In the late 1990s, I read an oddly titled book that continues to resonate with me: If It Ain’t Broke…BREAK IT! by Robert Kriegel and Louis Patler.
Contrary to what you might think, this is not a B-shift training manual. It’s a book about using unconventional wisdom to change the way we do business. Kriegel and Patler repeatedly suggest that we should mess with success and take risks, not chances.
In the fire service, the use of unconventional wisdom is often shunned and/or frowned upon; we go with the known, proven methods of our traditional past. But what happens when these proven methods become the focal point of financial and political scrutiny?
Last year, the International City/County Management Association (ICMA) published an article titled “Compressed Air Foam Systems” that pointedly asked why more fire departments aren’t using CAFS when it is proven to increase safety and effectiveness. Many in the fire service voiced opposition to this article, questioning the ICMA’s knowledge of the fire service. Some even questioned: Who is ICMA to be challenging our chosen tactics?
In short, they’re our bosses.
They’re the men and women who manage the funds in many of our nation’s most populated cities and counties, the leaders who we must respectfully convince, during these fiscally lean times, that we are frugal, conscientious, open-minded, forward-thinking and well informed about the decisions we make and the practices we employ.
Unfortunately, many within our ranks have taken a defensive posture when the more appropriate position is that of adaptation and change. For years, the American fire service has been plagued by the stigma of being slow to change. We must break from the past and become less resistant to innovations and alternative methodologies that can transform our tactics.
To be clear, there’s no one single tool, method or technique for fighting fires. But the way we’ve always done it isn’t necessarily the way we should continue to do it. If there’s a product or tactic that will allow us to do our job 80% more effectively, then we bear the responsibility to find it, test it and implement it. To say that a particular extinguishing agent or tactic doesn’t work on one side of the country while it works just fine 1,500 miles in the opposite direction brings into question our intent. To refer to past studies that were based on failed mechanisms is simply an excuse to maintain the status quo.
We now know that the modern fireground is reaching extreme temperatures faster than ever before, fuel loads in residential homes are primarily synthetic, buildings have an increased frequency of collapse and effective staffing levels are often delayed or inadequate. Most important of all, our own history tells us that the highest degree of risk we can face on the fireground is advancing a hoseline into an overstuffed, fuel-enriched atmosphere through a forward-facing ventilation hole (front door), feeding oxygen to a starving beast waiting for the right mixture to consume those in its path.
I don’t intend to suggest that we become passive, exterior-operating firefighters. In fact, I’m suggesting just the opposite. As “practitioners” of this profession, it’s our duty to seek out the best tools, techniques and tactics that enable us to safely and effectively perform our duties within the financial constraints of our system.
What disturbs me–and hopefully every firefighter and officer who reads this–is someone outside our profession telling us that there’s a better way to do our job. We, as the practitioners, students and experts of our profession, should be the ones driving the change. We should know the studies, the statistics and the failures of the past. We should be leading the way in demanding that manufacturers build, modify and/or create the tools and products we need to meet our current challenges. Where flaws or mistruths are presented, we need to dispel them–factually.
A progressive fire service is not one that reacts negatively to inquiries about its current practices, but rather one that has the answers to the questions before they’re asked, a fire service that never gets comfortable in its current practices and seeks every opportunity to break away from those practices that no longer support our safety and operational success.
We owe it to our firefighters to avoid being constrained by our past. We owe it to our bosses to be frugal and understanding of the financial constraints being imposed. Most importantly, we owe it to those we are sworn to protect to seek the most effective means possible to support their safety.
