BY BOBBY HALTON
As American cities and towns face unprecedented issues regarding budgets, we all must begin to anticipate what the ramifications could potentially be regarding service delivery in our communities. The great statesman Tip O’Neil once said, “All politics is local,” and he was absolutely right. We also know that all fire protection is predominantly local in nature, and local budgets are shrinking fast.
Reacting to these shrinking budgets in major metropolitan cities, towns, and villages, local fire departments have already experienced fire station closings, reduced staffing, and companies removed from service. The effects of this economic meltdown will reach every corner of American life, and public safety is no exception. We are witnessing local governments explain fire station closings and company removal with carefully chosen words such as “deactivation,” “brownouts,” and “furloughs.”
These politicians are simply using words they learned from Frank Luntz, the author of Words That Work. These are words that make people feel better about closing fire stations and reducing fire protection. These words were selected because they reduce the anxiety and apprehension caused by words such as “closed,” “eliminated,” and “reduced.” Unfortunately, these less-threatening words will be of little comfort to those same citizens when those deactivated, “brownouted,” and furloughed firefighters are not available to answer the call in an emergency.
All of this cutting and reducing is being done using the best statistical data that these good people can find to justify their positions. Sometimes, as you listen to their explanations, you feel like you’re watching a truckie trying to fix a computer with a halligan. Benjamin Disraeli said it best: “There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.” Unfortunately, statistics do little to help the citizen who is having trouble breathing, who is crawling through her smoke-filled home at two in the morning, or who has just had a car accident.
We know that we are going to be asked to sacrifice; we know that, as citizens, we are going to be expected to do with fewer services than we have become accustomed to. The overriding question has to be, “To what extent are the ‘local’ citizens willing to reduce the level of fire protection and life safety that your department is currently providing?” Simply showing charts and graphs of run volumes with geographic overlays of response times and overly simplified statistical data does not show the real costs in human treasure.
While we acknowledge that, even at standard-compliant levels, we cannot arrive swiftly enough 100 percent of the time, it is clear standard-compliant staffing and response times offer our citizens the best possible advantage. I must disagree with some of my, albeit, well-intentioned but inexperienced peers who have stated that staffing and response times are irrelevant to fireground safety. I could never find any way to legitimize such a statement simply because nothing could be further from the truth. Response times and staffing are critical on both sides of the survival equation.
Experienced, street-savvy firefighters understand standard-compliant staffing offers firefighters the best possible safety margins; anything less increases our risks exponentially. The fire service exists for those very times when we can make a difference, when we can save a life, and when we can alleviate someone’s suffering. Cuts are coming; but, because of who we are, we will continue to provide the best possible service under whatever conditions we are forced to operate.
More than a thousand homes in Southern California were tragically destroyed in the most recent firestorm. Unfortunately, this firestorm is still not completely contained; many more homes will be taken. To the credit of the excellent services provided by the personnel in the Region 1 mutual-aid group under the direction of Los Angeles County Chief Michael Freeman, at this point no lives have been lost. That statistic is the most important one, not to discount or underestimate the tragedy of all these families losing their property. We must applaud the efforts that saved all the lives in this firestorm’s path of fury.
The question becomes for the good citizens protected in that region with such excellent fire responses, “How much fire service can they stand to live without?” If all politics is local, and our elected politicians must ultimately bear the responsibility for dividing up the pie of taxes and revenue to fund fire, police, sewers, roads, libraries, universities, and rest of the services that make up a community, what levels must exist?
The answers to these questions will come from you. You must assess locally what your community’s needs are to safely protect the lives and property you have sworn to protect. Those in power and those who have elected them must heed your words. You have that power of influence, and with it comes awesome and dear responsibility. You have a responsibility to the men and women who stand with you and to those whom you serve.
This is where politics gets “local” and life in the fire servicewhether you want to admit it or notis closely tied to local politics. When addressing this responsibility, remember all you have learned regarding staffing; response capabilities (task and tactical); fire behavior; human behavior; and, most importantly, the values that make you a firefighter. They are not statistics. They are not lies.
