← Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table 
Leadership Conversations @ The Kitchen Table
Ep. 82: Nicholas Papa, Deputy Chief - Service Above Self
01:33:56
Loading summary
Transcript56 lines
- [00:02]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
You're just not going to achieve that peak performance if you're just solely relying on the trigger time of actual incidents. Make the analogy to any high level, whether it's sports, music, any, any discipline, and nobody's simply relying on game day as their means of preparation and developing themselves. The vast majority of it is coming on the front end. It's the training, it's the practice. That's how we get good. And to be honest with you, when we're, when we're practicing together, this is. Firefighting is the ultimate team sport, as we all like to say. How do you cultivate those relationships and develop that coordination and that intuitive familiarity with each other without spending that time, without sweating together and figuring things out, the troubleshooting and learning each other's ticks and where the strengths and weaknesses are? That's where it all comes from. When you do hard things together, that's how those bonds wind up getting forged, you know, because when you have put in a lot of time, energy and you've made that investment and you've done it collectively, that that's where that buy in naturally comes from because you're working towards a common goal. Being rescued from a three story apartment building. The First Responder Liaison Network is proud.
- [01:31]
Podcast Host
To present to you the Kitchen Table podcast. Join us as we explore leadership from perspectives around the globe.
- [01:41]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
From firefighters to fire Chiefs, civilians to.
- [01:43]
Podcast Host
CEOs, our conversations have one simple goal. Build more leaders. Right.
- [01:55]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Searching for extension.
- [01:58]
Podcast Host
Good afternoon everybody and welcome to the 81st episode of the Kitchen Table. Today we're in Connecticut as we welcome Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa on the show and today's conversation is focused on service above self. Nicholas Papa is a Deputy Chief with the New Britain Fire Department in Connecticut where he has served since 2007. He is presently assigned as the shift commander of Group B. A second generation firefighter, he entered the fire service in 2003 volunteering for a neighboring suburb until his appointment to the New Britain Fire Department. He is a fire engineering best selling author of the book Coordinating Ventilation, Supporting Extinguishment and Survivability. He is also an FDIC Educational Advisory Board member and instructor as well as a past FSRI technical panelist for the study on Coordinated Fire Attack. Nick is also the founder of the fire service training and consulting organization, Fireside Training llc. Good afternoon, Chief. Thanks for being a guest today. How are you?
- [02:58]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Oh, good afternoon. My pleasure. Doing well, thanks.
- [03:01]
Podcast Host
Good. Before we jump into the theme of the service above self, would you mind sharing just a little bit about who Nicholas Papa is career family. Also how you got involved in becoming an SME on ventilation.
- [03:15]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah, no, no problem. So you hit on, you know, plenty on the professional side of things. So it's important especially talking about the conversation that we're going to have today about knowing who I am personally. So I, I'm married. I'm coming up on 13 years now. I have two kids. I have an 11 year old daughter soon to be 12 and a nine year old son. And then we also have two black labs, one 13 and one just about two now. So it's and live in south central Connecticut and love spending time at the beach during the warm weather months and being outside with the, with the family as much as possible and for you know, hobbies which again I'm sure this will be fused into the conversation today and making sure that you have have good work, life balance and have outlets outside of the fire service. I rock climb with my daughter every week and then I've been doing Brazilian jiu jitsu since 2016 now and that's definitely my, my biggest, you know, passion outside of the job.
- [04:15]
Podcast Host
This is what stood out to me when I was kind of going over your website is this quote or saying it said the company officer service above self. There are no bad fire companies, only bad company officers. And I heard this a parallel or parable to this. Jocko Willink said the same thing when he wrote his book Extreme Ownership. He talks about this a lot and in the echelon front and his team he says there are no bad teams, there's only bad leaders. And so they're both exactly kind of. They, they, they support each other and it's along the same lines. I just want to ask how true is that it's all about leadership and the company officers that really drive the success but also the failures of teams.
- [04:56]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
We'll say yeah, so that, that's exactly where I got the, that quote from and adapted it from. So in, in the article I wrote with that dives deep into that which I fuse that into the, the latest edition of the book because I felt it was so important the leadership aspect because it doesn't matter, you know, the, the capabilities that you have tactically or the resources that you have. If you don't have the, the leader, the leadership to actually execute it at a high level. It's, it's not going to happen, you know, plain and simple. Look, I mean your, your company officers especially are going to be your, your limiting factors. So with Jocko you got the quote. Exactly. So that's an old military adage that I just simply adapted to meet the fire service, to have that direct connection. And it came to that realization when, just from my experience from coming up as a probie all the way up through the position I'm at now, and just my personal experiences, what I've observed and you know, it doesn't matter how good the, the privates are, how good the, you know that the drivers are, at the end of the day the company officer is going to be that limiting factor. So they're, they're going to create that, that ceiling for even if you have a crew full of studs that are absolute pipe hitters, if they have a bad officer. And that's, I've seen company officers that are not only good at their, not only are they not good at their craft or some of them were, were actually, you know, decent or good firefighters tactically on the fireground, but they were horrendous in the firehouse. And one of the shift commanders that I worked for for a while, and he used to say that there's a good fire officer or a good leader just in general in the fire service, but he was more specific. Talking about officers is like a tripod. You know, he said there's, there's three, there, there's three legs to it. He's like, you've got the tactical side of things, which is, you know, how good they are at on the fire ground, then there's the administrative leg and then there's how they are in the firehouse, which is, he was speaking more to like the personnel, the personnel and culture side of things. And you'd have a lot of guys that were, were savvy on the fire ground, but they were, they were horrendous in one or both of the other two legs. And that's where things just, you know, know, fell off the rails. Because listen, this isn't the, the war years, you know, at least I, I work in, in a small urban city, but you know, we do okay fire duty wise, but we're, we're not burning the doors down. You know, every day we go into work. So that is the operational side winds up being a small percentage of your actual day to day. And if you are not handling things on the administrative level within, you know, to keep things organized within your house, and if you're not cultivating a positive culture and you're not training and instilling the importance of preparation and readiness and building relationships and just fostering that growth within your, within your house, within your company. It's, that's going to be where it stops and that's where you're going to start to see a lot of the, the cancerous things pop up within that culture. And that's where the negativity is going to brood and people are going to get frustrated and disenchanted and because when you have those, those go getters that want to put, just mash their foot on the pedal and really be the best versions of themselves and they want to elevate those around them. They want to elevate the organization that requires a lot of time, energy, effort. And the fact of the matter is there's just some people out there that aren't willing to make that investment. And you know, I've, I saw it a lot during the, especially the early part of my career. I struggled with it when I was a new company officer getting, you know, a lot of resistance and a lot of, you know, kind of initiatives that I was trying to push forward being undermined by, by senior officers or senior, you know, even chief officers, to be honest, because it was, I was going against the status quo. And it didn't matter how much relevancy it had, it didn't matter how much merit it had. It didn't matter that it was going to make our jobs ultimately easier and allow us to perform at a higher level. It required work. And there was those that just wanted to show up for their 24 hours and collect their paycheck and you know, they only wanted to, to be bothered when the bell hit and that was it. But we all know that it doesn't matter how, how busy you are, you're just not going to achieve that peak performance if you're just solely relying on the trigger time of actual incidents. You make the analogy to any high level, whether it's sports, music, any, any discipline. And nobody's simply relying on game day as their means of preparation and in developing themselves, the vast majority of it is coming on the front end. It's, it's the training, it's the practice. That's how we get good. And to be honest with you, when we're, when we're practicing together, this is. Firefighting is the ultimate team sport. As you know, we all like to say, how do you cultivate those relationships and develop that coordination and that intuitive, familiar familiarity with each other without spending that time, without sweating together and figuring things out, the troubleshooting and learning each other's ticks and where the strengths and weaknesses are, that's where it all comes from. When you do hard things together, that's how those bonds wind up getting forged. Because when you have put in a lot of time, energy and you've made that investment and you've done it collectively, that's where that buy in naturally comes from because you're working towards a common goal. You know, something that's bigger than just you, you're a part of a team and our team just happens to be in service of others and we get that, that benefit on the back end of getting to positively impact somebody's life.
- [11:24]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [11:24]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
And that's not always just the glorious, you know, sexy part of the job of structure fires and rescues and, you know, all that jazz. To be honest with you, some of the most gratifying things that I've done on a regular day to day basis is just getting to improve the quality of somebody's life. I mean I work in a low income area and I always worked in the tougher districts in the city. And you wind up interacting with people that are, that are under some hard times. And you know, they, a lot of times will call us when they're desperate, you know, they don't know who else to call. And we're the, the preferred, the proverbial Batman of like public service. When they, they don't know where else to turn, they throw out that, that bat signal and when they get their dispatch gets the call, we're the default. You know, when it doesn't fit into a box, they're like, I'll call the fire department, they'll figure it out.
- [12:23]
Podcast Host
Yeah, absolutely.
- [12:23]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
And it's a pretty cool thing to think about and it's a pretty gratifying thing that, to think that when nobody else knows where to turn, that we're the ones that they call. That is, that's not to be taken lightly. So I think there's a lot of we, we definitely take for granted or overlook some of the, the things that we do on a regular basis or may look at as trivial or nuisance calls. And that's where you get again and you can promote a lot of that buy in and that, that what we're doing means something. So when it comes time to actually put that work in that, that understanding is there is there in the forefront.
- [13:01]
Podcast Host
Of the mind talking about preparation, about how much preparation do you actually do for. We'll say we'll call it game day, you know, relating back to sports world. But Usain Bolt, he said, you know, I would train for four years and you only saw me on stage for 10 seconds. And that's where, you know, we'll say greatness, if you will. That's where the performance happens. It's like it's people only get to see you show up. And we'll use the case of the fireground or emergency scene is, you know, seconds or minutes, maybe an hour. But it's all the behind the scenes that leads to that success. And so that's what's that important that you know, the, the sweat and the practice and it's all leading up to that. And if you don't put in the time, then we'll never see you perform at a high level when it actually matters. But going back to the triangle, so you're, you being a deputy chief, I want to ask you this question. So you said, and I love this analogy. I've seen analogies like this, but no one that really hit this on this show of the three legs, this tactical, the administrative side and then inside the firehouse. And I had an individual out of la, you know, he's a police officer, retired police officer Eric Rossoff. But he gave this quote, he said you can lose your life on the fire ground, but you can lose your career in the firehouse. We put so much time and effort into the fireground activities, the tactical stuff, the fires, the EMS calls. How much of us as leaders, as company officers are we putting into developing our administrative skills and, but also developing ourselves to handle the conflicts inside the firehouse? But I'm going to ask you Chief, you understand this, but I'm going to assume like early on in your career, that dynamic of understanding that triangle, you learn that later in your career. So in your position now, how do you emphasize that to individuals in your department to say the battalion chief, the company officers, the importance of knowing the balance of that triangle and then what do you do to support that? I'm wondering.
- [14:51]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
So it's just making sure that the, the officers have this, the skill sets that they need to do their job. I think a lot of the resistance to some of the administrative side was just due to. Part of it was there was some lack of accountability. And then as we transitioned into more electronic mediums for just, just our documentation and just the, the day to day with some of the equipment checks and just the different functions are now becoming digital. There's a lot more accountability, but I still think that there's, there's some, the struggles that we deal with now are more so with some of the, our more senior folks that are just not as tech savvy and don't have the, the computer skills which you know, to their, to, to their, the defense. This was never a requirement when they came on the job. Everything was, was manual. Everything was pen pen and paper. I mean even when, when I started as a company officer almost 11 years ago, the MDTS were just starting to come in and they were the big clunky like tough, tough book laptops and we were still using the, the binders as our, for our hydrant books. And I mean it was, we were still doing paper PCRs. I mean it was. In, in the last decade we have made a monumental shift from, from just very now antiquated systems and manual manual procedures to now being. We're, we're getting closer to being fully digital on a lot of things. And then very in the near future it's going to be, you know, everything's essentially going to be through our digital records management system. So it's just making sure that those guys, you know, being patient with them and you know, understanding that if as long as they're, they're putting in the effort and they're not just you know, digging their heels in and even when they are like I have to be the one that, that's patient and you know, hold that line but also make sure that you know, they're. Well why are they digging their heels in? Is it just because they're uncomfortable or they're, they, they don't want to, they don't want to screw something up which that's a lot of, of the. What drives some of the issues that we deal with is that that fear of failure. We're such a performance driven occupation and in our culture it's like everybody strives and has that mentality that they, they think we need like of that zero defect mentality. And I think there just needs to be. Well while we do have to have accountability and we, we do have to hold ourselves to a high standard and optimizing our performance is the, the ultimate goal. You need to know your people and you know, and give them some grace. You know, as long as we're, we're, we're working in the right direction and we're trying to better ourselves and we're doing it at, at a reasonable pace and advancing. Then again you need to understand, you know, the, the personalities that you're dealing with, understand the culture of the organization where it's come from. You know, understanding the, just that the learning curve that's involved with some of these things and just in helping on them out. You know, I've always since I got promoted from lieutenant to captain. I went from being an engine lieutenant to going into an offline role as an administrative captain, which I did for a little over a year and a half. And then I transitioned into our, you know, captain of training position. And what I did was when I viewed my role as, you know, we call it a support position or offline position and I truly embodied that mentality was I viewed my existence to be in support of operations with the biggest focus being on the members. So anything that they needed, it was my job to try and fulfill that to the best of my ability. And that's, I carried that throughout that mindset, throughout my time. And that's what really helped me build some really strong relationships and also really helped dispel a lot of misconceptions about who I was and how I operated and what my intentions were. Because when I was a lieutenant I was, I worked on Engine one, which is our downtown most engine company. It's our busiest fire duty company. And I've always been big into training, been very, you know, know, proactive and progressive with, you know, just trying to move the needle forward and get us better and better and better and in focusing on just high performance, yeah, and that definitely rubbed some people the wrong way and I was just full throttle. I got promoted, I got on the job young, I got promoted young. And you know, this definitely rubbed some people the wrong way and just everything about, you know, how we conducted ourselves, which I, I still to this day, this is one of my non negotiables. But turnout times are a huge deal to me because we exist to answer the call when the bell hits. That's our number one priority and nothing shall get in the way of that period. So when the bell hits, you stop what you're doing and you get your ass on the truck as, as quick as humanly possible. And that's where routine and process comes into play. Because when you lay your gear out the same way every time so that way it's it, you don't have to think about it. You just shave those seconds off. You free up that mental bandwidth to start now thinking about the call that you're going to and start getting that, that action script in, in your head of, of how things are going to go down and what you're going to do and that lends to a quick turnout time and then you know, also the drivers knowing, knowing their district so they know the most efficient way to get there. And to be quite frank, like we, we were smoking people into their first Two areas. We. We were out on the road a lot training. We always kind of had a. Had an ear to the radio, an eye on the. The. The station board of when things were popping. Like when a call. A call would come into queue before it even hit, you know, there was always somebody down. That was the thing I love about the firehouse that I was in when I was a lieutenant on Engine one, which I'm now blessed to be back as the shift commander, because that. That firehouse is. It's. It's a second home. And that. That kitchen table is really the hub of that firehouse. And you know, if it's during the. The way the waking hours, if you will, there's. There's people around that table almost nonstop. I mean, that's the. The heart and soul of every firehouse is the kitchen table. You know, without a doubt, any. Any firehouse worth its salt anyways. And you know, we be quick out the door. And you know, we were beating people into their first dues and it kind of led to the creation of. Of a new company patch. And we were at our. The firehouse is located on Beaver street. So the. The mascot was. Was a. A beaver. And it was always the Beaver Street Express. Cause there was always the. It was a. A big house and most amount of companies out of there. And then I dubbed it the Beaver Street Bandits because we were stealing so many people's first two fires. Uh, and so it was a little company pride, morale booster thing. And the patches could only be earned. It was. They were only given out if you. To people within like current members of the company. Whether it was they beat another company into their. Their assigned first to area or just exceptional performance at a fire or emergency is how you earned your first patch. You could never buy your first patch. And of course it. It ruffled some feathers for sure. Now it's. It's a little like, it's a little healthy competition, but.
- [22:45]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [22:45]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah, during that time, there was definitely some periods where I was kind of like public enemy number one because, you know, just I. I wanted us to be the best. And the problem was I was winning the battle of I in my. And this is not to the risk of sounding cocky or arrogant. I truly believe that. That at least on group A, we were the best damn engine company in the city. You know, there. And my goal was for us to be the go to crew on that shift for. For an engine. I wanted it to. There to be no doubt in the chief's mind that when there was a tough assignment and he needed somebody if we weren't already engaged or if he, if something popped off, he was looking for engine one. And I'd like to think that we accomplished that during that time. But the problem was perception is, is reality. Right? And I wasn't truly aware of how poorly I was being perceived across the board. Not, you know, not only just within the, the rest of the shift, but also the, the rest of the department. Because it was, my intentions were being completely misunderstood. You know, it was just, oh, papa's just out for, for himself or, you know, he's, he just wants to, to, you know, go to fires at any cost, and that's all he cares about. And it couldn't have been further from the truth. You know, the, and I always was under the guise of like, I, I, it only matters what the guys that I work with think. And it's like if you talk to any one of the guys that, that have ever worked with me, you know, they'll tell the real story. And that's all I need to be able to sleep at night. But thinking long term, playing the long game, it was, it, it's not going to bode well for you. Like, you need to make sure that you're fostering, you know, good relations just in general. It can't just be focused on, on your, your crew or your house. And that's where when I got, especially when I became the training captain and now I was directly interacting with every crew on every shift. I went from just having the three to four people assigned to me or the two to three people assigned to me on the engine to now essentially being responsible for the training of the entire department. So I took that as an opportunity to really build positive, strong relations with everybody. And, and because of that service above self mentality and that you supporting everybody that I came into contact with, it really helped break down a lot of those, those misconceptions and a lot of the net, you know, the negativity that was, was directed at me. Listen, it did not happen overnight by any means. It was again, Nick Jocko, who says it's about playing the long game. You got to be patient and you have to be authentic too. You, you can't, you can't fake the funk on any of this because, you know, firefighters will smell bullshit and phoniness a mile away. You're not fooling anybody. So I just was, I was my truly myself. And because I was now in a more detached role and I was there, there was no, you know, foreseeable personal gain in any of this. I was just helping people out of the goodness of my heart and what the mission was, you know, because in a support role my job is in essence to support operations. And that really helped build a lot of strong bonds across the department. And you know, then people get to see what you're all about. They, you know, I pride myself on my, my work ethic, the level that I care for the people that I work with and I like to think that that shined through over the last couple of years. So now when it came time to step into this role where I'm now in a back, in an operational role and I'm at the, the apex of supervisory at an operational level where now I have to issue these same people, you know, orders on the fire ground or you know, hold them accountable administratively or with, with training or the day to day activities in the fire firehouse. If I ask somebody to do something, they know there's a reason behind it that I'm not just going to arbitrarily ask them to do anything. And it's either something that I've already done personally and that I have experience with or that, you know, I'd be willing to do myself. I, and I always try to, to lead by example and doesn't matter that I wear a, a white, a white shirt and it looks, you know, it's the, the, the dressier uniform shirt. I mean I pride myself on my, my white shirt being as filthy as possible by the end of the day. Just. And not saying that I get in the weeds at operations, I'm saying just the day to day. You know, if there's, there's work to be done, you know, I'm getting my hands dirty there. I'm not one of these people that, that views like oh, you know, I get to wear the gold now and I get to kick back in the, in the chair and you know, you, it get to enjoy all these perks and luxuries of that position. It's, that's not what I'm all about. It actually makes me feel physically uncomfortable to be sitting and not when people are working to not be there beside them. It's just, it's very unnatural and that guys appreciate that and it shows that you care. It shows that you're not above anything. And then when you do go to ask them for something, you know, they, they're gonna do it. You know, you've, you've earned that, that respect. You've, you've, you've got that buy in from them because they know where you're coming from. They know your track record and your pedigree. Yeah.
- [28:29]
Podcast Host
So a question I have, Chief, is from someone that, you know, seemingly just loved being on the, on the engine, just loved, as you mentioned, healthy competition, getting the. You mean being first on scene of whether it be that fire or that, you know, whatever the caller might been, for someone that was just so about response times, getting on the call, serving people, helping people, getting your crews to do the same. You moved out of the engine company and you promoted up. So I bet that was hard. I'd be. Maybe it wasn't hard. Yeah, so it was hard. So talk about why you transitioned, why you. You felt like, you know, it's time for me to move up or talk about that dynamic in your, in your. Yeah.
- [29:07]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
So my, My path was very unlike what I thought it was going to be, but hindsight's 20 20, and I'm very much prescribed to the belief that everything happens for a reason. And, you know, we're put in this world to, to, for a certain, for certain reasons and for certain purposes. And, you know, we don't always see the, the rationale or can understand why things are happening the way that they are, but when we look back, it tends to make perfect sense. And I'm in that, that boat right now where when I, I tested for line captain three times and I died number two on the, on the first one, I died number one on the second one. And right as my number was about to get called the third time is when I got promoted to deputy chief. So I was, that was the thing I was striving so hard because all I wanted to do was. Was get back to, to Engine 1 as the company commander and, you know, to do what I did with, with Engine one and Group A and to multiply it by four, and it was like, how amazing would it be to do what I did for. On Group A and do it for the entire company, you know, that. And be able to have that greater influence. Uh, and I'm still a very young guy. You know, I just hit my 18th year anniversary in the job and I love, I, I love going to fires. I love getting my hands dirty. There's. There's no other thrill on this life like, you know, pushing a hand line into, into a building fire. But bigger picture, my ultimate goal, my brass ring, was always to be a shift commander. My father retired as a, as a deputy chief from the fire department. And, you know, when I was coming up and, you know, I was in a T. I was a teenager and, you know, I'd be, you know, riding. Riding with him and going to calls and, you know, just seeing him run fires and, you know, some other, you know, mentors that I had. I spent a lot of time riding with a family friend who's a Harford fireman. And I spent. When I was in high school and college, I spent a ton of time. I think I probably logged just as many hours in the firehouse as some of the guys that were on duty and, and just became a fixture there and, you know, developed, you know, I found a couple of really good mentors during my time there. And, you know, one of them was, you know, Deputy Chief Mike Ciccarelli. And this guy came up through all the busiest companies in Hartford, was on the tac, the TAC units, which is their heavy rescue. As a firefighter, as an officer, super highly decorated, and he was the shift commander on my buddy shift. And watching this guy run, run fires was just so impressive. I mean, he was, he was the epitome of that command presence. You know, just. He'd be standing in the street with the bell cap, you know, very old, that old school. And he was just as cool as can be. It didn't matter how, how sporty things got. He was just had that, just that, that, that he was that cool, cool under fire. And he just had the utmost respect of his. Of his crews and just was very technically, tactically savvy and he just really knew his craft that it was like that, you know, seeing that true master of his domain was so impressive and that, like, I could picture this one fight, this one really good fire that they had that we caught first due when I was riding with them. And it got. He was this close to pulling the plug on it, but he had really good crews and very senior crews and trusted them. Gave him that, that extra minute or two and they, they got it. But it was. It was incredible to watch. He didn't waver the slightest bit. You know, he was starting to make those, those calculations of, you know, hey, I'm not liking this. You know, I'm giving you kind of the. The one last shot. And he was starting to kind of formulate where he was going to go next. But he trusted his guys and he knew, he knew their capabilities and it paid off. And it was just truly impressive to see. And, you know, between, you know, watching, you know, watching my dad watching, watching him and then coming on the job and I had my shift commander my entire time when I was a private was deputy chief Billy McCran, who. Third generation New Britain firefighter. His, his two, two of his brothers were on the job. He is to this day still is the most tenured overall, most tenured chief officer and most decorated in the history of the department. He did 49 and a half years on the job, over 30 as a, as a shift commander. And he's the only person in our department's history to ever get our highest medal for, for bravery, which is the saint, the Saint Florian's medal. And he probably should have gotten it a second time because to be honest with you, he got the second highest medal and I think that grab was ballsier than the first one. So I mean this guy was just incredible. Same, same thing like that, just that incredible command presence at emergencies that you just truly that insanely high level of composure and it was just impressive to watch and I just wanted to aspire to, to be that guy and to have that, that impact for the cruise because I saw how, how impactful his calm under fire was on everybody else. Like you hearing him on the radio, maintaining that, that level head and the amount that he trusted his crews really resonated and made us push that much harder and you know, made us work that much harder and you know, guys trusted him implicitly on the, on the fire ground. And so that was always where I wanted to go. So as, as hard as it was to, to not get that, I mean the, it's kind of the best, best of the circumstance in the sense that I still earned that, that company commander spot. I was next up on the list and it was going to happen. I just, my number for shift commander got called and these positions are like unicorns. They, they pop up so infrequently, especially on a job of our size where we don't have battalion chiefs. We, we have six engines, two trucks. So our one chief officer on duty is a deputy chief and that's the shift commander. So for operational chief, there's only four of us. So when those positions come up, if your number gets called, you, you have to take it because it may never come up again. I mean Chief McCran occupied that position for 30 plus years. Our senior shift commander now has been in that position for 20 years. Like they get locked up. Yeah, so it was, you know, of course there's, there's some sacrifice on my end because was I ready to hang up my, my black helmet and the, the air pack for, for good? Absolutely not. I, I mean it, I just caught, you know, my, my first fire the, the other Day it was, I mean nothing to write home home about. It was a couple of outside structures. I mean so not even a true, you know, dwelling fire, but I mean great little, you know, first training wheels fire. And that, that natural instinct to put hands on hose and get to work is, is so strong and you really, it takes a concerted and physical restraint, a concerted effort and physical restraint to actually, to stay detached and let, let them work. Because that's not my job anymore. That's not my job. So it is difficult. But you know, my job has a, there's a lot of responsibility, a lot of, a lot of weight. But also the now my, my level of influence and impact has, has grown exponentially. And now instead of now a building a, a high performing crew, I can build a high performing shift. And that's that, that, that's where I have my sights set on now is developing the people on group B to be the, the best versions of themselves and to make us as the, the highest performing shift. And you have the greatest impact when we show up to the firehouse.
- [37:31]
Podcast Host
Yeah, well, you said something that is going to transition us perfectly into. And everything you talked about was service above self. But some key things that you said from the leadership, from a leadership standpoint is when you said stepping up, was I ready to keep the air pack on the rig and move into my next spot, you talked about the importance of having a greater influence, of thinking about the big picture. Because that, I mean it's so important when we talk about stepping out because if everyone were to not step out, where would we be as a fire service, as an organization, as industries? So we do need individuals to kind of step up even when we'll say they're quote unquote not ready. Because what is ready? I always will say, like what's ready mean? Oh, I'm not ready or I'm quote unquote ready if you are ready. I mean there's some arrogance a little bit to that. If you actually think about that. Like what makes you ready? Like we all need to become better to be. Well, we'll say more ready. But my point is, is we talk about service above self. You, you hit it, you know, specifically because you talked about having that greater influence and knowing that yes, you didn't want to leave, you know, that, that opportunity to continue to influence just your team of two or three or four people. But you can influence 10, 12, 15, 20, 25 people now and you had that mindset of I can serve more people by stepping into this role. Even though I love being on the engine companies. And so let's transition now into what you write your book on and what you kind of spend a lot of your time with is ventilation. So how is it that ventilation. I mean, obviously you write for fdic, you write articles, you have a book. And I'm going to highlight it again right now for the. For listeners. Coordinating Ventilation Supporting Extinguishment and Survivability by Nicholas Papa. So talk a little bit about how that became your subject matter, how you wrote a book and your articles.
- [39:21]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah, so all this happened by accident, which is. Just. Seems to be the. The case for some of the people that, that I'm close with that are in this arena. But. And again, that goes back to just authenticity and, you know, things happening for. For a reason and, and also just the purpose of it all. Like, I didn't set out to be a writer or an instructor or to do any of this. It just, it. It happened. I mean, I was. I always had big aspirations, you know, ever since I was a kid and, you know, reading Vinnie Dunn's articles and books and that's what really got me into to reading. And I always thought one day I'm like, man, how. How incredible is it that this guy has such a huge impact on the fire service that he's able to. He's got a hand in the betterment of. So, like, thousands of firefighters across the country have read his books and are better for it. I was like, I'd love to do that one day to, you know, be able to. To give back on that kind of level. So it was always in, like, the back of my mind, but just kind of like one of those. Those classic, you know, pipe dreams or.
- [40:36]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [40:36]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
You know, you know, youthful exuberance and. But, you know, one of those things that. One of my favorite quotes of all time is from T.E. lawrence, the Lawrence of Arabia. And he talks about the, you know, the dreamers of the day versus the dreamers at night. And he's like, the. The dreamers of the night wake to find it was just vanity that where the dreamers of the day are. Are a dangerous force because, you know, they'll actually execute on their dreams and make it happen. And that's always the way I've kind of carried myself is that, you know, for anybody that knows me, they'll laugh. Like once I set my sights on something, it's like I'm just a dog on a dog after a bone. Like I'm just gonna. I'll. I'll Play that long game like you're, you're not going to outwork me. You're not going to out, you're not going to outlast me. It's just when I, when I get set on something that's I'm, I'm locked in.
- [41:32]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [41:33]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
And so when kind of that, how all this happened was when I got promoted to lieutenant. Our chief at the time was progressive as far as education goes. And for the first time you wanted to give newly promoted officers some sort of professional development. And the State of Connecticut Fire Chiefs association in partnership with the fire academy, had started this program called iLeads. And it was a five day program and they would have a handful of different instructors. They were, you know, mostly chief officers because it was being, you know, sanctioned by the Connecticut Fire Chiefs Association. And then they would bring in some guest speakers and you know, then they'd have one like featured speaker at the end. And it was always somebody from the outside. And the person that they brought in this year, I was super lucky. It was Deputy Chief George Healy from the FDNY who was, he was kind of the head like liaison on the operations side when they were doing all of the Governor's islands experiments with, with FSRI. So he came in and this was in 2015, like January of 2015. So it was very shortly after the second ventilation studies were done in 2013. The first one was done in 2010. So as into the job as I've always been, as much as I would seek training outside of our department and even outside of our state, I was blissfully ignorant to what was going on with all the NIST and UL studies that were being done and had no clue about the ventilation studies and this concept of flow path. And, and when he came in, it was, it was very simple and he just kind of recapped the, the studies and some of the results and the tactical considerations. And a lot of was obviously focused on the ventilation component, but it was one. I had one of those moments where it was that, that epiphany light bulb moment that as he's talking, I'm starting to immediately the dots are connecting. I'm, I'm starting to, to cycle through my, my slide tray of fires that I operated at and where things went poorly either because of ventilation operations that others were conducting or some that I had personally conducted and things went sideways. And it was at the time chalked up to we just ran out of time or oh, that was close, or we just lost this one and there was no understanding of why it was in. That's where experience alone doesn't really equate to like wisdom and understanding, just like knowledge in isolation doesn't either.
- [44:26]
Podcast Host
Right.
- [44:27]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
You know, in order to achieve that, that true understanding, achieve that wisdom, you have to have that fusion, that synthesis of knowledge and experience and it's that, you know, that application of the knowledge out in the field and then the knowledge to be able to dissect and analyze what happened and make sense of it so you can actually figure out what happened and, and why, you know, why things went down and so you can diagnose, you know, things that didn't go well or went or you know, how you can fix them because that's the only way you get better. Otherwise you're just, you know, you're just going to the same fire however many times you're just repeating the same mistakes and you're chalking it up. Oh, this is just, you know, the cards were stacked against us or you know, well, sometimes it is. I'm not going to say that that's not the case. But you know, a lot of times where our performance was the catalyst for that failure or not optimal results, we have to have that understanding to be able to have that honest self reflection, to be able to really, you know, dissect what took place so then we can make sense of it all and, and then adjust accordingly moving forward. That's the only way that we, that we get better and that we, we truly hone our craft. So as I'm cycling through these things, you know, that was just like, holy shit. I was like, if I'm, if I'm into the job and I'm making these, you know, mistakes that are seemingly so fundamental, you know, I thought I was operating under like good solid principle based off of what I was taught, but I was missing key components of those principles. I was, the principle in generality was, the intent was there. But I was missing a lot of the fine detail on the actual practice end of it, of how it was actually applied. And there was one instance in particular that stood out where the whole vent as you go line, that old school tactic of venting as you're going while you're searching. That tactic certainly has merit. And it was one that our pre scba, our pre turnout gear predecessors used in order to make the conditions tenable for them, which if it makes it more tenable for us inherently it's better for the victims because they're completely unprotected. But the thing that allowed our predecessors to have a much Longer leash and a much greater threshold for that. The effectiveness of that, that tactic was that the fires weren't burning as fast and aggressively as they are now. So that window of opportunity that, that temporary improvement period that they were getting was much, was, was much wider, where now our window of effectiveness is much shorter now because of how quickly the fires are growing and spreading and responding to additional supplies of oxygen. So now that key component that I was missing out of there was that, yes, venting as you go can be a very effective tactic of performing local ventilation and improving conditions within remote spaces. But one of two things has to be in place. You either have to have effective suppression underway, or you have to have your position isolated. So the area that you're in that you're venting locally has to be isolated from where the fire is. So that way you're not creating that pathway, that point of low pressure from your, from where you're at to where the fire is located. Because we know that fire is going to move from high to low pressure. And if we create an opening remote, it's going to draw the fire eventually to our location. And now with the speed, the tempo of today's fires, that's happening very rapidly. So that was really the big aha. That was that, that incident where I would. That came to mind, that really triggered me. And when I first got promoted to lieutenant, I spent the first six months as a, as our safety officer. We used to have a lieutenant safety officer position when I, back when I first got promoted. And I use that time to my advantage. And I really went and took a deep dive into this idea of coordinated ventilation. And I only intended to create a program to deliver internally because I was like, I need to make sure that people aren't making the same mistakes that I am. Because like I said, if I'm into the job and I didn't know this and I made these same mistakes, there's got to be tons of other people that are in the same boat. So I wanted to make sure that we filled that gap. So I made this program. I was one of the days I was in the office, I was watching a webinar. It was a fire engineering hump day hangout and it was P.J. norwood and Frank Ritchie talking about tactical ventilation. So I didn't know either one of these guys at the time. And I took a shot. So I shot, sent a cold, cold call email to PJ Norwood, who was the training chief of East Haven down on the shoreline at the time. And just out of the blue Introduced myself, told him that I watched his webinar and found it really helpful and that I had told him about my experience with ILEAD and getting to meet Chief Healey and this whole program I put together and said, hey, like, as a, you know, brand new lieutenant, you know, I don't want my first initiative to be a flop and I want to make sure that this is vetted. Would you mind critiquing this for me? And now here's a training chief from, from another department who I've never met before. He has no idea who I am. And this guy, out of the goodness of his heart, took the time out to not only review the, and critique the program, but he gave me a whole bunch of resources to, to add to it, to improve it. Gave me a couple other, you know, things to look into to just enhance my, my understanding and. And then he kind of threw a little challenge out there and lit a fire under my ass and was like, hey, this is good. He's like, you should continue to refine this. When you get, when you get done delivering to your department, think about taking it on the road locally and delivering it locally. And then if you, you refine it and you get to a place, you should apply to fdic. And again, I was into the job, but I'll admittedly, I'll admit that I hadn't even heard of FDIC at the time. And then he was like, hey, why don't you? And he goes, you should really write an article about this. I think he's like, I think writing an article will help improve your understanding and allow you to better, better deliver this material. And I took him up on his offer. So I was like, hey, this is my first opportunity to get my feet wet with writing. So I wrote an article, I sent it back to him, he passed it up through the chain and lo and behold, it got published a year. So that was in August of 2015 that I reached out to him and I applied for FDIC later that year. And yeah, then, then spring of 2017, I taught at FDIC and I had my first article published.
- [51:56]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [51:57]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
And it was in. Everything is just snowballed from there to multiple articles to getting on the UL Tech panel and you know, then, you know, writing the books and, you know, getting to travel all over the country and getting to pass this material along to others. And it's been, it's been an incredible opportunity. I've met some amazing people along the way and just the, like, one of the best impacts that we could have is to make sure that we share our mistakes and our shortcomings with others and make sure that people don't repeat those same mistakes and provide them with the, the tools and the resources to be able to improve their, their abilities. To make sure that they, they don't step in these landmines and can do their job more effectively and you know, increase their chances of a successful outcome for not only the people we serve, but also for, for ourselves too. And it's a, it's incredibly, it's been an incredibly rewarding, you know, 10 year ride and you know, it's like I said, it never set out to do it and it's just like I said, everything's just kind of snowballed from. Yep. From that one email.
- [53:10]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [53:10]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
After taking that class back, you know, just, just about 10 years ago now.
- [53:14]
Podcast Host
Yeah. It's amazing. Well, one thing I'm going to lean on, I don't know if this is likely not your most, Your oldest in 2015, 2017 article, but one article that I did stumble upon and read was regarding the three Cs of ventilation.
- [53:25]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yep.
- [53:26]
Podcast Host
And the reason why I want to lean on that one and ask you to elaborate more is I think these are very paired with leadership traits. We'll say so when we Talk about your three Cs of ventilation. Communication, coordination and control are also leadership traits. So talk about the three Cs of ventilation and how it also translates into good leadership skills.
- [53:50]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Right. So I've since, you know, modified those three Cs because obviously the title of, of the book is Coordinating Ventilation. So the, one of the key points is making sure that people understand what the word coordination actually means. And I'm realizing I'm like man, I'm, I'm trying to set that these, these foundational principles for coordinated ventilation. But I'm using coordination as one of the principles. It's almost like using the word in the definition of the word. You know, it doesn't work. So I made sure in the, when I just the second edition I just published a few months ago and I really get into it defining what coordination actually means, what it takes to achieve it, which is all that front end work. What happens on the fire ground is a product of all of that front end work. So the, it's now the three Cs of coordination. So it's that triad of coordination. So like you said, the communication, the control. But the third C is competency. That's the third leg of that triad. So the, the coordination for, for us, like what fireground Coordination is, is right. Right. We're orchestrating all of these critical tasks. So forcible entry which in in in itself is a form of ventilation search fire attack ve like actual ventilation of taking windows and, and cutting holes in the roof if need be. So those are the critical tasks but they all need to be orchestrated so that they're sequenced properly. You know, that's where that coordination comes into play. And they all have to have purpose. So those critical tasks not only have to work together but they're working together towards the common purpose of accomplishing our tactical objectives which are then and then overall supporting our strategic priorities that life safety, incident stabilization and property conservation. So that's, that's where this all comes into play. So it's that we, the coordination is making sure all of those critical tasks work together. We achieve those tactical objectives which I'm a big recovs guy, that's kind of my jam. And then the strategic priorities of, of the lip. So that's how everything is just broken down. You can see everything is distilled down into that. You know, if anybody's taken Aaron Fields nozzle forward class. It's the rule of threes. And that's really how education should be, should be delivered. It's our job as instructors and educators is to take really complex bodies of knowledge and concept, complex systems and breaking them down into their most organic and simplistic form so that way it can be practically applied and readily understood. So that's the key there. So that's the coordination aspect of it and then the communication piece of it. And yes this, this does transcend ventilation. I just specifically talk about the three Cs in regards to you know, the tactic, the tactic of ventilation. But as you said this is applicable across all tactics, all domains to include leadership. You know the hallmark of, of good leadership is the ability to communicate well with others because you can't develop relationships, you can't you get anything done without effective communication and then the control. So when we talk about the tactic of ventilation this is kind of twofold. We're not only trying to control the fire by controlling the openings within the building, but also to, to control those openings it takes self control equally if not more because to be. We're all that those type A action oriented individuals that especially when we see smoke and fire we want to get in the mix and we want to, we want to operate. But being on the roof or being in that outside vent position requires a lot of positional discipline. It requires a lot of restraint that tactical Patience because to have a tool in your hand and to know guys are operating and to be have to wait to take that window or to louver that that cut in the roof.
- [58:12]
Podcast Host
It.
- [58:13]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
It takes that discipline and that self control to be able to. To wait till the right time. Which again goes back to the communication too. We only know it's the right time when we have that, that communication between the interior crews or you know, at the very least, you know we can. We can still coordinate it by using our, our senses, our sense of sight, you know, seeing that the smoke converting hearing the sound of the stream operating. So at the very least y default and still coordinate with those. But ideally to time it precisely requires that communication with the inside crews and the outside crews. And then all of this requires competency. Having the knowledge, skills and abilities to be able to do the thing. You know that that's the, the key to all of this is, you know, competency is, is all three of those aspects, those KSAs in order to be able to make that all, make that all happen.
- [59:09]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [59:09]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
So that, that's really the, in a nutshell, the breakdown of the, of the three C's.
- [59:13]
Podcast Host
Oh that's, that's well said and thanks for elaborating on all that. And I didn't realize that there was a second edition. It's my fault for not even knowing that. But second edition of the book Coordinating Ventilation is out for listeners out there. So you being the subject matter expert on ventilation, we tried to have some kind of a, like a hot topic if you will. The topic that I'll, I'll talk about. It will stay with ventilation because as you know, way better than I is ventilation is. It can be controversial. So let's keep it as basic as we can on ventilation. What is in, in your experience, what is a big misconception about ventilation and how do we encourage leaders to adapt to these misconceptions and continue to lead effectively?
- [59:55]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah. So one of my biggest drivers was to really nail down on the timing aspect of what proper timing look like to achieve coordinated ventilation. And the fact that there is no silver bullet answer. I have really drilled down on it as much as possible, but the fact of the matter is we deal with shades of gray. Things on the fire ground are rarely black and white. Much of what we do in the tactical realm, especially with something as dynamic as ventilation. Yeah, this is where the critical thinking comes into play and that's where that you have to have that, that basis of competency to make sense of all of this. Because we're having to make split second decisions with incomplete information and like in, under, under stress and time compression and uncertainty. There's not like the novelty of the situation. We have to have that, that foundation of competency to bolster us and to allow us to make those good decisions. But when the studies were first done in 2010 and 13 regarding ventilation, after that there was a hard pendulum shift from, to ventilation being hyper conservative. So in some places there was actually an adoption of a almost anti ventilation approach where they just were, people were trying to just were advocating for keeping the buildings completely buttoned up until after the fire was out. And we know that that, that far, that that far end extreme is, that's not the answer either. Just like that. The extreme, the far ends of the spectrum are rarely effective. It's somewhere in the middle. In the middle is where we need to be. And we went from like yes, over the top ventilation. You, I mean you could spend hours on YouTube just watching video after video of, of undisciplined uncoordinated ventilation, you know, just happening way too early in the wrong place. And it's completely like self induced. It's just a malpractice of the tactic. It's not the tactics fault, it's the, it's the human factor piece of it. That is where the blame is. So that was the other end of the extreme. And as the fire ground continued to evolve, our margin for error got smaller and smaller and smaller. So that timing being off is just much more exposed and much more visible now because that window of opportunity has shrunk so much because of how fast these fires are progressing. So now my, like, my real focus has been getting people to understand what that timing actually looks like. What should be our, if all things are typical or normal, if you will, if it's just a, you know, a standard fire, we're not dealing with any outlying circumstances like hoarding, wind, impacted conditions or it's not a below grade fire or any one of the, you know, kind of outlying or you know, more complicating complicated fires. If it's just a, you know, your typical dwelling, you know, contents, room of contents, fire situation, what is kind of our gold standard or what we're hoping as ideal timing and coordination and just getting people to realize, you know, what was actually happening when ventilation takes place, you know, and where it was happening. That was the other thing too is when those early studies came about why things kind of shifted so conservatively is because all we were doing was researching ventilation in isolation and we all know, I mean, the cavemen knew this, you know, thousands of years ago. When it's like if you add. Add air to fire, fire is going to get bigger. And if it you. If that fire is in a closed compartment, you can imagine that the temperatures are going to go up and eventually the, the conditions are going to get worse. That, that's not, that shouldn't have been a surprise for anybody. But the problem was when you look at the tactic in isolation and you only look at, you know, certain data points, it can be scary. And when the message was only, oh, if we, you know, if we ventilate, the fire is going to get, that is going to grow, it's going to spread to the points of low pressure. You know, it's going to make conditions worse. The, you know, fire gases are going to start to increase and we're, you know, going to, you know, on and on and on. But the problem was we weren't looking at everything holistically and isolate or ventilation doesn't happen in ice, in isolation. It's not, this isn't a vacuum. Things are happening. So in. The idea is the whole coordination piece is it's coordinated with fire attack. So now that. Then here comes the coordinated fire attack study. So timing, timing is everything. Right when as I started to really get out there and I started putting out content and really getting into the weeds on this material is when they started asking for panelists and was lucky enough to be selected. And now we were coming on the heels of the fire attack study, which now, again, we're looking at kind of fire attack in isolation. And now our job was to take the ventilation studies, infuse them with the fire attack studies, to actually be able to drill down on what coordination actually means. And specifically the timing aspect where we're placing these openings, the effect it's having. And what we. For the first time, we started looking at the environment as a whole. So was it now we're looking at the different levels within the compartment. So the, the different heights within from ceiling to floor for temperature, for gas concentrations, for airflow. And now we're getting to see and not only just in the fire compartment, but in the remote spaces as well. So now we wanted to see the effect ventilation was having on different compartments, especially because that's a big thing for people to understand is there's a distinct difference between venting for extinguishment, which historically was called venting for fire, which is when we create openings within the fire room to vent opposite or above the seat of the fire for the nozzle team, making the push to make things more tenable for them. And then venting for life, which is more commonly referred to now as venting for search, to make it more task oriented. And because ventilation support is a support function. So I like vent for extinguishment and vent for search, which that, that verbiage came from the FDNY following the 2013 study, which I adopted in my book as well, because it really drives home that, that supportive and task oriented nature of ventilation. But you can vent the fire room all you want. And unless those remote spaces have their own openings within them, there's going to be no remarkable change to those environments. Because in order for ventilation to take place, in order for a flow path to exist, you have to have an inlet and an outlet. There has to be an exchange taking place in order for there to be ventilation, you know, in order for that, that lift and those, the leaning effect to take place. It can only happen between where the fresh air is coming in and the fire and its byproducts are coming out. So if those remote spaces were trapped, occupants can be located where our search crews are going to be occupying to try and locate and remove those victims. The only way to make those spaces better is through local ventilation. Because if the, if the windows are still intact, if there's no openings already present, it doesn't matter how much you vent the fire room, there's no draft being pulled through that space in order to get that fresh air exchange to make conditions better. So if we then that's where that venting as you go comes into play. But again, if effective suppression is not underway, the only way we can do that is through isolation. So if we now occupy a remote space that's not vented, if I close the door behind me now, my position is isolated. Now when I do hit that, that outside wall, I can take that window without fear of drawing the fire on me. Now I've created a local vent point. I'm going to get that bidirectional flow through that, that opening and take an exhaust. I'm going to get that, that lift and improvement in conditions which is going to allow me to, you know, move easier because I can see better. I'm getting some physical relief. But also it's going to improve the gas concentrations within that space and the temperatures at the floor level. And that's the other thing too is people became fixated on the ceiling temperatures. So even when we vent the fire room pre suppression there is that there going to be A temporary improvement period because there's going to be that lift that we all speak of, that anybody who's made a push down a hallway and had it vented opposite or above can distinctively recall that reprieve that's felt when you get that lifting experience. That's the byproducts being released, the fresh air coming in behind it down low. So that's that temporary improvement period until that effective suppression could becomes underway to sustain it. So what's happening is. Yes, as fresh air is coming in, we are leaning, leaning the fire out because it's, it's fuel. Our fires today are very fuel rich, so they're ventilation limited. Okay. Oxygen's the limiting factor. So that's why fires today are so much smokier than they have historically been because the combustion is not, is not as efficient as it once was because of the predominantly synthetic hydrocarbon base materials that are comprised of most of our contents and a lot of our, some of our building materials now they're burning dirty. And now we're buttoning our homes up tight for energy efficiency, which again is further limiting that, that oxygen availability. So when we do provide vent, which a lot of times the first source of ventilation is the entry door, yes, we're going to introduce fresh air, which when it does arrive at the seat of the fire is going to allow that space to lean out, which is going to improve the fuel, that oxygen ratio, that, that mixture, which is going to allow it to burn more efficiently. And yes, that is going to allow it to develop more rapidly. And yes, it is going to increase temperatures at the ceiling level. But equal and opposite reaction, right.
- [70:49]
Podcast Host
It's.
- [70:49]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Newton's third law, applies to everything. So when, yes, conditions are going to get a little bit worse at the ceiling level. But am I necessarily interested in what's happening up there if I. As long as it's coordinated? No, because if it's coordinated, that means effective suppression is going to be promptly underway if, if not already underway.
- [71:12]
Podcast Host
Okay.
- [71:12]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
But when I bring in that fresh air, it lifts and leans and that lifting is going to improve my visibility. It's. It's also going to pull some of that heat up off of me and replace it with fresh cool air. So I'm going to get increased visibility, I'm going to get some relief from the heat, that fresh air is going to improve the oxygen concentration and also the, the toxic gas concentrations down low. It's. Those are going to decrease because we're bringing in all this fresh clean air and that's that temporary Improvement period. So conditions are initially going to get better down at the floor level, which is where we're operating and the likely place that the unprotected victims are going to be. So as long as we've timed it with, with effective suppression, that that's going to promptly be in place. And now it's okay if ventilation precedes that effective suppression as long as that window is very narrow. So when I advocate for, for, you know, ventilation, like ideal coordination is when that nozzle team is on the approach with a charged hand line. So think of, this is probably the most basic analogy or example I can give a, a ranch style or, you know, rambler, depending on what part of the country you're in. Rancher, rambler style. Single family home fire in a bedroom at the end of the hall. All right, this is like America's bread and butter fire. Line stretches to the door. Because it's a single family home, our drop point is going to be at the front door because we can't isolate our position interior. So we control the door, we charge the line. When we're ready to go, door gets propped open. Okay, because now we're going to reap that initial ventilation from the door being open. We're going to get that bi directional flow coming out of the door. That's going to increase our visibility and tenability as we move in. Once we move across the living space, you know that I kind of use like 3, 3 zones and 3 color codes like a traffic light. So in this scenario, we've got three distinct zones. We've got a travel lane, an attack lane, and our seat of the fire. So as that crew moves in, they're reaping that, that temporary improvement period of that lifting and leaning effect. They're going to get some, some enhanced visibility and relief down at the floor level as they move in. So they come in across the living room, they hit the junction point of the hallway. The nozzle firefighter takes that high outside turn, sets up, and now the backup starts offloading hose to make that push down the hallway. And now once they get into the hallway, that's now the attack lane. That's the approach to the seat of the fire. You know, Aaron always talks about that 10 to 15 foot span between leading up to the seat of the fire. So that's where we want to use the reach of our stream. We want to also leverage the local cooling and the air entrainment from the stream. So now that nozzle firefighter can take control over that space, start cooling that space down to get local cooling, get water down range. And now that's that attack lane. And now when they are ready to initiate that push, once that line is in position and they've got that straight shot to the seat of the fire, that's when I want that vent to take place. And because when I initiate that push, I want to have that then opposite me. Or if you're, if you're talking vertical above that seat of the fire already in place. Because when I open up I'm going to get local cooling which is going to result in contraction. Because we know that as gases expand they generate pressure and as they're cooled they contract, which is going to decrease pressure. Again, equal and opposite reactions. So yes, when I, when I train, when I'm in training air, as I initiate that attack, that's going to be increasing some, some pressure because now I'm, I'm flowing, you know, 5 to 6,000 cubic feet per minute of air going down range and I could use that air to my advantage Even in an unvented situation. A lot of people talk about, oh, you're gonna over pressurize the space. In a normal, you know, compartment layout of us of a dwelling. If as long as you're not going nuts with the stream and you're flowing the right amount of water, you're putting it where it needs to go, you're not going to over pressurize the space. Even if you don't have that opposite or above. You do need to be mindful of the, the, the floor plan and the layout. Because in like semi open floor plans like the, the, the public spaces of, of ranches or raised ranches where you have the living room is interconnected with the kitchen and the dining room and it kind of loops. If it's unvented and you go a little too nuts with the stream, you can have some wraparound or if it's a very small compartment, especially if you're talking like walking knee walls or very tight spaces. Yes, you can have some over, over pressure situations. But strictly talking suppression of, you know, compartment room compartments with a measured, you know, movement of the stream, you're not going to, you're going to, there's going to be enough net contraction from your co that it's going to offset the pressurization from the air entrainment. So what that does is that bi directional flow that's coming at, at the door when you start operating that pressure front that you're creating with the stream at the very least is going to, is going to Make a plug in that hallway. Because that front door is that point of low pressure that that source of ventilation, the fire and its byproducts want to migrate over your heads back towards the door that you came in from. So when we start flowing water, you're going to create that pressure plug and prevent it from flowing overhead and you're cooling as you go. But now, in order to leverage ventilation to its fullest potential and have the best change in conditions and impact on conditions, I want that vent opposite as soon as possible, as soon as I'm ready to initiate that suppression. Because when I have that backside or vertical venture now it's got somewhere to go. So as I pressurize, I could actually create a, convert that vent profile from bi directional to actually a unidirectional flow. So that air entrainment and that pressure is going to now flow through that approach corridor, down that hallway, through the seat of the fire. And now it's going to push the fire and its byproducts out of that, that opening opposite, that distal opening, which now is going to draw a full intake from behind me and then a full exhaust on those openings that we created. So even though that, you know, windows and doors naturally want to function as bi directional, if they're on the same level as the fire, which we know is the least efficient of the two types of flows, we can leverage coordinated ventilation with a flowing and moving attack to create that ideal unidirectional flow horizontally. Just we're hydraulically inducing it. So we're using our fire streams and our natural ventilation together to create that ideal exchange and maximize that, that ventilation flow to have the best impact on the conditions. So that's where that timing piece comes in. Because again, even the ones that were still advocating for ventilation, it was, oh, you have to wait till you get water on the seat of the fire. And yes. Are there some cases that that needs to be the, that that is true? Absolutely. When we're talking, you know, hoarding, hoarding conditions, you want to wait for vent till that crew is at the seat of the fire flowing good water. Below grade fires, you know, we want to try and attack them on plane, but if the building construction is dictating that, you have to go from, from up above, you want to keep that basement buttoned up tight until that nozzle team descends the stairs and gets to a position where they can get good water on the seat of the fire before we're venting or wind impacted. Sometimes we may not want to create any openings at all. Until we have a knock of the fire because of the potential to create wind impacted conditions. So that's where that we have a spectrum. But this is where we need to under typical circumstances. This is where we hope to be and how we can leverage that timing to our advantage to have the greatest impact on our operations and most importantly the preservation of life and property. That's. That's the big one.
- [79:36]
Podcast Host
Wow, that's. I think you just gave me the most thorough ventilation course 101 in my career. I mean I've been through several tactical trainings. We've talked about ventilation, both horizontal, natural, vertical, positive, negative, all that. But that was a very, that was a very good way to. To put a lot of it together in a fully functional, understandable method of understanding flow, hand line placement, vertical vent isolation, compartmentalization and all that. So obviously that there's so much more to it. And, and I want to hit on this at the end as well, but I'll just hit on it right here. Obviously you're gonna. You expand on all these concepts in your book now the second edition. So I encourage again all the listeners, you know, it's another piece of which will take us right into it here in just a second because we always like to talk about what can listeners start doing today we talked about leadership traits, we talked about the three Cs. But with that, in addition to the book Coordinating Ventilation, Supporting Extinguishment and Survivability, Second edition, what is another book that you recommend the listeners grab onto because it was influential for you, but also you think that they could take away.
- [80:43]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
A lot from one of my all time favorite books for leadership. And it's not meant to be a leadership book, but it's a gold mine for, for people that are that, that are. That are leaders and especially the. For for officers, especially new officers stepping into whatever new role you're going into. And we talked about Jocko earlier. One of Jocko's mentors from afar was Colonel David Hackworth. And he. Jocko constantly talks about the book about Face and how it was really the. What planted the seed for his leadership philosophy and was really the kind of the primer for him to write his books. And I read about Face. It's. That's more of more autobiographical. And yes, there are good lessons in that book. But I found Hackworth's other book, he's got multiple. But his book Steal My Soldiers Hearts to be by far the, the best leadership book I've ever written. And when you talk about culture, especially if the, the culture you're stepping into, whether it's at the company level, a house, or the organization as a whole. You know, it talks about his time being a regimental commander during the Vietnam War and how when he, he took over a regiment in, in the Mekong Delta and it was a, you know, a hotbed of, of activity during the Vietnam War and he took over by far the worst performing regiment in the Army. And how over time, by just playing the long game, being authentic and being service oriented towards his members, he got them from being, you know, the, the army equivalent of Mikhail's Navy to, you know, being the highest performing regiment in the entire theater during the war. It just explains his whole story and his whole philosophy and about developing culture and developing people. And it's, it's tremendous. I can't say enough, enough about it. It's a, it's a great, great book.
- [83:01]
Podcast Host
Never heard. I, I love it. So it is Steal my Soldiers Hearts. Yeah. I will say I, this is a new one for me and I want to buy this book. I love it. Thank you for the recommendation. I hadn't heard of it, so. Because our goal is to continue this conversation, right, Whether it be about ventilation, whether it be about leadership, but just in general, fostering an environment where fire service members, emerging leaders, could tune in and learn something. We are here today because Deputy Chief Phil Jost kindly challenged you to be on the show. And I'm glad he did because I learned a ton in our time here today, and I wish we can keep going. But to continue, we ask you to see if there's someone else that you would like to challenge to bring their perspectives and philosophies for us to have a conversation on leadership.
- [83:45]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah, I'm happy to. So I'm going to give you my personal, one of my personal mentors, which is retired Deputy Chief Lee Shapiro from the Hartford Fire Department. So that family friend that I told you about that I spent a lot of time riding with his company in Hartford when I was in high school and the few semesters of college I did before I got on the job, the, the company commander at the time was Lee Shapiro. And I got to. The company really adopted me. And you know, you know, now being on the job, looking back at the way that those guys treated me, I was always grateful for the way that they treated me. They really treated me like a little brother. And like, I just, you know, they kind of brought me into the family. But now looking back, after being on the job for a month of time and the amount that I was there and the way that they treated me. I'm so blessed and so grateful for those guys for, for, for taking such good care of me and kind of adopting me for, for, for those few years. And one of those being was, was that he was a captain at the time of Engine 10 and he just became a tremendous mentor just in. Embraced. Embraced me with open arms into the company. And he worked the day after my buddy and he started inviting me to stay or to come back on his shift and just really felt. Made me feel so welcome. And then when I started testing to get on the job, he was the one that was prepping me for the oral boards and how to get ready for the competitive exams. And we stayed in contact through the years and even though I got on in a neighboring department, he still remained a, a close friend, a professional mentor and just got to see him the other day. But. And he's actually just become a published author himself and he teaches on, you know, succession planning and fire officer leadership and teaches a tremendous program and which he just captured in writing in a new book that he just wrote which is available through, through Fire Engineering. So definitely encourage people to go look up his book and I'm sure you'll, you'll dive into it.
- [86:06]
Podcast Host
What's the name of the book if.
- [86:07]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
You have on the show An Insider's Guide to Mentoring the Fire Officer. Oh yeah. So and the thing I love about the book is that it's not likely reading your, your cookie cutter leadership or fire officer book by any means because I'm sure anybody who's, who's studied for promotional exams or taken the fire officer classes, you know, those books are enough to, to, you know, put you to sleep. And if they're just regurgitating the same, you know, management principles and the same, you know, leadership philosophies, which some of the stuff is, is important. Like there is like the, some of the human dynamic stuff when they talk about Maslow that, that, that that stuff is legit, but so much of it is, is theory and conceptual and it's just, it's very dry and it's hard to make those, those translations because leadership is a human endeavor and if you can't make that human connection, you're going to fall, you're going to fall short. And what Lee's book really does is takes his almost 30 years of experience in, in Hartford and he ascended all the way to the senior tour commander position, you know, worked his way all the way through the ranks and you know, spent time as an acting assistant chief for a while. So he's got the, the, the pedigree, the. In the street, the street cred. And he, his book is. It's not war stories, but it's, it's very pointed stories to take these concepts and these scenarios that are going to be common occurrences both on the fire ground and in the firehouse that a fire officer is going to encounter. And those things that, you know, that no, no program can truly prepare you for, he addresses in his book. So the, the things that I would call him for advice on is what the book provides. So that's the thing I love about Lee's book is that for somebody especially who doesn't have that mentor in their life, that they don't have the leash of hero that they can call when they, they're running into a situation in the firehouse or, you know, they're trying to make sense of a call that they ran at a fire or, you know, how they can better themselves or how they can attain the next, the next goal, the next rank or the next goal Lee has truly captured in his book. And that's what I love about it. When you read the book, it feels like you're talking to him. Oh, that's awesome. Awesome. And so, yeah, so I would highly recommend that Lee be your next guest on the show.
- [88:39]
Podcast Host
And I appreciate that. Thank you. Before we close today's show, Chief, I would like to say, do you have any lasting leadership thoughts you'd like our listeners to walk away with?
- [88:48]
Deputy Chief Nicholas Papa
Yeah, and I know I've hit on this periodically throughout our talk over the last hour and a half, but, you know, just to, for people to be patient, you know, it's for, for those of us that are hard charging and that, that just want to be the best and want to, you know, attain that, that peak performance, be, stay hungry and, you know, and stay locked in. But just be patient and play the long game. You know, don't let your, your passion become overzealousness or let your passion, you know, get damage relationships or allow you to not be present. Sometimes we, you know, our ambitions or our goals can allow us to be too, you know, focused on the future and not being present and enjoying, enjoying the ride. Because so much of this, this job goes so fast. I mean, in the blink of an eye. Here I am 18 years into my career and now I'm a shift commander. You know, my time as riding the fire trucks and, you know, even my time as a company officer, it's come to a close and it it feels like a blink of an eye. So just enjoy the ride. Enjoy and embrace the position that you're in now. Have goals and, and strive for those goals and, you know, be ambitious, but don't let that get in the way of, of you truly embracing and enjoying the moment of where, where you're at. And especially like being an engine lieutenant was, was so much fun and I truly enjoyed that, that rank and just like I did when I was the irons firefighter on Ladder 2 as a private. So every, every phase has, has its, has its rewards and the lessons that it's teaching you because like, for me, like, I, I had lofty goals and I wanted to be a shift commander, but it's all of those steps and all of those experiences and even that the, the, the twists and turns that I took trying to go from lieutenant to company commander and you know, all the different places that that journey took me throughout those two different support roles. If it wasn't for those experiences in, and me just, just letting go and embracing it and making the best of those situations, in hindsight, now it was those two experiences of being in those two roles that set me up for the success of being able to do as well as I did on the promotional exam. Because I had so much firsthand insight on the administrative side of the job that I had that. More of that strategic lens from. In those roles, especially when at structure fires, I, when I would respond in those roles, I would be a part of the command staff where I would be the, the safety officer positioned on the Charlie side. So I'd be the eyes and ears for the incident commander in the rear. So that gave me my first taste of now looking at a fire from the outside and now thinking from a strategic lens and helped prepare me to now step into that role as an incident commander, where now I'm the one in the, in the front yard, in the street running, running the show. So I had that perspective. Where had I gotten to, had I gone through the company captain's role, I would have never had that perspective. I would have never honed my, my administrative skills and, and learned the ins and outs and the intricacies of the job, you know, behind the scenes, the true inner workings of the job, I would have only had that operational lens. So if it wasn't for that open mind and, you know, making the best of my situations, you know, I would have, I would have completely missed the, the forest through the trees, you know, as that, that old saying goes. So just, you know, view, you know, view the situations as, as opportunities and not obstacles. You know, the life's going to throw a lot of different things at you. And here the. Whether you're religious or not and you know, however you want to frame this, but like God or whoever, you know, you higher being you, you think of or just life in general, it has a funny way of telling you what you can do with your plans and what you think is going to happen. You know, you can set everything up in the world that you want, but you know life's going to take you where, where you're meant to go. And you know, your job is to make the best of it and to fulfill your purpose in life and, you know, to be of service of others. And when you can, when you embrace that, that mentality that that's when you can really, you reach that, that pinnacle.
- [93:43]
Podcast Host
Thanks, everyone, for tuning in today to the kitchen table. We truly hope you found this time valuable, and we hope we've inspired you to take action, to lead and to spread the leadership conversation. Till next time, be safe, be intentional, stay curious.