Upcoming Open Enrollment

What Exit Fools: Urban Tactics-Suburban Depts

NEW JERSEY: Sun Feb 23rd 2019: Urban Tactics/Suburban Departments. - 9am-12pm
The Reef and Barrel (the old Edgars Pub) In Manasquan NJ

Fires in Vacant and Abandoned Buildings

SCHUYLKILL PA Sat Jan 18th 2020
Humane Fire Co 1 in Mahanoy City PA Presents “Fires in Occupied Vacant and Abandoned Buildings” at the Mahanoy Area High School. Event is open to all firefighters.
For tickets to register contact Capt. Bill Killian @ 570-225-1598 Email capt453@mcfd.net

A FIREMAN WALKS INTO A BAR PITTSBURGH

Carnegie PA

Pittsburgh PA March 10th, 2020. A night of brotherhood, beers, bitching, relevancy & realistic tactics for a good cause.

Sponsored by @urbanfiretraining presented by Brian Butler (Captain City of Trenton NJ) 🔥 🚒

Riley’s Pour House
215 East Main St Carnegie PA
☘️ Voted Pittsburgh’s best Irish Pub ☘️🍺
Advanced tickets 🎫 sale limited being offered at $20 before Jan 1st 2020, so reserve your online e-ticket.

Event is “R” rated age 18+ and is open to ALL firefighters.

Pre-St. Patrick’s ☘️ day bro-down.

Appetizers and buffet included with cash bar 🥃 🍺.

Facebook Events Page

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Buy Tickets Eventbrite

Efficiency & Productivity on the Fireground

Urban Tactics, Suburban Departments

Course Description: Many suburban and rural areas have seen a major increase in population, industry, infrastructure, public transportation, housing, retail, and traffic over the last 30 years. Rural areas have become suburban while suburban areas have become metropolitan areas outside of urban areas or big cities. Many fire departments that were once all volunteer organizations producing low run numbers have now become career or combination departments as the number of fire and rescue calls (and tax base) have increased. They have also added technical rescue, special ops and EMS to provided services.

These departments range from 24/7 fully staffed to understaffed during the night and weekends, some covering a large district spanning many square miles. One department may only be staffed Monday-Friday during the day while others are staffed with only paid drivers or a two-person crew. Some volunteer departments offer a "duty crew" stipend at night or a live-in program for quicker response times.

Suburban departments have essentially become city departments with city problems. Outside of numerous vacant dilapidated abandoned buildings, skyscrapers, subways, project apartments, and shootings, suburban departments are now dealing with more high-rises, mid-rises, elevators, garden apartments, condominiums, townhomes, estate homes, strip malls, big box stores, modern building construction, high speed and light rail trains, high traffic volume-rescue incidents, and an increased population creating far more run numbers than 20-30 years ago. But unlike the cities where there are dedicated truck, squad, rescue, and engine companies fully staffed with 2-6 members on each apparatus 24/7 every several blocks, most suburban, volunteer, combination departments may be riding short staffed and relying on mutual aid. In addition, as call volume increases, volunteer numbers have declined dramatically over the years resulting in less members responding, and some riding members may lack training or experience. Consider budget issues, and longer response times waiting for members to respond to the station on a weekday when many have full time jobs. For fires, this can be dangerous because of longer burn times. How can we overcome some of these issues? What common emergencies do urban and suburban firefighters respond to on a daily basis, and how do we accomplish more with less?

This customized course focuses on the common strategy and tactics that urban, suburban, and metropolitan departments all face but with different apparatus and staffing levels.

Efficiency vs Productivity

Courtesy of Setapp.com:

Productivity and efficiency are two of the key goals of any business enterprise. But they are two very different things and often compete with each other. Improved productivity can come at the expense of efficiency and improved efficiency can reduce productivity. But what is the difference between them?

Put simply, productivity is the quantity of work produced by a team, business or individual. Efficiency, on the other hand, refers to the resources used to produce that work. So, the more effort, time or raw materials required to do the work, the less efficient the process.

Efficiency can also refer to the quality of the output. Producing 100 widgets an hour may look good on a productivity spreadsheet, but it’s not very efficient if half of them are rejected because they don’t meet quality standards.

Harvard Study of Efficiency vs Productivity.

Courtesy of Harvard Business Review:

Great Companies Obsess Over Productivity, Not Efficiency

Find out more

A Fireman Walks Into A Bar..

Brotherhood and Beers Fundraising Seminar

Interested hosting groups contact urbanfiretraining@gmail.com This customized ADULT presentation is great for fundraisers, seminars, a night out with the brothers, or just a break from the modern day bullshit.

Content will focus on the mitigation of various high risk/low frequency events, the HERCULES method of preparing for Murphy's Law, Engine and Truck Co ops, target hazard vehicles, machinery (trains, elevators, big rigs) top and bottom floor fires, aggressive tactics, company officer development, size-up factors and critical decision making, target hazards (highrise, parking garages, vacant buildings, tunnels, difficult to access fires) rapid rescue, myth-busting, why construction matters, and when to throw SOP's in the trash for 5 minutes so we can achieve successful outcomes.

Brian Butler is a career Fire Captain City of Trenton NJ Fire Dept. 23 years

(7 years Ladder Co, 16 years Engine Co)

Firefighter King of Prussia PA Fire Rescue

Contributor Firehouse & Fire Engineering

Owner UrbanFireTraining

Brian is a Bronx NY native who moved to NJ in 1981 and served a short sentence at Trenton State Prison in NJ (as a CO) and Camp Geiger NC in the USMC. Before getting his GED and becoming a fireman, Brian held over 50 jobs and focused on amateur boxing, fighting on friday nights across New Jersey. He fell into the party scene in 1993 making appearances at over 1000 bars in 75 cities in 25 states. His goal was to live the life of a rock star "incapable of playing any instrument" while living in an urban rowhome, driving a busted ass jeep wrangler, and collecting as many insufficient fund ATM receipts as possible to live the dream. Brian turned his focus towards family and is currently married with 3 children and very close to his retirement from the fire service. He currently resides in Hamilton NJ where he is writing a book, "Lies, Pension Loans, Shore Houses, and Scabs" while continuing his passion of speaking to firefighters on how to not become robots, but rather movie stars.

Brian believes in old school, street smart, street credit instruction, realistic methods, improvising, adapting and overcoming by thinking outside the box, event forecasting, mind-triggering and taking a common sense approach towards fighting fires by fighting PC culture and the bullshit being peddled to young firefighters. All firefighters, not just the company officer, should be well-oiled size-up machines constantly running, evaluating, taking in everything the scene is giving them. It should be automatic and second nature.

"The key to living a long exciting life as a firefighter is not the "clean cab" concept, it's drinking coffee in the morning, water in the afternoon, bourbon at night, luck, and having a few beers with the guys after a good working fire back at the station."

This is offered anywhere in the US where there is a demand for it. Please follow us on Instagram @urbanfiretraining

Upcoming Events

Dec 4th, 2019 7pm: Poughkeepsie NY

Dec 11th, 2019 7pm: Memphis TN

Email urbanfiretraining@gmail.com for more information. See flyers on our appearances page.

Marking Death Traps: Hazardous "Occupied" Vacants

Marking Vacant and Abandoned Structures

By Brian Butler- New Article at Firehouse.Com

March 2018 issue of Fire Magazine

Extended post on UrbanFireTraining Blog

EDITORIAL: The Art of the "Handjob"

IF YOU HAVE THIN SKIN, YOU MIGHT WANT TO AVOID READING THIS…

In almost every fire station in America lurks the “handjob."

So what are some signs of the handjob? He's the guy who...

Exclusive Member Access Only

Fires in "Occupied" Vacant and Abandoned Buildings

By Brian Butler

This is also an excellent course for ALL firefighters and company officers that is being offered in early spring 2019 for your department, conference or seminar.

Vacant properties used to be an inner-city problem but that is no longer the case. Suburban and metropolitan areas have seen an increased presence of abandoned residential and vacant commercial properties. Many of these buildings are not only prone to fires, they’re occupied by drug users, gangs, copper thieves, squatters, and vagrants. These properties may be structurally unstable with holes in the floors, open roofs, rotted floor decking, fortified board ups, window bars, and the scene of prior burns. In addition, firefighters may have to navigate broken glass, tires, needles, and hoarding conditions. We can’t always assume that these buildings are unoccupied and go defensive. This presentation focuses on size-up, locating victims, unique rapid search and rescue options, savvy laddering and bridging, forcible entry, safe aggressive strategies and methodical tactics.

Book now- urbanfiretraining@gmail.com