Who are the wise? Who are our leaders?  Are they the ones who always open their mouth when a question is asked?  Or is the wise one he who listens and encourages you to answer your own questions?  Leaders don’t always have the answers, but a good leader knows where to get them.

Just because someone has been around a while, just because they are the “most experienced” on the shift or in the department, that does not make them a leader.  If they use that experience to mentor others, or to educate, or to nurture the careers of others, those are things that make you a leader.

A true leader does the right things, all the time, even when they don’t have to.  They convey goodness, they exercise restraint, they maintain their cool, they are patient, and they are fair.  Being the “smartest” or the “biggest” or the “best looking” does not make you the leader.  When one is magnanimous, when one is happy for the success of others, when one shares their knowledge and their experience, then they are a leader.  Those are the characteristics of leadership. 

As my family and friends will tell you, even being one of the most connected guys on the planet does not result in timely birthday wishes to your loved ones.  I think it has more to do with the many spinning plates I have going rather than indifference or the constant pleading of alarms I set to remind me. Regardless, it happens.  I like to think that it is one of my many endearing but frustrating qualities.

So my belated 40th birthday wishes to the job-changing America Burning report comes as no surprise six days later (I wrote this Saturday morning for my usual Monday posting). America Burning should be mandatory reading for all firefighters. The report painted a picture of the fire problem in the United States at that time.  Some of the changes that came about as a result of its influence were the creation of the United Sates Fire Administration and the National Fire Academy and the nationwide push for smoke detectors, as well as more aggressive fire prevention efforts directed toward children.

Chief Glenn Gaines, in his Mutual Aid blog post How is America Burning 40 Years Later? reflected the other day on what this meant in our battle. We were up against increased numbers of fire fatalities and fire loss compared to other industrialized nations.  In the 70's, our cities were burning.  Our rural areas were burning.  Fire death and injury, compounded with fire loss, was significant.

My brother and I read this book when it first came out.  Understand that I was nine and he was eight then, and this is NOT light reading material.  But when my father, who left it sitting around, caught us reading it, he turned to page 10 (the picture of "Susan"). Pointing at the picture, he bluntly told us, "This is what happens when you play with fire."  

At the time, the fire death rate for children under five was three times that of the rest of the population.   The picture on page 15, a smoky silhouette of a child who died from inhalation of smoke and toxic gases, illustrated a heart-breaking reality: our most vulnerable didn't even stand a chance unless we could warn them of the danger.  The fire service leaders of that time realized we had to elevate our efforts to engage this problem.

Many of you weren't even alive when this report hit the stations (maybe even some of your parents weren't either), but it was a very graphic expose of what we faced.  Another book from that time, Dennis Smith's Report From Engine Co. 82, gave an account of the job as it existed while our ghettos were burning.  This book may have inspired more of us to become firefighters than America Burning, just as Emergency did via television, but the reason why is because of a lot of the same issues we face today.  Fighting fire suits us; we are brave, macho, sardonic souls who see a burning building and snort "Just another job." And we take care of business like it is another day at the office.  The suits and sheep see us as Gods among mere mortals.  Kids see firefighters and realize they don't want to be stuck in an office when they grow up; they want to be a real-live superhero.  The problem with this, however, is that things have changed and we need to evolve with those changes. Not only has the venue changed, but the mission has as well.

These are tough emotions to put aside, but put them aside we must.  Building construction and fire loading is significantly different.  There are more lawyers scrutinizing our every move.  And of course, every year there are attempts to shut down the National Fire Academy or to minimize the USFA budget.  The politicians are trying to squeeze every last penny out of our budgets so they can fund trips to Argentina or give the money to the banks.  There are higher priorities than saving lives and protecting property, my brothers and sisters. 

We have to fight the challenge of protecting our communities with intelligence, not with rhetoric.  The way to defeat an enemy is not by engaging one on one, but by observing for opportunities and deciding when you have the best tactical advantage.  Philosophically, that runs completely counter to our "mano y mano" psyche.  When someone comes at a firefighter with a problem, we bow up our chests and say, bring it on.  We can face down anything.  Look at yourself, boys and girls, it is absolutely true.  That is why we can continue to do more with less.  It's like a perverse little game of "You can't beat us by cutting us."  It's why we are so special.  The problem is that this is a war of attrition; in asymmetrical warfare, you either need to change your rules of engagement or plan on getting picked off one by one.

We can't keep playing the game by rules that have changed. We must be smarter than they are, and the "they" in our case isn't just fire, but the forces that align to maintain life safety as an ongoing problem: lack of smoke detectors or fire sprinklers, substandard construction practices, lack of education and human nature, and always, the constant threat of staffing and budget cuts to support our mission.

If we are sincere that we want to protect our communities and serve our fellow man, the game has to be elevated.  Hanging on to tradition is important from the aspect of honoring those who have sacrificed before us.  But just as the military studies and discusses Napoleon, Clausewitz, and Sun Tzu, modern-day warfighting tactics are applied to those precepts to conquer enemies.  We can continue to honor our predecessors' valor and heroism without engaging the enemy in the tactics of those days.

Take a moment and read through America Burning and the subsequent report, America Burning Revisited.  Understand where we really must focus our efforts.  And lets use the means at our disposal: scientific and technological advances, information sharing (especially through networking on the internet and through our local, state and National Fire Academies), and good old fashioned education.  We are a modern fighting force and we should be embracing that, rather than running away from it.

It has become apparent to me that an apology is in order for more reasons than one.  I'll be succinct since the volume of comments, both via e-mail and on the site have led me to the conclusion that my original message was mistaken, and then in replying to that, even more so.  So if you only make it this far, just know I am sorry for the confusion.

Let's begin with a few caveats and I should probably post this with easy access for all to read: First and foremost, Firehouse Zen is my blog; I am the only writer and the only one to blame if there is an issue on here. There are a number of reasons for that, even though I frequently get individuals who want to write a piece for the site.  It's just my first policy and I'm sticking with it.  So as much as I appreciate the offers, I have consistently declined.  I will link to your article if it is appropriate, I will paraphrase and even quote you, but all posts are mine.

Second, I have had a rule that regardless of the issue, we remain relatively civil.  This wasn't an issue here, but I have seen it happen elsewhere, so I always like to get it out there for everyone to see. There is room for discussion and dissent, but the moment things get out of control, I'll shut down comments.  But that said, if attacked, I will return fire, not out of policy but because I am human, and I usually regret it later.  But let nobody think I am a pushover because I am open to different viewpoints.

And lastly, because this is where I want to focus on for this instance: Firehouse Zen is not necessarily a "tactics" blog.  I will talk tactics all day long, which is part of the reason this is not a tactics blog, as I have a finite time to write what I do.  But the focus of this blog is leadership and change, not just in the fire service, but in the world.  That's why you get an occasional political observation or a rant on society.  So if I use a tactical issue as an example, you may have a differing opinion on it and I will entertain discussion, but I'm not going to let that genre hijack this blog.  There are lots and lots of blogs out there talking tactics, and mine is one of very few talking about the sociology of leading.  In fact, it might be the only one, although I'm sure I'll be corrected if I am wrong.

So to the issue: I respect the differences of opinion in regard to this specific research, or rather (as it is becoming more clear to me) the scientific process in replicating the experiments in a particular instance, resulting in data some observers felt was flawed.  I guess if I had asked more questions in reply rather than assuming an attack was going on, I could have drawn that conclusion.  Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.

But let me also be perfectly clear: the science from the UL study bears out data that is pertinent to how we do the job, and the comments observed that sometimes it is THIS logic that people use as an excuse for not doing the entire job.  And I believe they are right about that as well.

Exterior streams have gotten a bad rap for as long as I can remember.  I remember my own father talking about the changes in operations when he made chief, forcing his department to stop engaging from the outside and going in and digging it out (this was in the 70's).  For you who might not realize it, that was also concurrent with the advent of SCBA and better PPE.  And all that being said, I am a supporter, fan, believer, lover, etc. of interior attack.  It is the most effective tool for finding and extinguishing fire in a structure where the seat is not obvious and we do not have structural conditions that contradict entry.  Was that well said enough for you?

However, and this is a big "however", this method of delivery came at the almost total exclusion of exterior streams except in defensive operations.  I know that I personally instructed firefighters (because of my own bias, what  was taught, and of course my incorrectly conducted personal observations) that we shouldn't use exterior streams because they "push fire".  Nothing against my instructors and mentors, but they beat this into me (sometimes literally) and while I still love them dearly, I realized some issues later that you may understand has colored my perspective on how to lead.

In the 90's, though, I did something interesting.  I went back to school.  In seeking a degree, I took a class that reminded me of the part I always loved about the job.  I like physics.  And in taking physics at the collegiate level, I realized some of the things I was understanding about the science of fighting fires didn't add up.  This was reinforced not too many years later when in the event of making changes in the way we operated, a class on fireground management actually caused us to do some small scale demonstration burns and proved to us the logic in that "streams push fire" was not sound.  So over 12 years ago, our department began to implement and train (at the MCAS Beaufort burn building) on transitional attack.  The result was that on fires like in the picture above (courtesy of my good friend, Chief Ed Boring), we implemented these attacks with astounding success.

I will admit, not everyone has gotten on the train, even in that length of time.  But the ones who did were very successful in how they were stopping fires.  The addition of Class A foam to our attack in the past ten years has even more so increased our effectiveness and, (knock on wood) we stop them where we find them.  But there is also the need to consider stream choice. We use breakaway nozzles in our department so we can utilize a solid stream, and honestly, that is my weapon of choice. The short version: if we roll up and fire is showing, we hit it quick (very quick), then we go in and dig it out.  The use of foam to do this makes that first stream lethal (to the fire) in its delivery.  More often than not, within seconds, we can be in there with reduced interior issues.

As one brother commented, in balloon frame and really, in almost every structure fire, there is a need to go interior and seek fire in the voids.  And I agree completely.  And exterior streams aren't going to solve that issue.  But the use of an exterior stream (given fire conditions are present) will make the building more tenable for entry and is a means of checking the forward progress of fire.

This does bring up another point, about "spraying smoke".  I believe in cooling the smoke to dissipate the heat and avoid flashover.  But if I'm not standing there with you saying, "You need to hit that", its a little hard for me to explain what gets sprayed and what doesn't.  I would say that if it is coming out under pressure, if it is dark, thick, boiling smoke, it needs to be cooled. But this is where that solid stream comes into play again.  If you consider the flow path to be out that opening, and it more often than not, is, then use of a solid stream is not going to close off that ventilation point.  It will disrupt the thermal balance, it will cool the gases, and it doesn't "block the hole".  What you are doing is buying time to avoid having a flashover occur.

So in conclusion, while I believe the intent was to educate that perhaps in this case, there was miscommunication on my part, the lesson to take from this is that questioning the findings of research is not bad, in fact, it is encouraged.  It is through questioning the research that we learn, and if the science can stand up to examination, it makes it valid.  That is, in fact, exactly what the fire service needs to make it more professional.  But it is the way in which we do it that is problematic.  I understand we are not all researchers, and those of us that are have over 200 years of tradition to fix, so you can say we are busy.  But the way in which firefighters have questioned science isn't necessarily conducive to discussion.

It may seem like us to be obvious, but it clearly is not.  This is why there are applied research papers being done at the Executive Fire Officer level and why more and more of us are taking a more scientific approach.  But resistance to findings because we have done something a certain way for years and it "seems" to work is not a good practice, mostly because what "seems" to work often ends up catastrophically, if not today, then very soon.

As things progress, we must advance our own science and through intelligent discourse, we can all be better and safer.  Thanks for engaging me and hopefully you all continue reading my humble ramblings.

Before I go there, however, I did get feedback from others who pointed out other factors like balloon frame construction and the fact that not too many compartment fires go without void space involvement.  And as these observations were respectful and pertinent, I really appreciate them.  I will quickly reply to that as well: I don't believe for a minute that structural firefighting can be limited to exterior attack.  But that being said, the science defends that we can effectively mount a transitional attack without fear of pushing a fire through the building, if anything, to check rapidly progressing fire conditions.  In those situations, I would utilize the quick knockdown then transition to digging out fire in void spaces from inside if warranted.

I did get a comment to that post, however, that I wanted to discuss. I am going to admit that each time I went to address it, my post sounded like I was delivering a public spanking. But this was the comment and I do at least appreciate that they included a link to their own article:

Do not lump all of us who oppose this movement as being stuck in the past.  Myself and others are more than open to advances in our field.  Our problem is when information is cloaked in political propaganda, when the ideas presented do not make sense based on current scientific evidence, and when “new information” is really something we have all known for years.  Don’t just assume that we are uneducated, stubborn naysayers who have nothing substantial to add.

No matter how I phrased it, I found anything I might say could be construed as heavy-handed.  However, after taking a moment to re-read the comment, I went to the linked article from the commenter.  At that site, I then read the article written by Chief Shane Ray in Fire Chief magazine that he was referring to.

The goal of this post is to clarify that I do consider that anyone who would refute scientific evidence without any substantiating counter-argument to be uneducated and stubborn.  And yes, that does infer that those who oppose the movement (in the case of my post, that of the use of quantifiable and measurable data to develop fire tactics) are stuck in the past.  I am not saying that contesting a finding is inappropriate; I am saying that constesting a finding without anything other than your personal observations is.

Let me repeat: I never have said interior attack was not an option.  I said (paraphrasing) that given a choice between applying an exterior stream and an interior stream, if both are equally effective, we should use our head and opt for the safe one over the relatively unsafe one, especially if we can get water on the fire faster from the outside than on the inside. Regardless, the post wasn't even about tactics, it was about the reluctance of people to change when change is warranted.  But since we are going here, let's do it.

Let me make it perfectly clear. Research conducted by a number of sources found the application of exterior streams on compartment fires did not “push” fire, either onto victims or throughout a building.  

I have another paper due and not much time, so I’m going to cut to the chase.  My immediate literature review involved going straight to the UL report Impact of Ventilation on Fire Behavior in Legacy and Contemporary Residential Construction (Kerber, 2011).  There are other studies that Chief Ray cites in his article and they all provide the same observations.  So for the sake of time, let's just use this one right now.

I have already discussed in previous articles why I do not agree with making fully prepared crews stand on the sidewalk and fight a fire from the safety of the exterior. It flies against every responsibility we shoulder as firefighters. It continues to be used as an excuse to cover up for lack of preparation and training.

So let’s talk tactics: If the research shows that a quick exterior application of a stream will check fire progress, not result in a substantial increase of interior temperatures, and improve tenability for occupants in less time than it would to deploy an interior line, find the fire room, and attack the fire, you STILL want to make the interior attack? Why? 

The author states that the purpose of his article is to “expose the other side of the argument.”  I am wondering then, what is the other side of the argument? He says his rebuttal “isn't packaged as nicely and doesn't include pictures of myself, but it is from the heart.” 

Well, here's where my comments are going to hurt some feelings. My answer is that it is time we stopped thinking with our “heart” in regard to tactics, and started thinking with our head. We have the FDNY, the Chicago Fire Department, and Underwriters Laboratories conducting research that all agrees.  His contention is that putting water on fire coming out of a window is bad, but other than his feelings as to why that is wrong (and the fact that it runs counter to verifiable, observable evidence), we have nothing.  

I support differences of opinion, so long as your opinion is voiced respectfully. When you try to make me and others sound like an idiot, well, I have problems with that, but okay, I can even live with that.  But when we are talking about what is a best practice for the job, will save firefighter lives and is scientifically shown to not result in adverse effects, and you say you don’t like it, well, you should probably just keep your opinion to yourself.

I had a whole bunch of other stuff to say about this, but I'm simply not going to go there.  As a chief fire officer, when I give someone an order to do something, it is an order based on what is the most effective means to bring resources to bear on a problem with the most chance of success and the least amount of risk to completing the overall operational objectives.  I’ll highlight it for you: It has nothing to do with what is in my heart.  

My job is to save lives, protect property and the environment, and to do my best to bring everyone home in one piece.  If that requires an interior attack to dig out the fire, then we'll suit up and go get it.  But if there is a more effective method, well, I don’t care what tradition says about heart, responsibility, or courage, the science trumps it. I could care less if that sucks the fun out of anyone's day.  We're not doing kumbaya here.  People's lives are on the line.  Let's act like it and do the right thing.

Recently I read an article written by a yoga instructor-trainer as they reflected on the state of instruction as they knew it.  He made an interesting comment about how he and his team had been involved in a great number of instructor certifications, but how he felt like the certification training failed in one major area: in “teaching teachers to teach yoga”.

His observation was that in certifying these instructors, the methods resulted in a great amount of fear; fear of getting it wrong, and the course delivery, as a result, became flat, formulaic, scripted.  Their methods so caused their instructor candidates lose the creativity and energy found in experimentation, in learning from their students, or focusing so hard on the product that they botched the delivery.  They were focusing more on not embarrassing themselves than on passing along knowledge.

I see a number of fire and EMS instructors who are the same way.  As an instructor-trainer myself, it has always been a source of frustration for me when I am faced with candidates who don’t KNOW the material they are supposed to be passing along.  They read the book, they took the course, they checked off the check-offs, and now they were supposed to understand the nuances of a subject they were barely intimate with and communicate it to someone else.

To me, it is no wonder we have some of the issues we face in today’s emergency services; in many cases, the people doing the teaching are learning from those who weren’t inspired themselves.  They might have the desire to teach, but what they are sharing wasn’t shared correctly to begin with.

I recall a discussion with a Captain once about a new Lieutenant who, in his first few shifts, had proven to be a megalomaniac.  Well, maybe not that bad, but it was pretty bad.  I said to that Captain that I wasn’t surprised the Lieutenant led his crews like a tyrant.  He learned to lead from his own supervisor, who was themselves a tyrant. 

How can we expect anything less when it is the only existence they know?

I was driving along and a car passed me, stereo booming away. The license plate was surrounded by a chain and the windows were all blacked out.  A sticker on the rear window: the silhouette of a pit bull with the words, “A civilized society does not regulate by race”.

Stereotyping an entire group because of the actions of a few runs counter to what we define as civilized.  But society accepts individuals by way of common values, mores, and an understanding that those are the boundaries.  People bump up against those boundaries all the time and when they do, that is when conflict occurs, and when the judging begins.  There is a big difference between listening to a very loud stereo and embracing the thug life.  However, there are those who claim innocence and can't understand that when they push against those values, there will often be pushback.  

For example, in the animal kingdom, there are many members of the cat (feline) family.  There is, however, a significant difference between a house cat and a tiger.  It isn't being stereotypical to expect different behavior between the domesticated feline and a large striped one living in the Burmese jungle.  But these are different animals; its not an issue of culture or race, it is a difference of species.  We, however, are all one, brothers.  We may worship at different churches, live in different communities, listen to different music, or even have different skin color, but we are all members of homo sapiens. 

We in emergency services create our own divisions that we should be careful to avoid “regulating” by.  We have, as I have mentioned ad nauseam, our career vs. volunteer, our union vs. non-union, our urban vs. our rural, our fire/EMS vs. our many other versions, and in all of these cases, it begins the discussion of, “Are we not all brothers?”

In the spirit of my analogy, when you advertise your membership in the greater society of firefighters, and we have taken an oath to protect the public and carry out our sworn duties faithfully, if you fail to carry out those duties by being ineffective, stealing from the till, setting fires, you are not part of our society.  We seem to have some real mutts in our ranks these days.  I'm sure some of it is just perception, having better access to arrest records and the media's willingness to pump up the anger when someone given public trust is found doing something outside the norm.  

We shouldn't judge others as a group, but in some cases, we have to maintain some objectivity when it comes to high percentages of people proving the perception to be more of a reality than otherwise.  These are not easy questions to answer, despite the shouting from the cheap seats by the trolls who just react to anything that hits the Interwebz.

Just as in religion, every fire department has more commonalities than differences.  We speak pretty much a universal language, no matter where we are on the globe.  A grab is a celebrated occasion in any firehouse.  And holding a worker where we found it when we got there is recognized it for what it is and we will even catch ourselves saying it under our breath- “Nice stop…”  But we are very diverse as well.  We have different cultures and different values when it comes to some parts of our lives.  Regardless of those differences, though, I think we can all agree on one big idea, that there is no room on the job for mutts.

How these people manage to thrive in our ranks is beyond me.  I mean, doesn’t anyone question how some of these issues come about?  Is there simply no fear of repercussion?  Do we honestly continue to tolerate this kind of behavior until it is exposed by the next Geraldo wanna-be?  Well, the news is that we have plenty in our ranks who do actually tolerate it, and enable it, and turn the other way when someone is doing wrong.  And frankly, I have pointed out some of these individuals in my career and heard, “Oh, that’s just how ___ is.”  And then life just goes on.

If an individual is willing to use poor judgment to fulfill their own needs first, what makes you think they are going to develop a whole bunch of integrity when things really get bad?  If an individual is willing to take shortcuts in patient care to avoid extra work, what kinds of decisions do you think they’ll make in regard to putting their own life on the line when you need the help most?  It all comes down to trust. If people can’t be trusted to do the little things, how can we trust them to make good choices when it is absolutely necessary?  You may think you can trust them, but really, think hard about it…do you?

If you have people in your organization who have constant challenges of judgment, you can’t afford to keep them.  If they don’t cause a civil or criminal investigation at some point, chances are, they will find some other means to let everyone down.  The fire service isn’t a club, it is a calling.  There is no room in the brotherhood for people without integrity.  If you really believe that being a firefighter is more than a job or a hobby, then it is incumbent on you to enforce the values we expect from someone when you pin on the badge.

Don’t let the mutts ruin a good thing.  Being a firefighter is still an honorable and noble thing to be.  Kids still grow up wanting to be firefighters.  People do still look up to firefighters.  But as we continue to see more and more of the lapses in our expectations and beliefs, we continue to slide against what we all swore to protect back in the beginning.  Don’t let your brothers down.

In a little research prior to a possible paper on terrorism, I was looking at the history of terror in the United States. Technically, it goes all the way back to our beginnings, when "radicals" belonging to the Sons of Liberty tossed 45 tons of tea into the harbor.  As you can quickly see in that one single case, "terrorism" is defined differently. I guess it just depends on whose point of view you happen to take.

I doubt anyone, however, equates terrorism as we know it today with an act of throwing goods into the harbor.  Things have escalated considerably in 200+ years and now in 21st century Boston we have this reprehensible act of violence.  We don't know the specific issue that sparked this act, but this defines "terror".  Terror, in that these bombs were not just intended to get someone's attention about the unfairness of a point of view.  No, this act included what were certainly anti-personnel devices, placed in a concentrated area of non-combatants, and positioned for maximum effect.  This act was a cowardly act, striking at defenseless civilians in order to make some kind of a point.

I believe in peace and I believe in perspectives, but I'm afraid I'm not a pacifist.  I personally believe we should seek who it is who chooses to harm the innocent and root them out.  Suffice it to say, if someone were to hurt my loved ones, I would pursue them to the ends of the earth.  While I earnestly strive to maintain peace and open-mindedness, and I profess an extraordinary amount of tolerance for other people's viewpoints, that all ends when you choose to escalate with force against me.  

I struggle with my innermost being when I advocate for a return to civility and understanding, then see zealots deciding that whatever it is they stand for is more important than peaceful co-existence.  I, like most Americans, stand for justice.  We believe in equality.  And we may have our own closed-minded radicals, but the majority of Americans abhor those extremes.  When a certain group of individuals decides to plant a bomb among us, they have declared war against us and everything we stand for.

As I mentioned my research, I find that there is evidence of violent or extreme action being taken by almost every faction and belief.  As I mentioned the actions taken in defense of independence, there are also many cases of "terrorism" documented for all kinds of causes.  To the Left, before you talk about right-wing extremism, let's discuss the 1920 Wall Street bombing or the Black Panthers or the SLA.  On the Right, don't leave the discussion without consideration of the white supremacy movement and of course, Oklahoma City and abortion clinic shootings.  But I wanted to address a differently handled case of civil disobedience.  

When I was learning to drive years ago, I practiced in the parking lot of the General Electric nuclear missile facility in King of Prussia, PA, so this event is very near to me.  Those of you who are my age may remember that this is where the "Plowshares Eight" took non-violent action, broke into the facility, damaged missile nose cones, and poured blood onto documents and files.  This is an act these days probably considered terrorism.  

The big difference here, and something maybe people should understand, is that these individuals had a tremendous passion for what they considered to be a crime against humanity.  But instead of bombing something or shooting at someone, they took action against inanimate objects.  They made a point without hurting people, at least not physically.  

For those who proclaim they are indeed "peaceful", this is a lesson in real peaceful protest.  Likewise, there are many cases in history.  Gandhi staged sit-down strikes.  Rosa Parks refused to go to the back of the bus.  Lech Walesa led the Solidarity movement.  These were all effective means of protest without killing others. Strapping a bomb to your body and walking into a marketplace doesn't say "peaceful" religion to me.  It says intolerance.  It says the ends justify the means.  It says that you aren't interested in living respectfully of one another.

Let's look at the Amish, for an example.  The most traditional of their beliefs maintain community with a separation from secular society, yet they maintain a peaceful coexistence with others.  If one participates at its most fundamental teachings, they have very strict rules but function (relatively) without interference from the rest of us.   I would bet  that there is a certain amount of frustration on certain aspects of the interface between their "world" and "ours", but while that may be so, I could be wrong, but I don't recall any outbreaks of terrorism on their behalf. They genuinely believe in peace and non-resistance.

I don't believe for a moment that Islam in and of itself is a violent religion.  I read The Koran and I don't find it any more violent than The  Bible.  But I don't hold up The Bible and proclaim literal interpretation anymore than the parts of The Koran that extremists say defend their actions. I'm not a religious scholar, and I might even come across as slightly heretical, but I believe on a planet as small as this one, in order to survive, we have to learn to live together.

I don't feel like you have to agree with me, but I ask you to respect my beliefs, just as I may not agree with you, but I respect yours.  As I said before, if you choose to ramp up your insistence that I listen to you at the point of a gun, I insist that I have the right to defend myself.  And if you screw with me, don't expect that I'm going to take it lying down.  If you choose to engage in warfare against me, you have to understand that your choice has consequences.  In the United States of America, we proudly allow anyone to live within their beliefs and that we have the right to express ourselves in a manner of our choosing.  If you want to live like a radical, then go somewhere where you can live like that and let the rest of us live our own lives.  But while I choose to be respectful of your choices, and am happy to leave you alone, I will be civil with you.  And yet, if you shove me, I WILL shove back.

If people really believe they belong to a peaceful gathering of individuals, then they need to be prepared to defend that with their actions.  Failing to do that doesn't, in my opinion, buy you any credibility.  Any religious institution that fails to push their extremists into the street and expose them when they preach annihilation of "non-believers" is, as far as I am concerned, culpable.  That goes for any religion, any cult, any group.  Silence is not an acceptable means of solving this problem.  Exposing the intolerant and the extreme to the rest of the world is.

As Gandhi said, "Be the change you wish to see in the world."  If you believe in peace, then let's see it.  Put your money where your mouth is.  If you are in an institution that advocates violence against non-combatants, then you have a responsibility to notify the authorities.  And don't cry persecution when, avoiding that responsibility, we have to come looking in order to protect our way of life.

In the fire service, when we ask someone about their department, one of the first places we go with the conversation is call volume.  Of course, “How many calls do you get a year?” is only the feeder line for what we really want to hear: “How many FIRES do you get in a year?”  How do we measure the worth of our department?  In how many working fires we happen to fight in a year, that’s how.  It’s kind of the same as asking a soldier how many battles he has fought, or a ball player how many games he has won.  How do I know you know your job?  By how often you happen to do it, I guess.

There are some firefighters who, asking these questions, tell me stories that would only mean to me that very soon they won’t be telling the same stories, because it won’t be long before they run out of fuel in their district.  But worse is the citizen who, agenda apparent, asks how many fires we have a year and infers that there is a correlation: x (number of fires) = y (quality of equipment).

Not beating around the bush, what I should have said was: “So what you are wondering is, if we were a REAL fire department, we’d be burning down a lot more homes, right?”  Or if we were a really good organization, we’d have many more dead people.  Or more HAZMAT calls. Or perhaps more rescues.  As someone who really believes in what it is I do for a living, my problem with that idea is that the volume of serious calls doesn’t measure departmental success, it measures community failure.

Let’s go back to the beginning of our careers, either as paid or volunteer firefighters, and what was it you were told? We were told that our primary mission was to PREVENT fires, to PREVENT injury and mortality, and to PREVENT disasters.  What?  You didn’t take that conversation very seriously?  That seems to really be the gist of it: We know what we were told, we understand it makes sense, but it’s not the reason we became firefighters.  We became firefighters because it looked cool in the movies, or because we have some kind of belief in the heroism of the job.  We never really bought that prevention nonsense.  We like to bust shit up and go where everyone is running out from.  You can’t do that when you are preventing fires.

Perhaps, though, we should actually be measuring how bad your department regularly burns down room and contents fires because it is indicative of poor skill, or by burning down so many taxpaying businesses it indicates your resources aren't sufficient for the job, or by having so many alarms it indicates lousy codes or enforcement.  Maybe we should be looking at how many people don’t actually walk away from an encounter with your emergency medical care. Or how many HAZMAT calls you have that evolve into county-wide disasters.

I have said before that we should start hitting up the insurance companies for funds.  After al, they have a huge stake in this. When we save a building or a life, we are saving them money.  Wasn't that the premise behind the early 18th Century fire brigades?  Instead of municipal taxes exclusively supporting fire suppression, the insurance companies should maybe back off some of those exorbitant bonuses for their executives and invest in fire protection to a better degree.

There are many reasons why buildings burn that we have no hand in, like the condition of the buildings, the amount of fuel loading, and the intelligence of the occupants who put a pot of oil on the range then go down to the store for cigarettes.  But ultimately, if we want to measure something, maybe we should be comparing what it is we save compared to what it is we protect.  If we want to see how good it is we are doing, I think that the number of times our community doesn't suffer loss should be a better goal.  It is, after all, what we signed on for.

As things change, so must we.  If we fail to evolve, we become unnecessary, irrelevant, or even extinct. Especially since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, workplace development has improved efficiency and those who understood the changes and made  adjustments to them thrived, those who did not, were left by the side of the road. Firefighting is a lot like that, except that we have the emotional ties of a very highly-respected tradition chained around both feet. Once the populace catches on that it is cheaper for them to protect their home through automation they can trust, we will no longer be in business.

One of the main reasons, I would speculate, that we have not been simply replaced by automatic sprinklers is not because the general populace respects firefighters. It is because Joe Citizen is afraid of a head activation flooding all the floors of their home like what happens in stupid characterizations seen on TV or in movies.  If all we have to do is come mop up after an activation, firefighting isn’t going to be the issue; water-removal and restoration is.  So perhaps that is our avenue to survive.

But the point of my coming back to you all twice a week (for the most part) is to coach you all in survival by brainstorming ways we can provide a better service. The most logical way to do so is to leverage the collective brainpower of those who work with you.  And the only way that will ever bubble to the surface is by having leadership that engages, encourages, and demonstrates transformation. That's where I come in: helping you to understand and embrace transformational leadership.

Being a leader that guides people not based on preserving their jobs but on what that job actually is – serving others – THAT will preserve jobs.  Because as departments that have incorporated all-hazards response have found, there is plenty of work to be had, it’s just not necessarily in fighting fires.

People need individuals and teams that can see a problem and “bring what they brought” to develop a workable solution.  They called us because they lacked resources; tools, knowledge, skills, and/or manpower to solve their problem.  Our job isn’t firefighting, our job is problem-solving.  As was brought up by a comment in an earlier blog, "The Fixers", we aren’t firefighters, per se, but emergency service technicians.  And even then, that’s a reach, because not everything we go to solve is an “emergency”, as I am reminded each time our crews go to help someone get off the floor and back into bed.

I am reminded of a firefighter saying to me once, “Why do we go to these calls?  They aren’t emergencies.”

My answer: “They are to the person who calls us.”

Think about that the next time you are performing a task for a citizen that you don't really want to be doing.  While we like to believe it's all lights and sirens and saving babies and scantily clad women, it isn't.  It is about helping others when they don't know what to do.  As Bill Carey pointed out in that comment, kids don't grow up wanting to be "emergency response technicians", but wanting to be "firefighters".  And the reason why isn't necessarily because we fight fires, it is because they grow up knowing that if they are in trouble somehow, a firefighter is someone they can count on.

For that reason alone, you should be proud that when someone is in need, they call for a firefighter.