DEFINING AND REDEFINING THE FIRE SERVICE, PART 1
BY CARL F. WELSER
“Define yourself, or be de-fined.” That bit of spray-paint philosophy appeared on an expressway overpass north of Ann Arbor, Michigan, several years ago. Without intending to encourage graffiti artists, there is an indisputable kernel of wisdom in it.
Like many human service organizations, the American fire service nationwide is defining and redefining itself. Sometimes by choice, other times by force. This redefinition has not entirely caught the attention of people directly involved in important decision making regarding the role of the fire service in the life of the community. Some members of the fire service still remain blithely unaware. Not being active in the definition/redefinition process leaves the organization vulnerable to the whims of decision makers who know little and care even less about the work, the traditions, and the future of the fire service.
It surprises many voters and municipal administrators, for example, that very few traditional “fire” departments are left in the entire United States. Perhaps there never were any. Every fire department has a unique history of its evolution within a given community. Most departments have a future that depends heavily on how one defines the fire department today.
A fire journal recently published the results of a voluntary survey of 248 fire departments nationwide. While not claiming to be based on a verified sample, a thumbnail digest of the data presented corroborates the statistic that the number of fire departments nationwide offering some form of emergency medical service (EMS) passed the 50 percent mark a few years ago and continues to rise.
This annoys and even infuriates many people. It also marks the fork in the road leading to the evolution of two distinct types of organizations: those struggling to restrict their service to more traditional fire department activities (now in the minority) and those seeking to become “the compleat community crisis organization.”
One fire department is currently emerging from what could be called a two-year-long “Taz Rebellion” (the Tasmanian Devil is a popular T-shirt logo sold at firefighter conventions). Perhaps some of the younger members lingered too long around pitchers of beer one night. They developed plans to become firefighters in the top rank of a grand tradition. In the words of a fellow member, they lusted after the prospect of becoming “the fire Marines.”
The aims were noble. They formulated their plan to become the butt-kicking firefighting force, so invincible that no fire would dare show its ugly face in their entire jurisdiction, and if one did, they`d quickly drive it back to where it came from. The movement was long on youthful enthusiasm but well short of reality and nearly devoid of an important set of people skills.
They didn`t notice that three bona fide structure fires in an entire year are scarcely enough to sustain their level of enthusiasm. About 70 percent of the remaining annual scene calls require some form of medical skill and licensing.
But let no one discount the energy represented here. Much of the defining and redefining process involves directing some of that wonderful youthful energy into the realities of services congruent with the needs of their unique community.
The volunteer fire service is stronger and more adaptable than many people think. In one department, for example, by next September, the practice of “grandfathering” comes to an end. Members can no longer hold active membership without maintaining current medical first responder (MFR) licensing nor can they be elected to membership without it. Those who have never held such licensing and those whose licenses lapse will be obliged to step out into retirement. That`s a lot to ask of volunteers.
But the department declares itself equal to the challenge. In fact, based on attitudes and ambitions expressed by younger members, the minimum membership standard for that department may well rise from MFR to EMT/Basic within a few years. Depending on the future directions of prehospital emergency medical service–and the book seems open on that–EMT/Paramedic may become the future minimum.
A fire department operating under Protocol One Dispatch with the local 911 system responds to every conceivable emergency within its jurisdiction. An ambulance does not run signals into the area without a simultaneous fire department dispatch. Dogs do not crash through thin ice without the fire department learning about it. Neither smoke detectors nor carbon monoxide alarms can sound without the fire department hearing about it. As a result, the department does get a few nontraditional–some might say goofy–calls. But the power of well-managed public relations from even the goofiest of calls is unassailable.
Traditionalists are prone to challenge the idea of a volunteer fire department adopting Protocol One Dispatch. Fire alone is the historic business of the fire department. There has got to be a good reason for a fire department to respond to all calls for help, both serious and goofy.
Many–perhaps most–fire departments were founded on the principle of “neighbors helping neighbors.” Once upon a time, everyone knew everyone`s whereabouts. Even if they were not on speaking terms, they were still neighbors.
More than 30 years of service with our local fire department bears witness to the evaporation of the possibility of knowing every local person in this community. We aren`t much in the way of neighbors anymore.
The old original community and the few natives who populated it lie hidden now beneath the waves of newcomers who came from nearby cities for a variety of reasons. The process strongly resembles something you might read in a James Michener novel about Hawaii or the Chesapeake. The natives are still there, but you`ve got to know what you`re looking for to find them. Their stories are still to be heard, but you`ve got to listen closely. This growth pattern is undoubtedly replicated in thousands of places across the country.
In a rapidly expanding community, folks are less inclined to listen to neighborly stories and respond to neighborly needs. Expansive growth makes anonymity the rule. And anonymity–as distinguished from privacy–is a catalyst for community deterioration. This seems to be part of a natural cycle for communities.
Following the laws of thermodynamics, every living system deteriorates and eventually decomposes unless energy is continually added to it. A raging structure fire, full of the fury of liberating energy, eventually goes down in darkness and ashes. Deenergized communities do the same.
Communities are living things. The life of a community is subject to rules similar to those that direct the flow of energy through all living systems. The cycle of birth, growth, death, and–hopefully–regeneration are predictable.
There is evidence that multiple structure fires are more characteristic of pathological communities that have severely deteriorated. Ironically, fire departments can afford to remain strictly FIRE departments in dysfunctional communities where there is more firefighting work to do. Highly industrialized communities impose a different set of demands on the local fire department. A community suddenly parted by a major expressway system is slated for deterioration unless special measures are taken. No two communities are alike, except insofar as they consist of people who used to be neighbors but who are becoming less and less so with every passing year.
Acting as the local community crisis organization, a fire department seeks to contribute to the infusion of energy that works to reverse the natural tendency toward social deterioration. As rapidly as our community is growing, we are still small enough to work to protect it from eventual downfall. We remain after all these years neighbors helping neighbors.
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CARL F. WELSER is a 30-year veteran and training officer of the Hamburg (MI) Fire Department, Inc., and an editorial advisory board member of Fire Engineering.
