American Chief Podcast

I have to believe most firefighters keep their radio or pager open just to listen — and for Chief Nass, nothing beats the anticipation of a second alarm. In this episode, he walks through what makes it his favorite call in the fire service: the information advantage, the pre-scouting habits that come with it, and a string of real-world moments where thinking two steps ahead of the first-due department turned into a genuine assist. He also opens up about how that same mindset extends into pre-planning for incidents that haven't happened yet — including an active shooter response built in the aftermath of the Oxford school shooting.

"The scenarios that haven't happened yet are the best opportunity you have to start discussing second alarm response objectives."

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Episode 3: The Hadley Way

Every fire department has an identity, whether it's ever been said out loud or not. For Hadley Township, that identity is moving water — drafting it, hauling it, supplying it, efficiently and without hesitation. In this episode, Chief Kurt Nass traces that identity back to a lost house in 1969, through the 1980s "surround and drown" era, into how the department actually trains its new recruits today, and the hardest run of his early career.

In this episode

• Why onboarding really starts with a bigger question: does your department have an identity, separate from its mission statement?
• The 1969 house fire that cost Jack Tunison the argument for handlines — and how he became chief a year later and modernized the department through the 1970s
• The "surround and drown" doctrine that took hold under Kurt's father in the 1980s, and why it's still doctrine today
• The Hadley Way: training new recruits from the water source to the pump, to the fire — in that order
• Learning to drive a ten-speed manual pumper in 1989, including a memorable prank from trainer Ed Rose
• A camper fire at a state recreation campground in the early '90s that turned from a routine run into one of the most tragic calls of Kurt's career

Quote of the episode

"A mission statement is what you're supposed to do. An identity is what you actually are."

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Episode 2: Draw the Line — Show Notes

When you arrive on scene, you don't get the luxury of perfect information — you have to make a call and commit to it. In this episode, Chief Kurt Nass breaks down "Draw the Line," a directive he's drilled into every member of his department since becoming chief in 2005: identify what you have, decide what you can and can't lose, say it in one sentence, and commit. Kurt walks through the origin of the concept, two formative fires from his own department's history, two viral rescue clips from departments across the country, and the hardest line he's ever had to draw on a 3 a.m. structure fire in December 2021.

In this episode

• The one piece of advice Kurt's father, former Chief Nass, gave him the day he took command — and why making no decision is more dangerous than making the wrong one
• What "drawing the line" means operationally: a single verbal objective that tells everyone on scene what success looks like
• A mid-1980s Christmas tree fire that taught the department a hard lesson about hose stream placement and wind
• An attached garage fire in 40–50 mph winds that became a defining moment for reading conditions before committing an attack
• Two viral fireground videos — Stockton Firefighters Local 456 and Grand Blanc Township Fire Department — where crews bypassed a lost structure to save what could still be saved
• The December 2021 house fire that became the first civilian fatality in the department's history, and the line Kurt drew before his units even arrived
• Why every tactical decision on a fireground traces back to the first line drawn in the opening seconds

Quote of the episode

"Hesitation is a decision too. It just happens to be the worst one available to you."

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The American Chief Podcast isn’t a training platform. It’s a place where successful operational ideas and time-tested general practices meet real personal experience—stories and lessons that firefighters of every rank can relate to, think through, and put to use in their own departments.

Episode 1:

Fire departments are like snowflakes — no two are the same. In this inaugural episode, Chief Kurt Nass explains why he's telling these stories, and takes listeners on a personal journey through some of the fire departments that shaped how he thinks about the job.

In this episode

• Why Kurt decided to start telling these stories now, and how a song by the band Metric gave the memoir — and this podcast — the motivation
• Growing up around the Hadley Township Fire Department, and what it means to respond to calls in a town where everybody knows everybody
• A first "culture shock" moment visiting a two-truck volunteer department in Michigan's Upper Peninsula
• Discovering funding gaps between departments at the fire academy
• Selling retired Hadley apparatus over the years, including a 1994 pumper that became the newest truck in Sentinel, Oklahoma's fleet
• Delivering a 3,500-gallon tanker to Umpire Volunteer Fire Department in Arkansas 
• What the trip to Umpire taught Kurt about funding, terrain, and operating "different, not wrong"

Quote of the episode

"That's not a lesser fire department. That's a fire department doing exactly what ours does, with a completely different set of tools and a completely different map."

About the host

Kurt Nass is a small-town Michigan fire chief with more than 35 years of firefighting experience, including over 20 years as chief of the Hadley Township Fire Department.

Coming up

New episodes twice a week, plus a monthly special episode featuring noteworthy fire service professionals. If this episode resonated, share it with another firefighter — that's how this show grows.

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