When we engage in fire, EMS, and rescue activities, we are participating in what is considered to be an extraordinarily dangerous setting.  In training, we have the ability to create scenarios that test our students, but we as course designers must consider the alternative outcome to successful completion of a task, and by that, I am referring to failure.  When someone is unable to complete a task, or the environment becomes too daunting, or unforeseen events occur, there has the be the ability to directly swing into normalcy (read: safety).

In burn buildings we provide extra exits and in high-line rescue training we continually monitor redundant belays.  Whatever the topic, we intentionally build our scenarios to consider the “what if?” events that might occur.  While crawling through an active 18-inch pipe might provide a “confidence building” exercise, what is the plan if someone gets stuck?  Or in the case at hand, weather creates a very real scenario?  Thankfully a greater disaster didn’t occur.  But while in confined space situations we must “train in representative spaces”, and nothing provides more realism than using the spaces themselves, we are also obligated to monitor those spaces and aggressively manage safety concerns for personnel.

When an instructor is telling you to do something that doesn’t seem right, there is also an obligation on the part of students to respectfully raise a hand and question the scenario.  Unfortunately, not every instructor out there is experienced or dedicated enough to insure that the proper learning environment is provided and adequately managed.  As real professionals, we need to not only do risk management on the emergency scene, but in training as well.  There are plenty of instructors from whom I have taken a class, only to walk away shaking my head.  If I am responsible for hiring instructors, I at least qualify them myself or seek the advice of colleagues who have worked with those people before.  Our business, however, is too dangerous to leave the teaching to amateurs.  Look for credible instructors with a history of work when you are trusting someone with the lives of your personnel.  We kill and injure enough of our people in real situations.  There’s no reason to do the same when the urgency doesn’t exist.

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Maybe it’s the observation that many of the politicians who are quick to take credit for the nation’s preparedness are slow to ever visit a fire station, or maybe it’s my expectation that instead of having to beg for the table scraps that our law enforcement brethren leave for us, we might also get a seat at the main table, but I just don’t see the fire service gaining the amount of respect that we deserve for the sacrifices we make.  And if you’ve been following this blog for any period of time, you’ll know that I am fully cognizant of the reason why.

We have friends in high places that can help us.  Despite your individual politics, Vice-President Joe Biden has long proven his support of the fire service, and there are others out there who are as well.  If you don’t want the fire service to continually get what’s left over; if you are tired of watching FIRE and SAFER grants get thinner and thinner; if you expect that the fire service should be considered for a bigger piece of the decision-making that goes on in our homeland defense, I’d suggest you get involved.  Learn what legislation is pending that affects the fire service, what is beneficial and what is detrimental, and call your Representatives and Senators.  Join the Congressional Fire Services Institute and support our efforts to get help from the government in furthering our mission.  Participate at the National Fire Academy and make sure your elected officials know how valuable it is to us.

While we speak here on Firehouse Zen about change and progress, tradition is good when it comes down to the meaningful things, like our history and our preservation of the courage and sacrifice of our brothers who have gone before us.  One of the beautiful traditions of our service is the recognition of a job well done and award of something meaningful to most of us.  I knew this method of conveying our certificate upon us was going to happen, so it wasn’t a surprise.  And regardless, the best thing I honestly took away from this experience was the friendship and the sharing with some of the finest people I will ever know, which in and of itself is one of the best traditions of our job.  But over the last ten years, the current method of awarding you your certificate says to me that our government thinks so much of our efforts that they wad up a certificate in a cardboard tube and ship it off.

What do we need to do to end this and other shots at the fire service?  Get involved and show them we are here.  We need to work together and stop shooting ourselves in our collective feet in order to agree on some basic principles and move forward.  We need to agree on at least some things, and put them out there, and not pull everything off the table when our pet project doesn’t get funded.  We need to work together as a team, and get our government to understand that we will not be going away anytime soon.

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In their latest issue of Disaster Research, there is an article regarding government response and recovery and the increase in governmental partnerships with faith- and community-based organizations to assist in cleaning up catastrophes.  In the recent past, we have seen ineffective response from certain portions of government that have assumed responsibility for this service at the local, state and federal levels.  I don’t think anyone who works in our field and  is taken seriously about their views on the subject feels like “government” alone can deliver an entire package of assistance to a disaster-stricken community.  However, there is plenty of debate about how to most effectively coordinate assistance in the wake of a calamity.

Of all things in our industry, our frustration with failure of some politicians to continue to apply heat (and funding) to the problem BEFORE disaster strikes is only compounded by the political “outrage” when disaster occurs and we are accused with not properly preparing in advance (still with limited or no budget or legislative action on our behalf).

In an answer to some of these challenges, some state and local governments are forming coalitions that guide organizations providing emergency response. Missouri, Florida, Texas, and a few others have, according to a recent article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, begun to develop alliances between emergency managers and NGOs.

There are many discussions regarding the potential for blurred church and state separation which can’t even begin to be adequately addressed in a short blog post.  However, those issues aside, NGOs over the past decade have been efficiently providing disaster recovery assistance and have been successful in finding resources that governmental bodies can’t seem to scare up.

This discussion doesn’t also begin to factor in the entire over-reliance on “outside” help in the event of disaster.  This was a point made by Alan Kirschenbaum in earlier works referring to the growth of the disaster response community that seem to be related to the decline in perception of individual responsibility for preparedness.

While this all has some serious discussion ahead of it, I have less of a problem with this type of assistance than I do with pseudo-qualified responders self deploying to events with little or no capability or self-sufficiency.  I think there are plenty of avenues for a person with altruistic motives to get involved with an organized response; it’s the poseurs and con-men I’m interested in keeping away.

I’m open to some observations on the subject.  I think if managed correctly, these NGOs have access to resources currently limited to those of us charged with response, and we should take advantage of creative partnerships, as the organizations I am affliliated have already done.  Look around your community and identify capability that lies outside of the conventional response.  You’ll be surprised by the resources that lie out there and I think you’ll find that instead of spending essential funds on assets that already exist, you can find better uses for that money in areas that are currently underserved.

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Over the past decade, the efforts Dave Iannone and Chris Hebert have put together brought a lot of us old crusties to the digital age.  These innovative experiences took firefighters (and non-firefighters) from around the world and brought us closer together.   But while this has been a good thing because I now know and can better understand the perspectives of a volunteer firefighter in Moosejaw, AK as well as a firie in New South Wales, Australia, it is saddening because I see some of what I had hoped not to see.

Although I was first promoted to officer rank in 1985, I’m afraid I wasn’t a very good officer.  Sure I could run tactics and make sure people were doing their jobs, but I lacked maturity and looking back on it, depth.   In 1988, my eyes were opened.  During a weekend seminar on Fire Service Leadership, Chief Harry Diezel (Ret, Virginia Beach Fire Department) opened my eyes and put me on the path that I have since continued along.  Twenty years ago, this guy said that networking was one of the single most important elements of leading. Yes, twenty years ago.

I quickly found out what firefighting was and was not about.  In that one class, I realized that there was firefighting, there was being a fire officer, and there was fire service leadership.  While I never had the opportunity to work with Chief Diezel, his words have never left me.  Although some of his ideas still are met with resistance from some of our colleagues and did that weekend from people in the class, the ideas have only been confirmed over the years to me as his concept of emergency service delivery made Virginia Beach one of the model departments of the Eighties.  Over the years, people like Howard Cross, a legendary instructor at the National Fire Academy, have also reinforced those concepts to me.

Like these individuals did for me, I have always wanted to do for others.  Firehouse Zen is part of that legacy.  I want others to look at this job with renewed perspective, to comprehend, rather than simply demonstrate knowledge.  To understand, rather than to just repeat memorized information.  To seek alternatives, to improve, and to be about positive change rather than to be about the status quo.

FireEMSBlogs.com is just a natural evolution of sharing this body of knowledge.  Dave and Chris have done a tremendous job to bring us together and to allow us to share experiences, to bond, and to better appreciate the situation each of us must face daily.  We have, however, light years ahead of us and so long as we refuse to acknowledge that our differences are actually a good thing, we will never be united.

To effect change, we must seek to understand.  To understand, we have to be presented with knowledge and that knowledge comes from others.  As the internet bridges the miles and brings our world closer together, we are finding that we share a lot more than we thought we had in common, and yet we also find ourselves unwilling to accept the views of others and even assault those who happen to share a contrarian view.  In order to grow, it is imperative that we open our minds and take the tools we are given, and use them to the best advantage.  Do us all a favor this year; point a colleague toward some of the networking opportunities out there, especially the one afforded by FireEMSBlogs.com, and tell them that there’s no time like the present to start working toward tomorrow.

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On June 15, Steve said:

Yes, credentials would help but WHO is the final authority on issuing them? WHO sets the standards? How are you going to avoid the age old paid vs volunteer bias in any credentialing agency?

My quick answer: I am against the bias in the career vs. volunteer.  If you can meet the standard, you can meet the standard.  I think there is plenty of room for volunteers, especially in disaster response.  So some career guy is going to tell me my docs can’t be part of the team because they aren’t career guys somewhere?  And I have said in regard to SC-TF1, where I do have some pull, if one person in a one-station volunteer department down the road wants to be part of our team, we need to let him if he meets our criteria (background check, physical agility, etc.)  As Ray Wilkinson, our past Director once said, “I can teach someone to break rocks, what I can’t teach is desire.”  If someone wants to do the job, and goes through the requirements to meet a position, why should I care if he’s a member of FDNY or of Acme Fire Department?  So Steve, I’m with ya, brother.

On June 16, Kevin said:

I live in a state where there is no agency tasked with certifying or credentialing Search and Rescue dogs. I have seen (many times) where someone will buy lights for their POV and load their pet dog into the truck and call themselves a SAR team! If I didn’t know better, I might think all volunteer SAR teams were like this. However, there are a number of excellent non-governmental SAR teams in my state as well. I myself and a member of a volunteer K9 team.

Kevin goes on to say that they have a volunteer K9 SAR team because there isn’t an existing asset and law enforcement has asked for it.  Well, Kevin, as they say in Australia, “good on ya”.  You have identified a need and you have tried to meet that need.  No one else has that asset and it sounds like you have tried to do a good job of using accepted industry standards to meet the need.  THAT is good stuff.

However, I just went to discuss the concept of “those of us who want to do this right, but there are people with authority screwing things up so we can’t get in”, and realized that the post I wrote for that last week never posted as scheduled!  So that is now on the post schedule and I hope it does discuss some of the feelings I personally have in that regard. 

On June 16th, SAR Volunteer also commented:

I totally agree with your points. Please understand this are a handful of small volunteer K9 SAR teams in the state of SC who do NOT self deploy, do NOT work for anyone but the proper state or municipal authorities, train hard, carry their own liability and workmenscomp insurance, align their standards with NIMS Resource Typing, and are working to ensure they meet the proposed credentialing requirements.

And to you too, SAR Vollie, I applaud your efforts.  I think there is a place for the small volunteer K9 teams at the table as well, if they meet a standard.  Let’s take SC-TF1 again for example.  I have said over and over again, if we have people out there who want to do this stuff, let’s get them involved.  But not being a canine guy, I have some difficulty understanding some of the things the canine types are telling me.  So when I get national experts telling me one thing, and some guy with Rover in a pickup truck (or Expedition, as it were) saying his dog can detect live scent, cadavers, lost pets, and get a beer and catch a frisbee, understand that I am skeptical.  And the self-deploying thing is just purely bad in my book, but that’s a whole other issue as well that doesn’t stop with canine SAR teams, and DOES include career guys, departments, and organized teams, etc.  Frankly, if you (SAR Vollie) or anyone else in SC have dogs trained to find LIVE HUMANS in collapsed or damaged buildings, and feel like you can meet a standard, send me an e-mail.  I’d love to hear from you.  But anyone who calls themselves “Urban Search and Rescue” and they are running around doing wilderness searches, well, go back to my box of rocks comment.  Be what you say you are.

Anyway, I hope this illustrates some of the issues considered so far and we’ll get back on track with the next post (which should have published before the last one- go figure).  Please continue with your comments.  I certainly appreciate your perspectives.  Stay safe.

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It is a pretty lengthy read (115 pages) but if you are looking into development of US&R (or other special teams), it might provide you a little direction given that our program (SC-TF1) seems like it has done pretty well.  I attribute that success to people like Ken Bell, Tom Webb, and Don Headrick, as well as a host of others (our first Director, Ray Wilkinson, and the chiefs of our Firefighter Mobilization Oversight Committee).  The foundation that was laid for the program came at a price for many of us; between the many trips back and forth to Columbia, spending countless hours away from our families, burning up our personal cell phone minutes (no unlimited long distance in those days), and our cashing every political chip we had (and then some).

 The Task Force and the state response program is these days in the very capable hands of Ken and our new Director, Dan McManus, as well as Tom, Jason Walters, Steve Drozd, and Travis Carricato, but it all requires a good plan and a little momentum.

So look it over (hey, it got me through my third year EFO) and let me know if it is useful and if you have something you’d like to share.  A wise man (Bob McKee, from TX-TF1) once told me that he was indebted to those who shared with him in his early days, and he was a great resource to me when we were devleoping our program as well.  I hope to pay that kindness forward as well.

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