Federal Focus on Fire Gets New Name And New Director
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The Editor’s Opinion Page JIM CASEY
JIM CASEY
As you are probably aware, the National Fire Prevention and Control Administration is now called the United States Fire Administration (to us a much stronger sounding title). This administration will soon become part of the newly established Federal Emergency Management Administration.
In all likelihood the administrator for this new agency will be Gordon E. Vickery, an excellent choice. Vickery, as the former chief of the Seattle Fire Department, brings an intimate knowledge of the fire fighting service to this job. And as the former superintendent of Seattle City Light (one of the largest utility companies in the country), he will bring management skills and experience that few others possess. On top of this, he is a former volunteer fire fighter.
You can read more about Vickery and his ideas on page 47—in an interview with Dick Sylvia in Seattle during the recent NFPCA conference. What impresses us in this interview is Vickery’s statement that he will initially address himself to short-term goals—something that seems to have been forgotten in the past. Foremost among his short-term goals is the acquisition of a site for the National Fire Academy which Vickery feels is of most interest to a significant part of the fire service. The new administrator will also address himself to another short-term goal, that of establishing what his organization will look like within the larger FEMA. He sees no problems here and his confidence should allay the fears of some of us who were afraid that the fire service might get lost in such a big agency.
Of particular interest to many in the fire service is Vickery’s attitude on public fire safety education in contrast to more intensive inspections and code enforcement. In rating them, he feels that both are needed, but he puts “inspection and codes first.” In still another area of interest to the fire service, he states that “you have to have sufficient suppressive forces. You have to have a good combat fire fighting team.”
To both of these statements we say amen. It seems like we are going to have some feet on the ground as opposed to the heads-in-the-cloud attitude that has prevailed on the Washington scene. Too much time has gone into long-term goals that were difficult even to pin down, much less measure. And too little into short-term, tangible goals such as the National Fire Academy.
So, things look good at the beginning of a New Year for the federal focus on fire—with a new name (USFA) and a new, enthusiastic and talented director.
