By Larry Conley
Family values can mean a variety of things, depending on who you ask. A strong, shared sense of values contributes to a strong family unit. Firehouse family values principally operate the same. Just as families thrive when they are guided by a set of core beliefs, firehouse families also operate on a similar principle.
In both family and fire team settings, values play a vital role in creating a sense of unity and purpose. These values form the foundation upon which relationships are built and decisions are made. They serve as a compass, guiding individuals towards the collective goals and objectives of the group.
In this article, we will identify how strong team values at the firehouse benefit each firefighter and the citizens they serve. The quotes are from past members of my firehouse family.
In my career, I was fortunate to work with team members who always felt like family. Whether I was the team leader or not, firehouse family values centered those units. What made our teams successful was being intentional about our commitment to family values. Being intentional did not necessarily mean constant discussion at roll call but how we navigated our relationships and experiences.
Firehouse families encourage empathy, kindness, integrity, respect for boundaries, faith in each other, ethics, and tradition, among other things. These values were constants throughout my 32-year career.
These values in my opinion help us stay consistent when making decisions on fire scene. They can also guide those decisions in moments of uncertainty.
—Captain John Hicks, Blackjack (MO) Fire Protection District
Empathy
You cannot be as connected as a family without empathy. Empathy is attempting to see matters from another person’s point of view. Walking in another’s shoes will lessen lines drawn in the sand regarding opposing views. A solid team showing empathy to one another will likely practice empathy with the public. The public needs our connection on their worst day, so having empathy mastered helps provide the best service delivery.
Empathy provides a safe place for firehouse family members because they feel valued and understood.
Being understood is a fundamental human need that plays a significant role in our overall well-being. It is only natural for us to want to express ourselves and be heard, as it fosters a sense of connection and validation. When we feel understood, it can bring us a sense of comfort, support, and even empowerment.
The need to be understood emerges from our desire for connection and social interaction. From a young age, we learn to communicate our thoughts, feelings, and experiences to others. Whether through spoken words, body language, or artistic expression, we strive to convey our inner world to those around us. Exercising empathy helps us to increase our emotional and often cultural IQ resulting in stronger bonds and stronger teams.
It takes compassion and empathy to put yourself in someone’s shoes to understand what they are going through and either accept them or decide if they may need your help, and this can be for your brother, sister, or the community you serve.
—Acting Captain Jessica Jackson, St. Louis (MO) Fire Department
Kindness
The firehouse can be a brutal place if you are easily offended. Good-natured ribbing or jokes can drift into an uncomfortable space if we are not careful.
It is essential to navigate that fine line, ensuring a positive and respectful environment. Good-natured ribbing within the fire service is a common way for firefighters to bond and build camaraderie. It typically involves lighthearted jokes, teasing, or playful banter between colleagues. This form of humor is often mutual and reciprocal, with everyone involved understanding the intended humor and not taking things too seriously.
The key characteristic of good-natured ribbing is its positivity and the absence of harm or negativity towards the individual being teased. It should always be light-hearted, inclusive, and never involve personal attacks or bullying. Good-natured ribbing is a way to alleviate stress and create a sense of unity and belonging among firefighters.
Hazing, on the other hand, is a more serious matter that should never be tolerated in any professional setting, including the fire service. Hazing involves subjecting individuals to humiliating or degrading rituals or activities, often in an effort to initiate or “test” their resilience. Hazing is usually not consensual and can leave lasting psychological and emotional damage on the individuals targeted. Hazing undermines trust, damages morale, and can negatively impact the overall effectiveness of a fire department. Therefore, the default interactive style of the fire service must be infused with kindness.
If the default interaction style of the team is infused with kindness, misunderstandings are minimized or eliminated. Trust also springs from kindness. Like most families, the culture has nicknames, inside jokes, and practices. If your firehouse family practices kindness, these instances are part of a culture of camaraderie. A mean-spirited team can make a mild joke or nickname sound like an attack, and the receiver feels unwelcome. Kindness doesn’t have to be a big production; it can be consistent small practices that will pay dividends to team dynamics. The newest family member to the seasoned veteran should be kind and receive kindness. Once again, mastery at home (the firehouse) indicates how citizens in emergencies are handled.
If you ask me, a family is a social institution. A group of people with a common goal for the well-being of each member. After working at several different firehouses, I have never felt that goal being met as much as I have at the 13’s. I have also witnessed that goal for the well-being of each other bleed over to the people in the communities we serve.
—Paramedic Terrell Jennings, St. Louis Fire Department
Integrity
One of the most crucial family values is integrity. We trust each other with our lives, which means integrity within the family should be a no-brainer. People with integrity have a solid moral character and fight for you in spaces and conversations you’re not in. My siblings and I may fight and disagree, but our integrity won’t let someone outside our family do it. Firehouse family values should follow the same rules. All family matters rest on strong team integrity.
In the high-pressure environment of a fire team, integrity is not just a desirable trait, but an absolute necessity. Just like in a family, trust is paramount. When lives are on the line, the reliance on each team member becomes even more critical. That’s why integrity on fire teams is not just about personal character, but about how it manifests in the collective strength of the team.
Integrity shows itself in various ways on fire teams, such as:
Honesty: Firefighters must be honest with themselves and their team members. It means admitting mistakes, sharing concerns, and being transparent about limitations. Honesty fosters trust and ensures that everyone is on the same page.
Reliability: Firefighters must be dependable and trustworthy. When they commit to a task or responsibility, they must follow through. This includes showing up on time, being prepared, and fulfilling their duties to the best of their abilities. Reliability builds confidence in the team’s capabilities.
Confidentiality: Just as in a family, fire teams must maintain a level of confidentiality. Discussion and conversations that happen within the team should stay within the team. This demonstrates respect for one another and builds a safe space for open and honest communication.
Support: Firefighters should support their teammates in both professional and personal matters. This means standing up for one another, offering assistance, and being a reliable source of encouragement. By fighting for each other, just like in a family, the integrity of the team remains strong.
Accountability: Firefighters should hold themselves and their teammates accountable for their actions and decisions. This means being responsible for one’s own mistakes and helping others learn from theirs. Accountability ensures that integrity is upheld and helps maintain a high standard of performance.
It is essential for fire teams to understand that integrity is not just an individual responsibility but a collective one. Each member must strive to embody these qualities and encourage them in others. Through the family value of integrity, fire teams can create an environment that ultimately improves their effectiveness in protecting and serving their community.
Respect for Boundaries
No matter how close and interdependent a team is, we must respect individual boundaries. Interdependence is only as strong as the independent team members. When each member’s boundaries are honored, it can minimize distractions that compromise work performance. Limitations can involve your beliefs, time, emotional needs, personal space, sexuality, and possessions. We all live with each other in the firehouse, which, by the nature of it all, is an intimate relationship. Learning the different personalities is more important in our line of work than in other industries. Most employees work together for eight to 12 hours a day and go home. Firefighters live together for anywhere from 24 hours to 48 hours. Even though respecting boundaries is essential in any industry, the fire service is unique because of the dynamic working environment.
This means our firehouse family must be more intentional in respecting boundaries. However, the other side of that coin is tolerance. If our boundaries are too rigid, we can build walls instead of bridges. The work is in balance. We must find a balance where we respect each other’s boundaries while also fostering an environment of openness and understanding. By doing so, we can break down barriers and build bridges that allow us to work more cohesively as a crew. It is important to remember that just because we work together closely doesn’t mean we should disregard boundaries. By being mindful of each other’s personal space, preferences, and limits, we can create an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect within our firehouse family. When we respect each other’s boundaries without compromising our ability to connect and collaborate, we create a harmonious environment where everyone can thrive. It is in this balance that we find the true strength of our crew, enabling us to tackle challenges head-on and provide the best possible service to our community.
Another difference I feel contributes to firehouse family values are the quarters the members have. Smaller, limited space firehouses force crews to be a part of each other’s lives; from cooking, cleaning, and sleeping, to over hearing individual members family
—Firefighter Bobby Prest, Central County (MO) Fire & Rescue
calls/conversations and becoming a part of the celebrations or troubles.
Faith In Each Other
Like most families, the firehouse family has members with different strengths and challenges. Our responsibility to each other is to celebrate everyone’s contribution, no matter the size. Some people are very good with their hands, some are more book smart, and some are blessed with both. Whatever the gift is, it will help the family dynamic if all contributions are valued.
The firehouse culture can often be judgmental, especially to new members and those who don’t grasp technical skills as quickly as others. Family members who look for the positives and practice patience will likely find hidden value in those others choose to write off. Faith is crucial in an environment where our lives are in each other’s hands. In this environment, it is wise to invest in each other rather than not.
Years ago, a firefighter joined our team fresh out of the fire academy. He was humble, teachable, and loved to learn. I noticed he caught on to the hands-on concepts quickly. As time passed, we would work on some cognitive exercises where he would have to answer by writing and reading. This was, at times, a struggle for him. Often, if he had to write something, I would happily assist, whether it was fire department-related or personal.
One day, there was a discussion about another firefighter who struggled on the fire scene with some basic skills, and my friend had a few unkind words about his performance. I had to remind him that just days before, I had to help him with his insurance paperwork. I suggested, the same way I showed empathy for his shortcomings, he should consider supporting instead of criticizing. He got the message.
Faith in each other is not always based on who people are. Faith is believing in who they can be. The confidence starts with our firehouse family. When we master faith in our family’s extraordinary abilities, we are worthy of the public’s faith in us.
Coming from different walks of life was a strength. People had different life experiences and outlooks on things that we navigated on the job most every day. Having a crew that didn’t all look like you provided for new outlooks as well as approaches. Made us all more open minded.
—Firefighter Galen Taylor, St. Louis Fire Department
Ethics
Firefighters are highly trusted servants. We are invited into people’s personal space during their most vulnerable instances. The public expects us not to judge, steal, or disrespect them. Ethics dictates our behavior in these situations. One of the best ways to demonstrate our behavior is our ethics within our firehouse family. If we can’t master ethics at the firehouse, we likely won’t master it in a public place. Overall, firefighters honor practices that support public trust, but we unfortunately hear stories of compromised ethics between firefighters and the public.
Firehouse family values should accept nothing short of the highest ethical behavior from the team. When all firehouses adopt a nonnegotiable attitude to support ethics, the public trusts the department. Ethical behavior should resonate in each individual. This will give each firefighter the conviction that if ethics fail, it will not fail because of me. With the internal commitment to ethics at the firehouse, Mrs. Smith will enjoy an ethical delivery of service. When we help those in need, stay faithful to our promises, and practice truth, then we define ethics.
Tradition
There is a lot of history and tradition in the fire service. Overall, these traditions are great and, when you trace the origin of the tradition there are often interesting reasons behind them, and we still honor those today. For instance, the tradition of bagpipes in the fire service traces back to the fire service’s strong Irish roots. The Irish were not welcomed in America, and one of the easiest jobs to get was being a firefighter. The high death toll and dangers made it a job many did not want. The Irish dominated this profession, which means they delt with the downside of death and dangers. Bagpipes were played at weddings and funerals, so firefighter funerals often meant bagpipes. Soon this tradition was not exclusive to just Irish firefighters. Today, most firefighter funerals will incorporate the bagpipes because of tradition.
Firefighters eat dinner together, have firehouse mascots or themes, and special firehouse celebrations outside of the typical holiday celebrations. There are certain rites of passage unique to a company or battalion. Some firefighting crews have traditions that most have agreed on to help bond. One shift in my old battalion had “family time” during dinner, where they didn’t allow cellphones or television for the duration of the meal. They wanted to be intentional with conversation, enjoying the moment of each other’s company with no distractions. This practice went a long way in helping the crew bond.
Traditions can be a positive practice to pass down. They can also be negative. Some traditions should be eliminated because of harm to members of the crew. Hazing of any kind should not be allowed. It’s okay if there are rites of passage traditions that help a member learn the job or increase personal awareness on practices that will save their life and contribute to crew safety. However, being demeaning, disrespectful, and intentionally hurting a person mentally and physically has no place in the fire service. There were times that racism, sexism, and many types of discrimination were a tradition. Thankfully, the culture has changed for the better, and certain traditions of the past are not tolerated in today’s fire service. Yet there are still instances where these bad traditions can surface. Evolution of values helps mitigate matters quickly and decisively these days.
New traditions of inclusiveness, fairness, and respect for all are now the order of the day. A more dynamic and diverse fire service is a win for our service and our communities. The firehouse family value system is stronger because we can build more bridges despite our differences. We master putting the puzzle of our home team together. This strong, foundational unit can mobilize and deliver world-class service to the citizens in need.
The sweet spot in fire service traditions is to keep what bonds us as an industry, eliminate divisive practices, and keep evolving our family values so that we can lead by example. Talking about service but not being a service to each other at the firehouse can lead to less-than-optimal service outside the firehouse. We are all we have. Everyone matters, from the “probie” to the most seasoned veteran. We all are an active part of fire service traditions, regardless of the size of our individual contributions. The question remains: Will your contribution add or subtract to firehouse family values and traditions?
Unlike any other profession, the fire service has an intimate, professional, team dynamic. We work, eat, sleep, train, confide, and trust each other. Our lives are literally in each other’s hands. If we have compromised firehouse family values, it can impact our performance within the firehouse…and Mrs. Smith’s house. Fire teams must be intentional about keeping values fortified for safety, accountability, and exceptional community service. This is the greatest job in the world, and even greater when family values are honored.
Larry Conley is a 32-year veteran of the fire service. He served for 30 years in the St. Louis (MO) Fire Department, retiring as a captain. Conley is deputy chief of training for the Collinsville (IL) Fire Department. He is a Fire Instructor II, has a bachelor’s degree in fire service administration, and was an FDIC 2021 keynote speaker.
