Weekly Scrap #349 - Brian Brush, five years later

Corley: Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance. It is weekly scrap number 349. My guest tonight. We only refer to as Brian Crush. The rest of the world refers to him by his given name, Chief Brian Brush. He is a firefighter with over 30 years experience. One of the most down-to-earth guys you'll ever meet in the fire service. He currently serves as the training chief for Midwest City Fire Department. He's the co-author of Mastering Fire Ground Command. a regular instructor at FDIC, as well as having delivered one of my favorite keynotes of all time, talking about being unquenchable. Brian has spent his career focused on making firefighters better. more prepared and smarter on the fire ground. From his early days as a volunteer all the way to leading training in a busy department, Brian brings real world experience, solid leadership, and that straight shooting attitude we all love. There is a reason we call him Brian Crush. It is my absolute pleasure to have him back on the scrap for episode number 349. Welcome, my brother. Chief Brian Brush: Thanks, dude. It's great to be an off-the-bench player tonight since I wasn't uh I wasn't originally scheduled for this, but I'm happy to step in because the timing couldn't be better, man. To be able to share some stuff with you right now that is uh Really fresh is gonna be a good show.

Corley: No, everything happens for a reason. Like Chief Hobelman was originally scheduled like, you know, 10 weeks ago. I scheduled him for tonight. He's got a very important vote going on. He wanted to be with his people. And how can you be mad when a leader wants to be with his people when something's, you know, like, yeah, no, you're the whole reason I like to talk to Jason is because He represents his people so well. So, and the fact that this happened, it happened for a reason because you just wrapped up five years later. So I'm so excited to get into it, man. So excited to get into it. Uh all that being said, what did I miss in the intro? What would you like to add? Chief Brian Brush: Uh bet nothing really, man. I I want to want to cut to it. Want to let you uh hit your sponsors so we can get get to down to the nitty-gritty, man. All right, let's do it. Corley: Look at the beautiful sponsors. Let's talk about getting cold. Huge shout out, Fire Cold Plunge. I've got one in the garage. I try to use it every day. They sell to a lot of fire stations because one reason simple their plunge is built solid. It is firefighter-proof. Low maintenance It's small footprint and it gets cold. So there is zero prep when it stays at temp. After workout, after a call, you can just hop in and cool off. Firecoldplunge. com Everything in the fire service gets tested. Training, instincts, equipment. That's why Snap Tite delivers fire hose that performs no matter the challenge. Durability, packability, kink resistance. Every line is tested before it leaves the factory. Because when you stretch a line, there's no room for guesswork This April, they're bringing that same mindset to FDIC. Look for Team Snaptight on the show floor and around the city. They'll be there all week to talk hoes, fireground performance, and connecting with firefighters from across the country. Snap tight, American-made, firefighter trusted. 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 find and 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 the final thing I'll talk about is. FDIC's, we're gonna have a vigilante meetup on Thursday night. So vigilante's, you don't have to be a vigilante to be there, but we are having a get together. So if you're going to FDIC, if you're gonna be in Indianapolis Thursday evening, The details are available on social media, so it's a huge deal. Also, show up for my class Thursday morning because I don't want it to be empty. So yeah, uh shameless plug for that. There we go. Sponsors are done. Intros are done. Brian Crush. I want first of all to start off by just everybody, I think, unless they've been under a rock, knows about your research project, what you did five years ago that led that has led to, I mean, it's been the catalyst of so much. But Before we get into five years later, in the fact I want you kind of take us to the beginning and what what started it, walk us through that so people understand where this started so that we can get to the comparisons, the numbers and everything else. And go. Chief Brian Brush: Well, you know, I uh I'm just I've just always been a fire service nerd. I think we we we know that, you know, and uh been in love with with knowing as m as much as possible about the job and and everything from Hosework to uh ladders, ventilation. I mean, I just I'm just ate up with it. There's no change in that. Um what's kind of interesting though is like I just had this kind of burning question of like how how many people are we rescuing? And I it bounced around a little bit. With me, you know, I I can't remember when it was where years ago I remember hearing the Coast Guard report how many rescues they had or lifeguards or something like that. I'm like, man, that'd be a pretty cool thing for the fire service, but it just kind of fell off my mind And then the firefighter rescue survey kind of started up with uh Olsen and and Nick and those guys getting it off the ground. And I remember tracking it and thinking how awesome it was, but Being voluntary, you know, we started to see these these numbers come in and surveys come in and the first thousand took a while.

Chief Brian Brush: And uh, you know To kind of clarify, the firefighter rescue survey is a volunteer submission process, and it really gets into the how's the rescue occurring, where were the victims found, how are they removed, what the outcome is, that the process of it But it was still kind of, you know, a thing that I wanted to chase down. How many are we actually rescuing? Yes. So I kind of way that I got involved with the firefighter rescue survey. I was thinking of ways to do it and I was in the master's program at Oklahoma State. It seemed like that was going to be the opportunity to make it a valid process So uh it was through the school I kind of started talking with some of the professors and and presenting it. And the project actually got rejected twice by the um research board at the university because they thought it uh was basically like live live human research um and then they were concerned about uh privacy protection and all this type of stuff so I had to actually meet with them in person to explain All I'm trying to figure out is how many rescues occur, you know, how they're pub how they're reported in the news and this type of stuff. So it got approval, which you know, gave me the opportunity to put that letterhead on these emails to these departments and stuff. So in 2021 for the first 90 days, and I just picked the first 90 days so that way I could get the project completed uh in a semester I basically mirrored the US Fire Administration program. Like right now, if you go to the US Fire Administration webpage, there's a home fire fatalities in the U. S. dashboard And it'll tell you how many, you know, civilians died in house fires over the last 24 hours based on news reports. And they break it out into the states. It's a really uh clean program. So I took that model and just flipped it for rescues. And I put, you know, uh civilian rescues, rescue by firefighters. I put in all these keywords into like a Google Alerts. And uh for 90 days, I'd I'd get them in my mailbox, I'd uh search Facebook pages and I'd track them down and I'd take all of those and I'd have to filter out the dogs rescued.

Chief Brian Brush: I'd have to filter out the the ones by cops. But I'd also have to search fatal fires because a lot of times, you know The newspaper reports a fatal fire, but they're not reporting that the person died at the hospital or was removed. So I'd have to filter through those. So it takes about an hour a day to do it, but You know, it it was awesome. You know, in 2021, that was the first time we we counted them. Um and I do, you know, because your show is more than just information, it's motivation. I I want to make this really clear, man. Like this project wasn't because of where I work It wasn't because of my experience. It was because I had a question that I wanted an answer to and I had a passion for it. And I I mean I'm one dude with a laptop that accomplishes. And anyone out there could do the exact same thing. It's not so I and look what a difference it made in the fire service. You know, so I Anyone can do this, man. I'm no no different than anyone. If you have a desire to learn something and a passion for it, then and you put in the work, the work is actually really enjoyable. And after that, 2021, you know, we were able to say, hey man, on average, 9. 8 civilians are rescued a day. In the first 90 days in 2021, we we captured 881 victims. It was the first time that we were able to tell people like I mean you could you need to expect multiple victims of these fires, you know, and especially apartment fires. And, you know, when you look at my spreadsheet, it's it's really just six columns. You know, it's it's not a whole lot of information, but it's enough to collect and and gather some stuff and keep it manageable for a guy who's also a dad and a full-time worker and but I mean what we were able to find out was was really really uh kind of awesome And it was a school project, so I made it a little bit deeper. You know, I did a full report for the school and then did about a 13-page kind of summary for the fire service. Um and I had hoped that, you know, in time with technology and stuff, somehow this would be taken over or someone else would pick it up.

Chief Brian Brush: But uh, you know, we We just kind of it did it and I started to put my energy in the firefighter rescue survey uh for a couple years, which was awesome. Um, but we didn't we hadn't done the count again. So So fast forward, 2026, it is five years later. Yeah. Corley: And it's, yeah. No, I want to Sorry, dude, go ahead. No, I just uh first of all I want to know the difference between 2021-2026. Five years five years. Easier to manage, harder to manage. So I've got your alerts and finding it. Chief Brian Brush: I didn't want to take an advantage of something that I didn't have as a resource then because I didn't want to skew the numbers too much. So I, you know, I stuck with the Google Alerts, I stuck with the same uh same uh questions, the same uh process, every kept everything exactly the same. And and even that, man, like I so um as far as the source of doing the redo five years later Um this summer I I spent some time in the hospital and uh there was a uh kind of a deep personal question uh um on my status if I was gonna make it back to the fire service. And I remember sitting there in the And the ICU thinking, man, what if I can't go back to work and gear again? You know, what is something that I could do? And um, you know, I'm reflecting on all this type of stuff, and I'm like, well, you know, I Even if I have some pretty serious restrictions, I can still uh redo this. So I kind of made it my goal to redo it uh this year since it would be five years later. And even though I I you know thankfully came out of it healthy and everything. Uh I still wanted to see it through. So um yeah, so we I just completely replicated it. What's again funny is this isn't for school This isn't for anything else. This was purely a hobby project, but um, you know, I guess that it's a little bit how big of a fire nerd am I, but if I were to kind of equate it to something, it's like, man, I People are huge sports fans. You know, they they know their team inside and out.

Chief Brian Brush: They know the stats. You know, one of my buddies is a huge Dodger fan. It's his favorite team, and he knows all the stats, and he's always bragging about the Dodgers, even though they bought their success. But Anyway, uh, you know, the American Fire Service is my favorite team, and dude, you guys are my favorite players. So I I I want to know as much about your success and your stats as possible so that We can brag on it, man, because we are we are a pretty badass team. Corley: No, that's awesome. And what I love, man, and you said it. You said, I'm just a dude with a laptop. Anybody can do this. And and there is a like you said, it's not just information. It's inspiration. It is motivation. And if that doesn't get you motivated to say, holy crap, we can make a difference. Anybody, that's amazing. That is amazing. And I want to say this, you're a doer. And you are a doer because you don't just talk about it, you do it. So let's dive into the differences. What what is let's let's open up with uh the comparisons What's the biggest surprise to you coming out the gate? Uh the difference or has it been has it has it held steady or I was so proud of that 9. 8. In fact, you know how much I love the 9. 8. It's on the cover of the book of search For those who don't know, that is the Easter egg on the shield of the guy on the helmet. Paul Combs stuck that 9. 8 on there. If you didn't know, that's where it came from. So, but let's talk comparisons. What's the what's jumped out at you?

Chief Brian Brush: I think what's jumped out at me, you know, you do you do something once and you kind of think like, man, that's That's cool, you know, that but how accurate is it really? So to like to do it five years later, it's pretty and I'll kind of get into the details of it um, you know, as as far as like how how similar it is and and how consistent it is, and that's That's really made me feel good. It's like, well, shoot, man, these, you know, this project wasn't a one-off. It's actually lining up with a lot of different things. But um before we get into the comparison, I'll you know, I I put up on on uh the uh Facebook a couple days ago right after the 90 days um my preliminary numbers but then I got the firefighter rescue survey information uh I had a few kind of late ones picked up So I'm gonna go ahead and give the uh the quarter one stats here. So for you guys watching, here it is, 2026, we actually logged 540 structure fires in the U. S. Now this these numbers are the United States. So in 90 days, the first 90 days of the year, there was 540 structure fire incidents with rescues. With rescues. Fire incident, a structured fire incident with rescues one every four hours in the U. S. From those 540 incidents, we rescued 1,033 victims Which gives us an overall average of 11. 5 per day. So Corley, yeah, 9. 8 was exciting, but man, we are now Now going up. It's 11. 5 victims per day rescued in the US. So uh pretty exciting stuff, pretty motivating stuff, you know, and I think that that's That's what we need to get. You know, I we I mean, dude, you have shows all the time. We talk about all these different problems and issues in the fire service, like leadership and morale and culture and all this type of stuff. Like The core of it is we got a purpose problem. People lose their purpose. You know, Robert Byrne said that the the the purpose of life is a life of purpose. You gotta have something that you're living for. You gotta have something that you're intentional about, something, a clear goal or something in mind. And man, I'm I Making a rescue is is is it.

Chief Brian Brush: You know, it is it is by definition when a trained, willing, and equipped firefighter is the intervention between life and death of somebody. You know, and for us to know that it's happening that frequently, it should be clarifying our purpose. That's what we're here for. You know, we could say we're firefighters, but we're we're lifesavers. I mean, think about What just happened, those guys rescuing that fighter pilot behind enemy lines. It's the first time it's happened in 20 years. Oh 20 years ago was the last time a fighter pilot was down behind enemy lines So you're talking two, three generations of people in these jobs preparing their entire career to go rescue somebody behind enemy lines and they've they've never had the chance. They never lost their purpose. They never lost their mission. They never got deluded or distracted. They stayed on task. And man, I think That's where a lot of these issues come, be it leadership. Leadership can't explain the purpose of our job, you know, the why, whatever we want to call it. But I mean I used to do a class called civilian rescue the the reason we exist and that that is it man that that is what we're here for and it's it's happening more and more frequently and uh we need to be fired up for it. You know, like we there's been no greater chance for a generation of firefighters to to make make a difference in somebody's lives and save them from a fire based on all the tactics, technology, and then EMS care that we can provide now. We are we are we're gonna be saving lives uh more than any of our predecessors.

Corley: Every four hours Chief Brian Brush: Yeah. Corley: That is unreal, man. 11. 5. 11. 5. Uh no, dude. Uh I love every bit of what you're saying because, like you said, there is nothing more tragic than a life without purpose. And the best thing about firefighters, if we don't lose focus on it, is the purpose is baked baked into our cake. I mean it's baked into our cake. Uh that's that that's what's amazing, and that's what you put the spotlight on Whether it be through your class or whether through your actual actions that you take by doing what you do. So Do you want to comparison? Shoot a question first. I'll work on my PowerPoint. Okay. Garrett Crotty's coming at you and he's kind of asking the same thing. The most surprising This is the first question from the audience, by the way, coming from Garrett. Crush, what is the most surprising, insightful piece of information that you learned through this project? Chief Brian Brush: Um I guess kind of uh I guess like what I'm saying is uh is uh and I'll I'll go through it. It's it's It's how true this is. So it um, I mean, I'm I was gonna try to do this whiteboard thing, but it's not quite effective. So I'll just rattle off the numbers. So, you know, when when we look at like The number of incidents. So if I compare in 2021, there was 454 incidents with rescues. And in 2026, there was 540. That's a 19% increase. Right. So in in five years we're up almost 20% on the uh incidents with rescues. Um when you look at the victims, in 2021 we had 881 victims from the 454 incidents In uh 2026, we had a thousand thirty-three. That's a 17% increase. So the numbers are are pretty close. The tracking on the On the NFPA side, NFPA said in in 2021, we had 2,880 civilian fatalities and home fires. In 2024, that's the most recent data set. So it's not quite up to this year, but in 2024, there was 3,170 um civilian home for fire fatalities. That's a 10% increase. So you know the Google search, the Google alerts, like all these things are are pretty much tracking on on the increase side um with within a few percentage points. In 2021, the civilian death rate per thousand fires was 9.

Chief Brian Brush: 5. In 2024, again, this is a few years back because of NFTA's data. They don't even have the 2025 out yet. Uh, it's gone up to 10. 2 per 1,000, which is now one per 100, and that's a 8% increase. So um so it's you know I I in the nerd world we talk about like triangulating data. I think that's really important. Like you don't want to have a single data set and report on something, you want to compare it to other other things in the discipline. It's just like the firefighter rescue survey comparing that to the UL information, where those things line up, that's that's the sweet spot. That's the closest to the truth. So when you take, you know, the rest numbers of rescues that I'm tracking, but also the civilian fire fatalities, the civilian death rate, the information from NFPA, and they start to line up, you start to realize, man, I'm I Uh my information is is probably pretty pretty accurate compared to the trends in the US fire service. Corley: No, absolutely. Especially when you rattle off the the you know the eight percent, ten percent, seventeen percent, twenty percent, they're all tracking. Uh and some of that is good news because some of that is good stuff, but overall fatalities being up How is that I don't know if you've even looked at fires versus fatalities. I mean, I'm sure you have in some, but I don't know if it's part of this analysis.

Chief Brian Brush: Well yeah, so I'll keep going down the track here. So in um so W what I do so is is I get, you know, this is this is how deep this this survey goes. So I I get I do the Google Alerts and everything and I'll and I'll make my notebook, which I've got around here, I mean I can show you the uh the spreadsheet. So I take them down, I I put them in the spreadsheet every single day, and then I'll take whatever the city is. So for example, Moore had a rescue not too long ago. So your former department made a rescue. I I had the headline in the news. I put the news link story in there so it's validated And then I email or make some type of contact, either contact form or email the chief, deputy chief, whoever I can in the organization. And I I send them a template email that I'm doing this research. Um, I know you had a rescue. Can you please uh confirm it and complete a firefighter rescue survey. Here's the link to it. Here's why we're doing it. And from those, sometimes I'll get it back from a chief and they'll say, no, it wasn't a rescue. You know, the person walked out or they were there before and I'll say thank you for response. We'll delete it. Other times uh they'll fill out the firefighter rescue survey or they'll they'll send me some more information. So anyway, um what what we do then is is I take the firefighter rescue survey responses for the first 90 days And I go through and I see how many of them that I made contact with actually followed up. So in 2021, our response rate was 28%. Oh, wow. So from these emails and stuff in 2021, while even though we had um You know, we had 881 victims. I only got back like 200 something surveys. So our our response rate was was pretty low in 2021. The response rate in 2026 was 45%.

Corley: Oh wow. So almost double. Almost double. Chief Brian Brush: So we're almost catching you know, 50% of the residents. I mean, that's that's huge. It's such a testament to, you know, the things that you're doing to support us, to to help get the word out. Um our our information being quoted, more and more departments are familiar with it. More and more departments have put uh you know policy and procedure into place. So I mean that's a major leap in our advancement because it means that we're going to be getting that much more information on these rescues, which is going to help us do that much more surveys. I mean you you know it uh from yourself. We had the first 2000 Then the first 4,000. Now we're at 5,000. So we're capturing a lot of those. And that's where I can find out whether they lived or died, basically. So mine just counts the the number of rescues, but having those follow-up firefighter rescue surveys completed are the ones that give us did they did they survive the incident or or did they die So we have a 65% survival rate overall for rescues in 2026. So for the first 90 days. . Um, you know that that's pretty impressive because again, back to the sports analogy, that's an important thing. . When we look at those those data and we say, well, you know, fatalities are up 10% But our rescues are up 20%. What's going on here? Well, it means that we're saving more lives.

Corley: Yeah, we're close to the case. Chief Brian Brush: You know, because NFPA is only reporting the fatalities So imagine that. I mean, if say, you know, the US has 3,000 civilian fire fatalities one year, that's only 44% of the people that firefighters are coming in contact with You know, that'd be like me that'd be like me tell saying, well, you know, the the Pittsburgh Steelers lost six games this year. Well, how many did they play? Right. You know, because how often did they compete? Our firefighters are competing, you know, a hundred percent of the time NFPA is only reporting on their losses. Corley: Yeah. Chief Brian Brush: You know, so I think that's amazing. You know, we talk about how frequently this is happening and the rescues, and certainly the rescues are under-reported. You know, we I I can promise you that for everyone that's not valid. There's three or four that aren't being reported, especially when you look at Yeah, exactly. We can't validate it. We can't validate it, but we we know it Exactly. And I I want, I mean, we have a win. Again, you guys are my favorite team. You're my favorite players. We have a winning record. 65% of the time civilians survive when they're when they're rescued. You know, so they're um so I mean it it's amazing when you put it into that perspective and you see the 3,000 number for home fire fatalities or the 2800 number for home fire fatalities, that's only 44% of our record. Our firefighters are encountering countering victims at a an extremely high rate. You know, Nick and I did a deep dive on it, on the numbers, and we we we truly believe that it's about one victim in every 50 fires. That that that's that's the rate that we're at right now as far as encountering victims.

Corley: Wow. No, that's that's no and and and the tools that didn't exist even in 2021 because the data set wasn't ready from firefighter rescue survey, just across analysis and everything else. So not to mention the UL, FSRI, NIST, all of the all the other stuff going on. All right, coming at you from Josh Everett. So we're going to keep digging into the numbers as as you want to throw them out there and throw them And keep digging into the data. But Josh Ebert says, how can we as a fire service get the buy-in for reporting to FFRS? He says FSRI is learning from this. Will we have buy-in on the nearest side? So any news on NERES at all? Are you involved in or talking to anybody? Chief Brian Brush: Yeah, and then, you know, again, triangulating data, that's that's what's so been so important about it's another uh leg of this. uh that's what's so important about doing it right now first quarter of of uh 2026 because this is the first quarter that near us has been in place. Corley: Right. Chief Brian Brush: And uh NERUS is collecting rescues, um, but they're just collecting if they occurred on the fire ground. So I think that that's a really good thing because again, we don't want a single source for data. We don't want you know the nearest report to also be the firefighter rescue survey. One, because it's just way too cumbersome, you know, to fill out another 40 questions if you have a firefighter or a rescue. But it's I like having it kind of a separate source. So I have been in touch with uh with the guys doing nearest with Craig at ULFSRI. And from what I understand, they in the first 90 days, they collected data on about 180 rescues. So their capture rate right now is actually even less than the firefighter rescue survey. But I will put that into context. Not everyone has come on board with NERUS. You know, not everyone reports to NERUS. Not everyone's familiar with the new uh rescue reporting. So it is kind of still in its infancy. But you know, I again it I think it's a testament to the firefighter rescue survey that that they're actually collecting more information and and full quantity information uh on rescues than near us. And it'll just be a matter of time, you know.

Chief Brian Brush: Right. But uh, you know, the the Firefly Rescue Survey is a is a really reliable data set to see you know our our incident response of of almost 45%. Um So as far as getting buy-in, man, I I'd love to help support you. The guys, you know, you can email the firefighter rescue survey team. They'll they'll provide you with plenty of information to support it. But the trend is going that way. You know, the national expectation is that Um, you know, you you will report rescues at least when they occur through the nearest system. But as far as the details of it, the biggest barrier is most Fire chiefs or departments that are concerned about reporting a firefighter rescue survey are concerned about the uh protected information. Sure. Um they they think that it's gonna they're gonna disclose something that they uh they shouldn't Yeah, violate hippos. I always hear that thrown around. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But if you print off, you know, we have the thing that shows the 40 questions. And I actually just had this conversation with the San Francisco Fire Department as far as reporting them. And I said Have your PIO be the one who uh collects the information and and actually does the firefighter rescue survey because when you look at the firefighter rescue survey, the majority of the questions are what you would find in a press release You know, at at 1218, our firefighters were dispatched to a house fire. They arrived within three minutes of the alarm. The victim was located on the second floor in a bedroom and under smoky conditions. The firefighters removed the victim They were transported to a local hospital and they're currently in stable condition. That answers 90% of the, you know, the firefighter rescue survey. Um and it's and that's kind of why we set it up that way is because for the most part it's information that's being released publicly anyway. You find it in the press release of the department or something like that. Now there's some more details as far as patient weight, age, those types of things, but they're all very general. Nothing would be identifying. So And I'm happy, you know, sometimes it just takes a dude in a white shirt to talk to a dude in a white shirt to make him feel comfortable about something.

Chief Brian Brush: So we're we're happy to communicate with other departments I was kind of surprised how many emails I sent out that I got responses back from Chiefs that, hey, thanks, I didn't know anything about this. It sounds like a great program. um because we're in our own little bubble we think that everyone knows about firefighter rescue survey but a lot of it's just education so no no and i do i do because i mean i i talk about it almost every class i teach Corley: And it might be the circle, you know, the echo chamber that I travel in, but it's like everybody knows now. Everybody knows. That's that's my mindset. It's uh no i have i i don't think i've had anybody say hey i don't know that what you're talking about the other thing uh nears it actually you you said it's in its infancy it's in its implementation phase Yeah, correct. But it but at least it's being implemented. That's the cool part, is we're actually counting. And the last thing I want to say to Everett's question, which is uh Firefighter Rescue Survey is doing their ambassador academies, and that's a great way to get more information on how to implement. And so becoming a part of that and when they offer those, I don't know exactly the time frame or how to get involved with it, but they are available.

Chief Brian Brush: And to clarify, you know, I'm I'm pretty much just an ambassador now. I'm not part of their daily day-to-day operations when When you wrote him a check for $98,000 or whatever it was, I'm like, whoa, this is too big for me. You know. Corley: I'm out of here. Chief Brian Brush: I'm out of here, man. Corley: Like a pizza party. Chief Brian Brush: I'm happy to be a a positive voice for you guys, but uh you I'm I uh I don't I don't want to manage budgets beyond what I have to do at work. So uh Corley: I know and I want to be clear. That check, which I'm very proud of, very proud to be a part of it. That check was created by the American Fire Service, by the American by all of our favorite team. Yes, our favorite team, man. And that was that was the American Fire Service who absolutely delivered on that. Fireman Piverall. Who wants to know? Kyle Piverall says, with all the data from Firefighter Rescue Survey, what is the biggest takeaway from a teaching instructing perspective in terms of changing how and why we teach search? Chief Brian Brush: Okay, so I'm gonna this I I have this written down and highlighted as the scariest statistic uh there is Okay. Um and I'm gonna because it's it's it's not just from Firefighter Rescue Survey. Firefighter Rescue Survey is a great tool, but Uh one of the most impactful ones are when we use NFPA data because I mean man the firefighter rescue survey I I I stand behind it. I think it's an extremely valid uh data source, but When you really want to drive something home to people, I mean when you cite NFPA, it's it's about the most uh solid data source that we have, even above the US Fire Administration. So Um looking at it this way uh from NFPA in twenty twenty-one When 2020, so this was five years ago again, 2020 to 2021. So that year over year, uh fires were down two and a half percent. Injuries to firefighters were down, or no, sorry, we'll back this up. This is just straight civilians. So in 2021, from the previous year, fires were down 2. 5%, and civilian injuries at fires were down 3. 3%. But the fatalities were up eight point five percent. So civilian injuries were down how much? 3. 3%. So So this is this is over one year.

Chief Brian Brush: So for in from 2020 to 2021, the number of home fires was down two and a half percent And civilian injuries was down 3. 3%. But fatalities. But the fatalities went up 8. 5%. Corley: Whoa. Chief Brian Brush: So the most recent complete data set from uh NFPA is on 2024. Okay. So in 2024 compared to 2023, fires were down 1%. Civilian fire injuries was down 12%. They actually made a pretty big statement that this was one of the lowest recorded uh fire injury years for civilians that they had on record. Fatalities were up 6. 8%. Corley: Whoa. Chief Brian Brush: So if you kind of look over like a five-year period, fires are down by almost 5% in five years. Injuries are down for civilians by almost 20% in five years, but civilian fire fatalities in that five-year period are up by almost 15 to 16%. So, what that's highlighting is that fires are more lethal than ever before. They're not even injuring people People people just skip right through the injury phase into the fatality phase. Corley: They either get out or they're they're they're overcoming their their their fatalities. Chief Brian Brush: Yeah, I mean the the window is closing, you know, and I mean we do have better tools in the sense that we're we're We're understanding our evidence-based tactics and that type of stuff. We're able to provide cyanal kids. There's there's tools out there and we can kind of correlate that to seeing that, you know, these fatality rates are up. uh overall but our rescues are up our survival rate. So the real important thing to be able to keep track of over the next few years is is that survival rate if If we're able to maintain a high survival rate or increase it because we're focusing on rescues, that's when we actually have a chance. You know, there's a lot of places in this country where where bodies are found in burnout trailers, there's not even the fire department. So I hate to to look at just the civilian fire fatality data. I like to look at the the rescue data and the survival rate for that because That's when the person actually has a chance. That's when a firefighter showed up and was able to intervene. But really, there's fewer five the bottom line. As like a chat GPT would say or whatever, there's fewer fires, there's fewer injuries, but there's more fatalities.

Chief Brian Brush: And that that That just has to drive home our vigilance. That has to drive home our purpose. That we these people have less and less opportunity to survive these events. You are the difference and that's it. Left unattended, people will die in fires at a faster rate than they ever had before. We need to get out the door without stopping to take a piss. We need to be able to mask up on our way to the front door We need to be able to get into windows. That we the only thing preventing the window of opportunity from closing is a firefighter fucking diving in it. Corley: Nice. I think I got my soundbite. No doubt about it, man. The uh brother, I don't sorry I love uh All of it. I don't even know I don't even know where to start. And that's not even the right way to say it, because when you're talking about fatalities being up, there's nothing to love there But when you start talking about the 65%, when you start talking about the 65% and you apply that to the 1,033, just track to the 90 days. Now That's 660 something that survived and that's making a difference. And then I don't know how to I don't even know how to do the math to correlate that into the income increase that the that the that if you can even make the math make the make the math make it make it work to explain the increase

Chief Brian Brush: Well, the unfortunate part is because the delay in data, so like NFPA will report the the complete 2025 data set in October of 2026. So like I I I do want to make the the direct connection and and s and and compare it, but I'm actually gonna have to wait until October of 2027 to look at at the the to directly compare the rates. But I will provide you one other one. So it's like doom and gloom on the civilian side. Here's the other thing that we have, because this is the other side of the coin The fires are more lethal than ever before, but only for the citizens. So when we look at the same time period for firefighters. Um over the last 10 years, firefighter fire ground injuries are down 25%. . And The tenure average for interior line of duty death list is like active interior doing work, stretching hose lines, searching, is only 7. 2 uh Interior line of duty deaths per year. The last two years, 2024 and 2025, we only had four interior line of duty deaths in those years. In 2017, we only had one interior firefighter line of duty death. So once again, we are safer than we ever have been. This is the safest fire service you've ever experienced. I mean, in terms of not just deaths, but injuries. We are safer than we ever have been before And our civilians are at a greater risk than they ever have been before. So when we think about like, you know, risk-benefit, it should be the complete opposite. It should be like The benefit is rescuing a civilian in a house fire, and we've never had a greater chance to accomplish that. The civilian. the the the rescues per fire, the civilian death rate per fire is only going up. . Like our likelihood of of rescuing somebody from a fire, our greatest benefit is only going up. And our risk to our people is constantly trending down. You know, so uh once again, man, technology, tactics, all these things are working in our favor. We need to put some more chips on the table so we can start to get, you know, get a bigger payoff No, we have to intervene in the situations.

Corley: No, and I want to ask, because there's you know the the the swing towards safety, you know, this the safety mindset, us before the citizen mindset that that's yeah that's infected different aspects of the fire service The is that is part of that the I I know I'm asking you to speculate and it's speculation, but is that the reason that the injuries are down while the fatalities are up is strictly that my mindset. I mean, wouldn't that play out in your if you extrapolated it out? Chief Brian Brush: So I mean liar's figure and figures lie. So man, if you want to use it that way, you know, for your slide, that's awesome. You know, I'd like to say, man, I I mean look around the firehouse. There's way fewer dudes smoking cigarettes nowadays. You know, there there's way there's there's guys are in way better shape. You know, I I get it, man. I'm I know there's a lot of firefighters around who still think we have poor mental health programs and we have poor fitness programs and we have poor nutrition. I've been in the fire service for 30 years. I'll tell you what, dude, our nutrition has never been tighter overall in the in the firefighters. Granted, it's not perfect. Our access to fitness equipment has never been better. Our mental health programs have never been better. Our shifts, all this type of stuff. Like, I mean I think overall wellness of firefighters has never been higher. So I believe that that's having a bigger impact on, you know, our our injury improvement and that type of stuff. That's fair. As far as line of duty desks, man, we we are we are better protected. Um we we have quicker communication. Um we we have When you look back, I mean, writ is truly only, you know, a couple decades old, if that, you know, in some places only 10 to 15 years old. So a lot of those things have impacted this this decade swing. So Um, I would love to uh, you know, you know, kind of say it's well the you know the cowardice got it. It's this one thing, right? But I I don't want to. I'd rather highlight the positivity. I'd rather say all the things that we're doing to improve things for us is working in the right direction.

Chief Brian Brush: It's how do we apply that to the citizens? Well, then, I don't know. Like we can't control pre-existing conditions. Overall, the society is getting more obese. Maybe GLP1 will help in outcomes. You know, I I don't I don't know. Um, but Obviously on the civilian side, I I truly believe it's it's environmental toxicity. I mean, Corley, I'm sure, dude, you have gone fires later in your career that was just a burnt pot on the stove and you could barely breathe in it. Whereas early in your career you'd walk in and and burnt food was no big deal. Like I I just don't know what it is about these environments, but Simple, small, really small fires are really smoking up and just trashing uh houses. So it's the it's the lethality of the environment is If that's the only thing that I can truly point to you data-wise, is that the environmental lethality of a working structure fire is is is higher than it ever has been. And I that's having a bigger impact on outcomes than um maybe safety culture. But it it it is a nice thing to to draw a correlation to. It is it is something to highlight and and consider and have discussion points on Well let's calculate on it. We can be intelligently aggressive now. We're like that that's we it it it's it's intelligent aggressiveness.

Corley: Well, I love the speculation. If it especially if it can drive you towards that that mindset of preparedness to say, well, it won't be on my watch. It won't be on my shift. It won't be with my crew. And we will be ready. And we will turn out fast and we will be the first ones diving through that one. window. So all right. I got more. You got more. I don't know if you want to go to more data or not because the I think one of the things that blew my mind the most so far is that 25% decrease in injuries. Because You know, a lot of times you point at line of duty deaths and they say, well, that's just deaths. That's just deaths. But you got to look at totality. You got to look at people getting hurt also. But when you talk about 25% decrease in injuries, fire ground injuries, I mean, that's That's massive. Chief Brian Brush: Yeah. I mean that's what's kind of like and again like you're you're seeing it on the civilian side too. You can say civilian injuries are down, but their fatality is up. Corley: Right. Chief Brian Brush: Well let's compare that to the firefighters. Cause like if the environment was truly if if fires were truly getting worse, they'd be getting worse for all of us. But they're not. You know, we're in fires, they're in fires, so but it's not impacting firefighters as much. So that's where like We talk about divergence of information or like a K graph, you know, where you have the bar on this side and some one data point's trending down, one data point's trending up. I mean, that's That's what we're seeing in two areas. You know, that civilian when a civilian's in a fire environment, what's happening? They're dying quicker. When firefighters in

Corley: It's gotta be just strictly the unprotected airway, most of all. Chief Brian Brush: And civilians or firefighters are going down, you know, so um the the injuries, you know, when it's specific to civilians to see injuries going down at that trend and fatalities going up, like that's Fire lethality is our is our greatest threat. I love it. I love the questions coming. And one of the things, you know, I we always try to preach too is like fires burn, but smoke kills. You know, like even that, like We came up in a fire service where burn camps were a big part. You know, when I was first coming in the fire service, there was a lot of burn camps. They're not there anymore. Um the burns are happening for electrical reasons, scalds, those types of like Fire burn victims aren't aren't surviving. Corley: Right. Most of the thermal insult, unless they're just really close proximity, most of the thermal insult is post uh mortem you know because they're already overcome they're already overcome by the the toxic app i mean yeah the toxicity uh love the questions jaime reyes coming at you he says crush Could could you share insights from our conversation on searching attached garages? Seems to be a number of victims found in attached garages in our area recently. That's the same thing Moore had was So but go ahead.

Chief Brian Brush: Yeah, so uh well this is a this is what he he called me his crews were beating themselves up because um uh a victim was located in a garage Um and uh, you know, he was asking me about it, you know, he said like, hey, firefighter rescue survey, how many are the fine in the garage? I'm like, well, you know, I I I can't access that right now, but I'll tell you that it's actually fairly common. Um and I said, but you're kind of seeing the garage in the wrong frame of mind. So when you look at like NFPA data, when they break down where are victims located based on civilian fire fatalities, you know, and that and that's a pretty easy one to go to, they break it down in a few different areas, paths of egress uh bedrooms, kitchens, bathrooms, like that type of stuff. Well, uh for a lot of people, their garage is their path of egress. Like, I mean, 90% of the time I go in and out of my house through the garage. And like the garage door uh is closer to my bedroom and all my kids' bedrooms than the front door You know, so in the middle of the night, if we had a kitchen fire, which is one of the most common places for it to start, smoke alarms are going off. If I can't get to my front door, I'm probably turning left and going, you know, trying to go out through the garage Well, if in that time I was overcome by smoke coming down that hallway, yeah, you're you're gonna find me. So um I tried to kind of help him, you know, as the ops chief, say, hey, let's, you know, let's Let's look at this. Let's not fault ourselves for this, but let's really consider where we search and we we want to target the bedrooms after hours because that's a really common point. And we really want to target the path of egress. I mean even the firefighter rescue survey will say that a lot of victims are found within six feet of the front door because they have clean lungs when they are trying to get out But they become incapacitated at the front door. I mean, your brother, the the grab that he made, I mean, you could see the gal's feet from the front door.

Chief Brian Brush: Life fire layout, he could see the gal's feet. It was right inside. They they drug her out. But I mean, I we've had, you know, Again, we're Midwest City. We're a small department. We've had eight rescues in the last four years or something like that. And I think three of them were within, you know, a few feet of the front door or or you know maybe less than 10 feet from the front door in that open space trying to get out. So um yeah so you know try to kind of hone in on those the the high likelihood location of the victims. uh front doors or you know paths of egress um which again look at your neighborhood if you think people go in there through the garage a lot of suburban houses then then give that some some consideration as a place to to check Corley: No, I love it. Bonifield says the ways, the entryways, the hallways, the stairways, the ways. I love it. Chief Brian Brush: A lot of times, you know, a lot of times the engine companies search the ways. You know, w that's that's what we say. They 'cause they're stretching through the f the doorways, the hallways, the stairways. Um but again Uh we we rarely take the hose line through the garage. So that's just something that that someone, you know, on the truck, I mean somebody on a primary search should take a look, especially if the garage door is open. If you're in a house and you're cruising down a hallway and this outward swinging door or this You know, uh inward swinging door is open then then maybe we should check that garage. Maybe somebody dipped out there. So

Corley: I think that you're absolutely correct on if you look at suburbia, I would say it's probably 95% of the time the garage is their main form of egress. Like on any given day. Yeah. So in suburbia. Maybe not so much in a rural setting, but probably, but John Smith says, I know this probably isn't data you're requesting, but do you have any specific targets? He goes, I know about cyanolkit, fluid resuscitation, and aggressive airway management, but what do you do what do you believe we need to focus post-rescue? Chief Brian Brush: Um well uh you know I say it's this a continuation of care. Um you know I I try to frame this up by by giving you guys the example of of CPR. So In 2000 and I I had the numbers, I think in 2005, the out-of-hospital survival rate for cardiac arrests. was was pretty low. Um and you know, back then people with with bad heart problems and stuff, they'd go see the doctor and the doctor'd be like, well it it it's really just kind of either prevention or medicine. Like you can try to do these preventative things. Um and then we'll try to improve paramedicine and hospital care. So it was like prevention or operations. But then, you know, as kind of technology advances, AEDs become more and more accessible, we start to train the public to get in there with eight EDs, we start to realize that hands-only CPR, so not not having to give mouth to mouth, which was a major barrier to CPR, hands-only CPR is really the best thing. So you can get that oxygenated uh air, those last breaths as they took around. We start like in Oklahoma and in a lot of states, we start to make CPR requirement for high schoolers so they're able to intervene quicker The entire world gets cell phones, so now we're able to call 911 faster. So really what improved on survivability and the out-of-hospital survival rate. for uh cardiac arrest actually doubled from 2005 to 2015. So the American Heart Association, all these people, they're able to report that data. And it's really because we improved the basics. You know, compressions and electricity are what are are going to save people's lives. And the quicker we get them and the quicker we get them in the hospital, everything is better.

Chief Brian Brush: Um and they call that the chain of survival. Early notification, early compressions, early electricity, then quick transport, like all that type of stuff. It starts with dispatch coaching them on CPR It starts with the trend the early AED, all that type of stuff. Our chain of survival has really be been disjointed for a lot of years. You know, our our dispatchers are taking the call, but they're not coaching the people into a place where they can close a door We're not kind of telling them to stay low. A lot of dispatchers are just call takers taking information. Whereas they if we use them more, we can kind of coach them on How to have people intervene, get away from the fire, get low, compartmentalize yourself, get to an exterior window, those types of things. And then on the fire side, us accelerating our access to them is important. But then like I always say You know, if we're gonna stretch a hose line on a working fire, we're gonna charge it, right? And then we're gonna back it up. Initiating a search without having a plan for where that victim's going is like stretching a dry line into a house fire with smoke at the doorknob because you're not sure if you're really going to find the fire. So if we're stretching a line, we charge it, if we're we're starting a search, we need to have another crew there to either resume the search if the victim's located or to start the triage and treatment process. Because the rescue is just the location and the removal. We can't triage, treat, make any decisions in that environment. We just have to get them out. That's why the firefighter rescue survey exists, is we want to focus on the rescue. You know, the outcome is is is in God's hands, you know, or in the patient care hands, but like we've got to figure out how to get them out faster because once we can get them out Now we can start the next phase. Triage and treatment, hopefully transport, and hopefully, you know, uh in hospital care. So um what I will say is is yeah, man, I'm there's a lot of things. Cyanal kit, but cyanokit is still a paramedical level uh treatment. It still has a high cost. It's not viable in a lot of areas.

Chief Brian Brush: I'd say the biggest factor we need to have is is a a medical crew ready to receive a patient, at least initiate triage and treatment, and then hopefully transport. I I really hope that these numbers drive some things. And Jaime's a great person to talk to. You know, after we had a lot of discussion, they started sending a second ambulance to their fires because uh that first ambulance was getting sucked into to fire fighting tasks, which I totally understand. But we we need to have someone there ready to receive victims. And I, you know, we've gone through it. We had one fire with uh two victims We basically stripped all the ambulances in the city right then because each victim was critical. They each got an ambulance and then we called for a third um you know so that we still had because we still didn't have the primary search complete. So these things can turn into not just an MCI, but a resource suck. I mean We do it all the time. Critical patients on a normal medical, the firefighter jumps in and goes to the hospital with them. Well, that same thing's going to happen to your fire ground. You're going to have a critical patient that comes out And then it's gonna be, you know, a-holes and elbows to get these firefighters into the back of the ambulance to help. And now all of a sudden you lose accountability on your fire scene, you use resources to fight fire. So we need to give greater attention to the medical side of of these fire scenes because um you know spiking the football on on the one yard line scores zero you know we we we we have to get not just the patient out of the uh house but to a facility where they can be cared for. The cyanokid, as far as details on that, I mean I'll tell you in the firefighter rescue survey data says it, like we have to over-triage patients with smoke inhalation Um the the impact of survival is way higher when we give this to them before they go unconscious and when we give it to them before they go into cardiac arrest because that blood is still circulating. Cyanolkit is a Low side effect, no contraindication drug. We need to give it to them as soon as they're coughing and huffing and puffing and having difficulty breathing.

Chief Brian Brush: It's not something that we await until they go into rest and say, oh yeah, this this person is getting CPR they need the cyanal kit we need to give them that to them when they're in respiratory distress to prevent respiratory arrest so please be proactive and over triage your patients when it comes to cyanal kits Beautiful. Corley: I love your sports analogies, dude. Spiking it on the one-yard line. I do. I absolutely do. But the the truth of the matter is this is we we do, especially if you're plugged in, you spend a lot of time focusing on making the grab, getting the grab, being fast, getting getting in there, getting the search complete, getting the grab, getting the person out. And if we're not careful, we will be a shit show when we make it out to the door for it, you know, pull them outside the door and then nothing's ready to go. That needs to be just as much a part of the preparation. Chief Brian Brush: Well they you know they I use this line all the time. It's like tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. You know, we can be really great at all these these tools for getting to and getting them out, but you have to maintain the big picture This person is not going to survive based on what happens in the front lawn, especially these types of uh you know issues. They're they're gonna be in ICU for a long time. You know, it it's it's not It's not get some fresh air and a nebulizer and the the carbon monoxide and the hydrogen cyanide is coming off your blood. That's just not happening. These victims, these smoke inhalation victims are dying on the cellular level

Corley: Right. Chief Brian Brush: You know, the the oxygen cannot connect with blood because of this barrier of hydrogen cyanide and carbon monoxide. So I don't care how much you bench press or how quick your VES is, you can't displace carbon monoxide and hydrogen cyanide from blood cells So they need someone else. Corley: Your nerd is showing. I love it, brother. I absolutely love it. Uh B King has a question coming at you. And if you got more data, please throw it. Because I'm just throwing you audience questions right now. There's some good ones coming. He says, Chief Crush, do you use this data to justify time requirements in training for fire attack and search skills? If so, how do you address firefighters not meeting the standard Chief Brian Brush: So is that this is a really interesting one and and I just had this conversation with uh another training chief because he called me and he's like, hey man. Um, you know, I want to create search standards. I I'd like to say, you know, this is how long it should take a firefighter to search a room, and this is how long it should take to uh do this. And uh man I love the theory of that. I think it's great, but that's not what we need to focus on because there Again, all this whole it depends stuff, like the the searching the environment depends. Like it if you want to test how good you guys are gonna do that, you're gonna have to keep it the same. You're gonna have to say Okay, given this situation, these guys were able to accomplish this task in this period of time. The thing we need to focus on is time to search initiation. The faster we can start our search, the more likely these people are to survive. Because we can't control the interior environment. We can't control affording conditions that All we can control is the time that we have. So like it's the time to task. And that's what's so great about like, you know, the reframing of all this stuff. It's not the time to do the task. It's the time from airbreak to getting that task going. You know, they talk about the zero impact period. We want to reduce the zero impact period. And that zero impact period is the time from dispatch to actually doing something.

Chief Brian Brush: getting there faster, getting on scene and having a quick dawn, getting that hose line to play deployed as possible, having search and Fire attack going at the same time. That's the number one tactical consideration from ULFSRI for their last five studies. Initiate search and and fire attack at the same time even from different locations in the front door in a window because the quicker we can access then the delay and time of actually doing the tasks. I mean that that's out of our control, but um You want to create time standards? Start with a quick on one. You know, our department, we we tried to ease it in. We we had everybody practice it for a while. Then we had the ACs go around and take times with no members' names attached to it. And we made a department average, and our department average was 18 seconds. So that's our standard. But I'd much rather have guys trying to improve their mask-up time because that gets them closer to initiating search. That gets them closer to initiating fire attack. Time the time to task reduction is what we need to focus on, not the um, you know, how long it takes them to flow and move from the front door to the uh you know to the fire room. Uh it's How quickly can we get that line charged and water flowing and then water flowing into that environment? Yeah, and fully encapsulated into that. So that's that's what I would recommend focusing on. Uh the front end time.

Corley: Love the answer. Boo. And and and the and any training chief, any training officer across the country can take that and focus on that, dude. I love I love the takeaway right there. The um Chief Brian Brush: Let me see, how can we get it's just like vertical ventilation, you know, we we we it's funny because uh Ben Schultz, his whole, you know, uh Every second counts. It kind of started with with us trying to reduce our to the roof time. Um, you know, you you can cut a hole really freaking quick, but it's it's It's from the you know from the curb to the cut that takes all the time because that's where all the steps are. So uh before before search, you know, when we were on the truck together, we were really focusing on all right where are we going to put the saw which compartment's not going to go in which which you know who's gonna grab who's gonna grab the uh extension ladder who's gonna grab the roof ladder and just kind of reducing that that that time to task. Corley: Still on the zero impact time. The time you can control. Yeah. No. And time is the enemy. Speed is the weapon.

Chief Brian Brush: So and I'll I'll go off on a little bit of a tangent here too, man. As far as training goes, like you know, training is the junk drawer of the fire service. Everything gets fucking thrown in there. It covers every every word everything that we do. But Fire departments are really good at training their, and training is kind of exposing somebody to something and and and and training them on how to do it. Uh what we need to do is just provide a lot more time for practice. You know, like training, you're you're learning something new, but practice is really where you refine skills, you you're you're able to kind of adjust things to your own methodology and and your own stuff and uh you know again as far as getting better at any of these skills it's it's just per facilitate time for guys to practice and and just be in the environment and and doing their thing. You know, we we've done a lot of training. We've we've uh at Midwest City, we've we've implemented a lot of new things, we've we've we've gone through a lot of changes The last few, I think the last year and very intentionally, we're just letting guys work because the more they kind of just get a job and get to practice it and get to go out and do it, uh the overall they're they're gonna improve their game. Uh so I'm I'm a I'm a big fan of of once you show them the way Give them as much time to practice and keep driving that practice train.

Corley: Oh, dude. I love it, man. I like the questions coming from everybody. Uh I like these two questions here. These are kind of like uh McGinn wants to know, do you get called crush anywhere else? And Steve Maunt says, question, why haven't you legally changed your last name yet? I, you know, it's so funny because my Chief Brian Brush: My kids are on Instagram, obviously, and uh they saw your post with the uh Brian Crush, and that's the first time anyone in my family has heard it, you know. So uh uh they they laughed and then My wife right away is like, oh shut up, you know, don't give them a big head, you know, all this type of stuff. You know, I like I had nothing to do with that. I don't even know where it came from. Corley: But I don't know where it came from either. It just stuck. So because you crush, you crush every project you you take on. I think that's where it started in 2021. Chief Brian Brush: So I guess so we're I we'll we're taking a bunch of questions, but there is something that I did wanna um I did want to talk about, especially since we're talking about BMS and stuff. So, you know, again, one of the one of the big things that uh I wasn't Really kind of anticipating finding out when I first did this was the comparison of single family dwellings to apartment fires. There's a lot of places where they send the same response to uh a single family dwelling that they do to an apartment fire. And then you know there's other places where they make the justification that an apartment fire, you know, the the likelihood uh it's a higher life hazard. So we're gonna send more apparatus. And I I think that's important um because you know, a single family standalone, you have no exposures. As soon as you move to an apartment, you've got exposures uh, you know, side to side and above and all that type of stuff. And the population density is much higher. So as far as making operational changes, you know, um the the victims per occupancy was was really kind of an important thing to to look at. And uh Let me see if I have it here. I know I wrote it somewhere. Uh in 2000 and in 2021, we were averaging I think like 1.

Chief Brian Brush: 4 victims per house fire, and that held pretty true this year. Yeah, okay, here it is. So in 2026, we had 369 residential structure fire incidents, single-family residential that had 523 victims. So the average per fire incident with rescues was 1. 4 victims for residential fires. That was 2026. This is 2026, yeah. Okay. And that that wasn't far off in 2021. Those were pretty close. Pretty okay. In 2026, apartment fires had we had 130 sedents. uh with 458 victims. Whoa. And that came out to about 3. 36 victims per uh fire. If there's one that I would adjust, it would be this. I think if we if we gave it a longer time, it would fall to closer to three. Um because in January we had one fire in Manchester that had like 20 victims, and then in February there was one in Jackson, Miss Michigan that had like 15 victims. Kind of drove it up in that 90 day. I mean, overall, I think in 2021 it was an average of 2. 6 victims per apartment fire. And like I said, this one would be around three. So When you're dispatched to a working apartment fire, again, we we have a lot of fire resources, but once again, you really should start thinking about you know, two to three ambulances establishing a medical group really right away because it could become a um You know, at even that minimum, if they're not making rescues, you're just gonna have people walking out saying that they're there's you know have smoke inhalation or they're they're in a panic attack. So um I'd say that this is is one where we can really kind of start to drive our responses to apartment fires is as increasing that that balance of the alarm, especially if you're dispatched as a battalion chief, you know Corley, we're looking for decision making at our level. You're dispatched to a fire with reported victims trap, be it residential or uh apartment, ask for resources early. It cuts down those reflex times, you know Uh Chief Castros always says, hey, you know, to the battalion chiefs, it's like, if you were dispatched to a fire right now and I told you that 10 minutes in you're gonna have a Mayday, what would you call for right now? And they'd say a second alarm, you know, with without question But we have chiefs rolling out the door all the time getting calls on on the dispatch saying there's reported parties trapped or reported uh parties trapped, blah, blah, blah.

Chief Brian Brush: And we're kind of just dismissing that like, oh well, yeah, no, we'll see when we get there. Right. That's that's reflex time, man. And and the firefighter rescue survey information shows that When there are reports of victims, 80% of the time they're correct. You know, I I think there's this dismissive approach. It's like, oh yeah, well, we hear that shit all the time that people are trapped. Well We we have a lot more reliable information. 20 years ago, 30 years ago, when it was, you know, third hand, somebody on scene was just saying that people are trapped. That's one thing. But now you got cell phones of people inside the house saying that they're trapped. I mean that the The reliability of that information is high. I would much rather start a second alarm, start additional ambulances, start more rigs getting that information and turn them away. Than to arrive and go, oh shit, they were right. And my travel time just cost me three minutes of them being dispatched. Um, so definitely, uh especially when we're talking about apartment fires, leverage that because The incidence with the rescue in 2021 in apartment fires was an average of 2. 6 victims, and in this go-round we're averaging about three And uh I threw that up there as like a little data point uh in February that I thought it was pretty interesting, that it was averaging around three. And the next four apartment fires with rescues that I got, it was three at each one of them

Corley: Wow. Chief Brian Brush: You know, so I'd I'd say that's a pretty reliable one is that you know again we're gonna have some with fewer, some with but overall if if you're if you're pulling one out of an apartment fire, uh uh plan on having three Corley: No, and that's what I love about your data sets combined with the firefighter rescue survey, combined with so much going on. I mean, from uh NERUS and UL, FSRI, NIST, all the All the data points, it's such a great time to be a firefighter. You know? It is I I feel like back in the 1800s they said the same thing. They were like, this is the best time to be a firefighter. I feel like you'll always say that, but I I do, man. There's I we I remember getting fire engineering. You know, that was it. That was, you know, firehouse. That was that was the two magazines. And uh it's changed so much since then, so much. A lot's changed, but a lot hasn't. Chief Brian Brush: I mean I'm still this is this is all my stuff. So I'm still a paper guy. Like I'm I made a New Year's resolution to try to use AI once a day And I have miserably failed about it. I'm like, I'm sure that uh I could make all this a lot easier, but I'm I'm still a highlighter, pencil, notebook guy as far as comparing all these data sets, you know, at work today I killed probably four trees because I printed out NFPA reports, reprinted out Firefighter Rescue Survey, reprinted out my spreadsheets because I wanted to just confirm it one more time, all the stuff that I'm relaying to you guys. So how's the AI quest going? Uh not very good. Like uh you know it I'd say I'm about once a week that I use it, you know. But I I have been good. I'm using it for for purposes of good, like spreadsheets and and organizing thoughts and That type of stuff. I'm not using it to make memes of uh of my counterparts.

Corley: Uh no, I get so frustrated with it when it won't do what I want it to do. That's where I get I start yelling at it. And so I'm creating Skynet And by how I abuse it. But no, uh, I love using it for spreadsheet uh formulas. I I just tell it what I want the formula to do, and then it can actually make the formula for me because I can't write the formula. And that's uh anyway, I was getting that's where I'm nerdy out to the question. Yes. Out of fire where fire control is being addressed. This is coming from Mike Foscaris. He wants to know out of fire where fire control is being addressed. Still tons of smoke. Where is the juice worth the squeeze assigning search or vent? So that's a loaded question with the but anyway, go ahead Chief Brian Brush: So I, you know, in our in our department, uh we have the the the we focus on the the four key ones, fire attack, search, vent, and medical. Um and we say Fire Attack and Search are basically competing for first place all the time. Um like they they they should be Nose a nose, running down the decision tree, which one's going first. We simplified it for our department. Um, that in Our search SOP is the very first one because life safety is our number one priority. And then fire attack is the next one. But in the decision-making tree for the for the officer, we Only in the known known. So we break everything down between known known meaning known victim known location, known unknown, meaning known victim, unknown location. Unknown, you know, like so those basically choices.

Corley: Maybe we have them could be anywhere. Chief Brian Brush: Yeah. So in a no-known situation, search comes first and then fire attack will become second. In all other situations. We initiate fire attack first and then uh search second because we don't want guys searching around a house in the unknown uh location because We'd we'd rather at least start controlling the environment. So as far as those two decisions, that's where it goes. And then vent is Probably gonna be uh third, but we're in a situation where we're not fire-based EMS. So again, as far as that goes, it's fire attack and search competing for uh second. So now what are we gonna do for with the third resource Well, if now we have to decide, you know, for example, if we had a known victim, known location, that third rig that shows up, we're probably gonna make them medical. Because we we gotta do something with this victim. And the best thing we can possibly do is have search hand the victim off. Because if search has to come out with the victim and you have to reassign a company to that search There's a lot of times they're gonna be covering the same area and you just lose a lot of the efficiency. So um that's where we would be. Fortunately, we're in a third fortunately or unfortunately we're in a third-party EMS system, so we get an ambulance that's separate from us. So usually our third call is vent. And when I say vent, it's mainly because we're in Oklahoma. Most things are one story. We're going with vertical ventilation. Um horizontal ventilation is usually kind of managed by search because most of our search is going in Windows and Fire Tack will be uh that. So um vent is is really up front for us, but um I will say that there's, and again, I know where Mike is at, and I know as as you drift towards the West Coast, it's like first due engine attack, second due engine uh you know, supply, first due truck is uh Vent, second due truck is ladders, and now you're getting into like the fourth and fifth arriving rig is actually assigned search. What you guys need to focus on is getting searches close to the front. Like I said, initiating search uh and then making sure the ventilation um is part of it.

Chief Brian Brush: Ben's really important, man. You get the lift. There's um I can think of two situations in our department in recent history where the the victim was only located because the vertical ventilation provided the lift. The victim was in a compartment under some debris. Another one, they were just kind of the thermal uh The thermal imager wasn't seeing the victim because everything around him was basically the same temperature. So it wasn't until we got that smoke to lift uh that they were able to actually visually locate the victim. So You know, it ventilation is really, really critical. But it's not just, you know, and here's the thing I talk about in our tactics for live class is like We use the term ventilation and we think about removing smoke and vertical ventilation and all that type of stuff, but ventilation is the exchange of gases. You know, that's that's what we refer to like a human that ventilates is exchanging gases If we go into a uh a house fire and we we open that nozzle and we flow and move, we are constricting constricting hot gases, coating surfaces prevents off-gassing, it reduces the toxic gas profile in the occupant. It creates lift by cooling and condensing and all that type of stuff. So by doing that, the space is now filling up more with fresh air. So as nice as it is to get vertical bent True ventilation as far as gas exchange can't occur very much by a flowing and moving uh handline, and that's something that we lose track of. So Um there's nothing better than a hand line, man. It cools environments, it removes food fuel, and it actually provides ventilation in the sense that we are lifting the toxic gases off, getting that cool and strict constriction, and we're introducing that fresh air. Again, have a bigger, a bigger mind on on the the the true uh intent of ventilation. Um and if you want to go deeper on that, come to FDIC, see my class on Wednesday afternoon, tactics for life.

Corley: Love it, tactics for life. No, and and and that's why surface cooling is so so so important, because it can take that that turn that all that energy and start reabsorbing it back into that into those those well now cooled surfaces instead of reflecting it all back in and and And and absolutely exponentially driving that energy forward. Chief Brian Brush: Yeah, I mean, back to, you know, back to the whole AED stuff, it's like Uh civilian outcomes improved when we took you know paramedicine and and and all this type of stuff and we condensed it down to compressions and electricity. You know, like that that's what's gonna save lives. In fire attack, the thing that's going to save lives is cooling and compartmentalization, period. Like so that that's it's just impact those things as much as possible Corley: Dude, I love that man. If if there's been so many, so many nuggets, you've dropped this this scrap. So Mike Fuscaris, I'm gonna stick with him because he says Chief Crush. I like it because he keeps calling you Chief Crush. He keeps trying to recruit me out to Las Vegas. I love it. Can you speak more? Well, you're not leaving here. No, no. Can you speak more to any other tips or hot button issues you wished battalion chief officers would consider?

Chief Brian Brush: Yeah, man, I, you know, I think when we've had this conversation, Corley, man, I I think I I think it's really tough because we we get imprinted with a uh a certain uh mindset based on when we came into the fire service because you're so young and impressionable and all that type of stuff. And uh And we're a seniority-based system. So I mean, what's kind of interesting is like when we when we speak specifically about about battalion chiefs, it's like, let's be honest, like In most organizations, a battalion chief is a 15 to 20 year guy. You know, if we expanded the range, it might be a 12 to 25 year guy. W I'd say the the best thing that we could probably do uh with a lot of those people, especially in a big organization, is update their hard drive. You know, have a have a really serious battalion chiefs academy where we we we refresh them with the ULFSRI information and we and we get them from that, you know, like I said, tactics without strategy is the is the noise before defeat. You know, you you're thinking on the tactical level as a company officer, that shift to strategic thinking, it's a big step You know, so you have to think about how all these things intertwine and interact and you know the the resources are are really uh readily available now. um they just may not have had them uh updated their hard drive like i'm saying so um don't fault them for not knowing something uh clarify your expectations uh uh s uh support and facilitate uh greater information and and get them kind of up to date on on where they need to be and that's That's why we put so much effort into the the you know the uh managed or uh the uh calm the chaos book. What is it, managing fireground? Mastering Fireground fan. I can't even remember the title, but like, you know, we we spent a lot of time in that book trying to update chief officers with that uh Tactics for Life chapter. And the firefighter rescue survey stuff and even mission command and you know decentralized command. We we have to, if we want them to be modern battalion chiefs, it's on us to to uh provide them modern information

Corley: Beautiful. Dude, I love it, man. Uh Jay Moses are this is a question we get often on the scrap. So I'm gonna throw it at you because it is it. I mean it's it's a million-dollar question. This is the book you need to write. But he says Is there any way to push training more on duty and drilling on the basics as a five-year firefighter, you put it in parentheses, to people on a department where training is not a priority? Or should I just remember my place and hold my tongue for now? Chief Brian Brush: Man, uh I it's that's a tough question, you know, because it's like the three U's, are they unable unwilling or unaware, you know, and it's like, well, you know, it's on us to address the uh the unable and unaware. Um that's through training and education, but the unwilling, you just can't influence that. Maybe, maybe by you doing it, you're gonna motivate them. Maybe by you doing it on your own, they're gonna talk shit about you. But I mean it's like your chances are 50-50. You know, either you get out there and you do it and they see you doing it and you're leading by example or They're not gonna do it. But guess what? They weren't doing it before you went out there to do it on your own, so you're taking a chance. Um But I I think you know one thing that really kind of again simplifies stuff and I had this question the other day, you know, from someone they said, well, you know, what what would your b advice be to a new firefighter And it's the same advice I give all our new recruits. It's the keys to being a successful firefighter in the future, the keys to making a difference in human lives, the keys to having a long career is body mechanics and fire dynamics. You know, work on really good body mechanics flowing and moving, using your saw, the the the features. I always joke it's like I can bend over and pick up 75 pounds but I can deadlift over 300 pounds just by changing my body mechanics. I can, you know, make I can make fire attack and put water on wet stuff on the red stuff. But if I study fire dynamics, I can truly create a more survivable atmosphere for civilians.

Chief Brian Brush: So you know It just kind of chip away at that. Say, man, every day I'm gonna put in some work on fire dynamics and body mechanics. You guys can join me in the gym. You can enjoy me uh flowing and moving You can join me doing this. You can join me by reading this article or a quick but keep it small and simple. And I think that that's the biggest thing is guys. We'll counter the like oh you're making this overly complicated or we're changing just the change. It's like no man I don't I mean we we just want to keep it simple i want to do these two things every day to get better one percent a day you know i get better one percent a day then by the end of the year i'm 300 better than i was today so um that's that's a pretty powerful thing Corley: Dude, great, great, great breakdown. Great question. I mean it's it's it's the age old question. Jeremy Humph Humphrey, he's coming at you. He says, Chief Crush, do you think some Chiefs Use liability as an excuse to avoid meaningful live fire training, even when that decision leaves recruits more vulnerable when it counts.

Chief Brian Brush: Oh, for sure, man. I mean, and that's, you know, that's uh 1403 could not be a more misinterpreted uh you know standard. I mean I'm I'm on the board, I know it inside and out. And I'll go places and I'll I'll see people teaching 1403 classes that are saying that there's these mandates that that don't even exist. I also know that, you know, Chiefs are they they are afraid of it. I mean they're they're they're the ultimate responsibility, rightfully so. There there is some fear of liability. Um but I hate when they get in with the fearmongers and they get driven into this belief that that liability is the greatest thing. I mean, yes, there's fire departments being sued. Um, but it just doesn't happen that often, you know. Um, and again, if if if they really care, they'll do they'll do their homework and they'll find out what's going on. Live fire training, it takes a lot of work, man. I mean, we we've got a live fire cadre of of over 20 guys. We we uh burn every quarter We put a lot of effort and emphasis into burning, but the core behind it is purpose. You know, like it is a mission, it is a top-down mission from our fire uh chief to make Are guys the most comfortable they can possibly be in live fire conditions and the most not just comfortable but confident and competent? Because that's going to be where our greatest test is. So again, when it comes to liability, it's like, well, how do we want to frame it? You know, the the we we're liable if our people aren't prepared and comfortable and confident in a situation where they're going to be tested to their greatest level We're also liable if we uh get someone hurt in training in the preparation for it. You know, so it's a it's a double-edged sword. It's like, I mean, go to your chief. Say it, you know the perfect example is, hey chief How many injuries do we have from guys working out? They'll throw their hands up and like all of our injuries are from guys working out in the gym. I got 10 injury reports from deadlifts and burpees and basketball and blah blah blah What we can't quantify is how many injuries have been prevented because our guys are in better shape.

Chief Brian Brush: What I can point to you is say that, man, over the last five years, the uh firefighter deaths and injuries are down at a rate that that we've never seen before. Firefighters are the healthiest and safest they've ever been. So while you are seeing injury reports, it's because you're never seeing How many things this improved. You'll never see the heart attack that it prevented. You'll never see you know the ACL blowout that it prevented because we we teach guys to force doors instead of mule kick them. You'll never see the fact that That crew that works out every day in their gear, that is what resulted in that rescue on 123 Main Street So um it's tough, man. I mean guys who are afraid of liability are probably afraid of liability across the board. They won't let you let you be on Facebook. They don't want you to have tattoos. They don't want, I mean, like, so I I I can't change that guy. Um, but again. It's it's about you, man. You can control you. If you're a captain, you can control your crew. If you're a battalion chief, you can you can do that. You know, I'm I'm I've had one dude in the training division for five years. I I got a training captain, you know, so now there's two of us in there. But um what you what I can control is is the the approach and the and the mindset and the vision and training It's a lot easier when you have a fire chief and you have people that support it. But man, I mean if it's not working, if if something's not working from you above, then focus on what you can work on from you down.

Corley: Boom. And I love the I love your point on unseen benefits because they are that you can't quantify them. And so they don't exist, you know, if you if you choose to look the other way. And that's what a lot of Fearmongering focuses on is the uh they they refuse to acknowledge the unseen benefits or downplay them. So absolutely One more coming at you from Relentless Rescue. And they want they say, and this is a nice, nice wrap-up question here at the end, and with anything you want to throw in it. But he says, What do you think, if anything, are we missing as a fire service right now for our victims? And is there anything we can do to or change in the future work on drawing down the numbers? Chief Brian Brush: Mindset's the most powerful thing, man. I mean, period. Like I said, the purpose of life is the life of purpose. If we go in every day. Thinking man that rescues happening here. I'm gonna check out my gear that much more closely. Like, I mean if if you knew Going to work that day, you were gonna have a fire and there was gonna be a rescue, you would absolutely approach things differently. You know, the the if if I knew the shift before, if I told you when you came on this tour You know, two shifts from now, you guys are gonna have a working structure fire with a victim. You'd be going about things different starting then. You know, you you would be hydrated. You would be like because you you want to be ready, man. I we won't joke, we won't sugarcoat it, we won't hide. There's a lot of people who are not good employees in the fire service, but at the core Man, I believe everybody here wants to make a difference, they want to save a life, they they want to know when that that thing comes, they're gonna be successful And I think again, like I said, we've got a lot of symptoms, but the true disease is is loss of purpose and lack of clarity and purpose. And then We exist to make rescues. We're making rescues every four hours. And that's probably underreported. It's up from the last time I did this. Only imagine what's going to happen in another five years. Everything is trending in that direction.

Chief Brian Brush: We again I I I tell we got a recruit class right now. You guys are the greatest generation. You guys will have the most potential. to make an impact on civilian lives in fires of any generation before you. And it's not just in your tactics and your skills and your abilities, it's in your medicine, it's in your your education, it's in everything. You know, the the national fire problem is getting a whole lot more local when a place like Midwest City is running eight rescues in a in a four-year period. You know, like I mean it it is coming to your town These things that were far off then distance that the guys told you I've never had a rescue. That person was dead before you got here, kid. Don't worry about it. I'm telling you the opposite. Your rescue is coming The likelihood is only increasing and your potential to make a difference in every single thing that you do, every second that you pick up, every Every uh article that you read, every door that you force, every rep that you try is gonna make a difference. It's worth the grind. And if it never comes. Who cares? You can sleep with the clear conscious that my 25 years I showed up and gave it everything I had. I didn't just get an attendance award for making it.

Corley: Boom. I don't even know how to follow that up, man. I don't even know how to follow that up. So I'll pivot and go to book or books, because I love to ask this question So I'll pivot off of the numbers and the questions and go to what books do you think firefighters should be reading? I love asking this question. Chief Brian Brush: So I've, you know I've been on the show before. Deep survival is always my go-to by Lawrence Gonzalez. But I will say there's one I read a few years ago that has come back around for me. And it's called Raising the Bar by Donald Vandegriff. And I actually have the PDF uh here, it's about 130 pages. The title is Raising the Bar, Creating and Nurturing Adaptability to Deal with the Changing Face of War It's an incredible PDF. Corley, I'll I'll send it to you because then it's free to be downloaded. You can put it in the vigilantes or anything, but It's an incredible book. It was written in the early 2000s when we were shipping shifting the military from like a big war approach to these, you know. the the war against chant uh terrorism and they kind of talked about it by being fourth generation warfare where um it wasn't uh you know enemy states It was these terrorism cells and small small group warfare and all that type of stuff. And it really highlights the kind of the the dynamic change and the pace of play that needed to be made for not just ground level guys, but also uh senior leadership and and and mid-level leadership and really focuses on the NCOs in the military and empowering them, which you know in our world is our company officers. So It's a great read. It's about 130 pages. It's a really quick read, but it's one of the most recommended texts that I've given to company officers and stuff. And while I I love Deep Survival on the individual level. If I were to, you know, back to Mike's question or anybody else, like this is one that should be a company officer, battalion chief kind of book club one, um just because it's It's really cool and what's really neat about it is reading it back then, it was kind of in time, but to read it now uh and kind of reflect on those changes in the military, I mean it's It really gave birth to the Jocko Willings and stuff that are out there now.

Chief Brian Brush: You know, it's it it it preceded some of that. Uh so it it shows that those concepts and things did take hold and You know, you you get down on making changes in your department, but these are changes that were made to the mil to the army. You know, I think it's what 400,000 uh people in the army, you know, and and the the cultural shift that has occurred in the last uh 20 years in that organization is is just tremendous. So uh really highly recommend that raising the bar, creating and nurturing adaptability to deal with the changing face of war, Donald Vandergriff Corley: Raising the bar. Okay. Okay. I'm excited to get the PDF now because that's quite that's quite the uh hype for it. All right, we do a thing on here. You've been here before, Mr. Crush, and you've done this before. So you've you've actually had most of these questions before I believe but you get to do them again so if you can you can you can stick to the originals you can also modify the song question there is a Spotify playlist out there and it grows every week with the new song unless of course you put the same song on there so completely up to you but It's the five questions for firefighters. There is no right answer to any of these. They are just your opinion. So are you ready for the five questions for firefighters? Yes, sir. Number one, you can do anything in the world. Except be a firefighter, what would you choose to be?

Chief Brian Brush: Man, right now, um I I kind of got this itch to get back to like fabricating stuff. Like I think I would have a massive metal shop. um with a uh just access to everything and I've man I'm I'm uh my my creative side is is kind of itching right now. Maybe it's because I've been doing all this research and stuff. But um yeah I mean it I I'd be uh I'd be probably building furniture and and all kind of whatever could come up, you know, with I mean we've done the door prop. We've done some some pretty cool stuff. I built some stuff in my house and uh for whatever reason I'm I'm itching to to get back to fabrications Corley: So a metal shop making furniture. That's what I gotta do. I mean, yeah, I mean I yeah, yeah. Chief Brian Brush: I I don't even want to limit myself to uh to to metal, you know, I'm a woodworking all that. I just I just want to have a spot where I'm jamming out to uh to rock and roll and and all kinds of stuff and and uh building anything that i want just creating just creating something with your hands yeah okay i love it i love it

Corley: Max points right out the gate. There you go. Number two, it's Job Town. It's time. Like the scene from Backdraft slapping that tape into that cassette deck. You're responding. What song are you playing while in route? Chief Brian Brush: You know it was Broham, you know, uh for a long time. That was that was my go-to. You obviously we've talked about this, but uh the other day actually going to a fire, Metallica Fade to Black was was rolling on the radio, and man, that That hit. That was good. And it was just kind of by accident. So I think next time I'm gonna I'm gonna throw it down and and hopefully it's You need a built a little bit of a longer response because the you know the spill building. Corley: Yeah, Metallica always has the large building. That's hard to knock. We have Metallica on the list, but I don't know if Fade to Black's made the list yet. Sam says, oh, it has been there before? Nope, it's the first time. So it is added, it is now added to the list. Get it, Sam. Sam will just play it. We're going out music. Two for two. Number three, cold weekend at the station. Rig checks are done, PT's done, training's done, the the the food is cooking in the simmering in the crock pot or whatever. There is you you're not being lazy. It's just one of those lazy days You're clicking through the channel on the TV. What's the movie that it don't matter how many times you've seen it before, you're gonna finish that movie, even if it's on USA and there's 1400 commercials. What's that movie for you

Chief Brian Brush: Man, the the go-to for my youngest and I are kind of the movie buffs in our house. And uh we've been watching all kinds of stuff like but the one we always go back to is Godfather. Any, you know, Godfather one or Godfather two. I mean like Even though they're slow movies and they're long, man, I just like it it just sucks me in. You know, at any point in those movies, if you're familiar with it, yeah, yeah. Corley: So no, any anything uh one and two. Now three doesn't even count, but yeah, that's that's not a real movie. Yeah, right. No, absolutely the top, top, both of those are in my top five movies of all time. So absolute max points Uh scores the Corleone. Uh cold oh I got that one. On the clock. Now you're on the clock. There's four people on Mount Rushmore, and you get to put four people on your Mount Rushmore of the fire station, but you get one minute to do so So who do you put on your Mount Rushmore and go? Chief Brian Brush: Well, I've had this one before and the the go-tos are Andy Fredericks for me and then uh John Norman, just an incredible legend. Uh the two that I will adjust, um, and I think it's just because they are kind of closer friends, and I'm really starting to um you know think of the impact of their work on the on the fire service, it would probably be Chief McGrail Just absolutely drove uh, you know, the right way to do business as far as standpipe operations and You know, I wish you could see in the fire service how that has now turned into, you know, so many great things, uh just a little bit past his time. Um, I mean he's still in it, still teaching it, but and then also Jim McCormick, you know, at FDTN. I mean, there's the measure of his impact is just insane, one of the most uh humble, uh kind and kind of to himself individuals, but His impact on live fire training, writ, and then just affordable training towers has changed the world for everybody. Just last minute

Corley: Frederick's Norman McGrill McCormick. That is a solid. And like I didn't realize it till McGrill came back here last year and came back to OKC area and I set through a What was his are you into the job lecture? Yeah. Which you brought him in to do at Edmund Leadership Symposium uh circa like 2016 era. You exposed me, you exposed me to him like 10 years ago, which completely changed my but I didn't remember that until I saw him again and so it was one of those aha moments of holy smokes I forgot how big this was for me So it's one of the reasons I love you so much is how big of an impact you had on me. It's more than just yeah, it's more than just standpipes. Chief Brian Brush: I mean it his his keynote, I mean you talk about favorite keynotes, that's that's probably what and it it's about vigilance and complacency. I mean that That one uh just hits, man. It's it's it's it's strong. So go out there, Google Dave McGrail's uh keynote because it was a it was a ways back, it might have been 2009-ish or so Uh so it's something that some people have missed that I I would recommend them watching.

Corley: Love it. Final question. You've had it before, every time. This is the fourth time you've had it, I believe. Well, maybe not. It probably wasn't here the first time because you were pretty original. You were in the 30s Uh heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle or first in on that VES? Chief Brian Brush: Man, I love searching. Obviously, we're all about search, but just nothing beats being on the nozzle. Corley: Bob is the job. I think you've stayed consistent. You've stayed consistent, sir. Yeah. Five for five max points for Brian Crush. Brother, is there some uh Best way to get a hold of you, people want to reach out, they want to find out more, how they can help, whatever. What's the best way to get a hold of you? Chief Brian Brush: So Brianebrush at gmail. com goes to me. If you have work-related questions, policies, procedures, training, any of that type of stuff, it's bbrush at midwestcityok. org. Our fire chief, our department is is very proud of the things that we're doing that are working for us. And we are absolutely driven and empowered and encouraged to share any of that information with anybody out there. So Please hit me up. But if you end up sending me a question to Brianiebrush at gmail. com about policy and procedure, I just forward it to my work account so that way I can send it from there. But um Man, I I I don't know, Corley, this is kind of cracking me up. I I can't see any of the numbers, but I mean who would have thought that people from all over the the country would be wanting to listen to two dudes from Oklahoma uh on a Tuesday night. Uh two fire nerds. Yeah, yeah.

Corley: I I mean I I'd like to say fire nerd like I'm in your level. I'm not on your level I am not on your level. You are the master. And so, but I have thoroughly. Chief Brian Brush: Motivation and information. All I got is information. You're the motivation. So we'll we'll uh we'll we'll we'll call it a pretty good combo from the uh 405 Corley: Dude, you brought it tonight. I can say that. Now, speaking of two weeks from this week, I think, we're at FDIC. We're at Indy. When's your class? It's Wednesday. Tell everybody training for life? Chief Brian Brush: Tactics for life is at uh 1. 30 on Wednesday. So we're doing the opening ceremonies. Um I've got a little bit of cushion in there and then I'll be kicking off right after lunch Very important part of FDIC this year. I just want to pass it on. It's the 25th anniversary of 9-11. The advisory board uh we we wanted to make a special tribute to that. I mean there's We've lost a lot of people since 9-11 that were a part of it. And unfortunately that trend is continuing. And we really wanted to make it a big part of this year's event because I You know, I hate to say it, but we probably won't have that many around um at the 30 year or anything else. So this this may be our last chance to um highlight some of the 9-11 stories from all over the the country and uh for those of you uh younger generations or who are one around please take the time to at least be exposed to or participate in or or sit in on on some part of uh the 9-11 related things at at uh FDIC this year. There's going to be daily events than the stair climb on on Friday. We'll highlight it at opening ceremonies as far as what's going on, but um Just make sure we have some type of tribute to that. It was an absolute uh shift in our in our whole uh worlds, everybody's world, uh 9-11 and 2001, and and and we want to reflect on that and and most importantly Again, one of the greatest rescues ever made. As we talk about those who died, we've got to remember that it's estimated about 20,000 were rescued. So very, very, very important thing.

Chief Brian Brush: You know, if if if only we could attract the rescues then, I mean that that was a big deal. So Corley: Yeah, no doubt about it, man. No doubt about it. Uh somber, but also uh it it's a source of honor. I mean it's a it's a it's a weird dichotomy that exists for that. Yeah, and I and I can't wait to be there. So excellent. Um I don't know how to follow uh housekeeping. Go to patreon. com the vigilantes discord's up and running Man, I'm telling you, I love the Discord because it's like social media without all the bad stuff. It's just a bunch of firefighters hanging out, asking firefighter questions and helping firefighter. It's a great community. Go be a part of it. Join the vigilantes. And when you're a vigilani, you get to have vigilante meetups like we did in Pensacola last week and like we're going to do at Indianapolis in a couple weeks and like we're going to do tomorrow night in Ohio. It's going to be awesome. So all that being said, go become a vigilante. Get on the Discord and hang out. Coming up next week on the scrap. It is 350, and there is a tradition on the scrap when it ends in double zero or five zero. There's a guy known as Kurt Isaacson who uh likes to come on here. And if he don't get you fired up, you better check your polls. Tune in next week for number 350. You do not want to miss Kurt when he gets on a tear. Plain and simple. Then on a special night, Monday, Monday, Monday, okay, Monday night, because of FDIC. We are doing the scrap on 420. A very special night. 420. The scrap is not on Tuesday that week, okay Because of FDIC, but it will be the editor-in-chief of Firefighter Nation, Stephanie White, coming on. And you know she does not hold back on her opinions, and we'll be talking about everything going on with her, and the conversation will be about FDIC as well as everything she's got going on. So speaking of which, my class, Thursday morning, 8:30. Brush sorry, crushes class, uh, Wednesday, 1. 30. Uh be there, be square. All right, that's enough. I'm I'm rambling. Let's get to the after party. Thank you once again.

Chief Brian Brush: One second, Corley. Can you talk about hits? Can you remind everybody about hits in your hit session? Corley: The hit session Uh that I think they're gonna be huge hit. Doctor, no pun intended. I think they're gonna be awesome. 20 minutes of some of the most amazing all amazing speech. I mean I shouldn't say all because it I don't know who all is there, but the list I've seen, the speakers are unreal. 20 minutes at a time. You get to see 10 of them at a time, four hour blocks. 20-minute TED talk type fire talks. And it's in a theater setting, professionally done. Everybody's doing something original. And it's one after the other. Just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Mine is both afternoons, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon. And I are you doing a hit this year or not this year? Chief Brian Brush: I'm not. I'm not. Uh, but I I love the concept. I'm excited that you're gonna be one of those people doing it. And uh, you know, I I don't want people to to sleep on that opportunity to see those uh because I think it's just You know, another thing, we're making a change. We we we want people to attend and give us feedback because I I like I said I think it's gonna be good.

Corley: No, I I've been super I I made up a brand new 20-minute talk. And I actually was was working teaching a class and I asked the class, I said, hey, I'm working on this idea, but I don't have anything for it. Can I tell it to you? And they actually helped me build it. It was really cool. And they're in the they're in the presentation now. because they helped put it together. So it turned out it turned out really cool. So no, it's going to be exciting. So all that being said, Brian Crush, man, it means the world to me that you would spend your evening coming on here and sharing your passion with the American Fire Service. You talk about uh information, but dude, you are a motivation, you are an inspiration, and I just am glad to call you a friend. So thank you for being such a phenomenal guest. Chief Brian Brush: Audience. Thank you to the American Fire Service for rescuing 11 and a half civilians a day and uh keeping that promise. Every four hours. Corley: Every four hours. And we're under reporting. Audience, you make the scrap magical. You tune in each and every week. It would, the scrap would not exist without you. So thank you for tuning in live. Thank you for asking the great questions. And remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tones stay silent unless it is burning. This job will never be safe, so stay smart out there.