Fire Chief Billy Greenwood's Blog (47)

With the recent snowstorm that has blanketed much of the country, the fire service needs to take a look up before we commit to an interior or exterior fire operation. The type of structural materials, design and condition all play a big part on whether that snow loaded roof is going to be a problem. I recently took a few minutes to travel around the area to assess any potential snow hazards I could find. I was surprised to see that more than three quarters of the dwellings in the area had…

How many times have you heard, "Man, it's like we've got four different fire departments working here!" Many have and we all know the meaning behind that statement. Fire Departments that have 3 or 4 different operational shifts, can often do things each a little differently. You know what I am talking about like differences in daily chores, vehicle maintenance, riding assignments or even operational responses. The amount of "different" can be dependant upon the amount of leadership…

Tactical Mastery

by William Greenwood

What does it take to become the go to person in the firehouse? Time and tenure doesn’t mean that a person has real experience. We have all seen people with 20 years on the job with 2 years’ experience. So what does it really take to become the elite firefighter? Elite firefighters have invested a tremendous amount of time and effort mastering their…

By: Chief Billy Greenwood; Extreme Leadership Series

Extreme Instructorship - There is a big difference in teaching adults and children. Thus the professional educator in emergency services education must have a solid understanding of learning intelligences. Have you ever been in a class where the instructor was good, he or she had decent material, but they had somehow missed the mark for student engagement? Now I am not talking about many of the obvious minor faults of an…

Leading up to FDIC2019 and our Pre-Conference Workshop titled Extreme Leadership – Building High Performance Teams on Tuesday April 9th, 2019, let’s talk about one of the most challenging leadership encounters… that of having to deal with the bully-type individual.

It seems in my travels a lot of good fire departments are slowly being…

Great leaders know they simply can’t get anything done without people...  And those who do it well know they can get more done by who they know, than what they think they know. So leading up to our pre-conference workshop at the FDIC2019, here is some food for thought on fixing a dysfunctional fire department culture.

As a leader in an organization regardless of the color of your helmet, you must evaluate you and your officers ability to positively engage and influence those in your…

Whether you are leading them or teaching them, let’s get one thing straight Generation Z are NOT Millennials. They are currently about 1/5th of the workforce and rapidly growing. They were born after 1995, therefore they are under the age of 25. FETC Services has focused a lot of leadership training on understanding Millennials in the firehouse but now it’s…

The Fire Chief / CEO Mindset.

Many Fire Chiefs in small or mid-sized departments waste time on what I call $15 an hour work dealing with the day to day tasks like vehicle checks, chores and maintenance. Meanwhile, they forgo working on visionary work like professional development, or obtaining grants that could yield thousands of dollars to assist the operating budget. Time needed to build relationships with the right people, inside and outside the organization, to further advance the…

Life moves at a fast pace these days... So fast you can easily miss an opportunity to improve one self. The pace affects everybody from the firefighter down on the floor, right up to the chief’s office. There are two common management models during these busy times, the first would be the progressive management model. Being progressive involves supporting the needs and requirements of the organization and predicting or forecasting the future. The latter is called crisis or chaos management…

How many times have you heard, "Man, it's like we've got four different fire departments working here!" Many have and we all know the meaning behind that statement. Fire Departments that have 3 or 4 different operational shifts, can often do things each a little differently. You know what I am talking about like differences in daily chores, vehicle maintenance, riding assignments or even operational responses. The amount of "different" can be dependant upon the amount of leadership…

We all understand the mission of the fire service. Upon arrival to a given building fire, the fire department’s number one priority is life safety. If we have any possible chance of locating and rescuing an occupant, we must start a rapid and systematic primary search. Many smaller fire departments in the United States with limited manpower are forced to perform search and rescue from…

Happy New Year Fire Engineering Family.   From our  FETC Tactical Training Notebook

Today during some down time between runs I took my company out on a building familiarization tour. The tour included looking at a really large, 4 story lightweight residential dormitory being built in our first due. The tour affords firefighters with the opportunity to get out and mingle with contractors, see new…

The Leadership Tune Up -

During our travels there seems to be a common complaint heard by many brothers and sisters around the country, that

their department…

The fire service has a very unique organizational make up. Some of us are volunteers, some are paid per call and others do this as a career.  The general…

Not many years…

Modern building technology is an amazing thing. That being said, technology can also create new firefighter hazards unforeseen by many.  For example on a recent building familiarization tour with my truck company, we located many of these pre-engineered smoke ventilation hatches on a new constructed occupancy in my district. 

We all know working on the roof is dangerous. Our working environment often yields decreased visibility; night time darkness; seasonal weather related…

The research and purchase of a new thermal imager is not a simple task and is definitely one that should not be taxed upon a single person within your fire department.  Whether you are purchasing a camera through an acquired fire grant, hard earned fundraiser money or your taxpayer's budget from a capital improvement program, the costs associated with this purchase justifies creating a small, dynamic TIC committee.

The committee should steer the…

How many times have you been told there are electrical storage capacitors that can fire air bags upwards to 15-30 minutes post battery disconnect? I would bet many have heard the same.  Well here is one for you from 2009 during a training evolution that fortunately no one was injured. This Volvo had NO BATTERY in the vehicle for well over a year. 

Here is the firefighter safety alert I created for our FB Training Page…

If you were to walk into any firehouse on any given Sunday, most dayroom TV's will probably have the big game on.  Firefighters have their share of die hard football fans who rep the team hats, sweatshirts and jackets of their favorite team.  It seems the recent turmoil over NFL officiating has soiled the game most of us love. Sports networks and talk radio shows are a buzz over the…