Have you ever played “What If?” as a fire officer? It’s not hard to do. You come across an unusual building or construction site or a difficult intersection and you say: “What if I had a fire (or trench rescue or extrication) here? What would I need and how would I use it?”

This game has driven my wife crazy. A few years ago, she and I went shopping at a department store under renovation. As I came off the escalator, I scanned the congested construction area separated by a temporary wall from the sales floor. Although the building was sprinklered, I asked myself how would I advance a line from the outside (as the high-rise connection was behind the construction area), vent the smoke and remove the water in the event of a fire.

Less than a week later, my department fought the fire I had envisioned. A worked started the fire after store hours by using a torch next to an open can of flammable adhesive. We laid a standard fire line up the escalator, wyed it off so we had two hand lines, then vented the smoke through a skylight and removed water through the restroom. We scored points with both the mall and store management for containing the damage, which allowed them to open the next morning.

I recently saw the “What If?” game pay dividends at a fire in a nearby community. The department’s new chief came to my office to discuss his concerns about the water supply in his historic business district. He asked if he could special call two of our engines to help lay out 4,000 feet of supply line from a 12-inch water main should he have a major fire in that district. Such a fire occurred 10 days later when a candle in a window display fell over and ignited holiday decorations that spanned the length of the store. While that building was severely damaged, the fire did not spread to an adjacent store which was less than three feet from the involved structure nor to any of the other shops in that historic block. The reason in large part was due to the chief’s preplan for an adequate water supply.

Sometimes what separates a good officer from an exceptional officer is just playing “What If?” I say that knowing that it has been a while since I played it myself, but having the concerns of my fellow chief come true in such a short period of time reminded me that I had to do it more often in my community. Have you played the “What If” Game recently? If not, expand your mind and sharpen your strategy by taking the time to play it. It may pay dividends for you and your department in a very short time.

Recently I was asked to attend a three-day course entitled “School Shootings: Prevention, Response and Mitigation,” as a member of the fire service advisory committee at the local career development institute. Taught by both a retired police chief and several retired federal agents, the course gave the history, motivation and analysis of multiple-victim shootings at schools throughout North America, with special emphasis on the Columbine High School and Virginia Tech attacks.

Of the 35 attendees, only four were from the fire service. At first we had to overcome the learning curve regarding current police tactics in dealing with these shootings. Equally difficult to comprehend was the Internet subculture that instructs, openly discusses and borderline promotes school shootings as a way for a student to get “even” while forever making his or her name “infamous.”

As the course continued, it became obvious that the sooner responders started medical triage and treatment, the greater chance there was for victims to survive. The class discussion at times centered on how we first responders could better prepare and work comfortably in an ongoing environment that may be “contained” but not yet fully “secured.” For example, three volunteer EMTs at Virginia Tech (college students, not SWAT members) agreed to go into the stairwells with the SWAT team to triage and treat victims who were brought to them in a controlled setting while SWAT teams continued to sweep the area. No other victims died after EMTs entered the building.

After the course, we started a dialogue in our area on how to best respond and mitigate such carnage. This blog is as much an attempt to obtain input from those of you who have had similar discussions with your law enforcement counterparts as it is to raise your awareness that most of us are ill-prepared both procedurally and emotionally to handle this type of emergency.

I am not looking for every EMT or medic to be an armed SWAT member, but do some of you issue tactical vests and allow medics discretion to enter just after SWAT has swept an area? Is that somehow captured in your SOGs?

Are you prepared to handle a school shooting, knowing that on average that there is a victim every five seconds a shooter is in the building, and that those victims may be friends, neighbors or children of the responders?

If you haven’t squirmed in your chair by now, then know that I did for nearly the entire three-day class. But I also came out of those sessions knowing we must have this discussion to be better prepared to respond to the unthinkable in our area.

One of the more reprehensible things I’ve seen in recent years has been the damage done to chief officers’ reputations by accusations from anonymous sources. These accusations have been sent to commissioners or administrators via letter or e-mail or through strategically placed rumors, and in at least two instances have marred very innovative chiefs with unfounded allegations against their character. In both of these cases, the chiefs turned marginal departments into progressive organizations, cutting dead wood as they evolved. While difficult to prove, these anonymous character assassinations seemed to follow instances where individuals were passed over or demoted for their failure to perform.

In one instance where the wrongly accused chief decided to leave because of the lack of support he received from his commissioners, the fire district he oversaw reverted back into the two departments he had help consolidate. It has been several years since his decision to leave, and while one of the departments continued to progress under strong leadership, the other has struggled just to provide day-to-day operations and has had two catastrophic meltdowns following major fires in past years.

In the most recent example of this type of adversity, a chief held on long enough to retire, leaving a legacy within his department of two new stations, a complete turnover of the fire and EMS fleet, a significant decrease in his district’s response time, a set of written SOGs, as well as inspection and public-education programs that enhanced both citizen and firefighter safety. Unfortunately, he may not be remembered for all the progress he brought to his community, but rather for the unfounded accusations against him. Since his retirement, my friend has diligently sought another career in the fire service. He has hit these allegations head on by openly discussing them with potential employers and sharing copies of the two reports that exonerate him of all the alleged charges.

What has kept my friend going is the support he has received from within his network of fellow chiefs. Early on, he made it a point to reach out to a select circle of close friends for advice and fortunately for him has received continued support and strength through this process. What I have learned is that despite the efforts of two of the finest chiefs I’ve known, sometimes the dark side of human nature turns those we are compelled to discipline into cowardly, vindictive individuals bent only on the destruction of our best and brightest.

Occasionally I remind myself that leadership requires understanding of why we have adversity and opposition to our vision. The truth is that the greater a leader’s accomplishments, the greater the opposition or discouragement an adversary will attempt to throw at your plans. Their objective is to derail the progress or bring the chief down to their level. The trick is to expect and even anticipate this adversity and know that it is a sign that you as chief are actually doing the right thing for your organization. The best way both my friends and I have found in difficult situations is to surround ourselves with a network of true professionals whom we can call upon for frank, honest advice, and then carry through with our ideas while maintaining our professionalism and integrity.

I wonder how many chiefs actually read the reports on line-of-duty deaths or pay particular attention to the lessons learned from each fatality. If they do, how many chiefs themselves into believing that the unthinkable will never happen to them or their department?

I‘ve tried to pay close attention to several studies that have similarities with occupancies in my own area. The most recent of these is the Charleston report, issued just three months ago. But in my travels, I continue to see some of the same mistakes occurring over and over again at fire and emergency scenes.

Charleston‘s communications issues, especially in missing the multiple maydays, reinforced the need for command to operate in an environment that is free from the distractions on the fire ground and allows the IC to concentrate on the progress of the incident while evaluating the strategy and tactics being employed. I marvel at how many in command fail to use a vehicle even if it‘s just the closest engine company to run the incident. Worse yet is they continue to use portable radios from various locations on the fire ground while wearing nothing to distinguish themselves from other arriving officers. This practice is compounded when sufficient progress isn‘t being made and command tries to simultaneously work at the task level.

The Charleston report clearly indicated the failure of not having a single person in command who was attentive to monitoring the radio traffic. This lax greatly contributed to missing the maydays that in part lead to the firefighter fatalities. The problem remains that this situation is almost identical to multiple firefighter fatalities that occurred in Chesapeake, Va., and Patterson, N.J., 10 to 20 years ago. When will we get the message?

The Charleston report also re-enforced the value of a 360° walk around any structure, and the need to limit how far a crew should stretch into a big-box unsprinklered building without clear multiple exits. It emphasized that with drop ceilings it is imperative that ceiling panels be popped every few feet to check for overhead fire extension. Adopting these practices has already paid dividends to officers around the country, but many more still have paid attention to these lessons.

In one instance here in Wyoming, the initial company officer arriving at the scene of what appeared to be a smoky, heavily involved kitchen fire extending into the living room grabbed the thermal imaging camera and used it during a walk around. That brief reconnaissance made him aware that the main body of fire was in the basement, and that he was seeing the fire extending through the partially collapsed floors of each room. His tactics changed and he decided on alternate ways to attack the basement fire without endangering his crew on the weakened floors.

The bottom line is what are we learning from these tragedies? What will it take to get chiefs to alter their “business as usual” mentality; to become role models for safety to their firefighters which includes the chief wearing full PPE; to have adequate and enforceable SOG‘s and to get back to the basics of incident command. Until we heed these lessons, we have doomed more firefighters to similar tragic fates.

My wife, Diana, and I recently returned from a two-week vacation in Norway and Denmark. Whenever we travel, I like to stop and talk shop with firefighters whenever possible. During this trip, we had the opportunity to visit fire stations in Honnigsvag, Trondheim, Geiranger, Bergen and Stavanger. Three of these departments had career firefighters, while two relied solely on volunteers. With the exception of the equipment and apparatus manufacturers, the friendly atmosphere is no different than stopping in at a fire station in Wilmington, Fresno or Wyoming.

There is never a time when I don‘t learn something. For example, at the main station in Stavanger there is a beautifully restored 1935 Pierce open-cab engine sitting in the center bay of the apparatus floor. The engine survived the World War II and along with a post-war truck manufactured by the White Truck Company provided much of the fire protection for the city for close to 30 years. The Pierce remains the pride of the department and it is used for parades and special events. Unfortunately all that remains of the White unit are the front grill and a few photos on display in the department‘s museum.

What these visits prove is that firefighters are part of a “family” that is quickly becoming international. This year, more and more international travelers are visiting the United States on vacation and a good percentage will be firefighters and their families. With very few exceptions wherever we have traveled, we have been warmly welcomed at any fire station and treated not as stranger, but as friends. We need to be prepared to do the same if these guests visit our fire stations. There is value even in this brief international exchange.

Firefighting issues and problems are universal, and hearing a different approach to problem solving may give us some ideas to try in our own department. One such concept is air management. While we have only begun the discussion of how this fits into our accountability system, our Scandinavian and European counterparts have been tracking individual air usage for years. They record the SCBA pressure of every firefighter entering a hazardous environment, and rely on the company officer to keep the accountability sector informed of the lowest crew pressure each time they communicate with their sector officer or incident commander.

Firefighters are firefighters no matter what city, town or village they protect. Keep the welcome mat out for them. They are as eager to learn from us as we should be eager to learn from them. Wherever you go, whether to another country or another part of your state, spend some time with your fellow firefighters. Enjoy the conversation, share your knowledge when it is appropriate, network so you can call upon this expertise again, and take back at least one new idea to try on your own.

How do you measure success? Can a fire chief be successful without being successful in both personal and professional areas? Certainly a successful fire chief can get firefighters, medics and equipment to an emergency scene safely and quickly. But success is difficult to quantify, and that is where self-satisfaction — knowing you are doing your best — is part of success.

Can we ever report to city managers or councils the number of lives saved through our pre-hospital care? Can we ever measure the quality of life for a family that was spared immeasurable grief by a timely rescue at a fire? We can recite our annual monetary damage loss statistics from fires, but how do we account for the personal treasures, family memories or heirlooms spared by our actions? That measure of success must come from the personal satisfaction we have with our job.

Some chiefs look at their new equipment and the additional stations or personnel they‘ve secured for their community. Others may point to how many of their people have gone on to become chiefs, and they can be justly proud of those they‘ve helped to secure their dream. But recently when I was playing with my 18-month-old grandson, Jack, it suddenly hit me — sometimes success comes in things as simple as the smile of a child. It was the same smile I‘d seen in a group of third-graders who recently took a field trip to our central station. They showed trust, interest and respect for the firefighters and medics giving the tour.

That thought sent me to find a copy of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s Success, and I realized that sometimes the most difficult things to measure such as success can be expressed very simply. Here are excerpts from Emerson‘s timeless work categorized into words we all want to live by:

Humor:. To laugh often and much.

Honor: To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children.

Ethics: To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends.

Aesthetics: To appreciate beauty.

Character: To find the best in others

Philosophy: To leave the world a little better whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition

Duty: To know even one life has breathed easier because you lived.

This is to have succeeded!

In 2000, my oldest son, Dale, now a commander in the U.S. Navy, and I wrote a two-part series for Fire Chief magazine entitled “Wave of the Future.” (Click here for parts one and two) We compared and contrasted certain historical developments and organizational characteristics that simultaneously developed within the U.S. military and the U.S. fire service. Then using the future direction of the military at that time, we tried to predict the future direction of the fire service. Of course, these predictions were made in pre-9/11 days, and subsequently the mission of both services has been greatly expanded.

Dale and I rarely have the opportunity for a leisurely conversation, but recently we started to talk about the future tract of officer development. It‘s a given that the long-standing tradition for officer development in the military includes War College, Command and Staff College, and an advanced degree in a related field. These fairly well equate to our Chief Fire Officer Designation, Executive Fire Officer Program, the Harvard Fellowship, and the growing number of master’s degrees offered to fire officers in studies from public administration to executive leadership.

The war on terrorism, however, has produced an unprecedented number of younger military officers, both commissioned and non-commissioned, who have been given greater latitude in problem-solving and local operational jurisdiction in combat. But how will these officers approach the more traditional development path versus the fast-paced decision-making process that they have been exposed to in these combat areas?

Now look at the fire service. While returning veterans from World War II, the Korean and Vietnam wars, and Operation Desert Storm have help shape the fire service as it is today, how will the veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts shape the fire service of the future? All officers, military and fire service, make split-second decisions based on the best situational information available augmented by their level of experience. The military best describes this decision process as the OODA Loop, so named by USAF Colonel John Boyd on how fighter pilots observe, orient, decide and act in aerial combat. Those who can do it better and faster live to fly another day. The fire service incorporates a similar process into our Incident Command System.

As we welcome this generation of young veterans into the fire service, what will be their expectations and their goals for development into the fire officer ranks? They will expect more intense training under near-operational conditions leading to the experience they will need to be a part of the decision process. Their experiences overseas will help frame this decision-making process, just as my past experience as an Air Force officer in Vietnam has framed mine.

Should we be wary of these young men and women? No, by all means this is the same process by which we were assimilated into the organizational culture of the fire service. But understand that as our future leaders, they will shape the next generation of firefighter / medics that will serve our communities for decades. As chiefs, we need to embrace their experience, listen and learn how to channel their energy into innovative ways to manage our departments. This will be a very positive experience in the development of our future fire officers and chiefs.

The haunting sound of the lone bagpipe lingers in my ears. There isn‘t a dry eye as I watch the final hugs at the cemetery. I am miles away at the studio of WKRC-TV in Cincinnati trying to add a firefighter‘s perspective to the procession, the mass at St. Peter in Chains Cathedral, and their burial at Spring Grove Cemetery. With the news anchors, Kit Andrews and Rob Braun, we‘ve been on the air for six hours of uninterrupted coverage. No commercials, no soap operas, just a tribute to the fallen firefighters, their families and the fire service. Literally thousands of viewers are mourning their loss.

Perhaps receiving the Secret List for many years has numbed my mind, or perhaps it was the number of LODD investigations I’ve been involved in. But this time it‘s different; this time it‘s my family.

In the early morning of April 4, Colerain Township Fire Capt. Robin Broxterman and Firefighter Brian Schira died — swept from us by some invisible hand that seems to take our best and brightest in an instant — even though fire operations followed the SOP and everything was “textbook.” The tragedy defiantly announces that the job, despite our best efforts, is inherently dangerous.

I served at Colerain for 27 years and still live within the district; my own department is less than five miles from its border. Our departments are intertwined. We operate nearly the same and, more importantly, our people know each other and train together. Robin became a part-time firefighter while I was still a Colerain assistant chief, and I remember her even before then because she is the daughter of Don and Arlene Zang, both former Green Township firefighters. I remember her smile, her laugh, her ponytail, her two young daughters. Mostly I remember how she came to Wyoming‘s aid as a firefighter/paramedic on Colerain‘s Engine 26 when two of our Wyoming firefighters were critically injured as they fell from a roof in 2004.

Brian was relatively new to Colerain, but worked part-time at both Colerain and Delhi townships to gain experience while also holding a full-time job at a nearby Home Depot. The times our paths crossed were few, but I remember him as a likeable young man who always addressed me as “Chief,” whether at the fire station or at Home Depot.

After an LODD, a literal army of firefighters swings into action. Departments from across greater Cincinnati continually staff Colerain‘s five stations for four days — no citizen or area is left unprotected. Colerain fire officers divide over a dozen areas of responsibility in preparation for the funeral, shadowed by officers and firefighters from other departments. The Cincinnati Fire Department — which experienced it’s own LODD five years before at the death of Firefighter Oscar Armstrong — takes the lead with the assistance. No family request is overlooked.

In tribute, Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, State Fire Marshal Michael Bell and more than 7,000 firefighters and families attend the combined visitation on Tuesday. The cathedral can seat only 2,000; 10,000 stand outside the cathedral and the cemetery. Firefighters from as far away as Australia were there — they had to be there — to pay honor to their comrades. Thousands more line the seven-mile processional route and fire apparatus spans as far as any eye can see, no matter how high the vantage point. Tens of thousands more watch on TV, in their homes, schools, stores and offices. E-mails stream into the TV station as ordinary people from all over the United States, including my son and daughter-in-law in Hawaii, watch the live stream on the Internet. And then there is the final ringing of the bell, the final dispatch over the radio, and the haunting sound of the lone bagpipe.

Robin and Brian are laid to rest. The investigation continues. I‘ve been through the fire-ravaged house and have seen where they fell. I‘ve watched and marveled as the Schira and Zang families celebrate the lives of their son and daughter and have allowed us to honor them as well.

Stay safe!

A couple years ago, my department was awarded a $300,000 Assistance to Firefighters Grant to upgrade our communications equipment. At that time our dispatch center, transmitter and antenna system all were 40 to 50 years old. It was designed to use a dedicated telephone line to carry audio from the dispatch console to the transmitter that was over a mile away on the city‘s water tower. During rain or snowy weather, the telephone line often would ground out and the first notification of a problem was when our fire and EMS units would not acknowledge the run.

This past week, I attended one of the many Department of Homeland Security grant meetings held to assist departments with their 2008 AFG applications. The Region V facilitator, Lori Smith-Lonbom, and I discussed how difficult it was for some departments to express what they needed to secure an AFG for communications equipment.

The first and perhaps one of the most important items is to find someone within or closely associated with your department who understands communications, computers, software and interactive technology to design the concept of what you want and how it will operate. This individual should lay out the numbers and types of radios (base station, portables, mobiles); computers, including MDCs, software; and hardware, such as transmitters, antennas, coax, power supplies and an emergency generator; that you need to make this work.

If successful, your department generally will need to bid every item over $5,000 or whatever limit your locality requires. If there are GSA, state, county or joint bids in place, the equipment usually can be bought on contract from those vendors without a bid; but again follow what your city or fire district requires. For example, my city had a separate limit so even a purchase with grant money required the approval of city council.

This individual also should be relatively familiar with Federal Communications Commission regulations on licensing and alterations. For example, if you are already licensed to a radio frequency that you wish to maintain, you need to know the limitations of your transmitter‘s output, the height of your antenna and the location where your transmitter is housed. If any of these are being changed, you first need to obtain the proper waivers from the FCC before starting the project.

Some tips for selling the project to the AFG reviewers include explaining how the current system does not fill your needs; how the new system will increase firefighter safety; how a new system will aid your neighbors; and how a new system will fit into the grand scheme of interoperability with your county, state and region. In our case, the new communications system allows us to run automatic aid with several surrounding communities. In the past it took one dispatcher to call another on the phone then re-dispatch the run for us, adding a minimum of two minutes to any automatic or mutual aid run. As we dispatched on another frequency altogether, none of our neighbors knew when or if we had gone in service. For a number of years it was easier for them just to bypass us for a farther-away department because they could communicate with them more directly.

Also remember to document everything. Any major grant award will be audited by the DHS. You need to keep all your records of your correspondence, invoices, purchase orders and matching funds clearly in a central location so they are open to inspection during the audit. Any item over $5,000 must be available to the auditor for a physical inspection including verifying serial numbers of each item. I can‘t emphasize how important it is to keep accurate records, especially when you use multiple vendors and purchase orders.

Finally, expect and compensate for project delays. Ours came as a result of Hurricane Katrina, when emergency generators were diverted to those affected areas in the South, and we waited nearly two months longer than anticipated for its delivery and installation.

Good luck with your 2008 grant request, and if you have any questions about the process of requesting communications equipment, contact me through FIRE CHIEF and I‘ll try to help.

Every day fire marshals, prevention officers, public educators, inspectors, plans examiners and fire engineers make decisions that will affect the public for years to come as they deal with new construction or enforcement of the existing fire code. These decisions guard the welfare of the community and make it safer for residents and firefighters should a building catch fire.

Let me share with you one victory and suggest how we can all share in another. For the past several weeks, my fire inspector has been working with the county building department on plans review and construction inspections of a lightweight frame building to be used as a “high hazard” occupancy that will be operational in approximately three months. Our primary concern is that the clientele who will use this building may or may not have the physical or mental capacity to exit the facility should a fire occur. For that reason the designs of the fire sprinkler, alarm and suppression systems are of paramount importance.

The initial site plan and construction drawings were submitted without complete sprinkler plans. The sprinkler plans were delayed while several discussions ensued on the most effective means to run a new 6-inch main for an additional fire hydrant and the sprinkler system. This new main, however, required at least one easement from a nearby property owner. To avoid construction delays, both the city and county agreed to a partial building permit for the foundation and framing while awaiting these completed sprinkler plans.

In the meantime, the fire department specified that the fire department connection needed to be moved closer to the new hydrant so that it freed the driveway for ladder company operations and allowed remaining fire apparatus better access to a third means of entry and egress from the building to assist with evacuation. As the deadline for the final sprinkler drawings approached the city water works at the suggestion of the fire department agreed that the new 6-inch main could be run from an existing tap on a 12-inch water main that would save the contractor time, cost and the legal entanglement caused by the easement.

In exchange for the concession, the department required the addition of an OS&Y valve with a tamper alarm to shut down the sprinkler system from the outside of the structure should the need arise. With the solution to the easement problem solved, the architect and sprinkler contractor quickly finished the sprinkler plans that included the added requirements and satisfied both the building and fire officials.

In working cooperatively, we hope this high-hazard occupancy will be free of any fire fatalities. While we possibly scored a life-long victory for fire safety in this building, there are many of us who are also working on a cooperative front to make changes in the national culture that will impact fire and life safety in the same way that working smoke alarms started to reduce fire fatalities beginning nearly 35 years ago.

Vision 2020 held a successful Web cast on Feb. 13 with more than 750 participants from across the country. The preliminary suggestions shared on that day will be the basis for a three-day symposium in Washington, D.C., late next month hosted by the Institution of Fire Engineers with a grant from the Department of Homeland Security. The symposium will bring together some of the best minds in fire and life safety from many other fire safety organizations to determine the next steps in reducing fire deaths, injuries and loss.

While these results are not yet known, it may take the form of several initiatives such as the self-extinguishing cigarette to reduce the greatest source of fire fatalities. It may be a wider use of fire sprinklers, especially in residential occupancies, or it may be some as yet unknown safety initiative. Whatever recommendations are forthcoming; stay tuned for what may be the beginning of the most significant victory in the reduction of fire loss since the advent of the smoke alarm.