If you ask any firefighter–from chief to probie, truckie to engineer–they will likely agree that the fire service is changing. If you ask Deputy Chief Sal Scarpa of the Shawnee (Kansas) Fire Department, about the extent of this change, he’ll say the fire service is in the middle of a dramatic and unprecedented period of transition.
“We have massive amounts of institutional knowledge walking out the door with the baby boomers retiring, and we’re promoting new company officers, new chief officers,” Scarpa says. “We need to make sure we’re preparing their replacements appropriately.” That was the focus of Scarpa’s seminar today at FDIC, “Where Have the Good Officers Gone?”
Practical Differences
When I spoke with Scarpa prior to FDIC, he explained that one of the main causes for the transition stems from the fire service having achieved one of its primary goals–there are fewer fires nationally. “Years ago we were in an era where we needed tactically focused officers,” he says. “Fires were running rampant throughout the United States, particularly in cities, so we needed really tactically proficient officers. And that’s what we had, and they were fantastic at it.”
Yet with better and more detection and suppression systems in place, as well as changes in technology and building construction, we have seen a steady decrease in the number of fires over the past 30 years. The result: When officers promote, “there’s less of an opportunity for them to function in that role as a tactician, and more of a need for them to be well-rounded, to be people managers,” Scarpa says. That includes being tactically proficient in the street, but also a good report writer, a good people person, a community-oriented person.”
Exacerbating the issue is a generation gap between a generation of mechanically inclined workers vs. one that’s more technologically inclined. “Where once the skill we needed was taking a chainsaw apart and putting it back together, now we need to make sure they can email a PowerPoint from their phone,” Scarpa says. “It’s not that one of these skill sets is better than the other, but they are different.” Today, the fire service needs officers that are strong in both mechanical and technological skills.
The Officer Image
Although the position of company officer has evolved to incorporate EMS, inspections, community education, hazmat and more, our image of the ideal officer has lagged behind, stuck in the “hero firefighter” mode.
“If you watch a movie like Backdraft, you have an image of what a fire officer is,” Scarpa says. “If as a kid you watched fire trucks and thought that was really cool, you have a particular image of what an officer is. We need to define that a bit more rather than let Hollywood or social media or the news define it.”
Some terms he connects with being a good officer today:
- Integrity
- Honesty
- Coach
- Good communicator
- Tactician
- Teacher
- Student
- Data manager
- Perpetual learner
- Mentor
Does this sound less glamorous? Perhaps. “The perception of what the officer is has shifted,” Scarpa says. “Captain Kickass kicked down the door, slayed the dragon, saved the baby and went home. We need that component, but we need other things to make them well-rounded. It’s not just about putting out fires; it’s about running ambulance calls, it’s about customer service, making sure smoke detectors are where they need to be in homes and doing building inspections.”
For Scarpa, making the officer role appealing starts with crafting an honest image of what an officer is. “It may not be as appealing to some, and that’s why we need to get in front of this whole image thing,” he says. “We need to be sure we’re not giving false images to people coming up the ranks who think it’s all about fighting fire. We have to craft what the modern-day fire service is all about, and be up front about that. It’s still a pretty cool job. We get to impact people on their worst days, put something positive on something tragic.”
Preparation Is Key
Scarpa stresses that preparation and education are the keys to ensuring that firefighters understand the officer role before they promote. “One gap in the fire service has been that preparation component. There was a time when it was not uncommon for a firefighter or driver to be promoted to captain or lieutenant with a limited focus on preparing them for what that job is going to be,” he says.
One key area of needed preparation: the period of awkwardness that results in moving from “buddy to boss.”
“Yes, you can still be friends with the people you work with, you can still hang out, but when you go from buddy to boss, that relationship changes a bit,” Scarpa says. “Some people aren’t prepared to deal with that, and they suffer from it, and it affects them throughout their career.”
As challenging as Scarpa sees the officer development process to be, he remains strongly optimistic about the changes being made in the fire service today to prepare new officers. “Today there’s a focused effort on professional development and officer development and making sure that they’re ready not just for a change in position in the organization, but a comprehensive change,” he says.
And this, Scarpa believes, is key not just to personal success, but also organizational success. “Company officers have the most direct impact on the largest number of people on a day-to-day basis,” he says. “Crafting effective company officers makes you an effective organization.” As long as organizations realize that, he says, they will continue to invest in officer development.
And then, we might never have to ask, “Where have the good officers gone?”
