Should the Fire Service Training Path Be Revised?

I just finished reading Crucible of Fire by Bruce Hensler. The subtitle implies that the book is about the 19th century origins of the modern fire service. This is only partially true; the book is also a broader examination of fire service culture with some hard reflection thrown in. It is thought-provoking and full of things that American fire people don't like to think about. I believe that a few of his statements are inaccurate and a few of his conclusions are wrong, but I think you should read the book. At any rate, I'd like to think more of at least one of his ideas.

Among the controversial arguments Hensler makes is the idea that our training model should reflect a commitment to prevention first. In this vein he suggests that the recruit academies should teach the science of fire and fire prevention, emergency management, IMS, and other broader concepts. Following mastery and some practice in these areas the young firefighter would be taught the tasks of firefighting. This, he says, is similar to the model the military uses where an inductee goes from basic to advanced training in a progressive roadmap throughout his development. (Mr. Hensler will forgive me, I hope, if I have mis-paraphrased him here; I am speaking from recent memory of his arguments.)

This is an intriguing model, to say the least. I think the fire service would do well to reorient its approach to recruitment and acculturation and this might offer a way forward there. Too often a fire department wants a blue collar worker for a firefighter spot. He's mechanical! He has callouses on his hands! Then they want that guy, five years down the line, to be an officer and, ten years down the line, a chief officer. For some reason they fail to notice, or outright deny, that finding the blue collar worker in the same package as the educated professional is rare. We want obeisant drones then we are surprised when our leaders cannot usefully conceptualize the organization's environment and fail to adapt.

It's not just that, as Hensler argues, the training model front-loads task-level suppression training (which is true). Hensler contrasts the American fire service's obsession with restricting leadership to people who came up through the ranks. I don't disagree with that approach (that is, I don't think you can have an officer's academy that trains people who were never firefighters to be fire officers). But I do think that he is on the same scent. We need to do a better job professionally developing our leadership. Maybe we could train them in areas other than suppression first in order to properly contextualize suppression. Maybe we could pull them out of the field a little later, at least the promising ones, to educate them in various facets of leadership and management.

Anyone paying attention knows the world has changed and is changing even faster. Every fire department that has political and community leaders calling it superfluous has to do a better job adapting. We can reimagine our world.

……. Patrick Mahoney

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Crucible of Fire: Nineteenth-Century Urban Fires and the Making of the Modern Fire Service
by Bruce Hensler is available in both Hardcover and Kindle eBook formats.

CLICK HERE to read more about the book and to order one.

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Whose Orders Will You Follow?

The average worker's right to overtime past 40 hours is something that people have died for. Organized labor, especially in the public sector, is Public Enemy #1 for a lot of people in this country right now but it is worth remembering that this is nothing new.

In slightly related news we have the Occupy protests. I've noticed that they are furnishing their own "medics" to treat wounded protestors. I don't know if these are actually EMT-trained medics or if they're just fellow protestors with first aid training. We can expect that to be a common feature in any large protest because of the common use of violence by the police to clear protestors. Don't be fooled: just because they aren't firing bullets doesn't mean there aren't people getting hurt. The protestors presumably feel they need their own medics because the police are not allowing them access to prompt medical care. Whether that is because the police want them to suffer, thus maximizing the effects of their power, I can't say. No matter what I can't imagine too many fire/EMS folks who would want to wade into a riot to provided medical care. That goes against the ethos that is drilled into every EMT student from nearly Day 1: personal safety is top priority. Is the scene secure?

National Post

Yet when it comes to firefighting we take a far more nuanced view of risk. Since most EMS providers in this country are firefighters who, ideally, would be happy to risk their lives to save someone from a burning home, why is it so different when it comes to EMS? I suppose it has to do with our total lack of control measures for violence. We can do things to minimize our risk of dying from fire. We have nothing to minimize our risk of dying from a bullet or knife. So that makes sense to me, even if it does leave some people wanting for care. But what if, like the medic in the linked story above claims, the police are simply holding the injured, away from further violence and in a secure area?

My bigger question has to do with the future. You can bet that we will see more and larger protests for various reasons. The state as we have known it and as a concept is dying. We are all government workers. Will there come a time when we are faced with a choice between obeying police orders and providing the care which it is our duty to provide? Will the fire department, as firefighters, EMS providers, rescuers, or whatever, follow orders or engage in its own civil disobedience when the situation presents itself? Should the individual firefighter be willing to engage in civil disobedience of this sort? Should officers and administrators be willing to buck their counterparts on the PD side or in the mayor or city manager's office? Can the "fire department" survive this sort of civil disobedience? These are questions that go to the heart of what it means to work in this job, questions that no one can answer for you. Some of the answers may present a risk you hadn't considered, namely that you were willing to die for duty, but are you willing to lose your job?

……….. Patrick Mahoney

Globe & Mail

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….. And Wait For Your Number To Be Called.

You may have seen this article about how neighborhood fire stations are to become health clinics in one California county. I guess a fire department in my county is a trendsetter then because they opened a new station last year with clinic space in it, but for a slightly different reason. It's a place the affluent of the community can come have their vitals checked in comfort by a friendly fireman. That department only makes five or six calls a day, protects one of the busiest stretches of interstate in the country, a couple of major petrochemical research labs, a hospital, and about half a dozen highrises. It's true that they don't have many fires, being an affluent bedroom community, but I guess that means they don't need to train on any of that other stuff or even be too terribly ready to respond.

Scott County Public Health Service

As usual, this is part of a trend that attempts to maintain relevance by broadening services. I think the real way to maintain relevance is not to broaden services, but to deepen them. We need to be better at the things we legitimately do and quit pretending like no one goes to fires anymore. We have plenty of emergency functions that most departments didn't have 30 years ago and we have plenty of action in the totality of them to warrant maintaining focus on emergency response. There is nothing we should be doing that should ever take precedence over emergency response. Except for emergency response, nothing should take priority over preparedness.

Too many people in the fire service act like every town was the South Bronx once upon a time and that now the firefighters are just barely holding down the wool over the eyes of the citizenry. Stop saying we just don't go to fires anymore! We do still go to fires, in many places we go to a lot more, and besides that, we go to rescues, hazmat calls, and major medical emergencies. The fire service seems to wallow in self-defeating rhetoric that the public will misperceive and absorb when making decisions about supporting their local fire departments. If you say things that downplay the importance of emergency response then you should not be surprised when your officers, city bureaucrats, and public opinion leaders favor things that have nothing to do with emergency response and your funding and strategic vision shift accordingly.

………. Patrick Mahoney

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Priorities, Yes!

I see Firegeezer pointed out yesterday that Minneapolis is about to crack down on the fire department. I suppose they are a convenient target, being a luxury item and all. What is essential to the local government in Minneapolis? Well, they want to spend almost half a billion dollars on a football stadium for a team owned by a hundred-millionaire. This is not unusual. The transfer of wealth and services from the have-nots to the haves is as old as government itself and the only remarkable thing about it is how no one seems to think of it that way.

proposed Minneapolis stadium to be used
for eight games a year.  (Star-Tribune image)

The City of Minneapolis and its councilors and mayor are willing to remove the frontline social safety net from under the city's most vulnerable population in order to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy. Where are the civil rights leaders? Where is the ministerial alliance? Where are reporters? Oh, wait, they're paying $25 for a tee shirt for that football team. For so many of the citizens the fire department is their property insurance and it is their primary healthcare provider. The fire department enables the conduct of commerce by keeping businesses open where they would otherwise be burned out. But even those vulnerable people often don't understand that. If one in ten of them will use the fire department in a given year then that's still nine of the ten who will never think of it. I suspect that at least nine of those ten will be more upset if the football team leaves town than they would if the local engine company closes down.

It is time for creative solutions. I've written before about the urgent need for the fire service to play the race card. But the local unions also need to engage in finger pointing; name names in the paper, on TV, on the web, on social media. The calculus is simple: Councilor A would rather give this millionaire more millions than give your family the protection for which it pays taxes. This should be thrust in the citizens' faces regularly and relentlessly. At the same time you should explain to them that you need X number of firefighters in Y number of minutes for their property to be safe. You don't need to stoop to the "babies will die" argument that is so stereotypical as to be ineffective. Let them draw their own conclusions but give the citizens the framework to understand the issue. This framework consists not only of the exigencies of fire suppression and EMS but also the zero-sum political choices surrounding the issue. Why are we reluctant to point out that second part?

………. Thank you, Patrick Mahoney.

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Wait!  Hear Me Out…

Fossilmedic had the story (HERE) of an opportunity for the community to speak to their "leaders" about cuts to the LA City FD. It seems to me that a lot of departments facing the axe are not availing themselves of some potent political tools. The fire service is predominantly white and conservative and most firefighters, I'll bet, have little use for what they consider race pandering. Well it's time to discard that notion.

Yes, I am advocating playing the race card. Avoid the reflexive urge to bitch and tune me out, for just because it is unpalatable for you doesn't mean it's not true. For large portions of our communities the fire department represents a primary healthcare provider and the only form of insurance on most property. When a city cuts fire service while at the same time funneling cash to the wealthy for "development" projects it's pretty easy to make the case that deprivation of adequate fire service is a civil rights issue. We're talking about communities using EMS as primary healthcare (right or wrong doesn't matter, it's a reality). These same communities cannot just file an insurance claim and buy new stuff when their houses and businesses burn. The fire department is the only thing between them and destitution and/or death.

So why should we not speak plainly? A city spends hundreds of millions to build a stadium for a millionaire team owner that benefits millionaire real estate speculators and then turns around and lays off firefighters. Maybe it's not a stadium but instead a "waterfront district" on a Superfund site or a performing arts center named after a councilman. No matter what it is, when it comes to fire and police layoffs it's nothing short of depriving the poor of what may be their only safety net in order to line the pockets of the rich and powerful. Departments in these situations need to get with their minority communities and explain the consequences (hint: nearly any fire department facing layoffs is in this situation because this sort of reverse Robin Hooding is rampant). There are a ton of civil rights groups, ministers' alliances, and neighborhood associations that are more than happy to apply pressure to the cretins in local government.

The fire service is the government's most immediate, effective, and unambiguously moral contribution to the poor and lower classes. It's high time we recognize this and form alliances with the power brokers in these communities. They won't know what they are losing if we don't tell them.

………Thank you.  Patrick Mahoney.

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