Weekly Scrap #251 - B.J. Breecher on Training, Fitness and Expectations

Corley: Corley Moore, spending a few minutes here at the beginning to talk about the vigilantes. If you know me, you know I love this group. And if you are not already a vigilante, you need to ask yourself why you are not. There are so many great things about being a member. You get the first look at the behind the scenes of the scrap. You get to have input on the future direction of the scrap. There are the vigilante meetups, the vigilante only swag shop, the merch discounts, the fireaways, the VIP forums, which are like scraps, but you get to log in and be involved on the screen talking to the person. It's great man and all the vigilantes are invited. You get the files, you get the posts, you get the questions and the polls, but the best part, besides all of that stuff, the best part Is that you get to belong to a community of like-minded souls. And when you have that, when you belong to a community of like-minded souls like that, man, it is powerful Especially in this calling, especially in this profession. When you have that, you are never alone. So go to patreon. com slash the vigilantes And join today. It's five bucks a month. Five bucks a month. I used to say it's the price of a cup of coffee, but that's not even true anymore. Because you can't hardly get a cup of coffee for five bucks a month. It's the best value in the fire service So go to patreon. com slash the vigilantes and go sign up today. Become a member of the Cool Kids Club. Come hang out. I look forward to seeing you there. Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 251. My guest tonight is B. J. Breacher. He is a 15-year veteran of the fire service. Covering career volunteer state wildland and EMS, currently serving as a full-time firefighter for DeForest Windsor Fire and EMS in DeForest, Wisconsin. He's also a part-time lieutenant. For the City of Verona Fire Department in Verona, Wisconsin, currently serving as a board member for the Bruce City Fools. When he is not working or training, he loves to hunt and fish, of course. Otherwise, he can be found at a baseball diamond, basketball court, football field, or a wrestling map with his beautiful girlfriend and her two sons.

Corley: He is a passionate firefighter, especially on the topics of training and fitness. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome BJ Breacher to episode number 251 of the scrap. Welcome, my brother. BJ Breacher: How are you now, everybody? Corley, it's good to see you again. How you been, buddy? Corley: Doing great, brother. I'm excited for tonight's scrap. BJ Breacher: Yeah, how was your father's day? Corley: Hey, brother, absolutely magical. Between being with my dad and being with my kids, it was great BJ Breacher: Awesome. Good for you, man. Good for you. Corley: Anything I missed? Is there anything you would like to add to the intro? BJ Breacher: No, I'm just happy to be here, excited. I'm flattered. especially picking up where Chief Ike left off. Who gets in calling Chief Ike? I'll see what I can do. Hopefully, you know Let's try not to let everybody anyone down, but we're gonna have some fun tonight. We're gonna laugh, maybe cry, maybe we're gonna we're gonna definitely poke some poke some bears and We're gonna talk about the elephant in the room too. Corley: Oh I love it. I love I love where there's already going. All you have to do is lean into the camera and and yell really loud and you'll be fine Oh, you're right. All right. Clean camps don't clean cabs don't make crabs. There you go. Audience Please get your questions primed and ready for BJ. Sam is here. He is watching. He is monitoring. Kyle is here. He is in the chat. He is grabbing your questions. He is throwing them on the laptop. So if you have them for BJ, myself, please, please, please throw them up there. We're going to have some fun. So let's throw them again.

BJ Breacher: Before we begin, Kyle Romagus, I'm glad that you're packing up and wearing all your proper PPE while pushing stairwells That picture was amazing. I laughed my ass off. Keep on keeping on, brother. You're doing awesome. Screw those shit bags. Corley: I love every time Smoothboard Cartel makes a post and I love the I love the trolls in the comments, man. Yep. Absolutely do. The t-shirt. That's my favorite is the I know I'm not wearing my air pack. Okay. Oh what happened? What happened? Oh, I think I lost you there for a second. I think we're good now. Okay, okay. Keep me posted. We'll do the sponsors. Here we go. The OG sponsor of the scrap is of course Keyhose. Check them out online at Keyhose. com. And follow them on Facebook. Affordable Drill Towers on a mission to bring you cost-effective and versatile training props like the Affordable Bellout Prop, which allows you to practice window bailouts, ladder bailouts, and ladder high point rescues. Of course, they make the affordable standpipe prop, which you can roll into the classroom for standpipe theory, and then you roll it into the parking lot and pump realistic flows and pressures. From one of the best with more than 60 drill towers installed, the affordable drill tower comes in several configurations and comes standard with a standpipe system. Choose from one or two sets of stairs, integrate it into your existing Connect boxes for multi-story access or freestanding on a slab. All models are NFPA 1402 compliant and gain you ISO credit. The only thing that you can't do on an affordable drill tower is live fire training. Call Steve 844-55 Tower or drop an email to info at affordable drilltowers. com. Firefighter safety and accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours with no switches No batteries, which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. All specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job. Be seen on scene identifiersafety. com. And then finally, Heart of the Lakes Fire Summit, September 27th and 28th this year in Alexandria, Minnesota. You can hear lectures. From AJ Hornick, Jeff Rothmeyer, Nick LaDean, Kyle Romagus, and Rob Fisher.

Corley: How's that for a lineup? This is the Midwest newest fire conference, and it is vigilante run. To register, go to their Facebook page, Heart of the Lakes Fire Summit, or scan that QR code that's flashing by on your screen. You do not want to miss this if you are in that area. All right. That officially gets us to the scrap. We're done with the monsters. We're done with the intros. BJ, my man. Here we go. Let me catch, let me, let me just pull up. Let me pull up YouTube because I'm Let me do my thing here, getting in there, making sure it's muted. Okay, I'm gonna read you just a few of the here we go. McGinn said let's go with four O's You know it. There we go. So pumped for every scrap, and this is no difference. That comes from Kyle Peverall. Greg White said, what's up, my Minnesota brothers? Steve Maus said LFG with that looks like six exclamation points. Greg Van Ham, LFG, Michigan checking in. Great Lakes hot was awesome. Man, Minnesota representing. there we go. There we go. Steve Mao said BJ needs more props. All right, I love it. All right, okay. There's tons of there's tons of LFGs and tons of lots of fire, lots of fire, lots of fire emojis. So we're ready to go. All right, audience, get your questions ready. I'm gonna throw a soft toss to BJ just to kick this thing off. And get things rolling. We're going to start off with training versus checking boxes. I love this topic. This is one of the topics you sent, so let me hear what you got to say.

BJ Breacher: So in my personal opinion, I think that the way that things are going in the fire service nowadays, as a general rule, we spend a lot of time checking boxes just to get things out of the way and just to kind of put it bluntly, checking boxes don't put fires out. You know, check in boxes that usually Just that minimum standard, and I've heard it my entire career, and I I believe it, minimum standards, minimum results. And I think with this whole checking boxes thing, and this is probably gonna parle into standards later on, when we're checking boxes, we're not I think we're doing our our especially our new people are doing a real disservice to those people because they're not really getting preparing themselves physically or mentally for what you're going to encounter on a structure fire. Simply stated, You know, one one of the things that that a lot of departments do for whatever reason, maybe it's because we don't have an acquired structure, maybe we don't have a training tower, or maybe our people just aren't very creative that are leading the charge retraining is pulling a hose line around a parking lot. Now we're training is concerned I I'm a big believer in crawl, walk, run. Okay. We can't we can't run until we crawled and we walked. And part of that big component, you know, we're just going to talk about stretching a hose, is crawling. Okay, we got to be comfortable moving that line. We've got to understand what it's going to take to move that particular line. Okay. But now we take it up a notch and let's say this is the only thing we do. We spend an hour pulling a line across the parking lot. There's a cone, we spray water at it. Okay. Anyone who's done this job long enough knows that that's bullshit. That's not how a fire is put out You know, let's take it a step further. and I'm I'm not taking a a cut on any type of fire academy or anything like that, but you have a burn tower, right? And in my experience, you've got the burn tower, you've got concrete floor, you've got metal walls, you got a concrete ceiling. Okay, maybe you're stretching a hundred feet of inch and three-quarter hose line. into a into a front door and you go into a 10 by 10 room and you've got a a four by four crib in the corner full of hay that's on fire And the only piece of furniture that you have in that that room is some burned out tired couch that's been at that academy for 15, 20 years and it's pushed off in the corner.

BJ Breacher: Right. Okay. I've never been to a structure fire. Where it has been that simple, okay? People like to put shit in their room. People like to move things around, okay? We pull in that front door and you're gonna encounter carpet and you're gonna encounter furniture and you gotta go around corners. The other thing too is in like an academy setting or an even training setting, you have the audacity To put four people on a hose line to push that pull that line in. That's not the world we live in. It sure as hell ain't the world that I live in. Okay, so what am I getting at here? This is instead of checking boxes, we should do our best to make sure that these training experiences are as close to real life as possible. so that we're going to break a sweat, so that we're going to have some difficulty. We're going to have to kind of have a firm a firm upper lip when we're doing this. And we're going to have to, you know, use a little grit. to get through things. It's happened before. I've been even like training burns where kids are straight out of the academy and we go into an acquired structure and we're burning it and we come out and the kids like that is nothing like it was in the academy. I'm like of course it's not Of course it's not because we have other things in that room that are creating heat, that are creating smoke. Okay, and now we've implemented that stress because you're no longer in a training environment Okay, maybe you've got somebody that's pulling the hose line and they're not getting the line to you fast enough and you know you've got cheeks pointing here and there's all those things that that that play into what we're doing here. So again, I mean chicken boxes, we're doing our people such a disservice. And even more so with our guys and gals that have been on the job or maybe two years and maybe they've gone whether it's volunteer or full-time maybe it's been a year since they've been on a structure fire okay they forget what that's like They forget that that everything that goes into and all of a sudden, oh shit. And they're starting all over again. So to tie this all up, we're not doing anybody any favors.

BJ Breacher: We're certainly not serving our people as we should by just checking boxes and getting shit out of the way. We don't grow that way. We don't accomplish our goals and it's horseshit Corley: Boom, boom. Hey, start off with it. Start off and get it fired up. Now let me dig in and say, like, you're not opposed to stretching hose lines in a parking lot, right? Because I want to be very clear on that because you referenced already Kyle Romagus and he he he makes many many posts video posts. He came to my my department and taught cruel intentions and he and he Did some hands-on with my crews there and I posted videos of it. And as soon as the videos hit, man, the trolls were out there saying, hey, why don't you do that with an air pack? Why don't you do that with full PPE? You know And it's it's it's about skill acquisition so that you can train so that you can take the proper mechanics into those environments that you're talking about. BJ Breacher: Absolutely. Absolutely Corley: No, absolutely. I got tons of questions already coming at you. Kyle's grabbing them. BJ Breacher: And a boy Kyle.

Corley: Yeah, he's on top of it. All right, here we go. First one's coming at you from Gregory Van Ham, which I'm pretty sure was just with you up there in the Great Lakes Hot. He says, what keeps what makes you keep going to live fire trainings and stay hungry to stay a master of our craft. BJ Breacher: You know, there's nothing like live fire training. You you you you you can't You can't acquire any type of experience or just you can't acquire a better mentality. And and and what's the word I'm looking for? Just really you know prove your mettle, not only to yourself, but just get that vibe, you know, without actually getting in some live fire. At Great Lakes Hot, when I was there last weekend, I was with the the Capital City bunch and we were doing forcible entry under live fire conditions. Speaker 5: Nice. BJ Breacher: And you know, it's one thing to be in the Apparatus Bay and dropping that halligan in and popping the door and doing all those things. But now you put yourself in a situation where it it's below visibility you've got heat okay and also the There's a time limit that's going on there because we all know that the longer that fire is allowed to burn, the bigger it's gonna get. The longer that fire is allowed allowed to burn If you've got people inside, it time is everything, man. And that stress inoculation that kicks in, okay, that just makes that experience that much better. You know. And it I I'll I'm gonna be honest with you. I love working with fire around me because that's what we're gonna be exposed to. And and if you can crawl in a room with flames running over the top of your head and do a search and you've got some confidence, boy baby, you you you you've got the game figured out now i'm not saying that you should be you know dumping into every room that's got flames rolling over your head because obviously you've got to be a little bit smart Okay, on that side too. But at the same thing, if you can kind of control your motions and pay attention to what's going on and stay focused on the job, I mean that's just that element that you You can't find any apparatus thing. And it it's cool too.

BJ Breacher: I'm just gonna say it. It is cool. Corley: The cool factor doesn't hurt the cause, man. Absolutely. No, you're right. And it is. That is a part. I mean, let's be honest. There's a reason why a lot of people want to do this job. It's a cool fucking job. BJ Breacher: It is, you know, it's funny, it's that canned answer and and all the intern, we have interns at Verona And I I kind of give them a a little a little bit of a a minor hazing, you know, and it's nothing anything bad, but I'll sit down and it'll be the intern's first date. And I hope there's no future interns watching right now, because they're probably going to be onto it. Every other intern that has sat down on my ship has sat there and I'll say, so so you want to be a firefighter, huh? And usually he or she'll go, yeah, yeah. And I said, so why do you want to be a firefighter You know, when they're like, oh, well, I want to help people. I'm like, oh, come on now. Come on now. That's the canned answer. It's okay to say it. The job kicks ass. It's cool. It's fun You know, it fits my work style, all these things. It's okay to love the job. It's okay to recognize that it kicks ass. You're okay to say that.

Corley: No, absolutely, man. It's one of the things, man. As I almost I'm at 27. 5. That's where I'm at. 27. 5. But almost 28 years in, there's a certain pride when you say I'm a firefighter. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It carries that that and people should be, should be. And that's the part of it. And embrace it. Embrace it. We're touching on this. Oh, let me get back. Gregory, I got Gregory Van Hams. I'm not sure. I am catching the buzz every once in a while, but I'm not sure what to do about it. what do you do McGinn wants to know. This is coming at you from McGinn. McGinn wants to know what do you do when higher-ups put out a memo about not being out and training because of outside temperature? 90 plus, but temperature is 90 degrees in the morning. How do you handle that one? I don't know if you have to deal with that kind of thing, but we do actually. BJ Breacher: It was a a sultry 92 here in southern Wisconsin. That's a lot of S's for me. But it's a thing. We do get heat and humidity out here. It was really warm today. But you know, that being said, you know, when it's that that type of heat. you know, I've I I've been in departments where they like, hey, you know what, it's gonna be pretty warm today, you know, pace yourself or let's stay inside. And I get that. I I totally get that. But I also remind myself that this is, you know, yeah, I shouldn't train too hard today because it's kind of hot, I should probably take it easy. But oh, the tones dropping my ass is ass over teeth kettle in a window and a structure fire to do window-based search and how hot is that inside right you know what I mean oh you gotta kinda take that with a grain of salt but kind of to to be back what we're talking about here I think you have to be smart of your training You can't oversell yourself. I think you have to take care of yourself, and this goes back to being in shape. It's also paying attention to what your body needs to do the job. And you know, if you're in a situation where, boy, I plan not going outside to do this or that, you know, maybe you have to change.

BJ Breacher: We have to be flexible with how we're going to approach not only how we manage an incident but also how we how we train and they're I'm fortunate is tomorrow I'm in Verona with a big beautiful station a huge bay and we've got some things that we can do in an air conditioned bay Okay, and I I tell you what, I I'm not a I'd rather I'd rather pull lines and and and work a halligan or throw a ladder than work on a keyboard. But I mean if conditions like up here we get really cold too. You know, we get really cold up here. You know, FSRI That's a cool website. There's some really cool online stuff. Sometimes we have to sometimes we have to kind of We have to kind of give in and do what's best for us and follow orders from time to time. But it it, you know I like to think myself as being creative. I can find ways to train or make up for that. So it's not that difficult. You can still get away with training. Hopefully you got a crew with you that also understands training is important. And I mean, hey, let's be honest. if it's too hot and you want to conserve you know the energy you have and you don't want to overwork yourself. We don't want to get heat stroke. Okay, because I have plenty of fires where guys are just beat red coming out of a building or pulling hose or you know whatever. You know, and they're gassed when they come to rehab you know, I I would hate to see somebody coming in from training looking like that, but we gotta be smart. We gotta be smart, hydrate, do something online do something in the apparatus bay it doesn't mean that you have to go all balls out and train you could do something as simple as just working on drags in the apparatus bay you know dirty drags You know, you can you can work with airbags. I mean one thing that I do with with squat with our squad checks is I'll pull my airbags out and I'll go through my head hey you know connect this and I'll lift the trailer up in the apparatus space or something like that. So you know there are ways to get around that

Corley: No, and you have to take into account the environment without a doubt. You can't just disregard the environment of where you live. Right everywhere from deep South Florida to the great white north. I mean you have challenges And you have to take that into account. But that I think the biggest takeaway is there are people that will use it as an excuse to do nothing Or you can use it as the challenge that you need to overcome to find a way to get better at the job that day. BJ Breacher: Yeah, I think so too. There's a lot of shit bags out there looking for an excuse to like, oh, I guess I'm back in the client recliner today You know, where as you just said, there are a lot of guys out there that look that look to that as a challenge. Speaker 5: Right. BJ Breacher: You know, and I I I think whether it's it's the actual workout itself or something that you come up with, sometimes you get the most out of doing something under the toughest conditions. Corley: No, that's valid. Very valid point. Eric Wheaton said, come on down to Florida. You'll get acclimated quick. BJ Breacher: Ah, I get my brother lives in Florida. I I hear you, Eric. I hear you. It's a thing, man.

Corley: No, he was replying to Carpe Fuego who said, God forbid firefighters acclimate to the heat in gear and stay acclimated. Which he was thinking with a little bit of sarcasm there. BJ Breacher: Yeah, yeah, I get that. Absolutely. Corley: Stephen Kaiser checking in from Australia. He said checking in late. I'm guessing it's about, I don't know, 11 a. m. in I'm just guessing. BJ Breacher: You're okay, brother. Corley: You're okay all right, coming at you with another question from the audience. Kyle Piverall wants to know what can be done in a burn building to get realistic fire conditions because we do not have access to acquired structures BJ Breacher: Hmm, well first fire, smoke. no, I mean Some guys that I've worked have gotten pretty creative with creating smoke machines and it's something as simple as getting a a barrel, a burn barrel, 55 gallon drum, and hooking up a a leaf blower to the end, throwing a hay in there, and and burning in there and and getting some conduit and running the smoke into the building. If you want to move that smoke in from the outside, you know, the guys in Bruce City Fools that I work with, they they've done that. at my My part-time department, Dustin Roder has done an amazing job of setting up burn situations for us and and he is something as simple as I'm taking a barrel cutting it in half and just Putting hay in there and just creating smoke. that's all you need. You know, cold smoke is fine if you've got a fog machine or something like that, theatrical smoke That that's great. To me, it's always been more of a pain in the ass because you're worried about technology. You know, one week it works, one week it doesn't. But I mean you got dry hay. Matches always work, man. You know, and smoke up a small area if you've got enough barrels and enough people smoke up the entire thing. But it's not difficult, man. Never never underestimate the power of a motivated firefighter

Corley: the to do it. That's the part to me that seems to be the that what makes the difference is it takes the Yeah, yeah, we're losing Courtney. I'm trying. I'm checking my internet. I don't know why. Okay. Just checking. Are we good right now? Are we good right now? BJ Breacher: Are we up, down Yeah, you're there. The the voice is kind of like delayed a little bit. I got your thumb movement. Corley: Huh. Wonder if I should try to jump to the Wi-Fi. I think you're doing that. Now you're good. Mic check, mic check, mic check. Mic check. Speed test is good. I don't know what the deal is. Not sure what the deal is. All right. I don't know where we're at. That was the squirrel. Squirrel ran by, completely railed us. Where are we at, BJ? BJ Breacher: we just got done talking about smoking up buildings. It can't burn in them Corley: Keep it as realistic as possible, overcoming the challenges. If you get doers to do it, people will buy in. People will buy in. You just need the doers to do it Derek eight coming at you. He says, why is it that when it comes to putting on a training event, something that's not mandatory, how come there's about a 50% involvement?

BJ Breacher: Well, there's a couple things. First of all, my question to you is if you're putting on that training event in your own department, okay, there's the old saying that How does it go? you never looked at as a prophet in your own country? Corley: Right. BJ Breacher: you know, there are some people that not gonna show up because number one, it's not mandatory. I've worked with guys before that are like, well, am I gonna get paid to go to it No, well then I don't want to go. Right. You know what's in it for me? you could learn some shit, you could get better at your job. you know, just throwing that out there. so there there's that. In something I learned a while ago is that you can't expect everybody to have the same passion as you. it was a bitter pill for me to swallow, but it is what it is. So you have to kind of approach some of these things with a grain of salt and look at it as free will. If they show up, awesome. That's great. You know, and that kind of tells you something about them as well you know, but you know, we we typically know the people who are not gonna show up anyways if we're holding a training event. So we should never be surprised.

Speaker 5: Right. BJ Breacher: You know, those those people that don't normally train anyways or well I'm training because I'm on ship so I have to be here. Okay. We we we should never be surprised by that. You know, that's why, you know, I'm always a big believer in opening up, say you've got a bigger training that you're putting on to your department, open it up to your neighbors, man. Okay? Because you know there's gonna be one or two people in a an adjacent department that gonna be interested in coming over, you know, and of course and I've run into this before. Well Chief is a bit concerned because of A, B, and C. Okay, that's cool, man. But you just want to come over and hang out? Watch things? We can talk, kind of figure out what we're doing here. That's always a good thing. so you kind of answer the question, you know I know it's really answered, but just to impress upon you that, again, you're not going to get everybody to train to the same level as you are. Everybody's motivated for different reasons. And you just kind of have to suck it up and keep going. But the thing about it is if you do a good job, people are gonna start talking.

Corley: Yeah BJ Breacher: People are gonna start talking like, hey, I was at that training that Corley put on a couple weeks ago, and it was really good. And if he does something again, I'm gonna show up. These things happen You know, and either that happens or somebody goes, hey, you know what? I was at a training that you were there and you were really good. I talked to my chief. We'd love to have you come in and talk to us. And you start picking up on people like that And you you you find out and I'll say it, it's something I never get sick of seeing, you find out who the workhorses are, who the show ponies are. Yeah, you know that's that's the thing right there. Corley: So yeah No, that's beautiful. It's beautiful, beautiful answer. I want to kick it over to being fit for duty and talking about fitness. Being fit for duty, we already already touched on it a little bit with just the the weather talk and the environment and things like that. But go ahead and talk about being fit for duty. BJ Breacher: Yeah, it it can't be understated. And I know that I'm sure there's a lot of people out there like, oh, paper duty, oh, you know, and all that stuff But but it's true, you know, for many many different reasons. I mean you can you can know the job inside out back and forth, but if you're 50 pounds overweight Okay, if you're a recliner pilot, okay, and you're always walking past the the no name, you know, fair game, no name, fair game table, grabbing a cookie or something like that. And you're not taking care of yourself, that's a problem. That's a big problem. And I don't want people to fall into the mindset of well if I I I want to get in shape you know I've got to get a gym and I got I gotta bench press this and I gotta be able to squat that and run. No, no it's a combination of many things, okay It's a combination of cardiovascular. It's a combination of flexibility, which is a really big thing that I've discovered over the past three years, which has helped me definitely bring my game up. and and and also pure strength, but also marrying that with being able to do all these things with your gear on because we all know that heat smoke and that gear, okay, will make the the most fit person in the world to drop them down a level.

BJ Breacher: Okay, that is the ultimate difference maker between you know getting the job done and somebody going no I'm out And it's, I always find it interesting that some of these structure fires that I'm at will come out for rehab. And I've had I had this happen like a year ago. came and I sat down as a guy sitting next to me and he's he's a full-time officer in a different organization. Right. And he was a part-time firefighter with the organization that was at and we're sitting down there and the first thing out of his mouth was man I gotta get in shape and I'm like no shit No shit, you know, as I'm looking at them. you know, beat red, just sucking air and all that. You know, everybody knows that. You it's it's that It's that little ace in the hole that we can all bring to the table along with skill acquisition. The other thing is That being fit for duty, and this is this is kind of hidden personal for me, my good friend Anthony Gilliam, he's down in Florida Anthony, and I believe it was 2021, 2022, had an unfortunate accident where he had a helligan fall and hit him in the head. and basically he had a vertebrae injury. He was basically paralyzed for a certain amount of time and he's had some vertebrae fuse together. Now I had met Tony at the the first Great Lakes Hot, we hit it off right away. He's my favorite Scotsman, but In all honesty, he's the only Scottish guy I know. So, but that being said, he, you know, just rock solid fireman, loves the job, but he's he's built like a fireplug, you know, he's It just rocked. But he had that injury happen, and that just kind of shut everything down. And he did a tremendous job with a little bit of faith, some hard work, some belief in himself and and and his wife And he went from being in a situation where in his words, when I talked to him this last week in in Michigan, you know, we had the same injury that was almost like what actor Christopher Reed had. Right. where they were basically saying he'd never walk again. And now he's up and he's walking around, he's training. He's actually trying to fight to get his job back.

Corley: Right. Nice. BJ Breacher: But I asked him, I said, Tony, I gotta ask you, do you think that your fitness and your condition played in your ability to recover from this? And he said, absolutely, no doubt about it. So when we look at fitness, we got to look at it not from a standpoint of, hey man, this can help me do my job better, but it's also something that's we're going to get injured. If we do this job full send and we get after like we're supposed to, we're going to have bumps and bruises We're gonna pull muscles, we're gonna have back injuries and all. It's part of the job. Corley: Right. BJ Breacher: Okay. But if we have ourselves in a particular physical condition, we've got that mentality built where listen I gotta do A, B, and C to get back to where I need to be. I'm not I'm not this is not ground that I've never covered before. they're having me rehab for this and do this. Hey man, it's just like going to the gym. I got the mindset, I can pull this off. And the body is used to being stressed. And you're mentally used to being stressed physically in a gym. So I would like to think and I've never been in that situation myself, but I can only imagine that Tony would agree with me that you know his mindset was already ready to go and having his experience in the gym. And his and his his stature and his musculature and his fitness helped him get back to where he is today. The other part that I admittedly am very aware of is that, you know, once we start getting later on in our career, our fitness is important because a guy like me, I love being a frontline firefighter. The full disclosure, I'm 51 years old. Okay. And I You know, I I I know that Father Time's gonna catch up with me sooner or later. and I gotta keep up with these young guys. You know, I gotta stay active on the fire guard and I love doing this job. And not only is training gonna keep me viable, but Taking care of myself, you know, getting in the gym, going for runs, training in gear, eating right, and all those things. And also Up here, taking a moment to decompress and hang out.

BJ Breacher: You know, don't hit the bottle too hard. Hang out with my girlfriend. You know, watch the kids play ball, stuff like this, just to get my mind off things. And with that being said, staying in shape, when I leave the job, you know, I personally, there's some things that I love to do that demand me to put a little bit of effort. for you know I love to bow hunt okay I would be I would be pretty disappointed if I hurt myself or I couldn't pull my bow back after Okay. you know, kayaking, if I couldn't paddle, things like that, that you know, that this training will add to the quality of your life The other thing is that I would never ever want to be in a position where somebody like me who has made it known that being physically fit for the job is a good thing, I'd never be in one be in a situation where my fitness Let me down. Right on. Okay. Not only my training, but my fitness. You know, at DeForest I got two guys on my shift. You know, it would It would just destroy me if I had to go to go to AJ's girlfriend or Caleb's wife and say, I'm sorry. You know, I I didn't I I I I couldn't pull it off because I was tired, I was exhausted or whatever. I would never ever want to have to Have it even come through my mind. You know, all these things are just so important. Love that. And the bottom line too is that, I mean, what does the public expect from us?

Corley: Yeah BJ Breacher: Okay, it's I'm probably gonna poke a bear here, but there's nothing cool about fat firefighter calendars Okay, I know there's a lot of places out there and departments that think it's fun and it's a fun rate funny and it's a fundraiser, but no, there's nothing funny about it at all. It's not cool. It's not cool at all you know that's a good bear to poke. I absolutely hope so. The people that we serve expect the best. They expect not only people that know how to do the job, but are going to go that extra mile, they're going to be fit, going to be, you know, ready to go Okay, the last thing they want is some 300-pound firefighter getting off a rig, stumbling, fumbling to get their gear on. They go 40 yards across, a yard, they get to the front door and like I'm out, I can't do it. I gotta go to rehab And I don't want you on my crew either, because you're putting my ass in a very precarious situation. All right? Whether it be me pulling your ass out or you having to pull me out All right. My family doesn't want that. Your family doesn't want that. My chief doesn't want that either. Love it, bro.

Corley: I love a couple things to touch on here as I as I interrupt. First of all Yes, timestamp absolutely, McGinn. I've got it written down. But and please, please, please, vigilantes, timestamp away because you guys have if you've been in the content creation streams, you know how how tough it can be to find them. But people are calling bullshit on BJ being 51. Did BJ say he was 51? I call BS. Someone check his birth certificate That's one of the coolest compliments. It's one of the coolest compliments you can get in the scrap is people call a BS on your age. BJ Breacher: So be proud of that. I I credit good genes. That's all I gotta say. I got good genes. Hey, brother. And venison and wild duck. Corley: How does that sound? Venison, wild duck, good jeans. And it's not like you're not putting in the work. So All of it. All of it. But I want to touch on the whole time you were talking, it made me think of and I'm gonna ask the the audience to please Tell me who said this quote, but fatigue makes cowards of us all. I I want to say it was Patton, but I'm not sure it was. But I that's why I said I'll let them try to figure it out. Fatigue makes cowards of us all, which ties right back into that physical fitness

BJ Breacher: Absolutely. It's true. And I've seen it from time to time. And I'm not immune to that. You know, I'll be honest with you. I think it's a moment that everybody Runs into where they're you're balls deep in a job and also you're like, hey, this is pretty hard work. I forgot about this, you know? It speaks up on all of us. but hopefully We put some work in beforehand, we're like, oh, this is hard work, but you know what? It could be a lot worse Corley: No, without a doubt. And I'll tell you a quick quick story. I got to go to one of Jocko's musters or Robo. the the one in Dallas i forget what it was for first responders but you had the option to go there at 4 30 in the morning and do the workout right so we all went down there all those firefighters went down there to do the workout. And it was great. Don't get me wrong. It was a great workout. But they pushed you to basically until you're ready to give up. But at some point, you know, I I don't know if it was Leaf or Jocko or one of the other guys that was We got done and they're like, yeah, we finished it. Oh, thank God we finished it. You know, and then they brought us all together and then they said, okay, now we're gonna do, and I think it was like 41 burpees because this guy, so and so You know, insert whatever it was, you know, and we're gonna do 41 birds. It was at the end of it, man. And they were like, and and and it was, I'm telling you, it was the epitome of fatigue makes cowards of us all Because it got to a point where they were screaming, if you give up now, you're letting your buddies down. You're, you know, and and I was just like, yeah, my buddies were let down at this point. You know, I hit that I hit that wall. I'm not proud of it in any way, shape, or form. And this was just in a parking lot where nothing was counting on it. But 100%, man. The that physical fitness. Go ahead.

BJ Breacher: I think when when you when you hit that mark, you create, and I hope you know when someone hits that mark, I hope that they're realizing that that's a baseline. Okay, and that failure becomes a target for you to work on Right, right. Okay. I mean if if you're if you're you're running a mile and you fall short of that for whatever reason, okay, hey, you know what? I only ran three quarters. Okay, so that's what I got to focus at. Okay, and anything I you know back that goal off just a little bit and start working towards that particular point. You know, anytime you fail, and and I'm living breathing proof of this anytime you fail, that's a great opportunity to reassess the situation Look at you know why did I fail? How how why did I fall short? Okay, A, B, and C took place. That's why I fell short. What do I need to overcome that? The biggest crime is to, and it sounds cliche getting knocked down and staying down. If you can get back up, lick your wounds, and and create that new mark, get back in the game, man. Get after it.

Corley: Right on. No, and and it's that and like you said, it's that finding that failure point. You find that failure point, you find that point you can't do. And then as a human being, you get the choice. From that point, when you find that failure point, you can either make an excuse for why it happened Or you can you can be, I don't want to say challenged, that's almost overused, or you can say, how am I going to get better from this? And you gotta have a plan, that's a great place to start And the majority of people will say, well, here's why I didn't do it, and that becomes their new reality. And so it becomes they almost reinforce this negative cycle. And then and of course I'm preaching to the choir because people that listen to the scrap are on the other end of the spectrum and they're the ones who look for a reason to get better. So again man beautiful i love that whole thing i want to ask about generating buy-in how do you go about generating buy-in especially from the checked out crowd the been there done that crowd the Oh, you're too plugged in, crowd. It's a great question that comes up over and over and over again on scraps, but I want to hear what you what BJ Breacher's advice to generating buy-in.

BJ Breacher: Okay. Well, look at it a couple different ways. Number one, someone says you're too plugged in. Okay Whatever. Okay, I guarantee you, you know, let's say the population of the place that you serve, let's say you've got a 17,000 people. Let's throw a number out there in the in the your area of response. My response is I'm too plugged in. Well I guarantee you there's 17,000 people that are very happy I am plugged in. Okay So I don't know what to tell you about that. The other thing about being too plugged in or being, you know, full send and all that is that that scares people sometimes You know, it does. You know, especially if you came into an environment where you're new. You're the new guy and people are stri still trying to figure out figure you out and you come in and you're you you start Training a little bit harder than everybody, bringing some new things around. You're like, whoa, who's you know, people are like, whoa, who's this guy? What's what's his deal? He thinks he's better than me? You know what You know, this and that. And the fact of the matter is, you know, never be ashamed of your passion. You know, I've been told. Time and again that I don't know how this came about. I'm a YouTube firefighter, I'm a Facebook firefighter. Too big for me, bridges, something like that. And I guess my whole reaction to that is that okay, whatever, you know, fine. You go ahead and say say what you want to say, but I'm competent. I show up for work on time. I give a shit. And again, there are people that appreciate that I'm plugged in. As far as getting a buy-in, we talked about that before.

Speaker 5: Yeah. BJ Breacher: you know, not everybody is gonna have the same level. of buy-in as you are. And you just have to you have to understand that. And there are going to be people that are going to be intimidated by what you bring to the table and it may be because again, you're the new guy. You know, who's this guy I think he is? He's you know you know he needs to stay in his place. The other thing could be that your knowledge might be greater than they are and they don't want anything to do with you because they're going to look bad. You know, things like that. A question that was brought up on scrap 249 a couple weeks ago. the the guests brought up a question that was pitched to them that I've been kind of thinking about. And it was actually a pretty easy answer for me to to to come up. They said, you know, how do you get the the the veterans to buy in, the guys that have been there get into the crawl, walk, run mindset. My answer is pretty simple. You gotta crawl and then you gotta walk and then you gotta run. Okay? If you keep crawling once Once a year on a skill, you're just gonna keep crawling and you're not gonna develop those skills. Alright, crawl, show them how it's done Two, alright, we're gonna kind of put things in motion here, maybe add a tiny bit of stress with some difficulty and run. Hey man, we got a building, we're gonna smoke it up And you know, we're stretching the hose in or we're doing a search, we're gonna do window-based search, we're gonna bail in and do that. when you start seeing people come around and you start seeing people get it. That creates buy-in. People aren't blind to success. Okay. They'll see it. They may not admit it. They may not want to acknowledge that, hey, you know what? Those guys are training and they actually got pretty good, but I don't want to say anything because that makes me look like shit bag. Results don't lie. Results don't lie All you gotta do is work on that school, become better, be become more proficient, and it speaks for itself. So my advice would be do the work. Stop worrying so much about what everybody thinks about you because the results will speak for themselves.

Corley: Love it. I absolutely love it. I love this next question. This next question is coming from Taylor Hayes. Taylor Hayes has asked this question. I want to give a brief answer to the question, and then I'm gonna let BJ take his hit hit whatever direction he wants. But she wants Taylor, sorry, Taylor is asking, we all love fire training But can you get just as much out of a really good speaker too? And this is where I want to I want to just field this question first. We have to have a speaker with us today. Go ahead, Coral. You have the floor. I will say this is that I love speakers. I love I have I have stacks of notepads from the notes I have taken from speakers And I love a good speaker, a good presenter, and I try to learn from them and I try to emulate them and gain from them. But right now, I will say it on the record is that nothing beats live fire training and hands-on training, period. the best speakers in the world. Do not get me wrong. I love them. I take as much as I can from them. Nothing compares. I don't I I wanted to say it first and then let BJ go with it because he's the guest, but I wanted to say that right out the gate BJ, what's your take?

BJ Breacher: I I love it. You know, the I I go to a couple conferences and I get a lot out of them that are strictly, we're strictly speaking, you know, into the job symposium. Love going to Wichita. So much fun. And you know, you were there one year and we had some big names and and just getting the opportunity to hear some of the more experienced people talk about Skills, talk about culture, talk about things that happen on their side of the country or in their little corner of the world. You can get a lot from that. You know, let's not forget that that firefighting isn't all just physical, you know, getting in the gym and pulling hose and and throwing ladders and and all and drags and stuff like that. There's a mental component and there's a psychological component to that You know, and some of those things that you can learn, you know, and and put in the Rolodex up here and just mindset. you know, Rick George talking about breathing techniques. Okay, we don't have to be out on the fire ground to do that. You know, just talking about you know size up. I I tell you what, one of the the the best speeches I've ever witnessed. And I I you were there too, I believe, was in Cody Trestrail came up at into the job and just set the place on fire, man Oh my God. And he brought up some relative some relevant things. You know, you know, just talking about referencing the mindset and then waking people up that, hey, listen, man. We you know we were fresh off the Uvalde thing and him saying I still have it on video on my phone. I was like, let's go baby after he went, you know, but he was like, let's go throw some ladders You know, let's go. But I mean he was like, if you think that the fire service is gonna get away with something like happened down in Uvalde, You are sadly mistaken because it's coming and you better get ready. Yeah. Okay. And with that, I'm like, damn right it is. I mean, he showed a video at This past weekend in Michigan where there was a vehicle that was on fire. Okay, there was a van on fire. And There was the driver's head was outside the van and there was smoke coming out and the apparatus pulls up and three guys get off the rig and they're kind of dilly-dallying and hemming and hawing.

BJ Breacher: I'm like Okay, let's let's let's see some let's pick it up here because I I kinda have an idea what's gonna about to happen. Corley: Let's see some tempo. BJ Breacher: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Tempo. And they go around the corner and they never once Looked at that driver whose head was hanging out of the driver's side and the cops trying to pull him out. Okay. And those guys are more concerned with putting water on the fire in in the back driver's side corner I'm like dude all you gotta do is go down there and tell you guys just pull them out and then of course fire starts coming out and the poor guy catches on fire I mean stuff like that can motivate you, you know, either like, yeah, you're fired up, that's not going to happen, you walk away pissed off, or you can be like, okay, dude, I never want that to happen. I I I cannot be dilly-dally and coming off the rig like that. I gotta have my shit straight. I gotta have my game ready to go. I love the you definitely you definitely can take stuff. And of course, I mean to kind of wrap this up You know, and you have the sexiest man in the Wisconsin Fire Service, Nick Ladine, show up, you know, and talk numbers with us and pie charts and fire rescue survey. I mean, dude, you can take so much from all that information. We have so much data at our fingertips nowadays. So much, you know, that that You know, we I took so many things from the first this first the the church search and looking at some of those numbers I'm like okay This puts legitimacy to things that I like to do. This puts legitimacy to why we need to move faster on the fire ground. The numbers don't lie. There it is, you know. So yeah, you can get something from going to a conference. And the cool thing is if you go to Wichita, you can buy a beer and sit down and watch it happen.

Corley: So I like it. I like I like BJ's answer, man. He actually made me reassess my own answer in saying, I still say that there's not when it comes to tactical skills And actual taking the action, nothing beats hands-on. But there is the deal, too. You and I are football guys, right? BJ Breacher: Oh yeah. So I mean, when you go to training camp, what's the first thing you get? You get a playbook. Alright, you just don't run out there and like okay, we're gonna do a power to the right and leave it at that. No, we open that playbook up, we look at it, we analyze what we need to do, we analyze how we need to attack a certain position versus a certain front there's got to be that mental part to it too so yeah yeah you can definitely get something from just talking symposiums Corley: Great question, Taylor. Thank you for it. Great question, BJ. Carpe Fuego coming at you. Says, BJ, if you could go back in time and speak to Proby Breacher What advice would you give him, assuming that Proby Breacher would listen? BJ Breacher: My first thing would be, dude, why did you wait so long to get in the fire service? What the hell is wrong with you? That would be the first thing As I mentioned before, I think one of the things I would say to myself is listen. You love this job and that's awesome. And I'm so proud of you for finally finding something that you can really sink your teeth into, you know, and you're gonna have a great career, okay? But understand that not everybody's going to come to the table with the same passion and fire and desire to be the best you possibly can be as you do. So when you're working with people, make sure that you are a little patient with them. Make sure that you lower your level of expectations. But that you also let them know that, hey, listen, the job is is here. Okay, the job is here. You know, I'm not going to push you to here Okay, we're gonna we're gonna we're gonna get close to this. We're gonna eventually meet it. Okay. But and it's something that I've gotten better at over the past couple years I know there are people out there like, yeah, he needs to settle down.

BJ Breacher: My answer to some of those people is, well, you need up your game too. All right. So that's why I'm hard on you, because I expect more out of you. Okay? But I know that there are people out there that aren't at my skill level. They aren't at my fitness level. So I've got to back things up a little bit and kind of put it in a present it to them in a digestible form You know, there are people out there that don't run on the fire ground. There are people out there that don't run at all. Okay, regardless. And don't have a particular level of fitness. Okay, and I can't push those people the way that I might push myself or maybe push somebody that I know has got a particular skill set So to kind of wrap it up, I would tell myself, hey, just pay attention to your audience. give lots of hugs, you know, lots of pats on the back. But also make sure that you're not afraid to light a fire on their ass. Robert Mule said it said it best. You know, a pat on the back and a boot in the ass come from the same place. And I believe that.

Corley: I love it, man. And that's always I always go over good with firefighters. You say give them hugs. Like a bunch of tough firefighters all being tough. But it's the truth, man. It is absolutely the truth. And I love, hey You get max points for that one just for referencing Robert Mears and that. Great question from Amanda. Thank you. I'm looking here. I'm looking here. Carpi Fuego has another one I want to throw at you. BJ, top five fire conferences for hot BJ Breacher: Oh. Well, I I I gotta tell you, Great Lakes Hot, Sean and Alan and company have done an amazing job with with putting that conference together. Was this the third year? This is the third year, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I I've gotten to know Sean a little bit over the years because we're both search nerds and I picked his brain on some things and and I feel blessed that he has relocated from Florida up here. and we we've got some guys up here that bring some requisite knowledge with them but to get back after that that that conference has just exploded. The past two years we were at one location, you know, doing the training, and now we're at, I think there was like three locations this year. And the facilities were great. You know, I was at the the Southfield facility and boy that that facility kicked ass. There's there's no other way to put it. And it's a great location. and yeah, so that would be one. I'm going to say that as far as more hands-on stuff, FDIC man. Yeah. Go to FDIC. There's opportunities there. You know, all you have to do is look at at the list. And the usual suspects that are down there are our heavy hitters. You know, these are the people in the fire service that are making shit happen. Another one that I haven't done myself, but I heard nothing but good things about it. And I still am trying to get down there is you know fire department training network down in india guys just like dude you go down there you know whatever track you pick you're gonna you're gonna accumulate years of experience in about a week. You know, so I hear that all the time. I I still want to get down there and do that.

BJ Breacher: You know, as far as is other hot training. hey man, there's some good fools groups out there. Oh yeah. You know, look at your fools fools organizations and and and talk to those guys and see what they've got going on You know, being a fools member myself, that whole experience completely changed changed my ass, my look at the fire service and upped my game. So get in touch with local fools organizations, see what they got going on you know another really good one that that I I think is as surprisingly flown under the radar is down in ohio it's the the oathkeepers fire conference i went down there in 2019 And met some outstanding guys down there. You know, Ronnie and Ben and Frankie. And they had a search track and they had a they had an engine or truck and an engine track And you know, they brought some smoke, they brought some heat. And you know, Kyle was down there that year, and and I took I took so much away from that engine track day that I just Oh man, I cannot wait to start working on some of this stuff. So the that's in October. I'm not sure if that's sold out yet. That's when's down in Ohio.

Corley: I think Oathkeeper sells out like every every year, like within a day or within a year. BJ Breacher: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, Chris Gilpin and those guys have got a really cool thing going on down there. So, you know, that's that's another good one. Corley: Killer brother. BJ Breacher: Great. Corley: Great. What was I going to say? Great question again from Carpe Fuego. Now I wanted to get to a couple things I wanted to get to before and we're We're already running long, but I still want to get to them. And that is talking about expectations and standards, which we touched, we've hit on quite a bit throughout, but I still wanted to throw it out there and say expectations and standards Riff on it for a minute because I got some questions coming at you around that. Go ahead. Okay. BJ Breacher: All right. Well, in expectation expectations and standards, you know, they're they're two different things. As I mentioned before You know, achieving minimum standards and minimum standards, you know, minimum results on the fire ground. Corley: Right. BJ Breacher: Now that's right up there with check-in boxes. You know, you do it once a year, you threw a ladder great Okay, that doesn't create well it does create a standard, but in my opinion, if that if you're only doing it once a year, okay, you're not you're creating a very poor standard. Okay, and what you're doing is you're lowering expectations I think that you know minimum standards, it's it's a how do I put this it's a necessary evil, of course, but my thing is minimum standards Should be kind of like that baseline. Okay, we we we know that this particular individual can throw a 24-foot ladder. That's great, that's fine. Alright, so everybody knows how to throw a ladder now What we're going to do in a couple weeks is we're going to do a scenario where we're going to do a window-based search. And then what we're going to do is we're going to make this individual grab a ladder off the rig And we're going to put a little bit of stress on it. We're going to have you run uphill because you know the house has got a is up on a little bit of a hill. You're carry that 24 And you're going to plant it in a front yard, okay? And that A-side has got a bunch of hedges in front of it.

BJ Breacher: And what we're going to do is we're going to have somebody in that window on the A-side, second floor, screaming. Okay That creates skill and raises a standard. Training should not be about, and we're going back to checking boxes here and all that. Training. Full circuit. Should be about moving the needle and raising the bar, not about checking boxes. Corley: Nice. BJ Breacher: Raising the standards and expectations. That not only what you have of yourself and not only what the department has of you, but the people you protect, people you serve. I've said this many other times I think that if we were to sit down and have an open and honest conversation with the people that we serve, Okay? And the people that we serve for whatever reason, let's say we had some type of digital readout, okay, and they were actually able to look at not just our certificates, because I could throw a piece of paper at you, and that doesn't mean shit Okay, so your fire one big deal. Okay, you that's just your cover charge to get in the party. Okay, big deal. But what are you gonna do once you get into the party? Okay, but that being said, if if People could see what we're actually capable of, what we've done, where our heart is at, all that stuff, where our mind is at. I think there's a lot of people that we serve that would be disappointed and walk away like, what the hell You know, I I thought that you were is supposed to be like bare for me and you're able to throw a ladder by yourself and and you're coming for me and all that, but I come to find out that you only go to training you know, twice every six months and and you know you you know you you don't you don't train at all when you're at the station. You eat like shit. You you you don't keep up on your skills. You know, and I think honestly, on the flip side of that, there would be some of us in the fire service like, whoa, what are you so mad about? I've got the t-shirt, I've got the pager. I ride in the big shiny fire truck, I'm there for you. Thank me for my service You know, and I think that's garbage.

BJ Breacher: But the caveat to that is I don't think that there's a lot of people out there, especially the young people, that realize that there is a standard beyond that minimum standard that is expected of us. And that's why sometimes there are some people in the fire service that are disliked because they know that there is a particular expectation that the people that we serve place upon us. And we realize that and we push people a little bit harder and a little bit farther than what they're used to on Check the box night or minimum standards. And you and they they look at you, oh, this guy's an asshole because you know he, you know, he He's disappointed in me because I couldn't pull somebody out of the writ box and that's a little too advanced and we shouldn't be doing that. You know, the The standards need to be established beyond minimum standards. And I'll never ever back down from that Unless you've got some really kick-ass standards. If you have some really high standards, good on you. Good on you, man. And the other thing about standards, when you raise those standards, is and this might seem kind of cruel, but you're gonna lose people, but you're also gonna keep good ones.

Corley: Right. BJ Breacher: Okay. I'm a little We're gonna poke a bear again here. We're gonna talk about elephant in the corner of the room, but I think we're at a at a a place in the fire service where we're so hurting right now for manpower, whether it be paid or volunteer where we're bringing these people in and we're like okay they can't hit the minimum standard so we're just gonna lower it a little bit so they attain that And again, I think we're doing a tremendous disservice to those people by painting this fake picture, this facade of what's going to be expected of them when we go to a fire, when we've got to do an extrication. Okay, we can't be lower in standards just so we can put asses in the seats and lockers or gears and lockers. Sure, it looks great. But you know, I've done this before. I've gone, I've gone in, you know, where I've whether I'm teaching at some place or I've even gone through my own station, like, okay, so we got 40 people here at this department. Okay, we got 40, but well, we really don't have 40 people at this department. We have 40 lockers full of gear. And of those 40 gear, the first 40 lockers that are full of gear I think I've seen, well, I'll just say it. Maybe eight of them are worth anything. Okay, because I they've been here, they've been training, I talk to them, I know what they're up to. And then maybe there's a handful of them that I haven't seen in months. You know, and again, it looks good. It looks good to the chief, it looks good to politicians. But why do we have to fight hire full-time firefighters? Look at all the people in these lockers we got full. You know, things like that. It's a facade. You know, it it paints a picture that's not necessarily true. And if we raise our standards and some people like, you know what, I can't do this. I've been in a situation before we've had people come to either of my departments, you know, and they're going through their quote unquote minimum standards or or they've got their their their task book that they have to check off. Okay. And they're just like, you know, I I can't get this.

BJ Breacher: This is too much. And I've been in a situation where I've worked with people. Hey man, you know what? Let's back it off. Let's do some baby steps here. Okay. We've got this this prop at Verona called the tunnel of love and basically what it is it's a wire box. You get a crawl through it. Okay. And there's been a couple guys that just had a lot of trouble with it Right. Okay, okay, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna back it up here. Okay, and all you're gonna do is we're gonna take that pack off of you. We're gonna have you in your gear, no masks, and we're gonna go through you and help go through it and help you with that Okay, but there's been plenty of guys like they go through it once or twice and they're just like, you know, I can't do it. And then they come to the realization that you know what this just isn't for me. And that's fine. That that's good. Because I would rather have somebody with me Okay, that I don't want somebody in the back of the rig with me that that is just sticking around. Right. And not they don't know what the hell they're doing because that's dangerous.

Corley: Absolutely. BJ Breacher: That's dangerous. For them and for you. Absolutely for everybody. I would rather them come to me and say, I I can't do this, man. I I just I can't. I know you tried to help me. This is just not working for me. This is not for for me. Great. That's fine. However When we've raised the standards, we've let people know, hey, this is what we expect of you. And if you're gonna be part of this department, this is the benchmark you gotta hit All right. And I've been in instances in departments where one department has set a standard and those guys like, okay, well, if I want to be on this department, this is the benchmark I got to reach. And they've done a tremendous job at hitting that. It might have taken them a little bit longer Where I've had other departments where, well, we'll keep you around and we'll work with you and it kind of disappears after a couple of months and then they have their gear and the next thing you know, they're in the back of the rig with you. And I'm like, hey, this This guy here isn't even checked off on pulling lines and he's backstepping with me. You know, so you know To have standards, you're gonna weed out people. Okay, and every successful organization has not backed down from that. And I would rather, again, like I said, have people like this is not for me and back out Rather than just have somebody hang around because it's detrimental to our bottom line.

Corley: Love it. And it transitions great into the final topic before I get into the wrap-up. But no one coming at you, he wants to know, and because this is right in line with what we're gonna talk about anyway, when it comes to expectations Would your set of expectations discipline differ for a volley slash combo house compared to a full-time house If yes, how so when why? So basically going into the challenges of a combination and letting you field that question. BJ Breacher: Well that that's that's a tricky situation because again, as I mentioned before, first and foremost, you cannot expect everyone to have the same buy and the same standards that you do Okay, so you get you get a group of you know 20 people together, it's like herding cats. You know, not everybody is gonna be at the same level as you whether it be skill level, desire, passion, all that. However There are rules to this game. Okay? I don't care whether you're a volunteer or whether you you are a paid career guy You know, there are certain things that are expected of us, and there are some departments that are very good at saying, listen, this is where you need to get to. And if you're not going to get to that, then we're going to have some problems You know, and I applaud any department that says, no, we're not going to waver on this. This is the expectation of us. And this is what we want from you, and this is what our people expect. And again, I kind of circling back to putting asses in seats and gears, gears in locker, we have to come forward with that. And that's not being an asshole. That's just saying this is the line in the sand that we've established. And if you want to be a viable part of this department, this is where you need to be. Now If we're looking at the Bali side, I know again we're going. There's there's a numbers problem in America. and and You know, there are chiefs and organizations that will lower that just to have numbers. You know, just to have numbers. But I'll be honest with you, you know, I'd rather show up with Four, I'm sorry, I'd rather show up with three guys on a rig that know what the hell they're doing and can get after it than a full crew of four And another rig pulling up behind me, and they're not up to the standard.

BJ Breacher: They don't know what the hell they're doing. And somebody had mentioned meaning once, well, I'd I'd rather have a bunch of guys on there that can point out and tell them to do things What makes you think that those people are going to understand what you're asking them to do? Right. Okay. If I'm telling somebody who is part of that Lowered the bar group. Hey listen, can you go to the back? I want you to grab a hook and I want you to grab a can. I'm pretty sure that person Probably doesn't know what a can is. Maybe he doesn't. Okay, can what? What do you want what do you want can or what? You know and and may not even know how to use that. Right. Okay. I don't have time to sit there and go, okay, well listen here, you gotta pull the pen out and put it down like this. Right. I don't have time and neither of us have time to babysit people on a fire ground. And it seems harsh and and it seems a bit cold. But There's some shit going down and this could very well be life or death. You know, this is why I kind of have a problem with with people sometimes when they say, you know, and and I know we're this is kind of going on the volunteer side of things Okay, but you know this is my hobby. I don't know man. I don't know man being in somebody's living room at two o'clock in the morning doing compressions Because they've had a heart attack? You tell me how you're how the this is a hobby for you? Okay, when I'm pumping on somebody's chest and I get a family member screaming and crying in the back Okay. And they they they're they're wedged between a toilet and and and a bathtub because that's where they always fall. All right. And we're trying to pull them out of this small room into the living room because we we need room to work That ain't a hobby. Good lord, man. You need to find some different hobbies if this because hobbies are supposed to be a way to Decompress and enjoy yourself and I love my job. Okay, but it it's a little more than a hobby.

Corley: Right on. BJ Breacher: So we kind of bring it back. There is particular expectations We're coming back to expectations and standards again. There are some expectations that go beyond this being a hobby. And I know that that on the volunteer side People don't have an exorbitant amount of hours. I get that. Society is different than what it used to be. But here we go again. We're going to talk about the elephant in the corner of the room. And I I mean this. I'm not being disrespectful. Okay, but I've been around this conversation a number of times. And there are some bang up volunteer firefighters out there I know that there's the crowd out there that there's like, I'd rather have some volunteer firefighters in the back of my rig than some full-time guys. Dude, I'm with you on that. I'm totally with you on it There are some guys out there that I would love to have in the back of the rig with me versus some shit-baked full-timers that I've worked with. Okay? But there's this thing, this weird thing where We expect we we we get in a situation we try to expect a little bit more out of our volunteers okay and the and I've heard it myself From some people, well, I'm just a volunteer. You know, I I can't give you that amount of time. Okay, I get that. That's a thing You know, I can't expect you if we're trying to step things up in our service by having you become an EMT. Okay, that's some significant time away from your job, your family, whatever. I get that. I totally get that. Okay, but if you're willing to put that time in, kudos, dude. You can ride backwards with me anytime you want. Okay. But the other side of that argument is when we say, well You know, we we need to get more here at the department from our people for A, B, and C. Well, maybe we should we should ask more of them. Oh, we can't, they're just volunteers. And the response is I am not just a volunteer. I do the same job that you do And I don't mean this disrespectfully, but my question to you is, do you do the same job that I do? You know, are you putting in the extra hours of study?

BJ Breacher: You know, are you are you going to these conferences on the weekend? Okay. I'm telling you right now, there are guys that I go to these conferences that are volunteer guys. There were a handful of guys that were at the forceful entry getting after it that were volunteers. You know, and and and they're bang up firefighters. And I've worked with plenty of volunteer guys that I would, well, again, like I said, I love to have them in the back of the room. And I train these guys. Right, right. When we're talking about the skills acquisition and volunteer versus career, we have to watch our work You know, Aaron Fields isn't the only one that says words matter. Okay, we need to pay attention to what we're saying. We need to understand that. We need to be careful. Corley: I love it, brother. And and the thing is, is you can't define the volunteers. how do I want to say this? you can't define because your your amount of being plugged in is awesome and and the pa and That's what I always tell people. I have such a colored, a rose-colored tint to all my interaction with the fire surface because I go to conferences and tea And then I meet the baddest ass motherfuckers that come to learn. You know what I'm saying? So that's my my my perception of the American Fire Service. That's all of them, you know what I mean? And that's not the truth of it is I see the best of the best of the best, volunteer and career. But and so it's hard to judge either side by the best or the worst. It's the the mean, the average. And that's what most people are dealing with. So great, great answer to a great, great problem. Which transitions me to one of my favorite questions I ask, because you know me. If you could see the off-camera, how many books I have it looks like a hoarder conditions off camera from the sheer number of books. But Book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. Doesn't have to be firefighter books, but I I love this question. Sure. Sure

BJ Breacher: So I'm going to throw a firefighting book out there right away. And before I begin, you know, I used to be a little bit of a reader. but Coralie, since I've started you know following the the scrap and listening to people talk and throwing out ideas with books, you've really sparked refueled my interest in reading. You know, it's almost where it's a problem. I'm a grazer when it comes to reading. So like I'll start on a book and I'll put it down for a couple weeks and pick up another book and then I'll be, oh hey, you know what? I need to get back. So that's my problem, but thank you. So I'm gonna reference one firefighting book and it's Mastering the Craft. Ooh, Rothbard with Jeff Rothmeyer. I've had the opportunity to chat with Jeff and train under him. And what I love about this book is it's it's a firefighter book. written by a firefighter, which those are out there, but there's just, I don't know, he just seems to come across differently. It's just a different vibe to it. It's a good book among among a lot of different good books. Speaker 5: Yes.

BJ Breacher: This one just speaks to me. And maybe it's because of the fact that it's it's there's a lot of search stuff in it. but just a lot of frontline fire firemanship that takes place so I I really like that book. And I remember when I first got it, my girlfriend's like, you're gonna run out of that yellow marker. Because I'm just highlighting so much stuff. And I'm like, yeah, well, you know, whatever But it it's a it's a fantastic book and and I'd I'd I'd recommend it to anybody and everybody. Corley: No, his whole concept on friction and and translating the battleground, all of it, man. I love it. Yeah, absolutely killer. I got to see him speak up in what Washington. finally got to meet him and see him speak. It was amazing. Amazing. Go ahead. Sorry. BJ Breacher: Solid dude. Solid dude. All right. So another book that kind of helps with mindset and just, I don't know, operating life. The subtle art of not giving a fuck. Okay. Okay. Now the when you first grab this book, you might have just a preconceived notion of what this book is about. But just to kind of tie it up, the book itself is just stating that in life we only have time for so many bucks Okay. and that we should be paying very close attention to where we place our fucks. And that is going to help us get the most out of our life in general. Love that. So it's it it's it's again it wasn't what I thought it was gonna be. But it it's a great book.

Corley: And it's got the shock jock title. BJ Breacher: It's got the reference title. I saw that I saw it at a I was going down to see my brother in Florida and I wanted to get a good read for the flight and I saw that. I'm like, yeah, I'm grabbing that one. And was pleasantly surprised. Corley: Well marketed. BJ Breacher: Yeah. The next book, this is kind of a fun book. I bought this a while ago. And I always go back to it every now and then. But it's a fun read. It's Shit my dad says. I see a theme here. So the the premise behind this book is the guy that wrote this Justin Helpern. He was in a long-distance relationship. He's kind of getting his life going. And he and he had a girlfriend that lived farther away. Well. . Long story short, he got a job out by for by his girlfriend, was headed out to the East Coast or West Coast, whatever, everything was going great. Well, he gets in, he gets there, his girlfriend basically dumps him So he's like, oh, that sucks. Well, if things couldn't get worse, he didn't get the job after all. Oh damn. So what he ended up doing was he ended up moving back in with his dad. And what he decided to do was basically write down and put together a collection of these little nuggets that his dad would save. And just to kind of, I guess this this says it best, it goes you know, after being dumped by his longtime girlfriend, 28-year-old Justin, a helpern found himself living at home with his 73-year-old dad, Sam. Who is like Socrates, but angrier and with worse hair. So, you know, and some of the things that he says, like you know, this little nugget, here he goes, that woman was sexy. you know, out of your league? Son, women figure out why they won't screw you Don't do it for them. Okay, just things like that. Just like another one here on chivalry he said you know he's having a conversation with with with with his son and he's like give your mother the front seat and then as re and then it doesn't say what the conversation Well what the author said, but you can imagine. and his dad's reply is I don't give a shit if she said you could have it.

BJ Breacher: That's what she's supposed to do, and you're supposed to say, No, I insist You think I'm going to drive around with my wife in the back seat and a nine-year-old in the front? You're a crazy son of a bitch. Okay, so there's just neat little quirks in there where you're like, shit, my dad's Right, but that's shit my dad says. so yeah just it it's it's just a fun read. I like it. I hadn't heard that one. Yeah, it's a good time. you know, some other I guess motivational books that I've read and I jotted them down here because I got an audio book. and I'm just gonna read them off here winning by Tim S. . Grover and removement by Tim S. Grover. That's those are two really good reads if you're not familiar with those books, Tim kind of Tim was a guy who was found out he wasn't gonna you know become a professional basketball player, so he became a trainer And worked his way up where he would he had the audacity to send a yeah, there you go. Yep, he had the audacity to send a letter to the Chicago Bulls And basically Michael Jordan, he was looking for clients, the Chicago Bulls. And the last person that he figured that would get that letter was the person that got it, and it was Michael Jordan. And you know, I'm not a big basketball guy, but I recognize these characters. And he he goes in and talk about you know training with Michael Jordan. Charles Barclay. he's you know All these big level basketball players and just getting in the minds of these successful guys, what they did to get to the upper echelon. of their of their their field. It talks a lot about Kobe Bryant. Bryant Kobe. Quite a bit. So and and after those two books, again, not being a big basketball guy I had a whole new respect and insight on both Michael Jordan, excuse me, and Kobe Bryant and Dwayne Wade and Charles Barclay.

Corley: It seems like everybody knows those names, even if you're not into basketball, you know, those are highly successful. BJ Breacher: Right. Another book that I really really enjoyed recently was We've Got Issues. And that's by Dr. Phil. Oh really? I know there's a lot of people out there that think Dr. Phil is kind of a quack or a Hollywood doctor for you know celebrity or whatever and don't give him a lot of credibility but it's worth a read especially when you're especially in today's day and age let's put it that way just some some things to to to consider And the final the final book that I'm going to suggest to people that was just really fun to listen to was we've got, I'm sorry, I just mentioned we've got issues, but be useful Seven Tools for Life by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, really? I just stumbled upon it. I'm a big Pat McAfee fan And he just happened to be on the show one day talking about his book. I'm like, and I happened to have a couple extra credits in my audible. So I'm like, I'll give it a shot. And I did the the the audible version where I could listen to audiobook And the fun part was it's him. Okay, so it's it's the governor, you know, talking to you, but he's like actually having a conversation. It sounds like he's having a conversation with you And he he brings up his success his successes, his failures. You know, if you fought you know anything about Al Schwarzenegger, he's like the American dream, man. You know, he he came from nothing and he had a goal and he worked his way up to where he wanted to be. And he and he's there and he's just kind of going back and looking at it. He talks about You know, his childhood, he talks about his dad, he talks about all the things that help him to get to where he is. And again, it's cool to be in the other, you know, the other room and like, oh, come on, do it now. Aye, aye, aye, aye, you know,

Corley: This is this is my dictionary and my my horse Lulu and you know but anyways it's nice nice Arnold invitation brother very well done very well done Hey, and everybody, there's the books according to BJ Breacher. And someone asked in there, Gary Arb52001 asked about a book list for all the guests. Yes, it does exist. If you go to firehousevigilance. com And click on the drop down menu. You can click on suggested reading and every guest And all of their books that they suggested is in that. There's it's the first version that was done by me. There's a second version that was done up to, I want to say, from like episode 68 to 157 was done by volunteers that that put it together. And now currently McGinn is putting together a spreadsheet that has them all in one place, which we will eventually add to the list But yes, it does exist there. So and BJs will be added because again, great, great additions to the list, which takes us to one of my absolute favorite parts of every scrap we do, which is the five questions for firefighters. If you've listened to the scrap, you know it is, there are no right answers. It is strictly your opinions. The points are arbitrary. They're passed out by me with the help of the audience. And so my question for you, BJ Breacher, is are you ready for the five questions for firefighters? Versions, I think we're on 3. 4, 3. 3, that area. Let's do it, man. All right. All right. I'm pulling them up. After 251 episodes, you think I have them memorized, but here we go. What is the skill? That has carried you through your fire service career.

BJ Breacher: I'm going to say passion. It's not necessarily skill, but it is an attribute. and and I I know it's a pretty common answer, if I remember correctly, Chief Isaacson said it last week. But the thing about passion is if you have passion for something, you will you will deal with all the other stuff Okay, you will deal with all the the BS that goes along. You will you will you will tolerate host testing, you know, if you have passion for the fire service you will deal with some of the things that aren't necessarily on the top of the list of things that you like to do. And I look at passion as kind of like a root system. You know, your tree. Okay, those roots got to be as big as a tree to hold it up. And and that passion gives gives birth to so many other things. So if you have that passion, Everything else falls into place. Corley: I love that answer, brother. And again, like you said, it's a common answer, but it's a common answer because the people I bring on the scrap, as a general rule, are people that other people want to emulate. And so they share common traits. And so that that commonality, though, that root system is common. And so I love the answer, man. Passion. I love the quote, higher for passion and higher for passion and intensity. We can teach you everything else. Yeah, that that's true. That is very, very true. So I love the answer. Max points right out the gate. Easy. Number two, it's job town. It's time. You are responding and in route. You got to imagine that scene from backdraft where McCaffrey's jumping on the rig and that engineer slaps that cassette into the tape deck. What song are you playing in route?

BJ Breacher: I had to think about this a little bit. I'm I'm I'm a music guy. I'm a recovering musician, I tell everybody. I love it. Corley: but I I give a lot of I gotta ask before I'm interrupting. You're a recovery musician. What what's your instrument of choice? Bass. Bass and lead vocals. Oh yeah. I love it. I love it. Okay. I mean I played for my own. What's that? I'm gonna have to hear some recordings at some point. BJ Breacher: Well they're they're all I know they exist, so go ahead. Back to the question. okay, so the the song that I would choose. I'm I'm a country music guy but I grew up in the 90s man so I've got exposure to that that alt movement and all that, but I'm gonna say microphone fiend. now the thing about the version that it was originally done by hip-hop group Eric B. and Rock Kemp. Okay. Okay. But it was covered by Rage Against the Machine on the Renegades album. So that version is the one that's bumping through my head when I'm on the way to Jobtown. It's got a cool groove to it, you know, E-F F E C T smooth operator operating correctly You know, that's that whole vibe of, you know, we're moving with purpose. We're being nice and smooth. We got a good vibe, and we're gonna get shit done.

Corley: Ooh, I love it. I love I love the interpretation. So I love Rage Against the Machine So Morello is one of the yeah, my multi-favorite. Yeah. Absolutely. Number three, what is so max points two for two, just so you know. Number three, what is your favorite fire service tradition? BJ Breacher: Dude, I love the bit the pipes, pipes and drums, man. it's always a very moving experience for me to hear them And I know that a lot of times when we hear the the the the pipes and drums, it's an unfortunate situation. However You know, if you're ever down to FDIC, you know, they pop up all over the place and you stop and you take it in. Speaker 5: Yeah. BJ Breacher: And just man, you hear that intake stops what they're doing. Speaker 5: Yeah BJ Breacher: Yep, and then that roll, boom, it's just like a wave. And I think for me, the the the the pipes and and and the drums remind me because there's a history behind that Okay, there's a history of you know the pipes and the drums and in the kilt and all that, you know. If you look at the history, you know, being a firefighter was a job that was relegated to people lower in the social status. Yes you know Irish immigrants and stuff like that And it turned into this thing that people wanted to have at funerals because it meant something, whether they were Irish or Scottish or whatever. Okay, but that being said, this is a a tradition that has gone on forever. And it reminds me that I'm part of something that is so much bigger than myself. I'm just a little little piece in a timeline that is present in the fire service. And I'm only here for a little bit. And there are so many people that have come before me. I'm standing on the shoulders of people that are standing on the shoulders that are people standing on the shoulders on the shoulders. You know what I'm talking about? Yes. That's why I'm moved when I when I hear that. That's I I absolutely love the pipes and drums, man.

Corley: Hold on, I got a timestamp the middle of the five questions. Hold on. Pipes and drums. And I want you to know, last time we saw each other in person. was at the fool's bash and we only got to like briefly hug each other because the pipes and drums were stomping through there and everybody was standing around doing this right here with their hats off. And it was just it was just amazing, powerful moment. So BJ Breacher: It was it was absolutely a powerful moment. And it never it never gets old. Corley: Yeah. No. Dude, I love that. Three for three. Max points from BJ Breacher on the clock. Number four. You got one minute to answer. Yep. Who are who are no qualifiers? Who are the four people you would put on your Mount Rushmore of the fire service? BJ Breacher: All right, now before we get before we begin, I'm keeping this local, all right, because these people had direct contact with me. So in no particular order, number one, JD Desharm Number two, Dustin Roder. Number three, I'm going to say Sean Duffy. And number four, I would not be here today If it were not for Rich Heller. so yeah, there you go.

Corley: Brother. 26 seconds, even with like a seven-second qualifier. at the beginning doucharm rotor duffy heller brother killer killer and you qualified with why you were keeping it local dude i absolutely love the love the answer And hopefully they will hear this and be as honored as they should be. Final question. Four for four max points, by the way. So no pressure on number five. But there's heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on that VES? BJ Breacher: you know, because I know there's a lot of people out there that know me that know what the answer is going to be. you know, I I will say this. The the heart of the modern fire service belongs to extinguishment culture Okay. But the soul belongs to search. So if I'm giving that that opportunity to one or another We're doing VES man. We're throwing that ladder and we're heading up the ladder. We're going in, we're getting after it. We're getting after it. We're doing that search, baby. Corley: Dude, I love it. I love the answer. I love the fact that you qualify with the heart is extinguishment. The soul is search. Absolutely killer answer. And that officially makes it five for five max points And that officially makes it 251 scraps in the books. And absolutely everybody's agreeing with the max points. I was completely absorbed, but 251 in the books. My brother BJ Breacher. If people want to get a hold of you, what is the best way to do so?

BJ Breacher: I'm on the book of faces That's the only social media platform that I do. Just Google me BJ Breacher or find it, whatever. I'm not easy or I'm I'm not difficult to find Send me a tech send me a message. I'll try to get back to you as soon as possible. yeah, that's that's the best way to get a hold of me. Corley: Killer. Love it. Vigilantes Hey, we're on Patreon. It's a blast. If you're not a vigilante, go become one because we have meetups. We have fun. It's awesome. We are a group of like-minded souls. We are never alone Go become one, firehousevigilance. com. let me see what I'm trying. We will see if I yeah, blah, the scrap after party will be right after the scrap is over. Only vigilante is get to be a part of it. BJ Breacher: Vigilante number 47 right here, baby. Number 47, right in front of your naked steaming eyes Corley: But in the after party, we get to go we get to go roast number 47. We get to go roast him for his performance on the scrap. Of course we never do, and he's well aware. But let me let me get through the housekeeping. Next week, Brian LaFleur coming up, followed by Michael Horton. And then none other than Rich Stack. So boom, boom, boom. Coming up. 252, 253, 254 are going to be amazing. 2024 is going to continue in style. Sam is posting the scrap after party link as we speak. And BJ has agreed to come and be roasted. So all that being said, audience, as always, I cannot thank you enough for showing up. And asking great questions, throwing softballs to the to the guest, throwing hard balls to the guest, throwing hard and fast and curveballs. You guys make the scrap magical and i can never thank you enough so thank you for being here week in and week out you make the scrap what it is bj thank you for sharing your evening with us You're very welcome. I'm honored to be here. Everybody, remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning.

Speaker 5: Everybody, stay safe out there.