By JERRY KNAPP
How do you maintain your company and department personnel’s efficiency? Sure, we all have formal (probie) training, hands-on training, in-service drills, and seemingly endless classroom training. Like sharpening an ax, this gets you from here to there, but how do you keep the edge over time for yourself, your company, and your department?
Sports teams face a similar challenge throughout a season: How do you keep players at their peak performance level? Without some plan or process similar to a sports team’s, we can slip into mediocrity or, worse, a downward spiral of intentional incompetence. Intentional incompetence is a management style that results from leaders not challenging or improving themselves (or their personal skills) by reviewing their company’s and department’s competency levels, policies, and procedures. They remain in their comfort zone.
Staying in your comfort zone is, well, comfortable. It is being supremely protective of your own ego and is an absolutely fatal management style for your safety, success, and growth as a firefighter. When used by company and department leadership, intentional incompetence is cancerous and fatal to the organization and causes members to leave companies, sinks morale, and increases firefighter risks.
COMPETITIVE EDGE
The Wyckoff (NJ) Fire Department (WFD) has an innovative way to keep its competitive edge and grow and thrive as an organization. Every March, the department conducts an annual inspection of its three companies. The WFD chief of department chooses five well-respected, innovative fire service inspectors (one as the lead) to collectively inspect all three companies for fireground leadership (strategy and tactics), engine company operations, truck company operations, rescue company operations, standard operating guideline (SOG) knowledge, and equipment functionality.
Note that all levels of department officers, drivers, and members are part of the process. A chief officer-level inspector meets with each company’s officers and uses scenarios to evaluate their ability to size up the scene, develop rescue and fire suppression strategies, and apply appropriate tactics to ensure fireground safety and success. Other inspectors quiz drivers, operators, and firefighters.
Chief of Department Dave Murphy provides written guidance to invited inspectors prior to the inspection date. The written guidance ensures inspection process fairness for all three companies and lays out the inspectors’ rules and process.
Each company is allowed only 30 minutes, which not only streamlines the process but makes inspectors focus on important topics and inspection points. After the inspection is complete, the inspectors meet in a private room to discuss and tally the results and decide on a winner. The objective is to win that year’s Chief’s Trophy. The inspection is completed on Friday night, and the winner is announced at a formal dinner the following evening.
Part of Murphy’s inspectors’ guideline summarizes the process: “The emphasis should be on the working knowledge of the equipment, followed by the knowledge of the SOGs and general firematic knowledge. I think you will enjoy the process, and the membership takes great pride in their abilities and professionalism. This annual event not only ensures that at least once a year all of our equipment is cleaned and checked for operation, it is a tremendous learning experience for all of our members (both young and old) and motivates our members with internal competition. It also allows us the opportunity to review our department based on the opinion of professionals like yourselves and make changes based on your observations.”
In essence, the focus is not only on looking good but also on the members’ ability to use the knowledge in the fight when needed. Five township committee members were also present at the inspection, clearly demonstrating the interest and excitement this event has generated over the years.
INSPECTION PROCESS
At the beginning of each company’s inspection, officers are lined up and introduced in dress uniforms. As a first-time inspector, I did not quite know what to expect but was very pleasantly surprised. There was an excitement in the air, like in the locker room before a big game. The little bit of noticeable tension was overshadowed by the officers’ and members’ excitement and anticipation, unique for a firehouse. It was a challenging, nerve-wracking atmosphere that I found very unusual but very beneficial in the long run.
After introductions, we moved to the bay area, where members were dressed in turnout gear and stationed by their respective rigs. Inspectors were given free rein and encouraged to ask members to take equipment off the rigs, run it, and explain its use. Inspectors’ questions checked the individual drivers’, officers’, and firefighters’ understanding of the proper operation and application of equipment and tools and their understanding of company SOGs.
 (2) Company officers are flanked by members dressed in turnout gear as the inspection process begins. Updated SOG manuals are on the table. |
Several operations in particular impressed me. Sensing the firefighters’ enthusiasm to get the “game on,” I asked the lieutenant to have his crew stretch a line to the firehouse front door from the engine on the apron at about half speed. They performed the task almost flawlessly and answered my questions about their responsibilities in the stretch and push in. I asked the engine chauffeur to explain the process used to establish a reliable water supply, and he again followed his SOGs perfectly. Pump pressures were properly calculated, and target flows were correct.
A company’s ability to execute its critical plays is the most important skill for any fire department. We next asked the truck company to set up its rig and position the bucket to the firehouse window; this operation went very well, so I thought it was time for a more significant challenge.
I presented a scenario where all tower ladder hydraulics failed and the crew in the bucket was in danger; the members had to execute their emergency procedures to get them down. Again, the members met the challenge and successfully completed the operation.
 (3) Rescue company inspection. Members demonstrate rotary saw starting and deployment procedures as an inspector holds an SOG manual. |
After similar evolutions at the department’s two other companies, it was clear that members and officers had spent considerable time in preparing their equipment and themselves for the inspection. This was best summarized by Battalion Chief Joseph Vanderplaat, who said, “As much of an effort as this process is, the benefits are endless and, in the long run, it only makes us a stronger department. Additionally, some of our most ingenious ideas come from the detailed functional checks, maintenance, and cleaning of our tools and equipment. The inspection causes us to look at everything we do, from leadership to tool deployment, seeing if we can do it better, faster, and more effectively.”
Specifically of interest is the month-long preparation phase. The department has a system where new members bring back new items and techniques from training and updated company “study sheets,” a 20-page document of SOGs, critical fire flow formulas, pump questions, building construction types, and so on.
After the preparation phase, experienced firefighters conducted “roundtable” sessions to exchange information, experiences, and training tips with younger members. Clearly, members are focused on a common goal: to be the best they can be on the fireground. Young and old, rookie and probie work together. In military terms, this is called a “force multiplier.” Together, a department is greater than the sum of its individuals, exhibiting high morale, high retention rates, better fireground performance, and increased safety.
 (4) Inspectors question a driver and company captain about engine company operations, pump pressures, and so on. |
Following all three company inspections, all department officers and inspectors met for a meal at the final inspection stop. The tension subsided and good firehouse humor, fraternity, and hospitality prevailed. The universal sentiment from the evening’s inspections was that everyone in the WFD was better for their efforts and was a winner from the event.
 (5) An inspector questions members about their responsibilities after the stretch and advance of a handline. |
According to ex-Chief Rick Alnor, a 25-year department member and the current mayor of Wyckoff, “The inspection process is about 50 years old and has evolved from a spit and polish inspection to a complete functional review of its leadership, members, and equipment. The inspection process is important to the community because it is a process that proves we are ready to effectively serve the community.”
On leadership, Alnor says, “It takes a brave and dedicated group of leaders to ask industry leaders and peers to review their SOGs, vehicles, equipment, personal skills, and knowledge of both themselves and all the members.”
 (7) Basic engine company operations were evaluated at all three companies. |
From a strictly financial point of view from township leaders, the inspection is important. As Alnor notes, “In these tough economic times, many departments are being asked to do more with less. The inspection process guarantees increased longevity of equipment and helps reduce overall operating costs. Yearly budget requests from the fire department to the township committee are received by the committee with the knowledge and understanding that tax dollars are being spent responsibly and the equipment is in the hands of the best trained and most dedicated firefighters anywhere.”
SPECIFIC BENEFITS
The WFD’s overall health and success benefit from this annual inspection process in the following ways:
- 1 Morale. Newer members share the latest techniques and technologies with experienced members, and experienced members share proven skills and tricks of the trade.
- 2 Common goals. This unites members into a more effective team. Although firefighting is deadly serious, the inspection helps break that pressure by providing an almost sports-like atmosphere that provides members with the desire to win by practicing and training outside their comfort zone. This creates a more open-minded department.
- 3 Unlike race teams or field day teams, this inspection is about enhancing members’ fireground performance and equipment use.
- 4 New ideas flow naturally from the securitization of equipment, policy, and procedures.
- 5 All tools and equipment get checked and, most importantly, reviewed by members. This forces the servicing and reviewing of less used and often forgotten but important tools.
- 6 The inspection process provides a peer review by fire service leaders. Often, we become inbred and progress is limited because department members can’t see the forest for the trees. In effect, the WFD gets an annual consultant’s review of its operation. Informally, each member conducts his own review of his area of influence to look for areas to improve.
It was clear throughout the inspection that members were out of their comfort zone and working hard for the team. They risked their professional pride and gambled their ego to improve themselves, their company, and their department. Their dedication to a bigger goal made the WFD the best it could be.
JERRY KNAPP is a 34-year veteran firefighter/EMT with the West Haverstraw (NY) Fire Department and assistant chief with the Rockland (NY) Haz Mat Team. He has a degree in fire science and was a nationally registered paramedic. He is also a training officer at the Rockland County (NY) Fire Training Center in Pomona, New York, and an FDIC HOT Engine Company instructor and seminar presenter. He is the plans officer for the directorate of emergency services at West Point.
