Weekly Scrap #207 - James Johnson, Building Construction and BJJ

Speaker 1: So we decided to make the decision then to kind of stop running race for Rubicon and transfer over and put our energy into firemanship conference. It hit me a little while back and it's it's hard to say this, but I truly believe in my heart of hearts That the American fire service today, not everywhere, but in general, the American Fire Service today is literally killing us. I'm extremely frustrated with it. I'm pissed, I'm angry, I'm passionate about it, and I want to do something about it. it and I mean that because I've seen it enough traveling and hearing our brothers and sisters constantly constantly telling me how they're fighting other firefighters on shift To just be able to stretch a line, take a hydrant, be into the job, if you will. They're getting beat down. They're getting beat down by their administrations and their organizations. Much of this Fire service today is anything but a trade to a lot of places. They're trying to dumb it down. They're trying to white collar it. They're trying to make it a sterile office environment. And I think quite frankly. Our brothers and sisters are struggling because when they set out to do this, they set out to do something bigger than themselves. something special, something mission focused. And now into however many years they have, they realize the narrative being put out there is anything but that. You're actually getting down for being into the job, for being mission focused. It's all about you. It's all about me. It is no longer selfless service and sacrifice And that identity, that core, I think is that moral injury is compounding to the core, is the proverbial nail in the coffin. For us, yes, we see tragic things, but we also see amazing things. We have our sleep deprivation, our eating habits, all of these things that contribute to this stuff that affects our bodies and our minds. We know that. But I know I can sit here and tell you that I believe in my heart of hearts that the culture of the fire service right now as a whole, it is the nail in the coffin. It is literally killing us, our firefighters and we have to do something about it. So I want to completely eradicate the cowards out of our fire service to make it nearly impossible for them to exist if they aren't mission focused then it's gonna be a struggle to exist.

Speaker 1: I want to come at them that hard that big there's not enough training out there right and it's always been that When you travel and we do these things, that we're going to get firefighters regionally to that environment that didn't have the funds, the resources, the time To go travel nationally to something different. So if you've got a regional conference, even multiples going on in the same state, good. I feel like to truly create something big, a true movement of it, we have to literally spread like a poison and we have to collect all of those that could not normally attend a conference. didn't have the means, the time, the travel distance, some of that stuff. We had to be able, we have to be able to capture them. It has to be inclusive for them. So that comes with the biggest announcement of what we're trying to do here, I would say, okay, is a departure from What I know we could do, which is Coralie, we could put on firemanship conference right now, and I could put a price tag on it right now And I would I'm pretty positive we would sell it out. And we can make a boatload of money. And in our nature, like we do, giving hearts in great causes, we will pour it out like we've always done. And I'm pretty positive we could do that successfully. But I want to do something radically different in the fact that I want to put on firemanship and a full week of training. at no cost to somebody a completely free conference available to anybody and everybody if they want to be there It's really difficult about how to get the panel because we can do that.

Corley: Corley Moore, Firehouse Vigilance, it is weekly scrap number two My guest tonight is James Johnson. He's a firefighter from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Currently assigned to Squad 7 before becoming a career firefighter. James worked in the construction industry. completed an apprenticeship as a red seal journeyman carpenter. He is passionate about the job. He is passionate about building construction. He is passionate about jujitsu. And most of all, he's passionate about sharing his knowledge in all of those topics. It is my honor and pleasure to have you on as the guest of weekly scrap number 207. James Johnson: Welcome, my brother. Thanks for having me, man. Corley: Super excited. You were post supposed to be a part of the mega scrap on building construction, but fate was not willing to parti cooperate. James Johnson: Yeah, yeah I've had a I've had a pretty bad string of luck the last little bit. But yeah, I got off shift that morning. I was leaving work and and stopped at a red light and just got hammered from behind by an SUV and rode off my car and yeah it was a Couldn't couldn't unfortunately couldn't make it. I live three and a half hours from Vancouver, so then there was the struggle of trying to get home and all that. Unfortunately I couldn't make it in

Corley: We had fun at your expense because you weren't there. James Johnson: Yeah. Corley: That's typically how it goes with those guys. Awesome. Is there anything I missed in the intro? Anything you would like to add? No, I think that's that kind of covers it. Beautiful. Audiences logging in. They got hyped up from Cody sharing from last the last special scrap, a little highlight while we everybody logged in. So they're all primed and ready. Please get your questions ready for James, myself, on all sorts, all things. Leadership, culture, building construction, jujitsu, doesn't matter. We're going to talk about it all. We're going to cruise down some rabbit holes this evening there is no Kyle tonight. He is busy. I think he's following Metallica around. He's a groupie now. He's joined the tour. But I will be keeping my eye on the chat looking for questions. So throw them in there and I will throw them at James quick announcements. If you want to be a part of the vigilantes, if you want to be a member of the cool kids club, go to firehousevigilance. com and sign up. The latest thing we've been doing for the last, I don't know, a couple months now is the scrap after party James has already agreed to come in afterwards, we get to critique him and tell him how good the scrap was and also ask him any sort of individual questions or tell him how bad it was and it's a lot of fun. so if you want to be a part of that, go to firehousevigilance. com, sign up. It is a ton of fun. Now, on to the sponsors, the original sponsor of the scrap, Keyhose. com. And then the newest sponsor, Firefighter Safety and Accountability, starts with being able to quickly find and identify individual firefighters operating on the fire ground. Identifier Safety combines the best in photoluminescent materials for durable firefighter identification solutions that can glow for up to 20 hours with no switches, no batteries. which means being able to rapidly identify firefighters by name, unit, or assignment, even under hot fire conditions. Firefighter created, owned and operated, identifier safety. Is the home for all your on-scene identification needs, all specifically designed and tested for the rigors of the job. Be seen on scene, identifiersafety. com, or sales at identifiersafety. com. So there we go. We are ready to get it on.

Corley: Let me get you caught up, James, on some comments. There's a lot of them. Get you some. Ready for another great scrap from Joe Gavita. Heck yes, preach it. A lot of it's just the hype from Cody talking. Let's do this. Going to be building construction church on Sunday. That's from Marco Isome. Let's do this. Let's do this. Here we go, my brother from north of the border. That's Charlie Dahl saying you're the man. LFG Haha yeah, there's there's a ton of hype. So we're ready to kick it off. And so let's throw a curveball right out the gate since you are the building construction guy and let's talk culture and the well let me see, how do we phrase the first question we want to discuss? We pull up my notes. Young departments and mentorship. Something that many people across all of North America are struggling with is the wave of youth that is coming into the fire station. Not just young, but just young to the fire service, new people coming in and the old that are retired that I say the old, the amount of experience that is retiring out. Talk to me.

James Johnson: Yeah, that's something I we're definitely seeing in Vancouver and I'm sure it's it's kind of across Canada and the United States for sure. I think like we just recently heard in Vancouver that 30 plus percent of our job is under three years and well over 50% is under 10 years. So it's been a massive shift. I know when I first started, my captain, my first captain when I started was I think 27 years when he when he got his first confirmed haul. Or our station assignment. And then and then now guys are getting it around 20 years. So we have a little bit of a different system, like much of Canada, but but we're strictly seniority-based. So you you it's not like if you want to be an officer, you can promote early. It's all based on years of experience. So when your time comes, then you can go into the fire officer course. And then if you go through all the stuff and you pass, then you become an officer. So yeah, it's definitely definitely challenging when you when you have that much turnover and you lose all that experience. it makes the makes it a lot more you have to be way more deliberate with with the kind of the mentorship part of it and bringing up you know the young people and you know And and newer members, for sure. That's something that you know, and I know that's I know a lot of departments have been dealing with this for a lot longer than we have. It's just something that we've started to see. I think we hired 126 last year, which was 120 something and that was that's a big I think that was maybe our biggest year ever for hiring.

Corley: So wow 126 and that's not typical I'm I'm I'm assuming James Johnson: Well no, like I I like for many years I think like if we had a really big year it would be like 60. Corley: Okay, okay, so almost double. James Johnson: Yeah, so it was yeah definitely a big but we also you know like a lot of places didn't kind of had a little a little lull during COVID. Corley: Sure. and then the ketchup. Then the rapid catch up. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And then we've had some change in our pension stuff too, which you know, meant some guys went a little bit earlier than than normal, but yeah, it's definitely challenging. And and we're with the department right now is Like we're we're seeing a lot of fire volume. I think the last like stats were you know most of the most of the North American fire service is largely EMS and you know we were we're sitting around like the 50% mark right now of of EMS versus fire and other stuff, which is yeah, we're we're way higher in fire volume, like I thoug I can't remember the number, but it's like 30% more than we were last year or something already.

Corley: Do you feel like just just your opinion of course, do you feel like that's good for morale or has been detrimental or James Johnson: No, I definitely think it's good. And then it's also a great time too when we have new members as well. They're they're gaining that gaining that real real life experience and that on-the-job training. Totally. Corley: So you can't beat that. James Johnson: You'll never you you'll never have guys bad morale when you're going to lots of fires. Corley: That's what I was I mean because that it's everywhere. I mean that's that's the America the And I have to say North American Fire Service to qualify and include. James Johnson: Yeah. Corley: But that's the North American Fire Service. Is there's it's you know, the we make EMS calls all day long and occasionally go to fires. And it's hard to stay in that fire first mindset, that fire first mentality, whenever that's the truth. you said it Strictly seniority, man. I know Detroit does it this way. What's your thoughts? I mean, is it all you've ever known? what's your thoughts on it? pluses, minuses. What do you think? James Johnson: Yeah, it's all I've ever known. And And yeah, it's the only system I've come up in. And I think there's lots of value in in the experience that you get. Like when you become a company officer, like even now you're in your you know, 15 to you know, 20 years somewhere in that range, 20 years to become a captain, then that's you know, just the amount of experience and knowledge you gain through that. Right. But but also there's the other side of it, not everybody's Not everybody's a natural leader. So you know there's there's always bugs that you need to work work out with that. You know, like I I think a lot of times in other systems, maybe people that that have you know more aspirations for leadership and stuff will will jump into those roles where you know in a seniority-based system maybe there's times where guys have to have to grow into it a little bit or you know develop those skill sets.

Corley: Sure. Do you feel is is there many people that say I I'm not I'm gonna I even though it's my turn I'm not gonna do it. Is that something that actually happens or no? James Johnson: do you like it I think in as long as guys can remember there's there was one person who decided not to do it and then there's guys that maybe age out before they can, you know, they hit the mandatory retirement age before they get to those rules. Right. But but no, as far as I, you know, and as long as I've been on, I don't I can't think of anyone who's opted not to do it. Speaker 1: Love it Corley: No, it's just it's so you know, I don't say I want to say I don't want to say the wrong thing, but it's like almost like it seems to me like it would discourage the go-getters from wanting to be go-getters and and but maybe that's not a bad thing also in the fact that you have to put your time in. So I don't know. James Johnson: Well I I can speak for myself personally, like You get to a point where you're learning the job and then you're so many years on the job that you kind of get comfortable in your role Right. And then and then you're like looking at what's the next what's the next step? Where's the next learning take place that and it's it's far off And you know, I could see it could be easy to get kind of checked out for that, you know, when you get to that kind of 10 plus year mark, because there's no unless you're in a specialty or you do something like that, there's you know, there's not a lot of not a lot of like growth in that. So I can see, you know, some of that stuff. I know I went through that where you're like, okay, what's Not that I was in a rush to become an officer, but it's like, you know, what's the next thing? Where am I gonna where am I gonna learn or be challenged in certain ways? But you know, the more that I think is like a young member I th it's just like anything with age when you're young, you know, like I've I've got a son who's 10, almost 11, and like as you have kids, like And and any you know like being young at any age, you you think you maybe know a little bit more than you than you do and then the you know the longer I'm on the job and and going to different stuff, you're like, wow, like you know, I'm this many years in and I've never seen this before.

James Johnson: So I think there's value too in having, you know, all those years of experience before you get to that role. But I think you could make the argument either way for pluses and you know minuses of it. Corley: No, I love it. I absolutely love it. Okay, first question coming at you from the audience. This comes from Valerie Valerie Tessier. And she says, do you think VFRS, volunteer fire rescue services, I'm guessing? VFRS, maybe it's something else. Let me know. James Johnson: Oh, it might be Vancouver, Vancouver Fire Rescue Service. Corley: Okay. Then thank you. Is losing okay, it makes much more sense. Is losing members to smaller departments? Or due to the housing crisis in the lower mainland. James Johnson: Yeah, so we we do we have actually lost a lot of members over the last number of years. Like I remember when I got on. We had somebody leave shortly after. And it was like it was pretty shocking to for the department to have somebody leave. And now we see it more and more. But the price of living, the cost of living in in the Vancouver area, like I just saw something on the news the other day that one bedroom is $3,000 a month rent. so it's just, yeah, it's getting it's just difficult. And so yeah, we definitely definitely see some people leaving to other departments and No, they'll go to to places that are more affordable. I think and I re from from all the people that I know that have left and you know discussions I've had, it really comes down to to f from everything I have. I don't think people leave culturally. Like we have a very I've I feel super lucky to work for the department that I do. I commute three and a half hours to to be there and work for the department because I love it so much. but I think it's it's mostly that kind of cost of living and the family life stuff that might drive people to to go other places. But I but I, you know, there might be some other things that come into play there. But I've for people that I know and discussions I've had, that's that's largely it. I know a lot of the guys that I'm friends with that have gone other places definitely miss the the culture and miss the call volume and

Corley: And 50% fire sounds like it's amazing, amazing also. James Johnson: Yeah, yeah, it's kind of a a strange strange number that can't came through. Corley: So no, that is All right, I got I got all sorts of directions I can go here. I've got building construction questions, I've got jiu-jitsu questions, I got leadership questions. So I'm gonna stay in I'm gonna stay in the the the vein of what we're talking about right now and say Mark and this comes from Marco I Some. He says, James. What does leadership mean to you and how you lead those around you? So very broad, you can you can crush that in any direction you want or tilt it. so go for it. James Johnson: Yeah, so like I said, I'm not a company officer. I'm just a knuckle dragger right in the back of the the squad. But I think leadership is we kind of talked about like our seniority system and something that you you know, you kind of get thrust into and you kind of have to grow into, but leadership's just motivating ma motivating those around you and then using your experience to to kind of guide the ship. As far as me, I kinda I think it's easy to for I'm sure a lot of the people tuning in have had this challenge where you you can get kind of frustrated with your system with certain things. And for me, I I remember it was, I don't know, maybe maybe four or five years ago I just had this realization that I can control the the guys that and gals that I work with and we can try to you know make sure that we're squared away in anyone else. And that's kind of I think where I've I've kind of found some of that, or I guess if there's any sort of a leadership, you know, quote unquote area that I've been involved with, it's kind of that from the From the just like, you know, those around the the guys and gals at my station, all my crew, you know, we can I'm very lucky. I work with awesome people. beautiful But I think that's that kind of for me. I've worked with some incredible officers and and taken so many lessons that, you know, things that you write down that all revisit in the next year or so when I'm when I'm coming up to be a lieutenant here and and lots of leadership lessons.

Corley: Beautiful. Beautiful. Implementing change. I wanted I wanted to get this. I wanted I wanted to hit this one from the early get go. Implementing change at any level and what that means to you Because like you said, you're a knuckle dragger. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. So I I just being my personality and being a geek and a nerd with this stuff and you know, you it with any any I'm sure everybody who's tuning into the scrap or any one who will catch this later has had things within their department they see that that you're like, hey, we could maybe do something different or you know there's other options out there that's one of the beautiful things about social media and and Corley like what you do is like you expose so many people to you know, people from FDNY and you know everywhere under the sun that you get to see all these different versions of the five. Corley: Oh yeah. The fire service is definitely shrinking. It's one of the best times to be into the job without a doubt James Johnson: Yeah, it's crazy. And like, you know, we're get totally getting away from everything being so isolated and, you know, like many years you wouldn't know what's really happening with the neighboring department or one, you know, two departments over. And now it's you you can You know, be someone will send you their engine company operation manual or their search company, you know. I can have Clockamas' searches search company manual and know exactly what they're doing. So So yeah, implementing change, I've been very lucky that I've that I've been able to be involved with some stuff within our department. And we've we've had a bunch of things. We we were a department that used compressed air foam calf system for quite a number of years. And And we ran into some issues with it. And so I was able to get onto that committee and we did a bunch of evaluation of the stream and the water content of it. I I know I'm a I've like I'm known for the building construction stuff. I'm a building construction nerd, but I'm a I love engine work. I love all anything related to that. So I've been involved with a lot of that stuff on our job. And I I think the big thing is just kind of being persistent with with, you know, if you if you see things that that maybe can could change or just kind of being persistent with it and then and then when those opportunities like committee work or anything like that then hop on it.

James Johnson: Yeah, I've been very lucky. I was involved with the CAFS committee and we were able to to get that stopped for interior attack, which was huge. Right, right. and we we there was a a lot of issues with that just with the the flow rates really that that we we're seeing in some of these systems. It just you know it's a lot of there's some people that that make calf work for certain things and I'll I'll be political with it, but I I don't believe for interior attack it has any place and and the department kind of we went we went that way, which was great. And I've been involved with a bunch of our high rise procedures. I'm on squad seven, which is right downtown, right in our right in the middle of our high rise district. so we rewrote and and you know, new hose package and systems for high-rise. And then just recently I was able to be on on our hose deployment committee. And so we're we're changing all of our hose loads and Oh nice. So yeah, I've been very lucky even all of our committees work based off seniority as well. So I've just I've just kind of been lucky to be able to squeeze in sometimes as the most junior member or you know, some in other kind of capacities have been able to to weasel my way into them.

Corley: So right on, right on. What what what hose deployment package do you guys decide to go with? James Johnson: Yeah, so this is something that that was was kind of interesting. So I was Right off the bat. Oh, so we we used inch and three quarter. We had when I started, we had inch and a half with a hundred psi fog nozzle And and then we were able through a bunch of pushing, pushing, pushing, able to we moved it to to 1. 77 or 1. 88, sorry. And and a 1516 smooth bore. And then we just changed over and we ended up going with a two-inch package. Speaker 1: Okay. James Johnson: so most of our high-rises, like the vast majority, are sprinklered and And and so we we just kind of did the evaluation of it. The majority that we of the high-risk fires we go to are what we call SRO or single room occupancy. We can kind of, if you want to get into that later, we have a huge kind of drug and and homeless problem in Vancouver. So we have lots of that kind of social housing. And most of those places are sprinklered and and so the two inch worked for us. we went with high combat, which is which I believe is two point two and and it yeah it worked for the vast majority and then if we do have that commercial, you know, that wide open commercial high rise situation then we'll we'll we'll grab two and a half and and go up with it.

Corley: Love it. So two inch is your is your pre-connect. James Johnson: Sorry, two inches our high rise. Is our high rise bundles that we go with now Corley: And 1. 88 is still your preconnects? James Johnson: yeah, so yeah, we have inch and a half or sorry, inch and three quarter inch and three quarter is our is our standard. Corley: Okay. Okay. Just checking. Just checking. I want to make sure I was clear. James Johnson: Yeah. No, no, yeah, for sure. Corley: All right, I got it. James Johnson: I converted everything from millimeters and centimeters for you too. Corley: So I appreciate. all right. there was one in here I saw. I got a lot of questions coming. Keith Kershaw, which I'm assuming he's Canadian because of the way he phrased the question. So he said, Corey, could you Could you please ask James what he thinks the Canadian Fire Service does well and what he thinks we could use more from the American Fire Service? I like this question just to see the differences and what your my opinion is. James Johnson: Yeah, I think we're we're very, very similar for the most part. yeah, there's there's If anything I can say about the American Fire Service from what I've what I found, and it's not everywhere, obviously, but Very much like the American Fire Service in comparison to the Canadian Fire Service, I believe carries over a lot more of like that military mindset where it's like service before self and and kind of a lot a little bit more of that culture.

Corley: Right. James Johnson: Not saying that the Canadian Fire Services is any less of that, but it's just very are you you notice that a lot more when I when I'm in the US? And I guess like if you compare the two, you could go, you could go back to the kind of to the seniority officer. you know, development thing too. Like, you know, the Canadian Fire Service, like lots of places, like speak for Vancouver, you're gonna have an officer that has 20 years of experience. And you know, there's some places maybe with in other systems, United States, you might have someone with you know, three, five, seven years and it you know. So I I d I don't that's you know, that's a a tough topic, but but yeah, I definitely the k I think for the most part though is when you're looking at like rolling up to a fire and what we do. It's very, I'd say it's very similar. Corley: Very similar. Awesome. Awesome. All right. Let me go back. I'm making sure I pull it up the notes so I'm not missing anything specific. James Johnson: There's lots of construction stuff coming up. Corley: Oh yeah, there is. There's tons. Of course. It's James Johnson. You gotta expect it. Back to talking about implementing change at your level. Then we'll go to building construction, I promise. But I we'll finish it up. We'll wrap it up. where have you had the most success and where have you had the most frustration? Like just to share stories or or or Encouragement or frustration?

James Johnson: Yeah, so I I think that I think any frustration that I might have experienced came from maybe my Came from me and how I reacted to things. Like as as soon as you realize that all of that stuff is about doing it the right way, looking at the long game, knowing that it's all relationship-based. Like that's that was for me like key things with you know if you're if you're the guy's gonna guy or gal's gonna bang their fist on the table and you know bitch and complain, it's never gonna go anywhere. And so I think that was something for me that I maybe saw frustrations at the beginning and then was able to kind of shift my perspective. Nice. And then and then it was more successful that way. Corley: And also note started it in the mirror. James Johnson: Yeah, for sure. Any of that stuff. You know, there's you know, there's lots of stuff as you're as you're coming up that you you look back in hindsight and you're like, wow, I was my own worst enemy with with that stuff. Corley: Oh, I absolutely feel that. I really feel that. James Johnson: And then as if I it and then as far as successes, I think something is like If people genuinely know, like if I'm talking about maybe like guys and gals on the floor or your management team, like if they genuinely know that you're he you're wanting to be involved in this stuff because you truly care about it. Like you're like the the thing for me, like when it comes to like, you know, the calfs thing or hose lines or high rise, it was like I want my members to to be safe, like be able to flow enough water and have the right equipment to do their job safely so that we can, you know, get home. And then on top of that, it's I want them to be able to flow enough water so they can make the push down the hallway to you know, make a grab or make a save on a house. And I think when I think when people realize that you know like that your heart's in the right place and you're not doing it for any self-serving You know, it's not about it's not about me anything about me. It's like I just want, you know, I want things to be great for the men and women that I work with and this and the citizens that we protect.

James Johnson: And if we can do things that make that better and more effective, then I think people can see that. Corley: Rock and roll. I love that, man. I absolutely love the message. Yep, coming here, coming here. I wanted to get to understanding the game before you try to change it. The last bit on change, and then we'll field and we'll start crushing building construction questions and moving towards jujitsu. Go ahead. Implementing change before you try to change it. James Johnson: Yeah, I think that's something that that I noticed early on is that you you can see things that may seem silly if you don't have the experience Or things that you do that you're like, I don't get this. We should be doing something. This is dumb. And then as you start to gain experience and then you get into those situations, you're like, oh, I get it now. I see, I see why we do this and why we've done this this way. So I think that's something too that you know I love that that everybody's you know passionate and wants to do stuff and make change and you know I can see what you know brush is doing and I want to do that in in Vancouver, but maybe it doesn't fit where you where you work or maybe we do things a certain way because that's you know it works for that place. So that was something I kind of I I learned was like Like understand the game and understand why things are done that way. Gain that experience and that knowledge. And then, you know, it's some of that stuff might make more sense.

Corley: I love it. And the just that change. I mean, how many times I know I've said it when I was riding backwards, I would say, I will never do it that way when I get there. And then once I got there, of course, it's like, oh This is why they did it that way. Now I understand. And so it's just that change of perspective. Yeah, absolutely. Peter Oxford, your question on the 1. 88. Make a I don't understand what you're asking, so clarify the question and I'll see if I can't get clarity or an answer to it. okay, with that being said, here we go. Time for some building construction stuff. James. How this comes from Jim Platt, so I want to I want to how has building construction changed since leaving the trade and entering the fire service, good and bad? James Johnson: I don't know if anything I think we're getting more technology that's that's that's changed some things. you know it's just like You know, we all have an iPhone or some sort of smartphone and how often do you get updates where it's you have to update the, you know, the software, the operating system or whatever it feels like it happens all the time. Right. Those technological changes are happening in the construction industry. I'm very lucky that I that I'm really involved with the building code. on behalf of the IAFF and I'm very involved with that stuff. So I get to see it. You know, a lot of times I'll get to see it as it's entering the code or maybe before. But like there's there's some things like that aren't I think most of the change that's changed or the things that are being implemented or new technologies are pretty rare. You know, there's stuff like 3D printing components and things like that that aren't widespread. that are new technologies. But if you go to a single family residential lightweight house, it's basically the exact same as as it was, you know, for the last Maybe 20 years.

Corley: Right. No, I was like, I was gonna say about twenty this millennium basically. Yeah. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, that's that's you know, you guys touched on it with the mega scrap too, where You know, we talk about new I say this in all my classes. I'm like, you know, we talk about new construction or like this new lightweight or these new engineer components. And then I say, like, you know, is anybody in the in this room have over 50 years of experience? Well then none of us should be using the words new when we're talking about this stuff. It's it's been around longer than any of us have been in the fire service. Corley: Love it, man. I'm gonna grab I'm gonna grabbing Matt Donnie has a statement. I'm gonna make sure I get the in here. There we go. Posting it, pasting it Doing I'm doing what Kyle usually does. What's the bread and butter construction in your city and what is the greatest hazard with that type of construction? That comes from James Michelisco. James Johnson: Yeah, so Vancouver is a very is is an interesting city because it's very densely populated. Like we're a very small footprint. And just because we're waterlocked on the Pacific Ocean on the outside there, and then and then we have our city boundaries. So we're very we're we're going very vertical but bread and butter, it depends on where you're at. Like I've spent most of my time on the job on the east side of the city, which is like the older side. Vancouver had the the Great Fire in Vancouver was 1886. It wiped out the entire city. So we have no buildings older than 1886. in the city of Vancouver. And so like our older neighborhoods are like, you know, some houses from that time, but like early 1900s, you know, up to the 1930s sort of th thing. Two and a half story balloon frame. There's lots of that in there. And then as you start to go west in the city, that's kind of the more affluent area. So there's lots of really big homes, you know, more modern stuff And then downtown where I'm working right now is like we have 600 high rises in our small downtown core. So very, very densely populated.

Corley: Very dense, very vertical, yes. James Johnson: Yes, we have a couple areas like like Vancouver being right on the on the west coast. we have we're very like we have a huge fault line right on the outside of Vancouver Island. And so it's a huge seismic zone. So like any of our gas town, Chinatown area is you know unreinforced masonry so there's obviously challenges with that when you're talking seismic zones but yeah and you know when we talk about like I end up talking about lightweight construction and modern stuff a lot. And for me, a lot of those those houses that are in the east side that are, you know, 1910, 1920. That's a lot of the challenges. We're you know very s like similar, well, we're basically the Pacific Northwest, so tons of moisture, tons of rain, rains all winter long basically. So that we run into tons of moisture issues and rot and a lot of those houses aren't in great shape. So that's definitely something that's makes those fires challenging Corley: Love it. There you go. James, absolutely. What Eddie Ivey wants to know, what are your red flags or the point when you no longer feel comfortable operating inside the building? so it like are we to are we talking building construction? I would assume, but you can take it any direction and answer with whatever hits your brain.

James Johnson: Yeah, yeah. So for me, Like I'm always thinking about what the structure is before I'm in there. You know, what part of the city am I in? And then something I always took away from from Vinny Dunn's book, The Collapse of Burning Buildings, is he talks about like location and duration. And so that's something I think about in every fire. Like, you know, where's the fire been? Where's it going? And how long has it been burning for. And then that kind of guides a lot of my my thought process for for being in an area. If I if I'm in a lightweight you know like a modern building and in Canada we have something we've been doing a lot of building code work but we allow unfinished basement everywhere in Canada. So you can move into your house, get occupancy, and you would just have studs and an unprotected floor system that might be wood eye joys, parallel cord trusses. so that's always kind of in my mind too. I said a is it below grade, is a basement fire and an unprotected floor system that's gonna really, you know, guide a lot. it's tough like when you when you talk about lightweights, you do you guys Talked about it a bunch on the scrap, you know, diagnostic on the roof and you know decking fails first and and that sort of stuff. But it it's really changes a lot when we're talking floor systems inside. You know, we have tile or we have, you know. carpet or hardwood or laminate and a lot of those things kind of hide a lot of those diagnostic tools on the floor. So you really have to from a size up perspective, like from the fire, you really have to understand, you know know location and duration. Where's the fire been and how long has it been burning there?

Corley: Right. No, no, it's beautiful. And he was he and he did clarify he said yes in regards to building construction. It's more specifically residential buildings. James Johnson: Yeah Yeah, so it's like it's it's it's kind of tough. Like I if I don't like to I don't like to even like teach people or talk about like feelings like you know it's like the floor is getting spongy or it's like if you're on a wood i joist unprotected floor system and there's tile on it and you start You know, if you're feeling anything, you're in a bad place already. So so yeah, for me it's it's really thinking about, you know, what is the structure And then where the where is the fire and where's our kind of problems that way? Corley: No, I love that. Yeah, no, it's beautiful. James Johnson: That's something that I always talk about in every class I do is that, you know, your building size up is not, you know, it would typically when we think size up or we talk about it's the company officer doing a 360 or a lap. around, but it's like it's like when I'm walking up, I have a very specific thing that I'm looking at as far as diagnosing the building. Very simple. And then, you know, wanting to know where the fire's at, which your officer or you might be able to see. But that's something that every single person, doesn't matter if you're, you know, in your first six months on the job or or you know have you're the company officer, like that's something that we should all be you know, keeping an eye on and looking at it just for just for our own kind of Yeah, absolutely.

Corley: Do you have any sort of shortcuts, rules, or or tips or tricks that you use during doing your own mental size up as you walk up? James Johnson: Yeah, so I I use a really cool acronym that's EMU. So and this is just for me, like again, this is not I'm not speaking to the company officers or anything like that. I'm not Pretending that I am a company officer. This is just my my size up. But when I look at a building, I want to look at the E for Emu is ERA. So I want to know what the age of the building is And if you're a big construction dork like I am, you know, we can kind of narrow it down to a pretty fine window. But if you're not, if you're new to it, like if you can identify if it's modern or you know, old or new And then that's gonna kinda knowing a little the one of the things just to kind of step back that I see with building construction education and the fire service is we try to like globalize it But it's such a it's such a regional or sort of thing. Like, you know, the the buildings that you have in Oklahoma there is not going to be the same as we have in Vancouver. Like, you know, there's going to be lots of you know, fundamentals that are the same, but Certain parts of the city are going to be older and newer and you know maybe more modern practices came to Vancouver earlier than they came to Oklahoma or vice versa. So you really have to you have to start with kind of a little bit of that knowledge, but if you can determine if it's old and new, the era, that's kind of kind of set you down one pathway. The M is materials. And I'm going to try to identify what the predominant materials are structurally in that building. So if it's a residential home, I'm I know you know most often it's going to be wood frame You'd be able to, you know, if I'm looking at, you know, if I roll up to a a Home Depot, is it a tilt up building or is it a mainstream block building? You know, that's kind of thing. I want to look at kind of what the main structural materials are.

James Johnson: And then the last thing is use. And that's kind of broken into two parts. Is it residential? Is it commercial? If it's residential, is it single family or multifamily? And then if it's commercial, is what's it used for? Like is it a Home Depot? Is it a Yeah, furniture warehouse, is it you know, place that sells canisters for vape stuff or whatever it is. Corley: Right, right James Johnson: So that's kind of that's just my like little mental thing. And it it it I I firmly believe that we need to like simplify things. Like You know, like we like a lot of us that are into building construction talk about all these super nerdy books that you can get into. And and I I know a lot of people I I hear from people all the time that are like get completely overwhelmed with you know, the whole thing of trying to identify and understand the stuff. It's like if we can just break it down into really simple steps and then as you get more interested then expand from it. it but if I can roll up to a house and if I can identify if it's got lightweight components or if it's a legacy home, if I can identify right away if it's you know wood frame and what kind of materials I'm gonna have And then if I can identify if it's just a single family or in Vancouver, most of those big residential homes have been broken up into four to to eight suites just because of the cost of living. Sure. You're already winning because you're, you know, that's a huge piece of the pie of the whole equation that you can identify. And that's just from you walking, stepping off the rig, walking on the front lawn before you make entry.

Corley: Love it. Hey, coming at you. yeah, break it down into manageable chucks. Digging it, emu, era material use. That's from Mark Davidson. I want to I want to do a shout-out to Mark Davidson I think he's the first person. I could be wrong, but he's the first one I've seen who commented from LinkedIn. We broadcast on LinkedIn, but I don't think anyone's ever commented from LinkedIn before. So congrats, my brother. We'll send you something like a, I don't know, t-shirt I love it. Dina Ali has a great question. I love Dina. Yeah, Dina, your friend and mine. I struggle with some of our hotels that are between 15 and 30 years old. Determining the construction type, any tips for identifying? James Johnson: Yeah, so for me, and and I can't speak for, you know, way down in the south. That's about as far as you can get away from from Canada there where Dina's at. But it really is going to depend on the amount of stories in the building. You know, if it's a three or four story And then based off you know construction practices, it's probably wood frame. If it's higher than that, then it's you know most likely concrete or steel. So that's really gonna be the determining factor is kind of the there's gonna be the height of it.

Speaker 1: Right. James Johnson: And that for and I can only speak for for me in British Columbia and then for Vancouver. Like, you know, just in the last number of years we've allowed up to six story wood frame. But before that, if it's a little bit of an older building and it's four stories and under it's it's gonna be wood where I'm at. If it's more then it's gonna be concrete because we don't do too much steel out here. gotcha. But yeah, I would I would kinda for Dina, I would kinda dig in a little bit to you know what's the predominant material that you use for high buildings and then where's that kind of that breakdown from the breakover and the break yeah the break No I love it because it ties right back into what you said which is Corley: you know, materials size up basically is local. It starts locally, first, first and foremost, understanding your district. So I love that. Where am I at? We'll stay on the topic of Micah Klesik says, do you feel like the dangers of modern construction are overhyped in the fire service these days? As a builder on the side myself, I know the danger and its importance, but I feel like it's often oversold as more dangerous than it actually is.

James Johnson: Yeah, so it's it's tough. Like I feel I feel conflicted at times because anything you say in a platform like this, there's broad stroke. Like like it it's tough to I don't ever want anyone getting hurt. I think about that in every class I I teach or everything I kind of say about this stuff is I don't want people like, yeah, you know, like I I did a class for a long time called Facts Not Fear. Right. And I changed I changed the name of it because I didn't want I didn't want the I didn't want people to take it too lightly. Right. I just wanted to kind of steer it like if like lightweight construction. It all comes down to the mass of the structure. Lightweight construction is not going to hold up as well as something that's larger. Like that's just that's just physics. Like, and so But I think we've gone a little bit too far. Like I was I was speaking at a fire chiefs conference, and I won't say which state it was in. and I had one of the fire chiefs say that if they roll up to a building and it's lightweight construction, they don't go inside. Doesn't matter what's happening, it's in the exterior attack right from the outside. And they were in an area outside of a major city Where it's like a you know a suburban area where it's all new lightweight buildings. I was kind of like, well, you then you can save a whole bunch of money. You don't need to get turno gear for your your women because everything has some lightweight construction You know, so I think I think there's some things, there's still tons of misinformation about how these materials fail. But like myself, I have concerns over lightweight floor systems. For sure, and particularly where I live, because they're often unprotected on the underside. so you know, it's not something that it's not something that should be, you know. that should be, you know, we should be really callous about and say there's no issue. But but some of the stuff like, you know, if one trust fails, they all fail. You know, some of that stuff that we've been saying for a long time is just that's just not how things fail. So so you I I I'm a little bit conflicted with some of it, but like if you like for was it Micah?

Corley: Yes. James Johnson: Yeah like Micah if Micah said he's got time in the trades, like if he's if he's put sheathing on the top of a lightweight truss roof, like a truss roof, you know that you overlap the sheathing and you tie a whole bunch of trusses together on each of the two slopes and everything is tied in fairly well. And that's what keeps it's rigidity and gives it some redundancy from from a you know catastrophic collapse so from a single single unit failure causing everything to fail. Exactly. So so yeah I I definitely don't think it's It's I think we focus too much on the lightweight. Like, you know, there's lots of stuff that, you know, like foams. And different things like that, like synthetic materials that we're using in building that's that for me causes, you know, way more alarm Like oh no, like he had Clark lamping on. Like if you did a Clark's class on all that foam stuff, like that's like that stuff scares the the Jesus, yeah. Yeah, totally. So so yeah, I think and for me it's just like Some of these materials fail faster than stuff that we've had traditionally, but let's understand really how they fail and how that impacts. And then let's take those lessons and then apply it. Like if you're worried about the time of collapse of a lightweight floor system. And then you have some goofy pre-connect load that takes you three minutes to deploy on the front lawn, then you know we're we're we're focusing on the, you know. You like there's certain things that we can do because we can't do anything about the building. You know, we we're involved with the building code and and I think the fire service needs to be more involved. And we're working hard at that, but there's lots of things that we can do on the fire ground to to cut down the time, the things that, you know, you s when I see the guys that are masking up in under 10 seconds, like that's the stuff that that we can really do to to mitigate some of those issues.

Corley: Love it, man. Love it. Micah said, yeah, that's a good answer. That's where I was going with it. I have concerns, but knowing those concerns and how things are engineered allows us to be comfortable working in it, in my opinion. So James Johnson: Yeah, and something too just to kind of touch like that's something that just popped into my head. Like I think the fire service needs to do a better job of differentiating between lightweight and engineered. Like there, like if we so like for an example, a glue lamb, be imp glue laminated timber is an engineered product That's one of the most robust material things that we have in any of our buildings. You know, I've seen some glue lamp beans that are 48 inches tall. Like That thing will burn for days and days and and not fail. And that's an engineered product. So we, you know, when we need to Kind of be careful, you know, thinking about it where it's like, you know, something may be engineered. The prime example, I think you guys talked about the mega scrap was that that Facebook post about the laminated strand lumber house, that example. Corley: Right.

James Johnson: Like that's an engineered house, but that house will you know, burn and burn and burn before it fails just because the materials are so dense and dense. Corley: It has the mass. It has the mass. James Johnson: So that's really what it comes down to. So you know we need to kind of separate that engineered and lightweight and understanding that it's a mass issue. As soon as we reduce the mass of anything we're we're you know creating issues when it's when we have fire impingement on it Corley: Love it. I've been saying it to love it is my word for the night every time you finish an answer. So Matt Donnie asks, please, please, James, touch on LSL versus standard lumber. And please say it loud enough for the folks in the back. So I think, yeah, I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to touch on the LSL. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, and the big thing about it, and I know you guys talked about it on the mega scrap, but LSL is a very dense, heavy material. It's not OSB like a lot of people say. I know it kind of looks the same when you look at it. But LSL is insanely expensive. Like you would never Like I've never seen a house built out of LSL. I've used it for, you know, in a a custom home where they're doing very expensive custom cabinets and they need it to be deadly straight and true and then they'll do an LSL or places where you don't want any any shrinkage You know, kind of on that a little kind of a side veer, but I went down to TEAX and did an advanced structural collapse course. a number of years ago. And one of the things we did is we built a bunch of the wooden shores for structural collapse. Right. We went to the engineering lab at at Texas AM University and they use the hydraulic presses to make them fail. And every single one, 100% of the ones that failed, failed in a defect in the lumber. So it failed somewhere where there was a knot or a split or a lane or something where there was some. And then when you get into some of these engineered products, you're removing all of those defects. And so that's that's where you get a lot of that kind of inherent strength with them.

James Johnson: And that was kind of a aha moment for me when I saw that. I was like, every single one of these failed at some natural imperfection of the wood Corley: Wow, no, that is. That's not something you think about. And and and like you said, make the difference between engineered versus lightweight, because we we we seem to in use them interchangeably. And like you said. It looks like OSB, so it must be just as just as fragile. yeah, lots of stuff. JJ is a Canadian acronym for super badass. Love you, brother. That comes from John C. That's all it says is John C. John C. You'll have to figure that out. Mark Davidson, he said, I may have missed it, but how was the fire situation in BC? James Johnson: Yeah, it's it's really bad right now. I think there we've had two days of cooler weather, but I live in an area called Kelowna. which is about three and a half hours north of Vancouver and and we just had a big fire come through, lost a bunch of homes, lay still Uncertain of of how many. they had a couple just really gnarly nights where it went through a couple neighborhoods But yeah, this is the like it was like a month ago they said this is the worst year of fires that we've we've kind of ever had. So yeah, I've been on evacuation alert, you know, a handful of streets away from the evacuation line the last three or four days. But it seems, yeah, we've had some very calm two days of pretty calm lower temperatures and seems like they're getting a handle on it now.

Corley: Solid. That's good news. That's the good news. All the rest of it is is disheartening, to say the least. Get grabbing another question from James, putting it over here, finding the next best question to throw at you. One second, doing my dance. Peter, yeah, I got that. Matt Donnie, you touched on Matt Donnie's question. I love Matt. Absolutely. One of the best, man. Marco I sum said, are you concerned with lightweight construction or is it better to just have a good situational awareness? I think you've touched on that unless you want to add anything to it. James Johnson: Yeah, like I definitely want to know if it's lightweight, 100%. Like that's that's kind of my like the emu or that's kind of my size up. I want to be able to identify that and And but again, like that's that's gonna change for me if I have a if I have a house built in 1920 in Vancouver, that's a shitty shitty house that's you know like rot and water issues and all that sort of stuff. so that that brings on its own challenges. I want to be just sort of aware of that as I do. as I do a modern building. So it's definitely something that that everybody should be able to identify and understand the issues with it. And You know, like I said, you guys talked about the roof stuff a ton with with Robbie and Will. Yeah. but But the floor systems is something that that's still a big issue and and can can cause us, you know, absolutely.

Corley: Greg Redmond coming at you big picture referring to high slash mid-rise residential. Does construction type slash age change your priorities priorities regarding evacuation versus refuge in place? James Johnson: Yeah, so definitely definitely does like that's something that we we run into with with the high-res fires we have is you know we have this like such a mindset of search and and getting people out. But I've I've been to numero numerous high-rise fire where we're pulling people out of the out of the the hallway where the fire was just knocked down and we're bringing them from an area where it's It's way worse or sorry, way better in an area that's way worse, you know, doing doing the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing. but It definitely can change priorities based on the construction. Like if we're in those six-frame or six-story wood frame kind of apartments that we're seeing all over the area now, like that's That's something where depending on the it it it all comes down to the fire volume and is a compartment fire. well that's kind of the that's kind of true for any you know outside of the concrete high rise, but like it are we talking about a compartment fire where we have it knocked down with one line or is it something that's in the structure and spreading and then And that's definitely changing changing the priorities for for getting people out in my mind. I'm not the one making those calls ever, but but but yeah, that's definitely something I would be thinking about fire spread.

Corley: Love it. Joey Castle says. James Johnson: Sorry, and I think I think I think Greg's from St. Louis too. And so if I remember correct. And that's, you know, that's a different ballgame when you're talking buildings too. Like you're, you know, lots of really old buildings. Like even St. Louis is significantly older than Vancouver. they have a really old fire department and and then you know lots of issues with you know levels of levels of affluence and you know that sort of stuff. So sure yeah, so it's you know different It could could be a different ballgame when you're talking about a a place that each of the suites is a million dollars and it's well, you know, well maintained as opposed to you know, something that may not be. Corley: Right, right. And and the number of families that share that that or people. and like I think mindset is universal, but the the tactics are definitely local. James Johnson: Mm-hmm. Corley: Joey Castle wants to know, in terms of building construction and ventilation, what is your go-to when trying to get some of the heat and smoke out and improve conditions? Pretty broad question, but go ahead. James Johnson: It is and I'll I'll just speak specifically to Vancouver where I work. Okay. we're not a vertical ventilation department. Yeah, we don't do a lot of it. We haven't for you know a number of years. There's times where a roof will get cut. but One of the things that that I learned more, I was like, we should be up on every roof. You know, we you know, look, I have buddies who work for LA City and they're up there. And then you see the fires that they're going to and they're like, you know, a ton of one-story bungalow or, you know, that sort of stuff where you cut a hole, it's going to make a difference right away. Vancouver we have we have like basically zero lot lines. So the buildings, the eaves of the one building is over top of the eaves. You can barely walk in between them. They're you know touching at some points. And then there two we have tons of like almost everything's a half story, two and a half, three and a half stories. So it's really depends on so first off when we talk about the zero, you kind of the lot lines If you're gonna root if you're gonna ladder that roof, you have to ladder the peak and you're going kind of right on the ridge along.

James Johnson: You can't, you know, you can't ladder the side of it and get up to the slope. So that creates challenges. We have very very tight streets, so that you know creates more challenges. And then also the half story, you know, it's like the amount of time it takes to do a push and knock the fire down. And to get there. And if you're talking first floor and then we're trying to vent a three and three and a half story house where, you know, it's not it's so for us it's just like our department, you know, good, bad, indifferent is just It's just we typically water on the fire and then and then ventilating a lot of time using a fan or you know hydraulic or natural ventilation. But after knockdown. After knockdown. And but that's British Columbia for a long time and still still lots of areas are there were very positive pressure attack heavy. And and luckily in Vancouver we've gone away from that. and there's you know lots of places in in kind of around us have as well, but there's lots that's still that's kind of their They're good better. Start the fan, try to charge in and then and then go in after the fan.

Corley: Walk in behind it. Walk in behind the pressure front. James Johnson: And yeah, we've you know you can talk to tons of people in the area and tons of Vancouver you know I have a good a good buddy who teaches with us and It works in Vancouver who took nozzle forward and a couple days later they had a bad fan incident and he had to knee walk while flowing in order to get out. Use the skills that he picked up from Nozzle Four to the City. That's awesome. Corley: I mean, not that he got caught there, but that he had the skills to implement. James Johnson: Yeah, 100%. So yeah, for us, For us that's kind of our we're I and we're a very like we're a very engine heavy department. Like that's that's our main focus is like all all of our ladders are technically quints. You know, they're 105s and they have a pump on them and You know, we're very, very water heavy. Corley: Love it. All right. No more questions? Oh, there are there are more questions, but I'm moving on to topic I'm excited about. I've never talked about it on the scrap before, but I love it. I'm passionate about it. Peyton Price actually has a first question coming from the audience about it. And he said, James, what made you want to practice jujitsu and why?

James Johnson: Oh yeah, so I'm I'm stoked when you and I were chatting about this and I kind of threw the idea of Jiu Jitsu out. I knew it was something that you do and started doing and something I'm I'm just like four and a bit years into it now and it's yeah, it's like if you if anyone's on this on the scrap that does jujitsu, you know that it takes up most of your thought process as soon as you start doing it. And that's mostly because you're so bad at it when you well you never really get good at it. You're always kind of bad at it, but for me it was I you know it like I I bet you the majority of of people that get into it, you know, hear about it on Rogan or hear Jocko talking about it. Corley: Jocko was me. I heard Jocko. I'm like, I'm gonna try this out. James Johnson: Yeah, and my son was four, and and I was just hearing about it a bunch and then Like there was certain things with my son that was like I want to know how to swim. We live on a lake, you know, in a in a resort kind of area where there's a huge lake. So it's like swimming. And then kind of that being able to protect yourself and So I we signed him up when he was four and he's almost 11 now and loves it three three times a week and and and then I would take him to class and and watch and and our coach would you know kind of put the bug in my ear to start and then I started it and Never really never really turned back. It's awesome. And for me Go ahead.

Corley: Go ahead. James Johnson: Yeah, for me it came at like a a time where where I needed something like that. It was like, I was kind of leading like talked about earlier, that time in your career where you're like, you know, looking for, you know, something to, you know, some other something to kind of stimulate you mentally. And then I was also like traveling and teaching a bunch and like I was feeling good about like you know, my position on our job and, you know, my skill set. And I felt like I was, you know, comfortable with that. And I was teaching and you're traveling and you're kind of in that world. And then Then you you get into jujitsu and you're like, it's the most humbling thing you've ever done in your entire life. Like, and so it's been huge for me mentally, like just having that like you know, just like any kind of physical activity, but you know, you can go to a jiu-jitsu class and that's 60 to 90 minutes where you don't think about anything other than them there. And that was just something I needed in my life. And yeah, it's just love it. Yeah, it's yeah, I yeah.

Corley: I started five years ago. I'm the world's slowest learner. I can tell people that because I'm five year bluebelt And so I'm I'm extremely slow, but that's okay. I'm not everybody learns at their own pace. One of my regrets is that I didn't start my kids. I had no idea of the value of it until I was younger. James Johnson: Yes. Corley: Or when I was younger. I had no idea. And I wish I would have put all three of my children in it when when they were younger. But you know, that's a that's something you learn later in life. James Johnson: Yeah. And that's something that I've become really passionate about, is like I just, you know, like, you know, Dina commented earlier on the construction stuff, but like the work that Dina does and like, you know, just mental health issues in the fire service and like you know, just how, you know, stressful the job can be. And, you know, that stress doesn't necessarily come from from you know the calls we go to. It can come from management and you know all that sort of stuff. You know, stuff that Cody talked about in the last crap. But I just see the benefit in my life to it and then see the benefit in in guys that guys and gals that are on the job that do it. And so I've just been like That's kind of something why I want to talk about it here. I just think it's so beneficial and it's so much fun. So something we started recently is I started a group. We called it Frontline Grappling Club So we've had two two sessions. So I train at a place called Pacific Top Team in West Kelowna. And there's specific top teams that are a few different places. And there's one Pacific top team, Van City, that's right in Vancouver And two of the guys that are involved, like owners, one's one's RCMP or a police officer, and the other one's a fire just finished his probation on a fire department kind of near mine They're both black belts and so they've basically given up, let us use their gym. And so once a month we hold a frontline grappling club session where we it's open to all first responders And it's just kind of an open mat. The first two have been open mats.

James Johnson: We're doing one in August that we're bringing in just a badass black belt who's a firefighter in a neighboring district. really good grappler and he's coming to do like a takedown class. He's mostly like a no-gee wrestling guy. But it's you like and if any of us are on social media, you see the videos and you experience or you Yeah, I'm sure have you seen it on the job where you see a cop who's getting ragged all by you know somebody they shouldn't be and I just I just see the benefits, you know, for that. So I wanted to bring bring first responders together. And the last one, I think we had 16 out and a bunch of firefighters, paramedics, had a correction officer, had three police officers and Corley: No, and people don't understand the the the the mental psychological benefit. And Deen Ali said it's such a great way to practice mindfulness or simply to learn how to control your response to stimulus. A complete superpower. I love that you touched on this, James. No, yeah. James Johnson: It's just something that you you have to like, if you've ever if you've ever wrestled with somebody much larger than you and you've been you know, stuck in side control or in mount and you're just struggling. Like it's just that mental like the mental struggle to get through it is just the misery. Yes. I just think it's so beneficial for like so many things in life. So so I appreciate you letting me talk chat about it here. But but yeah it's it's cool and I've I've actually had a few people reach out. about frontline grappling club and and doing it in other places. So if there's anyone here, if you're if you train at A places and you want, you know, have it's a really great thing we're kind of slowly creating there. So if you hit me up and I'd love to kind of help out and you can if you have a gym that'll give you the mat space and you just once a month or whatever. open it up to first responders. That's just such a great just such a great networking thing.

Corley: Do you have a website or a Facebook page? What is it? James Johnson: I got Facebook and Instagram. It's just Frontline Grappling Club Corley: Okay, frontline grappling club. There you go. No, that is amazing, man. I might even talk to my coach about making something happen there. That'd be cool. That would be very cool. No, I love it. what's your favorite? I don't want to say like technique. What what techniques are you working on? I love side control. I love working the Kimora. that's pretty much my go-to. I'm trying to break from it to get and start working on other stuff James Johnson: Yeah, I'm so I've I've been a bluebelt now for just over two years. and so I like you can kind of a little bit of a I'm at a place where I gotta start like doing some new stuff, but but I'm just like a little bit of a bigger guy, so I just love smothered Corley: people and I'm a smasher too. I love the smash. I try I try to be flowy. I try to roll you know, I try. James Johnson: Oh yeah, I'm I'm definitely goon jitsu most of the time. Corley: I love it. James Johnson: You gi or no gi guy mainly or mostly gi, but I'm trying to do more no-gi lately. but but as like a bigger guy, like the gi is just so nice for you know the control and that but i'm yeah i'm just i'm trying to trying to do more no-gi now and having tons of fun with it but i'm yeah

Corley: Wait, when I started, I was all about I was I all I wanted was no gi. That's all I wanted to do. And then I I I fell in love with the gi, and now I hardly do any no-gi now. So but no, absolutely. Yeah, that's what Sam said. Sam said jujitsu, also known as involuntary yoga. Yeah. Love it. All right, brother. That is awesome, man. we hit on everything. Jiu-Jitsu, building construction, leadership, culture Send any questions if you have them for James. I will still pull them out, but I am going to move on to book or books that you think firefighters should be reading. And I always love asking this. Now you've been here before, but go ahead. James Johnson: Yeah, and I don't even I don't remember what I said last time, but I may have said the same book. But I there's a book called The Obstacle is the way by Ryan Holliday. that I read at a time in my life when I needed to read it and something that I that I come back to quite a bit. and it's like a a book just basically about stoicism And I just I didn't know anything about stoicism before that, but I I don't know, it's just it's just great for kind of mindset and something I that I took a ton away from and kind of come back to quite a bit. I really enjoyed that book.

Corley: On the subject of Dean Ali, she's the one who turned me on to Ryan Holliday. Yeah. And I I bought the trilogy at the time and I think he's come out with discipline since then Yeah. So I'm I'm working my way through them slowly. Ego is the enemy is the one I started with. And I have I'm on obstacle now. Yeah. And yeah, I may I'm I love everything about Ryan Hall. I can listen to him on podcasts when he's on Modern Wisdom or anything, man. James Johnson: I absolutely love it. Yeah, totally. Corley: So and the other one is the book you were here last time, the Building Illustrator, which they touched on in the Mega Strap. Yeah, of course, but I bought that. And now I leave it laying around the fire station 'cause cause it's so awesome just to pick up and thumb through. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. And totally it's like even for me it's not It's not something you pick up and you read from cover to cover. It's like you hear about something or you're doing overhaul after a job and you're like, oh, like, you know, I don't quite understand this. And then you know you can go back to go back to the book and pull it up and and see things and then you can color in it if you want or you can can do whatever it's just it's just a great book for a visual representation of it and understanding. I think that's kind of the big thing with building construction is if you kind of have a visual sense of of how it's put together, then you kind of understand like

Corley: How the fire is going to impact it. James Johnson: Yeah, it's like the like you know memorizing a whole bunch of of facts is not going to It's not going to benefit you, but it's like that visualization part of it is like understanding, you know, if how it's constructed and then which way the fire like that that's the big thing is understanding which way the fire is going to travel And then from there, it's what are the components that are involved and how is that fire going to affect those components? Corley: To tie it into jujitsu basically, it's like, yeah, you can memorize a whole bunch of steps for a move. But if you don't understand the reasons why limbs move the way they do and where you can manipulate them, then it really doesn't matter. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah. It's so true. Yeah. But yeah, I think that's that that book just gives a really good ability to be able to visualize everything and and kind of have it make sense. Corley: I love it. There you go. All right, we have a thing we do each and every week. It is called The five questions for firefighters. I'm not sure they were around the first time, the first time you were here. And then it be, you know, we did them so long. We did them for a hundred episodes. So we had to come up with the second round. And then just recently, not even like five or six episodes ago, we switched to the Five Questions for Firefighters version 3. 0. So The answers are 100% your opinion. They get scored by me arbitrarily. So points are assigned arbitrarily with the help of the audience. So my question for you, James, is are you ready for the five questions for firefighters versions 3. 0 Let's do it. Here we go. Question number one. What is the skill that has carried you through your fire service career?

James Johnson: I would I would say curiosity is probably if that's a skill, but I think that's something that's really driven me through a lot of stuff to like dive into things and And then also, you know, you would talk about that implementing change or wanting to make things, you know, the best they can be is like really that curiosity of of of that. So like just the desire to want to learn and want to learn more and understand the job. So like and and the kind of that curiosity part, like I'm coming up in the next little bit where I'm gonna be up for writing my lieutenants. And and so I've been very like very aware and keen of what my officers are doing and how they react and just that kind of curiosity of of understanding that side of the job. So I would say that that's probably that. Corley: No, I absolutely love it. Because I mean being curious absolutely means you can always be learning. I love that, man. I love it. Max points on number one. Easy. Because I love curiosity. James Johnson: That's all I wanted is to get one max point. Corley: Then you're then the pressure's off. Pressure's off. Number two, what is the most important soft skill to possess? In a leadership position?

James Johnson: I think like if from the leaders that I've had that I learned a ton from was always humility. that I think like like humility in the aspect that they always want to learn too and and maybe know that they don't know everything or understand everything like constantly growing. But I had a few experiences where officers knew my construction background when I came in and they would, you know, sit me down and say, hey, like, you know, I wanna, if we run into these situations, I'm curious if, you know, I want to use you and For me, that was super empowering to have an officer say, hey, like, you know, I'm not the expert on this, but I know that you have some skill set or some knowledge on it and I want to use you. And it's like It's like there's nothing more empowering than for a firefighter to be like, oh, like, you know, and that and that ultimately comes down to humility from that that leader, that officer. So I would say that's something that that I see and I hope that to be that when I'm in a leadership role like that one day is to is to really use that and rely on your people and and know that you know you have to be constantly learning and Yeah.

Corley: I firmly believe if that is the only thing that you implement as an officer, like you will be highly successful if you can keep that mindset, man. I I do. Sam said it in the chat. He said the big H is never the wrong answer, man. Humility that's like life hack for max points. Like that's the easy answer. I'll I'll have to start I'll have to start telling people besides humility, and I don't mean that in a bad way because it's very early in the three questions. But it's such a great answer, man. It is the key to all of the other skills. It's the key to learning. Without humility, it doesn't even matter if you're curious. You know what I mean? I mean, honestly, you you have to have that humility to be able to learn. And and like you said To say I've got James Johnson on my crew. Hey, what do you think of building construction in this reg? You know what I'm saying? Just take advantage of your people's gifts. James Johnson: And that yeah, that's like, you know, I'm on on the squad right now, two of the other guys that ride with us are both journeyman sprinkler fitters. And we work in a high-rise district. Like, you know, util like to not utilize those guys with their skill set when we're dealing with high-rise stuff and fire pumps and all that. And You know, that's that's one of the beautiful things about the fire service and and and something I can say about Vancouver is we have such a wide range of skill sets and like to be able to hone in on all that stuff that I I don't know. I I love that side of it. Like that's that's that's one of the first questions I always ask new people or somebody who's transferred into our crew or you know, it's like what'd you do before? Like, you know, what's what's your you know, background and it's like, oh, it's like, you know, can okay, oh man, you you worked, you've installed elevators. Well, here I have a hundred questions about elevators that I want to ask you. And yeah, or even like, you know, other things. It's like you have, you know, somebody who comes on the job that they worked in mental health for a long time or were a social worker.

James Johnson: It's like, oh, like there's so much I can gain and gather from that too Corley: Love it. I love Ted Lasso, especially season one where he's throwing darts and he's talking about humility and curiosity. So there you go. Our Ted Lasso answers one and two. James Johnson: are very i love it man number three what is your favorite fire service tradition i don't know if it's technically a tradition but i love the cooking and eating together. That's something that's like, I don't know. There's nothing there's nothing better for me than, you know. eating together at the firehouse and then sitting at the table for two hours talking afterwards or I don't know. I just love how it brings people together. I know not every department does that It's you know, there's you know, there's places that do the bag lunch thing or or whatever, but it's like in Vancouver we're 24-hour shift, two meals a day, and it's like just such a big Big part of bringing everyone together. I just I I've always that was something that as soon as I started, I just loved. Corley: No and you said at the beginning, I'm not sure if this is yeah, it's absolutely a tradition of the fire service. It is what separates it's one of the key components, I think, that separates us from being a run-of-the-mill job is that mealtime. That that sit down together fellowship bond over breaking bread that doesn't exist in Any even even that it doesn't exist anywhere else in a house type setting. You know what I'm saying? Now correct me if I'm wrong, some other place that does it, but military, you know, they eat you know, together when they can and things like that, especially in combat and deployment. And they bond over stuff like that. But I it's such a man, I love the answer. I love the answer. Cooking

James Johnson: There's so much other tradition stuff that ties into it too. Like like I you think about just like the discussion at dinner or or the meal and then the discussion after. And it's like there's like the mentorship parts and there's the debriefing incidents and there's like all these different things that come as all part of that that's the during the meal prep, there's someone chopping veggies and someone doing this and the cook who's telling people what to do and Corley: And people that's one of the reasons why, and and I don't want to tirade, but you got me going, is I I hate when they remove the day room from being next to the kitchen where it's all together. Yeah. And they build these firehouses where the kitchen is off by itself and then it's separated from everything else. James Johnson: Yeah. Corley: And you have to actively go in there to hang out with the cook. And it just it just attacks that tradition You know, subconscious, not subconsciously, like systemically, the structure of the building attacks that tradition. And it sickens it. Yeah. But not the point. I love your answer, Max point. Awesome. One of the greatest traditions in the fire service, man. Yeah, fit to fight fire. John Spears says cooking and eating together is one of the strongest ways to address mental health. It cultivates we are all in this together mindset. No, great one. Great one. Yeah, you got me fired up. Number four. Who are the four people that you would put on your Mount Rushmore of the fire service?

James Johnson: Oh, this is so tough. This is like this one pained me to think about trying to do But I'm gonna give some and some of them are gonna be ones. this one, like I I honestly put this in there. I'm a huge engine nerd and I I love I've learned so much about that stuff. I know Andy Fredericks gets thrown out all the time, but like, you know, in in the B shift drawer at at seven, there's there's the book of Andy, all the stuff printed out and in a binder, and And I just learned so much from that. Just so that like for me personally and like my interest. Like, you know, this I I just love that stuff, so that's one. I you know I almost didn't want to say it because it gets said so much, but I kind of had to. The next one is going to be my first captain in Vancouver. He actually just passed away from occupational cancer a few years after retiring, just a couple months ago, Bruce Tebbett. but I I could write a book about all the leadership lessons that I learned from him. and it wasn't anything he said specifically because he wasn't like If if he said something, then the crew knew that we had done something wrong. But some of the stuff with just b bringing the guys together. that like, you know, he was always about getting people together. everyone was always surrounded, you know, like even there was nobody separating and going to other places in the firehouse. It was like everyone was together, you know, like that and then just like cool, calm, collected at fires. And I know I just it was like the perfect person for me to get hired and and see as my first officer and yeah someone that I I miss a lot already. So he'd definitely be on there. Just a amazing, amazing guy retired as a battalion chief out of Vancouver. And unfortunately we just lost him recently. Sorry for that loss. Yeah, yeah, thanks. Yeah, just just an amazing man. The next one I would have to say, and this is someone that probably a lot of people that are kind of into the fire service know his work, but maybe don't know him, but his name was Gregory Havill. And Greg Havill was he had a column in fire engineering for many years called Construction Concerns.

James Johnson: And Greg was out of Greg was out of some I think he was out of the Wisconsin area and just a huge construction geek. And every year at FDIC we would have something called the Construction Geeks Dinner. as now they we we changed it to the Havill Society. And Gusta Bill Gustavo plans it and and Greg, he would go and pick Greg up and bring him to the and we'd sit down and And the wealth of knowledge. You can go back into fire engineering and look up the archives of construction concern. And it's like article after article after article after article and and just a crazy amount of knowledge. And he was just put tons of information out way before it was cool to talk about building construction when it was you know the class that you know nobody was in. And so he did he did a ton for that. Yeah, so that would he'd be kind of my third. and then I have such a hard time with the fourth. I wish I could put like what whatever the mythical beast that has three heads on it. Right, right. But I'm going to throw a name out that just someone that I know pretty well, but his name is Sean Decrane. Sean Decrane was a battalion chief in Cleveland. He ended up going and working for UL after he retired. And he's now the director of health and safety for the IFF. But just here's the reason why I would put him up there is Sean was the one who got the IFF specifically, but firefighters involved in the building code. He was the first time that we had representation. And there was a line of duty death in Green Bay, Wisconsin in 2000 six. Lieutenant Artie Wolf fell through a lightweight floor that was unprotected on the underside. And Sean really spearheaded the movement to getting firefighters involved in the building code. And it was just a short time after that that the International Residential Code in the United States changed that required protection on the underside of floor systems. And so, you know, there's lots of us that go out and travel and teach and teach all these life-saving skills, but some of those guys that you know, like Sean or Jack Murphy from New Jersey or Glenn Corbett who took over Branagan's book Those guys have been on countless code hearings making the buildings more robust so that we can do our job.

James Johnson: And in in turn, like You know, the even just that change in the international residential code to require drywall on the underside, like how that triples the amount of time that we have. to push down the hallway to make a grab or you know it gives us more time to do the job that we want to do. So I think some of those guys that completely kind of work in the back that You know, nobody ever hears about do so much for for you know empowering us to be able to actually do the job on the front lines. Corley: Love it. I love it. on number four. Hey, I'm wearing this hat. So max points. Just for just for Andy Fredericks out the gate, you would get max points. Not the point, because I love Andy Fredericks and everything. He means the fire. He would be in my mount rushmore And then the other three, all personal choices. And I and that's always an option. And but the reasons behind each one really just drives it home, brother. Absolutely max points, four for four. Final question, the question that's not changed since the beginning. Heavy fire, searchable space. Would you rather be assigned to the nozzle? Or first in on VES.

James Johnson: Nozzle. I love it. I love it. I love the advanced. Corley: You said a lot. You're an engine nerd, and you said Andy Frederick, so I was expecting, but you never know. James Johnson: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's good. Like I I work on a squad company and the squad's in Vancouver. We have four of them in the city and and we're the heavy rescue, but it's an it's a it's a smaller one, so we it's we're a frontline engine downtown. And so and then we respond to all the Sky Train stuff and the heavy lifts. And then if there's fires in neighboring areas, so not in our district, in our district, you know, kind of the first second alarm assignment, we're an engine company But if we go to a neighboring area, then we go for firefighter rescue where the desic the squad is designated. So yeah, so I I like being in part of a specialty, but a specialty where I'm still on the nozzle Corley: Right on, right on. I love it. There you go. That of course, yeah. James Michelisco says max points. Nozzle has to be there to support the cert. There you go. He says he still seems like a good guy, yet his words hurt. That comes from Mark Davidson. I love it. Someone said I wanted to read it to you. It's Mitchell Dempsey. He said, thanks for representing Canada, brother. Strathcona County, Alberta. Sorry for your loss. and he said I came in here late, so I just heard Vancouver and assumed. But you did assume correctly. So awesome.

James Johnson: Yeah, Strathcona outside of Edmonton there. Corley: So Awesome. And that officially makes it max points five for five. That officially makes it 207 scraps in the books And James Johnson, thank you for sharing your evening with us, first of all. But if someone wants to get a hold of you, find out more information, ask you questions about building construction or jiu-jitsu, what is the best way to go about doing it? James Johnson: Yeah, so I'm on Facebook. You can hit me up on there, just James Johnson. And then my email is jamestylerjohnson at live. com. If anybody wants to hit me up there, and then Instagram, you can go to Frontline Grappling Club. I'm the one who manages that page. Anyway, yeah, if anyone ever everyone if you ever want to reach out, if you have anything building construction related, I definitely have you know, nowhere near all the answers, but with all the building code work that I do, I'm very plugged into engineers and architects and you know all those kind of people on the front lines of that stuff. So I can I'm pretty good at digging up the answers. Corley: And he loves building he's a nerd for building. He's he actually said it earlier. I was gonna point it out, he said, it's before building construction was cool, and I was like James, I'm not sure building construction's cool.

James Johnson: Well, do you know like you think even like five or six years ago they you would never you'd never see a building construction right now? I'm breaking your shoes, man. I really am just busting your chops. Now it's everyone and their dog. Corley: Hey, it's a good thing. It is a good thing. It's like it's like nozzle work becoming nerdy. I mean coming out of the shadows. I love it, man. I think every rising tide, man. James Johnson: I love it. Yeah, I couldn't I couldn't agree more. That's the thing that you know, just so happy to see so many people passionate and so much information out there. And Yeah, it's it's it's incredible. Corley: Beautiful. housekeeping, go to firehousevigilance. com, become a vigilante, join today, five bucks a month, the price of a cup of coffee you can sign up for a year if you want. You don't have to do month-to-month. We have a vigilante meetup. In fact, there'll be one this week down in Pensacola where all the vigilantes will get together and we'll cuss and discuss and swap stories. That's just another bonus. besides the exclusive like lives and the exclusive swag exclusive content very laid back And I'm not gonna lie, very inspirational to me. We've been beta testing the V ninety. very exciting, man. Very inspirational to me, like I said. Badass scraps continue next week. Chief Jason Hovelman. Then the one and only Clay McGee the week after that, followed by the much-awaited rescheduling of Jonah Smith So the awesome lineup of 2023 just continues to kick ass, man. And it's very important. Very important. I have to say this like Ike would say it. Write this down. Write this down. There is approximately 98 days and a few hours until registration opens up for firemanship 2024. Mark your calendars for November 27th on Cyber Monday. I'm going to do a countdown at the end of every scrap. my brother James Johnson, thank you for being such a phenomenal guest. Vigilantes. After the scrap is over, of course, we'll have the Vigilante after party, the scrap after party. I'll put the link in the private group and you guys can come in there and ask questions of James. You can critique him, tell him how bad he did, or how awesome he was. as always, my brother, thank you for spending the evening with all of us.

Corley: Thank you, James. Thanks so much for having me. James Johnson: It was a blast. Corley: It was fun. Audience, you guys, of course, with your questions, make the scrap magical week in and week out. Thank you for tuning in. And man, just thank you for everything. Remember, mutts don't scrap. I hope the tone stays silent unless it is burning. Everybody, stay safe out there.