The first decade of the 21st century has seen no meaningful changes to the fire service culture’s tolerance of fire deaths, injuries and property loss. Yes, I said “tolerance.”

American has known it’s had a fire problem since at least 1948, when President Harry S. Truman received the Report of the Continuing Committee of the President’s Conference on Fire Prevention and Education. Our 33rd president responded to the report by stating:

“The serious losses in life and property resulting annually from fires cause me deep concern. I am sure that such unnecessary waste can be reduced. The substantial progress made in the science of fire prevention and fire protection in this country during the past forty years convinces me that the means are available for limiting this unnecessary destruction.”

The authors of that report, along with the participants at the five Wingspread symposiums since — Wingspread Conference on Fire Service Administration, Education and Research (1966), Wingspread II (1976), III (1986), IV (1996), and V (2003) — have all said the same thing when it comes to addressing the fire problem in America:

“Fire prevention and accident prevention employ same technique. – Over the years, the approaches to the accident problem have been popularly designated as the Three E’s of Safety – Engineering, Enforcement, and Education. These ‘Three E’s’ are equally applicable to fire prevention and protection.”

So, where are we today? According to the U.S. Fire Administration, an average of 3,695 people suffered fire-related deaths in the United States between 1998 and 2007. (Those numbers do not include those who lost their lives on 9/11.) In a decade we lost the population of a small city —36,950. And thousands more suffer fire-related injuries and the property losses reach into the billions of dollars.

If we’re serious in our profession about ridding the United States of this “epidemic of fire,” I propose the following manifesto for every community in the United States.

Engineering:

• Require residential sprinklers in all newly constructed one-and two-family homes. Period.
  
• Change building codes so that all building materials must pass fire resistance performance standards, not just “gravity-defiance” standards.
  
• Change building codes in the wildland-urban interface to prohibit the use of combustible building materials. Mandate the use of block, concrete, stucco and other non-combustible materials.
  
• Mandate fire-safe cigarettes.
  

Education:

• Require that all residential property in a locality — rental and occupant-owned — has a copy of the locality’s fire-prevention code do’s and don’ts, written in plain English and other applicable languages for the community.
  
• Require fire departments and school systems to jointly deliver a standard fire prevention curriculum in elementary, middle, and high schools every two years.
  
• Require completion of fire prevention course of study as prerequisite for obtaining a residential lease or buying a home.
  
• Require insurance companies to inspect rental and occupant-owned residential properties before insuring the property. Require policy-holders to submit an affidavit to their insurance company stating that they comply with the fire prevention provisions of their policy and their locality every year as a condition to renew their coverage.
  

Enforcement:

• Investigate all fires and issue a court summons to the building occupant if a fire is determined to have been caused by their negligence. (Just like a traffic accident: if you’re at fault, you pay the price.)
  
• Bill the occupant for the cost of fire suppression services when a fire is determined to have been the result of occupant negligence.
  
• Fine builders and contractors when a fire investigation reveals that improper building materials or building practices (a) started the fire or (b) contributed to the spread of the fire.
  
• Fine rental-property owners who do not maintain their rental properties and whose properties are not in compliance with the locality’s fire prevention code.
  
• Incorporate a locality’s level of fire protection and history of fire loss into the financial processes that financial institutions use to determine a locality’s bond rating.
  

Sound rather harsh? Sound unrealistic? Consider for a moment what has happened since 9/11 to fight the “war on terror” — creation of DHS and TSA, hundreds of billions of dollars spent, laws adopted and changed, new training, new equipment, new ways to do our jobs. With all that and more, we’ve not suffered a single terrorist-related death or injury on United States soil since that day. We have, however, lost a “city” of 29,560 people in that same period. What are we waiting for?

Prompted several years ago by the high number of annual firefighter deaths from preventable causes, the International Association of Fire Chiefs and International Association of Fire Fighters called on the American fire service to conduct a “Safety Stand Down.” The stand down was patterned after U.S. military stand downs: a cessation of all daily activity by operational units, except for mission-critical activities, to focus everyone’s energies and efforts on reviewing operational practices and plans to identify and remediate causes of accidents.

Military safety stand downs typically are prompted by clusters of similar types of accidents in a short period of time involving a specific population or operation. For example, the U.S. Navy ordered a safety stand down in response to several crashes of aircraft during training missions in a short period of time. The original fire service safety stand down was an idea in that same vein: we’ve got serious issues that are leading to unacceptable firefighter deaths and we need to get everyone to stop what they are doing for a short period of time and really focus on solving the problems.

So why do we need a safety week? For years we’ve been saying that our fire prevention activities need to happen 24/7/365, not just during one week in October. So why are we now compartmentalizing firefighter safety to one week a year? We still have the same unacceptable deaths and they’re still happening from the same preventable causes. Shouldn’t safety be a 24/7/365 proposition?

For many years, the American manufacturing industry had quality-assurance or quality-control departments with inspectors who examined finished products. If they approved the product it went out to be sold; if they failed the product, it went into the trash heap. The worker who made the inferior product or who operated the machine that produced the product never knew that they had produced a product that left the plant in a Dumpster. They kept making the same defective product and the inspector kept rejecting it, until a problem became so widespread that it resulted in decreased sales or bad PR for the company.

An alternative was to ship the product and let its quality problems become someone else’s headache. At one time it was acceptable for a new car manufactured by GM to leave the plant with 13 quality defects; the dealerships were expected to deal with the after-market defects.

The Japanese automobile industry took a different tack when its leaders embraced the teachings of Dr. Edward Deming in an effort to change the world’s perception that products produced in Japan were cheap or shoddy. Their efforts, later embraced by the Japanese electronics manufacturing industry, focused on making quality everyone’s business. Their plants didn’t have quality inspectors or quality assurance departments; instead they initiated quality circles of employees who were involved in the product production. Those quality circles examined all of their processes looking for ways to remove barriers to producing a quality product every time and took responsibility for indentifying defects and fixing them before they left the factory.

We in the American Fire Service need to figure out how change our organizational culture so that safety is not an activity, but a way of doing business every day, every week, and every year. We don’t need a safety week or a safety stand down to make that happen. We need quality circles looking at every process that has an impact on safety. We need leadership at all levels of our organizations who don’t just talk about firefighter deaths being unacceptable, but work diligently to identify and eradicate safety deficiencies in their organization today. More importantly, however, we do need leaders who focus everyone’s efforts on changing our culture so that tomorrow’s firefighters never know how to do the job any differently.

Recently I read Generally Speaking by Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy (Ret.), which turned out to be a really good book on leadership and an overall great read. I would recommend highly it to all FIRE CHIEF readers.

One of the chapters deals with Kennedy’s Army experiences that influenced her attitudes about fairness and equality. Kennedy was appointed as a member of the secretary of the Army’s Senior Review Panel on Sexual Harassment after several non-commissioned officers serving as drill sergeants at the Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland were charged with various offenses to female trainees ranging from sexual harassment to sexual assault and rape. The review panel used information from 30,000 soldiers worldwide gathered from surveys, focus groups, personal interviews and observations. Specific data analysis involved a cohort of 15,000 male and female soldiers across all branches of the Army.

The most valuable nugget I took from this chapter was the panel’s finding that the Army had a significant issue in an overall lack of respect and dignity, which created an environment where sexual harassment was tolerated and in some cases condoned. Kennedy wrote:

Not surprisingly, the Review Panel found that Army leaders were the critical factor in creating, maintaining, and enforcing an environment of respect and dignity. But too many leaders had failed to gain the trust of their soldiers.

The good news was that the panel also found many examples of good leadership around the world, where the leaders created high levels of respect and dignity in the harshest and most challenging work environments, even in deployments like Kuwait and Bosnia. The panel identified that these units had good leaders who:

• Set standards for the members of their organization.
  


• Exemplified, through their personal conduct, adherence to those standards.
  


• Enforced and maintained those standards for the other members of the organization.
  


• Demonstrated genuine care and concern for their soldiers, regardless of their rank, race or gender.
  

I think there’s good stuff here that can serve the fire service as well. I believe that these same characteristics are what we need to strive for to create an environment that prevents not only sexual harassment, but other forms of harassment and intolerance as well, from entering our work place, thus creating an environment for success. The Army units that were led by leaders with these characteristics were also high performing, operationally proficient units. Providing respect and dignity in the workplace will do that for you.

If you were looking for a fire chief position today, could you get your job? Could you get it, that is, if you had to meet the advertised qualifications and experience?

In 1995 and again in 2000, Ronny Coleman described how many ads for fire chiefs looked like the town or city or county was looking to hire Superman. Have you looked at such ads today? Not much has changed.

I‘m currently in the job search process, a journey that‘s been aided considerably the wealth of information available on the Internet. Along the way, I‘ve been amazed at the wide variety of ads I‘ve seen posted on sites such as the IAFC, FIRE CHIEF Job Zone, and municipal sites like the North Carolina League of Municipalities. (Trust me, you can go crazy trying to keep up with more than three or four sites!) Some have very sketchy requirements or desired qualifications listed. Others have those Superman skills: Ph.D. in interpersonal and organizational dynamics, 29 years of experience ranging from supervision of personnel to negotiating peace in the Middle East.

So what‘s my point? I think that how you advertise for the fire chief position needs to be part of the organizational succession plan. You want the organization that you‘ve helped lead pass into good hands after you‘re gone, don‘t you? Well that‘s not likely to happen if the job ads for your successor are:

A) so simplistic and vague that good candidates don‘t bother to apply and bad ones do, or

B) the posted ad is so lengthy and daunting in scope that only psychopaths apply.

Another perspective that I‘d like to offer is that it seems like many communities advertise nationally and spend taxpayers’ money — and staff resources, which is also taxpayers’ money — only to find the best candidate was right under their noses. If an organization has a succession plan in place, it would know what the status is of the internal talent, right? Wouldn‘t that be more fiscally responsible than conducting a nationwide search and interview process, only to promote from within?

A fire service organization needs a succession plan for many reasons, one of which is to ensure that has the internal leadership to continue meeting its mission. The organizations that do that best are the ones that ensure continuity of leadership beginning at the top. So whether you promote from within or hire from outside, part of your succession plan needs to include accurate and realistic and necessary job competencies for every position in the organization, including the fire chief. Any advertisement for vacant positions, regardless of whether those ads are internal to the organization or outside, should draw upon those competencies as the stated requirements for prospective candidates.

Are you going to be part of the process to hire your successor? You should be. If you‘re not, I would suggest that you begin that dialogue with your boss today. The future of your organization depends on it.

I’m currently a member of the ranks of the unemployed in the United States. I had retired from Chesterfield (Va.) Fire & EMS Department, my employer for more than 25 years, to pursue a second career in the private sector managing a small EMS service in southeastern Ohio. I‘d been working with the company‘s owner and his staff for about 18 months as a planning and teaching consultant before accepting his offer to become his chief of operations. After about four months, it became clear to both of us that my public-sector upbringing and their private-sector, family owned ways of doing business weren’t a good fit. And in that environment there‘s really only one person who can go.

Now, I have lots of lines in the water, but no bites yet. I have applications out for a variety of emergency services positions, for which I think my first career has prepared me. But I will say that the Internet sure makes looking and applying for jobs a great deal easier and less costly, especially given the cost of gasoline today. FIRE CHIEF’s Job Zone and the IAFC‘s Candidate Center have become popular places for localities to post their public safety vacancies to attract the best candidates. I‘m also a registered client with Monster and Yahoo Hot Jobs, especially for potential job opportunities outside the fire and EMS service.

Recently I wrote a piece for Writezilla, an Internet writing service, about where people are looking for jobs and how they‘re getting jobs. In a 2007 survey of 15,000 visitors, WEDDLE‘s found that almost 27% of the respondents — the highest percentage — both found their last job and successfully applied for it online. The numbers were almost double what the same survey found in 2006.

One thing I’ve learned in my experiences of trying to find good people to hire — and now my own efforts to find gainful employment — is that if fire and EMS organizations want to address their recruitment needs more adequately they need to get better connected with sites like Monster or Yahoo Hot Jobs and put resources into their own Web site design and maintenance. The sites that provide me with everything I need to make an informed decision about the advertised position, complete an application online, and submit my electronic resume and application are the ones for which I take the time to apply for a position.

How many of your Web sites currently allow an applicant to do that?

Make no mistake, fire and emergency medical service is physically demanding work — always has been and always will be. Despite the technology that has made the job safer and less punishing, fighting fires still involves people lugging hose into burning buildings and carrying Mrs. Smith down two flights of stairs at 3 a.m. Over the course of a 25- or 30-year career, the small aches and pains can accumulate into larger health issues.

Last week, I went for the final health assessment of my 25-plus-year career with Chesterfield Fire & EMS. It was one of the more progressive departments in the United States in 1990 when it first offered the annual health assessments to career personnel. As I finish my career with the organization this week, I now have 17 years of health assessment data by which to measure how successfully I‘ve navigated the physical challenges of my chosen profession.

To paraphrase the physician who conducted my assessment after reviewing the multi-page self-assessment and data collection form, I’m a 49-year-old male who’s in excellent physical condition based on my physical assessment. My only significant medical history involves elevated cholesterol levels, which are being managed with a combination of diet and exercise.

Let’s take a closer look my assessment results in regard to common firefighter health issues:

• Cardiovascular health. Resting blood pressure of 124/82 mm/Hg. Exertion blood pressure (following three minutes of running in place) 130/86 mm/Hg. 12-lead ECG was within normal parameters in all leads. We get a treadmill stress test every three years; my last one was last year and showed no abnormalities.




• Pulmonary health. My pulmonary function test was within normal limits and indicated that I have the lung function of a 30-year-old male.




• Weight control. I stand 5 feet 4 inches tall and I weighed 140 pounds when I came on the job in 1982. Yesterday, I weighed in at 160 pounds. On the Body-Mass Index scale BMI calculator, which my department uses as a performance measure, I come up at an index of 27.5, which places me in a place I don‘t want to be on the scale — overweight. Normal range for my height should be 18.5 to 24.9. Obviously I have some work to do there.




• Hearing. Despite what my wife tells me every day, my hearing test indicated that I‘ve only lost the ability to hear sounds on the very edge of high frequency. Such loss is not attributable to exposure to noise, but rather to infection. I‘ve seen an ear, nose and throat specialist in the past couple of years for recurring ear infections, and the doctor’s attributed that loss to repeated ear infections in my childhood.




• Injuries. I‘m very fortunate in that I‘ve never experienced an on-the-job injury, lost time or otherwise. We earn 15 hours of sick leave each month, and the accumulated balance carries over each year. I‘m retiring with 3,720 hours on the books. Over the course of my career I‘ve earned 4,605 hours, which means I‘ve only used 20% of my available sick leave over the past 25 years.

So what‘s the point? We hear and see a great deal these days about reducing the mortality and morbidity rates for firefighters, and much of that focus lately is on the health, wellness and safety issues. These include reducing heart attacks from cardiovascular disease or improving compliance with seatbelt usage, as opposed to operational factors such as structural collapses or flashover events. The positive results of my last physical assessment, which were very consistent with those of the previous 16 assessments, are directly linked to the behaviors of my organization and my individual behaviors.

• Cardiovascular health. The department always has allotted time in the workday for physical training. When I first came to work, we had a plan that consisted of a chart of compulsory calisthenics that everyone on the shift had to complete. From there we progressed through a variety of structured programs that addressed cardiovascular weight and flexibility training. I learned very early that the most important part of the firefighter safety ensemble was me — the body I put into my gear. My running days are over; now I get my 30 minutes of aerobic activity each day by walking briskly while wearing a 30-pound weighted vest.




• Pulmonary health. I‘ve never smoked and my department has always had a mandatory mask policy when it comes to SCBA use. In my career, we‘ve never had a smoke inhalation injury.




• Weight control. I‘ll skip this part if it‘s OK with you. (This is what‘s known in some circles as taking “literary license.”)




• Hearing. I first began wearing shooting earmuff–style hearing protection in the front seat while responding to calls in 1985 when I became a company officer. Since then I‘ve always worn the muff-style protection when responding as a chief officer and I‘ve always worn disposable earplugs on the emergency scene and the training grounds. Chesterfield County has a county-wide hearing conservation policy and my department goes beyond those requirements in several areas. Starting in the early 1990s, we started installing radio/intercom headsets in the riding positions on our apparatus; today all of our units have the headsets and they are standard equipment on new apparatus.




• Injuries. My department has always provided us with the best protective clothing, SCBA, eye protection, and more that money could buy (we‘re in the third generation of SCBA during my career). We hired our first department safety officer in the 1985. We learned to use ICS, and have used it for every emergency, everyday, since 1985. We‘ve always had a mandatory seatbelt-use policy and our drivers have always had to stop at red lights and stop signs while responding to emergencies. Our safety slogan reflects how much safety is part of our organizational DNA: “Risk a lot to save a life, Risk a little to save a little, Risk nothing to save nothing.”

It seems to me that many fire and EMS organizations are Johnny-come-lately when it comes to the health and well-being of their people, and some still have not come to the party. I‘ve been very fortunate to have spent my career with one of the organizations that‘s frequently been on the forefront of efforts to constantly make improvements for the safety, health and welfare of its people. I‘m just the latest of many in our organization who‘s reached the goal of retiring with good health. Thank you Chesterfield Fire & EMS!

Get a group of firefighters together in any setting and ask them what they like about being a firefighter. It won’t be long before someone talks about the “fellowship.” They may use other terms — camaraderie, friendship, bonds — but firefighters feel that they are part of a unique group. Volunteers and career firefighters alike espouse it. I‘d like to share a story about a firefighter who does more than talk about it — he lives it.

Dave Palumbo retired from Chesterfield Fire & EMS as a battalion chief on Jan. 1, 2001. But anyone who knows Dave knows that he really didn‘t retire, he “re-fired.” He took his passion for people and service to others in some new directions while maintaining strong ties with the department. For example, he serves as a volunteer driver for the local chapter of the American Red Cross. Several days each week you can see Dave checking out one of the ARC vehicles (we let the ARC park their vehicles at the public safety training center) to make his rounds, taking senior citizens back and forth to their medical appointments.

Dave may have retired from CFEMS almost seven years ago, but he never turned in his membership card. You can be sure that he has every special CFEMS event on his calendar, from recruit-school graduations to retiree receptions. More importantly, he‘s always there.

What is really special about Dave, however, is that he is actively present. Recently, the Old Dominion Professional Firefighters Burn Foundation held its annual golf tournament to raise funds for the Evans-Haynes Burn Center at Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia. It was an unseasonably hot day, yet Dave was one of the first-arriving workers, showing up with his own pickup truck loaded with ice for the event. He stayed for the rest of the day, which lasted well after dark, filling coolers with ice and refreshments, delivering more ice to the coolers on the course, moving people around the course, and doing whatever else needed to be done. He was actively present.

Shortly after he retired, Dave found his real cause: construction of a memorial wall to honor CFEMS members who‘d lost their lives in the service of others. Dave has been a champion of this cause in the greatest sense of the word, developing the idea, working with the architect on the design, raising the several hundred thousand dollars for the wall‘s construction (no county funds are involved in the project), finding the contractors to do the work, and more. With the assistance of a handful of other committed souls, the construction of the wall — and the realization of Dave‘s vision — is well under way on the grounds of Chesterfield County‘s Eanes-Pittman Public Safety Training Center.

We frequently talk about the significance of role models in our profession and the influence they have on the development of young employees or members; those discussions are often in the context of professional or technical-skills development. But Dave Palumbo is a great role model for what fellowship really means within the American fire service.

Fire and EMS organizations have a fiduciary responsibility to the people who pay the bills, be they taxpayers, donors or business sponsors. Whether an organization‘s annual budget is $10,000 or $100 million, it is responsible for providing the best possible service for the dollar. But how many fire and EMS members have business management competencies? How many organizations have a chief financial officer with an advanced business degree giving the fire chief financial advice? How many organizations have key decision-makers at the highest levels who have real-world business experience?

In his book The World is Flat, Thomas Friedman discusses how economies around the world are becoming more interconnected. In the global economy, business success depends on collaboration and outsourcing, especially outsourcing those tasks or jobs that divert focus or resources from the core mission of the organization. Friedman cites Dell and the outsourcing of its computer repair services.

If a computer needs repair, the owner calls the 800-number or uses the Dell Web site, where he or she is communicating with a UPS employee, not a Dell employee. That customer-service representative will take the necessary steps to get the PC picked up and delivered to the UPS logistics facility in Louisville, Ky. When the PC gets to the facility, a computer repair technician who works for UPS will assess the computer, make the necessary repairs, and have it picked up for return to the customer, good as new. At no point during that entire transaction will a Dell employee lay a finger on that PC. This new business model allows Dell to focus its efforts on its core mission: producing and selling the best computers possible in a highly competitive global market.

The fire service needs to embrace such horizontal thinking. How many fire leaders attain knowledge and understanding outside of response to fire and EMS emergencies? Think about it. What is the last leadership or management book that you read or Web site that you visited that was not authored by someone in the fire business? When is the last time you attended a business or management seminar not sponsored by a fire or EMS organization? To think horizontally, you have to become acquainted with people and subjects outside your “silo.”

Outsource anything that is not essential to core-mission services. In my organization, apparatus and equipment are easy to get because they are-one time purchases; new positions get more expensive every year. Here are some ideas on getting more bang for your buck without the need for full-time employees:

• Logistics. Outsource supply-chain management functions. The medical supply vendor can manage the consumable EMS supplies at fire stations. Why should firefighters manage warehousing and delivery operations? The same can be done for station and vehicle maintenance supplies. It‘s likely to be more efficient and effective for the respective vendors to do these jobs; they are already doing it for other businesses in your community every day.




• Training and development. Education requirements are expanding faster than most fire service professionals can keep up with while still delivering the core services. There are good specialized private-sector training and education companies; many are owned and operated by fire and EMS professionals who‘ve retired from active service or have moved on to their second career. The quality is good and the price is right, compared to developing and maintaining the same within an organization, especially with training budgets and constantly rotating personnel.




• Station maintenance and upkeep. A rookie firefighter in my department is paid, calculated on an hourly rate, $13.20 per hour, plus an additional 18% for benefits. I have an employee making $15.57 per hour to mop floors, clean windows, cut the grass and take out the trash. The lieutenant and the other firefighter on duty are being paid $24.60 and $17.36 per hour respectively to help him. Outsource these types of internal services and to free up highly skilled employees so they can train, preplan target hazards, deliver educational programs to the public, and complete other specialized tasks. Wouldn‘t that be much better use of these full-time personnel and their technical skills in meeting our core mission?

Fire and EMS organizations will need to operate more like private-sector companies, particularly as local governments struggle to make ends meet financially. This is particularly true as new revenue streams within communities are identified to help pay for the delivery of fire and EMS services. With more departments receiving non-tax revenues from sources, there will be increased expectation — as there should be — from public and local government officials to operate service delivery like a lean and mean business.

Where will the fire service’s next generation of employees and members come from? The focus for many years has been recruiting women and minorities to reflect the community that a department serves. Today the challenge is how to attract and keep people from the newest pool of potential employees or volunteers: the members of Generation Y.

Haven‘t heard of Generation Y? They are the children of Generation X and the grandchildren of baby boomers, and they‘re the source of much research and discussion in management and human resources circles. There are many good sources of research and information on the emerging generational issues and potential conflicts within our organizations and the proactive Fire & EMS leaders will assimilate this information into their knowledge bank.

The majority of leadership and management positions in many fire service organizations today are filled by baby boomers, born 1946–1964, and even some from the Schwarzkopf generation (born before 1946). Yet the majority of employees and members are from Generation X (1965–1977) and increasingly from Generation Y (1978–1990). This is where the different expectations of the different generations come into play, especially true considering that the Schwarzkopf generation and the baby boomers have run the business for the past 20-plus years.

Where are the conflicts happening today, and where will they keep on happening in the future? The policies, procedures, work practices and organizational cultures of our departments are where we must reconcile these differing expectations. Many members of generations X and Y have differing views on work, the work environment, compensation, development, advancement opportunities and more, views that differ from the two previous generations who developed the policies and procedures. This conflict between differences in expectations will manifest itself in:

• Work schedules and attendance requirements.




• Leave policies.




• Leadership and management.




• Training and personal development.




• Work personal satisfaction.




• Seniority systems.

Fire and EMS leaders and managers need to become generational savvy, if they have not done so already, and they start having dialogue with those members of their organizations who constitute the other “tectonic plate” in their departments. Otherwise, they should not be surprised by the earthquake that will occur when those plates run into each other.

What is the responsibility of a fire and EMS organization? Is it to create employment for career employees or to provide a social organization for volunteer members? Is it to provide a work schedule that enables employees to work other jobs or own their own businesses? Or is it to provide the necessary emergency services to prevent the unnecessary loss of life or property from fires, medical emergencies, accidents and the other calamities of daily life?

Fire organizations’ primary responsibility is to provide critical emergency services and the injury- and accident-prevention education to stop problems in the first place. Career and volunteer organizations also have a responsibility to provide a working environment that is free of unmanaged hazards. How can a department accomplish the former without being diligent about the later?

I‘ve already broached the topic of the 24-hour tour of duty and sleep deprivation and the potential negative impact of that sleep deprivation on a member‘s job performance. More than a few colleagues have posted their thoughts, experiences or anecdotal “evidence.” Some agree that the 24-hour shift may have outlived its usefulness for many organizations, while others expanded upon its virtues. It’s interesting, however, that nobody has mentioned fire agencies’ primary responsibility to their members &mdash to not expose them to unmanaged hazards.

If there isn’t, as some have stated, the research and the data to adequately define the problem, why is that? Is the issue of sleep deprivation and its affect on worker performance another example of the fire and EMS mentality regarding health and wellness where the fire service ignores the problem until it conducts its own research and formulates its own solution?

Members also have a primary responsibility when they sign up for this career: to come to the job fit for duty every day. The most important piece of safety equipment is the body that dresses in protective clothing, the body that breathes from the SCBA, and the body that drives the emergency vehicle. But how many people share that perspective? If they did, they wouldn‘t eat servings at the fire station dinner table that could feed a family of four, they wouldn‘t be out of their seats and unbelted when the truck starts moving, they wouldn‘t drive the truck at excessive speeds, and they wouldn‘t report for duty with only a couple hours of sleep.

I do have an agenda, but it‘s not to eradicate the 24-hour tour of duty. Rather, I‘m doing my best to follow the lead of people like Alan Brunacini, Vinny Dunn, Bill Manning and Dr. Burt Clark, predecessors who have scanned the environment, identified the threats to firefighter health and safety, and made it their mission to influence people to action. Many organizations are getting busier every day. There are more hazards to manage, and the public has higher expectations than ever before. To meet those demands and expectations, we can‘t afford to have people who literally may be asleep at the wheel or dozing when they should be calculating the proper dose of medication in the back of an ambulance at 3 a.m.