The issue of safety is one that ALWAYS has confronted and challenged each new generation of firefighters. Safety confronts each generation because the technology of the challenges changes and so do our technological abilities to extend our attack. Our focus on making the fireground a safer work environment began 6 A.D. in Italy when the Vigils were organized. This first organized fire department came about after a devastating conflagration in Rome. These first organized firefighters would form bucket lines to apply water (engine folks’ ancestors), and the bucket company helpers using hooks resembling today’s pike poles and ladders would pull down the surrounding buildings (truckies’ ancestors) to prevent fire spread.
This all came about in the name of fire safety and was very well coordinated and extremely effective worldwide, until the fall of the Roman Empire. The Vigils had rescues, and they had safety concerns; they developed rotations and work cycles to ensure the “work” would get done in the safest and most effective ways.
The answer to fireground safety has changed considerably in 2,000 years. The challenges facing thinking officers and firefighters include fuels and fuel loads that have the ability to overwhelm and destroy attack teams that advance ahead of ventilation efforts or venture beyond the limits of the roundtrip tickets supplied by the air in our SCBA bottles. We are being challenged by our own capabilities to get into places whose construction and design make it almost impossible to get out of once we pass our point of no return. We are drawn in by our inescapable loyalty to the oath we swore to protect and serve our fellow citizens who are threatened. Our safety is compromised by codes that all too often have been weakened or allowed variances to support profit and convenience, by building materials that have replaced mass with geometry, a science fire is only amused with during its destructive wrath.
In 2006, firefighters working on fireground safety are being increasingly challenged by a variety of issues, but foremost is the organization’s willingness to invest in its people. It is not enough to say we care; we must fight tooth and nail for adequate staffing and continuous training. Most city managers are very happy to invest in equipment and buildings, one-time cost items, but getting even the good ones to invest in people requires a skilled chief and a good union. The public is easily comforted when civilians see a firehouse with the lights on. Unfortunately, many times those lights are the only fire protection in the building. The units may have only a driver to get the shiny comforting truck to the fire.
Increasingly, it is becoming apparent that we must invest heavily in developing skilled fire service political leadership. How often have you seen training budgets as the first victims in budget cuts? We do the most harm for least gain when we sacrifice staffing and training to save dollars. Skilled political leadership can get in front of city councils and explain the need for firefighters in terms of tasks and numbers; just like Btus and gpm, it ain’t rocket science.
Today the fire service is 2,000 years old: 2,000 years ago, our culture was focused on making things safer; 2,000 years from now, when our great-great-great grandchildren run the show, they will be working to make things safer-2,000 years of efforts at making things safer from fire and disasters not only for us but also for our fellow man. This culture of “our fire service” has an instinctual need to improve our species’ ability to protect itself from fire and, consequently, to better protect its firefighters while carrying out our time-honored tradition. It is a critical part of real improvement to continuously evaluate our efforts to determine where we should place our greatest efforts; for the fire service, nationally, I believe it means increasing our on-duty strength virtually everywhere.
Unsafe behavior in our industry can be fatal; repeated unsafe behavior, unfortunately, can be misinterpreted “as the way we do it.” It is just a matter of time before understaffed companies run out of luck. Persons involved in nonsafe behaviors fail to recognize the consequences and effects of those behaviors on themselves and others. Addicts are the best example of persons who have little or no respect for consequences. Often failing to recognize threats is a fatal unsafe behavior; using substandard staffed companies to fight fires is Russian roulette. Simply put, technology will continue to define our tactics in our war against fire. To make it even simpler, we need more staffing to get the “work” done safely in 2006 than we did in 6, 1406, 1606, 1906, and 1976.
You achieve safety by training firefighters to recognize risks and how to manage them; the bigger the risk, the more firefighters you need. The model of a well-coordinated, well-staffed, well-trained, well-led synergistically focused group of fire companies attacking a fire with complete and clear understanding of one another’s roles and responsibilities is our inheritance from our Roman firefighting ancestors. Our job is to match our tools and resources in exactly that synergistic way to the fireground we are on now. That is how we ensure true fireground safety.
The danger in talking about safety and risk management is that inevitable assumption by someone that we are taking away their ability to do their jobs “properly.” We know we are in a dangerous profession and there will continue to be accidents and tragedies, but we have started by defining manageable risks-risks we can recognize and thereby change how we approach and overcome them while still supplying aggressive interior attacks to the seat of the fire. It may sound overly simplistic to say it, but we say “to the interior” because that’s generally where the fire is, inside. I was once asked if we were being legislated out of interior attacks, forced to be a nation of defensive firefighters. No, never. People are inside. Our integrity to our oath puts us inside with them.
Like the Vigils 2,000 years ago, we are here to protect our communities, we are here to stop suffering, and we are here to make the world a little safer for everybody. We have nothing in our culture to be ashamed of and nothing to apologize for. I feel good for 2,000. I am often accused of not acting my age. How does a 2,000-year-old firefighter act? Happy Birthday, everyone!
