EP4: Aaron Fields - Transcript

Aaron Fields chats about the “why” behind The Nozzle Forward. We get into shared language, timing, and the practical details that help crews work better together. We discuss failure, repetition, responsibility, and the mindset that keeps your skills honest. Straightforward from a widely respected voice in the modern fire service.

[SHOW OPENS]

Aaron Fields

Everyone talks about how bad it is. Well then, fucking quit. It's not that bad. It sometimes is not fun, but there's also, we don't talk about the good things.

Cory Ashworth

Today, we talk about the good things. Our guest is Aaron Fields, founder of the Nozzle Forward, longtime Seattle firefighter, and now assistant chief with Camano Fire. Aaron has spent his career not just doing the job, but making sense of it. Distilling fire behavior, hose management, and fire attack into something simple, adaptable, and practical. His work sharpens the mind behind the nozzle, building firefighters who stay curious, trust what they see, and act with purpose when it matters the most. I'm Cory Ashworth, welcome to Fourhalll. We started with a simple question. When it comes to hose work in fire attack, what do you think new firefighters misunderstand the most? I don't know if it's new firefighters.

Aaron Fields

I actually think it's old firefighters telling new firefighters half understood. I think one of the major characteristics of being a good firefighter, I think there's several. a sense of humor, admitting your mistakes, and rectifying them. I mean, the pursuit of excellence is the ability to practice through boredom. And we need to be intellectually curious. So when somebody says something and it doesn't make sense and they can't really explain it, we have to search it out. And unfortunately, because of the history of the North American Fire Service, there's a lot of gaps. And it's not intentional. It's not lack of character. We are trained from day one to be rapid problem solvers. Solve the problem, move on. Don't get too deep. But when we're not in the middle of solving the problem, we should be getting deep. We should be looking at engineering. We should look at physics that govern our world. We should look at building construction, how buildings are laid out more than how the, I mean, or at least as much as they're built. And so I think the major issue isn't what we know and don't know. It's that we don't put the things together. We don't add context. What, why, when, how. That's how you learn all psychomotor skills. So if without the when, then the how makes no difference. We're mimicking a movement, not understanding the problem solving.

Cory Ashworth

So Aaron told me the fire service is finite, with a finite number of options. There's a finite number of hose options and a finite number of things that the fire will actually do. There's three building shapes, three angles in a building, three stairs and locations.

Aaron Fields

It's all this rule of three, so it's much more like a Rubik's Cube than it is like a problem that we're going to figure out when we get there. And so I think what's missing is that as an industry, we don't prize intellectual curiosity, and we don't reward it. Like if somebody tells me something, I'll listen. But if you can't explain it, I mean, I had a guy once tell me that the answer to my question was because I said so sit down. It's like it's not an answer. And no professional that I've ever worked with in my other life has ever responded to me like that. They can explain it. And they can explain it because it's intellectual curiosity. So the easiest way to think about this, I think, is what's missing with engine work and all everything is that if all you ever hear is every... Yes? If you only hear every third word in the sentence, there's no way in hell you're going to understand the paragraph. And we have to realize that outside of response, that our ability to respond accurately in the moment, our recognition prime decision-making is based upon the long study, the crafts person-like study. And that allows us to be aggressive. I'm very competitive. And as a young guy, some of the guys that I grew up with would tell you, too competitive, like bad choice competitive. You're drinking one beer. I'm drinking six. And so for me, what I've realized early on was that my work ethic was the only thing I really had control over. And I don't like to lose. And I know that people that are prepared are more successful.

Cory Ashworth

So Aaron played high level across when he was younger. He shared a moment from the field that shifted how he thinks about timing and preparation. He was playing overseas against an Olympian and his coach made an observation that changed his entire focus. It was just one maneuver.

Aaron Fields

Inside trip was one of his takedowns and it was one of mine. And the coach is like, "Well, the problem is, is you're waiting for that foot to hit the ground and then you're attacking. He pulls, yanks and tugs and you start stepping and he's already launched the attack. So he's setting up what he wants and that's really fundamentally the difference. If you're cognitively in the mix, then you can make rapid decisions and those decisions mean you're being proactive. I know what's coming next or I have a good inclination of what's coming next. And as long as that picture in my mind keeps being reconfirmed, I can continue. And the minute something is different or the second something is different, we have to have the ability to stop and reevaluate. So it's really about setting up your strength, playing to your strength, not reacting, because there's just not that many variables. There's not that many.

Cory Ashworth

You may have noticed Aaron's approach has been about curiosity and in many ways, it's counterculture, which is weird because our industry traditionally doesn't encourage that kind of attitude?

Aaron Fields

No, no, it doesn't. And I love it when somebody says, "Well, the young generation needs the answers. I'm 54, I'm not the young generation and I've needed the answers." Here's the basic thing I think in my experience, communication in any format leads to comprehension and cooperation and compromise. The lack of communication leads to conflict.

Cory Ashworth

In the past 15 years, it's estimated Aaron has tied the nozzle forward to over 70,000 firefighters. Because of that exposure, I feel like he's got a read on the culture. So I wanted to know if he noticed a difference between new recruits and senior members.

Aaron Fields

Yeah, I mean, I think it has more to do with the individual because I've worked with people that started. I mean, I learned most of this stuff from folks that were pre SCBA. So this nothing I'm doing is new, right? Well, frankly, nothing is new. And I think the study of history tells us that we'll never be new or original. So let's just be good at it. Everything's been thought of in some capacity before. We're compounding on someone else's work is really what's happening. So the problem isn't in the generation. It's in the approach. So when a new person learned something, they often swing their enthusiasm like a scimitar of self-righteousness, right? I mean, they just come after and like, We're doing it all wrong, blah, blah, blah. And the senior member's like, well, we're not doing it wrong. You're telling me I'm wrong. I'm standing here. I'm clearly not wrong. And so the real question is, is could we do it better? And so what I've found is that by including people and recognizing their contributions, be they new or old, their enthusiasm is a contribution. Their why is a contribution. But the senior member has experience. And so what I always have tried to do is correlate what I'm trying to get across so that both ends of the spectrum are operating from the same tapestry of information on the same continuum. I think we make too much out of the generational divide. I know plenty of people that have 30 years in just the first year 30 times. That's not 30 years of experience. I also know new people that have three years on. I mean, I have a crew right now that is fantastic. They've got to combine like 26 months engaged. And so for me, I don't think it matters. I think that experience is nice, but it's only nice when it's shared, when knowledge is lorded and hoarded is divisive and destructive. So it really has to do with translating. It has to do to making people feel like they are a value and their efforts have been a value. And really, when you start to talk to people about their experiences, most of the difference in the fire service is semantics, we don't have a jargon, we don't have a language that is intellectually and technically specific, we have publications that change the definitions of words. I have a file with me that shows all the changes in one chapter of the Istv over all their editions, and they don't change that much, they change definitions. So that's like saying, how can you communicate to someone when one person's left is another person's right, you can't give directions. So really what we should be realizing is that for both ends of the spectrum, it's really about translation and coming up with something that suits the needs of everyone by defining our terms in a jargon, a language that is intellectually and technically specific.

Cory Ashworth

That jargon feels very much like Aaron's "why." The nozzle forward is very much about creating a shared language.

Aaron Fields

It is, and it's really pretty neat because when people that are in vastly different demographics show up at a class that isn't a nozzle forward class. They recognize. We've spent a lot of time sharing this information. And I think one of the cool things is, back to the counterculture, is we've never done any advertising. I don't have T-shirts. I don't have belt buckles. I don't have stickers. I don't have cute slogans. I just have work. And we show up, we do work. Once you've taken the class, you can show up to any class for the rest of your life, just by telling me you're coming. All of our materials, we keep, and only people that have had the class use them. You know, we don't want misunderstandings and that's dangerous when somebody, you know, sees something on YouTube and copies it without understanding the context. That's going to get people jacked up. So yeah, that's what it's about. It's about creating this jargon and this set of conditions that we use, not I, we. And once you and I both know we standard issue, then I can say there was one time that I or you can say there's one time that you, I is experience and experience of standard issue based upon situational context. So you're breaking a rule or bending a rule to solve a problem like a craftsperson. It's not just mimicking a technique and saying, I have another tool in the toolbox. The human behavior has been studied. You have three choices from acute stress position. When you're under acute stress, you have basically three options. Tap, rack, bang, you know, slap shot, snapshot, wrist shot.

Cory Ashworth

That's it. People love to argue over East Coast versus West Coast. There's Biggie and then there's Tupac. This might be kind of a little more like Duncan versus Starbucks, but I have seriously heard that East Coast firefighters are more willing to die for the job than West Coast firefighters. And I wanted to know if he thought there was any truth to that.

Aaron Fields

No, people don't wanna die. I think that there is cultural traditions based on West Coast and East Coast in the fire service and out of the fire service. Yeah, no, that's just people trying to oversimplify, right? Like, I don't know a single person that's walking around that wants to die. I do think that demographics of buildings lead to deviation and tactics. You know, if you're fighting fire in the Southwest and you're in a Dolby house, that is somewhat different than a stick frame. And I think that's one of the big conflicts with Europe. The Europeans want everybody to understand what they're doing and what they're doing works where they're at, but our homes are different. And now that they're building our style homes, they're looking at our techniques because they've realized that more water is better than less when the building burns, right? So their water systems are different, their delivery systems are different. And I wouldn't take a cricket bat to a baseball game, nor would I take a baseball bat to a cricket game. I think the four basic things that happen in every fire in my experience is water, search, supply, overall, or vent. I mean, just wash and repeat. It's like, it's not rocket science for God's sake.

Cory Ashworth

You talk about staying curious under pressure. So how do you actually train for that?

Aaron Fields

I don't use fire service completely. I think a lot of our stuff is a little, I mean, there's great material out there, but a lot of it is a little comic booky. It's a little pulp. It's like I feel like I'm reading 1940s. Like I've always been, the way my brain works is a little bit different than the main line. I mean, it's been suggested that I'm neurologically divergent. And I don't know what that means. And I think that that's, I think that since everyone is a bit different, I think it's like saying I'm like everybody else, but the way my brain works is I see systems. And so if I look at a motor, I can tell you what the pulleys are doing. I don't do abstract without first knowing context. So buildings or thermal balance was really interesting to me. So when I got out of drill school initially, I had some good instructors with initial fire behavior. Their conclusions weren't all right, but the science was at least in the right ballpark. And so I deep dove. I'm like, okay, well, let's look at, oh, Charles, Let's read Charles' law, really read it, not fire cert. Let's use Boyd's law, Thornton's rule. Firefighters are generalists. We're not specialists. And so what we should be doing is we should be finding whatever our jam is in deep diving. We should be approaching it like the 12 year study of getting a PhD or the 12 year study of becoming a foreman or the 12 year of being enlisted till you get to NCO. Like there's some magic number that's basically, you know, 10 to 15 years is when you, if you really focus on something, you start to really become good at it. And I think that's it. And that's, you know, yeah, it's not the fire. The fire is the medium of my exchange. But my approach to life is the same. Whether I'm parenting 32 years of being married on June 12th, it's I do it everything the same way. And it's not my identity. It's what I do. It's a manifestation of my personality and it's not always pleasant to be around.

Cory Ashworth

I didn't know at the time but when we chatted, Aaron was in the process of leaving Seattle Fire. He'd been a veteran there for over 25 years and was ready to hang up his lieutenant helmet to become the assistant chief with command of fire.

Aaron Fields

I'm moving into a new chapter of my career and I've been reading this book now for I've probably read it three times and it is just every time I read it, I get more out of it. Legacy. It's about the New Zealand All Blacks and it's about the creation of culture. It gets wrapped into being a business school. It's not business school. It's how people deliberately create excellence and how teams perform better than individuals always if they have a shared mission. It's establishing a mission. It's establishing a language that means things to everyone the same. It's about what will you do for the jersey. And I think one of the cutest things about it and the coolest things, and I don't mean cute derogatory, I mean, it's a beautiful thing as everyone cleans the shed. I read every couple of years, I read endurance about Shackleton because this is a guy that had an event happen that everyone should have died and nobody died. I've spent a lot of time examining leadership models from the military because I get tired of the fire service and their business school bullshit. It's not business school. Your life's not a pie chart. And leadership is fairly well defined. The Army does a nice job. The Navy does a nice job. And the Marine Corps does a great job. So why don't we look at people that actually lead in a similar environment?

Cory Ashworth

What do you wish more senior members modeled for new members then?

Aaron Fields

Humility. Humility. Yep. Humility and that it's okay to not know and that it's okay to make a mistake. What's not okay is to accept that. Ignorance is okay if it's not a habit or intentional. I had a captain once when I caught him doing the heads when I was on probation, I said, you know, that's my job. And he said, no, my job is what I tell you your job is. And right now I have fire stuff to teach you. I don't need to teach you to be a janitor. And I was like, if I ever end up in a that role, I hope I do, like putting the priority to the mission and including people and just frankly being kind. And make no mistake about it, I mean, being kind isn't weak. Being kind is actually a state of confidence because if it goes south, we can go that way, but it's much better to not.

Cory Ashworth

Is there any lesson you wish you'd learned sooner?

Aaron Fields

To have thick skin, to not allow the insult and the degradation and all that stuff to affect how you react to other people. I had a old coach that used to say, "Just keep smiling at him, you'll get a better shot." You know, I have teeth. As my wife would say, there's this thin veneer of civility that has grown around you. But in the end of the day, you know, I'm not afraid of conflict because I don't give a fuck what people think. Someone's opinion of me is just not, has no bearing, unless it's someone I care about and trust and respect. But I think having thick skin and being able just to turn the other cheek and do the right thing, because that, when you model that for a new person, when somebody that's more senior is actually like a jerk and you don't react, and you just keep treating them with the same dignity and respect, it overwhelms them and it sets the example for the new person to go, Oh, I don't have to behave like this.

Cory Ashworth

So do you have a respect for tradition?

Aaron Fields

Yes, but let's be very clear about this. Are we talking about a tradition that benefits us? Are we talking about dysfunction, which can be a tradition? From my perspective, we have a lot of traditions that are super cool, but we have a lot of traditions that are not super cool. And since tradition is always a living thing, My job is to re-emphasize the things that are positive and change the things that are negative. I mean, and we have one that's showing up in the US again, and I think Canada, but not to the same extent, which is, it's ridiculous. And it's like the very argument that these people are making for their choice in terminology is proof that it's more than a word. Otherwise they'd change it. What's the word? I have many people that I deal with that are female firefighters. and some of my cadre, and they're the best firefighters that I know in the country. They wouldn't be on the cadre unless they were. People that I know and I like, I respect, but I disagree with. So I'm adopted. My father is African-American. I was adopted in '72. My last name isn't Fields because it was Fields when my family was in Ireland. It's a name that's a descendant of North American slavery. So in 1950, you could call my dad something that was considered polite. Today, I'd stab you in the neck with the poop shank. It's not acceptable anymore because language changes and language is imperialism. Whether or not people realize it or not, cognitive linguists or historical linguists use language lines to show where conflict is in the world. And it's been written in military doctrines for thousands of years, conquer, make them speak your language, make them marry native speakers and three generations are assimilated. So language does matter. It is the basis for culture and cultural spread and conquest. And so for me, I really struggle when I hear guys say things like, "Well, I'm a fireman." "No, you're not, you're a firefighter." And if I've got someone I love like a sister telling me that there's an issue, whether I've ever had that issue or not, as an adult, I'm supposed to listen to their experience and draw a correlation to my own existence in the terms of how my father was referred to in the fifties verse today. That's a tradition and guys will say, well, it's a traditional world, fuck your tradition. How about we do what we're supposed to do? How about the ethics of being a good human and ethical? And how about this familial bullshit that everybody peddles? If it was your sister, you'd do something. So if she your sister, yes or no? And if the answer is yes, then you have no choice if you're not a hypocrite. Some of our traditions are fantastic, but we have to live those traditions. We can't just say they exist.

Cory Ashworth

So what are the fantastic traditions of the fire service?

Aaron Fields

I think we have people that are pretty driven. And I think the tradition of allowing people of all walks of life access to this, and that's equity is access. And if you want the best people, then everyone has to have a shot. and then the best rise to the top. So I think that's one of our things. I think that most people come into this job with the right intent. It's do they get corrupted by the people that aren't for the right attempt? Are they corrupted by the people that wanna do as little as possible? You know, a roofer roofs every day. If you paid some firefighters for what they actually do with regards to fire in the community, they'd be below the poverty level. I think as a general rule though, the people that I've been fortunate to work with are at their core, very good people. And we might manifest our intensity or our process differently, but I've met some of the best humans I know through this job. And fortunately, we've found familial bonds, but everyone in my job isn't a brother or sister, they're co-workers. And that's okay. That's totally okay. It's more realistic than trying to brainwash everyone "Yeah, let's all hold hands and hug." They're people I do not like, but they're great firefighters and they do a good job.

Cory Ashworth

Okay, so how would Aaron describe the overall training culture in the fire service today?

Aaron Fields

Have you ever watched Sesame Street with your nephews? I have. Okay, one of these things is not like the other, we're the other. No one trains like we do. Is that good or bad? Bad. We're 40 years behind. Every fire's different. I only practice like I play. That is the most ridiculous statement ever. These are terrible statements. And when we say this, it becomes a sound bite. And now because we rely on time on the job as our validity, when a 30 year guy says that, even though they have very little experience or knowledge, then the young person imitates that. That's one of our negative traditions. We're complacent to like, how do you know someone's the best sniper in the Marine Corps? They don't tell you. They don't and they are the best sniper. They actually perform. How do you know that for a while Jerry Rice was the best receiver in the NFL? 'Cause he proved it every Sunday. So how do you prove you're the best firefighter? We don't worry about it. I don't think, personally, I don't wanna prove that I'm the best. I think this is a really good question, actually. I think it comes into internal pressure. Like I am not in competition with anyone else, except myself.

Cory Ashworth

And you don't like to lose.

Aaron Fields

And I don't like to lose. And so I'm, and I think that's one of the things it happens in the fire industry that's sometimes really negative is everyone's like, oh, I'm out. I'm out teaching because I want to make it better. I want to leave it better. That's very simple. Make yourself better and that'll be enough. And what happens is they get overwhelmed and they let the naysayers because they're not doing it for the industry. They're doing it for something else. And I think fundamentally what we have to say is this journey is yours alone and occasionally you're going to bump into people and you're going to hold hands and you skip up the road and eventually that's going to split. And so the reason I compete with myself is because I want to be the best I can be. And it's, and that's not always achievable, never is achievable, but it is a process. And too often we talk in our industry about pushing people to do things. Leadership is a pull. It's not a push. It's you do it. You set the standard. As a group, you collectively decide what your non-negotiables are, what you're to do what the mission is and how you're going to do it. And then you do it. You don't tell people to do it. You do it. And when you go through, then even if everybody else doesn't follow you, at least you can sleep with yourself. And sometimes the best leaders allow other people to go first. They just make sure they go. It's a self-discipline thing. And I think too often in our industry, we talk about martyrdom. We talk about it when we go out on runs. We talk about it as like, look what we're doing. And it's like, shut up and just do it. You shouldn't have to make it public. Like you signed up for it. We just need to manage ourselves. And if we manage ourselves alone, that's enough.

Cory Ashworth

Is the nozzle forward built to be handed over or does it die with you?

Aaron Fields

Well, the stated goal of anyone that joins our cadre is to teach ourselves how to teaching. And really I would even change the phrase to coach ourselves out of coaching. You teach a child arithmetic. you coach them to solve physics problems. And that's what we're doing. We're not giving people the solution. We're working through the process with them to figure out what their demographics are. It's an engineering approach, not a mechanic. I mean, there's mechanical aspects, but you know what I mean. One is relevant to the other. You need them both. But too often, we figure on how to hold the wrench and not like, what is the wrench solving? What can it solve? So I'm not going to be one of those guys, and I'm not judging other people. For me, my wife would tell you I'm the most extroverted hermit. Like when I'm not doing this, I can go weeks and not talk to somebody. I got no problem with that. Teaching nozzle forward or coaching nozzle forward stuff, or the skill acquisition model, which I've started doing a lot more of, is really rewarding, but it's an energy suck. It takes energy and at the end of it, I get tired and I get tired of sometimes answering the same questions and I need to answer them. So I need my downtime. And with that in mind, yeah, the minute I don't feel like I can give it a hundred percent in the moment, it's time to go.

Cory Ashworth

Do you wanna be remembered in any way? I know, like you say you don't care, but there must be something inside of you that thinks about legacy.

Aaron Fields

I've already done it. I've watched people use these skills and teach these skills and not know that the person that's teaching them, I trained and that's it. If I want a legacy in the fire service, I want a legacy of he engaged as a firefighter. He stayed engaged for his whole career. And when it came time to go, he recognized that and he left like Barry Sanders on top. I want to be recognized as a guy that committed 100% to my family, my kids, my marriage of 32 years. And I did the same commitment to my job. He tried, sometimes he hit it out of the park, sometimes he hit it straight to the center fielder, and sometimes he struck out, but he just kept swinging. And that's, I guess that's it. I think there's some power and ambiguity. And I think that there's power in being comfortable enough in your own skin that you don't need all that. It's nice. I'm not gonna say it's not nice if someone pulls me inside and said, "Hey, you changed my career," or "You kept me from falling through floors," or that stuff is really rewarding. But that stuff is rewarding because of the personal aspect of it. What people that don't know me, I don't want them to think about me. I want my homies to think about me. Like, "This one's for our dead homie. Let's pour a couple drops on the ground," right? And remember that when he drank, He ended up like Winnie the Pooh with no shirt or no pants and a shirt in jail, right? So it's like, I hope my homies remembered that if nothing else that I just tried and I was honest with my own failings and all that. Yeah, that's it.

Cory Ashworth

And finally, we are right back where we started. The good things.

Aaron Fields

It's not that bad. It sometimes is not fun. But there's also, we don't talk about the good things. Pulling a person out of an apartment fire, starting someone's heart, saving part of a building that had pictures that were family heirlooms. I mean, all of these cool things, but we don't talk about that 'cause it's not cool. It's cool to be hard. Grow up. And if it's that miserable, do something else. Don't ever forget you came to us. We didn't come looking for you. They didn't come looking for me. They came looking for a body and I happened to want to be there. Keep that relationship clear, you know?

[SHOW CLOSES]