Weekly Scrap #313 - Curt Isakson, Back to School Special

Corley: I get asked all the time, what is a vigilante? What does it mean to be a vigilante? And so to explain that, I'm just gonna kind of explain where the vigilantes came from. When I started the group, I honestly thought there was gonna be like 10 or 20 people who really liked the scrap. That would want to be part of the behind the scenes, helping pick out the guests and make the questions and things. And I never dreamed that the vigilantes would grow into what it has grown into. Over 700 like-minded souls If you're a vigilante, you are never alone. We have members from across the country. We have members from across the globe. And it's just amazing what it's become. If you're in there, then you get to be in the Discord, and the Discord is where we do all of our dis Discussions and people go live and they talk and they ask questions and we have a channel for bitching and moaning for presenting classes. It's just it's amazing the fellowship that is involved in being a vigilante. And it's not just that, there's so many other benefits You get access to the Vigilante only swag shop. You get the 15% discount on all merch from Firehouse Vigilance. You get the after parties. You get the Vigilante get togethers when we're all at the same place and we get together and we raise a glass and do a toast and have the vigilante creed. You get the vigilante coin when you hit your one year anniversary with your number. The fireaways, the forums, the archives, all those corely projects that are coming that that you get to be a part of and get to be behind the scenes on, it's grown into something bigger than I ever imagined. And I want people to know about, I want people to be a part of. If you're not a vigilante, why not? I don't know. I don't know how how big it could be. I don't know. I mean the vigilantes are are where the work is at. They're the ones who are getting stuff done and it's phenomenal to be a part of it. I wanted to get on here and explain where it started, how it, how it came to be, and ask you if you're not a vigilante, why not? It go to Patreon.

Corley: That's where you sign up. It is $5 a month. I mean, it's you can't even get a cup of coffee for that anymore. Five bucks a month, and you get to be a part of this unbelievable group. Go to patreon. com Sign up, become a vigilante, and I will see you on the Discord. Speaker 2: In the demanding world of firefighting. Training against real-world scenarios is crucial, yet traditional training facilities often fall short in providing realistic, versatile, and cost-effective training solutions Affordable Drill Towers presents a groundbreaking solution. By positioning an affordable drill tower alongside your existing ComX boxes, burn buildings. A realm of realistic, multi-level training scenarios is unlocked. This integration has been adopted successfully by various fire departments, enhancing their training capabilities exponentially. Delve into the heart of live fire training scenarios within the connex boxes, now amplified by the ADT's multi-floor access, providing an unparalleled training ground. Corley: We started looking at connex boxes about probably ten years ago. To me you can't beat them especially for the price. The affordable drill tower was the same way. We've got six floors, we've got standpipes on every floor, we've got More anchor points than you can count. We've got removable floors, removable stairs. We can go into the second and third floor off the drill tower. So whether you want us use it as an external stairwell or a high rise, we can do all that and mimic just about any type of situation that the members of our fire department might encounter.

Speaker 2: Experience cost-effectiveness, enhanced realistic training, versatile operations, easy multi-floor access and innovative solutions to age-old training challenges. Take your fire department's training to the next level with affordable drill towers. Reach out to Affordable Drill Towers to elevate your training capabilities today. Corley: Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 313. My guest tonight is Kurt Isaacson And to say that I am amped up for this episode is a wild understatement. It is Chief Ike back once more on the scrap, and I am excited. May 21st, 1988. That's when he got his first set of bunker gear. And now we fast forward a very freshly retired after a very long career at Escambia County, a very long fire service career overall. He is county fire tactics and has been making a huge impact on the fire service nationally and internationally through his conferences for more than a decade. He is a world-renowned public speaker and educator, author, and these are just some of the highlights of the things he has been involved in. On a personal note, he has been an inspiration to me and is one of the reasons that Firehouse Vigilance even exists. So this is his sixth appearance on the scrap, and I could not be more ready. Welcome to the scrap once more, Kurt Isaacson, my brother, for episode number 313. And I'm not sure where Kurt went You said I had five minutes. No. We're live, my brother.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Okay, I thought you had to play some promo video or something. Corley: It's all done, and we are you are kicking it Okay. You are all introduced. Is there anything you would like to add to the introduction? Chief Kurt Isaacson: no, I'm just Damn fucking excited to be here. I mean I'm gonna use more cuss words tonight because I'm not allowed to really I'm not supposed to use four-letter words when I speak because of the way my dad trained me, but I'm not teaching tonight And I think everybody was warned that this might not be kid appropriate. But I'm just excited, man, after a three-year battle with depression and confusion, anxiety and stress and just a a new fresh open mind. you know Currently retired from active duty, you know, assigned to a fire department with a 56-hour work week. I have not my 100% focus now. You know, obviously first and foremost is Jessica the kids but CFT I've never ever been able to just fully focus on CFT from top to bottom. In fact I just flew in this afternoon. I actually flew there and flew back to Memphis to make sure I was back for this scrap. And just before we started scrap, actually the CFT team was backing in the big trailer. They drove to Memphis. So great trip. Taught two days ago all day lectures. Some chiefs from the city of Memphis, the the the chiefs at West Memphis put the thing on and It was just, it was phenomenal, it was exciting, it was exhilarating after months of not speaking to get to speak to a bunch of firefighters from Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi We had a casino hotel, had a brand new six-story. And right off the bat, we had a failure of the stamp pipe system, complete failure, blew a riser line it was crazy. and then my buddy Daniel Mills used to be a lieutenant liner twelve. He's now battalion chief of Destin. His last shift, two o'clock in the morning. They got called to a high-rise condominium with a riser blew up and flooded three floors of economium high-rise. it's less than 20 years old and the salt air took the bolts where it clamps the riser together and blew and the entire high-rise stamp pipe system was out of service

Corley: Just draining right there on those floors. Woo! Yeah. Now we're excited. Chief Kurt Isaacson: And we you know we had we had five system failures out of 10 years at HRock. And the Hilton's let was less than 20 years old. So we talked about that in Memphis. We went by 750 Adams Avenue the other night, which April 11th, 1994, you know, very intimate with that fire. you know, the when it happened. you know, I studied it significantly. My dad being, you know, serving in the Air Force, Korean conflict, Vietnam. When I got my first set of bunker here on May 21st, 1988. It was the Hackensack fire was the first fire that my dad made me study via Kramer versus Kramer, working fire, there were VHS tapes that came out every month. So my whole career dating back to nineteen eighty eight is If there's if there's only one thing you study, you always study line of duty death. So to pay my respects and go to 750 Adams Avenue night before No, it was last night. last night was a big deal, you know, the alarm activation and and and I don't second guess them. I mean a lot of stuff I do is because I don't want to disrespect those that paid the price and are six feet under. But for anybody that's not familiar with it, alarm activation or arrival 14-story building. Nothing showing. They did like they always did, a group of firefighters, engine seven, and them got in the elevator. They had their H3 quarter host packs No big deal to ride. The elevator opens up on the ninth floor and it's lights out. And it was stuck on the ninth floor. So, you know, just a quick nuggets starting right off the scrap. No matter what you're doing, when you get on an elevator, you need to know where the closest stairwells are in that building. So if that happens to you, you have an idea where to go to get to a stairwell. Much less, you know, we all know, you know, you know, we know because of these incidents. to get off two floors below. you know, don't ride the elevator to the floor that the innuptiator panel says that it's activated because there's you know smoke and that sort of thing. So And that fire was only three years after the one meridian plaza fire with the PRV valves and 36 gallons a minute.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: But I want to get into that a little bit later tonight because the first HROC, my full thing on the brochure was about my education as a fire inspector and arson investigation school that I went to right after the fire academy, you know, over 30 years ago And I said it in 2013. I wrote it in a letter or the opening thing for the conference that the worst high-rise fires have yet to happen in this country. And since then there's been some real bad ones around the world. Brent Brooks from Toronto is actually down in Chile right now doing some training. So you know, we closed out HRock after 10 years, and it's closed, but I'll make an announcement now. A year from this November will be H-Rock International And HROC used to just be three days. Tuesday, Wednesday was lecture, Thursday was hands-on. But HROC International will be a full five days with three days of hands-on options Or for Chiefs, they could just take five days of lecture, but we're going to be bringing in people from all over the world. Spain, you know, obviously the London Fire Brigade, guys like Gerard Mann out of Australia And Brooks is leading that up. He's heading it up because we we got a lot of work to do because we're going to see more and more system failures where we're gonna have to know how to do these vertical rope stretches modified fixed fire protection systems off of our static hose beds because Destin's just had two failures, you know, of systems. They didn't have a fire. Well they actually did have a fire. They had an electrical fire, burn up an entire, you know, panel. But just like you know yesterday that that six story parking garage where they've already had two working car fires in that parking garage, it's only a couple of years old and and the system blew right off the bat as soon as we charged it

Corley: Dang. We're already started. We are already started. All right. it's gonna be a good night. That's all I can say. People are I wish I could catch you up on air. You're gonna have to go back and read the chat, Chief, because there is so much hype. So yeah, there it is. Real quick, you have a package from Firehouse Vigilance that was sent to you. It's a very important thing. I asked you not to open it, although you're smart enough to have the J. I know, but I know you know It's all time. It's time. Go ahead. Am I approved to open it? Oh yeah. Absolutely. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Absolutely. Hey, I didn't do like we did when we were kids. You know, you took the razor knife. Yeah. You opened it up and then you put it I did though I wanted to see how how it would fit. Corley: Right. I called Jessica to get the size, so we get to we can we can always, you know There you go. I love them, dude. I don't know why they make me chill. They make me laugh. They make me feel so good when I see them. People. It's awesome.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: The only person that's gonna make fun of it. is a fucker that don't have one. I love it. Corley: And There's only five in existence. There are only five people who have been on The scrap to join the Pentasot Elitis, the Elite Five Club. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Hey, I'm telling you what it fits perfect Good. I'm a 44 regular. Your wife. I saw some of my brothers up there because they're on a CFT team. Their sleeves are crazy Or whatever this thing fits perfect, man. The sleeves are perfect. I mean, it's just like I got white on. You know what white's for, man. Everybody, you can have a fresh start. You don't have to wait till January 1st. You have to wait till Monday. You can start today Looks good on you, Chief. All white, clean, got the jacket. I think I could be I could be the the bellhop guy at a nice five-star hotel like the JW I like it. You make it look good. Corley: You make it look good. So can I keep it on the can I keep it on the whole night? Oh dude, as long as you I don't know how warm it is in the room there because that thing actually Oh I got the AC cranking at the cottage, babe. Good Hey, and this is the thing is I was super I can I can I mean this from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for being involved with the scrap from the get-go. from the get-go being a supporter and and not just supporter but making it I mean because of you and your support and the network some of the biggest names have come on the scrap and so It means a lot to me, A, that you're back again, and B to give you that jacket for being on six times.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And I and I appreciate it, and you you know I've always backed it. And, you know, we can't talk about it on here live, but I'm still working on you know, people that I I want on a scrap more than you do. Holy it's just patience, you know what I mean? And you know, that that's it. So just Just chilling out and waiting to happen. but I do gotta make sure because I couldn't survive somebody sitting in my lazy boy from Brandon Dunn Fire Station Furniture The best furniture out there. And I tell you what, whoever's coming to water on the fire or any of our big five-day conferences like ODP We've never done this. That aquamarine room, Corley, there on the first floor, that smaller room to kind of hang out with a CFT. We're gonna set it up fire station furniture is gonna have six lazy boys, a big screen TV. It's gonna have a coffee maker. It's gonna have a kitchen, custom-built kitchen table of fire station furniture with a CFT, like Main logo in the center and then like have it's worth the risk. It's gonna be a 12 person custom built fire station furniture table With 12 seats like you and Sam are sitting in around it. So that's 12 plus the 6, 18. And then we're gonna have this other little area, and it's gonna be kind of like a VIP room for different things. So like maybe if you got a group of your vigilants, vigilantes, right? Yeah, they go in there, you know, CFT 100 members Nice. And it'll just be a place where they can go up to the Hilton Bar, buy a drink, and then that's just like a VIP room. Six lazy boys, you know, will have you know a movie on the TV or whatever. You'll just have a bunch of You know, whoever, you know, might have Chief Thompson sitting at the table and Bill just brain store and asking him questions. You know, have Todd Todd and there and Rob and hell, we might even just have a a down red coat night

Corley: Yeah, the the the the Pentasotaletis room. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I love it. That's gonna be awesome. No, yeah, so that's gonna be that's gonna be cool and I can't not do it, man, because And also got to say shout out to the Elcart guys, just like all the equipment we just took over there. And I tell you folks, man, tonight I'm gonna talk a lot about training And it was brought up while we were in West Memphis and Memphis. It's like, man, the number of the amount of training you can get off of these brass tax videos And I don't sanction a lot of things. You know, I mean like you know I want to know the author, I don't want to know the quality, but the brass tax videos, man, like I my two boys have to watch them all. It's just like It's too much stuff. Corley: Premium. I mean the best the best get to do them and they're produced so well. real quick, before I we'll get the I'm gonna get my sponsors out of the way so that we are we are unfettered and there's nothing, then we can go wherever you want to go So here we go. Let's talk about those beautiful sponsors. When it comes to building your perfect attack package, you can't just slap any nozzle on any hose and hope for the best. That's a recipe for failure. com. And there we go. The sponsors are acknowledged and now it is wait we're already well underway. Well underway. A couple things. You said that yes I love that's one of my favorite mottos So chief, it is the back to school special. So let's kick it off. Back to school. You said you said earlier you said I'm I'm not teaching, but you're always teaching You're always teaching. So it's back to school time. Let's talk about it. Okay, number one thing, man, is like

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Companies have absolutely got to stop making excuses and they got to start training. Everybody. You got to start drilling The most important proby. You know, that's what I called it when Trevor got in it. Now I got Lucas. He was with us this week in Memphis. And you know, he's already starting to train and he's going back to the University of Florida next week. But when he comes home on Christmas break and in summertime, he's interning in a scambia. But like when my boys come home and they they ride him like, hey, what'd you drill on? And it's not when I ask him that I'm not like investigating a company officer. Like it's not that I just like, what'd you drill on? And so what I'm trying to teach them is that, you know, even if the officer doesn't lead the drill, then maybe you lead your own drill, you know, yourself. Maybe it's you and a senior firefighter. Maybe it's just you, you know, reading an article. Out of a magazine, you know what I'm saying? Like it's one of those deals, like, and I just got three here. I think these are the three big plus Jim McCormick's at you know newsletter, but firehouse You know, puts out a magazine every month, fire engineering puts out a magazine every month, and then you get WNYF a couple times a year. Is read an article a day. It's not like complicated, but you know, if you haven't read the book Outliers, 10,000 hours If you really want to be great, then you got to be doing it all the time. You got to be putting in a little bit every day. The top executives, CEOs, coaches, whatever. They're getting up at 0500. I mean, they're reading before they get on their phone. you gotta be putting in the time. You gotta like last night when we're done eating dinner at the biggest Pat and Bass Pro shop in the world We're up on top over the thing, beautiful view of the Mississippi. A group of six of us take an hour to go track down 750 Adams Avenue. We park Get out, walk around the building. I was trying to get in a building. I was waiting for somebody to leave or whatever. I'm gonna get in that building, right? and that's just you know the things that we gotta be doing.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And and I posted about a week ago, like what was your drill today? And if you're a company officer and you're on duty for 24 hours or 48 hours and you don't even do at least a 30-minute structured coffee table discussion about some type of strategy and tactics Then then it's unacceptable. She's it's like like I didn't say go to a three-hour drill. At least a coffee table discussion Print an article out. you know, for years in my battalion, I was called the Daily Read and each firefighter is supposed to like initial it when they read it, you know But we we we we have to encourage support and then also enforce have an expectation that firefighters that are not readers that were at least ask them to read a two or three page article. an article that just got released today or yesterday on resource allocation in my command success column of of Firehouse. On there it sells an eight-minute read. My article's an eight minute. You don't have eight minutes, it's not about my article. I'm just using that as an example. Eight minutes to invest in yourself, right? Just like you got to be working out. but but we gotta be training, and you gotta be training yourself too. You gotta be investing and reading your books. And you know, I I got this book out. This is one of the first books I studied. This came out in 1986 And as a junior firefighters, and it's actually a pretty good manual, you know, put out by NFA. And this thing is like like highlighted, underlined, front to back, and this was my foundation of engine company operations. Starting in 1988 like I mean just like like in 1988 I was going over like the fire tax stuff out of this book Because my dad gave me this book and said, hey son, this is the foundation of firefighting, putting water on a fire, riding on an engine, catching a hydrant, stretching a line knowing when and how and where to put water on the fire and you know that still stands true 37 years later and You know, when I was reading Files magazine before 1988, in elementary middle school, I was like looking at magazines. and we got I want to say seven magazines in a mail like was a West Coast magazine an FBA journal, Fire Chief magazine or existed Dan Wilmouth, Janet Wilmouth got to meet her she retired she was the editor for a long time but we got all those magazines man i don't even remember i think those seven magazines came in a month every month every every month And I didn't read them all cover to cover.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: My dad was like, just try to find one article. So it's not like we're wasting money. This magazine's coming here. back then the VHS, you know, work and fire came out. You pop the VHS in. Right. And now we don't have to do that. Like I Googled 750 Adams Avenue and we pulled up last night when we left 750 Adams Avenue. There's six of us riding in my truck, I know there's only five seatbelts. We were breaking a law. where are your seatbelts though? we're in Memphis. They're more worried about people that are gonna murder somebody than six firefighters riding in a truck with five seat belts But we pulled it up on the surround sound from the phone, and we're listening to the the after action By the Memphis Fire Department. Hearing it from them, an officer of the Memphis Fire Department, radio traffic, the battalion chief calling engine seven. Hey, what do you got? Then the drivers now call and say, hey, I got smoke showing from the end of the building and that was right when they were getting off the elevator. That's training. Like we're we're riding. Like when we were sitting at dinner last night, we're talking about fire stuff And you know, if you want to be good, you want to be great, then that's that's what you got to do. And the better you are at this, the more you're going to enjoy it. it's just like sports. If you suck at it, you're not gonna like it, you know. So I really think that I think there's a lot of training I think there's you know more available conferences that we ever had. There's never going to be too many conferences. but I think the The critical game changer is going to be firefighters doing some drills on duty, just 30-minute, one-hour drills. you know, reading an article here or there. company officers challenging their firefighters to come back the next shift or next week and do a little program or something, get them teaching them how to put on little, you know drills when a firefighter asks a question say hey pull it up google it put it on the the big TV while we're drinking coffee at three o'clock in the in the afternoon you know For years, people ask me when I'm done teaching, like, hey, how'd you talk for two hours and you got a slide too?

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Like, how do you remember all that stuff? It's like because I'm teaching it all the time and I'm reading it and I keep it on top of my head and like that's just what we have to do. most decisions that I've made on a fire ground are commanded in an incident that kept us safe was paid in blood. I mean it was paid in line of duty deaths. You know my my my opinions about you know carrying two portable radios and you know, scan and no scan and things that it comes from Hackensack, New Jersey as a junior firefighter and the the scanner, you know, the them herited on the scanner when they are disoriented in that office there in Hackensack And then, you know, we go to June of 2007 and they're calling the dispatcher in Charleston saying, hey, I think some firefighters in trouble dispatch. Nah, they're fine, they're fine. And I'm not knocking them, but It's it's history repeating itself. and so what we do is we have to understand that how do we keep history from repeating itself just when it comes to fire ground radios and communications I had a fire may was a year ago, right after we got new portable radios and I got complacent and I didn't when I got the new radio that you know first shift I got a good fire and And I I didn't understand, like I'd never had that kind of radios that, you know, the MPX 8000 or whatever, and the battery was in and out. So missing a transmission and one of my senior company officers on the second floor, you know, heavy fire. And he's calling me to say back out. I missed the transmission just because my battery wasn't properly connected to my portable radio And I gotta add to that, man, at the Battalion Chief Boot Camp, I beat it in their heads during the 50 hours. Number one job of a chief officer is eliminate complacency We can write that shit down. Number one job of a company officer or a chief officer is eliminate complacency. What does that mean? That means be the boss, be the chief Be like a mom and dad that says when their kids are saying, hey, I'm riding my bike down to Billy's house or Susie's house. What do you tell your kid when they're 12, 13 years old, they're about to ride their bike a mile down the street?

Chief Kurt Isaacson: When they're walking outdoor, what do you tell them to wear Corley: Yeah, put their helmet on. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Put their helmet. Well chiefs, like when you're at a fire and their waist straps not you you get on the radio and just say hey put your waist strap on. Or You go to a car fire and the officer's not breathing air and he's taking out a bunch of nasty smoke. You tell them to put their mask on. You're the boss. This isn't like about feelings. And then it's over with. After the fire, when they come up to you and they sour, hey it's done man let's move on i'm not gonna ever think about it again but i love it all these money morning quarterbackers they're not even let them bother me anymore like gosh you know they call say i'll micromanage No, you know what I fucking do? I'm the chief, I'm the boss. I'm not here for a popularity contest. I'm here to create the most disciplined team that strategically and tactically can suppress fires to minimize property loss and save civilian lives without costing us injury or death. That's what it comes down to. It's that simple. And you know, I know what to do. Well, let's just talk about Memphis out of respect for those two brothers. They know what they're doing, but if I go to a high-rise fire and I got a company, you know, whatever Engine 19, on-sene, 22-story condominium. And then I hear them saying they're getting on the elevator. If I get on radio and say command engine 19, hey man, I just want to make sure you guys are using like you know phase two firefighter mode. You're gonna get off two floors below. Yes, sir chief, we got it Well, we know what some of the people are gonna say in the elevator. What the fuck you don't think I know what I'm doing? I mean he micromanaging us? No You ran seven medical calls already in this shift. You're tired. You've ran nine false alarms there I know, I understand, I can appreciate that you're going to get complacent, and I'm here to eliminate that complacency based on accountability. Holding you accountable. Everyone's talk about it. Everyone teach all these leadership classes, talk about people's hygiene. And they'll talk about it on their back, but they never walk up to a one-on-one and say, Johnny, man Everybody just feels like you got you know bad BO.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: You know, I'm so yeah, I don't know what you need to do, man. If you need to take three showers a day, deodorant, do I need to get an extra some extra shirts from the warehouse for you Are you using OxyClean? And I'm not being funny. I'm being serious. No. It's like we don't want to have these hard conversations. Speaker 2: They want to use classes. Chief Kurt Isaacson: And then they don't use the shit. Let me tell you something. I don't have a problem having a hard conversation with you. you know, my kids have made some big mistakes, but just and I were there to do what? Be their parent No, you're not gonna do that. You're gonna do this because we're there to give them guidance and hold them accountable. And that's It's just how it works as a whole. So we do need company officers and we need chiefs to just take leadership classes, but apply the shit If you're gonna have rules of engagements and expectations, then hold them accountable. When the third new engine heard them say booster backup, and the SOG says you stop at a hydrant unless directed by a chief officer. Or the incident commander to bypass and come in, then you stop in the closest hydra. Don't give me an excuse You know, five times like the you've been doing it three to four fires and every time you got an excuse. No, you're not there for the team. All you give a fuck about is getting in there and getting in on what you want to do Tactically, you're not a part of the strategic game plan of a five company operation.

Corley: Loving it. Loving it. You talking about we had our first write this down at 26 minutes in. That was the first one. Just so you know. Now go on. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I don't know what Jason you write this shit down. If I get on the fucking radio and I tell ladder one To vent the roof on the A side in the area of the Alpha Bravo corner. That's not micromanaging Now if I get up on a fucking roof and I tell them how to crank the saw, how to cut the curve, where to cut, how to cut, you know, how to do the until I tell them I want them to push it up. That's micromanagement I'm the fucking ball coach. Billy Napier is going to call the place or the offensive coordinator is going to call to place. Little secret Guy that went to UNC, used to coach some football at a team that won a few Super Bowls. Him and a quarterback that won a few Super Bowls and went to Tampa Bay There started being a conflict of who the fuck was in charge of calling the plays if you didn't know that, right? Because you can't ever get so good that you don't want to listen to the coach. Because, see, your plan might be better than the coach. But the coach is managing the four other companies. So if you just go do what you want to do, the other four companies aren't supporting it. The vent hole needs to be based on where the fire is, where the fire is going, the building construction, the wind direction, and Am I sending one line in, two lines in? Am I flanking a fire? I got a line going through the front door. I got one put some water off the ceiling from the exterior. Do I got two guys coming through the back door to do a truck company search So the battalion chief's commanding five companies. So you're fucking right they can tell them where to park the damn truck. I mean, last time I checked, it'd be in a perfect world, the chief would be on scene before any companies at every incident. We know that's not possible. I don't think the offensive coordinator, the defensive coordinator, and the coach show up in the second quarter. I think they're there at kickoff To determine what's going on.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And so what it comes down to is ego at the company officer level. I know what the fuck I'm doing. They don't need to tell me where to park. No, I'm telling you we're apart because I'm thinking about the fifth rig that's gonna get here and now I'm gonna get three inches of squad in the truck on this little cul-de-sac Or this dead-end street, or you know, I'm thinking about the fact the wind's blowing 20 miles an hour out of the north and it's blowing the fire into the delta exposure. It's got T111 siding or vinyl side Highly combustible, you're thinking about firefighting. I'm thinking about rescue, exposure, confinement, right? so at the end of the day, hopefully the chief is thinking about the strategy. Corley: Right. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Individual companies are thinking about specific tactics. They need to be good at those tactics But if the chief gets there first and they got a strategy, then they're formulating a plan with the entire box alarm of how they're all going to work together. It's a new thing Day one at our ULFSRI panel for coordinated fire attack. I was fortunate enough to sit on it. That's how Chief Lieb and I got connected and became great friends. Everybody in the country's got to get on with you on board with UL and FSRI, man. It's a game changer and firefighter safety, fire extinguishment, and civilian saving civilian lives. And I'm going there September 14th through the 19th for the second ever summit. the last one was phenomenal. Nick did a whole program on firefighterrescue survey. com. And I want to tell you, want to travel around the country Less than 5%. It could be 200 people or less than 5% know about firefighterescues. com. That means us that know about it, we gotta be get telling people Now what I do, I did two days ago over 100 people. I made them all during class all their phones to go to firefighterrescue survey. com. Gave them about five minutes to scroll around to see all the charts and first dude thing because now they're good Like not all of them, but some of them now that night. Tomorrow I said, hey man, you use those slides. I said, I'll let that help me kind of build my idea about six and six minutes and eight and eight minutes.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: But The battalion chief is, you know, determining the overall where, you know, not just the first line, the second line, the third line. And if the battalion chief, the five-round commander gets there first And they coach the attack. And there's an explosion, a collapse, a maiden's transmitted. Since their brain Mentally made the strategic decision, gave the company commands verbally Ideally, we should always have an instant action plan, you know, writing shit down. But regardless of all that stuff we should do, they're more likely to know where everybody is than I'm just gonna go be a spectator, man. I'm gonna stand here in my polyester shirt and just I'm just gonna let engine one, engine two, engine three do what they want. Hell the truck ship man, they want to break windows. I don't give a shit blowing 30 miles an hour. They know what to do you know, shit, you know what, man, they want to they ain't never cut a roof, so they want to cut a roof today. And the fire's on the first floor of a damn three-story building. The fuck they cutting a hole in the roof, the fire's on the first floor. like it's like, you know what, man, we want rogue firefighters. We want firefighters who want to push the envelope. And the more that we get that, because that's what we need, that's what we want, then we need chiefs that are fucking in command. Like that chief in Lower Manhattan, man, that always looks crisp and charged. Dude, that dude's got command presence. His shit's in charge. and whether you like him or not He he takes his job serious. So I'd say there's a higher probability that when something bad happens, you're gonna be black glad that coach is there when there's no timeouts And you only got 14 seconds left and you're outside the damn field goal range. so we gotta drive the fire service to understanding and That's what this whole battalion chief boot camp thing is about. It's about like let's get fire ground commanders that can maximize strong tactics. That you got great companies that can stretch, force, search Vent, Rick, fast, all that stuff. Now let's put them all together as one cohesion where they're working together as a team. And you can get on YouTube all day long You can watch videos.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Most people don't even want people to see videos of their fires. They're embarrassed, right? And the reality is I put all of our fires on CFT fire-ups on YouTube Feel money morning quarterback them all day long. They don't even know shit about the fire. You know what I mean? That like that one big ass house fire that's burning, like the first new engine hooked into the hydro. They just can't see it because it's in the damn front yard. They're hooked into the plug, the first new engine hooked into it. But the reality is I see videos all the time, man, where they got seven companies there and they're all doing what the fuck they want and they're pissing it down her leg. The truck's parked down a block, you can't even reach the building. Because the chief let them park where they want it. No ankle curb side for positioning that way when everybody's coming in the same fucking direction A ring can get past the scene to do a reverse out for a damn second water supply, right? I mean, or an ambulance, worst case scenario, has to transport a civilian or worse yet of injured firefighter? How about them fucking fire trucks are parked to where we can get in and get out for ALS transport care? Or worse yet We can park a down, you know, we can land a damn hilo helicopter, light flight, within a decent distance Woo. Hey, real quick.

Corley: I love it. I love it. I don't know if you know Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm going to interrupt you at some point, but go ahead. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Nick Satan, anytime Alabama's losing at halftime, he's not worried. He's not nervous. When they get to that fourth quarter, that's where coaches like Dabo Sweeney, Nick Saban, these great coaches, Steve Spurrier. That's where them coaches come in, man. Crunch time. Crunch time. But if you got a team that's allowed to just do what they want in the first three quarters They can't they can't do what they're great at because there's no discipline. There's no accountability of what's going on And what's happening? So go ahead. Corley: All right. No, a couple things. A to the p everybody's commenting in YouTube. Yes, Chief Ike's audio is great. His Internet or his video is at points getting shoppy. So yeah, absolutely. It's not you. It's happening. it wouldn't be a scrap with Ike without some sort of internet issues. That's just a tradition The second thing is I screwed up on the sponsors and I left out Dave Prescott and the fast wrench. I don't know how I did that because he loves Florida firefighters. He loves anytime there's someone on the screen, but So I'm gonna I'm gonna do it right now because I owe it to him. My bad Dave. Fast Ranch is one and is the one and only standpipe operations multi-tool in the fire service It combines 10 different tools into one lightweight, easy-to-use hand tool. The fast wrench is quickly becoming the best practice tool for adjusting any make or model field adjustable PRV, and it is an absolute must-have in your standpipe kit. Designed by a firefighter for doing the tough business of standpipe firefighting. Lighten your kit, streamline your operations with the fast wrench. Check them out at fastwrench. net. 1000% my bad. Hey real quick the first the first giveaway. Hey did you see the fast wrench? Oh yeah, dude. I I I was counting on you.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I knew you were not gonna let me down. Hey, I got hoarding conditions in this room. You know, Trevor lives here, and every time he comes home, he's like he's at he's at VMR class at a Florida State Fire College this week. When he comes home tomorrow night, he he's always like, I don't know if I live here. My dad lives here. Did you give my number the CFT number to all the what the people that are watching? Not yet, but we absolutely can. You ready to do it? Can't you give it to them right now? I'm gonna give away the first pass. All right. Corley: to water on the fire Go you go I'll have Sam post it sam will post it number I want you to give him the number yeah I want to have the number first okay 850 Nine eight two five three six four. That is the CFT phone Sam is posting it. Sam is posting it in the chat. There you go. Okay. Chief Kurt Isaacson: So that that's the that's the CFT conference phone. It's not my personal phone. So the first person to text The answer to a question I'm going to ask you is going to win a free conference admission to the first ever five-day water on the fire November 10th through the 14th, Monday through Friday. Monday and Friday is in the big room. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is hands-on. Dan Majikowski, every big engine guy. It's the first time ever got three days of hands-on Brooksy. So the first person to text my phone, first person to text my phone of what this date means. February 23rd, 1991. I had Prescott customate this for me and send it to me. I'm not going to throw him under the bus. February 23rd, 1991. February 23rd, 1991. And thanks to Prescott, man, and he texted me every once in a while to check on me. What a great brother. But this wrench means a lot to me. and I got another wrench that says CFT 201 for Maurice. So I'm not gonna say what it is. We'll give you a chance, but February 23rd, 1991 was so significant about that day.

Corley: so go ahead, Cooley No, I love it. That that that's all I had was I messed up because I left Dave off. I whenever I whenever we made this back to school special plan, I called him and said, hey, we got another Florida firefighter coming on. Do you want it? And always give him first shot at the at the slot. And he said absolutely Kyle Romagus is text Kyle Romagus is texting me. Chief Kurt Isaacson: He's fucking banned. He's already like Tell him to don't be jamming my phone up. I just looked at the four and his shit's lining up. Seven scrap 75 sucks. He he just ruined that for himself There you go. Corley: I'm looking to see if he says anything. He is pulling questions. Are you ready for your first question from the audience, Chief? Sure, let's go. Here we go. This was coming from at you from Jeffrey Diaz. He wants to know his first question is what is the top nugget you want to drop? Now that you don't have to look over your shoulder as an employee of an organization. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Don't let somebody live rent-free in your head for sixteen years. Don't let anybody live rent free in your head for one year. Don't let somebody make you not want to go to work. Don't let somebody Steal your passion, your purpose. You know that whole I can't remember the doctor's name that wrote it. Brad Bennett just posted again the other day. I used it on my program a year ago, a firemanship up in a roar about, you know, I'm not intimidating, yada, yada, yada, you're intimidated, all that kind of stuff For too many years, I I got, you know, my feelings hurt. I got upset and I was disappointed. I I love a Scambe County Fire Rescue more than life itself. It it it's the closest thing for me as a male that to carry a baby for nine months and then have birth and and it be my baby. I mean For the younger folks that are scammed that are listening that don't know, I was highly recruited in 1999 before they even had the first paid firefighters Chief Mike Slover. I owe him everything for the rest of my life. Absolutely, Chief Kenny Perkins. You know, and I was I was offered one of the first company officer jobs And I turned it down because Pensacola is all I ever want to do.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And I love my nine years of Pensacola, man. I gotta just do some cool shit. I was telling stories in the parking lot two nights ago by some phenomenal fires I went to Queen Anne Victorian's and just old school buildings because it's an old city. But you know like At the end of the day, sometimes when you're real passionate, I mean and your purpose is like like a fucking freight train. you know, it's like that parent out of control at a ball field, you know what I'm saying? Where like they're living vicariously through their kid and they're acting like an idiot or a nut. you know, that's been me sometimes. And I've let people live rent-free in my head when I know that I can sleep at night and feel comfortable what I do. I know what I do to support other people and what I give away. CFT's never said no once to any donation to any benevolent line of duty death you know whatever and and and and that credit goes to to everybody my family first and foremost but the entire CFT team makes that happen that we we can a we can give away those those passes. but man, like nobody did it. I did it to myself. You know what I mean? Like I can't even tell you How much anxiety and stress has been lifted off my shoulders. It's like you know, this is what I need. I I need a year of focus on CFT. You know, historically If I came back from a trip like I did this afternoon, like teaching in West Memphis, I'd be going back to work tonight or tomorrow. And I wouldn't just be doing a 48. I'd be doing a 72 or 96 to pay back the swaps for happening to be off this last Sunday and Monday, which would have been my shit. So like if I store it to Scambia, I would've had to been off Sunday, Monday. So that 48 would have been a s a swap. And the only reason I can do that is because My comrades, you know, my my fellow chiefs, God bless a man. Like they took very, very, very good care of me Because they didn't eat Swashmen. Them dudes got maxed out leave and everything. You know, I was always waiting to get my next accumulation of leave And I don't regret that.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Absolutely. You know, and I know that, you know, some people are scambies like, ah, he's around teaching everybody else in the country, but but here or whatever. But you know, what they don't know is You know, I I I was there 24-7 from 2000 to 2009 pretty much. And I was actually told in 2009 by the current county administrator, Bob McLaughlin retired colonel from the Marine Corps, he called me in his office and he said, you know, one of the commissioners, you know, said you were fired once you fired and, you know, some other people got fired. He said, You know, I had to inform we can't fire you because you never signed the paperwork. You're protected, you're still detailing chief, even though I was acting deputy chief. And he said, what I need you to do is just come here and do your job. Don't be trying to be a mover and shaker. Don't be trying to change things He said, we appreciate everything you've done. Just come here, clock in, do your job when you're on duty and do something else. Well that 2009, when that happened, that's when I Came up my brain went, holy shit. And I was sitting on a porch and I ran in the house. It's like 1030 at night. I mean, Trevor was, you know, seven years old. Catherine's five years old, Lucas is three years old. and I'm screaming, Jessica, Jessica, we gotta We gotta get countyfire daddy's. com. We gotta get on that whatever's that go daddy shit. And I said we gotta buy it now. We gotta buy it now. She's like calm down She said, most importantly we gotta do is don't tell the whole world, because that's what you do. You tell the whole world. They'll buy it before us And I bought countyfireetics. com and got out, and then somebody went bought cityfireetics. com within a week of that. but that came about because I was basically told because up till 2009 I was doing everything in Scambia. I was putting on conferences through Escambia County Fire Rescue. I had Tim Clett and Mike Hayes and Mike Lombardo come in. We were doing live burns. They were operating Under a Scambia County fire rescue. It's so funny. I got suspended for 48 hours for Mike Lombardo riding. but he rode with me like, you know, hunt Fucking who knows 50 times.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I don't know. He was going to fires all the time. He was in charge of our live burn training our rookies and recruits and all that stuff. So that was so comical. I just laugh about that now But and we got a room called the Lom Lombardo Suite. Well it's probably gone now, they probably scraped it off. But long story short is is I did what the county administrator told me to do Instead of being like running the Beyond Standards program, getting the best Western on, you know, pretty low-key and acquired structures and like, you know Managing this stuff on my days off, you know, for overtime, it was straight time and it's all right. I didn't care. I just work it. I want to go, I want to go, I want to go And man, boom, that happened in 2009. and and I was already doing contract training. I was the contract training officer for Ocean City Right, 41 Beach, Oklaosa Island, South Walton, Destin, and Mary Esther. I was going down there six days a month. But the the the reality is that's where things took a turn, man. And next thing you know, I'm doing an eight-hour water on the fire seminar. and for those that don't know it, I own waterontheire. com. We just don't use that thing. I bought it like in 2009, whatever it was, you know, 16 years ago. But and then Ray and I did urban to suburban, I think 2011, 14 years ago. and we did one-day seminars. And when we did those one-day seminars We were spending more to rent the projector and screen than it costs to buy them. And a lot of you probably heard this. We were negative, man. Like we were opening the next conference to try to pay the bills for the last hour. We were bankrolling. But we did what one days, one day, and we did a two day. And then, you know what I mean? We did COBC, which was the first three-day Next door at the Hampton Inn and the DeLuna room. we had Chief Jonathan Kansy, Chief Shannon Stone, Chief Todd Edwards, Chief Eddie Robinson, and Chief Mike Lombarda. Those are the original COB instructors From like 14 years ago. And then so we started practicing that. And then, you know, most everybody knows the history You know, Ray and I are flying to San Diego together at 30,000 feet and eight rock shit we hit the ground in 2013 doing hands-on training and now we got you know four trailers, five door props.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: But none of it happened overnight. Man, it's been a 16-year process of Building the CFT team. A shout-out to John, our logistics guy. It's worth the risk. Our CFT green team that manages our logistics, planning, props, ops. He does a hell of a damn spreadsheet Won't put out a fire, but it keeps up with our equipment so it doesn't get lost. so that was a pretty long answer for that other question, but I'm gonna try to be respectful, politically correct But still give some people some nuggets. But and I'm gonna probably say it 20 times and I I love a Scambia County fire rescue. I have zero anger, discontent. I love the brothers there, the you know, the sisters there. I want that fire department to be the best it can be. They just got the largest tax budget increase they've ever had. They got $35 million for new stations, doing dual company houses. Hell, my oldest son works there full-time My youngest is a volunteer. He wants to get hired there full time when he graduates from the University of Florida. So I had nothing but wanting them to be the best. But I made a lot of mistakes while I was there. And the positive thing is I learned from them. And I feel like I'm getting a fresh start with focusing on one thing, not trying to focus on multiple things. And it also helps that the kids are on No during their college, you know, type of deal. Jessica can you know travel with me, but don't let people live in your head rent-free. you know, it it it sometimes it's hard to comprehend, especially if you're not a person that compares, you know, comparison's the FIFA joy, Eleanor Roosevelt. but jealousy, man, it is amazing. And I think sometimes people are jealous and they don't even know they're jealous. I mean, oh yeah, something as stupid as like what you drive or where you live. And and and I just know from sports. People are jealous of your kids. If your kid's a better soccer player than theirs, fuck they don't like your kid. I mean, it's not your fault, you know what I'm saying? it's just It's stupid, man. You got to spend so much energy on how you talk, because you might say something that offends somebody and you didn't even mean it.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And hey, you talk as fast and as loud as I do? Well shit, man. I'm yelling at you and I'm intimidating. Corley: Chief, awesome job on the first question. I like that I love this next one. It's come from Chief Candace Ashby, so you know it's a good question. And she says, what advice do you have for those with a huge target on their back? Chief Kurt Isaacson: My first simple answer in five seconds. Corley: Embrace the target, baby Chief Kurt Isaacson: And for those don't know it, years ago we had we had shirts made. We sold them at conferences. Had a bunker coat on the back of my t-shirt, said County Fire Tactics, Isaac like at the tail flap and it had a big you know arrow target just like this and it said embrace the target and and I was saying embrace the target but it was still hurting my feelings Here's the deal, man. Like growing up in the fire service, most more frequently than not, not everybody, man. Bill Guston, he was just a unique person That's back there, I got my memorial back there for Gusson. it's more common if you'll realize that Brad Ashworth and I had this conversation two nights ago, man, just sitting at the parking garage while we were logistically setting up If you're into the job, you're a go-getter and people are like laying in a lazy boy and you're wanting out there to like clean something on a rig outside the normal morning check. You know, you're going to these seminars on your own You're a part of, you know, Brothers in Battle or, you know, some type of speaking cadre or you teach at FDIC. God forbid you write a book or go on the National Circuit. I mean, you're just screwed. And hey, sure as hell don't like have some podcasts or Something like who the hell does Corley think he is that he's gonna give his life up to for 313 weeks, he's gonna get on the scrap and interview people and let everybody in the country watch it for free. My god, he I mean, I mean, he must be Jim and Kool-Aid. If you don't know it, guys, drinking the Kool-Aid comes from a guy named Jim. Go look the shit up. Chief Ike didn't invent fucking drinking the Kool-Aid. because guys this gambia made up stickers and shit and say are you tea drinking tea bites Kool-Aid well fuck i i'm not gym and and a kool-aid back in the day that's like a cult operation If you drink my Kool-Aid, you know what my Kool-Aid is?

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I'll do everything in my power to help you make you the best firefighter you can, help you get promoted, be competent with it you get promoted and you get the most fulfillment beyond your paycheck working for the fire department and and actually be able to save lives save property while still keeping yourself safe because at the end of the day next question or next is another pass first person to type the man's name of the book I'm about to show It's a pass, the water, and the fire. My war years. first man to type it. at the end of the day If you're into the job and you don't have a side job that's outside of firefighting, your side job's firefighting. Running the scrap, running a training business You're gonna have a target on your back. You're making people feel inferior. they're gonna say stuff And, you know, man, you're not gonna be a, you know, whatever they say, what a disciple in your own land, your own backyard. I mean, here's the deal, man. The the guy that teaches at FDIC and it's his first time, nobody's ever heard of him If people from my fire department heard him speak, they'd want to pay him money and come in and he'd be God, but they wouldn't want to listen to me. Shit, people would want, Cordy, they'd want you to come to a scambia And they'd love to listen to you. And it, you know, I was about to say Midwest City. Moore Fire Department. Shit, they're like, fuck Corley Moore, but hell shit, they want me to come into. That's just how it is. You know what I mean And you know, it is what it is. Nobody wants to think somebody that works in their same organization, rides on the same fire truck, may have an experience, skills, knowledge, and ability above them. They're on the same bowl team. There's no way they can be better than them. Right? Like, you know, everybody on the on the the Chicago Bulls basketball team in the 90s, like they were all just as good as Michael Jordan, right? I mean all of them, they're all equally the same because they play on the same basketball team. and it doesn't mean that another person's better than than them or better than you. Just happens to be that that's what they take their time to study.

Corley: it looks like hoarding conditions in here, but like we got another question coming at you or you got one you're are you doing it are you doing another question I'm about to show you something. Okay. Chief Kurt Isaacson: See if you're into the job, if you're into the job, you don't just have the book of Andy. You're going to have this book, version of the book of Andy You gotta have this version of the book of Andy. Then you gotta have this version, which I got about a hundred of them in cases in the other room in the kitchen Any 850 firefighter, I'll I'll sell it to you for 20 bucks. I don't even know what I pay for them, but that's below what I pay for them, so I'll be contributing to the financial cost of a book for you. But This is the book of Andy published. And I know it's probably a surprise. I have every single article he ever wrote in Fire Engineer Magazine and the actual original printed Fire Engineering magazine. Because that's what we do if we're into the job. And I didn't just Start being into the job like last week. You know what I mean? Like it's been my whole life So that's a picture and this is a shout out to identifier. So that's my dad as a fire chief. And this is 1992 And you can see my dad's lapel mic up on his shirt. he's got another portable on his other side. That's the ops chief standing next to him. This is a pretty good job, but that's me right there And I actually ordered through galls my name, my name. And at the time, I didn't know of another firefighter in all of Northwest Florida. I mean, Prince of Cola, Fort Walton, none of the paid departments. Nobody was putting the name on the back of the coat. So in 1992, when I got my dad, because you know he bought it for me And that's actually me. And I ordered that flap from your old Galls catalog with W. Isaacson on it put on the back of my coat. What do you think people said about me or to me in 1992 about my name on the back of my coat?

Corley: Oh yeah. Oh yeah they were ripping. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Who the fuck who does he think he is? Is he like I mean is he God's gifted a fire service? He got everybody got to know who he is. Guess what? 750 Adams Avenue, April 11, 1994. When they got off that elevator on that fire floor lights out visibility and a cheat was calling them, they couldn't even know who each other was. It was hard to identify. It wasn't their fault Like they they can't see each other. Kachicasa, California, one-story ranch. Guys are coming or going. Two guys are burning to death. And they don't know because there's nothing on their mask. There's no identifier of like, you know, Ike or name The front piece is fucking the front piece for the fire company they worked on five years ago, says engine five, and the day they're on ladder seven, their name's on the back of their coat. There's nothing identifying their air pack So, like it's a safety factor. Dude, if that name, if that's on the back of my coat and I'm wearing an air pack and I'm on a roof and I fall through, and somebody sees it, like, hell shit, Isaacson just fell through the roof. Guess what? It ought to be NFPA standard, just like the damn DRD drag strap is. It ought to be an NFPA standard. No bunker coat can be produced Or can be worn by a firefighter without their name on the back of the coat legible while wearing a self-contained breathing apparatus. Nobody should be able to wear an SCBS A mask without something identifying who's wearing that mask. The who gives a fuck about the name of your fire department? It oughta be your last name with no rubber band over it And a company you're working on that day. Let's go to Valentine's Day fire, February 14, 1995, Pittsburgh. That's why Jim Crawford consumed his life in building that team on RIT operations in the Pittsburgh drill. And thank God I'm so excited, man, because I'm retired Excuse me, guys, yes, I'm retired. I did 25 years there. And if I wanted to collect my pension, I I looked at it at 67%. So I just froze it And I'm going to wait and see after a year if I'm going to go work for another FRS fire department because there's a lot of options out there because there's so many, I don't know, there's probably over a hundred FRS fire departments in the state of Florida, but I'm currently retired active duty firefighting.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: But next week I'm going to the Jimmy Ellis training thing, man. And if you don't know the we are the lucky ones, the lucky ones that comes from when Jimmy Ellis died and JJ was at my house and we're emotional. And I said, man, we're lucky. To have known Jimmy. We're lucky that we had the time that we had with Jimmy. I got a bunch of pictures I've taken of Jimmy over the years that, you know, he helped us the first nine years at H Rock. He went to the 10th because you know he had died from that injury that happened while he was gone duty i don't know how i was going with that but anyways identification on a fire ground is you know is critical and on the front piece it needs to be so the Briseland Street fire in Pittsburgh they're wearing the different things and like it needs to be the company you're working on That day, overtime, shift swap, whatever. And so we want your name here. We want your name here. We want your company here. We want your company on the chest. And and most audio departments are just doing one side. I think it needs to be both sides in case you're laid down. I mean What's the cost of these things? This ought to be mandatory. I've always thought it should be mandatory. When I'm a chief on a fire ground, that name on the back of the coat And that identifier the back of that bottle is a game changer for me when they're going through the front door. I can see them. I I I gave them the command. They told me to go in, and I visually see it. It's easier for me, you know, to remember it because You know, you want to live to be able to be like my dad the day I took him to go pick all his stuff up. He's not real happy, but that's him cleaning out his office. And we all want to make it to that day where we can go hang our helmet up on the wall in our house And tell stories about the good jobs and you know the great times.

Corley: Heck yes, man. We are the lucky ones. Beautiful. All right. You ready for more questions, Chief? Hey, I'm telling you right now, I've got. Looks like five pages of questions that Kyle Ramakus has been pulling out of the YouTube chat. And a whole lot of people. Oh, okay, that's okay. Chief Kurt Isaacson: are you going or yeah it's a great book a phenomenal book no while you're talking i was just showing that out i wouldn't be trying to just showing you know you always have a thing about books Yeah, I'm not sure. I'm trying to maximize, man. And I'm kissing David Rhodes' ass and Chief Goldfin and Chief Lieber. I'm just pushing books. But I mean, I'm a huge line of duty death guy, man. I have I live in my parents' house. This is my house now, but I out of respect. You know, I mean they left me a beautiful house in the water. I'll always say it's theirs. But my mom, when they built my their house, my mom has a prayer closet. They can walk in, it's got a damn chandelier well you know i took my dad's custom bookshelves that were in the living room took them apart and i put them in the prayer closet so i have a closet on the first floor of my house you walk in and it's like a room where you would pray and it's floor to ceiling and it's At least 10 foot still might be 12 foot still. I don't know. Like I can't even reach it up there. I mean, it's definitely 10 feet. And it's like every book that Penwell's ever made you know, obviously I got a pretty good collection of Lloyd Layman books and shit like that because people like Kyle Romacus and Jason Hubbleman and people like that have been very friendly to gift me books I couldn't find. My wife bought me three 3,000 alarms, but I have I think every one of these fires that I I printed them off put them in sleep protectors and old school binders and they're labeled on the spine on the bookshelves And people used to ask me like what are you gonna do with that? Well, I don't know. My dad just told me to save it. You know what I mean? I got filing cabinets full of stuff. Like I've got over a decade of Jim McCormick's monthly training topics.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I mean, I got them myself personally for me because I was using them for six years, you know, down in South Dokaloosa Well now I got two boys on a job. Man, I got my own damn library for them. You know what I mean? So there's no excuse. They can just go in there in the library and just get the damn thing Corley: All right, so go ahead. No, I love it. Jeffrey Evans, which you've already touched on this a little bit, but you can go with it. What's the plan moving forward, Chief? All in with CFT, more family time. Awesome to see you doing so well and congratulations on an amazing career. Chief Kurt Isaacson: CFT is all the way wide open, man. Like in the last month, I probably put more enjoyable conscious effort time in CFT than I did in the last year. From just posting on social media to writing down my ideas. Man, Jessica's so awesome. She went to Wineworld the other day and Got me like $500 in cigars. so I can't smoke more than three in a day though. And it's expensive. Plus, I don't want to die next week. But when I smoke a cigar, I come up with these crazy ideas, man. Like Because my brain's free. Like I used to have phenomenal ideas years ago. When my brain shut down, this Thanksgiving will be three years ago and I smashed my phone and I changed my number. I got a new private number and I got rid of my 3930581. I'm thinking now like I have I have I have it since before then so that's a big deal you know and so if you're out there man i'll come do a one day two day three day seminar we'll bring our trailers whatever my calendar it's i mean i'm obviously booking stuff up already i mean west memphis is already booking us for the second week of april next year to go back there but what it's gonna allow me to do is do cft more than i ever have But I'm gonna be able to do the family stuff. I'm hoping Jessica and I are gonna go. There's six home games at the SWAT. We'll at least go to four of them. But like I said before, man, when I got home now, I don't have to go to work today Tomorrow, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, I'm gonna fly to Pittsburgh for two days for the opening of the Jimmy Ellis training thing.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: From there, I'm gonna fly straight to Gainesville Meet Jessica, Catherine, and Lucas there to move Lucas into Sigma Cop fraternity. Get Catherine situated. We're going to stay there for four days because their birthdays are on Monday, August 18th, August 19th I couldn't do that if I was happening to report to a fire department. So now I can go to Gainesville stay longer I went to the fewest games last year than I have in five years because I didn't have any leave. Now I can freely book and travel to places, man. In October, I'm flying to Cincinnati to teach From there and fly to damn San down at Handham, Louisiana, to teach for him. And then we'll fly from there to Gainesville to go to a damn football game Corley: It's gonna be 4896. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I can't do that. Corley: No, and Frank Lieb said it best when I was talking to him about retirement, you know, because I was staring at it when I was at FDIC And he said, man, it's great because when you're when you're doing what you're doing and you're on duty, it's like you're a homing pigeon. You're always getting back to get back on duty. You're always getting back and it's cutting you off.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: He goes and and now it's it's he goes so much freedom and it really it really does open up so much and Cory you and I had this conversation I don't even remember where we were man I just remember that the we we got in the car I think Amanda was driving we were sitting in the back seat about a year ago and we were just talking about when you were thinking about retiring. We're talking about shift trades and swaps and you know admin being honest about being gone and You know, all that stuff. And yeah, I really didn't think about it a lot, but now that I don't have to do it, it's like it's like holy shit. Don't get me wrong, I'm gonna miss Command and Fires But like when I was in Memphis this last few days, if I still worked at Scambia, there's still my brain still thinking about stuff that's going on. Like, you know, if I if if it's my shifting them off and they're mandatory and overtime. I still feel responsible no matter what anybody thinks. I care and I gotta communicate. I gotta text and call. And I tell you, the big thing is now, man, is like when somebody texts me now, you're liable to get a reply. I'm liable to engage with you for five minutes, texting if I can. I'm liable to actually maybe call you back because now I have time I can I can talk to people. I can, you know, set up times. I got to remember, I just couldn't talk to anybody. I just was self-isolated. I didn't want to see or talk to anybody. I was completely shut down. Hell, I was self-isolating at station 12 in the Battalion 2 office, because I was just more depressed than I, you know, realized I was. And it was like my brain was like that computer is worn out, man. You know what I mean? Control Alt and Reed ain't working You can't even shut it off, that little thing's spinning. You're about to throw your computer and you're just like, how do I make the battery go dead to turn the damn thing off? And so now that I've rebooked, I'm not going to burn a candle at both ends. And I have been doing that for over 25 years.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I did nine years at you know pensacola when i was at pensacola i was teaching the fire academy i started teaching there like 96 or 97 at pensacola state college so i was teaching the fire academy i was going to some volunteer firehouses doing some you know training And then then when I got hired at a scamby, I was doing boat job full time for a while, 56 at one, 45 at the other. So doing 101 hours a week. The only way I could be off was to use the leave at one place or the other. If not, I was 101 hours. I was either I was driving my Crow Vic or My explore from a scamby at 6 o'clock at night to Pensacola taking off my captain's shirt and putting on my lieutenant shirt to get on the rescue of Pensacola work that night And then get up and go put on my shirt in the locker room at Station 1 Petzcola. Go back out to Scambia. Good night, Trevor. My oldest son was watching, but he's down Oh, Callis, he's got school tomorrow. It's last day of VMR, so it's 10. 15 there, so he's going to bed.

Corley: Right on. All right, more coming. You want an easy question or let's hit some ta here. I'll throw tactics at you. I know tactics are tough sometimes, especially when it's a three-sentence question, but Jake J wants to know, Chief. My department has the possibility of running a fire in a seven-story apartment building. Our first alarm will have at most 10 firefighters How do you prioritize all the tasks? Now I know you teach entire week-long classes on just this type of subject, but there's the question. Chief Kurt Isaacson: First and foremost, focus on using all ten of them Water on the fire. Don't check the boxes. Don't check the boxes where you're trying to do this, that, and the other Absolutely, we know more than ever we got to initiate a simultaneous search. Well, 10 P we're talking about if it's a seven-story occupied building. I mean, what's two people gonna search outside of a known thing You need to put all 10 of them people into minimizing your reflex time, whether it's doing a well hole stretch, rope drop, vertical stretch, interior, exterior, using your stamp pipe, whatever it is. You we gotta buy back 26 minutes and 20 seconds. Fires don't flash here on 30 minutes. They flash around 340. Time is not on our side anymore Used to, I'm gonna tell you you can write this shit down. And and I agreed with Branaghen and she'd done it all then. They're absolutely right in their times, but some things have changed on what's going on We didn't have Google, we didn't have MDTs, we didn't have the pre-plans, the accessibility to know the buildings like we used to. And then now our buildings that exist in longer, so we have more generations of firefighters to be able to pass on the entries and see of those buildings. Kind of like when the 16th Battalion 28 Truck 69 engine had that fire a year and a half ago and at Proby did that roof rope rescue Well, that their BIs, their building inspections, they've been getting information from that building for decade after decade after decade. So they know that building It's not a surprise. They know if it's got a well, doesn't have a wall. It's got a blind shaft, right? So that building's not as much of an enemy as it is when it's a brand new building that the fire department hasn't seen They don't have a pre-fire plan.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: They don't have an MDT. I'm gonna tell you what the enemy is now. It's time. Enemy on the fire ground is time backed up by fire behavior. Explosive fire behavior. The enemy is explosive fire behavior based on we have minimal time. What a fire officer is sizing up on arrival as you're pulling the parking brake is not what you're gonna fight The fire you see on arrival is not the fire you're gonna fight because by the time you get off the rig, you stretch a line. You say start water, minimum 30 seconds, probably 60 seconds. Now go watch that flashover video from 0 to 340. Not shit happens in the first two minutes Or two minutes of 30 years. It happens in the last 60 seconds. So you pulled on me like I got a fucking can job And then by the time you get up there, it ain't a canned job. It's flashed over. I had a fire in 2004 as a newly promoted battalion chief and they have mutual aid companies, Ocean City, right, Fort Walton Beach, Escambia. And I pull up and a couch is literally burning. It was literally off a Lillian Highway. And it's this big fixed plex like fixed glass window. And if Chief Danny Fury from the Bar Beach is watching, he knows about it because his company's the one to put the damn fire out. And it was after Hurricane Island and it's just a couch burning. It like it looks like Hollywood. It's cool as shit. I can see it. I think it was like off of Martha Street or something. But anyways, I'm looking through the freaking window and it's just a couch. It's like we can hit it with a can. By the time I think it was engine seven, Danny Cruz, the captain, they pushed in. It was a fucking engine three-quarter, like flowing the shit out of it, because the place flashed And nothing, it's nobody's fault or anything like that. It's just like shit can happen in 30 seconds or 60 seconds, you know, and we gotta get people to realize that. And Chiefs gotta start being accountable, and it's their job to. continuously resize up and call that audible and say no that's not gonna work. You know what I mean? you know it's great to have trust amongst your people but when when you're supposed to be hopefully the most educated experienced with the the skills knowledge and ability to understand strategic fire tech maximizing your staffing the question was based on 10 people then you call the place and let's make it happen but if you got 10 people occupied seven story building you need to get water on that fire you get water on that fire that that shit knocked down Use the most you know intelligent way of ventilation, you know, whether it's a bulkhead door, whether it's open a slider, whether it's a hopefully electric-powered you know positive pressure fan not positive pressure attack you know ventilation maybe it's hydraulic it's another thing I mentioned you on my text today Corley we gotta be yesterday's tactics got to come back for tomorrow's fires we gotta be hitting these fires.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And you know, if there's a window, especially these residentials, quick hydraulic ventilation. If it's a smooth board, just half crack it. Take the tip off, whatever you gotta do. we gotta get water in a fire now. I call that time delay tactics. What that means is time is going to delay some of the other tactics. I only have 10 people. And I'm keeping it simple. It's more complex than it's. I'm going to put all 10 on that fire attack. Then I'll put all 10 on ventilation. Now the the smoke's lifted and now all 10 can search fire floor floor above top floor whatever ones you know got the most dangerous you know type smoke so the fire service has got to stop using promotional tactics With rules suburban staffing because most every tactics manual, strategic manual is written by an all urban fire officer chief that had urban staffing And it is our foundation. We got to study them. We got to know them. But we need county, suburban officers, and chiefs to know when to adjust. Resource allocation. My article just came out today You got five companies on the box, three inches of squad and a truck. You're down the middle staffing, threes on all of them. That's 15. Tomorrow we're staff normal for one hour in 20. That's five more people on the same box alarm to the same building fire, two different days, same street. And in my article, I got a picture of the brothers Bill Halfacre retired, Kenny Fell and them. And it was just to show what five people that that we got today that we didn't have yesterday. Same fire department, same fire, same street, just two different staffing days That answered the question?

Corley: Oh, brother. I love it when you're fired up. I love it when you're fired up. Jay Hendricks wants to know, Chief, what is it about your leadership style that draws people in? I don't know if he means firehouse or if he means that the county fire tactics. But take it whichever direction. I don't know, man. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I don't know, it doesn't draw everybody in. because there's a lot of people well, I I will say this. Hey, for my haters that are watching it right now You're not living rent-free in my head. I just think it's fucking crazy that you don't like me and you're gonna stay here and listen to me till midnight. So because I'm gonna wait till 1132 to say the shit you're on here to wait to try to catch me saying But anyways, and I'm in the private sector now too, so the accountability is at a whole fucking different level now, my friend. Corley: What was the question? your leadership style, what draws people in Chief Kurt Isaacson: For the ones that it draws in, it is that they unequivocally, undoubtedly know what Lou Holt says They don't care what you know until they know how much you care. Because people that really know me know I give a shit. I care, I care, I care. I love the fire department too much It's not a joke. I almost love it more than life itself. And I I and and and I had some significant conversations with Captain Bill Guston over you know over a decade about how much we love it and like you know how do we do life without it and You know, a lot of reason why I'm excited and sitting here is because I'm going to honor Captain Gustin by doing what I know he'd want me to do, and that's be happy Not actively on the job, but still doing because I'll never fill his shoes, but I'm absolutely telling you I feel a serious obligation to fill as much of that gap that I can of Captain Bill Guston around the country. So Doing that is what attracts people because I love the job. I'm passionate about it. I'm excited about it. I mean, everybody wants to be excited about something I mean they do. Everybody wants to be. I mean, Corley, I don't even have to ask you or talk to you about it.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Like when you're motivated and you're passionate you just naturally get up out of bed at five o'clock in the morning you're excited you do shit and then the next day nobody knows we don't tell anybody in the country and you're just like fuck it man fuck the scrap i got all these guys who are fucking shooting darts at me. They're talking about my back at a firehouse. You know, they're trying to hang me out the dry to get me fired. You know, they're watching the scrap, not because they want to watch it. They're hoping I'm going to say something I can tell the fire chick at the Moore Fire Department to screw him up. You're laughing because it's the fucking truth. And it's like you have a bad day, you don't get shit done. Corey, have you not had a day where you couldn't do shit because you were so mentally jacked up because they were rent-free in your head and you wasted a whole day because you weren't motivated. Oh, brother. Oh yes What's awesome is when you're motivated, dude. I'm telling you, man, it it's like like Goggins power I mean, really, like when you're passionate, driven, excited, you feel supported, you feel loved, your inner circles with you, your outer circles with you, dude, it is like being on fucking David Goggins. You know, power. That's what it is. It's David Goggins power.

Corley: I love it, man. Oh great question. Great answer. yes. I think Alright, next question coming at you. There's so many things I want to ask, but I'm just there are so many questions coming from the audience. I'm gonna keep it focused on the audience, Chief Here we go. What are the first drill, Rob Herrig wants to know, what are the first drills you would do for new hires? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Bill Gustin's drill. Bill Bill Gustin came a captain of Aerial 2 in Liberty City in 1988 And even at the old firehouse aerial two or the new firehouse, Captain Bill Gustin, new firefighter, instantry quarter attack line for a private dwelling, advancing in the firehouse, into the bathroom, into the shower to flow water. Boom And I gotta add to that story. Go. so 20 February 2014, we get a fire. We lost four kids. you know, I've taught you some of my seminars, I teach it Travis Stevens, who now works for Indian River County, great brother firefighter sons on our job. He was a light duty. So he was driving, you know, driving us. He was driving for me. One of the old times I ever told somebody drive faster. But what's powerful to the story is, you know, this is like 4 a. m. in the morning. But, you know, back up, back up. Less than 12 hours earlier. No, more than 12 hours. The morning before 0900, but that same shift. Engine 17. Who was first due to North Balin Street under the command of Lieutenant Brian Rickles? He has a choice. He has a brand new firefighter First thing in the morning, cold outside, and it does get cold here. It gets below freezing. but it's cold outside And he's not worried about which way the toilet paper goes or how to make mop water or how he wants his coffee made or how to wash clothes. No. Lieutenant Brian Rickles, a phenomenal company officer. Goes and finds a vacant in the Alphabet streets near where my granddaddy lived until he died in 2002. Had a chain link fence, and Lieutenant Brian Rickles had a new firefighter, stretch our pre-connects Over and over, over the fence, through the gate, triple split, just over and over and over and over and over again. And It was that same ship. They're pulling up on a shotgun house.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well involved. The only room that wasn't on fire is the one that four kids were in. And now that firefighter, less than 24 hours into his first shift, never even ran a call before that day, is stretching an inch and three quarter at an occupied shotgun wood frame, four kids inside. Do you think that's gonna pay off for the rest of Lieutenant Rickle's life, that company's life, and that firefighter's life? The four kids died. But they could walk away No, and they did the best they could. They were ready. They kicked ass man like they they first do engine company four people They broke the rule of stretching line, you know, you know, in series, not parallel. I don't want to get into all you know all that stuff. and more and more I'm gonna move to command stuff because you know that's the kind of stuff i taught a lot of that in the 90s and i didn't make it up man i got it out of like you know chief dunn's book and other books but keep clark's book But they stretched two inches, three quarters. The seven eighth smooth board one fifty the one fifty fifty is the 300 GPM flow of the nozzles were open For you people that don't understand operating off the boosters ain't stop worrying about us fucking running out of water. You don't even have a time your tank, dumbasses. But You're stretching two lines. If they were flowing, it'd be 300 gallons a minute. But guess what? The water mapping is 150 here, 150 here. There's times at 150 here, 150 here. It's buttonshot. You're actually gonna hit the bird in the fucking sky. We don't need a 30-odd six because you ain't gonna shoot shit down. And they stretched off that tank two lines simultaneously And we pulled up. Travis took a picture through the windshield as I was getting out of the car and I'm running up there and I'm yelling at Peter. He throws out a 50-foot two and a half, throws me a nozzle with an inch a tip. I spin it on as the chief. I'm blitzing right through the open gate, through the wood sliding gable. He's pumping his shit out of it. I mean, I bet that engine eight was flowing over 300 GPM. Dennis, we don't fucking need the engine 316.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: We just pump the shit out of the engine and eight. Hydraulic truck work. Blow the gable out. You got the two brothers kicking ass. One's going down a Bravo side, one's going down a Delta side, both within three-quarters. Individual water map in each room at a time, a two and a half through the gable knocking a shit out of a hundred-year-old attic got sap like concrete dripping out of it Squad three, Lieutenant Van Meter and Joe McCombs finally only one of them have fire going out of it. It's up off the ground, but up at like chest level And all that fucking halligan shit standing on is like theory. You're training like shit a drill tower is asphalt of concrete. fr grass or sand it shit don't work yeah we should teach everybody it's fucking brute force fucking help helping a brother up in there another guy homemade ds ladder ripping an AC out whatever but they get in there and they get the four kids they're under the bed and most of you heard it when I teach it but Simple answer is, you own an engine company, you got a brand new firefighter? The best keynote ever Done will never be beaten, was done before 911. Don't worry about that nozzle, kid. We don't go to fires anymore. I was on a front row, got there at 0500. I was on a front row, could have Stepped up and touched Andy. Moldest son's middle name is named after Andy Fredericks. Is and Andy said it. An AD can only say one person at a time. A nozzle an occupied seven-story apartment building kind of minium might save a hundred people. How many people at Chief Leafs fired on that Sunday morning, the twin parks fired? How many of you were saved because the FDOI kicks ass at Engine Company Operations? Pushed into them zero visibility stairwells. I saw it man. The door was burned, gone, crumbled. I had to take a chain. I got to go to the fire floor and it's Al Bronx and look at it Like engine company operations there saved lives. They had another fire when Tim Clott was a lieutenant on 88 engine Where they had an occupied building, some some civilian fire battalions. But it'd been a shitload more people people if 88 engine wouldn't kick ass It's stretching a line with a 1516s.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I said it with a 1516s and moving in with a nozzle open, never shutting it down. So fire that was started by a kid, five-year-old, with like a box, I don't know, something with a stove or whatever. But They still go back to every year from a world. People died. But a shitload of more people would have died if the nozzle didn't make it to the seat of the fire. The nozzle didn't make it to the seat of the fire. And Absolutely the foundation of firefighting is the nozzle getting to the last room of fire supported by coordinated ventilation. What type When and how much. Corley: Chief, I'll make quick announcements to everybody. Vigilante's out there. There will be no after party after the scrap. I'm just telling you right now out the gate because one thing is I have to download the scrap and and you guys all know from every week how long you have to wait. I'm just going to start the download so it can happen. Chief I'm gonna I'm gonna throw curveballs at you here because it's this is this is gonna be a long scrap. We're already 90 minutes in. So you know we do the five minutes. We're already 90 minutes in.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Hey, hey, you know, that's why I do timers when I teach. Fair. I have to have timers because if not, I'd be in there three hours. Corley: Well, I'm just telling you, I'm not I'm not ending it. I'm just gonna mix it up and throw a curveball at you because what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna sprinkle the five questions throughout. So are you ready for the first one Yeah, there is no right or wrong answer. It's just your opinion. And there's only been one other person who's answered these questions. These are the brand new five questions version 5. 0. And or I think it's 5. 0 Don't ask me. I'm just the I'm just the the host. where is my notes here? Okay. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well you're looking for your notes. First person to text me The phenomenal badass fireman, the passionate, purpose-driven that in good intentions, good heart, put the first Book of Andy together and all you did was pay the cost for it to be printed. First person to text me, the badass fireman put all his articles in one book. Three past the one on the fire. My phone's fucking blowing up. Corley: Of course it is. Alright. Alright, I love it. The only other person who's answered these questions is Dave Hageman. Chief Hageman and no pressure, but like you said earlier, he has a PhD and and a lot of but no. so you're the second person to answer him. Are you ready for the number one Yeah. You can do number one, no right answer, just your opinion. You can do anything in the world except be a firefighter. What would you choose to be?

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well, it was already and I and Dave Hagman's a mentor of mine, a friend of mine. and I actually told this to Dave Hagman, and I hate coming a day after a guy of his discipline and and character and education, but a pilot. The only other thing I ever wanted to be in my life was a pilot. And in 1989, I spent seven days Camp in Verlant Burton, I I was sleeping under a tent out in front of the football stadium at the Air Force Academy where Chief Hegman's son's gonna play football and I promise you, If he's still playing football there's junior year, I'm going to a football game. Love it. But be a pilot, you know what I mean? And and you know it's easy Easy to say to Blue Angels. I, you know, they they never get old, but you know, via pilot, man. I just damn Bender's, you know, watching my buddy, he's working right now. He's aircraft mechanic, but he's a supervisor, you know, checks off. And I like I like hanging out with him because you know just talking about planes, man, and you know, pilots. The only other thing that I was ever passion about, you know I just think it's the coolest shit in the world. I'm hoping Brandon Dunn's gonna fly his new plane down here and pick me up so I can go teach for free at his fire department I love it. I and and one of my and one of my one of my top mentors of all time personal friend and the only reason I I really, you know, probably am teaching a caliber I do is because of him, Kenny Perkins. He was first deputy chief of Scambe County, he's the longest standing fire chief in the history. Scambia County. Kenny Pergins became the deputy chief and the fire chief of Fort Walton Beach. He he walked away from Fort Walton, retired early, and he's got his pilot license you know, and I can't say that I'm ever gonna get my pilot license. but you know, I just think flying planes is cool as shit. I think planes are cool. my dad was an aircraft mechanic in the Air Force you know, my lifelong friend Jake Noitt lives across the street, his son, you know, Wyland. he's in a Navy. And I just think that shit's cool.

Corley: Planes are cool all the way around. I love it. I absolutely love it. Max points on number one. We'll mix in another one here in a bit. Now back to the questions from the audience. And I like this question, Chief. This is not the type of question you probably like to answer But I still like the question, so I'm going to throw it at you. And it comes from Bradley Feely. He said between conferences, lectures, and seminars. How do you square the impact you have had on the fire service at large? CFT has impacted crews internationally. What does that mean to you as a brother? Chief Kurt Isaacson: I really don't know the answer. I know this and and and and it's not just because it's like you know what I'm supposed to say is the truth. CFT is not me. It it's a team. It's a huge team. Mike Turpak hasn't taught at a CFT conference in a while, but Mike Turpak's still on the CFT team right now. Like, you know, at the end of the day, like you know, You know, I hate to say this, but it's the truth. I just think about what we hadn't done yet. You know what I mean? Like the other day when I asked the two days ago when I asked the audience How many of them knew what a PRV valve was and if they could tell what it was? Only two hands went up. And I wasn't mad at them. I don't think, oh, I mean, there's just so much shit to know. So I told all of them, I said, well, that's what I'm here to do I'm here to teach you a little bit about it, you know what I mean? And you know, I'm not Bill Guston or you know Brooksy or you know a bunch of other you know phenomenal high-rise guys, but they can't be everywhere, you know what I mean Shit, I asked a bunch, you know, I mean I asked Jimmy Davis and Clark Lamping and Kyle Smith and Brooksy to come to Memphis with it. None of them were available, right? because first I thought I was just going there to like CFT fire school. I didn't realize they wanted a bunch of stuff on high-rest. I know all this stuff. I know Chief McGrell's book, word for word, the whole book.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I got the I got an old version, but I don't some books I you're not allowed to touch. They're antiques. So I got a new copy right here. So first book on high rise I ever wrote. First person to text me and tell me who he is. Water on the Fire conference. O'Hagan. First person to text me to the phone who O'Hagan was. And then you can trump somebody by putting a little bit more information about really who he was and what his impact was, right? But this if you didn't know what book this was, this is it right here. high-rise fire and life safety. And my you know, my first job was a fire inspector, so I understand like engineering, enforcement, and all that stuff. So I studied it, you know, and I'm not a Jerry Tracy, you know, all them guys, they they got the experience. I got the book smarts and I've operated in a lot of high-rise buildings, but I've only been to minor, you know, you know, fires. The the most significant fire I've been into on a high-rise, an inch and three quarter, put it out with no problem But anyways, what was the damn question again?

Corley: It was the impact that CFT has had, what does it mean to you? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Oh yeah I just think about what we have to do that we haven't done yet. So PRV valves, like how do I get it when I go in a room and everybody knows what it is? Like, you know, the fast wrench. Like So we can tell it now if somebody text us. February 23rd, 1991, One Meridian Plaza. Corley: One meridian. Chief Kurt Isaacson: On September 14th I'm going to Philly. I'm going to go over and go by, I'm going to go out just for a walk from a Marriott. And I'm going to go walk by one Meridian Plaza and just say a prayer, man. For the brothers that paid the price You know what I mean? Like to to what is this? You know what I'm saying? It's for a fire ground adjustable PRV valve and just knowing how to size up a PRV valve. And You know what is it? It's like a damn relief valve on the side of a pump panel, but it's locked in position. You don't just turn it like you do the relief valve on a pump panel. You need a tool and you need to know what you're doing, understanding flow restrictors and you know things like that. So You know, I don't I don't walk around thinking about what we did. I mean, I I just don't. I think about how awesome it is to have a CFT team, a CFT green team. You know, I've been approached twice about things being purchased, and my answer was, well, it's not for sale. It wouldn't matter how much money you would do because ethically I I wouldn't know how I would split up the money. I mean CFT's reputation has been built by Bill Guston, Raymond Cormorick, Mike Champo, Bob Morris You know, Dave McGrail. I mean, the list is huge. Mike Turpak, Mike Lombardo, the best of the best, man. My mentors, Jim McCormick. I mean, like Like I I it can it'll never it can never be for sale because the reputation I didn't build a reputation the CFT team built a reputation and These people believe in in CFT and you know El Court Brass allowing us to put them on our logo. Like that's a legit 100-year-old company. We have their XD nozzle. We can't go around and do something stupid.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: and make Elcart Corporation look bad. You know what I mean? Like, you know, how our instructors operate and what we do. So I'm just thinking about what we're gonna do next. I I'm not, I don't keep track of, I don't even I I've never kept track of what cities I've been to or what states I've been to. I don't know how many people I've ever taught. it doesn't really matter. It's like who who I who I haven't taught is what matters. You know what I mean? Who I haven't impacted and I tell you, like I'm gonna tell you right now, any picture, any video on CFT FireOps on a website, it's yours. Download it, share it, tweak it, change it, quarterback it. Don't give me credit. I mean because all I did was regurgitate the stuff out of these books, like this book right here. Now don't lie to me. If you read this book, text me, I'll give you a free pass just to tell me you read this book, right? Like this is deep stuff, automatic sprinklers and stamp pipe systems Water and a fire free pass. If you can text me and tell me in simple sentence or two about the omega sprinkler heads. Omega sprinkler heads in the 90s had two fires based on omega sprinkler heads.

Corley: Omega sprinkler heads getting a deep dive on the sprinklers. I gotta go go ahead. Tom Brennan's random thoughts. Ban man. You talk about great. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I always tell people every company officer, every company officer. Every parent, male or female, it's a firefighter that has a kid, male or female kid in the fire department, you need to buy this book and get your kid to read a page a day out of it Just a page today. Back random thoughts. Back page. Now my buddy Champo writes the back page. This book is the foundation of my tactics. I started reading it as a kid. Let's see it in here, 1988. It's just crazy. It happens to be when I officially became a junior firefighter. is when he started writing this january 1988 and it ain't a joke when i got fire engineer in the mail and i'll tell you i i got it because the rick delt my dad is a deputy Midway rightway water department. He turned me on to fire engineering. First time I touched it, man, I was addicted to it. Shit, I didn't need Playboy anymore. Hell, Hugh Hefner, fuck Hugh Hefner, man. I'm I'm fucking Tom Brennan all day long. I don't even know who Hugh Hefner is anymore. I'm reading the back page, Tom Brennan, every month. 1992, I think it was. He did an article on ropes. I went down to Ace Hardware, Highway 98, and Oreo Beach Road, got me a rope. Wrote me some things on each end of it. And then like seven years later, I'm up on top of the days in three-story occupied occupied motel fire on the first floor, second floor, third floor. 48 motel rooms burning And Chief Aker had me do a trench cut on the opposite side of firewall because there was breaches in it. And I dropped that rope down. They hooked it onto an history core, pulled under the roof And yes, I was shooting fucking water through a trench cut on the wrong side of the firewall. Because you got to know when to tactically deviate. You got to know when to get outside the norm. Y'all listening? You can write this shit down. Scare money don't make money. Scare money don't make money, right? Like Coach Billy Naper. Sometimes you gotta know, like positive pressure exposure protection. That's some crazy shit.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: But if you study fire behavior, coordinated fire attack, I've done it before No, we don't want it in the foundational tactics book. But hopefully you got a fire ground commander that knows, you know what? We've been fighting this fire for hours. We don't have any enough staffing to get people the other side of the firewall to the third floor to the motel rooms on this side to the other motel rooms on the other side to pull the ceilings to put water the textbook way We got me and another guy climbed a 35 foot fully extended, not three to five rungs above the roof. That's the fucking day I found out why you wanted three to five rungs. I got to the tip of the ladder And it was right there at the roof. It sucks being at a 35-foot ladder, probably steeper than 75, because it was on the backside where it was just like slope In fact, I got a picture at that job of Maurice. He caught one of the hydrants and he's walking up to the job and a Pennsylvania News photographer took a picture of Maurice walking up from the plug at that fire. But No, no, it was me and another guy. So we trench it top to bottom, but we don't push it or pull it. And when we do, heavy heat was accumulating on that side. Not smoke because that brick firewall it was radiating through like a pizza oven, you dumbasses. Heat's gonna go through. It's what you cook a pizza in. But the breaches, fire was flaming through So we took a hose line through a vertical opening so the water could run down a masonry firewall to allow the other side to self-vent and burn itself out Guess what? All 48 of them hotel rooms 25 years later still being rented out.

Corley: Scared money, don't you? Chief Kurt Isaacson: You gotta have a playbook. Well, the first thing that did 25 years ago was come up with seat assignments and establish You know, irons position, nozzle position, all that kind of stuff. And then Craig Amons ended up retiring as he was he was the third training captain ever in the history of a scandal. I was the first training captain And then it was Rick Hawkins and then it was Craig Amons, but he took the seat assignments and he put them in this little book. And I still got a copy. It means a lot to me. So If Captain's, he's retired now. In fact, Cap Mamma's, I think, talked in my first CPR class back in the 80s, but it's got it on there based on like what the driver does, and this is a vehicle fire And it has everything like get out of dry cam, CO2, you know, block traffic. And so, you know, these are little things that we have to have, man. We've got to have a playbook. You know why? FDNY can you know go to a third alarm in a six-story tenement like that picture on a corner that's like 50 years old from O'Hagan and you know doing ladder seven. It's because they got all that shit written down. It says what the fourth due truck iron firefighter does at a strip mall. And it's different at a tenement. And it's different. But most fire departments don't have that detailed of a playbook. So you have some basics And then you hope you have a coach that can call some audibles and tweak it based on today I got 15 on the box, but yesterday at that fire I had 20 on the box. It was the same building. I just need a 10-second break so I can do this. Right on. Some mindfulness. Be mindful. Live in the moment.

Corley: All right. Chris Wessels had a question that Kenny came up. It goes along with one of the topics you texted me today. So I wanted to bring up his question, even though it it's a Jump in the queue, so to speak. Chief Wessels asked you, Chief Ike, what is your vision of legacy Chief Kurt Isaacson: Oh, so like my vision of legacy is not not about my boys, you know, both my boys being in a fire service on the dog. My vision of legacy And I'll use a Scammy County fire rescue, and I've had this conversation this last week with a handful of people. If in a year or five years from now Escambia County somehow went backwards operationally. They weren't aggressive anymore. It's you know They didn't do VES. They're not cooking meals in a firehouse. They're not drilling. They're not hanging out at the kitchen table. They're not doing the things that a large number of people worked on to build from day one. The first fire chief, Mike Slover, Kenny Perkins. They wanted, you know, a miniature FDNY for lack of a better term. They wanted that culture of eating in a firehouse, being firefighters, you know, pro bars, smooth boars, whatever you call. I don't get me leather helmets But just like being in the job. Like it's okay to love the job. And so for me, legacy is that that you left something positive and it survives beyond your time. Because if if a year, five years from now, Scambia is not better, I fucking failed. I failed If when the day I left and I was a senior battalion chief, the next guy's the senior battalion chief. If I didn't do my job to prepare him to step in on just using the senior battalion just as an example, then It's my fault I screwed up. If I didn't instill in enough people to maintain whatever it is, the culture of eating and certain just things, I failed A coach, a leader, leaves to go to another organization. Their organization should never take one step back or they failed, you know. on that operation. And, you know, like at a scambia, they should do nothing but but but just explode just because right now all the stars have lined up in such a phenomenal way It's a good thing. So I think that's what legacy is.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: You know, like you look up the definition, it's like leaving a stock of money or, you know, whatever. But I think in a fire service, it's the whole leaving it better than you found it And the and the ability for them to make it better once you're gone. When they somebody else's new ideas come in, they can be positive to build on your ideas together Corley: Love it. I got a picture for you, Chief. It got sent to me. You have a look now, and it's called the Ike, okay? And this is from Rob Ramirez. He said he asked, who wore it better? Oh he does. He looks good. He's looking pretty good there. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I mean like he's got the glass, but he's he's got the ike down with the the the hat the glasses and he knows the he knows the white the white shirt's hit man There you go. Ryan Ramir's a- he's on the CFT team. Actually got a check sitting in an envelope. Swear to God on my kid's life sitting on the desk in there that Jessica mailed that was one number off. And then was going to FDIC and in my brain, he was teaching at FDIC. I don't know why he didn't. And it was in my briefcase. Well, you know, I I went to FDIC and then shit went to fucking hell in a handbasket. And I didn't open my briefcase until Monday. So it's been closed since the day I taught at FDIC. It's crazy. I mean like I told you it's been that long. But anyways, Robert had a check. An envelope is just ironic. There you go.

Corley: I didn't know that story, but I love the picture. What was I going to ask? I was going to ask. Talk about mental health here for a minute. We're going to go to the mental health Mayday. And Joshua Stewart wants to know, what should we look for in ourselves and our brothers to know when to call that Mayday? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Okay, first and foremost, my apologies to anybody to scam you, anybody anywhere that I offended, embarrassed or whatever for what happened For those that don't know it, I have zero recollection. The last thing I remember on May 8th is getting on an airplane. I was flying first class on United into DC Reagan. And when I got on a plane, I thought I'd been fired. I thought I'd been fired because it was said that I couldn't be off. I could I you know I couldn't use swaps, I couldn't be on, you know, unpaid leave. So my brain was I was choosing to go to IFF COE to be alive because I was having suicide ideations. So I thought my job was over to scam. Like I thought my world I thought my world was over with. And I got on a plane first class And I drank more in two hours than I ever have two hours in my entire life. Ever. Ever. I'm not proud of it. I drank 14 vodkas and orange juices in less than two hours. and that's just a speculation. I I know what my blood alcohol content was when they checked me when I got checked into the COE. I remember basically the last thing I remember from was getting on the plane. I remember the COE talking to the doctor and the nurse I have some blurred vision of a bunch of firefighters, awesome people, thank you, that found me. And I was behind security. So when I got off the plane I didn't walk past checkpoint in the baggage. I got off the plane and somewhere close by found some corner of cubbyhole like where you maybe sleep overnight, you know what I mean, at an airport. I'm speculating And obviously everybody knows I did some stupid shit on social media. And the truth is, man, on my parents' grave, my family I got no I don't fucking remember any of it. None of it. I I don't I don't I don't remember any of it, man.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I was in a whole nother What I do know is I had a plan when I got on a plane and I was drinking to pull off that plan. And God intervened and kept me behind that security gate, got me in a corner. Obviously I did a bunch of stupid shit And then the Brotherhood around the country got some DC Airport firefighters to fucking do a search, find me, take my electronics. and get me to the van, the COIFFCOE van and get me, you know, where I went for 42 days. But I don't have the exact answer about it. you know, I think it's a little different for everybody. I think when you don't have the desire to get out of bed, if you're laying in bed and you're like, if your brain tells you, hey, you know, it's okay if I go to sleep, I don't wake up That's suicidal ideations, whether you like it or not. If you lay in bed and when you're laying there, you're just like, you know what, man, it you know, in your brain, you're just like, you know what, man, it's no big deal. If I don't wake up tomorrow morning, that's fine That's kind of like suicidality. That means you don't have a desire to live. I had that, and that's depression. And I read that book, I don't want to talk about it. Nobody wants to talk about it. Well, the book's title, I don't want to talk about it. And men's depression is an epidemic. It's bigger problem than people realize because we're not supposed to have that problem. We're supposed to be strong, tough you know, whatever. but like over the last three years, man, I've cut off friendships. of disconnected, self-isolated beyond what you would believe the last three years. I mean, even be on the CFT team, though, the last year to 18 months, even at conferences, I would just go hide in my room I wasn't real visible offside of introducing somebody on the stage. But I think what's important is that we all know it is so we can recognize it in somebody else. So I think it's easier for us to recognize that somebody else is possibly being challenged, having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, a bad year. they're falling in depression and then we can reach out to help them.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I think more so than not, we're gonna be in denial. Be open and honest with your primary care physician If you go to a clinician, be honest with your clinician. You got to be honest, man. You know, if you're gonna you gotta tell them the truth, talk to your psychiatrist you know, I I hated drugs and medication, but somebody said you got to take it. It works, you know, it it levels out your stomach. It's just like the testosterone's down to 200. You ought to be taking testosterone shots so you know I I think it's a it's a big thing. And if you get help, I think you could have the best life you've ever had. I I think I think Jessica and I are gonna have the best life we've ever had in the future. I think I really do. I think it's coming. I think I'm going to be the best person I've ever been. I know this. My parents raised me to not be judgmental. But I can tell you, man, 42 days at IFFCLE I'm the least judgmental I've ever been about anybody. Like, and you're gonna see me post it every once in a while, man. Everybody you meet's fighting a battle you know nothing about. Be kind always You just got no fucking clue, man. Like, you know, you can look at me and say, oh man, he's got it all. You know what I mean? great wife, great kids, you know, lives on the water, you know, and all Oh, that you don't matter, man, if I'm miserable, you know what I mean, and I'm depressed and I don't want to get out of bed You know, like that that's that's not a good thing. You know what I'm saying? So at the end of the day, we got a lot of work to do. And I'm gonna do whatever I can do to help Dina Alley you know help you know chief leave i i don't want to be like the front man i don't want to spearhead it but absolutely i got an obligation to get more involved and obviously everybody knows i I I'm very open and shared with the whole fire service and I always will because, you know, I get a lot of people want to be private, but you know, I was just raised by mother and father, you know, grew up in a church that like, you know, I think it's just my job as your neighbor as your friend, as your family member, to let you know that we all have battles and struggles and bad days and we just all gotta team up and be together and help each other out and just you know, try to get better.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: And it didn't have to be biblical, man. I don't care. You'd be atheists, I say it the same way all the time. But if you're in a valley There's only one way to go. It's the mountaintop. So fucking man start climbing, right? And get to the mountaintop and check out the view. And you can either stay there and camp out Or you can look for that higher mountaintop and be like an Eric Tolan and say, I'm gonna go climb that bitch and go climb it. Corley: I love it. I absolutely love it thank you, A, for sharing it. and yeah, no, the being being vulnerable and sharing and the communicating everything. It's it's pretty awesome. It's pretty awesome to see. So Shifting on you, palate cleanser, to second question of the five questions for firefighters. You've asked answered this one before, but we'll see if you have a different song because this is the song question. You are in route to Jobtown. Think of the scene from backdraft where he slaps that tape into that cassette deck. What song is Chief Ike playing while in route? All along the watchtower, Jimi Hendrix. Alright. I played that in Portland at Firemanship. And mine's worth the risk program. Oh brother, I when you broke that down for you came to OKC and taught here two-day two-day and you broke down the lyrics And it was it was a really cool part. I don't remember which program it was. It might have been.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: It makes sense though. When I break it down and I highlight, then people are like, oh shit, that does relate to the fire service Corley: No, it's beautiful. I love and I love music so much that I connect with lyrics. So again, max points. it is already on the playlist, but from you being here before. next question is coming at you from Jeremy Humphrey. let me see. No, wait. We asked that one. I'm looking. I'm looking. I thought Kyle Romagus was actually doing something and putting his shit together for you. He's got so many here. He's doing an amazing job, Chief. He's doing awesome. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I mean I mean he put he put this damn thing together. Shit you can't write down a couple questions. He's got a he's got a ton of good ones All right, Go ahead another free pass another free pass first person to text me and tell me who wrote this book Corley: You might have to say the name because it's a little blurry. Firefighting principles and practices. Firefighting principles and practices. It's the first edition. I say mine's blue, I think, right? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Fuck, Corney, who who the fuck gives you the permission to be giving shit like that out? This ain't to like give them a damn fucking Lot was that millionaire show? They say call the friend.

Corley: Call a friend. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Or what fucking 50-50 shit for me. Corley: It's phone the host. Chief Kurt Isaacson: They they they had already answered. Speaker 2: All right. Chief Kurt Isaacson: The new editions, the blue book, one of the most powerful books you can ever read. It's the first book I ever read that 50 GPM per firefighter staffing based on fire flow needs for fire control. Oh, and I gotta show my book, my buddy, my mentor, my guy, one of the biggest guys out build CFT, got me as a gift. I'm the only guy that has a hardback. I don't think even Romagus has got this bitch. Copyright 1996, but it's the engine company operations manual. Like there are things that are in sheets, but it's hardback of the entire thing inside. And I'm not gonna read the thing to you. My buddy Ray wrote something to me, but this is this is like One of my top books. But Ray got this as that gift. So this entire FDNY engine company operations manual. Ray had it custom made into a hardback. Book. So that's all we're talking about studying the job, being into the job. Like that's the kind of shit that happens when you network And you love this job so much and you hang out with you know great people. And if you haven't bought this book, maybe you'll get some more printed. I don't know what the deal is with a publisher, but Campo's Tower Ladder book. Love. Sorry there, I'd just throw that in there.

Corley: No, I thought Kyle's let us know he's letting us know he has it. Allegedly. Oh, stop. He kissed Ray's ass and got one. Kurt is on fire. He's on me and he's on Kyle. All shots fired. Rob Fisher's coming at you with a question. We will see it through. Rob Fisher wants to know, Chief Ike, I'm sure you've learned many leadership lessons, good and bad, over your career. What one have you implemented most recently? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Don't say everything you think. Don't say everything you think. Like I'm now and will be from this day forward. I'll be the best listener I've ever been But I'm gonna be able to engage more because I've been like just sitting back and not talking like the night now's gotten so excited hanging out with you know the CFT team And we were drinking just cokes, man. Like it was just it was crazy. And you know, last night we did the same thing, man, but like we weren't drinking alcohol And we were smoking a cigar. We're just talking fire skip. Man, I was telling fire stories. You know what I mean? Like war stories of fires when I was in Pensacola and stuff like that. And you know, the leadership lesson is is like, you know, like don't always say everything and then let like give everybody else a chance to be involved in a conversation So you can learn something from them. And Cindy brought that up. This is from 2017. This is my book. That started in 2017. You can't make this shit up. That's what it says You can't make this shit up from my stories. So don't say everything you think. Sometimes just think shit and don't say it.

Corley: Oh yeah, absolutely. There's nothing more to add to that one. I love this question coming at you from down under. It's coming from Luke Stevenson He's coming from the future. He wants to know, and this is a multi-tiered question here, but if you could give yourself a piece of advice at each step of your firefighter career. So firefighter. . . Driver, officer, chief. What I I like this. I've never heard this question before, so I kind of like just the I mean I've heard it in different forms, you know, but never all along the way. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Yeah. So I think the most important thing and One of my guys that man like I I trained him as a firefighter one 25 years ago. He was one of my lieutenants. He's a captain out of the beach, Dan Coons, Captain Dan Coons. Him and I spent two hours one-on-one last night talking And you know, I I think it'd be kind of what we're talking about is like just enjoy the moment of that rank and that station. Like if you're at a station and it's not the one you want to be at Make the most of while you're there, be in there and enjoy it. Don't be miserable waiting the year to get the seniority to make it to that that company you're dying to go to. Don't waste, don't waste that year while you're there. Make the most of it. You know what I mean? So I think the advice would be is don't don't race for retirement. and stand by. I got like it's gonna take you five seconds

Corley: Stand by. Standing by. I love it when she says stand by and then disappears. Chief Kurt Isaacson: So so this goes with this thing. So this was my mom my mom gave it to me and it's been hanging on my locker. at a scambia for 18 years and it's retirement is always a journey, not a destination. The side is 60, and it's like an old article you can see And this is like it was it's in it's on top of Trevor's dresser, my oldest son. So I took it down, I put on top of his dresser. I mean, I'm being passive aggressive, I want him to read it. so but like Basically, man, don't don't don't rush the end of your life. I mean, like, enjoy the part about riding the nozzle, being a firefighter. Enjoy being the driver. Just like enjoy the moment, man. Like, you know, it's kind of like when people say just turn your fucking phone off and be present. Like I'm gonna tell you something last night, man, we had dinner at that Bass Pro Shop and the six of us Like sitting there and nobody's on their phones And we're just having family dinner, you know, as a as a cadre of instructors, you know, just talking. So my advice would be enjoy the moment of each rank. and enjoy the time and you know just don't don't be rushing shit too much. It's okay to want to get promoted, it's okay to get all your classes and and all that stuff, but like Like, just enjoy the time. And I give that same advice to my kids. I love it. I love it. Mike, another, another free pass. Another free pass. Go for it. First person to text me, the person that is the actual author of the FDTN Fire Notes, stretching and operating the first line.

Corley: There you go. There's the number. Sam has thrown the number up in the chat. There's your challenge from Chief Ike. I don't even know how many he's given out already. And you'll find out if you won when he gets to check his phone because his phone is blowing up. Hey, there's the blue book. I know that one Chief Kurt Isaacson: Did I tell you about hey this thing's got so much highlighting underlying notes that's why I tell people man you can have any of my programs all my shits Damn plagiarized from all these books. Corley: All right. Back to it. Kyle, you're doing an amazing job grabbing questions. I like to throw out the shout out there. I think I think I would know the answer, but M. Purdom wants to know what's the best piece of literature for new guys on the job? Best piece of literature for new guys on the job. Chief Kurt Isaacson: There you go. Because it's simple, man. January 1988. And so he wrote his last one in 2005 or whatever it was. Corley: And just for the audio, he held up Tom Brennan's random thoughts. I have to say that so the people that aren't watching the video

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Some of them might be two pages, but most of them are just one page. Fires you never read about, like, you know, on tools, loose ends. it's just primary search, when can you abort? I mean, you know, make the building behave, accountability. I just throw up a ladder and get them. I I mean, like these, this thing right here, man. I mean, this should be just given to them at the fire academy when they get out of recruit school. Like, you gotta read one random thoughts a day until you're done. Corley: Phenomenal. Great answer. Great question, M. Purdom. Great answer, Chief Ike. I like this one's coming out from Daniel. Dane wants to know what is the greatest lesson you learned from the worst officer? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Don't be an asshole. That's a pretty good lesson. Don't be an asshole. Yeah. Don't be a dictator. You're supposed to it's simple, man. You're the officer You put them first. You take care of them. You mentor them. You know, you do whatever you got to do. Don't bitch about their slow learner or whatever. No, you're the slow teacher. That's what the fuck you are You know, there's not a slow learner. There's a slow teacher, a shitty teacher, a sucky teacher. That's what it is. Is just You coach them. You know what I mean? but just don't be an asshole, man. You know, I did I was fortunate. I mean I most of the officers that I worked for, man, like were amazing. I mean you know, just phenomenal, but they exist. And that's one thing I'm proud of saying a Scambia County man, like across the board. I don't have to like them. They don't have to like me. We don't have to want to go to lunch together. But man, we're just blessed with so many great company officers. And they all got their pros and cons But we just don't have dictators, man. Like they just they take care of their people. They don't belittle them. And it's just crazy to me that that ever even existed. Like I don't kind of Comprehend it, man. Like it just makes no sense to me. Like, you know, I I don't know, man. Like, just weird. You know what I'm saying? Right. but yeah, that's it, man. Just I know it sounds it's just don't be an asshole.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I mean Like, like, you know, you're you're in charge. that's fine being charge, be accountable, but being a boss is work, man. Like it it's it's working once you get promoted. Even Jessica talks about it like when I got promoted and her trying to learn about hey, it's like a whole new job, it's a new position. It is different when you're an officer and like being available for your people when you're off. Like a firefighter. You get off, you're off. You come accompany officer, especially a chief, like your people should be able to contact you on their days off if they need to for something. You know what I mean? Like, there's just no being off. You know what I mean? You know, just it just it it it you gotta put them first. Anybody's been to a bunch of CFT conferences? If anybody from Scambe County Fire Rescue is sitting on the back row If they're just attending for a half a day or one day. It all might have 600 people's at a CFT conference. When I get off stage, you know where I'm going? To the back road of scambia, folks are. Even if I don't have one minute, because I'm busy, I I'm going to say, hey Because they, no matter what, no matter how much I travel, no matter they are my immediate brothers. You know what I mean? Like they're they're I go to fires with them I'm obligated to make sure I give them free passes to the conference, get them training. But when they come there, I'm the officer, then my job is to be their leader, not just for the day of teaching a conference. 24-73. My job is to develop them. If I'm teaching a one-day seminar, I'm just here to give you some nuggets and you go back to your fire department, right? But if I'm the chief and I got people from my fire department and my job's not just that day my day is loving them up putting them first taking care of them hoping I can develop them in to their next level

Corley: I love it, man. I'm gonna hit you with another of the five questions. Tomorrow morning, you wake up. This is number three. By the way, you have max points on one and two, which is expected, but number three. Tomorrow morning, you wake up and you are the chief of department. It can be a small suburban department, it can be a large urban department, your choice, whatever. But you wake up, you're the chief, and you can do whatever you want. What is the first change you are making? The first general order. What's the first thing you're doing? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well, I mean there's so many things, but I'm just gonna keep it simple. I mean, I I I think because it's amazing how many don't have it, I would institute stuff like the identifier, like it would be operating like identification, accountability across the board like from air packs apparatus like Brunicini 40 years ago came up with the slider thing and people still have that on the fire trucks. FDNY in the 70s were taking cardboard and taping the number over the reserve apparatus. So accountability across the board, you know, through just, you know Just accountability from identification of gear, air packs, rigs, call signs on radios and the staffing assignments, just the the accountability and everything it involves

Corley: Boom. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Dude, what a good one another water on the fire. We pass. First person to text me the author and his a brand new copy of the book Fire Attack. Command Decisions and Company Operations. Corley: Fire Attack. Command Decisions and Company Operations. Text the author. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Sam put the I got three copies of it. That's just my newest. And that one book in there has like about the whole two company series, the pumper and the steamer, while we second rig lays lines and all that other sh But anyways, that's it. I love it. I'm doing a lot of this. I'm doing I'm doing a lot of this stuff just to to kiss Kyle's ass to get him all excited. He is all this is up his alley. Corley: Brett Kelly, this is a question we get all the time on the scrap. I'm sure you've had this question hundreds and hundreds of times as you've taught, but it's Chief. Brett Kelly says, Chief, I've been living by the 10% of pressure 100% of the time. How would you go about motivating officers to try to be more into training and into the job? It's the question of questions that's come up over and over.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Rob Fisher's answer, 10 pounds of pressure 100% of the time. Be creative. Don't ever embarrass them. Don't force them into it. Maybe you lead a drill that at no time are they uncomfortable, but by the end of the drill, they the start of the drill they didn't want to do it, but the end of the drill they're comfortable with. And I just use like the door prop So you go you know you go over there and you say hey gap set force hit drive stop you force the door somebody else force the door you do it a while until you look at him you're just like hey John man you will you swing axe for me You know what I mean? Because that's all you do swinging axe. And hey Johnny, you want to join the alleged one? And then now what they realize is you never expose that they didn't know, you know, gap set, force, hit, drive, stop But now they're like fuck I want to be good at that man they know now you know what I mean nobody wants to it's like the thing when I teach and I say hey somebody got a question that somebody else needs to know the answer it's like you just gotta like you just gotta Just, you know what I mean? Like just, you gotta slowly, man. You just gotta kinda slide it in there. You know what I mean? They don't even know you're doing it. You just, you're just kind of sliding it in there. Like it.

Corley: I like it. And it is. It's the question we get over and over and over. And Rob does have the, I mean, it's the universal answer. 10 pounds 100% of the time, but I love the pointers. And I can tell you this, and Pensacola. Chief Kurt Isaacson: I had quite a few captains, and they all did 30 years. Most of them got hired in the 70s, that they But by the end of their career, you know, some of us like their last day, but some of us after they retired, they they came to me and they said, Ike, man, you were such a pain in my ass when you first got hired But somehow, some way, you got me loving the job more my last year or two. Like, you know, I got them where they wanted to buy tool or they wanted like the radio strap that they made fun of. And it's because I never like degraded them. I was never rude to them. I mean, like, I I accepted that they they do what they know. And once they bought into it, you know what I mean, they ended up embracing it and buying into it and loving it. Like I said two days ago in Memphis, I'm like, most everybody that don't like something, they got a reason why they don't like it. You know what I mean? A dude that don't like a fog nozzle and a window like it because it came on a job wearing three-quarter boots, no thermal liner, no hood, old school rubber mask. We were flowing 80 gallons a minute on a 30-degree fog nozzle. Hell yeah, we steamed them Yeah well they you gotta explain to them we we we flow 150 gallons an hour he's straighter solid stream you're wearing a fucking five thousand dollars in bunker gear a hood you're not gonna steam them Just you gotta educate them. I mean, here's the deal: the hammers built a fucking lot of houses, but I don't see no framers swinging a hammer as much as I see them fucking bam, bam, bam, bam

Corley: Yeah. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Five things. Corley: I love it. There's some good questions. There are so many questions, Chief. So I don't know. I don't know how you. Corny, you're getting tired, dude. You're getting tired. You're getting old Energy level. I don't know. I don't know what your I know what your energy level is at. I like this one from Walsh Hennant, and it says, Chief, what is the most important takeaway? For a new father who loves the fire service and has to split his passion for the job and family. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well, I didn't always do that so good. I mean I I you know I I went to the soccer games. you know, I I You know, I love my family. But you know, if I could do it over again, there's times I wouldn't have taken overtime or I wouldn't have left the house go to a fire. I mean, for 25 years I had a car and go to any fire I want to go to If I could do it over again, there's times I'll left the house and went to fires. I didn't need to go to that fire. I mean shit, I was going to multiple fires a week every week. So I really can't give a you know a great answer. What I can tell you this is, man, when you're done and you retire and you don't have a job at a fire department no more, they still want to exist So make sure you're always investing in them. you know you definitely put your family first. No doubt, man. We need people to love the job like we love it but I have this thing with the CFT team. Like, I you know that's why we kind of changed it up. We went from January or first week of February till November, no hands on There's a while where like we had like three hands-on things going on and it's like some of these guys have young kids, so we don't want them away from their kids. So you know, that's a leadership thing too, is the this older folks that have our kids or grown adults is just, you know, here there giving some advice to younger folks. Hey man, like you don't need to come to this. Go to the ball game. Be at home. Do whatever. You know, be present with your kids, you know, because you'll never regret that

Corley: Boom. Dominic Poston, why do you think holding people accountable is so hard for officers to do? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Because no matter what anybody says, people don't like to be disliked. They don't like to piss people off. They don't like to offend people. And You know what I mean? It's like that whole Nick Saban thing, man. I mean fuck I ain't selling ice cream. I'm my job is to command my number one job is to command people at you know calamities, emergencies, fires, car wrecks, special operations. It is critical that I have the utmost best command presence I can build I have to have the strongest command presence where the person that hates me most on the department, if they're working and I'm in command of the incident, that their brain is thinking about executing my commands, not that they think I'm an asshole. There you go. People just don't want to have the hard conversations. People don't do with their kids. Yeah. You follow home a piece of shit kid, you're gonna have to find some piece of shit parents And race racist kids have racist parents. Corley: I love Chief Thompson when he says, if you show me a bad firefighter, I'll show you a company officer, a battalion chief, and a chief that didn't do their job. Yeah. Chief, this one's coming from Jeremy Humphrey. He says, question Chief, now that you are retired, what is the one hard life lesson learned on the job that you want to pass along? And did you avoid did you avoid repeating it? I don't know about I don't understand the last part, but one hard life lesson now that you're retired. But you've given a lot of them tonight, so there's a lot of these questions that are kind of Yeah.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Yeah. I mean, I go back to the one earlier, just like enjoying the moment, man. Like, you know, not just not trying to do it all. You know what I mean? Just chill out and just enjoy the time because it the end's gonna come quicker than you you know realize and the other big thing is man Stop worrying about shit you can't control. If you're a firefighter or an officer at the firehouse, especially if it's an outline firehouse Worry about what you eat for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. What you gonna drill on? What movie you gonna watch? What when do you what kind of are you gonna make Cuban coffee or regular coffee after you take your afternoon nap? Like, my God, who cares what they're doing at fire headquarters other than you? doing what they tell you to do on their things like like don't worry about it man just enjoy the firehouse kitchen table have a good time go do a drill Have fun. You know, like battalion chiefs and above, they gotta worry about this stuff. Like, you know, I mean some of you have to worry about it. But like, and and I've already told my kids it's like Stop worrying about something that might not never happen. Oh my god, they're gonna do station assignments. Holy shit, they're doing dream sheets. My god, I could die next week. They're gonna put me in engine 42 You're probably not going to engine 42. I mean, the lady that did 50 years is a professor at Harvard. She's one of the people that does the stuff on mindfulness. She said something like some study said like over 75% of the shit that we worry about never comes to fruition. Stop worrying about shit that's probably never going to happen Don't worry about it. They'll tell you when you get in, like, if you did what you need to do, got to classes, you worked your ass off to get to a a more desirable station, desirable for you. It's gonna happen. It always does. But don't be miserable for a shift or a hundred shifts. Don't go home and be miserable at the dinner table because you might Never go to that station as somebody told you that Johnny said Billy said Susie texted from Johnny that his aunt's uncle's related to the chief and you're going to squad 47 You know that shit ain't made up.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: That's the kind of crap that we worry about. Corley: Oh yeah. We're our own worst enemies, man. Our brains will go nuts with the possibilities if we allow it. And in fact, Hageman talked about it on Tuesday. He talked about that listening to ourselves instead of talking to ourselves. Yeah. Pretty powerful. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Hey, by the way, I'm not gonna be able to look at these texts till tomorrow. Like, you know, whenever I'm done here, Jessica will still be awake because she stays up late. So I'll I'll have to go over, I'll have to look at those texts tomorrow. you know, and then I'll I'll I'll get everybody I'll I'll text them back Corley: I love it, man. all right. Fourth question. This is a brand new question. It's kind of like the Mount Rushmore question, but this one is on the clock. Sam has the clock and he's gonna get it ready. You get one minute to answer And you are the backseat firefighter, the back step firefighter on a four-man engine. You can make it a truck if you want. Who do you choose to be the company officer, the apparatus operator, and the other firefighter? And go Oh listen.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Bill Guns a captain. My driver's gonna be Kyle Smith from Cobb County. And then my other back step firefighter is gonna be Mike Lombardo. Corley: There you go. Eight seconds. I didn't know if you were gonna wait to to go with five seconds and just rattle off three. I didn't know what your plan was because I know you always have a plan But I didn't know what the plan was. I was trying to figure it out. I I got I mean I got too many people to mention like I can only imagine your network and trying to figure that out. I can only imagine But you officially have the fastest time, just so you know. Really? Yeah, Hageman had seven seconds left, right So you a you beat him by a second. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Well, I mean that that's just his PhD, his military officer, West Point shit like He's not gonna answer it quick cause that you're f like you're that's not an intelligent way to do it. The most intelligent way would be completed at one second left because you have a minute. Like we we shouldn't be like we have to do time compressed decision making. Like Kimbrell's book, Sources of Power We used to have to study it in the 90s at the National Fire Academy. It's got the chess piece that's kicked over. and it's where they studied urban city, the the military did a study, and they actually studied chief officers like in New York City on life and death time compressed decision. Well we have to do that. But if they told you you got a minute to decide Well fuck you should be using a whole minute if you can like you know what I mean like to analyze sure because so many times we don't have a minute or five minutes it's like we just had this conversation the other night My kids ask me a question. I don't have to give them an answer right now. Ask me tomorrow. Ask me Friday. Let me think about it. Lucas, back at spring break Like wanted to go to his buddy's house from Sigma Kai down to Jupiter to get on their family has a big boat. They live on the water, they're gonna take a boat from Jupiter Down to Key West. Now what's the natural answer most people are gonna say?

Chief Kurt Isaacson: No, yeah. You're taking a boat from Jupiter Florida down to the keys? You're like a bunch of college, you know, fraternity brothers? No. And on top of that, if you're not familiar with it, two teenagers came fucking missing. They never found their bodies out of Jupiter years ago And once again, like lie, duty, death, that's the kind of shit that pops up in my head, man. And my brain's you know popping up like is that hurricane season? What's the weather? Are they gonna be smart enough if the swells get bad that they know that yeah no matter how good you can swim you know what way to swim are they gonna put their life jackets on you know do they have a backup you know you marine radio based on this like you know and but i didn't just want to say no i had to analyze it and then i had to do some investigation and you know you know hell i don't know this shit his buddy might be 21 to have his Is them six pack license or something shit. I don't know. guess what? By the time I gave him an answer before I even gave him an answer and I never said yes or no He contacts me and says, all right, Dad, we just decided we're going to take this smaller boat, put it on the trailer, pull it down to Key West, and launch it. I said, fucking great idea And then when they were coming back, it was a wildfire down there, which shut Route 1 down. So they were trapped down there. But those are things is sometimes if you got the time, don't answer the question, man. Like if you're in charge, don't let them pressure you. It's like in a firehouse. The fire chief don't have to give you an answer. The battalion chief, the captain, they ask you, you know what? Let me think about it. I'll get to you back to your next watch.

Corley: There you go. Still tons of nugs. man, chief. I like it. I think we've hit almost all the questions. We've all hit them in some way, shape, or form. Dominic Poston asks this: Chief, our department has gone to mandatory four hours of training a shift. I like it, but I find it hard to get four hours some days. What we should say is that's too much, man. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Like I was gonna like guys gonna have downtime, man. They got you got like you have you had to prep three meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner You know, they gotta have time to work out. You got the runs, you got the sleep, you got the BIs, you got stuff you gotta put in. You mentally just need to be just just taking a break I think that's crazy. I'll be honest with you. straight up. If there was a way, absolutely, unequivocally, positively To get every firefighter, every company in the American fire service to do one quality hour a shift, every shift they worked The C Weck. Corley: All right, just checking. I'm giving him a chance to get back. He couldn't have frozen in a more dramatic fashion. Did we lose him at 1034 p. m. ? He had four for four max points. It's officially an Ike it's officially an Ike scrap because we have now broke the internet.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: That is a great screenshot though. Corley: It really is. I don't know. I'm gonna give it I'm gonna give it a few minutes. Anybody want to say anything I'll answer questions as we sit here and wait, man. It's been for me, it's been just hanging on while he goes We'll see if he comes back. I'm gonna give it a few minutes and I'm gonna talk to you because if he does, we will absolutely finish the last question and wrap it up Everybody, man, I've been I always call having Ike on for a scrap. It's like holding a tiger by the tail. I I affectionately refer to him as Hurricane Ike And I don't mean that in a derogatory manner to towards the the Floridians who've actually had to suffer through Hurricane Ike, but I mean it in the fact that he is a force of nature. And Yeah, hey, and anybody notice his contemplative answers tonight? He has been very contemplative. There he is. I'm critiquing his answers until he gets back in here It's spinning. We got a circle. I don't know if you guys see the circle. Kyle Roman said, take this opportunity to congratulate me on winning all of the passes. Josh Stewart said, just let the tiger go. He's trying. He's fighting to get in. Jess just pulled out the router cord. Please someone screenshot this. I don't know, man. It was so I I want I'll have to post his he's calling me Stand by team. Yes, sir. Oh, there you are. You're back. Mine's showing it's still recording You're back. Well, maybe you're back. I hung up on Oh, there you are. You're back. I'm talking to you, Chief. We got you Can you hear me? I don't think we got him. We can hear you. Yeah, gotcha. All right. What happened? I don't we you froze in a in a very comical fashion and you were gone for about two or three minutes, or I don't know how long. Four minutes And now you're back. Okay. What was the question? Where were we? Sam, do you remember? I said a lot of things while you were gone. in the middle of something. Training, training.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: One hour training per day. Oh yeah, one hour. Yeah, one hour training? Game changer. Yes. One hour. Boom. One hour. Like what you can teach somebody on a quality drill in an hour. It could be bringing a rip pack into the station or out on the truck floor, getting out in a wizardsaw. I mean Just one hour real training. I'm telling you, nobody wants to admit this, man. The American Fire Service ain't training. Oh yeah. I'm gonna get fucking beat up and shot for it I'm just gonna fucking tell you the American Fire Service ain't training. Corley: Across the board, everywhere, one hundred percent accurate. Chief Kurt Isaacson: People got excuses for it. You know what I mean? It's the first thing we cut in the budget. It's the first thing we cut out of our 24-hour accountability timetable Corley: No, and if and if they're if they put anything new on the plate, you automatically know what's coming off the plate. 100%. And there are pockets. There are pockets that exist that do Have some good training programs, but they are the exception and far from the rule. The rule is exactly what Chief just said. All right, Chief, any more giveaways you want to do? hell I don't even know how many that did. I don't either. It's been a few. Kyle Ramaga said congratulate him on winning them all though.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Yeah. He gets in them fucking free anyways. Then one thing I the author of this book, first person to text me. The energy bus. Corley: The energy bus. And it's so hard for yeah, I just gotta lock up. I don't want to get yelled at Did I do 10? I I said I do 10, so I gotta do 10. I don't know. I don't know where you're at. I don't I I do not know, to be honest. I don't know if there's a way to check But I don't think anybody's gonna complain if you fell short or you went long. I'm gonna hit you with the fifth Go ahead. Fifth question. You've had it before. Heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on that window initiated search? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Nozzle. It's always the nozzle. Man, I'm like I've been a nozzle geek. You wouldn't even want to know what my nozzle collection looks like Since I was a little kid, man, like from the half-inch brass Elkart smooth board on the booster line at Midway, man, like, dude, like just I mean, that's it all day long. There's nothing more enjoyable than just fucking flowing water, man. Just being on a nozzle throwing water at a drill tower

Corley: Love it. Rob Fisher said you're already at 10. So he says you're at 10, so you're good. He says he's counting his answers from the text messages. All right. water yeah okay knob is the job and that's five for five max points that is the I think that's the third time I don't know if if we had the five questions I think we had them around on 100. Did we have them on? I don't know, but you've answered them a lot. You're very consistent on the ones that have been around for a long time. And I love your answers on the new ones. including the Gustin Lombardo Smith on your crew, which is fantastic. All right, Chief. It's a free-for-all. I'm done with the audience questions. Anything you want to yell at them that you haven't got a chance to share yet Yeah, I just gonna hit a couple things, man. Chief Kurt Isaacson: The fire service as a whole is got to to open up to new ideas, man. Like we can't we can't go through this fog versus smooth board a bait in the fire service and it takes two decades, automatic to low pressure, like the amount of time it took us collectively and and and hundreds of people are involved To get people out of 80, you know, 100 PSI automatic nozzles to 150 at 50, you know, the smooth bores to get people to understand, you know, you can move water for two and a half and three inch. You don't always need a damn LDH hose Like we just can't keep doing that in regards to getting these cellar nozzles and Bresden nozzles back on engines as options for you know weird fires, void space, attics, down the side of a building where you got a fire burn X tier of a multi-story mid-rise or high rise. You know, having things like the bent kip, the can screw on there for void space fires the floor below nozzle and the fd y man they made fun of it made and then finally the fd and why bought it and said man the the fire's changing Like we look at that fire in Harlem 18 months ago where they did them roof rope rescues. Those people wouldn't have been trapped 40 years ago. They'd have got out because the fire growth would have been slower.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: They'd have had more time. So the fires. Are burning crazier in the same freaking building. That's not a debate anymore. So we have to have these new tools, you know, the attic nozzles, the floor below nozzles Getting the Bresden nozzle out, knowing to use an electric fan versus a gas fan. All those things are just critical. We gotta stop being Like stubborn. We we're gonna stop saying Walmart Phillips said and flatheads worked. Well yeah, I'm gonna build this cabinet And one tenth of time, because I got a nice drill right here. This impact wrench drill is gonna fucking screw the screw faster. Your shit work, but we got something newer, better. Embrace the technology. Let's embrace the technology and stop thinking it's not gonna happen to you. Like I said, man, chief officers and even coming, our jobs to eliminate complacency It's not to tell somebody something they don't know. It's to not let somebody do something they shouldn't be doing. Right? That's what leadership supervision, that's what accountability is. It's back to school, man. You know what? It's a fresh start. Let's get some new clothes. Let's get some new pencils, some new folders. If you haven't been doing roll call as a company officer Today's the day. I don't give a shit. You're gonna come down for 14 years, embarrass yourself. Go in and say, you know what? I haven't done this the best. Well, we're gonna start doing a roll call sheet at breakfast And we're going to cover who's riding where, who needs to go to do personal stuff. When are we going to the grocery store? What's the weather? Somebody put up the flag. The drill's going to be this today Since we worked last, they used you know the K-12 and they use a hydraulic tool. So let's double check them. Let's make sure that there's fluid in the TNT tool. You know, there's not like Do the job man everybody loves the blue angels they dress sharp in them jumpsuits they come back and kick ass and sit there and like pretend like they're doing a joystick in an office. They're not even in a cockpit. We ought to be trying to be a little bit more like the blue angels. We ought to be trying to be a little bit more like the Blue Angels. Stop being too cool for school.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Get your ass back in school and educate yourself. You're never too old to go back to school, man. Like. It just don't put down education. Don't put down, you know, training and have a balance, if you will. But just like study this shit shit man like if you don't know what a PRV valve is google it look it up read it especially if you're going to build those that have them you know like if you can't tell me how long your K-12 Your partner saw a run on a full tank of gas, then get your ass next time when you're on duty and run that shit and time it. So you know when you take the K-12 to a roof Is it gonna work? I mean, is it gonna like run out of gas? Or is it gonna get the job done to be bring a fuel, you know, can of fuel? Or should you bring a second saw in case you run out of gas You got that saw there. How long is your battery gonna last on your Milwaukee or your D-Wall? Are you numbering your batteries to know, hey, number one's always the best battery If you got four batteries, number four, because you have to renumber. You just change it with a sticker. Four is the one that don't work. I have said this before. Thermal imagery if you got more than one thermal imager battery When you're going into a working fire into a fucking building, you need the best tick battery that's gonna last the longest. I had a system for my batteries from my portable radios when I went to a fire Same thing with my MSA thermal personal thermal imaging camera. Yeah, I got my own personal camera. and I I I knew which battery lasted you know the longest And by the way, I had my own nozzles in the 90s, had my own irons, my own hook, and they didn't provide it. I bought this shit. I tell you what I've been telling people in rookie schools since I started teaching rookie schools in the mid-90s. And when I taught as an OPS instructor at the Floor State Fire College Aircraft mechanics like damn binner, most of them fucking bought their own tools. Well, my dad was an aircraft mechanic, he bought his own tools People that build your house.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: Nobody bought them their tools. They bought their nail gun. They bought that big ass toolbox in the back of their hundred thousand dollar 2,500 pickup truck. Buy your own tools Corley: I love it, man. Gerard man says, man, Chief gets me going. I feel like I could run through a wall now. That's the way I think a lot of people. Here's the deal. Chief Kurt Isaacson: If yet and hurt us there. Stop fucking saying somebody's too smart to be in a fire service. You just want stupid people? I can't tell me why talk behind my back or told me in person. I'd said it on stage in front of 500 people at Prince Gold Beach Another fucker comes up and tells me that my kids are too smart to be a firefighter, I'm gonna punch them in the face. like you think Vincent Dunn was he too smart to be in a fire service John Norman, too smart. Like, like the list goes on and on. Like Chief O'Hagen, guy was a fucking genius. Corley: Yeah. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Like the fire service has been changed by some of the brightest minds in the world. We should be recruiting kids from Harvard to come in a fire department. Hell now, somebody paying enough to do it. Hell See, starting firefighter paying taxes 99,000. No what the hell they're doing over there, lone star state. No fucking beef and cattle cost that much these days

Corley: Ah, there's it's it's it's literally holding a tiger by the tail. That's what I'm doing here. This is it's always amazing. It's always amazing. Chief Kurt Isaacson: You know, and for Rose Hatton Senate, like, you know what? I didn't push my kids into fire service. Absolutely. Jessica. I worked in making sure they went and tried stuff We like I I want my kids to be happy. That's all I want. Like, you know what I mean? They're not too good to do anything. If they want to be a school teacher, do you know how many like Einstein type people are teaching at high schools, middle schools, elementary schools. I mean some of the brightest minds are teaching at school. You want stupid people teaching your kids These teachers getting paid $50,000 a year. They got a PhD and a master's degree, and they're teaching at school because they love teaching I'm gonna tell you right now, you want a better fire service, a stronger fire service? Start recruiting just one person. We all recruited one good person You got to be talking at the football field, the baseball field, the soccer field. Don't be talking negative about the fire service. You know, and I don't want to embarrass him. Hopefully he's asleep, but Your guest last night, West Point graduate, military officer, PhD. I'd fucking have to punch somebody in the face if they're too smart to be in the fire service. I mean, damn Magikowski He's not actively riding a fire truck. He's in a fire service at UL and FSRI, key states. Guys are sharp as shit. Like, what would we have without these people? Like it just blows my mind that people could stand in a firehouse and belittle themselves. That's what they're doing. Belittling our occupation Like only stupid people should work at a fire. It's only for people that just want to graduate high school and they want a job. That's great. Don't misread me But we need some of the brightest minds, man. We need more Kyle Smith working in a fire service. I'm just like, we need All types of people. And the fire service got some of the brightest minds in the world because they got book sense, they got street smits, and they got common sense

Corley: I love it. Chief Kurt Isaacson: yeah. Everybody say that. Hey, 10. Hey, hey, I'm gonna say it now. Just for everybody listen. Ten minutes and we're done. Is that fair? Solid? That'll be three hours. We'll go 11 minutes so we can say we broke three hours and we're done. Corley: That's they again You're the tiger. I'm just holding on. I'm just holding on. I'm trying to yeah, I don't want to cut anybody off. If anybody has something they want to throw at Chief Ike, throw it up there. I'll still throw it and ask it. We'd gone through most of the questions. Hey, and for those people that hey Chief Kurt Isaacson: Hey, and if you're still listening right now, if you if you didn't want to pass, if you register for water on the fire or the fire officer boot camp, they're both the same week at the Hilton in November It's a secret. If you use the word Memphis in the discount code, all capital letters, it's 50% off. But it'll have to be just tomorrow. It's not going to be for listeners later. So if you register for water on the fire, fire officer bouquet Memphis, all capital at it, 50% off. If you have any problems with it, email me at cftactics at gmail. com, my email address, and I'll fix the problem for you. That's just because your dumbass has been listening to me for two hours and 51 minutes. Hey, I'm not gonna get into it tonight, but in the future I just want to talk about some different stuff about like training. positives and negatives about 2472 489. In regards to operational shit, I think this was some topics, association by affiliation, and like you know, just the whole How we're gonna maintain a legacy as a team for the fire service to be stronger when we leave. And I was real motivated. Chief Vincent Dunn wrote something about two days ago about you're not done, you're not, you're still a firefighter when you retire. And you talk about like Dennis Compton, you know, John Salka, Anthony Avillo, and people that are retired And they're doing just as much or more effect than the fire service. You know, the one thing I'm excited about is I'll be able to do more for the fire service On a global scale in the future that I have in the past, because it's gonna be my focus.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I'm gonna be able to hopefully motivate more people, be available to more people, and make a bigger difference. Like being able to go the whole time, the whole week to the UL thing Like if I still was full time in a scam, I was gonna probably have to cancel and not go to UL or FSRI just because there's just too much I didn't have I couldn't I couldn't be off Corley: Dude, it's gonna be You wanna make a difference? Chief Kurt Isaacson: Get outside your neighborhood Corley: All right, Chief. I'm gonna c I'm gonna I'm gonna land this plane on the 1101 mark, 1101 Central. I'm gonna land this plane. I want to know Well you already got the five questions under your belt. So the the one question I want to ask you is, well, we we have private conversations and we can keep those that we're working on But who is someone you think should be on the scrap? And I know not everybody knows all 300 or so people that have been on the scrap, but who's someone you think needs a scrap? Tim Natum. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Ooh. senior firefighters perspective. And yeah, Tim Nagum. You know Tim Nagum, like yeah, he like he's the guy who's back in the trailer in when he got here. Tim is like the ultimate like, you know, senior firefighter that, you know, and he works all over our county and and that guy's been to a shitload of fires. And he's just like very well diversed in so many things. I mean shit, I don't know if you know Todd's using him all the time. You know, I'm using him all the time. He's making shit happen at the conferences, but he he was a volunteer in the 90s. He actually went to FDIC in 1998 And he'll be going to FDIC this next year, but I think he you know he would just be awesome on a scrap.

Corley: Sweet. No, my my big interaction with him was one time I had two guys who had flight trouble coming to a CFT conference And he allowed me to take his truck to the airport and pick them up and because they they came in like a day late because of their flight troubles. And it was just that was my first interaction with Tim and he was just like, Yeah, here, take my truck, go. I was like, Oh, okay, thanks. Yeah. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Oh, yeah, brother all the way. He was big, like does a lot of stuff for the union. So he's all around like ate up with the fire service. Corley: No, he's yeah, Tim's Solid. Okay, great. I love it. The next thing is a challenge for the scrap listeners that they need to get done before the next scrap, which is going to be on Tuesday. So it's a it's a It's a short week. They also have Hageman's challenge that they also have to do. But the challenge from Chief Ike, not going to shortchange him. You get to throw a challenge at him Chief Kurt Isaacson: go read a Bill Gustin article. Go read a Bill Gustin article. And then go listen to his keynote that he did at FDIC.

Corley: Boom. Yep. There's your challenge. And that that's a that's that's very doable by next Tuesday. You got Saturday, Sunday, month. You got five days to read one article and watch a keynote. Chief Kurt Isaacson: Everybody I mean Gus is like the longest standing like editor at Fire and Gym magazine, like edit you know, like reviewing articles. I mean it's like 30 some years, but I mean he's in a top ten with of having the most articles probably in fire engineering. I I'm not positive about that. Corley: I mean, oh we'd have to be I would I could Tom yeah like yeah Tom Brennan with his back but you know random thoughts Chief Kurt Isaacson: But it's Bill Gus. He's got so many articles that pertain to rural, suburban, and urban, man. Like engine company operations, water supply, you name it Corley: I love it, man. What a great, great scrap, Chief. It's been a crazy 2025 for me and you we both I I don't think anybody had it on the bingo card that Chief Kurt Isaacson and Corley Moore would retire from their active you know departments in 2025, not from the fire service, because it it is a journey. It is not a destination. So I will share this with you.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: You know, I would say most likely, you know, if if I survive long, I will probably work for a fire department again. right now I'm just backing off with Catherine being a senior in college, Lucas being a sophomore in college. And just working on being a better husband, a better father, family man, you know, my personal health. And I'm about to do my EMT online. I've never had my EMT. I'm going to get my EMT, my Florida EMT. And then I've already gotten Columbia Southern. And I'm going to finish out my degree. I have everything I think I need for my two-year degree. I just never worried about it. It's never But for the first time in my life, I'm going to build a paper resume to go with my overall resume of my experiences, my career, my reputation, whatever you want to call it. And I'm not looking to be a fire chief, but I would like to before I'm done, I'd like to go somewhere and be a deputy chief of operations or operations and training or special operations. or you know a line deputy chief or something like that. You know, five years max. You know, go somewhere, be able to go in there You know, make an impact, make a change at at that level of experience, emotional intelligence, and be the leader that I've never been, but I know I can be based on failure, success And then retire out from there on the highest note that I can as an individual. That's how I'd like to close out, you know, my final chapter. So for those wondering, I am looking down the road to actually go work for another fire department. It's just not right now in recent future times because I'm not moving away from the dock, the boat, the neighborhood. If when that time comes, if I needed to move somewhere, I would, I would just keep all this and by the time my kids are out of college I could afford Jessica and I could afford to go somewhere you know rent a condo or apartment that's furnished leave this here And, you know, come home for the weekend or, you know, do whatever. Right now I can't afford shit with sorority fees, fraternity fees, parking fees. swamp football tickets. Now I don't know if you noticed, but we won a national championship in basketball this last year.

Chief Kurt Isaacson: I watched almost every basketball game, so I want to be watching more basketball going to home games University of Florida is the only college to win a national championship in football, basketball, and baseball. Thank you. Corley: I love it, Chief. I love it. And we are at 10 and we are at 11 o'clock on the nose. So I'm going to do the wrap-up. And I will say first and foremost, Chief Ike, thank you. For coming on scrap number 313 and bringing your passion and your energy and sharing your evening with us once again. It looks good on you, Chief. It looks good. I'm gonna figure out what to do as far as now that you have six, you know, cause like Yeah, you know, they put the stripes on the Class A uniform for, you know, five, ten, or to twenty, you know, rank, and then the stars for the five. Yeah I'm trying to think of something to do like that where you can get it. Chief Kurt Isaacson: No, don't go no no don't don't no don't do anything because we don't you don't want it to be like the five the guys that all got these coats Love each other. You know what I mean? Like it's crazy. Like you know we're all friends. Yeah. You don't want to I I I would I would never want you know what I'm saying? Oh you make it a competition Yeah, yeah. Okay, okay, okay. Yeah, yeah, because I I tell you what's gonna happen. You do something like that and you let's just say you call me and you're like, hey Ike man, I'd like you to come on a scrap. You haven't been in a while I'm liable to say no because like I I don't want to be like you know what I mean not that it is but I don't want to be like coming on that more than Chief Scott Thompson you know what I'm saying or Rob or I mean they're not those guys are my friends So don't be fun.

Corley: I won't come on the fucking scrap no more. It's supposed to be fun. So no, we want you to come back. There's still almost 200 people still. I don't need no strikes, man. Okay, fair enough. Chief Kurt Isaacson: But hey, Nick's on. We're gonna have to get those guys to bring their coat to water on a fire or a cut where they're all gonna be there and get one picture of all of us. Corley: Yes I would love it. I would love it, man. That would be that yeah. So I think it's amazing. It started as a joke, but it really is fun. I really am proud of it. And so You should be proud of it It's the only fucking people making fun of is the motherfuckers ain't got one. I love it. I love it. All right, Chief. Thank you. I said thank you, so thank you. But coming up next three weeks One thing I didn't realize when I put the scrap on the schedule that I did is that I can't just move it around willy-nilly. That's the reason we had a back to school special because I'm booked all the way into December with guests And so the next time something comes up that I want to have it, it's like it's I either put it in December or I have a special. That's why there was a back to school special is because I wanted to have Ike on, and he usually does his back to school special from the dock. He was gracious enough to do the back to school special on the scrap. And so I say thank you for that. But all that being said, I am on vacation with the family and my parents And there are three guest hosts of the scrap. Next week it is National Fire Radios, Jeremy Daunch coming on to host. The week after that, it will be Scott Hewlett of Multiple Calls Podcast. And the week after that will be Jake Barnes of Three Point Firefighter Podcast. And all three of those guys are bang up professionals, and I look forward to what they do with the scrap while I am on this vacation. And so. Enjoy them. And I told them to have fun and take it whatever direction they wanted. So those are coming up. All that being said. Thank you so much, audience, for tuning in live.

Corley: You make the scrap magical each and every week. Your questions are always right down the the guest wheelhouse and you allow them and set them up to look great And you did so tonight for Chief Ike, and he absolutely delivered the energy, lived up to the hype, Chief, as always. So thank you Chief Kurt Isaacson: Thank you, man. It's an honor to love the fire service and be a part of the greatest occupational world. The job. Corley: I love it. Audience, I hope the tone stays silent unless it is burning. This job will never be safe. So stay smart out there.