By NICHOLAS F. NANNA
In this era of diminishing participation in volunteer fire departments, the existence of combination fire departments is becoming more and more common. Filling volunteer gaps will often lead to the gradual increase of career firefighters.
- Performance Indicators for Transition to a Combination Fire Department
- The Master Firefighter Program: How We Got Here
- Juggling Hats: Managing a Volunteer, Combination, or Small Career Department
Most often, the combination department consists of a core of career fire and emergency medical services (EMS) personnel who work for salary and benefits and a cohort of dedicated volunteers who add depth and breadth to this core to provide full-service emergency services to the citizens of their jurisdictions. The extensive training required for competency will significantly challenge the high-intensity positions such as tactical rescue and paramedic. Many departments will begin the combination process by hiring drivers to get apparatus to the scene while volunteers respond from home. Some chiefs will be career, exercising control over volunteer units, and the opposite is true.
Note that the term “professional” is not used as a description of the career staff. A paycheck can never be used to define a professional. Instead, professionals possess a dedication to live, act, and train to develop competency to the highest levels by career and volunteer individuals who seek service excellence. Combination departments can range from just a paid driver to career paramedics to a fully staffed career department augmented by volunteers. These departments often have various leadership models that reflect the organization’s demographic. This article will discuss the leadership challenges and opportunities for departments where career and volunteer officers are called on to lead both categories of members in the administration and operational pursuit of mission accomplishment.
The challenge of a volunteer officer supervising a career member (or vice versa) can create friction within the organization if it is not managed under clear and distinct guidelines. In cases where the volunteer organization employs the career force, the legal and practical line of authority may be less challenging than in cases where career and volunteer work together under a political division such as a town, city, county, or fire district. In both cases, however, it is imperative that, whatever the overhead controlling authority is, both sides of the “house” work together to succeed.
Unity of Command
The military has an essential principle of command: There must be one individual who is responsible and has the authority to direct the organization to accomplish the assigned mission. The incident command system has the same concept: The incident commander (IC) has the responsibility and authority to order and execute actions to mitigate whatever incident arises. Unity of effort is a lesser level of direction and authority, where the concept of cooperation is introduced to command. In the fire rescue/EMS services, unity of effort is sometimes used as a compromise to avoid making the hard decision to implement unity of command. It is a poor substitute in cases where a diverse group is to be led but may be politically necessary when creating a governing structure for these organizations.
Whether unity of command or unity of effort, one solid commandment can never be violated, and there can never be two chains of command working in the same organization or incident. In jurisdictions where career personnel only take direction from a career officer while at the same time volunteer officers may only direct volunteer personnel, the cornerstone for failure is set in place. At some point, bifurcated leadership will lead to failure, often when the system is placed under stress. It may emerge as administrative or resource friction or, worst case, a near miss or line-of-duty injury or death.
There are some tools that can mitigate this friction between groups. The jurisdiction is responsible for creating the conditions for unity of command and creating an environment of cooperation and collegiality between and among the teams of professionals protecting life, preserving property, and servicing the needs of the community, which are discussed.
Professional Competence
A leader must be technically and tactically proficient. Regardless of the leader’s background and which side of the fence the member is on, you must be competent to lead. Technical proficiency is the understanding of the science of the fire rescue/EMS service. Comprehension of the doctrine, tools, and new developments and the ability to use that knowledge is a vital capability. Maintaining currency with developments in the field and updating skills with further training while sharpening your ability through drills and practical training is the methodology used to be technically proficient.
Tactical proficiency is the ability to use these skills in a practical way. For example, leading and executing the skills needed to lead an engine or a truck company to treat trauma in the field or to function as an IC requires the practical execution of the training, education, and experience of the leader in the field.
A uniform qualification standard for each leadership position is an essential tool to establish recognizable tactical and technical professional competence. A training-to-task matrix can determine the minimum qualifications for each position in a department, from a probationary firefighter or rookie emergency medical technician through each rank on to chief officers and the chief. Attaining the certifications recognized as the minimum requirement to fill leadership positions establishes a level playing field; it eliminates friction between the organization’s two halves by holding everyone to a common standard. Of course, attaining each qualification level based on the certification is only one part of the “three-legged stool” of training, education, and experience. Using these certifications during drills and training evolutions builds on the certification skill and adds experience, even if only on the training ground.
National-level certifications are also ways to establish bona fides within the fire service. The Center for Public Safety Excellence manages nationally recognized fire, EMS, and chief officers’ certifications. These certifications are challenging to attain and often take years of work to qualify, but they should provide unmistakable levels of professionalism. The National Fire Academy also has skill-level recognition culminating with Executive Fire Officer, a capstone achievement recognizing the highest levels of skill and commitment.
It is not impossible for volunteer officers to work for and attain these certifications and qualifications. This type of achievement adds credibility to an officer regardless of career or volunteer status. It does take time, but this is time worth it in managing a combination department.
Concepts of Command
There are many jurisdictions where individual volunteer fire departments have some form of independence. However, at the same time, the career staff are employees of a central authority such as the county or fire district. This bifurcated line of control can challenge the unity of command and can create friction, either in the station or on the incident ground. In these cases, we can import and modify a military model of command authority often used when combining or assigning one unit to another for various missions.
There are three levels of command authority (control) in the military: Administrative, Tactical, and Operational. Each defines a relationship between and among units working toward common goals. For example, in Administrative Control (ADCON), the headquarters exercising ADCON is responsible for the pay, recordkeeping, fitness for duty, and so on for the unit being overseen. At this level of command, the ADCON headquarters does not employ or deploy a unit; it provides what might be thought of as backroom or housekeeping functions for a unit.
In the next level of authority, Tactical Control (TACON), the headquarters exercising TACON can employ the unit in the manner it is organized for the purpose designated. In this level of command, the using headquarters can’t make adjustments to the makeup of the unit or reassign it to a function for which it isn’t designed. This level is usually used for short-duration missions within well-defined parameters.
The third level of authority is Operational Control (OPCON). This level is one of the highest levels of authority that the using command can exercise. It permits the headquarters to reassign personnel and missions, redistribute resources, and change the mission and purposes of the assigned unit.
Adjusting these control levels for use in a combination fire/EMS service with a bifurcated structure with central authority for employees and independent volunteer fire departments, we can identify ADCON with the county or district Human Relations Department. The central authority directing the career employees would be responsible for the pay and benefits of the employed staff; the maintaining of their records; and the assignments to stations or units, where appropriate. In these cases, the jurisdiction would not exercise direct control over incidents but would decentralize that responsibility to the field units responsible for incident mitigation.
This level of authority is also common to mutual- and automatic-aid departments responding from outside the jurisdiction having authority. These units report to command and are employed as staffed and within their specific mission—e.g., tanker, truck, or engine, as they were designed. The IC still has command authority and responsibility, but he could not, for example, direct the “Jonestown” engine company to staff the “Smithtown” tower ladder.
In a TACON scenario, the career staff assigned to stations and units would remain under the jurisdictional authority until the tones drop and an incident occurs. Then, the IC would exercise tactical direction of all the assigned units for the duration of the incident. The IC would not have the authority to reassign people, change the mission of the tactical units, or be responsible for any administration of the fielded units other than to direct and integrate their actions to mitigate the incident. Once the incident has concluded, units return to the administrative control of the jurisdiction to await the next call for service. This control works for both career command of volunteers and volunteer control of career units. Whoever has the command uses units without disturbing their relationship to the parent unit; they use these elements for the purpose they are organized to attain the mission they are established to pursue.
In OPCON, the IC has the most significant level of authority to use resources as he sees fit. The central authority may assign individuals to a station or unit. Still, the individual authorized to exercise OPCON, a shift commander, or duty chief officer can reassign people to different teams, change units around geographically, or even change staffing on an engine company to staff a ladder company if he thinks that better suits the situation as he foresees. Within an incident, the IC can make any resource decisions needed to ensure safe operations and success in addressing the incident. Rather than exercise this control for the duration of the incident, it may take place for an entire duty period or periods as established in a standard operating procedure.
The key to managing these levels of authority is for everyone to understand where authority starts and ends. Communication within and among all the participants is essential to avoid misunderstanding.
Opportunity to Excel
The proliferation of combination departments is inevitable in the ever-shrinking numbers of volunteers and the increasing costs of staffing fire rescue and EMS units with career staff. Therefore, it is of the highest importance that all participants within the system engage as partners in the vital mission of preserving life and protecting property. The ideas that “Volunteers are stealing our jobs” and “The paid members are taking over our house” are cancerous memes that must be stamped out forcefully whenever encountered. Only strong and positive leadership that is firm and fair eliminates a house divided against itself.
Every leader must create a professional atmosphere where cooperation and collegiality foster a positive environment for all members to grow and prosper. Attaining this measure of membership will improve recruitment and retention of both volunteers and career staff. Conflict in the station inevitably will manifest on the incident ground, and the citizens are always watching.
Professionally trained and experienced ICs will avoid challenges from either side of the organization. It should be absolutely transparent to the incident force which category of member is exercising command. The leader who is granted the high honor and responsibility to be in overall command of these combination organizations has a challenge to manage and an opportunity to excel. Firm and just leadership, placing people first but the mission always, and remembering that we lead people but manage resources will guide the successful combination chief officer in the heavy but rewarding challenge to create harmonious environments staffed with both career and volunteer members who are proficient and dedicated to doing a job most could not and who run toward that from which many would run.
NICHOLAS F. NANNA, CFO, is the deputy director of the Virginia Department of Fire Programs and the chief of the Dumfries-Triangle (VA) Volunteer Fire Department. Nanna is a 45-year fire service veteran and a retired United States Marine Corps colonel. He is also a doctoral candidate in public administration.
