By Todd LeDuc
MegaTrends was first published in 1980 by Warner Brothers and was an extremely popular and oft-quoted book written by futurist John Naisbitt. Some 43 years later, we have some clearly identifiable ongoing trends and landscape challenges that the American (and global) fire service are faced with. I will attempt to expand on likely issues and trends that fire service leaders will continue to experience:
Economy
With many consumers also feeling the brunt of an economy that has seen prices rise on from everything to durable goods, capital equipment, leasing cost, and fire station construction costs, and with many predicting a 2023 recession, economic pressures will continue to impact public safety departments. Discretionary budget spending likely will be scrutinized and challenged, forcing administrators to prioritize spending.
Recruitment and Retention
Recruiting and retention will continue to be a challenge across many if not most sectors. In particular, public safety will continue to be forced to compete for limited workforce, and will retain a stressed and tired workforce having dealt with a once-in-a-century global pandemic. Fire departments will have to be increasing competitive and creative to attract and retain talent to perform services.
Recruiting and Retaining Quality Firefighters in 2023
Data-Interconnected Ecosystem
Fire departments will continue shedding archaic data systems, replacing them with robust interconnected ecosystem, including but not necessarily limited to real-time data transmission, drone feeds, staffing and fire loss data, exposure tracking and outcome, electronic medical records and linkages, and the like. Having robust and reliable data will continue to be key in driving better decision making at both the macro and micro levels.
Automated Intelligence
Predictive analytics will become increasingly common from resource needs, health and wellness, and with firefighter injury prevention. Fire modeling in particular will ecompass wildfire and urban threats. These will help guide community and human risk-reduction efforts.
Robotic Adjuncts
We have already seen the inroads that drone technology has made on the fire service landscape. Increasingly robotic technologies armed with water supply, rescue, and ventilation tools along with forcible entry will be available to be deployed where incident commanders deem it appropriate.
Expanded All-Hazards Responses
As our risk assessments continue to evolve, so too will the threats we must be prepared for, as evidenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, a game-changer for the first responder community.
Expanded Focus on Firefighter Occupational Health and Wellness
Finally, organizations and stakeholders will continue to focus efforts, largely driven by research, on assuring prevention and early detection resources are available for known occupational threats such as behavioral health, cardiovascular injury, occupational cancer, and disabling injuries. Data systems, including workers compensation and electronic medical systems, will play an increasingly important role in tailoring resources to achieve the highest levels of human risk reduction.
Todd LeDuc, MS, CFO, FIFirE retired as the executive assistant chief of Broward County, Florida, and joined Life Scan Wellness Centers as their Chief Strategy Officer. He is a reviewer or both professional credentialing and agency accreditation with the Center for Public Safety Excellence and advisory board member of the First Responder Center of Excellence. He is a longtime board member of the International Association of Fire Chief’s Safety, Health & Survival Section and a technical committee member of the NFPA Standard on Occupational Health of First Responders. He is also the editor of the Fire Engineering book, Surviving the Fire Service. He can be contacted at Todd.LeDuc@lifescanwellness.com.
