Weekly Scrap #243 - Dan Shaw, 25 to Survive and more

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Corley: See ya. Here we go. It is Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. Weekly scrap number 243. My guest tonight is Dan Shaw He started his fire service career in 1992 as a volunteer fire for the Howard County Fire Department in Maryland. In 1995, he was appointed to the Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department in Fairfax, Virginia. During his tenure, he has held every rank to include firefighter, engine driver, tower lieutenant, engine captain, battalion chief, deputy chief of operations, and his current role as the chief of operations responsible for 1,500 firefighters, 39 engine companies, 16 trucks, 8 heavy rescues across 8 battalions, and a department that runs approximately 130,000 calls a year. He has been fortunate enough to teach around the country and had the distinguished honor to be the keynote speaker at FDIC International in 2022. He and Captain Doug Mitchell from the FDNY wrote 25 to Survive, Reducing Residential Injury and LODD, which was published by Pinwell Publishing in 2013. He lives outside of Baltimore with his wife, two sons. He is a family man. He is a passionate firefighter. Chief, it is my absolute pleasure to have you on as the guest of weekly scrap number 243. Welcome, my brother.

Dan Shaw: Oh thanks bro. just an honor to be here. Glad everybody I I'm I'm glad our paths cross. We're able to finally sit down and have a conversation because love what you're doing. I listen to you know a lot of the scraps you've put together. I mean it's just a really engaging conversation. And I love hearing just from across the spectrum of the fire service. And you do a great job of bringing people in and ha doing some great interviews. So Corley: Well thank you for being a part. Thank you for being a part. It's been too long in the making, and I'm glad that we finally made it happen. So thank you for being here. Is there anything I missed in the intro? Anything you would like to add? Now it's entirely too generous and really uncomfortable. I love it. Please, audience, get your questions primed and ready. If you have questions for Dan or excuse me Dan or myself get your questions ready Sam is in the chat he is looking for your questions in the YouTube I'm gonna catch I'm gonna catch us up here. We've got Let's Roll from Brad Valiant Court. Let's go. LFG. Good evening everyone watching while on ship from Richmond Hill, Georgia. Chattanooga, Tennessee, checking in from Carpe Fuego. Let's go checking in from Michigan. Vigilante checking in. Cody Belmont says checking in from southeastern Pennsylvania. LFG Yes, absolutely. Dan Bender said a AVG Lanti checking in from Ohio. I love it. I love it. Absolutely love it. I'm not going anywhere, Cody Brooks says. Checking in from Dobbins Fire Department, Marietta, Georgia. Let's go. So there are lots of people excited about what's going on. So let's get it on. Here we go. I am fine. Let's talk about the beautiful sponsors. We'll get the the housekeeping out of the way. The OG sponsor of the scrap, Keyhose. com. And then the final sponsor. Firefighter safety and accountability starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier Safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours, no switches. No batteries, which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions, all specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job.

Corley: Be seen, on scene. identifiersafety. com and there we go clean your hands we're ready to kick it off my brother I I I tried to figure out where I wanted to start with you because there's so many directions I could go. I got Dan Shaw on the scrap and I'm very excited about it And but I really I we have to start with 25 to survive. In my head, that's where we gotta start. And for those who may be under a rock and never heard of it, hit me with the why you and Captain Mitchell wrote it and and and the purpose of it. We'll just start there. Dan Shaw: So Doug and I were teaching this class and we were fortunate enough to do it at FDIC for several years. and rest in peace, Bobby Halton had come to us and said, hey, your class really kind of fits what a book would look like Now of course like any firefighter, we thought like well you write books when you retire, not when you're still working. Doug and I are both are perfectionists, but huge procrastinators. So we signed a contract and then we're like, hey man, we got like five months. We gotta write this book. But yeah, it really was a labor of love. and and what Doug and I looked at, you know, Doug works in the FDNY. I work in Fairfax We both started as volunteers together. so you know, we both have been through, you know, that whole spectrum of going from smaller volunteer department combination system to larger departments to the largest department in the country. And when he and I would look at line of duty death reports and close calls, it didn't matter if it was in some rural place in Iowa, if it was in a highly populated place in LA, or anywhere in between. is that when you looked at line of duty desk, there's a commonality. And very rarely was it ever a catastrophic failure. I mean September 11th is a perfect example. Like there was really not a whole lot you're gonna do when the buildings collapse and brothers are trying to save people Sure. But you know, for the for the house fires and the reason we looked at residential building fires is because every sixty-four seconds in the United States we run a residential building fire.

Dan Shaw: So that means every minute in the United States, you have the opportunity to be a hero or zero, and you craft that narrative. No one else And so when we looked at all these reports, we saw there's a common theme. And it was always basic fundamental skills that were not being addressed, or there was a failure someplace. There was no one to be the change agent and say, hey, look, stop before the wheels come off the bus. But even more importantly, and you know if you ever been part of a line of duty desk and had someone come in and do a report Nyosh, it's not the knock Nyosh, they're grossly unders understaffed when they come into a report. And they have their top five. And you know, when they roll into an organization that has just suffered line of duty death, they lost a brother or sister in the line of duty And they're waiting for a report that tells them what they should do, you'll see recommendations that kind of hit like you should have five on a ladder truck. Well, we got two. How am I gonna get five? Like tell me how to tangibly fix what it and but that and I often think that that that wasn't their responsibility and so we had a huge gap because me, I'll say it over and over again. We don't have a unwillingness to train in the fire service. We just don't know how to train. And so what we want to do is say, hey, look, here's 25 common things we have seen across all fire departments. And we don't want any firefighter to be deprived of the ability to be able to get better at it at their trade and their profession. So not only let's identify the 25 things, let's give 25 drills, tips, or techniques to overcome that. Right. So you could rip a page out in a firehouse if you're in the FDNY, you're in Fairfax, you're in the smallest volunteer department in the country. and say, hey, Corley, it's you and made tonight. Let's do this drill because we don't know when our sixty-four seconds is gonna happen. So if we could have one person that did a drill that, you know, changed that trend on the fire ground, then that book is a 100% complete success.

Dan Shaw: and that's all we really cared about and that's what we were looking for is like we were we're very fortunate where we work. we were provided an enormous amount of experience. We should share that with other people. You know, that's not meant to be kept to us. But no, that's meant for us to share across the entire spectrum, however we can. And we always tell people in class, like, if you find a better drill, send it to us. We'll name it after you in the next edition of the book Right. We can care less about credit, man. It's all about just getting the message out there because I'd rather have drills named after guys and girls who are doing really good stuff than having a drill named after you because you had a line to do with that Corley: I love that. I absolutely love that. And if you haven't seen it, 25 to survive, yes, 25 to survive. Check it out. And I wanted to lead off with that 100%. and then we'll go to one of the topics that you brought up that I love, which is how to develop and it ties right into what you're saying, how to develop mastery in our trade of firefighting and why it is so important to our success.

Dan Shaw: Well, you know, I we routinely ask guys in class, and you know, I even ask people in my own department when we talk about this, and I had the privilege to teach some of our officer development school 'Cause I think it's really important, like, you know, the ops chief is there to have some FaceTime with our new officers. And I ask them like, what's the definition of mastery? And you'll see people just kind of you know struggle with trying to figure out what the answer is. And I always tell them like to me mastery is I I liken it to like hey you're climbing to the top of a mountain. You you're almost to the top of the peak. And then as soon as you get to the peak, the clouds part and you see there's another summit And it means you just keep working and you keep working because mastery is a process. Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: And we want to continue in that process and get better and better at our trade. Because I can tell you, like in my position now, What makes me really, really fortunate and what I love is I have an incredible amount of thinking firefighters who strive to want to do really well. And I go back to what I said before, like we don't have a unwillingness to train. We just don't know how to train. So for us to be really good and get to that point of having that ability to become masters of our trade, we have to, you know, look at what we do. And you know it there's such a demand on the fire service nowadays. It's not just we are just going to the residential building fire. We're going to commercial building fires. Right. We're doing hazmat. We're doing so many things. If it's not police related 911 dispatchers are funneling over to you.

Corley: Right, what's it? You have to figure out how to do it. Dan Shaw: So you know you it can be very easy for us to be consumed and not know how to become a master of our trade. And you might be in one organization that has no SOGs and no operational manuals and that's kind of difficult because you're looking for other places or you might be in another place that has 940 of them Well where do you start to start building your mastery? So, you know, when when I look at like us the building and mastery in our trade is to know what challenges you're gonna face. And what do you you know if we could start in one spot and the residential building for building is near and dear to me because of what we know Doug and I do, but that is where everyone lives. We know that. The Census Bureau tells us almost eighty percent of the people live in a residential building fire. Well that's why we're here is for them. So if eighty percent live there, let's look at residential building fires. So if I want to build and be a master of my trade I gotta know that every minute I'm gonna go to a fire. And then what kind of fire am I gonna go to? Well, data tells us you're gonna go to either attic fire. a kitchen fire, a bedroom fire, a basement fire, a thatch garage, or inside outside to inside fire. So if I was sitting around a firehouse going, what should we train on? Do we have a plan for basement fires? No, we don't. Well we're gonna build a plan. And our plan is gonna be based upon if there's an exterior entrance or not an exterior entrance and how we're gonna operate. How about an attached garage? What if the door's down, the door's up Yeah, and we'll ask in class all the time, if if you see an attached garage, where are you taking the first line? Some people are like, I'm always going inside.

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: Well, if the garage door is up and it's blowing fire out of it What do you think you're gonna see when you go inside to that six foot by three foot door? Holy shit, it's still on fire. Right. Like just put put water on the fire and it and then and continue to advance and continue to push But that's where like, you know, once we can look at the things we we the challenges we face, and then we can start to reach out. And that's, you know, we always we always end class like we did at FPIC, and that's always a perfect place to do it. Is you know, you have this really distinct opportunity when you do classes and conferences, whether it's small conferences or the big ones, is that you're typically in a room with a bunch of people who aren't from your department. And so now you've got to take that opportunity. I tell my sons this all the time. Like what makes you successful in careers is your ability to develop relationships. So important. And so if you could just meet three people in that class you're at and develop a relationship and say, hey man, you have the same thing I deal with. What do you have on this? Oh, we do this, this, and this. Let me let me get that. Can I have that? I mean that we'll send anyone who wants it our manuals, because Dirty Seeker is about thirty years ago. We took the FD and Y's manuals, we kind of reconstructed them to what we needed. The bones are already there. We're good. so you know, building that relationship, that gets you closer and closer to building mastery, where you can look at everything you have to do, and then even down to the granular level. Like I I'm an engine guy through and through. Okay. And you know, so if you wrote an engine, like you know, to me is we have four in every engine. I was a chauffeur. I was a company officer as a firefighter. I was never a paramedic. But you know, each one of those positions has a specific task on the fire ground. And for us most of the time the the person riding the right bucket behind the officers and mouseman The other person is the backup firefighter.

Dan Shaw: Okay, well what's the requisite skills for each one of those positions? Okay, it's gonna be you know checking your nozzle, knowing what the the flow is, understanding nozzle feedback, where every single one of those is a drill It's a drill we're gonna do because what are we trying to do? We're trying to condition and breed mastery so that when you are sitting in that position, even if you arrive later because you're short staffed and someone else gets there. And they say, you know, they arrive and Corley says, hey, you're the backup firefighter. Man, we've been droning this. I know what that means. Eyes up. I'm observing fire conditions. I'm making sure I got the line fed up there so it's like snaking up. I have my hand on the hose line so I can feel water flowing through it or water is not flowing through it so I know if they're in the room or not. And all these things like we can't assume they're gonna happen We gotta train and drill on those things because what we train and drill on, that's where the expectation comes to. Because you know as well as I do, man, there's there's especially in the fire department, there's really two types of people. Either you raise to your level of expectations or they drop to your level of tolerance. And I know firemen are always looking to try to figure out what your level of tolerance is.

Corley: Absolutely. Dan Shaw: You're the new officer like, hmm, what can I get away with? And they're gonna they're gonna get it. And they're gonna find it. They are absolutely gonna find it. But you make it really hard for them to find it when you have high expectations and then you invest in them and you give them everything you got to start building, building more and more of that so they are getting closer and closer to mastery. But then the other part is you have to do it yourself. so I always mean that that's the one thing I love. I still network it at this position of like what are you doing? What are you doing in your department that I can take and use my department or what can I share with you? Because we want to get better and better. And then more importantly Oh, one of the things I love is when we're in a firehouse, myself and the fire chief usually go to a firehouse is a few times a month, sit with, you know, the guys and girls there. I mean the stuff you hear, that's what like I love it. That's where the innovation, that's where the progression comes from. That's where we find the best ideas because what I might think be happening or was the best idea, I'm st I'm not doing that job anymore. Right. So I n I need that feedback from those people because I can I can think about the glory days of riding an engine, but it's been a couple of years since I've been doing that. So it's really important to have that Because that's what we want to get. If we wanna get the mastery, we gotta have a process. We can't just say it. We gotta do something about it.

Corley: Dude, I love it. I love I love the the breakdown, the essay, everything you just said. I'm gonna catch you up with a few things people said. One thing is and and and what Dan is saying here applies regardless of your staffing because he's talking about being good with what you have and understand, I get it. If you have four on an engine Some of you that's a luxury you'll never you'll you you just dream about. And for others, you know, showing up with two, showing up with one sometimes is what you got. But absolutely the principles absolutely apply. But I love what you said about the networking Every chance you get, netw you taught it to your son, your sons. Come all the time. Relationships and networking is the power to move the world. It's huge. Dan Shaw: To your earlier point, like like when I started in the fire department, Howard County, Howard County is probably one of the most affluent counties in the country. but when I was there in ninety two, they didn't really have much money. And I left, I was a temp there part-time, because they didn't have they couldn't afford a recruit school, which is crazy a thing nowadays, but I worked in an area right off of ninety-five, right outside of Baltimore We had an engine, rescue, and a medic. Our minimal staffing was four. Every day I drove the engine or the rescue, depending what it was. Okay. It was just me and an officer. And so, you know, what the same the same theory applies. Like You will probably get four people on the fire ground at some point. And they're gonna fill in those roles. So I get the fortune of showing up with a small militia, but if you only show up with two people, well when that third person gets there And you say, hey, I want you to be the backup firefighter. If you were drilling that in the firehouse, I got it, boss. I know what to do. And it's not something new like We didn't know we were gonna go to a fire and now we have to do this. So it is it does apply. It's a little more difficult, definitely, but we have so many incredible, thoughtful leaders in the fire service. I think anyone can figure that out

Corley: I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it. Alan Glogovsky has a, I'm going to reword his question a little bit and throw it at you. But Alan Gogovsky says, networking is awesome. The problem is selling ideas and concepts to the higher ups. Now I want to kinda I want to filter this through as I ask you this question because you have been the grunt on the back of the rig all the way up to currently chief of operations of a of a massive organization. So you have a broad perspective that many people don't you just have a a unique perspective that a lot of people don't have the benefit of. So I really want to tap into that when I ask you this question. He says, do you have any suggestions for selling ideas and concepts to the higher ups? Dan Shaw: well I mean one, you g it depends who your leaders are, right? I mean if you have leaders who there's plenty of people when they get a rank, they think that that comes with leadership. And rank doesn't make you a leader, it makes you responsible for people but if you have a leader who is open to those ideas, then you're you got one foot in. But if you don't, you know, you have to you have to read who your leader is, right? Again, it's not about relationships If I I mean I work for some people, very limited because I I'm really fortunate where I work who were very ego-based. And ego is the enemy, right? I mean I I love stoic writing. because it's it's so applicable to what we buy our service. And so many situations you could look at and see its ego is in a way. So if you have an ego-laden boss, well then the challenge is on you to make it so that you can make it it's their idea You don't care about credit. If you don't care about credit, it's amazing how many things you can get done. But if you can pitch an idea that makes that individual realize it's really their idea and they can sell it, great. You you win. You got what you want. If you're worried about credit, then it's your ego. And that's where it's so very important. Like, you know, I can't tell me times a proposals where One, you have to do your homework.

Dan Shaw: If you roll into anything and try to give chiefs and you know senior managers and leaders of organization a bunch of homework for them to do to be able to approve what you want to do, ain't gonna happen. Guarantee it. But if you walk in and say, soup the nuts, here's everything. Here's how, here's why we have to do it. Here's the why behind it. Here's what I'm thinking we have to do. Here's what the cost is. Here's what the training program would look like. And here's the only thing I need from you is to say yes or no, or I can answer any other questions. The probability you get what you want just swung in your favor. Woof. But a lot of idea guys, and we I'm sure you have those in your fire department. Absolutely. Some say I have an idea. Great. And what's that look like? Corley: Yeah. Dan Shaw: Yeah. So you want me to do the work for your idea I'm good. so it it's a combination of a lot of things, but you know, it really does start with knowing who your leaders are and and you doing the homework and saying, how can I pitch this idea that I'm fixing a problem? And now I want to be able to look at that individual and figure out how do I craft this so I can get to this to the finish line And I I really d go back to it, like once you can figure out and you can push your ego out of the way and and just get to the point of, I don't care who gets credit. I just want us to do this because it's going to be the betterment for the the organization.

Corley: Hmm. No, that's beautiful, man. Ego is the enemy. Like you said, you and you referenced Holiday and the Stoic writings, man. Absolutely, 100%, brother. I love it Looking forward to it. I'll be catching you up. Mastering the Craft by Rothmeyer. Have you read Mastering the Craft by Rothmeyer yet? It's a fire engineering book. I don't know if this came out last year. I have not. No, I have not I don't I don't often put guests on the spot to ask me if they've read something, but someone asked it so I didn't know. Because it you talk about mastery and and he just wrote it. BJ Preacher said, many firefighters don't look for mastery. They look for the path of least resistance. AKA how little can I do and still meet the minimum standard? Figure out the answer for it and we'll have a great, great we'll have a bestseller. Dan Shaw: I mean, look, I mean Doug says this every time in class. Everyone knows what the bell curve is. Right? You got your low performers, medium performers, high performers. My firehouse, my fire station, Doug's fire department, everyone has it. All you're trying to do is push the curve a little bit to this way to get that low performer just at the middle performer. Get that middle performer, maybe up to high performer. But it takes, you know, if but if you have this expectation that somehow you're gonna get a low performer to what you have, and look, this is one of the toughest things, especially as a company officer I learned in my time, is we all have a natural human bias I can't I mean I like I said I love my engine companies who I I was raised by some great people who just we were busy they pushed push push we were always the expectation was here so when I was a a new officer my expectation is everyone operates that way

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: Why wouldn't you? Like this is this is the pedigree. And I I quickly realized like, you know, again, some great mentors told me Yeah, always judge an individual by that individual and their actions. There's a difference between what their actions are and what their intent and their personality and what they present as. And so, you know, I remember getting a guy who is chief that told me, hey, you're getting this individual. It wasn't like, do you want this firefighter? You're getting this individual. Corley: You're getting him. Dan Shaw: Now if you would if you're six months earlier before some mentor had racked me across the head, I would have had this high expectation. But really like the first time we go out say, all right, let's pull a hose on. Well I was like it was a hot mess. Now old Dan was been pretty pissed. Like why why didn't you do it? But then I realized I said, hey, who do you work for? And he told me what captain he worked for. Well, go back to raise your level of expectations, drop your level of tolerance. This captain was all about level of tolerance. So he came out of the probationary fire school, went to this firehouse, had been with him for a year and a half, and this is all he knew. He had no other fire service background So the minute we took some time to say, look, we're not going to condemn you. We're going to teach you. Now, if we teach you 10 times and you still are a hot mess, that's a whole different story. But man, it took only a short amount of time between myself, you know, the other guys on the shift to be able to sit with them and say, look, this is why we do what we do. Think about each one of these steps. You do this. He did great After a week, he did fantastic. He was able, yeah, and he wasn't gonna be a high performer, but we pushed him from being a low performer to getting to being a a a middle performer and not being because that's what we want, right? We want we don't want liabilities on the fire ground. We want assets. And that once we just you know learn that don't condemn someone, teach them. It's much easier.

Corley: No, I love that. I love that. Because how easy is it to fall into that that path or that that trap of just oh this guy's this guy's a slug. This guy's you know he doesn't give he doesn't care. Yeah No, I love the empathy, the empathy represented in in saying where where did he come from? And that is the beautiful part of it. Everybody in the audience I love the comments. Get your questions in. Yeah, Alan Gogovski said sound bite. Without a doubt, man. I'm time stamping as I go. If I'm looking down and not looking at you, it's because I was time stamping, taking good moments. Ron Perry wants to know, would you sacrifice ISO points from pop proper staffing to make sure you have your highest performers available to make every incident, i. e. structure fires, tech rescues? I'm not sure if that's an either or. I'm not sure on that. I'm not briefed enough to know if that question makes sense. Dan Shaw: Yeah, I mean we're we're an ISO class one fire department, but that doesn't mean you're you're immune to a line of duty death For you, immune immune to have a bad day. not by any sense any stretch of imagination. Really all that does for us when it comes down to is hey, we have a benchmark where our level of training is that we're gonna get everyone up to. It's incumbent upon us what that training looks like. So at the end of the day, that's nothing more than a sticker on the side of the apparatus if you aren't doing more and more things to get your people up to that benchmark. You know, one of the things I'm really fortunate we do in our department is you have some really squared away people in our academy and we we we correl collaborate a lot on, hey, we want to do these competencies, or competencies is what we call them. But we want you to come up there and we want you to see this fundamental skills for the engine, the truck, the rescue, the EMS unit And it becomes competitive because firefighters are competitive. And then we start to see their skills getting better and better. And then we see like the esprit de corps starts getting higher because they they want to perform. They want to be an A-rated company.

Dan Shaw: They don't want to be a C rated company. Sure. And so you're starting to raise the bar up for everyone, which is so important as a organization, because, you know, part of my job, and this is, you know, if you're a c if you're a captain You know, you you you want to run your own little empire you have. If you're a battalion chief, like when I was a battalion chief, I had five firehouses, sixty guys I want to respect the esprit de corps of each one of those firehouses, but I gotta break down the silos and we gotta move together as one battalion. So it's delicate balance, right? Because you know I want to respect it. So you train together. You to find different ways to capitalize on their. So great drill we used to do when I was battalion chief. You know, we have a four-minute on-scene report, situation report. And we had a wealth of experience and we had very new people in the battalion. So I had two really experienced captains and a brand new truck lieutenant So we would just jump on this is one like Teams and Zoom is really just new and said, all right, let's jump on this. We do it seven o'clock at night. I'm gonna play a YouTube video that I haven't really seen the outcome of it, but it has to be from a point of view of watching the fire. First engine, second engine, first special service. So first engine, like I play the video until they mark on the scene, yeah. Give me your own scene report. All right, tell me what you would do. How would you operate? All right, second engine. Hit the hit the recording. Where would you you show up you take command? Where do you want the second line to go? Where do you want the third line to go? Where do you want the truck go? Truck. Jump on here. Now you watch it. Tell me what your search profile is. Where would you start your search? Why? Where would you ladder? Where would you want to vent? And so we just do those three things, right? They get sets of reps on the radio, which is what we want. But then they start to talk because this engine officer would never run a call with this other engine officer because they're opposite sides of the battalion.

Dan Shaw: But he's heard that this guy is really experienced. Well he just got a free exchange because now he's critiquing him. He's saying, hey brother, what you know what I would do is I would say this. This is why I would take a line here. Oh, you're gonna do that with the truck? I would do this. So you you're breaking down the silos So now like as a battalion, we're all gonna move together right now. And then when I was a deputy, you know, I had all 400 square miles of the county and all 39 companies on duty that day. Now I have eight battalions, I gotta get the same thing. I get respect to eight battalions, but we all gotta move in the same direction. Corley: Sure. Dan Shaw: And the same is true now as an ops chief. Like now I got 20 some odd battalions and we gotta move all them together because everyone always says like, you know, it does I'm sure this is in your fire department. There's three different fire departments. Okay, yeah. Corley: There's no eighteen, eighteen different fire departments. Dan Shaw: Right, right. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, f fill in the blank. We all see. But yeah, I'm okay with that in a sense because there's nuances. You are not me, I'm not you, but is our mission the same? Right. The manner in which you get there, I could care less. But we are going to get to the same objective, and I want to respect you to do that, and I'm going to give you because autonomy breeds mastery, right? I'm going to give you the autonomy to go read, lead what you have to do Because that's so important. Because if I can support you, then we're gonna get there. I always share with guys, you know, when every every rank I've had, like as a as a chief officer Yeah, the first question I would always ask guys is you know one don't show up and change everything. You'll lose everyone in your battalion, you'll lose everyone right off the bat. But if you show up and you go, and there's some things you might have to fix. But if there's not, then go on a listening tour. Just go listen to your your your company officers, listen to your firefighters, have a conversation. And I would always start the conversation with like question number one, what do you expect of me as your battalion chief, your deputy chief, your assistant chief?

Dan Shaw: Man, 99. 9% of the time, without them talking to each other, you know what their answers were Be present, be supportive. How how hard is that? Corley: Dude, that's that's like I didn't have I right I wrote it down. Go on a listening tour at 0832 I don't know if you're gonna top that one. Dan Shaw: But that's what you do. Like you go to listen, you realize like they just want you to be present, show up, not show up all the time, they'll show up on every call with them But like show up, share with them, listen to them, and then support 'em. Not that support sometimes is like me telling you, yeah, you screwed up. Right. Right. But other times like you got it, man. We I love your idea. Let let's keep it going. Because when those ideas germinate and come up through the ranks, I love it. And then the job on us is a pressure test is to make sure it works for the entire department. And if it doesn't, then we give feedback. Hey, that's a good idea, but it really really works in your battalion. We gotta make sure it works for everyone in our organization. So It is I don't even know what the question is. I lost I lost track.

Corley: Dude, I there was so much so much wisdom. There's so much value in what you just in the diatribe that just existed right there. I'm being serious because like you said When you have the when you are when you do go on a listening to it, when you do build those relationships, when you do have that trust with the boots on the ground, when you do come back and say, hey, that may work in your battalion, but it won't work everywhere, then all of a sudden you have that buy-in You know? Yeah. And and and they and they're with you. Carpe Fuego is coming at you and said, you mentioned, and this ties right into what we're talking about, but she said, you mentioned getting feedback from Boots on the Ground to keep your thinking relevant but say you're the chief of the department and you can apply it to chief of operations. How do you ensure that your view of the department is accurate? Dan Shaw: you should never lose touch with people in the field who you trust. So I have a field of trusted agents per se. that I really reach out to and and I go out to all the time. I'm really fortunate in our department. So I sent you I I have like three eights. I have a battalion chief and two captains. And the three of them are very respectful, very credible. and I rely upon them. Like I I told them the first day we sat down, like, what do you think your job is as my age? And they have a list of stuff because they're just in their articulate. They are they're on it. I'm like, you have one job. It's to protect me from myself. Nice because I'm gonna have all these ideas and I need you to give me the wink and eye like terrible idea boss. Don't do that. Because they still stay connected, right? And the other part of it too is those guys continue, even though they work in headquarters with me. They go work overtime, we call it budget staffing, they go out and ride rigs, they stay connected, and I really rely upon that to come back to me. And then I have some people that, you know, that's the fortunate part of coming up through the ranks that I'm still super tight with So I can call a truck lieutenant I I've known for 20 years.

Dan Shaw: Hey man, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? Am I am I out of if I'm am I off base? and then you know my ops deputy, so I have six operations deputies in the department and and and they're all really squared away. And when we have conversations, I routinely say to them like here's an idea came up or they have an idea. What do you think? I want to hear from each of you. Because you have six different perspectives of each one of your divisions you run. What do you think? And if we all agree, then we will do this. But it really takes being mindful to say like before I do this, did I check to make sure this is gonna work? Because on paper In a climate-controlled office with no stress, it always looks good. Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: But on the street, like, does this really look good? Even with tough decisions. I mean, sometimes there's some things we have to do that are not favorable. I don't really want to do it. We're we're in a position we have to. How can we make this the best? And a lot of times it's just listening to the guys and girls in the firehouse who are impacted by it And th that's what it takes, great. That's easy enough. And y y you'll learn a couple things out of it too that you didn't think about.

Corley: No, and what I really love, Dan, is that it absolutely ties right back into relationships. Yeah. Like it really does. So it's full circle back to the absolutely. How do you feel about the A tool? Replacing the Halligan bar on a structure fire. I don't know if this is Brian Passmore wants to know. Dan Shaw: Is this a local thing? yes. He he used to work with me. Okay. Throw it in the trash. We used to always joke, you know, A tools like that little tiny Halgabar. Right. I used to always throw them off the apparatus. I'm like, get get that out of here. We only use a Halgar. So as soon as you said that, I'm like, that had to be someone for my job Corley: Okay, fair enough. Brian Passmore, he's the one who asked. Dan Shaw: Yeah, that's surprising. Good man. Corley: Jake J wants to know, what was your go-to company drill? Dan Shaw: so I I I really always I had a lot of them, right? But the number one that I loved, it was kind of twofold, our dress drill. Which was that it wasn't us dressing again on the apparatus because we we typically had a rule like if the captain's door closes, we're leaving Like you should be in the rig. We know that. But where it really mattered was us when we get to the front yard or mom and dad saying, My kids on the second floor window. And then one of you is fumbling to get dressed. So we would just do a drill where we would sit around the back of the b bay, all in your full gear, like you're ready to cross the threshold. You just stretch that line or you know, you're getting ready to force a door and then They work together as partners and we time it. And you watch how everyone's doing. No dropping down to your knee to put your mask on. No tightening five straps. It's your mask. One strap, you're done. You know how to put your hood on with one hand. And then you look at each other and make sure you check each other. And so we do that a couple times. You know what happens is You know, I I work most of my career in multifunction houses, so an engine and truck or engine and tower. And then you realize like everyone is down to under 30 seconds.

Dan Shaw: So what's going to happen when we get to that front door? We're all going to be under 30 seconds. And we and we know we're going to have each other's backs. Like I'm not going to let you walk in that door corally without looking at you and going, hey bro. your hood's off your face. Because you get burned. You're out of the game. But you know, if that is the one step that makes us more and more closer or gets us closer and closer to mastery, man, we're winning. But the other thing we would do out of that was, well, we got all our gear on, and we would end up sitting there in our gear, didn't matter what the temperature was for long periods of time. What do you carry in your pockets and why Because a lot of guys came out of recruit school with the equivalent of a rescue squad in their pockets. God forbid if they ever went down because they're about four hundred pounds with all the crap they have. Right. And so we we start we start learning from each other, right? We start learning from each other about what you carry So like when I was an engine officer, everyone had to have six six door chocks. I don't care what you carry. But when we go through doors, there is no way we're gonna get held up by a door And engines control doors, we chop doors because we have a hose on, we put water on the fire. And so we see you know we start to migrate into a guy started cutting their own. Brian's one of those guys start cutting our own door chocks for everyone so everyone can have a door chalk. We keep 'em under the rear of the hose bed. you know, some guys from PG who I I was f good friends with did that. Hey, you pull a hose line, take a door chalk. It's on us. I don't care. If you can chalk that door and control it for us, great. But then we realize like some other things. We start learning some the mastery. Hey, how many times when you guys pull a hose line? What shoulder do you put it on? I put on my right shoulder. Okay, where are your door chops?

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: I'm right handed, my right pocket. So have you ever seen a guy who's at a door holding a hose line, trying to use his foot, and then reach down and do this? Like how about you put your door chocks in your left pocket because then when you get to the door you can reach and do this. I mean, not not a big drill, right? Right Closer and closer to mastery. Mastery. Those are the seconds. Those are the seconds that we're trying to save because that might be the person who's trapped. That might be the engine or truck who's trying to do a search. It's waiting on you to get that hose line. All these things matter and those seconds start to turn into minutes. So if we can save that and shave that because we're we're getting more and more and that's what it I I I always preach and I you know I'm probably our biggest cheerleader of our department, we are our professional fire department. That has nothing to do with the salary. Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: When I see them, they're professionals Right. They show up and they're professionals on the fire ground. They're disciplined and they move with purpose and they really perform. And you you want to breed that. You want more and more of that. And so just simple drills like that, and you know, it it ended up when I was the engine officer, we had like Oh probably like eighty drills for every piece of app for every position on that apparatus, whether it's driver or as officer And then, you know, next proby, because we get a probio almost every year. Next proby shows up, okay, we start the drills over. But now it's not me doing the drill. It's guys like Brian doing a drill or it's my driver doing a drill. And they're they they've added a couple more because they've they've picked up some things they want to teach.

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: And so now it's just now it's just running itself Corley: Yes. Dan Shaw: So there's really not one better than the other, but I like starting at the very basics. Like if we want that perfect fire, which I haven't been to yet, then we gotta think about every step. That you have to take to get to that perfect fire. And every one of those steps is something you should drill on. Because that's how you get better and better at it. You can't just leave it to chance and then assume everyone you're with because As Doug had always joked, like on the engine we have that umbilical quarter life we're connected to. And the truck or rescue t tends to go off and do this in the individually. But you operate as a team. And you you don't want to have a weak Lincoln team and go disparage a guy. He's he's he's no good. Okay, he's going to the fire with you. You're gonna rely upon him. Right. So you might as well invest him in and train with him Corley: Trying to figure out which way I want to go. I got I got questions coming out out from the audience and I've also got topics I want to cover with you, but let's go with this one. Scott Wells wants to know advice for someone that's about to become a lieutenant in a four-station city, besides the obvious, learn, teach, do, etc. So Dan Shaw's advice to someone about to become a lieutenant in a four-station department.

Dan Shaw: It doesn't matter how many stations you got. Small unit leadership, and this kind of leads to one of the things you and I are talking about. Small unit leadership is absolutely essential to any department success. You know, and I would the reason I would tell you this is so important. Think about when a firefighter walks into your firehouse, when overtime or detailed, and you say to them, what's the first question you ask them? Hey, who's your who's your captain? Who's your lieutenant? They don't ask who's your chief of operations and you care less about me. But why do they ask about who's your lieutenant? Who's your captain? Right on. Because you have the greatest impact on them and they typically mirror who you are. So when you decide to accept that that that mantle of being an officer, which is so vitally important, you have to understand the impact you have. And so it's a hard transition. I went from being a driver for seven years, seven, seven years as a engine driver, to an officer. And my God, man, like, can I have a wheel over here? Oh Yeah. I want to do some of those, but you can't, right? Because if you do the job, they're not doing a job. They're not getting become masters of trade. Oh, by the way, who's doing your job?

Corley: No, it's beautiful. It's beautiful. Dan Shaw: So it really is so important. If you are a new company officer is to understand that you will have a tremendous impact and you get the craft what that impact is going to be. Because no one learns in recruit school when they come into the fire department, hey, here's what a lieutenant does. They learn it when they meet you. Corley: No, and and and the best part man is and it's a two-way street because not only do, you know When when you walk into that station, they say, hey, who is your officer? And then and they judge completely based off of the officer's reputation. But then they represent that officer and they build that officer's reputation. And whether they care, whether they care enough to protect it or throw it out the window comes down again to that relationship that was built, man. Dan Shaw: And invest, I would say the other thing is too is you invest in every one of your people. Like I I saw it a couple times, like we have relief pools, right? where you have a couple officers of relief in the battalion. And sometimes these guys would be like, well, yeah, that guy Corley man He's he's no good.

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: Okay, well I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a tenured officer and I'm not investing in you at all. But I love my guys and girls. Well what happens when I go on vacation? Who's riding the right front seat? The guy I didn't give any time and attention to in up and out because he probably was asking for it. So if I love my people that much, why am I not making sure my replacement for that day, that tour, that week is at the same level I am and I'm supporting as much as I can. It comes back to the team. Like how do we make the team better? Corley: Mm-hmm. Small unit leadership. I love it, man. it's huge. Brian Naily wants to know, how do you feel about dismount assignments? And I'm assuming you mean seat assignments, but dismount assignments on engines I'm implementing this in my station and we drill from those assignments. Dan Shaw: For or against? As I told you before, for me, I didn't care what person was riding the right bucket, they're always gonna be the nozzle firefighter. I want because I want them to know like that is your job

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: I w when you do that, right, you eliminate the front yard conversation, but you build pride. And when firefighters have pride, they want to be they want to be better and better. They're proud of what they're doing, they want to get better. So I I never had an issue with it because We know and God, if if people aren't reading what Jay Browser is doing with his stress inoculation stuff and the impact of stress on human performance, and a lot of the people, but Jay's rare, I mean so much more we pick up out of that. But When your brain is under chaos in a stressful environment, you're not going to think clearly, right? I mean your your decision making goes in the gutter, your tactile function goes in the gutter, your heart rate goes up, which means now you have tunnel vision, auditory exclusion. And now you're gonna go, hey, today I want you to be the Nazi firefighter. yeah. They're not gonna perform. Right. And you could you could blame them till you're blue in the face, but you might as well look in the mirror because it it's you as a leader that didn't prepare them for that.

Corley: Right on Boom, that's right there, man. Beautiful answer. going back to pockets. I love this one. Alan Gogovsky going back to our earlier discussion about your drill. If you had to pick a few items to carry, what would you choose? Dan Shaw: well again I go back I was I was the engine guy throwing through right on door chucks a spanner a spare wheel for the high rises we went to And a rope if I came or we had a large piece of webbing. If I came to a victim, to be able to pull him out, and then a small piece of rope is a rope hose tool. That was it. Corley: That's it. Very simple. Very easy answer. Dan Shaw: I mean we're an engine. I mean I and I unfortunate, right? So because trucks could do the truck things, rescue do the rescue thing. As an engine, we knew what we're showing up to do Corley: I love this question, Dan. It's coming at you. It's from Michael Ramirez. And and and I like this question because of your personal career path. he says, why do you think it's important to promote from rank to rank and what do you say to those who probably had no choice and took a promotional opportunity and skipped a rank. I don't know your path or how it worked out for you, but what was your motivations and Introspections and hindsights, regrets and introspections mainly. Just just hindsights. What do you think?

Dan Shaw: Well, I I would always start off with telling you like It pains me when I hear people complain about the department or complain what rank they are. None of us were conscripted. Right on So you sound like an idiot when you say like I hate this place. Well then leave Or you know, take a demotion or or promote out of the position. But I I loved every one of the positions I was in. And I will tell you, like, I when I got promoted driver, I'm like, I'm good. Rest of my career, I'm solid. And then yeah, I I I'd been driving for a good amount of time and then I looked to my right, I'm like, hmm, hmm. This is a low end of the bell curve. I I think I can do a little bit better than that. I I'm willing and I can't complain about them, right? I can't complain about 'em if I'm not willing to go do it myself. So, you know, I took the lieutenant exam, I got promoted to lieutenant, and really, quite frankly, like trucks were not my gig. so I'm like, I have to go through the lieutenant to get the captain. So I spent a few years as a lieutenant and then I got the captain and man I loved being the captain. Absolutely loved it. Because you had your own fire department real. I mean every single day you sat at a kitchen table and you can never underestimate the impact that you have sitting at the kitchen table. Like if you can't lead lineup, that's what we called it 0700 hours, then how can you lead them down a smoky hallway?

Corley: Boom. Dan Shaw: And so when you can sit there at a kitchen table and have a conversation with these people, and then you start to see like this young talent that's coming in, and they are just fantastic. And they make you look really good because you know they're thinking in the next level. They want to do more and more and more and more because they want to get better at their job. And I love being a captain and then the position You know, I said I didn't want to make chief until I got the twenty years. And I I I I saw like, you know, battalion chief was a really kind of great rank and The two battalions, our two busiest battalions, had came I knew they were gonna come vacant in about my eighteenth eighteenth and a half year. So I'm like, you know what? If I want to work in battalion four or six, I I gotta take I gotta take the exam Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: I was fortunate to go to you know that battalion and get promoted chief. I loved that. and then I worked for a boss that was like mmm Not so much. Right. But again, I can't complain about the deputies if I'm not willing to throw my hat in a ring and do it myself. so I did and I was really fortunate to get promoted to deputy and that that was a fantastic position because you had your own fire department. I mean if after four o'clock the fire chief's not in in the headquarters You're the fire chief, like it's yours. and then the assistant chief position, honestly like it was something that I was I was good at deputy. but It the opportunity to be the ops chief was really enticing. Like I got to do some really great stuff because of the people I worked with. And the ideas that germinate from them. If I could do that for all three shifts, man, that'd really be exciting. And you know, the the biggest thing, and you never know, right? I mean, you look at some of our most notable presidents. Hell, they say Lincoln's the best president. We assassinated him. but yeah, yeah, it's all about impact, right? We talk about the impact you have. And I always tell guys, I say this a lot of times of retirement functions that Especially when I look out at retirement function and see a sea of people there to support wherever individuals retiring.

Dan Shaw: No one cares about the number of medals hanging off your class A's. What they will talk about is the impact you had on them And that's what matters is the impact you have on individuals because if you impact individuals, you're most likely impacting the organization. And that's just a win-win across the board. And the quicker you realize that, like, who cares how many medals you get? I mean, that's great. And I don't think anyone's ever got a medal just because of one action you did. It's because it's a team. Like someone drove me there. Someone forced that door. Oh, I happen to discover the person who is there unconscious but at the end of the day that what people you know and the most impactful people in my career is because they had an impact. They had an impact. I mean I go back to when we did 25 Survive, we had to write the forward and you know, Hui kind of acknowledgments. And I went back to when I was a volunteer firefighter, guy named Andy Liebno. He was a paid guy. I was a volunteer. He's a paid guy working 24-hour shift. I wanted to ride the rescue squad. 16 years old. I want to ride a rescue squad.

Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: He said, okay, you come in every night I'm working in 1900 hours. We'll do one compartment. And we did every night, 1900 to about 2200 hours. Just me and him, soup nuts, everything in there. Now at 16 I had no understanding of that. But then it dawned on me years later, I'm like, this was a paid guy who put you not even have to engage with a volunteer if he didn't want to. But he had been working for twelve hours. And he set aside from 7 o'clock till 10 o'clock at night to sit there with me and go over every single thing and give me all the knowledge he could. And that's stuck in my head forever. And when I became a pay paid firefighter, I'm like, I'm gonna pay that back. And that's why he's in the forward of the book. Because that guy didn't even know he had the impact just because he was just being him. Corley: Right Hey chief, you gotta calm down. I only have so much paper to write the timestamps down on. Being very serious, man. Very serious. Oh, Jake J wants to know, as an ops chief, how do you pick the individuals that you trust to get task done? Or how do you decide to give opportunities to individuals to help make a change? What what do you use to identify man? I like sorry, good question. Great question, Jim.

Dan Shaw: No, it's it's a really good question. I mean sometimes you you you don't have to identify them, right? They they identify themselves. You see someone with passion who has more than an idea and they're willing to go do it. The the hardest thing a lot of times for people is one, you know, and we we're guilty of this my organization You you tend to pick the same twenty people to do everything. Corley: Right. Dan Shaw: Well then you had one the risk of wearing them out. Well I I try sometimes like tell me who the next person is Ask that person, you usually pick, who's the next person? I don't know 'em, but let's trust them. Let's see what they do. And when someone comes to me, like I'm thinking of this one firefighter we had who brought this idea up, he's a firefighter And he brought this idea up. It was a great idea. He had done all the legwork. And the things he didn't do the leg work on is because he didn't know how the process worked. You got it, man. you know, I was able to, you know, my aide was able to work with him and get this thing to come to fruition. And it was wasn't something major, but it's another player. It's another player, another person who's wanting to do it. And then I go back to small unit leaders I really rely upon the captains who are in the firehouses all the time. When I see a name come up or I see or I'm having a conversation with a captain, say, hey, who's who's your A players? Make a note of that name. How can we get that person in? And you know, let's hope none of them go light duty. But when they go light duty because they get injured, oh I rope them into operations. You're here on day work, man. Let's see what you can do Or let me expose you to how the real fire department operates behind the scenes so that'll help you when you go back out to the field. Right on. Really, I it it's I I rely upon the team. the the team keeps me in a loop because it's really impossible for no to know like you know that 1500 firefighters. so I really rely upon the team to tell me like hey this guy a player All right, good.

Dan Shaw: How can how ca how can we get them to contribute to the organization? Because when you get to my rank, right, one of the things we look at when we're promoting people to these positions, the fire chief's the only one who can promote. But obviously he always you know wants the counsel from us. Organizational contribution. That's what we look at. Like it's one of the main things I look at. Did you sit on the sidelines and just did nothing? Or were you always contributing? Whether it was projects, it was committees, you were putting your voice in there because I I learned very early in my career again, another great mentor. I served on a lot of committees where we wrote the operations manuals for the region and you know a really astute mentor told me, you want to make changes? Right. Right. Right. That that's how you make changes, right? So we have operations manuals. When do people read operations manuals? When they're taking a promotional exam or they're getting disciplined, they violated them. So if I want to change a culture of you know for a firefighting tactic, if I put in an operations manual, what do you think everyone's gonna start doing? Because when they promote, they have to do it. They have to learn it. And now they're going to start doing it on the fire ground. So now it becomes part of our policy. It starts becoming what our doctrine is and how we operate. And now we've changed the organization. And I'll use like a 360. If 360 wasn't something when I got in the fire department, we did. Cherry Road happened. That was a senable moment for us but you know then you start to write it more and more like we we put in the lab and the lab just became like a physical feat running around a building. But then we spent some time in the manuals talking about the why. Why do I want you to take a lap? It's not about being undisciplined like we want you to find out where the fire is. We want you to see where the topography differences are. We want you to see where the potential victims are. Want you to figure out where your attack is going to be. When your firefighter is going to be ready when you come back, look at you going, hey Lou, you took a lap.

Dan Shaw: What do you got for me? Where's the fire? And how do we create that culture? Because of what we wrote. And then what you train on. And that becomes part of your promotional exams. And that starts to become what your culture is And you're working towards that. So it it really is a long answer to a short question. But it is kind of like the path is like you rely upon your team. You don't need to know everyone, but you need to have a lot of people to be able to connect and and know them. Go back to networking, relationships. I wish I could remember 1,500 names. Not gonna happen. Corley: Not gonna happen No, I love the fact that you said once you identify someone, then you ask them, hey, who's who's next? Who's next? I I love that. They know 'em. They d they do know 'em. Yeah. Dude, I love that. I've never I've never and again it it's so simple once you said it, so I feel dumb for not saying, but man, that's great. Ask 'em. Dan Shaw: I mean any position you you go into, right? I mean like You many times when you put someone in a position, training academy, like first it's called field training. They train all our people in the field. You should be thinking about who your replacement is the day you start working there So you can start coaching them. You know, my age, right? They did a fantastic job. you know, two of them are going back out to the field. And they picked two All-Stars. So they got two all-stars coming right up behind them because they sold their position. They they educate them like this is what it'll benefit your career. They leave it the chance. For you know, for them to figure it out. No, no, no. I'm gonna reach out to you man. I think highly of you. And so I'm reaching out to you to think I think you'd be good in this position. Hmm. Okay. I might be in. Because I trust you and now you're gonna give me some good insight that might be beneficial for my career and I can give back to the department.

Corley: Love that Another one can I man there's too many questions, but I'm gonna this one and then I'm gonna get to I'm gonna get to books. But Justin Lorenzo wants to know asking you J-Lo saying, how do you encourage The engaged firefighters that don't want to leave the rigs, because this is an issue. They don't want to leave the rigs to come to training to help build the culture/slash organization. with individuals that are into the job and care. How do you get them to how do how do you get them? What's what's your advice for your different levels Dan Shaw: Difficult. Right. I mean I I love hearing some organizations where if they get asked to go to the training academy, they're like My God, you you want me at the training academy? that's fantastic. you know, we're in a position where a lot of times we have to end up you know, we were a few years ago we're in a position where we had to tell people we were going like, Corley, listen man, it's your time up. You have to go to the training academy. and we started to change the script a little bit. And the one big thing we changed the script on was you know, there's some positions you have to be when you're a training academy where the you know you're you're doing programs. And you can't be there for a short period of time. You gotta be there for at least a couple years to learn the ins and outs of it.

Corley: Sure. Dan Shaw: And those guys, you know, the biggest part go back to the secession planning, right? Is you should start figuring out who your replacement is. and start to be able to have that direct dialogue. But the other thing that really worked out is for the positions that are just coming up to assist with the recruit schools We do them for six months and we say all right you come up for six months you don't lose your position you'll go back to your position you were in but for six months you come up and you get to invest your knowledge into the next generation of firefighters And I would tell you a good bit of those people say, hey, I'm good. I'll stay for 12 months. Because they see they're enjoying it because they they are have a tangible impact. Like they're crafting the next fire service, next generation of the fire service. They're doing it. Not me, not anyone else, them by what they're doing in that firehouse. So it is it is difficult. and it and I wish I had the the secret sauce to offer that, but it I think a lot of it is succession planning, doing it really well. And then building that that's a very proudful, that's a position to be very proud of because of what you're doing. You have a tremendous impact. on that next generation of the fire service. And I go back to like you can't complain about what they're doing or how they're being trained unless you want to go be a part of it and be a part of that change.

Corley: Boom. There's the challenge to close out the answer and I love it. Which takes me to one of my favorite questions. I've been wanting to ask you this since basically your 2022 keynote speech. Because you referenced Mattis in the speech, and I love General Mattis' approach to reading and of course all of it, all of it. But book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. Doesn't have to be a firefighting book, but what do you think firefighters should be reading? Dan Shaw: Well, I mean you you referenced back to the speech, right? I love that when Matt said it, right? If you're not reading anything, you're functionally illiterate. And who would want to work for someone who's functionally illiterate? Corley: Boom. Dan Shaw: No one. Not at all. So and and the other part of it too is it's all free experience. Like you don't have to pay anyway, you have to pay a little bit amount for it. But you're learning free experience. So I I always I will go back to two men. They sit here right on my desk. One I just finished reading, legacy by James Kerr. You can see how many tabs are in this bad boy. I mean I I I played rugby, I played Gaelic football. So it it it was near and dear to me, but that book was incredible that you could take those things and you could parlay it into what we do. But I would think any firefighter who never read this 20,000 alarms. Richard Richard Hamilton. it's out of print. 1975. He was a hot most decorated firefighter in the New York City Fire Department before Ray Downey. you read that and if you're not charged up to go run into a fire, I don't know what will get you. the charges up. I mean this thing is like this is like the Constitution me. If you're coming to my house you need white gloves to be able to pull this out and look at it.

Corley: Love it. I was not a rugby player. The All Blacks and What They Can Teach You About Life, one of my favorite books. So I absolutely love that one. And then 20,000 Alarms. Such a very hard book to get a hold of, but if you can. Dan Shaw: Yes. Corley: If you can Absolutely. And there you go. So it takes me to one of my favorite. Let me pull my notes because I don't even have them up right now. Haven't needed them. That's the best part. One of my favorite parts of the show, this is the Five Questions for Firefighters. It started out a long time ago as one question. It evolved into the five questions. And through the episodes, it has become the five questions for firefighters version 3. 3. The answers are arbitr are are completely your opinion. There's no right or wrong. The points are arbitrary, assigned by me with the help of the audience. So my question for you out the gate is, Chief Dan Shaw, are you ready for the five questions for firefighters? Let's do it. All right, here we go. Number one, audience, get ready to score. What is the skill that has carried you through your fire service career?

Dan Shaw: Trust. Unequivocally. you know, when when I see firefighters, you know, probationary firefighters, and I get the chance to talk to them right before they graduate, is that you know, we all took an oath And we all are here for the right reasons. But the reason you're doing when I talk about mission first people always, the reason you're doing it is because of the person, the guy or girl to your right and to your left. And if you don't trust each other, then that relationship is it just fails. If you're a company officer and your firefighters don't trust that you what you are gonna do on the fire ground is is that in their best interest and you're taking care of them You're done. And then like in in my role as a chief, if if I can't trust our our our people every day to be able to go out the door a hundred and thirty thousand times and do the best thing for the people we took an oath to serve, then we're not meeting the mark. But the other part is I have to earn the trust of them every single day And that's tough, right? I mean, because there's a lot of tough decisions we have to make. But that trust is that I hope you know I'm making the best decision for the organization while trying to take care of you every single day. So that when you go out in the street, the highest priority for me is that. And each one of those ranks, trust is number one.

Corley: Oh, I can say this easily. Like I asked the question and there was like, I don't know, it sounded like maybe a quarter of a second between me finishing asking the question and you saying trust. And when you that that quick, man, I'm telling you, max points. absolutely. And then your answer absolutely blew it out of the water. Absolutely blew it out of the water. Up and down. And Alan Glogosi said it best, double max points Jason Caribou said trust equals max points. And David Stender said, oh, boom. Without trust, you won't be given responsibility. Absolutely max. Tons of Max is flying. Trust is huge. Scott Willis just said it. Dan Shaw: We didn't even talk about the trust of the public in us. Right. Oh, bro. Tell me any other profession where you can walk into someone's house in the worst day of their life and say Please, here's my child. I've never met you before. Take care of my child. Right. Or here's my worldly possessions. Come on to my house. I don't care what you do. All because of the uniform you wear. Not because your background child. No, no, no. The uniform you wear is a beacon of trust to them

Corley: Boom. That dude, you already had max points. You didn't have to double it up. You already had it. Number two, it's job town. It's time. You're in route and responding. You gotta think of the scene from backdraft. He's slapping the tape into the cassette deck. McCaffrey's jumping on the rig. But what song are you playing in route? Dan Shaw: Man, I love some good rock. the first one comes to mind because it just starts off strong. Master of Puppets. Corley: Metallic. Yes. Dan Shaw: I mean how can you not like get the vibe off of Master of Puppets? Corley: Dude, absolutely. This is the first time Master has been on here, so okay. I was actually watching Guns and Hoses or Smoking Smoke and guns. It was a MMA fight between police and fire here in Oklahoma. And the first guy walked out to a master. It was his walkout song. And I was just talking about it yesterday saying to my son how it's either that or for whom the bell tolls would be what I'm saying. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah. There's there's a lot of great songs man and stop. That's because the reason that's because we were talking about it last night. But absolutely. And there is a Spotify list where you can find every song that's been suggested And so and Pandora, they're both out there. So and there goes Carpe Fuego, said Max, Max, here comes the maxes, triple max points. Oh, now they're giving triples Triple Max Points for Master of Puppets from Brian Bailey. Obviously a Metallic fan. No, it is. It is. Absolutely. number three. What is Master of Max Points? Max Talica Points. Okay, okay. Great puns, thank you, Max Talica Number three, what is your favorite fire service tradition? And we exclude the firehouse kitchen table just because it has been the number one answer. So we've we've besides the firehouse kitchen table, what is your favorite firehouse tradition?

Dan Shaw: I mean rightly so, but I I would tell you like maybe it's my Sicilian Irish fruits. It's breaking bread with our people. Like I can't tell any times like sharing a meal with firefighters. It doesn't matter where it is. Kitchen table doesn't matter. there's very few conversations I try to have with some of our chiefs, you know, not in this role, other roles. It's usually, hey, let's go grab lunch. Because when we can sit and break bread together and there's no stress, like you're it it just you know, and maybe it's it's it's a familial thing for me for my background, but like It's tremendous. And some of the greatest conversations I've had has been sitting there breaking bread with firefighters, fire officers, fire chiefs. Doesn't matter where it is. I love it. And you know the mi and the thing other I love about it is that it doesn't matter what uniform you wear or where you're from, when you sit down, you have a meal, you start talking shop, it it just man, it's it's a good stuff. It's where it's at. Corley: No, I can't argue. I cannot argue. and I wanted to say, hey, that's almost too close to kitchen table, but you broke it down. You broke it down well enough to say that I can say You you said that snuck it in there. That familial. The familial. You know, you there we go. Three for three max points. This one is on the clock. Let me see if I can make the clock work This one is on the clock. I'm trying to make the clock work. Here we go. I'll put it up here. I think you can see it, maybe I don't know. Is it working? Let me see if I hit play. Maybe, maybe not.

Dan Shaw: This is a high I'll take your word for it. Corley: This is a high high quality production. Yeah, you can see it. The audience can. Can you see it up there? Dan Shaw: I can't know. No? But I'll trust you if you tell me the buzzer goes off. Corley: Alright, I'll you'll have to trust me. For some reason it's it's not Okay, it's all good. It's on the clock. You get four people to put on your Mount Rushmore of the fire service and go. Dan Shaw: I tell you if you give me an inanimate object, I put my patch up there first because of our people. But I I was thinking about like, you know, the Mount Rushmore was was constructed because they wanted to have the four most impactful people in our country. And so I think about the most impactful people in the fire service. So I would go with Pete Lund, who's from the FDNY, and I can explain, you know, background that. James Braidwood. Braid was. I can explain that. I mean, incredible person. I mean anyone who's called the master of engines, you're number one in my book. Andy Fredericks. I mean unfortunately I never had the pleasure to meet him, but the An incredible teacher and a thoughtful leader who just gave and had an impact and still has an impact. And I would finish with with Bobby Halton Bobby was a guy who just gave me the chance and the opportunity to teach FDIC to share our message, gave me the humbling privilege to be the keynoter in 2022, and that was all over a handshake. And it was all about integrity. And I there's nothing I wanted from him, he wanted from me, other than us just to be, you know, brothers and take care of each other and do the right thing for the right reasons.

Corley: Beautiful man. Lund Braidwood Fredericks Halton. Dude, that's a powerful, powerful. Dan Shaw: I mean Braidwood like 1830 Yes. Talking about flow path in a Yes. You should keep the doors and windows shut until you get a hose line on it because the fire will get bigger in direct proportion to the amount of air Corley: Yeah. Dan Shaw: Groundbreaking. Corley: Groundbreaking research. Dan Shaw: It's probably because he's chewing on a mustache and you know crawling out of hallway in jeans. And supposedly he died at a fire trying to take whiskey to his men. Seriously. Winning. Corley: That is a that's the kind of I don't know if that's a true story, but that's the kind I want someone telling about me a hundred years from now. I love it. Hey brother you go okay final question the question it is heavy fire searchable space You've said all night you're an engine guy, engine guy, engine guy. But heavy fire searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or the first in on the VES? Dan Shaw: Well, my my heart says Nas. But you know, much like we had a recent fire that unfortunately was a fatality and we were talking about it afterwards. I had shared with those guys like we all took an oath to potentially give our life for a perfect stranger who's in peril because of fire. And we never wish that on anyone, but if it does occur, we want to be there to be able to have that positive impact. So I would go VI. Yes, and that's why we exist. is if you have the opportunity to be able to pull someone from that and save their life, man, there's no greater feeling than that. Boom.

Corley: There you go. Five for five. Max points. Absolutely crushing it on the five questions for firefighters without a clock. And you beat it with nine seconds to spare, by the way. Oh, there we go. Just so you know, just to keep you posted. Five for five, max points. That officially puts Scrap number 243 in the books, my brother, Daniel Shaw, if someone wants to get a hold of you, what is the best way to do so? Dan Shaw: obviously you can hit me on my my Instagram, which is cheapdshaw. the same as my emails chiefdeshaw at gmail. com I'm still you know working with guys in traditions and that's you know where Pete comes from. Had the privilege to work with Pete and learn from him, really not work with him. Just the secret was I was teaching with him, but I was really learning from him every single day because Again, a guy with tremendous amount of impact, retired, and all we want to do is give and share his knowledge. So you can check over at traditionstraining. com and hit me up at anything you need. Corley: Love it. Absolutely love it. Housekeeping. Everybody go to firehousevigilance. com. Let me see the Carpe Foglio said that that last answer is my second favorite of all scrap history. Just so you know. Second favorite of all scrap history. Wow. quite awful Vigilantes, go join. If you're not a vigilante, go be one. Five bucks a month. We just moved to Patreon. We are a group of like-minded souls. Man, when you're with a group of like-minded souls, you are never alone. Go become a vigilante. Join the Patreon. It's five bucks a month. The scrap after party will be right after the scrap is over. And the vigilantes get the invite next week. One of my biggest mentors, Chief Scott Thompson is coming on. Then Mike Galliano, following him up. He is the May 8th. It was a mystery guest, but I was able to confirm Mike can do it. And then it is Anthony Castro. So how is that? It's like Dan Shaw, Scott Thompson, Galeano, Castros. How's that for a four-week boom boom boom boom? 2024 is killing it. and it's going strong. Thank you, Chief Shaw, for being an unbelievably amazing guest.

Dan Shaw: Oh thanks for the invite, man. Loved it. Love every second of it. Corley: Sam will be posting the vigilante the after party scrap link. So join up. Dan has agreed to come and be roasted. for his performance on the scrap. He has agreed to hear the feedback and your thoughts about the episode. So please be there. Audience, everybody for coming to YouTube. Thank you for coming and and being a part of this first time ever YouTube only scrap Your questions are phenomenal. You are what makes the scrap magical. You showing up and asking great, insightful questions that challenge the guest, that keep them thinking, that keep me asking good questions. Without you, the scrap would not exist. So thank you for tuning in live. I love you all. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning. Everybody, stay safe out there.