wildland

Brandon Smith was raised by a family of public servants, but he felt like he was more of a public nuisance. A couple of wrong turns after college landed him in prison. While languishing in his cell, lost and unclear on what path to take next, a prison counselor offered him an opportunity: volunteer for Fire Camp, and help California tame its wildfires. The idea of fighting wildfires terrified him – but it also sparked hope. If he could just survive the program, it might lead him out of the wilderness. And help him find out where he belonged.

As a “Home. Made.” listener, you’re eligible for an exclusive $2,000 credit toward buying a home. Use it to lower your interest rate or put toward closing costs. Visit https://www.rocketmortgage.com/homemade or call (866) 374-7050 to apply today.*

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Whether you are trying to deliver consistent training to thousands of people or manage a major critical incident one thing is for certain: More is not always better. But a lot of tasks at major events are manpower intensive and we need to make the most of the available resources. This is a thought exercise especially for people who work in either really big or really small organizations who want to be able to scale up or down according to their needs, and who need to develop expertise in their front line troops and supervisors.

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Intro music credit Bensound.com

PHOS-CHEK® fire retardant has been a staple offering of Perimeter Solutions since its release in 1963. In this episode, CEO Edward Goldberg dives into its nearly 60 year history of innovation, its evolution in the face of growing challenges, and why our products are the only retardants fully qualified on the U.S. Forest Service Qualified Products list. 

PHOS-CHEK® fire retardant has been a staple offering of Perimeter Solutions since its release in 1963. In this episode, CEO Edward Goldberg dives into its nearly 60 year history of innovation, its evolution in the face of growing challenges, and why our products are the only retardants fully qualified on the U.S. Forest Service Qualified Products list. 

Major League Baseball, Stanford University, 10th Special Forces, and Los Angeles County Fire are just a few of the organizations Fernando Montes has served as an exercise physiologist and sports performance coach in some capacity. He currently works with firefighters, especially wildland crews and academy recruits. Mr. Montes talks to us about the mental side of training, heat acclimatization, hydration, supplementation, and more based on four decades of experience working with a broad range of tactical and professional athletes.

Like what we’re doing? Head over to Patreon and give us a buck for each new episode. You can also make a one-time contribution at GoFundMe. 

Intro music credit Bensound.com

Bobby and Michael talk about his time wildland firefighting for the US Forest Service, addiction, rehab and more on Episode 44. https://firefightersforchrist.org/

To be a guest or for questions, comments, concerns email faithofourheroes@gmail.com

For prayer email hfdprayer@gmail.com

Check out our devotional https://thefirefighterdevotional.blogspot.com/

This is part 2 of the discussion about wildland firefighting. Wayne talks about several useful resources and tools to assist the public in gaining knowledge about wildland fires.

This episode discusses Wildland Fires and what it takes to battle them. We also talk about the history of the Mann-Gulch Fire from 1949 and the aftermath of that tragic fire.

A super eye-opening episode about the power of your inner and outer brilliance, connecting with it and balancing your feminine energy when you work in a masculine world.

Join Nicola as she interviews the lovely, courageous Jose Heath who is a wildland Firefighter and Paramedic in the Grand Canyon, and hear show she balances wearing those lovely oversize masculine yellow fire suits with fire proof boots that don’t fit, as she fights fires, and flies with her team in a helicopter saving tourists in the Grand Canyon, and maintaining her inner brilliance of connection and compassion with her outer brilliance of how she creatively expresses herself in the world.

You will discover how women are increasingly being sought after to join the Emergency Medical Services and why this is.

Fun, entertaining and soulful.

LINKS:

• INSTAGRAM: @JosieHeath

Ever wonder what it's like to be a firefighter or a wildland firefighter specifically? In this episode Ben and Ryan discuss firefighting, fitness, nutrition from the paleo diet to intermittent fasting, reading self-help books such as "Jab Jab Jab Right Hook" and "The Richest Man in Babylon", and the practice of daily meditation. This episode is sure to leave any listener thinking positively about the future and motivated to make positive changes in 2019. 

This episodes sponsors are the high-quality supplement brand Bare Performance Nutrition and my absolute favorite jacket brand CockpitUSA. Click on the links to learn more about each of those companies. 

Rio Hondo College Fire Academy Coordinator Tracy Rickman and Cadet Josh Morris discuss the school’s 50-year anniversary celebration, fire safety, the myriad challenges of preparing a Wildland firefighting force, and the special qualities needed to be a firefighter or EMT.

First off, please let us know if you like this format! Email Jesse at jroman@nfpa.org and let us know what you think.  We've been receiving a lot of support for the podcast the past year and we would love to hear from you.

In this episode Jesse talked with Val Charlton of Kishugu, a private organization that runs and manages Working on Fire.  Working on Fire is a South African government program that recruits disadvantaged South Africans and, after extensive training, hires them as wildland firefighters.  Val discusses the fire regime in South Africa, how WoF is addressing the local issue and how its is translating to the globe.

Out of more than 63,000 wildland fires reported last year, specialized wildland firefighters responded to just 112, meaning local fire departments handled the rest. But there is little information about how well trained or capable municipal departments are to handle this job. 

In this podcast, Jesse sits down with NFPA Senior Research Analyst Hylton Haynes to discuss a new NFPA study that looks at how prepared local fire departments are to deal with the increasing number of wildfire calls they receive each year. Haynes and other NFPA researchers interviewed 46 high-ranking fire officials from urban and rural departments on a variety of topics related to wildfire operations to find out what’s working, and where the pain points are. Hear what they discovered in this interesting podcast. 

Dave Martin’s crew was assigned to the task of keeping the wildland fire from jumping Highway 97.  Around 2100, Captain Martin and a member of the tribal fire management team were assigned to conduct a back-burn operation along the highway.

Unexpectedly, the fire blew up on them, eventually consuming 1,200 acres. While on a retreat from the fast moving fire, Captain Martin’s partner become entangled on a barbed wire fence. While being over run by hot embers and heavy smoke, Captain Martin used a utility knife to cut away his partner’s ensnarled clothing and they both narrowly escaped death.

1.   The need to trust your intuition – your gut feel when it tells you something is not right.

2.    The importance of standing your ground when you feel a mistake is being made by your partner.

3.    The consequences of overlooking critical clues and cues that indicate conditions are changing.

4.    How task fixation and mission myopia and serve as barriers that impact your situational awareness and flaw your decision making.

Our sponsor:

Midwest Fire
MidwestFire.com

Intro music

Safety Dance (1982)

Men Without Hats

GMC - Virgin Records

Guest Contact Information
Fire Chief Scott Burnette

Asheville Fire Department
stburnette@ashevillenc.gov

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424

On this episode we’ll talk

1. Briefly about the myth of multitasking

2. We’ll listen to an interview I recorded with a wildland firefighting safety officer with 40 years of experience on the line.

1. Developing the mindset of a Just Culture in the wildland firefighting community.

2. Why a culture of compliance won’t work.

3. How age brought wisdom and helped Wayne realize the need for instant gratification was far less important than the goal to bring everyone home in one piece.

4. His view on fire shelters and their limitations and why he says he would not carry one unless he was forced to and why he thinks the fire shelter is “a political piece of equipment.”

5. His Close Call Survivor Story on the Salmon River and how the situational awareness barrier of task fixation put him in a tight spot that, reflecting back, left a margin of less than 5 minutes between life and death.  He’s tell you how a “feeling of urgency” saved his life. This is what I refer to in the Mental Management of Emergencies class as “Intuition.”

6. Amazingly… as he was going through hell… he stopped and took pictures… literally.

7. Discussion of the challenges of the Yarnell fire investigation.

FEATURE TOPIC

If a picture is worth a thousand words, a live demonstration may be worth ten thousand words. In a recent situational awareness and decision making class I was explaining to the participants the science behind why humans are such poor multitaskers.

If course, when I do this there is always someone in the class who, for whatever reason, thinks they’re a great at multitasking. I love it when this happens because I’m prepared.

For this scenario I set up an exercise where two people get to role play being in charge of an emergency. One of them is going to multitask (guess which one gets that dubious honor?) and the other one gets to perform only a single task.

The multitasking person has to perform the same activities as the single tasking person and one additional (physical activity). The results are always predictable… a train wreck.

The single tasking person’s performance is always nearly flawless while the performance of my multitasking participant always turns into a disaster. The multitasker forgets about 90% of the data they were supposed to remember and their performance is fraught with error. It’s sad and unfortunate.

The simple fact is, the conscious human brain cannot multitask, plain and simple. This is backed up by science and the analysis of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data.

Responders can be lulled into believing they are good multitaskers because they do it so often with so little consequence that it gives them the confidence to think they are good at it. Where, in reality, they’re not good at it and luck is the only thing standing in the way of a disaster.

SOLUTION: Concede to the vulnerabilities of the human brain. Acknowledge that multitasking is a myth and avoid it by focusing on performing one critical task at a time. Proper staffing plays a big role in efforts to avoid multitasking. Preloading an incident with the proper number of responders will reduce the exposure to the need to perform multiple concurrent tasks.

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

1. Why do people think they are good multitaskers when, in fact, their brain cannot multitask at all?

2. What can first responders do to avoid multitasking during high stress, high consequence operational periods?

3. Describe how your situational awareness has been impacted by multitasking.

Wayne Williams Interview

1. Developing the mindset of a Just Culture in the wildland firefighting community.

2. Why a culture of compliance won’t work.

3. How age brought wisdom and helped Wayne realize the need for instant gratification was far less important than the goal to bring everyone home in one piece.

4. His view on fire shelters and their limitations and why he says he would not carry one unless he was forced to and why he thinks the fire shelter is “a political piece of equipment.”

5. His Close Call Survivor Story on the Salmon River and how the situational awareness barrier of task fixation put him in a tight spot that, reflecting back, left a margin of less than 5 minutes between life and death.  He’s tell you how a “feeling of urgency” saved his life. This is what I refer to in the Mental Management of Emergencies class as “Intuition.”

6. Amazingly… as he was going through hell… he stopped and took pictures… literally.

7. Discussion of the challenges of the Yarnell fire investigation.

If you’re interested in attending a live event, you can check out the Situational Awareness Matters Tour Stop schedule at: SAMatters.com. Click on the Program and Keynotes tab just below the header, then click on the “Events Schedule” tab. If I’m in your area, I hope you’ll consider attending a live event.

If you’re not able to attend a live event, consider signing up for the SAMatters On-Line Academy. The Academy contains videos and articles that cover the same content as a three-day live tour event, delivered in 14 modules you can go through at your own pace, from your own computer. The Academy Plus version of the Academy includes four books that are referenced throughout the Academy. The Plus version is a great bargain because the tuition simply covers the cost of the books… making the Academy free!

Just click on the link below the header on the SAMatters home page titled “On-Line Academy.”

CLOSING

That it. Episode 6 is complete. Thank you again to Wayne Williams from the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation for sharing his thoughts on wildland firefighter safety. 

Thank you for sharing some of your valuable time with me today. I sincerely appreciate your support of my mission.

If you like the show, please go to iTunes, and search for SAMatters Radio and subscribe to the podcast and leaving your feedback and a 5-star review. This will help others find the show.

You can also sign up for the free SAMatters monthly newsletter by visiting www.SAMatters.com and clicking the red box on the right side of the home page.

Be safe out there. May the peace of the Lord, and strong situational awareness, be with you always.

You’ve been listening to the Situational Awareness Matters Radio show with Dr. Richard B. Gasaway.  If you’re interested in learning more about situational awareness, human factors and decision making under stress, visit SAMatters.com. If you’re interested in booking Dr. Gasaway for an upcoming event, visit his personal website at RichGasaway.com

Wayne Williams

Email: WWilliams@MT.GOV

Just Culture

Sydney Dekker

Situational Awareness Matters! website

www.SAMatters.com

On-Line Academy

http://www.samatters.com/situational-awareness-matters-academy/

Upcoming Events Schedule

http://www.samatters.com/programs-keynote/eventschedule/

Books and Videos (Store)

http://www.samatters.com/store/

Firefighter Near Miss Reporting System

http://www.firefighternearmiss.com/

Close Call Survivor Website

www.CloseCallSurvivor.com

Contact Rich Gasaway

www.RichGasaway.com

Support@RichGasaway.com

612-548-4424