5-Alarm Task Force!

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2020 Safety Stand Down - Safety at Roadway Emergencies Jun 15, 2020

Show notes

“DAMN!!! That was fricfkin’ close!” you exclaim, as you are standing next to your Heavy Rescue on a busy, four-lane road. Your engine and ladder helped setup a “blocking” safety to lane to allow you to work on an extrication. But that semi that just passed you ran over half your orange cones!
This week, June 14-20 is the annual, joint, IAFC –- NVFC Safety Stand Down. During this week, fire and EMS departments are encouraged to suspend non-emergency activity to focus on the topic. And this year, that topic is our safety when working emergencies on active roadways. Last year, we lost 40 first responders to accidents on these sites. And many might have been avoided.
My guests on this special episode are Jack Sullivan, CSP, CFPS, Training Director of the Responder Safety Institute and Todd Leiss TIMC, Assistant Director of Training. You will hear them relate some of the tragedies that have occurred when our “safety zone” was invaded by a vehicle, be it an auto, a semi, or anything in between.
If you are a regular listener, you know how important this topic is to us at 5-Alarm Task Force. We have broadcast several episodes dealing specifically with this topic. Why? It is mostly due to the fact that we cannot depend on drivers to actively avoid us! There are far too many distracted drivers that will simply burst through our safety zones, injuring or killing our brothers and sisters. Enough is enough!
Photo Courtesy Fire-Rescue1
© 2020San Antonio Express News

Finding the Work/Life Balance Jun 03, 2020

Show notes

We try to do IT. No matter our vocation or avocation, most of us try to do IT! OK, so what is, “IT?” Well, look at it this way – people have jobs, from first responders to cement works, from pool installers to meat cutters, from first responders to bank presidents, and from teachers to neurosurgeons, we all try to find some way to juggle our professional lives with our persona lives. Sometimes we meet with success and other times, we fail miserably. This is where my guest comes in – Dr. Donnie Hutchinson.
Dr. Hutchinson, a college professor, as well as a national and local speaker for the IAFF and many other vocations, specializes in helping folks find that balance between work and life. This is especially difficult for numerous professions, including all branches of First Responders. Between the varying shift hours, we work and some of the situations we face on a day-by-day basis, finding that balance may look like a “pipe dream.”
In this podcast, Dr. Hutchinson and I discuss the challenges that many of us face (or have faced) in search of this “grail.” Some of these issues can cause us to develop a myopic view of life that can get in the way of your search. Yet, Dr. Hutchinson provides important, yet not necessarily difficult, methods that will help you find the right balance. Yes, even within the framework of the pandemic that we are all currently facing, the goal is still reachable!
Tune in on your favorite podcast platform or on our website, www.dalmatianproductions.tv.

Crisis Management May 18, 2020

Show notes

If you are older than 18-20, you probably have had to deal with some form of crisis; be it very small one like a broken shoelace when dressing for a special occasion, someone close to you was ill or a major job interview was lost due to a technicality. None of us is immune to the concept of crisis, however, we are often defined by how we manage that crisis!
My guests on this episode of “5-Alarm Task Force,” are Chief (ret) Dan Jones and his business partner, Kelly Walsh. Together, they have spoken at departments across the country on numerous topics of leadership, i.e., management, becoming a leader, finding an excellent leader, traits and much more. They have joined us before, and their podcasts always are enthusiastically received.
In this podcast, “Chief Dan” and Kelly address one of the most important facets of strong leadership and that is Crisis Management. And, unless you have been in your personal safe room, fallout shelter or in a cave for the past few months, THIS is a time of crisis management. We have seen excellent leaders; we have seen poor leaders and everyone in between. And in this podcast, my guests will define for you how a strong leader can quell fear and instill hope and future through his/her methods of Crisis Management.

Is There More 5-Alarm Task Force to Come? Apr 27, 2020

Show notes

This weekend (4/24-26/2020)the entire Windows Library folder entitled, "MUSIC" was lost in an unauthorized transfer that Windows performed during a reboot to its OveDrive cloud platform. All the files built up over the nearly 4 years of the show were lost.
Will I or can I recover from such a loss is yet to be determined.
Until next time, Stay Safe, Stay Well and remember to take of each other.

Episode 4-22-Anthony Mangeri - Staying Safe Amid Coronavirus Apr 13, 2020

Show notes

For well over a month, our lives and the lives of millions of people across six of the seven continents, have been turned upside down. The loss of life has been like nothing that has been seen since 1918! And the interruptions to our lives, from home quarantines, online schooling for our children, a ridiculous run on toilet paper, etc.
My guest on this podcast is Anthony Mangeri, a certified Public Manager, volunteer firefighter/EMT and he has many years’ experience in public health management. In this episode, Anthony guides us on the path of facts, not fables. You may have heard some of what he shares, yet I am sure that there will be some info that you will find worthwhile.
We want you, our first responders to be safe. This is a whole new EMS world that we have never seen before. For firefighters and law enforcement, often the first ones on-scene, we want you to be safe.
-Photo Courtesy of the CDC

Keeping First Responders Safe Amidst the Coronavirus Mar 27, 2020

Show notes

It is all over the news! It has invaded our lives and everything we do! It is the Coronavirus. For well over a month, it has changed our entire perspective into our daily lives; what we do, where we go and who we can and cannot see. No one is more affected by this pandemic than our first responders, from our amazing dispatchers, to our firefighters, LEO’s, paramedics/EMT’s, doctors, nurses, road rangers and recovery operators. This podcast is for all you.
My guest, Todd LeDuc has been a member of the IAFC-SHS committee board of directors for 15 years. In most of his nearly 30 years with Broward County Fire-Rescue, he focus was and still is, on the health, wellness and fitness-for-duty of his firefighters. Today, as the Chief Strategy Officer for Lifescan Wellness Centers, he focus remains the same, just widened to all first responder agencies.
In this podcast, Todd talks about the pandemic, its cause and effects, and, what we can do in an effort to continue to fill our roles but avoiding contamination properly. We also discuss your off time. What you can do to “decompress” when you’re off-duty and to keep yourself in the best condition possible.
Stay Safe & Stay Well!
Photo Courtesy Brian McGowan

The Prometheus Paradox - The American Fire Culture Mar 23, 2020

Show notes

OK, so we realize that going into the fire service, no matter if it’s career, volunteer, part-pay, wildland, etc., that it can be a dangerous job…very dangerous! And yes, most of us will put our lives on the line to save someone else that, for the most part, is a total stranger! We do so out of our deep commitment to our job.
My guest, Dr. Burton A. Clark, EFO wrote a very interesting book, “I Can’t Save You, But I’ll Die Trying: The American Fire Culture.” In it and in this podcast, Dr. Clark posits that our American fire culture has it all wrong and we’re losing good firefighters because of it.
This is not a position that he has developed overnight. With over 50 years in the American fire service, he has seen both the good and the bad in the “job.” And there is a lot of good in this job. No one will argue that point. However, it might be the right time to look at the “how” and “why” we do some of what we do that puts us in very, very perilous positions, too often with deadly results.

Chief Dennis Rubin – Key Current Topics in the Fire Service Feb 24, 2020

Show notes

Even with all the electronic media at our hands, we often want ourselves to be “spoon-fed” news the way we want to hear it, as opposed to the actual content. When we allow ourselves to hear all the details, we can better understand the topics and discussion around them. This is especially true in the fire service. Though most of the time, when the fire service is in the news, it is usually good news. Yet, we do find ourselves on the “naughty” list at times, too.
My guest on this podcast is no stranger to either and always has a great view of what’s happening and that is Chief Dennis Rubin. On this episode, Chief Rubin addresses three specific and important issues:
1. A neutral view of the recent Atlanta rescue and follow-up
2. Hazard Zone Accountability
3. Brief Initial Report & Assuming Command
These three topics might seem very easy to some and more difficult for others. With that in mind, Chief Rubin explains each one clearly and delivers pertinent information for each one. He does not issue orders, but merely make good leadership suggestions based on his more than thirty-year career servings citizens and their communities, while always looking out for his firefighting and EMS personnel.
Take a listen – you might enjoy it!

Episode 4-18 - Capt Nick Peppard - Firehouse Culture: Ideas over Egos Feb 20, 2020

Show notes

When we’re on the fireground or other emergency scene, most of the time we work as a great team. We know what to do, how to do it and what to do when we’re done. Sure, from time-to-time we may wonder about a particular task we’ve been assigned, but for the most part, it’s smooth running. However, back in the firehouse, it’s often a different story. Each firefighter is encouraged to ask questions, bring up new topics and propose new ideas. Too often though, a newer or less-experienced firefighter’s ideas or thoughts are dismissed out-of-hand. Why? Frequently, it’s because of another “herd of elephants” in the room – the egos of some of those firefighters with more experience.
My guest on this podcast is Capt. Nick Peppard of the Holley-Navarre Fire District in Santa Rosa County, FL, located on the beautiful Florida Panhandle. Nick discusses the scenario described above. The newer, less-experienced firefighters are too often shut down or told to hold their ideas to themselves, too often due to one or more, senior firefighters and the egos they have. As we discuss, there is no room in the fire service for egos; while one firefighter may have twenty years on the job and another has five, the ideas they share should be of equal value. Each and every firefighter should be included in every firehouse general discussion and, should be encouraged to ask questions or bring up an idea!
Egos all too often not only get in the way of healthy discussion around the firehouse kitchen table or dayroom, they often get in the way of firefighters taking proper care of their health. They are so “eat up” with themselves, they believe they’re almost invincible! Sadly, especially when it comes to their health, when they finally admit they have a health problem, it’s often, too late. Make the change in YOUR firehouse: IDEAS Over Egos!

Boost Morale by Letting FF's do FF's Things! Feb 13, 2020

Show notes

In any organization, morale is one of the most important facets of the group, whether they are volunteers at a religious facility, workers in a mill, or the staff of a huge law firm encompassing an entire floor of a high-rise. Yet, it plays an even more important role for a cadre of first responders, especially, the fire service.
Most of us have seen a fire department, maybe our own or a neighboring, where morale is low. While vigorously trained to fight structure fires and perform death defying high-level or collapse rescues, this group often loses morale when they do not respond to those types of call in a period of months or for some, years! Thus the question: “How do we boost their morale?”
My guest, Capt. John Lovato, Jr., understands the predicament. In this podcast, Capt. Lovato shares his ideas of using required drill time to allow the “troops” to use many of those skills that they learned and developed. While live burns are rarer these days, he has his crews, drop feeder lines, throw ladders, stretch hoses, and more. And, there is little doubt that, whether day or night, these drills will often result in firefighters who are better prepared for many of the challenges that they will face. As you listen to Capt. Lovato, ask yourself, “Can my department think along these same lines for us?”

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