🔥 FIRESIDE CHATS — PHILLIP GROVES 🔥

This episode of Fireside Chats is a special one.

Philip Groves has spent more than two decades serving the fire service. He started his career at Greenville Fire Department in 2004 at just 18 years old, eventually rising through the ranks to become Fire Chief.

Today, Philip serves as the Fire Chief of Central City Fire Department.

But for me, Philip is much more than another fire chief. He is one of my very best friends, one of my mentors, and someone who has had a major impact on my life and my career in the fire service.

In this episode, we talk about his journey through the fire service, leadership, the lessons learned along the way, the challenges of being a fire chief, friendship, and what it really means to dedicate your life to serving others.

Some conversations are about the fire service.

Some are about the person behind the badge.

This one is about both.

🔥 Grab a seat by the fire. You're going to want to hear this one.

#FiresideChats #Firefighter #FireService #FireChief #Leadership #CentralCityFireDepartment #GreenvilleFireDepartment #Brotherhood #Firehouse #Mentorship

Before he was the Chief, before the rank, before the responsibility—he was just a kid looking for a seat on the truck. This is the story of everything that happened after.

For years, he's been the guy asking the questions.

The one behind the mic.

The one pulling stories out of other people.

This time, the tables turn.

This episode puts the host in the hot seat as we dig into nearly two decades in the fire service—from an 18-year-old volunteer kid desperate to prove himself, to the Chief responsible for an entire department.

We talk about the moment the older firefighters finally trusted him. The brotherhood that shaped him. The mentors who took the time to invest in a kid who just wanted to belong. The firehouse culture outsiders will never understand, where brutal honesty, dark humor, loyalty, and accountability all live under the same roof.

But this conversation goes deeper than firefighting.

We talk about leadership and the loneliness that comes with it. The burden of making decisions that affect your friends. The pressure of carrying everyone else's problems while keeping your own buried. The reality that sometimes the hardest calls aren't the ones on the radio—they're the ones you make as Chief.

We revisit the night the 2021 tornado ripped through our community and what it felt like standing in its path knowing there was nowhere left to run. We talk about sacrifice, missing milestones at home, raising a family while serving someone else's, and what it costs to dedicate your life to answering the call.

This isn't a polished leadership interview.

It's a firehouse conversation.

The kind that happens after midnight around a scarred-up kitchen table. The kind where stories get told, truths come out, and nobody's pretending to be anything they're not.

At its core, this episode is about purpose.

About earning respect instead of demanding it.

About staying the rookie no matter how many bugles end up on your collar.

About showing up when you're exhausted, frustrated, and running on fumes because people are counting on you.

The host becomes the interviewee.

The Chief becomes the firefighter again.

And for a couple hours, the walls come down.

Tonight on Fireside Chats, we're sitting down with paramedic Tyler Crick.

Tyler got his start in EMS in 2020, but the moment that really lit the fire for him happened years earlier during the Bremen tornado. Watching first responders work that disaster scene showed him a side of the job most people never see, and he knew right then that he wanted to be part of it.

He started his career as an EMT with ComCare, spending two years learning the ropes and seeing the reality of the job firsthand. Since then he's worked his way up to paramedic with Muhlenberg EMS, where he's handled everything from serious medical emergencies to high-speed pursuit crashes and traumatic scenes that most people can't even imagine.

But tonight isn't just about the calls. Tyler wants to talk about the reality of EMS — the parts the public rarely understands. The biggest disconnect between what people think EMS does and what actually happens on scene. The weight of life-or-death decisions. And the difficult conversations that come when families are looking for hope in moments where there may not be any.

This job is unpredictable. One moment you're responding to a breathing problem, the next you're standing in the middle of chaos. And that's exactly what drew Tyler to it in the first place — never knowing what the day will bring.

So tonight, we're going to pull back the curtain a little bit on EMS and talk about what it's really like on the other side of that ambulance door.