Where are we going?

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Permalink Reply by Mark Wadsworth on October 9, 2009 at 10:21pm

Chris,

Good topic. We are not necessarily putting too much emphasis on other areas as much as we have little choice to change as the fire service in general is changing. I am sure you would agree that the implementation of fire prevention in this country is going to continue to slow our frequency of fire incidents for a long time to come. I agree that we can't take anyting away from the progress of fire prevention as it is a good thing and I there is no doubt alot of lives and property have been saved because of it. It seems many departments are feeling pressure to justify their existance (as you stated) by offering other services such as EMS, HazMat, Confined Space, Technical Rescue etc... I would hope that we would still be able to perform our firefighting duties to the same standard in the future. Training will become more critical as things change and many departments can't rely on actual fire duty to fall back on. It is definitely a trend that is not going away anytime soon. We must accept it as fact, adapt and change with it.

Thanks for posting the discussion.

Mark

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Permalink Reply by Bryan Lafleur on October 10, 2009 at 9:43am

I've been worried about the same thing. Things always seem to swing in extremes. We went from a service years ago that looked at safety being for wusses, to now being beat over the head with the safety stick, some departments in my area have already gone to rarely doing interior attacks. That's disturbing.

While I agree that we must not take unnecessary risks, this is still a potentially dangerous job and we are expected to, and should be willing to, take risks when necessary. It's "when necessary" that is up for interpretation. If we ever get to the point where we watch them burn from the outside and just do pub eds and prevention, I'll go find something else to do.

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Permalink Reply by Todd Trudeau on October 10, 2009 at 10:41am

I agree that we spend alot of time learning to STAY safe, unfortunately I think this comes at the expense of learning and training to operate safely. IE, wear this green vest and you'll be safer on the street. IMO, how about learning proper truck placement at all calls and regular safety procedures in general. Maybe I'm out there somewhere but the safety stuff is good for us but practicing safety is gonna save us, not some green vest.

KTF
Todd

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Schwering on October 10, 2009 at 11:57am

Chris, Brother great topic. We need to change our culture, IMHO I feel that is true. Safety will always be an issue, however, the crossroads we are facing needs to balance safety and prevention. Each firefighter must work to change what was brought up in my post about, recliner mentality and finger pointing. We are walking a fine line and for those of us that care about our chosen profession, it is time to take action. We can and do work our prevention and education in everyday. Just because we try to keep our residents safe, Fires still occur. We must train to cope and stop the fire as quickly as possible, which means an interior attack. And now we come back to training.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault on October 10, 2009 at 12:03pm

-The short answer is, I agree with both statements.
-Being a professional firefighter that has responded to many fires, I believe, after all this time, that the fire service as an institution do not put enough emphasis in to fire prevention.
-Is it rewarding, exciting and fulfilling to go to a fire, battle the dragon and put all of one's training and experience to the ultimate test? Absolutely. But as any true firefighter will acknowledge, it is always a tragedy when we roll out the door to a working fire. The inescapable reality is that when we roll, somewhere, someone has been victimized by fire and we therefore have failed at our first two mission objectives, prevention and public education.
-There is nothing wrong with wanting to be proficient at our craft; safety demands this. There is nothing wrong with taking pleasure in our art; fortune 500 companies spend millions on employee satisfaction because they know a happy employee is a productive and beneficial employee.
-But, the most efficient way to knock down a fire is to prevent it from ever happening. When the rigs arrive in front of an address and men must place their lives in peril it is because something, somewhere went very wrong.
-The key to prevention is an unwavering attitude in code enforcement, aggressive public education and insistence in residential sprinklers.
-Now, all that being said, there will be times when the FD must respond and do what we do. Because of that, firefighters must be trained to competency, equipped and outfitted to handle the ugly tasks at hand. And remember, it is ok for a man to take pleasure, to be gratified, in his work. Just save the hand slapping for the fire house. Never forget that a good day for you means that your constituents have just been rapped by fire.
-No matter what the training and equipment available, no matter what the rules in place are, structural firefighting will always be a dangerous job and that must be accepted. That does not mean we can be reckless and irresponsible; simply that we acknowledge that firefighting is dangerous and that the rule makers cannot legislate the dangers out of existence. As long as we go to fires and attempt to aggressively put them out and save those in danger then firefighters will be placing themselves in perilous circumstances.
-In short, if you want the danger to go away then stop going to fires. Leads us right back to prevention and residential sprinklers. Its an insidious circle.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Sterricker on October 10, 2009 at 1:24pm

Ok, so I remembered where I saw the article regarding the FD looking at entering into EMS because it's numbers were down. If you are interested go over to Dave Statter's page,

http://www.wusa9.com/news/columnist/blogs/davestatter.html

and page down to the section under an old video of a 1930's Boston fire. There you will see "Just Say Yes", with the link to the article about Richmond, Virginia.

Everyone's input has been great, as usual. Let me throw this out there. We were talking around the table the other day about what is going on with the economy, layoffs etc. I will use my department as an example. We have lost 3 positions through attrition directly related to budgetary issues and the economy. We may be looking at more in the near future, again through attrition and thankfully not through layoffs. In the spirit of the great American fire service we will make it work. Calls will still get answered, fires will go out and hopefully no lives will be altered or lost because of our manning. It's the nature of FD's, find a way to get it done.

So, whenever the economy does turn around and the improvement is felt in our tax levy and our budgets again begin to increase maybe those guys and gals aren't replaced? After all, things went well during the crunch (hopefully). Do we really need to bring back those 3, 6, 9, 12 guys? I then threw out there that it would not surprise me at all to see in my career that some FD's revert back to POC, part-time or volunteer with full-time EMS service. Not the large urban dept's. but the small to mid-size dept's. set in rural or suburban America. Is it way out there to think that? I don't know. My department is 3 stations, a completely paid staff of 66 members (at full staffing), and we man 2 Engines, 1 Tower, 2 Ambulances and a jump-company Engine/Ambulance per day. We protect roughly 44,000 people, respond to about 4,500 calls a year, and have approximately 20 - 25 fires a year. As with most other dept's. approximately 80% of those runs are EMS. Is it unthinkable that if we continue to "make it work" with decreased manning and incidences of structural fires continues to decrease that a department our size could scale back to a skeleton crew of full-timers and supplement with part-time, POC or even worse, contract personnel? I don't think it is that far out of the realm of possibility.

Illinois has been heralded for our MABAS system for mutual-aid and I think it is a wonderful and well functioning asset. On the other hand, due to its very nature, it allows a department to bring much more to bear at an incident than it would be able to if it were not for the mutual-aid agreements. Am I advocating department's pulling out and forcing a higher manning and more equipment, no, I CAN be realistic sometimes. What I am saying is that MABAS and other similar systems gives an automatic safety net to administrators when it comes to pondering service cuts. "We don't need all these guys and all this apparatus. We'll just Box anything we get and have plenty of help."

Just to be clear, I am not saying pub ed and fire prevention should go out the window. I completely agree with Michael's sentiment that every time we respond to a fire it is both an opportunity for us to fulfill our training and in our own sick way "fun" and a tragedy for whoever is suffering the loss of property and memories. I am simply wondering if, in the long run, these efforts are going to drastically change the face of our service.

More thoughts?

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Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault on October 10, 2009 at 2:08pm

-Chris, I would agree that there will be some FDs that entertain the idea of bringing back some of the POC or volunteers as a way of cutting staffing and saving he budget. One of the things that the proposers of these ideas have not considered is that the hard times have hit everyone and there are not as many people willing or able to work a side job for free.
-Those that would volunteer are working second jobs or just circling the wagons financially waiting out the storm. Will these same people now respond to calls and the hours of training required? Unknown. There will always be those that are willing to step up but as we have seen and heard, the volunteer ranks were already dwindling when the economy was fat. Volunteer FDs are already having trouble recruiting and retaining members simply because of the training hours required.
-Additionally, a community that is accustomed to prompt and professional service delivery will be shocked and stunned after only a few serious calls.
-Not to disparage the volunteer FDs, but response times will always be better when the staffed is already on duty in the firehouse; that is a fact. Secondly, the training that career firefighters undergo is much more comprehensive, encompassing and just so much more than a volunteer FF will ever experience. That is simply because it is the full time vocation of that individual.
-Notice I did not say professional but rather career. This is because the word professional implies a level of service delivery and not a pay check. All firefighters, career and volunteer, should deliver professional service, though it will be easier for the career side to do so simply because this is their full time vocation in which they spend all of their time, attention and tenor gaining experience and training that is unachievable for those that do not engage in firefighting and emergency service delivery full time.
-In short, going backwards is not the answer in this will take minimal time to explain to the decision makers; that or just a few serious calls.
-Mutual Aid agreements will be more beneficial unless you are in the safer, slower community. Then it seems like all your dollars go to help the next city over. MA implies reciprocity and if the other city/town isn't helping you once in a while then you're paying for his protection as well as your own.
-As with volunteers and POC firemen, MA has a huge flaw... time. The resources will not be available exactly when you need them but will be delayed 10 minutes or longer.
-The average response time of a volunteer FD is approximately 15 minutes, about the same time for a MA company. With staffing on duty in the station the first arriving company is usually on scene in approximately 4 minutes from the receipt of the alarm. Huge difference.
-And again I will reiterate that there is nothing wrong with a man taking pleasure in his vocation, so long as it is appropriate to time and place. Save the hand slapping for the firehouse.

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