Bill Manning asked a couple of interesting questions in his September Editor`s Opinion:
James D. Jenkins
Director
Department of Public Safety
Springfield, Michigan
“What separates the fire chief from the bean counter?” Hopefully, not much. If the fire chief is not counting beans himself, someone without any concern for the fire service will do it for him.
The other question, “Are you fiddling in city hall while your city burns?” assumes that the city is burning or in some sort of trauma. It is the fire department that is in crisis, and the fire chief had better be seen in city hall even more now that the exciting fires of old are on the decline.
It is great that he can identify a 60-year “assistant” fire chief doing high-angle rescue. His chief was probably checking the records to see if the assistant had been trained in this operation. Maybe the chief was still setting up incident command while the assistant got to do the fun part. The department is fortunate to have more than one white hat.
When the top white hat gets done trying to comply with OSHA regulations, bloodborne pathogen training, confined space rescue, hepatitis B vaccination, hiring, negotiating, and answering grievances, then he can be leading the charge down the fire hall, unless he is incident command.
The interior attack looks pretty inviting to most white hats, so please try to see the job in today`s standards. Manning has consistently preached against the dinosaur attitude and fell right into the same pit. Although he mitigates the position by looking for a middle ground of some appropriate level of field leadership, I believe that is necessarily left to the field personnel who work together on the little fires and have the skills to get the job done on “the big one.”
