"Change the Hero Mentality It's not OK to Die!"
Vinny Russell, Lieutenant & Instructor, Boston Fire Department


The Fire Service of North America (especially the US) needs to step back and take a serious took at its methods. I say this based on my observations and experience as a company officer as well as a recruit fire fighter instructor.

In a leading fire service trade magazine an editor recently gave the opinion that fire fighting was a 'calling'. The article stated, "the fire service is and must be seen as calling. It is the fulfillment of a personal journey. A 'calling' means that the fire fighter can do nothing other than be a fire fighter, it's what makes him 'him' or her 'her', and that is the source of fire service greatness!" In other words a 'calling' is a definition of what makes you who you are - a destiny perhaps?

Perhaps if we analyze this opinion it may be that there is a fire service 'calling' that says not only is it okay to die in the line of duty, that fire fighter then becomes an instant hero! Is this senseless outcome seen as the fulfillment of that 'calling', a statement that says, "it is okay to die?"

My question to the fire service is, how do we go about changing what may be seen as a tradition that has existed for over one hundred years? A tradition that says you are a hero if you die in the line of duty! I believe that we can change! I believe that we must change and the time to commence that change is now. It wilt however need to re-program our thinking and alter our methods and approach to our task.

First, we must start with the recruit fire fighter. We must institute a program of risk assessment that the recruit can use from the very first day of training and carry with them to the very last day of their career. We must establish what is and what is not acceptable behavior and protocol for each situation that the fire fighter encounters. Tomorrow's recruit fire fighters must follow revised behavior and protocols for those situations and not adopt the bad habits of the past that must be considered unacceptable.

Second, we must took closely at the role of the company officer who also needs to learn new behaviors and to perform risk assessments because of the added responsibility for the safety of the fire fighters who are under his or her command. Where does the company officer gain the knowledge to be a competent and capable commander? Up until now we have relied on the experience and knowledge gained ourselves from the first day we entered the fire service until the day we were promoted. This experience and knowledge has been gained at actual fire incidents as well as any knowledge gained at formal institutes of learning, but more likely from the impact of watching or reacting to the instructions given by our commanders, good and bad.

If for whatever reason a company officer lacks knowledge, training and experience needed, the consequences could be costly. An incorrect decision that places the company officer or crews into a difficult or dangerous situation may well result in the next arriving incident commander being left with no alternative but to operate in a manner that is automatically reactive to that incorrect decision. Not only will the decision of the company officer affect the fire fighters under their command, they will affect every subsequent decision made by the incident commander. This can result in the entire incident being run in a reactive rather than a proactive mode. Needless to say, if company officers make poor decisions, everyone at the incident could be place into a life-threatening situation.

I would suggest that there is clearly a lack of training for those making command decisions, particularity those 'on arrival' decisions and the impact that those decisions may have. How much emphasis is placed on decision making during recruit training? I would suggest very tittle and yet we expect fire fighters to work within a command structure environment at an incident. Why is it that we in the US Fire Service place so much emphasis today on continuation training for medical response but we do little if any for the other range of incidents that we attend, most of which will be considerably more hazardous. I would venture to suggest that very few departments have any continuation program for the operational decision makers of any rank. When do we ever perform any practical test of command compatibility on our officers. How does the newly promoted company officer suddenly achieve the skills to make command decisions that wilt lead to a successful outcome of the incident, whilst at the same time assuring the safety of everyone at the scene.

Equally, how does the company officer progress to being a Chief Officer in the company that he or she is competent in the role? If you have been taught bad habits on the 'father to son' principle, is it not possible that you are just going to perpetuate unsafe and unnecessary practices? Everyone at an incident must work within a property structured incident command system and everyone from rookie fire fighter through to Chief of department must understand the part that they play in maintaining the integrity of that system so that everyone works within an environment that is as safe as is possible.

We have witnessed some change in the US fire service in the Last few years. The terms 'customer service' and 'the consumer' have now become part of the fire service vocabulary. Fire Departments provide 'customer service' and the people that receive this service become 'the consumers'. With this in mind, do company officers and the fire fighters under their command know exactly what services they provide, what expectations the consumers have and more importantly what the consumers can or cannot demand by right? Do the tactics used reflect this change in the rote of the fire service?

Do company officers and their fire fighters now take a different approach to service delivery? To quote again the opinion of the editor referred to earlier, should we "risk a lot to save ourselves ... risk little to save them (our customers) ... and finally ... risk nothing to save property!"

However, this still seems to be saying risk a lot to save ourselves. I have to ask why? Why are we directing crews into situations that not only put themselves at great risk, but also those rapid intervention crews that are sent in to rescue their own. Perhaps there are many answers you can give me in response to the above question. I'm not saying that fire fighters won't continue to die in the tine of duty. What I am saying is that we must change our fire service culture. We must change the perception of professional 'calling' to one that says it is not okay to die and that this 'calling' does not make any one of us less of a fire fighter.

Anything that reduces death and injury to fire fighters does in fact make us smarter and better fire fighters who remain alive to see the results of our work, and to share these results with our loved ones. Our loved ones, the people who realty care about us coming home at the end of our shifts. I'm sure that if you asked those who have experienced the loss of a fire fighter, who died in the tine of duty, they would tell you they may be proud to know that the person who is now missing in their life is now considered a hero, but they would have liked it much better to have had them come home at the end of their shift!

If we took at a dictionary definition of a 'calling', we will see that it is listed as being an occupation, a profession or a trade. Our tradition seems to indicate that the US fire fighter is being trained to be professional at and also skilled in the art of death and injury rather than a skilled practitioner of safety and risk assessment.