By Billy Goldfeder, originally published November 2016
Dear Nozzlehead,
I’m a member of a rural/suburban fire department with a combination career and volunteer membership answering about 1,000 fire and ambulance calls each year with 15 personnel. We train each month, and we are very proud that we handle almost all the calls ourselves without needing mutual aid.
Our assistant chief recently attended a training course on “domestic terrorism” and now we have, as many of us joke, become the “terror” department. He is one of those people who gets excited about the “latest” trends. If you visited here, it would be obvious that the area we live in would not be a primary target of terrorism compared to other areas of the country. While we are a good fire department, we do as much as we can to keep up with the regular training, and now the assistant chief is all pumped up about something with which we have time and interest challenges.
I am writing on behalf of several of us to ask how we get the assistant chief back in focus on what we do here vs. his fantasy about being in a “big city” fire department.
-Underwhelmed in Oklahoma
Dear Underwhelmed,
First, I couldn’t be more proud of you in your pride of not needing mutual aid! YAY!! Finally we don’t have to have all those fire engines driving crazy all over the place. Naturally, that reminds me of a story-a true story.
When I was a young kid, I was hanging around our area firehouse the morning after a major fire that essentially burned an entire block down-it was the fire of the decade. As I was hanging out, helping clean, etc., I heard the firefighters exclaim their pride in how well things went the night before. While I was maybe 12 years old at the time, one comment really stuck in my head when one firefighter high-fived the other after stating: “Yeah, and we fought that fire without having to call that other fire company. We did it ourselves!!”
Even at 12 years old, it was pretty obvious to me that the block burned to the ground, literally, and maybe, just maybe, some mutual aid would have helped the situation. Actually, not maybe-definitely. A lot of mutual aid called quickly would have helped. The truth is that it wasn’t the fire department’s block to burn down, but that’s exactly what happened-they did it themselves.
Those firefighters acted as if it was “their” fire-which it was not. As I have commented many times over the years in this column, it isn’t “our” fire; some poor folks had “their” fire and invited us to try and make things get better. They figured that we would know just what to do and what to call for to fix this bad day for them. “We did it without any mutual-aid help.” Those words stuck in my mind and absolutely helped form my future attitude in a positive way.
So, to start with, be really careful about your false pride in not having to call mutual aid or incorporate automatic mutual aid; it isn’t about what you or your department like, it’s about what’s needed to fix the problem as quickly as possible.
As far as your crazy assistant chief leaving town and attending training, what a lunatic! In 2016, the one thing we need is more chiefs to stop learning how others do the job because then they come back and want to change all the things you’ve been doing right for years. After all, the more you do things your way, the more they are proven to be correct because they worked perfectly-not exactly.
Actually, the more we do things wrong, the more they seem right until something really bad happens as our “wake-up call,” forcing us to make change. In the past 20 years, there are many examples of how we “did it our way” until a few of our own were killed and the investigations, the emotions, the sadness, and the change in leadership (and sometimes the courtroom) forced us to change.
If one accepts the role of lieutenant, captain, chief officer, or whatever, then you also accept the responsibility of always determining what’s best for the folks who dial 911 as well as our folks who turn out when the call is made. Just because we like something doesn’t mean it’s how we should do something. And just because you don’t like a change doesn’t mean you shouldn’t change. That’s probably why your assistant chief does what he does.
On September 17, 2016, as New York City firefighters, cops, and emergency service personnel responded to the Chelsea explosion, we once again observed the new normal. So sure, I do get why you think it only happens in the big cities, but just wait. The question must be asked to all fire departments: Are we anywhere near as ready as the Fire Department of New York (FDNY), FDNY emergency medical services, and New York Police Department to respond as they did? In most cases, the answer is no. And some would respond that they aren’t as big as the FDNY and don’t have the resources-and that would only be partially correct. While no fire department is as big and as resourceful as the FDNY, we all do have access to the many resources they do-if we really want it.
Listen to the radio traffic of the Chelsea bombing, and you’ll see how many resources were pulled together immediately. They have a plan. Sure, it’s a little easier when you are “one” big fire department, but it can be done by any fire department-if we really want to. If we really want to requires dropping things such as “we don’t need help” attitudes, personality based mutual aid, territorialism, blindfolds, the lack of fire command standards, and the lack of fire service respect. It would require all leaders and members to actually focus on what’s best for the public and firefighters (leadership, training, and resources) and not what’s best for fire-based egos, personal interests, game playing, and attitudes.
When I get letters such as yours and I see that some areas still can’t get coordinated and organized to plan for, train, and send what’s needed and do what’s best for a standard dwelling fire (with 16 total members, you are not prepared for a structural fire), it is scary to think how the terror incident will go when it happens. Look at what you wrote me: You are proud of the fact that you don’t use mutual aid. I mean seriously, if you can’t get adequate staffing and manage command, control, accountability, and discipline at that single-family dwelling fire, then you don’t have a chance in hell of having any success when the terrorists do what they do. You know that.
Terrorism for just the big cities? Seriously? Have you seen the news? Have you read the experts’ reports? Terrorism, it’s not just for big cities anymore.
It’s a simple template when thinking and then planning for these events. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Could your community come even close to pulling this kind of response together as quickly and as organized as New York did?
- Are you and your leaders at all levels able to drop the negative attitudes and genuinely plan regionally for the event that is predicted to be coming?
- Are you planning to handle the terror events as if your own kids, family, and loved ones were the victims? Sometimes when you think of the people whose pictures are in your wallet, you are able to think more clearly. Sometimes.
One quick question: Your folks train monthly … as in once a month? If it’s not too exhaustive, you may want to revisit that as well. There are some departments where the pizza delivery guy attends more training just by being in the firehouse than those line firefighters who train once a month.
