Fire Prevention - FireED Founder and CEO Tracy Last

"I'm a social entrepreneur who has dedicated my entire adult life into finding better ways of implementing fire prevention education curriculum and campaigns. Over the recent years I have founded the FireED Interactive Community Inc, an impact business that strives to create a positive social change by focusing on eliminating preventable fires worldwide.

Since my early teens I found myself in deep contact with fire safety, however, not from school or fire station visits. My experience is rather unique over most others. My introduction to fire safety and awareness programming was through the Smokey Bear Cooperative Forest Fire Prevention Campaign, of which my father supplied educational materials for since 1979.

In 1998 I signed as official Canadian licensee for the Sparky the Fire Dog campaign which worked flawlessly, until 2005 when it was not renewed. This setback, instead of immobilizing me, ignited my passion to forge ahead blazing new public education pathways. I took to traveling to meet educators around Canada and the US to try to implement and standardize new approaches to fire and life safety education.

For every step I took on this journey, to bring social change to "the fire problem", I diligently applied my entrepreneurial skills and experience to create and market improved programs.

No sooner would I find myself slowed down by the impossibility to speed up associations and committees responsible for advancing public education approaches. Nothing was changing, yet people were still getting injured, losing their homes and dying to preventable fires. This was the spark that motivated me to use all the data I had collected from the great minds of hundreds of fire officers and educators, putting it together to create a sound educational solution for people of all ages to learn how NOT to become victims of fire.

This is how FireED Interactive Community Inc was born, a first of its kind public education social enterprise at www.fireedcommunity.com ... see more"

Go to AbbyBolt.com for more information on this and many other controversial subjects surrounding moral courage in the workplace and what it means to Lead with F.I.R.E.

Email me at abby@upinflames.org if you have an experience you would like to share or are in need of a resource. If I can't help, I will point you in the direction of someone who can.
 
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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

[inaudible].

Abby: 0:05

Hello and welcome to another episode of Up in Flames. I'm your host, but more importantly your advocate, Abby Bolt. Today we have um, the first part of a two part interview because there was just so much awesomeness to it with Ms Tracy Last from Vancouver, Canada and um, yes. So we just couldn't, I mean I could've had like four hours worth of interview content with her. It was, it was, I knew it was going to be like that cause she's just super awesome and easy to talk to. So who in the world is Tracy? Well I was introduced to her on LinkedIn of all things, there was a fire chief who had told me when he saw some of my stuff came out. He's like you need to meet Tracy, you guys are on the same page with a lot of things. You're both doing super awesome stuff. So he connected us and we finally got a chance to talk and I love like having that first conversation be the interview. Because I am legitimately learning new things and hearing new things as they're, they're coming to me. I'm not having to like re ask questions or we learn things. So I think it's just super awesome and organic that way. So I'm just gonna like actually take some of the content from Tracy's LinkedIn profile and tell you guys about her. So Tracy Last is a social entrepreneur who has dedicated her entire adult life into finding better ways of implementing fire prevention, education curriculum and client campaigns. Over recent years she founded Fire Ed, Interactive Community Inc. And impact business that strives to create a positive social change by focusing on eliminating preventable fires world wide. Not just in Canada, not just in the US but this girl is going like worldwide. So why is, why do I have her on Up in Flames, not necessarily Her Brotherhood? Well two reasons. One is that she is a t, she's not a firefighter. She serves firefighters in the fire community i n the public, which is just amazing. And how she got into it is super intriguing, at least to me it is. And then the part about, like she'll talk about in here, how she got connected and the part about like the Up in Flames i n the, you know, t he rising up, no matter how hard they just kept knocking her down. In 1998 she signed as an official Canadian licensee for Sparky the fire dog campaign, which worked flawlessly until 2005 when it wasn't renewed. So that setback instead of immobilizing her, i t ignited a passion to forge ahead, blazing new public education pathways. So she basically got screwed y'all like when I heard her story and she explained to me how it all went down, I was like, what the heck? And it's just crazy. It's not, you know, it's business, it's just how people get screwed in business. And there were just some extra steps that people took to kind of knock her down along the way. And she'd be treated like an outsider sometimes because she was coming into the firefighting world. So she is here to share her story with us. And you know, we talk about so many things, but the coolest is her concept into fire prevention education. And we're talking structure fires and wild land fires all the way around. And I am, I'm learning about it as you guys are learning about it and I want you guys to enjoy. So with that, let's get to the episode. So Tracy, hello. Nice to meet you. Now where are you at?

Tracy: 3:22

so it's outside of Vancouver. If we see, Oh, I'm Tracy Last and I'm a social entrepreneur so I'm outside of the fire service working in. I feel like I have a bird side view of what's going on. It's quite unique because I don't think I've come across anyone that would be a competitor to me really. Because most of the people that deal with fire ed life safety education are employed by the fire service. It's usually in a division that is cut back quite a bit. The funding for public education is usually 1 to 2%. You could correct me if I'm wrong.

Abby: 4:01

Well, because what you're doing is proactive instead of reactive and the proactive things always get chopped first. Right?

Tracy: 4:08

There you go.

Abby: 4:10

Yup. That's

Tracy: 4:10

so yes, it would have been for you. I can imagine the frustration. You know, that could just be a show on its own, what captivation must be like in the fire departments and what the role must be like for the educator with the limited budget.

Abby: 4:28

Right. And we should have a separate episode just on that because I'm sure you've seen some of my efforts in like knocking people upside the head about fire prevention or you know, come on guys, pay attention cause the whole budget aspect is a nightmare. And so you're private though. You are, like you said you're doing what everybody needs to have done. You're not, but you're not attached to a department. So tell me, and you also use the term social entrepreneur, is that what you said? Tell me what that and you got to back up to like how in the heck did you get wrapped up in all this fire service stuff?

Tracy: 4:58

Yeah, good question.'Cause I basically summarize that needs to be a whole other show. If were going to talk about all of that. Um, and you were saying that you feel like having people in the head.

Abby: 5:12

Right. All right. Tell me, um, your background, how it was that you came into the wild land world?

Tracy: 5:17

My father, he was in the business. It was a family business supplying promotional products to all kinds of customers that he had. He just was that traveling salesman who would go through a city and trying to find some businesses and knock on the door. So he was knocking on the doors of the different forestry agencies throughout British Columbia.

Abby: 5:38

And what, what was he selling them?

Tracy: 5:40

[inaudible] they started to ask for a product with wildfire prevention messages on it. And then they specifically asked for Smokey Bear products. And being that that was hitting trademark, my dad had to look all into that. So that was around 1979 I was probably about 12 or 13. I, you know, being a family business, I got to see a lot of the materials come in and out of inventory, which a lot of time was in the home until we, he moved into a bigger office. So when he checked into that, there was a whole trademark process that he had to go through because the USDA, who you know is the licensed store for Smokey Bear, they didn't really have anyone in Canada selling the materials. That's a very much US program though. This is what the forestry offices were asking for. So through the Canadian Forestry Association back in the day, so we're talking 1979 over 40 years ago. Sorry, I tried to do the math in my head. It's been a lot of years. So the licensed stores at the time for us were the Canadian Forestry Association through an arrangement they had with the USDA. Nevertheless, we got pretty much grandfathered in. Because the program just grew really quickly when they all knew there was somewhere in Canada, they could purchase these products. Just like you guys do down in the US you have quite a few different vendors.[inaudible] that was us. So that's how we got into this business. And back in the day, my dad would just sell the product. Yet when you want a pencil or an eraser, I'm talking with these messages. And it got a little challenging because when I got involved, fast forward 10 years, maybe when I spoke 25 and I actually ran the business for my dad, I started asking a lot of questions.

Abby: 7:30

I bet they just love it when their kids start coming up with better ideas or get curious.

Tracy: 7:35

Well, exactly when, when as a kid I was the person try, I have siblings. But for some reason they weren't I'm dabbling in this like I was, but the, there were products that he would bring home and that we're expected to be school supplies. So I had to make sure that the pencils sharpened dwell and

Abby: 7:52

Quality control.

Tracy: 7:54

So that was that. And, and you know, I found a couple of decades because when I took over and had children of my own, they were my quality control.

Abby: 8:02

right, right, right.

Tracy: 8:08

Quite a bit of detail

Abby: 8:09

now when you guys[inaudible] yeah. Oh totally. It's all about the Smokey swag, like absolutely. And when he would order. So back in the day, like you're talking late seventies then into the 80s and you're in Canada and you guys would need some Smokey pencils, like did you have those manufactured there? Did you have them, you know, or were you ordering from the same places as the US like how did that work?

Tracy: 8:30

Some of the places in the US and a lot of it we just manufactured ourselves. Because out of the US where the official licensees are all you know, reside and have their factories, there's some really cool stuff.

Abby: 8:44

Right. Well let's face it though, most of our stuff that we see comes from China, even though it's the Smokey stamp.

Tracy: 8:49

Exactly. But some of the times it's quite a complicated product, like a stuffed toy, like all the Smokey Bear thing from five inches to three feet tall. Or even into the full grown mascot, those kinds of products, the attempt to just to, you don't want to reinvent the wheel, you'll go through another supplier. But by the time it got to town it got pretty expensive. So we had to have a lot of conversations with our customers and tailor to their programs and to their budgets.

Abby: 9:17

I have, my gut has not been like just the last, I don't know. I'm getting all fluttered because we're talking about like fire prevention and Smokey and the message and the, I don't know, just talking to you about it. Like I could totally throw down with you and come up with like, let's do this, let's do that. I'm like, it just gets, so it's easy to get passionate about so I can see how you start on this when you're a little girl and then you just carried it all the way through into your career. And it's awesome and it's so people don't understand like why are you going? We get so excited about it until you're in it and you feel like you're making a difference, which it sounds like your dad instilled that in you just from being a salesman and next thing you know you're in a fire prevention.

Tracy: 9:54

It all evolved from there. And like I was saying before, as my dad, he would pretty much stress it was a lot of business for him and he was a small company so he would just, what do you want to order? Great. Here you go, provides a great service and just supply exactly what they're asking for. But the second I got into call and I got one of those phone calls and it was somebody like you knew who was actually running the programs, I would be just by osmosis and just genuinely interested in their job and how they're teaching them because Smokey Bear never did come to my school. So yeah. Where do you find the children. You know like, or the family, what is it that you do? So they tell me something about the swag I started like really could have damaged the business when you get to be, you know, I like to use it, it's cute, but If you use it. Shut up and sell. Dad was kind of like, you know, never mind your own business and just place the order. And I'd be like, how can we make this better? How can we, so I started to get into some of the bigger types of products, like a coloring book for example. And when they knew we did customization, what out of the US most of those suppliers, there wasn't really a whole lot of customization of the product by adding the special one 800 number by a reporting number or location. So we were more into the specializing. So once we're into that as going, well, you know, we can take your message and put it on some larger format type exposure on the product. So we got into banners. And street banners even and

Abby: 11:29

Wow, before of the online printing things were there, you guys were there in the beginning?

Tracy: 11:32

Yeah. We're the grandfather and sort of to say I went to Smokey Bear's 50th birthday. So we were invited down to um, it was when he's 70 now or 75.

Abby: 11:43

Oh 75. Wow. I know

Tracy: 11:49

75. I knew that was 45.

Abby: 11:51

Right. He still doesn't have any grades. He's fine.

Tracy: 11:54

It was a lot of fun. It was very interesting. Where down in Universal Studios and it was all the USDA people and they were just kind of like, Oh you're the Canadian

Abby: 12:05

[inaudible] those connects that are selling them Frisbees up there.

Tracy: 12:09

Yeah. And it wasn't really any officials from from fourth street in Canada went down. I don't even think we saw one.

Abby: 12:16

Wow. It's so flip flop because it's like, well it's like a commercial thing. So it's like, and people, there are different agencies, different countries. Like everybody is so on a different wavelength with Smokey and the product selling or that recognizing his birthday or that. But then some places are like, it's, it's a national pastime, you know. That's interesting that Canada do that. Do you think that some, like Canada doesn't feel like it's a Canadian thing or do you guys have other symbols up there?

Tracy: 12:47

Not for forestry. Well actually Alberta does. They have Bertie the Beaver. So that was kind of interesting cause I'd be trying to sell to all of the provinces in Alberta is like, we've got our own program. I'm like, well how's that for continuity?

Abby: 13:01

They try and ready this squirrel here for a while. Like, I remember there were some friends in Missoula, like a jumper friend of mine. She was the voice and they did ready this squirrel. It was so cute. But people just were like, no, we wait, sorry we can't get past monkey.

Tracy: 13:13

Yeah. So the question about Canadians and did they feel if it was like a USA program? Well it kind of is. I'll tell you, the public buy in is really good. So cause the fire service fo free, they do a really good job at PR. So people are just enthralled by the messaging as soon as they come into the room with the big props and the uniforms and the reasoning behind their visits all years. But so to handout, uh, momento of that lesson and for it to have something like this very cute bear that when you hear him talking and as that deep voice, it's just so captivating. However, so the general public, they, the most they would say is something like Smokey Bear, I haven't seen him in years. Um, cause it's just the budgets are so small. It's not like, it's probably not even in the US it's just not saturating in the market.

Abby: 14:15

Right. Well, you know what you guys, do you guys have like an ad, the ad council the way we do up there?

Tracy: 14:21

Nope.

Abby: 14:22

Yeah, that's it. I mean if it wasn't for the ad council we cause like the budget for. But see, agencies like the USDA forest service and all these different places, they all put money in towards the ad council and fund it. But as far as like independent different stations and different departments like the prevention dollars or they're just not there. They have to go to other things like fighting the fires and the equipment for that. And it's, it's just like the school programs, which a lot of times down here we can talk about it. Like I had do interviews in secret before about my passion about fire prevention. And I don't have to anymore, so I can, we can just talk about it. But um, like the schools here, a lot of times what happens is all their programs are cut. Like they don't have assemblies like they used to. They don't have the budget for that kind of stuff. So they need and they want more Smokey programs. There needs to be more of you everywhere. And I love what you're doing there, Tracy, with all of that background with Smokey and wildfire prevention and hearing how you got into the wild land interest, where has that taken you now professionally? What are your ventures currently?

Tracy: 15:24

Well, we were making those products all up for the forestry agencies, and I was asking all the questions of how are you actually educating? And it's gotta be more to this. We need to support you in more ways than just supplying promotional products to back your presentation. So I started to realize that there wasn't really an educational curriculum that anyone brought forward to me at all on. Besides something that they would've had to make up for regions that they're in. So the agency or the fire protection officers.

Abby: 16:03

And when you say curriculum, are you talking about a public curriculum or a curriculum for the fire service?

Tracy: 16:09

A curriculum for the fire service. But if they did it right, it could be a public curriculum. So all of that was just a major interest to me. It's, it turned out that I actually developed a curriculum I actually developed products for.

Abby: 16:24

Yes. And that's all this stuff that I've seen on your website and online is the amazing programs that you're doing. And so, so Tracy, tell me about fire ed because you taught me all about that when we met up. And tell me about that company that you're now running called fire ed.

Tracy: 16:40

The company that I had before was actually a promotional product company and I started to realize that I needed to branch off and have an educational company. So I got myself out of the promotional product and swag business. I just, lot of stories leading up to why. I guess that's when I found out that I'm a social entrepreneur. Not an entrepreneur because an entrepreneur is quite the money. Just let it flow in and so the product and don't ask any questions. But the social entrepreneur is more about people before profit and making a dollar and a difference and just finding a solution to a known problem.

Abby: 17:21

So you felt, you felt the difference. You were selling the educational material before. And it was just all about kind of a sell business. But then it sounds like your passion and your drive turned you to this social piece. So you wanted to turn it into far more than just product sales.

Tracy: 17:36

Yeah, yeah. I kind of taught myself in my own foot, so to speak. It was like I just, if you're calling me up with$5,000 and you want to buy plastic, um, hat or balloons and, and all of that, which is, um, supports their educational program and curriculum or presentations, whatever they call it. I just had to take it to another level and say, well, you know, with$5,000 you could actually get some really good props. I actually designed these props that for a basic kit, there was a price tag at one time for$5,000. Really, like literally within the budget and the mileage that they could've got out of that for the children to be able to engage in on the lesson and take ownership of the props and show what they're learning and role play and get tested than you actually are knowing what they're learning. Instead of that glaze, the look that they're giving you when you're lecturing them and telling them. So I started to realize I need to branch off from the flag business and break into a new venture. And I just realized that what I had here as a social change venture which we're calling an impact business, it's still an incorporation, but we just have the model to support community with our solutions and reinvest in the business. So there's been no funding from or support from the fire service. It's all been developed from the profits, from the swag business. So I can't complain.

Abby: 19:09

Well is it the fire service though that, do they buy your products at all? As far as the fire ed piece, does that go to the fire service? Or it is, are all your customers, um, schools and organizations like that

Tracy: 19:22

there? Oh, they're all the fire service.

Abby: 19:24

Okay. So they don't, they don't fund you, but they are your customer. So that, that works out great.

Tracy: 19:29

They are the customer. And actually I had to, I had to do some really some full searching and some deep meeting because they weren't buying it right away. So I know that they can fundraise. I know that some of them don't like to fundraise. And, and I know that some have budgets and some don't. So we're just coming up with solutions for every size of agency to help them have some sound curriculum and, and props to go in and have some measurable results. What are the kids learning? How can we present that to the community and actually show some data that we're collecting on public education? So that's all this stuff I developed in the community of customers that I thought were the fire service. It really took me a long time to realize that they're actually not our customers. This program is far too comprehensive for the way they operate.

Abby: 20:29

Interesting. That's just so true. Well on that the fire prevention isn't taken seriously and so I mean, they take it seriously because they, yeah, they do care about preventing fires. But so often the prevention program or the prevention positions there, it isn't taken seriously enough to where people really grab a hold of it, live with that their whole career and develop it into something for their department that they want it to be. It's so often like an extra job or a, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's extra duties. So it's not very often that it gets taken seriously. We have the same problem here in the US and we range from tiny little volunteer departments with no budget to huge departments like LA city. And you know, it just ranges. But we all know there's lots of grants out there. I'm sure it's the same in Canada,

Tracy: 21:13

Actually not as many grants at all in Canada.

Abby: 21:16

Oh, interesting. So you guys don't have as as many emergency services, public education things up there?

Tracy: 21:22

Not like they did in the US and not huge support from insurance agencies or corporations. There are some corporations that are connected with the fire service, but not on a, not in public education on a national scale. Uh, there was one that was operating a little political here.

Abby: 21:46

That's okay. That's all right.

Tracy: 21:48

Rating. Yeah. You want to go into that

Abby: 21:50

If, whatever. Yeah. What are your messages and whatever is driving your passion? I'm open.

Tracy: 21:54

Well, in Canada there's say an organization called fire prevention in Canada. So you think that's gotta be the go to organization like you need. The reason why a lot of this is not evolving is because it's so regional and that's the way the employees, the government or the municipal employees are used to operating. They're obviously just employee than a city. So the budget is for their city alone. And when they need more ideas and they meet with the public educators at an annual conference, if they're lucky enough to go, or if there is anything national or usually like a provincial conference, they still have to come back with, okay, I learned more ideas from these other people, but how did we fund them and implement them? So a lot does not get off the ground. I just tried working with the provincial and national organizations and especially when they have committees. I learned along the way. I just thought, great, let's get connected with them. Like obviously when we're all connected, there's so much more we can do, but you find out they're really, your hands are tied, so your ideas that you're bringing forward, it's, it's such a business model that has to be applied to it. Their supply chain, to sustain ability. There's so many things that as a government employee, they have no idea what it's like to be in a business and operating with expenses, funding it that way.

Abby: 23:31

Especially since you've known, you know you've, you've breathed this since you're a kid from your family business. You've seen that the backstory, but people who just jump into a piece of it in their career and they get assigned like, okay, you're going to go do public education. There's just no way they can understand all the facets that go along with what you do.

Tracy: 23:50

And you know what? I saw one of the biggest passion out of the people in those roles. It seemed to be a really like tool position for them to have because it was so unique. They got two tours all around the world, all over the computer, the internet for what's the coolest stuff out there? Like where can I buy this? Where can I buy that?

Abby: 24:09

You got a hunk of money,

Tracy: 24:10

here's my budget. You know, it was quite, uh, so they, I found that they would dabble into this and still it wasn't really a great synergy because they would not really recognize your company. Say my company as one that fully committed to this operation. So they would go to a random company and they would see what we have and they would say to them, Hey, you know, they put together these packages of educational materials and here's what's in it and look at their price. It's so expensive. Can you do it for less? And there's a butchering, like the market,

Abby: 24:51

the lowest,

Tracy: 24:52

it just all pushes us out in the market. Look at some of those things. Suppliers down in the US like they, they pay a lot of money for advertising. And you know, we just don't have that kind of volume to be able to grow it like they do. Some of those big organizations you'll see alert all and these really cool companies that are in the same business. So when you're trying to be more customized and tailored to their needs, it gets quite fractured. And I really had been, I felt a really big wedge and I had to start to realize what's our model? Who is our community of customers? Because I thought it was a fire service and it really isn't.

Abby: 25:35

That's interesting. Yeah. You would think so. And what is it that when you say, uh, you know, your customers and whatnot like give me a rundown of what it is that you're actually exchanging for money? Like you, um, you know, when you're exchanging an educational program because it's so hard to get someone to wrap their mind around it, that just doesn't seem like you. But I'm, I'm, uh, I'm now a new prevention chief. I've got 5, 10,$20,000. What is it that you can provide me?

Tracy: 26:03

You know what? I can't even sell it to your teeth.

Abby: 26:06

Huh?

Tracy: 26:07

Is that ever shocking or what?

Abby: 26:09

No, that's interesting. Tell me, tell me more about that.

Tracy: 26:13

Sorry. You're not my customer. No. But what we want them to do is adopt the program recognized by fire ed. But you said it earlier when we were talking how you come for free. Are they agency? You've got the education and you show up free, which is more difficult to do. The more and more these programs marginalized and there's no budget. Right?

Abby: 26:40

Right. Well it's not free to, it's not free to the taxpayers but to the school. Yeah.

Tracy: 26:44

There you go. So all they have in their mind is free. Okay. So and, and also they have a lot of people in their community. So if you came to me with what you said, maybe up to 20,$25,000, how many schools are in your community? What are they, how many children all together across your entire community or in ages five to 12. Um, so what is it worth to you to cover real education for a person of that age? Well, 50 cents. Cause that's all they would've gotten before it's cancelled. And your free lecture or your video and your, your fun presentation. Well what about the age appropriate education? So there's, there's a huge cost to this and it's just people are curious like why, okay then if there's such a huge possibly can sell it to me cause we cannot afford it and it'll never be in our budgets. And how, how do you do it and have you go make the money? They don't like what they have to hear.

Abby: 27:50

They can't wrap their minds around it. So are you, who is, who is your prime customer as far as the person you know actually acquiring the surveys. Is it like are you talking communities, school districts? Like who's your really, cause the like you're saying the do it yourself, fire chiefs that think they can put on a better program. Those aren't your, who do you really envision as your customer for the fire ed program?

Tracy: 28:15

My customer would see the students. And they, the students who can enroll in fire ed can be three year old. And how is a three year old going to pay for this? Obviously their parents. So we have different age groups. We have the preschoolers say three to five year olds. We have a program for five to 12 year olds. We have a 13 to 17 year olds and 18 year olds. And so we, we cover every age group. So we have age appropriate education. And there is a cost to that and it's more than your 50 cent pencil that um, or it's 50 cents per child or a dollar per child is all we have to spend and kind of thing if they're lucky. Well you gotta take a look at a course that you would register a child in and we know parents can't pay. So are, I'm going to jump to something else in our second or community of customers, which is probably the highest, highest, most likely potential is the corporate sponsors, shirts, companies who are big into wanting to reduce the risks or just, um, philanthropists or grants that are out there. Because we don't want, we're, we're like the fire number two. We want them to attend fire ed for free.

Abby: 29:32

So that makes total sense. What you just said. I just kind of want to recap that. Because it's wrapping my mind around it now. So you're, you know, looking back at some of your fires, some of our devastating fires. Could you imagine if you're like let's say an insurance company that's going to pay out billions to recover all of those lost homes, the lost lives, what have you just spent several thousand, a few hundred thousand to prevent that on your own. Right? Like I see where your, where your business model is with this because imagine if you're an insurance company wanting to do good for the community cause it only takes one kid, one kid that never started a fire that you never knew about. So I totally am seeing now how that's working

Tracy: 30:16

and imagine how much is something like an insurance company will just use insurance company. There's going to be a lot of corporate sponsors with social responsibility divisions like they'll, there's so many opportunities out there for everybody to get involved but we'll just, we brought up insurance companies so for a reason and what,

Abby: 30:39

Well maybe the, they're the ones that are dropping people like fly, sorry to interrupt you there. But the, the insurance companies, because they're losing so much money because of fires that are getting started there, they're dropping customers cause they can't afford them anymore. So I think it's great to talk about insurance companies because they're the ones that pay out the most. Yeah.

Tracy: 30:57

Listen up insurance companies'cause this is for you.

Abby: 31:01

Okay.

Tracy: 31:01

Okay. We, we need to give the children age appropriate education so it can't be one and done. We can't sit here that five-year-old had the firefighter visit costume and taught them a few basic questions that sounds fantastic. We know when we're adults, lots of times if we come across that we know to grab our bucket in there or shovel and have it nearby. And couple of little tips like that. So, if we could teach them age appropriate education because a lot of them are getting missed. A lot of them forget. Will come many are growing up to be irresponsible or a good word, careless at all causing preventable fires. So if we can reduce just some of the sensible fires and not get all wrapped up in politics and say, yeah well a lot of them aren't. You know a lot of them aren't human caused. Some are caused by lightning and some of the human caused ones. How can we even address it? Because what if it's a train sparking somewhere along a track and we're not doing the protection. That's not my business. My business is how can we eliminate the preventable fires. So let's at least get these children into something like fire ed and yes there. You have to invest more than a dollar per kid once a year. So I'll tell you how small we have things with this. We don't think big here at fire ed. Because it's too difficult to get these insurance companies board. Because they just organically migrate to the fire service or the people in the uniform. Because they must figure, they will get, you know or say they're a non non for profit and we're for profit. Like there's all these issues. Okay battle over that, why all these fires are happening. And meanwhile we're going to be going to something like a, the local parks and rec and saying we're, we're to be putting in a course, we call the fire ed community safety ambassador for these ages. Basically it just be like signing your kids up for the babysitter course or registering yourself for first aid. People are paying for it themselves already. So we've got to get in there and as much as I try to get into like a community program like that, we could even go to Scouts. And say, you know, you've got to give out the fire pads. What if you brought in fire ed? And of course we have to pay for that. So they could say to their parents fire ed is coming in, um, everyone has to pay an extra$25 for a full day camp, something like that. But that's the smaller scale that we're looking at.

Abby: 33:47

Yeah, no, I love it. It's all making sense to me and, but I can see how you've got to take the long way around to get people's minds to wrap around it either from, from a social place or from a financial place. And'cause the fact of the matter is, I don't care if you live in the US or in Canada, we're so addicted to thinking that the government's going to handle it or taxes already have it handled. So why am I gonna put out extra effort or finances to either educate my child or you know, deal with something like that. It's not my problem. My house isn't burning down. You know, my, I got my yard taken care of and so it's really hard to get people to jump on board with that just because the culture we built.

Tracy: 34:25

So you know, when you look up the parks and rec guides that come used to come in the mail or when you have the kids and you're, you're thinking, Oh man, I got them for the whole summer. What am I going to do with them? And then you grab that booklet and you look around town, you think, well like put them into this fun camp and there's whole kinds of fun things there. Be great if higher ed was part of the curriculum and one of those camps. But when they grabbed that and they see, I used to look through myself through that guide and saying, isn't there something constructive and productive for my child? And if I saw something where they can belong to something that helps community, I'd be wanting my kids to volunteer. Here's the program that is funded by saying local rotary and it's to get kids volunteer and they all get a tee shirt and a lunch or whatever. So we want to put our kids into something more than just messy play painting or waterpark fun. If we saw something that would be life saving for them and it's right there to register them that easily, just give me$5,000 now and show you how far that would go. I'm a social entrepreneur, we think of things.

Abby: 35:40

Right. You're just trying to like, that's what would drive me crazy is even though I was working for a federal agency, I was paid a salary to think of things that wasn't you in order to do things or to byproducts or to do school programs. We didn't really have a set structure to it. There wasn't, there was a method to our madness, but it was just kind of controlled chaos because every department, every place, they all have things. We have tools we can use, we have resources we can pull from, I mean like the ad council alone, Smokey bear, Cal fire here in California, you know all these[inaudible]. There are so many great resources, but there's, there's not really just one page to follow one set of curriculum when one piece, I was just talking to somebody about this a couple of days ago and I practice it on my son all the time. It's the kind of prevention to firefighters. Every actually every pretty much adult in his life right now is some in tied into fire somehow. But the kids still runs to run around with firecrackers. Like he's a kid and trying to teach a nine year old what the ramifications are for that kind of carelessness. You know, it's a constant lesson and not something that you can just cruise through a Smokey bear. But like I've been teaching people from the beginning, you know, why we hammer on the kids so hard, why we teach them so diligently is those kids. It just takes a little kid in the campsite and it takes a little kid at home, whatever, to just go up to their uncle, their dad, their friend, and be like, Hey, shouldn't we do this differently or shouldn't we put the camp for out more? Or you know, kids have such a huge effect and they will call things out. And my mom, we have a, what we call fire safe council here and in California, um, there's several different sections of those. And she was volunteering for it and she used to be a school teacher, so she started going to just on her own. Because she wanted to make a difference. She was taking, making up her own curriculum. She was having challenging each class. I think she was doing the middle school, challenging them with drawing maps of their homes and having them assess their escape routes and all the different things that go along with that. If a wildfire were to come through, and I'm just, I got to tell you this story real quick because it just rings so true to my heart. So we had a devastating fire come through and burn homes burned down about 300 homes not too long ago and my mom, I was working for the forest service and I was doing some lead stuff with a fire safe council. My mom was volunteering for the fire safe council and everything that we were doing was really bits and spurts. Just when you have the time and when you feel the passion, you do what you can. My mom didn't have to do what she was doing. I didn't have to do a lot of efforts that I was doing. A lot of it comes just from your soul. So she started doing these exercises with the local school and having them do all this. And so we had this just devastating fire come through, had fatalities devastated the whole community. And while the fire was still kind of on the far end, my mom and I went to a local fast food restaurant and we were sitting there and a little kid comes in around sixth grade or so and he goes,"Ms Bolt, hi, I haven't seen you since you were in my classroom." And she'd been retired the school for a long time and she had been dealing with cancer and so people seeing her back in was really great and the kids really lit up and so my mom goes,"Oh yeah, the last time I saw you was when you turned in your, the map of your home, your hazard map and your escape route." And he goes to the fire, came through their house,"Is your house okay, did everything work out?" And that kid, this boy just got this biggest tear in his eye. And just looking at my mom with so much respect and he said,"No, our home burned down." And he just, you could tell he was trying so hard to hold himself back. He goes,"But we followed the map. And the home burned down. But you know what? We saved our motorcycles" and he gave my mom a big hug and, but I think my mom right then realize like how important it is. And God, sorry, I didn't know that story was going to strike me or hit me that way. But it makes such a difference in your community and people don't understand that until it's there. And so many, what we deal with in this smaller underserved communities are rentals and commercial properties that people don't really care about and they just, they don't really think about how important it is until the fires coming. It doesn't matter who owns the place, if it's going to come through, you don't want it to devastate your community, your home, your belongings, or your life. So the kids make a difference. You Tracy, you're making a difference. You're making a difference to the kids.

Tracy: 39:59

Well, thank you. I just, we're ready to actually go sit community. We have what we want to start or we're calling now launching fire ed communities. And uh, back when we were talking about how we're thinking small, if we have to just, that's what made me come up with the slogan, making the world a safer place, one preventable fire at a time. So even if it's, and then look how large one fire can grow anyway.

Abby: 40:30

I love that. And the, the problem

Tracy: 40:33

video,

Abby: 40:34

they and the problem, we can't show that that's the biggest problem. We can't quantify that with without it happening. Like you're saying right now is whether it consumes a city or entire or a house or an entire community.

Tracy: 40:46

And you know what? I don't think it's about scare attack tactics or anything. It's because even we know like people just don't think it'll happen to them until it does. And then you just have to experience a devastation in yourself. So it's not really about coming with that approach as it is making it. Just sort of like a interactive and engaging program. And sure call it sign if you want to. Like it's definitely something every kid just absolutely love. But we want to bring continuity to it by it's seen run under the fire ed community inc isn't as model because we didn't, I think talked about the fractured like um, standardization or the message. How could he even be the same all across the continent? You know, so you might move to another state and something they teach us just a little bit different spontaneity. It's all i mportant in any type of education. If y ou can get taught how to do a mathematical problem one way that you know, h as worked in the past and k eep learning it that way. Right. So we bring in this program that is just missing from a school curriculum now and it w as just a whole new world. I t, it c ould be something that we could be saying we're contributing to reducing the climate to emergency impact t hat it has on society by just saying that at least in the school curriculum w here recognizing fire as a thing.

Abby: 42:34

Yeah. Not bad. Not, not bad, just yeah, educating about it. Like my son was volunteering at a school and his teacher told me about they were working on government services and um, she was having to do some with their book and I flipped open their book and there's like a smoke jumper right in the middle of their textbook. And I was like, wait a minute, how long have you had these books? And he's like, Oh, we've had those for about three years now or so. I go, there's a whole chapter in here about wild land firefighters and I didn't know about it. Like, how is this happening in the districts around me? And I didn't even know about it. This is such a great opportunity. So I played off of that for the next several years, went in and when they were going through that piece of their curriculum though, it was a teeny tiny part and just talked about the wild land fire, a piece of government services. It gave me the opportunity to go in and use that, you know, as a tool. But that wasn't a standard thing. It's just something I did because it hit my heart. So how easy it could be. Yeah, how easy it could be to put into curriculum. But I love your concept.

Tracy: 43:29

Well how did we get, this is what I mean. So again, we brought up, um, tiger teeth calls and has$20,000. And how can they get relaunch them in their community? Well, it's gonna end up costing a whole lot more than 20,000 cause we're not gonna be doing it, um, only once a year. This is not like fire prevention week where you have the big public relations campaigns and fun events and all of that awareness going on just for one week. This is like fire never has the break. So neither fire education. So obviously there's costs attached to that and it's just too big of a challenge for, it's fantastic if a fire department can come along with 20,000. Because they definitely would be a legacy stakeholder themselves and the curriculum that we're bringing to the community. So it would just bring it around a heck of a lot faster than us sowing in. Because we want to, you know, an average size community Um, I'm not really good with population numbers. But let's just say if it had six schools between elementary and high school, it's a fairly small community. Um,

Abby: 44:45

yeah, so let's say around 10,000 people or so.

Tracy: 44:47

Yeah. So say we want to have a handful or a couple dozen fire ed community safety facilitators trained. So back when I was saying how we have age appropriate education up until high school, we actually also have, well the course that they taken in high school when they're in grade 12 usually is what we call the community safety facilitator course. So they can take that but so can at all or teachers maybe if they want to do it in the summer or one another target area is military and veterans. So in Canada we have the Canadian forces who has a, their official charities code support our troops. And we have done a lot of communications with them over the years and actually have the authorization to officially use the yellow ribbon in our recruitment process. Yeah. To identify military spouses who would like to have careers as fire ed community safety facilitators. Wow. Almost can throw any challenge at me and I'm going to have it.

Abby: 46:00

I'm going to have a solution. I love it. I love it. And there's, you're like me, there's so many amazing things in our head. If we only had endless money to just bring it all to tuition and I've talked people into it, we could just like, you know, wiggle their noses and make it happen. People were like, wow, that's awesome. But it's trying to get from, you know, here to there and getting people to see it and understand it and want to adapt it. It's just I that is so great. My next phone call is with a female veteran about her veterans program. And so I'm here in the US so I love that. And that I'm trying to picture like the step you have going here. Like how I mean there, how it would be recepted here and then like how different programs we have that are similar but not the same. And what like I'm trying to think of the things where I would try to explain this to someone and they're like yeah but yeah, but you know the yeah buts I'm sure you deal with every five minutes. So we have like the fire safe council. That's what we have here that I was mentioning. It's all volunteer and then they oversee like projects. And they make grants happen and make fuels projects happen in the community and public education and all this stuff. But it's really just ran by people that care enough and want to be involved. Now for the community I live in, it's kind of going downhill as far as community involvement. So the fire safe council is for the most part dissolved. But I could see where this would be a program in the areas where the fire safe councils are strong. Where this program will be adopted and maybe paid for by the fire safe council, like they would get grant funding and then they could pay for the fire program. Does that make sense?

Tracy: 47:25

Yeah, and you know what? Even those communities where it was dwindling and there's who want to be involved, this could revive those communities. Because with a social enterprise that's all about making a dollar and a difference. Let's to say I learned that from Joshua Shukman, my social entrepreneur coach and just some wonderful lessons through him and all of the businesses that he's helped make breakthroughs in his time and he has a podcast too that I followed. Oh wow. Such a thing. As the social entrepreneurs, I feel like I'm fitting into that group. The reason why businesses and social enterprise are so important to be a partner, to definitely not turn your back on and stakeholder that you want as a fire service to be behind you is because we developed everything with your expert input. Number one. I never would be where I am right now if it weren't for my firefighter, fire captain, fire chief friends along the way who contributed and met with me and help me develop this. I don't know, I actually didn't know all of the tips myself for this whole one curriculum. So off of the curriculum we have right now, which is for house fires in the home, we actually started drawing the storyboards for our fire at forestry or our wildfire edition. So we have the sketches and that was just done by of the goodness of my illustrator heart. Because he knows that I've already invested so much into version one or phase one.

Abby: 49:00

Well let me back up real quick. You said when you said house fires, so you, you also do the whole structure side of it too?

Tracy: 49:07

Yes, that's where it started. We started it by fire safety in the home and if you just tell the whole story, you know they need to be careful and if they start making those behaviors happen at an early age and all around their home cause look at all the hazards through every room. Then we carry it to the outdoors. So the next storyboard or the next kit that we get brought out by the community safety facilitator would be the topics on, you know, the outdoors.

Abby: 49:34

Okay. So you're not, that's great. I didn't realize you were also regular structure. Right? That's yeah, like cause all I had, I had really wrapped my mind around was a wild land staff. So that's awesome because fire safety in the home and that's where some of the, and because I'm brainstorming here with you too, like some of the fire departments that do have a really strong prevention program, they only focus on structural things, not the wild-land things or vice versa. There's very few that actually grab a hold of both and move forward with it. And there's very few companies that deal with both. And so I love that you are doing the full fire safety education thing.

Tracy: 50:11

Well you know those fire departments that have the good budgets and they have their very strong prevention program, they usually don't give us the time of day. But if they would actually take a look and see a little more open to it, all they have to do is, I guess a word I've come up with that's really fitting seems to be is adopted take. Scope us out, like go through a fine tooth comb and grill me to the wall. It's like ask me all the questions before you adopt such a program, but just let your community run with it while you still do what you're doing. It's just,

Abby: 50:47

Yeah, they don't have to be offended by you.

Tracy: 50:50

Not at all. It's not like, Oh now there's enough education out there, there's no job left for me. How could there ever be too much education? There's just no way they can even get to all of these. All of the children, all of the schools, all of the time, age appropriate probably you could ask any strongest structural fire prevention program in the country and if they come back and say that they have something for every age group, that measurable, what are they actually learning? This is one of our key pieces to what we can do as a social enterprise. With our supply chain, it's our systems test them in the end. And we get to come back with those results and say, you know, out of 80 children and this one school this week, all of them took the test, all of them past, some of them didn't put them back through. It's like Math or English or whatever subjects in school, they're not gonna let you first swimming lessons. That's a good one. You don't get to go to the next level until you pass the first level and here's your certificates put on the wall and you got this mark.

Abby: 52:00

Right. I love that. And I think cause we struggle, I've always struggled with having a program that really speaks to the older kids. You know, it's easy to capture them when they are younger with a character or with a fun little, you know, okay go scrape, go use this firehose and, but you're taking it to another level. You're, you have developed curriculum that keeps the attention of those older kids and carries on further than just what we have out there right now.

Tracy: 52:24

Well. Yeah and I think a swimming lessons again might be a good reference. Because it's before a young person can become a lifeguard. I'm sure they had to take every single last level. I remember my kid and let level five or whatever and then they got tired of swimming lessons and then I'm like, Oh but now look, you want to go out with our legs back, you're going back and swimming lessons. And then they're like the tallest kid in the class. Like two soldiers taller than the five-year-olds'cause now they're nine or something and they have to go back to that level. So, um, we've got to treat it that way and just realize that, you know, cause are the, just the kit out of the box is so comprehensive that the fire department said did buy it. They started to say we can't even teach all of this. It's too comprehensive. Just the kit and not even like the rest of our entire scope of the project and how far it could go. So they'd be okay. There's six props that you have, like every room in the house plus a meeting place. And a fire station, well in 45 minutes that we get, we can only bring out say the kitchen scene. So we created it into even an eight week after school program. Or a full today weekend program like how deep of a dive do we want to take and we don't, if you want to just fly him through a one day fun camp and at least they got the basics. But it's, it's a pretty confident no problem that the fire service just doesn't have the staffing or the time to deliver. But it would sure be great if they had support it and show up on graduation day and watch the kids role playing and shake the parent's hands. And you know, we make you look like the rock stars,

Abby: 54:11

right? Well and every little kid wants to be a firefighter at some point in their life, right? They want to, and this is like there, there are many chance to have a title. They have a certificate to do something that is in firefighter mode. And when the kids come out, like do you have a, do they have like a title? Like I am now.

Tracy: 54:27

Yeah, we have, I am a home safety master level 1 and 2. Then we have, I'm a community safety ambassador, so that would be for 15 to 16 or 17 year olds. So they would have an opportunity to volunteer. So now that they learned the program, they can be volunteers to the community safety facilitator. Because can you imagine being the facilitator and having a class of 20 to 30 kids and you have a six crop and you have say even 3 communities, they came as your volunteers than they can be 4 kids per per volunteer. Like again, I may be off on the math.

Abby: 55:09

Oh that's right. I'm envisioning it. Yeah, you got, you had me at a bunch of kids and I immediately had flashbacks to a lot of kids running around and trying to make sure that our ratio is straight. So then we kept control and actually were able to get a message across and having people that want to be there. That's key because my challenge as a provincial chief was always getting the people that wanted to be there. And I would have management be like, well I don't care if they want to be there or not. These firefighters, you need to make them be there and do it. And it's like, no, you don't get it. I don't want them there. I want people there that want to be there. I don't want them there just because it's in their job description. It's so important to have people that care about it be a part of it because that makes all the difference.

Tracy: 55:48

And that's a whole another show. Right?

Abby: 55:49

Right. Yup. Yup. I told you, I told you that we wouldn't have that. We could go on and on. I think we need to have several different ones so we could talk forever about this kind of stuff. And it feels so good to have the freedom to be able to, because

Tracy: 56:04

Well I'd like to say about this freedom,'cause that's what was brewing in my mind and I just like jumped on you the second that you said

Abby: 56:11

[inaudible]

Tracy: 56:12

because you know, in my 30 years of having challenges, like I've read about that you have been within the service. And you know a lot of the bad things happened to me. Not some of the worst things that I've read about you or some of the others and their challenges as professionals in the industry. But what I'm going to be hitting home is, this is where I feel like doing that thing where you nod your head and like I'm doing it right.

Abby: 56:42

Right, right.

Tracy: 56:44

Nope. We're going to be, I have nothing else to lose. Like I have like been ground to the bottom. I've been put out of business. I was barely hung on pride as had... I've had like therapy and it's like what the heck is this all about when all you're trying to do is, so I've nothing left to lose. So I'm going to be saying publicly, you know what my challenges were. And there'll be a book one day and you know, you can, somebody wrote an article on the called social entrepreneur in a public fire life safety education space, and just talks about the harsh realities that I've come across and being discrimination and all these kinds of things. And it's like when the public starts to become more aware of the inefficiencies within these public agencies, it's gotta start getting kind of embarrassing. And you know, some of the quotes that I'm gathering from the people who are like joining the fire ed network, like from professionals in the fire service are saying literally fire prevention isn't a rocket science rocket science. It's a fire prevention implementation failure that could be a leading cause of the deadly fires we're seeing world by wow. If there are people who are in our fires network who will stand on big stages and go on big new paths and pretty much say, you know, the reality is we're all dying. We don't even know the risks and the hazards. We haven't been taught properly or consistently.

Abby: 58:24

Wow. Yes, that's yeah, cause like messages like that are what we would want to say as employees. But we knew we get in trouble for saying it out loud out in the public and yeah,

Tracy: 58:36

called out to an organization in Canada that I'm just furiated with. Because it's another old boys network and they just thought something like 6 to$9 million of government money to fund their programs and all over their website it says, we do a capacity building and public education and no they don't. Why are you lying on your website and saying you do that when you do not have the program's story?

Abby: 59:02

Because that's what they needed to say to get the money.

Tracy: 59:04

Oh now they're shaking hands and off talking out their chest. Cause they've got like all this money. And it's like, okay, what are you doing with it? And maybe they're flying around communities in Canada and calling on like, um, the general public, what is it that you want from us? What do you want to see? Well, how would they know what they want to see? Like we just see how they're wasting that money. And we're going to be calling them out on it. So under the rug no more'cause where we're in this for the long haul.

Abby: 59:33

And I love your statement about how you have nothing left to lose and damn that is when somebody is at their strongest. And their just their most dangerous in a great positive disruptor way. Because if you have nothing left to lose, you're going to charge forward so damn hard. It's when you're terrified and you're in fear and you're sitting there and holding back afraid of who you're going to piss off or you know, afraid of what you're going to do. But when all of that, when all that like power is inside of you for a good thing, for a good reason, Holy cow. Like I've never had so much energy in my life as cause it used to always be pent up and like in this bowl, like I couldn't do what I wanted to do to do something good. And once you're in that place, oof, watch out

Tracy: 1:00:16

and what they did to you and what you had to, you know, shut up about it. And so fearful for speaking'cause of your career. And also there's so good at making you think that like. Can you imagine me being an outsider? Like this is disgusting. I'm a stakeholder in the community who's invested into all of this. So that the grants that went there or the funding that isn't there, they didn't have to put it into it. We're doing what you're teaching us to do. I'm saying you sorry, but you know, bam. But we're just doing like, I'm like the model citizen that you were taught to have the smart and generate the awareness and spread the message and, and that's what I'm doing. So shut me out of it. Now

Abby: 1:01:05

I love telling people about that. Like with my career and stuff that don't understand like how much leadership training I've been through. Like hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of leader, professional leadership training and then my 22 years of just experience. Right? So you add all that up to whatever it adds up to financially. But it's like every class I took, every piece of my education, all of my training, you were teaching me to be this. You were teaching me to put my foot down, to do the right thing, to have integrity, to call it out, how I see it. And then I do. And it's not what you want to hear, but you taught me to be this way. It's just, it's kinda funny,

Tracy: 1:01:41

but you know, isn't that just some sort of, maybe there's people out there like you and I, and we know there's others. So, and when you see this fire community grow, and if it's only 12 people now or 10 people that come and go, it's like. Hey, that's more than the one it was when I first started. So what they've done to us over that time, it's pretty sums to- What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger for sure. But boy, maybe it didn't kill me. But it sure like, felt like I was, yeah. Grand entourage, you know, like thanks for access my whole life up. Cause you know, it's not like I'm like when you're, you're made to believe that you're crazy in that, um, everyone hates you now. And like every single time my name's brought up around the fire service and like a whole entire provincial organization kicks you off their organization and reads the message about you

Abby: 1:02:41

Can you scare the shit out? Yeah.

Tracy: 1:02:42

Pretty damaging. So

Abby: 1:02:44

yeah. Well you scared of him. You scare him.

Tracy: 1:02:47

We don't take it serously.

Abby: 1:02:48

No, no. And when there's this conversation that we're having, I've had with like three other people today and we'll all week one is like that and it's, it's verbatim across the board and it's like how do we change it? But it's like the fear tactics, how they lean. One gal reached out to me today, she's dealing with, she's a law enforcement officer and she's just like, Abby, I, when is it going to stop feeling this way? I feel like I am completely in the wrong and like I am this and I am that and she's dealing with just something ridiculous from one of her superiors. And he said, that's what they want you to feel like. Because they need to make you feel horrible and stupid and like it didn't happen. Because then they'll feel better about it. And it's, the mental twist that they apply is just, it's sickening. And it's not just, you know, there's this whole culture thing with women in these male dominated cultures. But it's just when, when there's an entity that wants to take somebody down that's different or that's saying something different, it's really kind of sick on how the mobbing can occur and people get involved and they don't even realize they're involved, that they're doing it. But it really,

Tracy: 1:03:54

yeah. And you know, whether it's even like happening to men. And also I've come across some nasty women, so I'm not going to be, you know, a lot of it obviously we know the problem with um, female And the horrible things like race and, and just, uh, I've heard some bad things, right? Cause I was pretty connected to and I've seen and been around when some firefighters, whether they're female or male that have committed suicide.

Speaker 4: 1:04:29

[inaudible]

Abby: 1:04:29

And that's where we're going to go ahead and stop today with Tracy Last from fire ed. I know it kind of ends on like one of those more somber notes of you know, suicide. But that's the reality. It doesn't matter which business you're in. And my mission with Up in Flames, you guys is to call things out so that we can get adults behaving better. That way we can prevent some of the suicides that we're seeing in some of these places. So I hope that you join me in the next episode and Tracy Last from fire ed part two where we talk more about her mission, the things that she's doing around the world, how she's bringing it to the United States, the plans that we have. Oh it's a great conversation you guys. So I hope that you jump in and hear some more because we are, we're definitely transparent. We're throwing some more stuff out there. We are calling it like it is in Canada and in the US. And we're crossing the border you guys so it's all connected. So we talk more about that and we go into more of the fire prevention education stuff and how you don't even have to be a firefighter to be able to make this stuff happen. And it's not just wild land, it's structured too. So anybody out there, lets see that lives in a dwelling, they'll live somewhere near grass or trees. Heck even if you live into the bridge. You guys, fire prevention is super important and you can all be a part of it. So listen in for more information and if you guys like what I'm doing here I would love it if you became a patron. Go to patrion.com/upinflames podcast. Check out my website, AbbyBolt.com and it'd be having a lot of great resources on there more and more in the future. And please send me an email to abby@upinflames.org and just say hi or share with me some BS you're going through. Hit me up for an interview, give me some dirt and all. I'll take it and we can talk. Um, yeah, I just know that I want things to be better. If you guys are out there dealing with something, especially with an employer and you're looking for some assistance,

Speaker 5: 1:06:36

go ahead and email me cause I know some people. All right, now you guys go fort. Choose the hard right over easy silence and with fire.