THE EXPANDING FIRE SERVICE AND THE AMERICAN FIRE PROBLEM
EDITOR’S OPINION
Depending on who’s providing the statistics, for at least 20 percent of all fire departments anywhere from 75 to 85 percent of responses are emergency medical calls. JEMS, in its recent survey of the 200 largest U.S. cities, reports that fire departments are “the dominant provider of (emergency medical] primary care and transportation.” Widening such a survey to include midsize and small communities undoubtedly would solidify that assessment.
Fire/EMS, together with fire/haz mat and fire/rescue, is proof that the fire service is expanding into an emergency network. Many view this expansion as a natural evolution brought about by a need to survive in fiscally demanding times. More skeptical individuals believe that a combination of management and union politics accounts for an increase in diversity of service. Some say that the overall declining number of fires dictates expansion. Others see it as an opportunity, a way to increase visibility and strengthen the organization. Some see it as the fire service filling an obvious need or fulfilling its obligation to the community, and still others contend, with respect to EMS, that it is the organization with the quickest response times—generally the fire department—that should administer at least basic life support.
All these positions have merit, to one degree or another. Whatever the reasons for jurisdictional expansion of services, the decision for or against should be a local one based on local needs. However, it is appropriate to place this expansion into context within the framework of the local fire threat and the very real American fire problem.
Fire departments must differentiate between expansion and overextension. Ask yourself some hard questions: Have we defined our fire problem in our district? Have we determined what is “acceptable risk”? Do all our suppression personnel have the training and continual training to handle any and every fire emergency they could encounter? Do we have the staffing and equipment resources necessary to maximize firefighter safety and public safety and minimize fire losses? Are we “fire experts”? Do we enforce our fire codes? Do we have an adequate number of personnel dedicated to plan checking and building inspections? Are our fire protection activities invisible? Do we have SOPs? Were they written in 1957? Can our members handle a house fire “in their sleep”? Do we preplan all target hazards? Do we educate our public about smoke detectors, about sprinklers, about storage of hazardous materials? Do we critique our suppression operations and then take action on the lessons we learn? Do we make the same mistakes over and over? Are the same injuries recurring? Do our government managers fully understand the magnitude of potential fire loss in our district? Do they understand the trade-offs for understaffing, underequipping, insufficient training, lack of code enforcement? Does everybody understand that 80 percent of the more than 5,000 fire deaths a year occur in the home, that deaths and injuries have not decreased proportionately to the number of fires, that residences account for more than 60 percent of our approximately S8 billion property damage toll?
America still is burning. Have we reached the point of “acceptable risk”? I hope not.
Fire service expansion is not a new concept. The Baltimore Fire Department Ambulance Service, for example, was established in 1927. James F. Casey, then editor of Fire Engineering, wrote in 1971, “The volunteer departments years ago saw ambulance service as a logical extension of their fire service and adopted it with enthusiasm.” And fire departments should continue to perform EMS, heavy rescue, and haz-mat services with enthusiasm and dedication and superior quality. But it’s up to you to make certain that the fire service does not lose perspective amidst the expansion “enthusiasm.” We’re still responding, in some places, with two and three members on an engine. Houses still are burning to the ground. Civilians and firefighters still are dying in the smoke and heat. And the fire prevention bureau still is the invisible branch of the fire service on whose health rests, to a great extent, our success or failure at defeating the national fire problem.
Just as the free enterprise system of business operates on the law of supply and demand, let’s make sure, first and foremost, that our precious supply of fire suppression/protection does not fall short of the critical demand.
