, I first want to thank you for your time because I know you're a busy man and time's most valuable thing we have.
01:01:07:26 - 01:01:27:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
We can make more money, we make more things, but we can't make more time. So I appreciate that. But I'd like for you to help us out and say if I was going to contact you, if I was going to look into some of the things you talked about, you already gave a shout out for your email. Talk about where they can find some of these resources that you're passionate about.
01:01:27:00 - 01:01:47:03
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Where are you going to be next? The people that you teach with, where are they going to be next? You mentioned a lot of great people and the work they're doing, you know, firefighter rescue survey, where can they find that? How can they get them all that? What do you feel like sharing that will help people get connected with you and learn more about how they can get better at something that's going to fundamentally save lives?
01:01:47:12 - 01:02:17:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I'm doing Mile High Conference. I think that's in like October ish. Oh, I don't really have much this summer. I kind of take off and try to be as present with the family as I can. You know, I would say, look at what Chief Isakson's putting out if you get a chance. FDTN is always just absolutely solid. Jim McCormick and this guy guys, it's it's street smart stuff that just works and they believe in the basics and what makes something advanced over basic heat and fire and they're the masters at doing that.
01:02:18:00 - 01:02:45:05
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I know. Larry McCormick, Cody Testrail, Gary Lane, Justin McWilliams, Ben Schultz, Eric Wheaton. Basil. My boys out in Colorado are doing awesome things just to look at Search Culture Nick Ledin, Dustin Martinez, Jeffrey Bryant like everybody is doing good things and there's no egos that I think in the fall coming up. They're doing a search school that's a fire night's thing.
01:02:45:07 - 01:03:01:14
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
It's just these groups they call up and say, hey, who can come this weekend? And it's three or four different groups and they just get together. And the cool thing is, this is two or three days long and you can take everybody's first class and you can compare and contrast. Most of what we're putting out is the same thing, which is really cool.
01:03:01:15 - 01:03:16:26
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Yeah. Hit me up by email. I'll do my best to get back to you in a timely manner. Just get out there and do work. Work as the shortcut, as Aaron Fields would say, and take the time to take all these inputs from all these different places and just put it together in a way that makes sense for you and your department.
01:03:17:07 - 01:03:24:23
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And one thing you said, you're also the host of the Grabs podcast. If they want to talk to you about rescue or search, is that how would they do that?
01:03:24:28 - 01:03:42:26
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
Send me an email. I tried to record one or two a week. If they like the job well, I'll get going on for the week. I know some people are like, Hey, we don't talk about the groups that we make, you know, if we're not talking about them, it's not an award show. You're just telling a story that maybe somebody could learn.
01:03:42:26 - 01:04:05:27
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
And if your department frowns on it or you're a little embarrassed or you're like, Man, I don't want to do this, we can leave it anonymous. That's not a big deal. But but the value that can be gained from just one little nugget. I was talking with David Ballin the other day. He talked in one of his grabs podcasts that he was trying to get the victim out.
01:04:06:01 - 01:04:23:22
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
He had the pacifier. And, you know, typically we're going to like take a door or you would shut the door, I guess. And since shielding this helps with anything would remove it effective but he couldn't close the door there there wasn't the way to to shield them so he just used his own body. And that's sort of more like, you know, I use it every class now.
01:04:24:06 - 01:04:41:10
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
It is. I had no idea. The littlest thing that may have seemed like nothing in your story. This has the opportunity to help so many people, so I definitely encourage you to do it. And if you haven't started listening and you got like 85 episodes or you got to before you got to go find some new, new material.
01:04:41:10 - 01:04:41:21
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
So.
01:04:42:22 - 01:04:50:25
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So you're saying I can watch an entire season of the Grass podcast, listen to it before I start Better Than You for more content. So there's a lot that we got to get caught up.
01:04:50:25 - 01:04:57:00
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
On yet you can pedal me as much as you want. You know, there's no lack of resources, that's for sure.
01:04:57:00 - 01:05:16:02
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Awesome. Well, thank you for your time, brother, and thank you for taking time away from your family. I know you're busy, guy, and you're doing a lot of good things. And from one person who cares a lot, I want to turn around and give you a lot of praise because a lot of guys like you don't accept that and don't take recognition for what you do.
01:05:16:02 - 01:05:39:18
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And I want to tell you that what you're doing is important and don't quit because your time of year under the helmet is limited and it goes by pretty quick. So Enjoy it and keep investing in those people that you are now doing as a chief in that training role, because that's probably one of the most valuable positions out there is the person who's training the next person and you're creating the future of the fire service that way.
01:05:39:18 - 01:05:55:19
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Just like as parents, our children are the future. Turn around and look at those recruits and those firefighters. You're trained. That's the future. It's not me and you. It's just like the people who came before us and taught you were turning around and giving back. So keep up the good work and don't grow weary and doing good. Just keep it up.
01:05:55:19 - 01:06:12:00
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
And I appreciate your time. Thank Fire-Dex for allowing us to have this. And if anybody out there, please share this and subscribe and share other podcasts that Grant has mentioned as well that are great to listen to. Those of us who have a long ride to work, listen to a lot of podcasts. This works out really well.
01:06:12:00 - 01:06:14:19
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
So thanks so much, brother. Appreciate you.
01:06:14:19 - 01:06:25:23
Division Chief Grant Schwalbe
I thank you. Yes.
01:06:25:23 - 01:06:44:14
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Thank you for joining us on this episode of Rapid Fire. If you enjoyed today's topic and want to learn more, head over to firedex.com/RapidFire. And as a token of our appreciation to all of you tuning in, we offer 10% off our e-store when you use coupon code, RAPIDFIRE, all caps at firedex.com/shop.
01:06:44:27 - 01:06:48:23
Battalion Chief Andy Starnes
Tune in next time as we continue our efforts to make firefighting a little bit safer.