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Fire Chief Billy Greenwood's Blog (47)

Fire Department Considerations for Heavily Snow Loaded Roofs

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on January 23, 2023 at 7:30pm — No Comments

The Mickey D’s Franchise Theory

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on February 27, 2022 at 3:51pm — No Comments

Tactical Mastery

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on December 12, 2021 at 9:13am — No Comments

Extreme Instructorship - Achieving Instructor Excellence

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on April 28, 2020 at 8:00pm — No Comments

Bully-Type Behaviors - Extreme Leadership FDIC2019

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on March 25, 2019 at 8:30pm — No Comments

Dealing With A “Less Than Desirable” Firehouse Culture - Extreme Leadership

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on March 21, 2019 at 7:00am — No Comments

Are You Ready for the Invasion of Gen Z Fire Recruits

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on February 15, 2019 at 7:30am — No Comments

The Fire Chief / CEO Mindset

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on December 20, 2018 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Avoiding The Blinder Mentality

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on May 2, 2018 at 11:30am — No Comments

The Micky D's Franchise Method

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on July 25, 2017 at 4:00pm — No Comments

Searching in Modern Times - Adult Victim Profiling

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on February 1, 2017 at 8:00am — No Comments

Turning Your Down Time - Positive

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on January 17, 2017 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Extreme Leadership - FDIC 2017

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on December 5, 2016 at 12:30pm — No Comments

The Go/No Go Concept of Interior Benchmarking

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on November 27, 2016 at 1:28pm — No Comments

Cost - Value of Tradition

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on October 27, 2016 at 9:30am — No Comments

Ride or Die by the Red Box

Not many years…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on May 11, 2016 at 8:30am — 1 Comment

New Construction / New Hazards

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on January 22, 2016 at 1:30pm — 1 Comment

TIC Talk - What Are You Seeing?

 

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on January 11, 2016 at 11:11am — No Comments

Auto Extrication 102 - What You Think You Know Might Get You Hurt



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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on January 4, 2016 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Has the lack of "Field Experience" ruined the game?

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…

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Added by Fire Chief Billy Greenwood on December 1, 2015 at 2:00pm — No Comments

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