Fire Service Leadership Collaboration

The fire service today represents a common name for increasingly diverse organizations.   Sixty or Seventy years ago fire departments were pretty much the same in functional organization.  That is, departments responded to fires and those incidents that we really did not have a special name for – like auto accidents, gasoline wash downs and rescues.  These services were provided by career departments, mostly in the urban areas and volunteer or paid-on-call services throughout the rest of the country.

Today fire duty has been reduced on a national basis.  Don’t take this information negatively.  Part of the fire services’ collective mission is to prevent fire.  We have accomplished fire reduction through a number of initiatives including public education, improved building and fire safety codes, improved detection systems and improved suppression systems specifically fire sprinklers.  However, the potential for fire loss, loss of life and loss of property, remains.  We still need firefighters to respond to extinguish fires. 

The question becomes “How do we maintain sufficient firefighter staffing while fires continue to decline?”  Many fire departments today have embraced a number of additional missions to augment the reduction in fire duty.  Emergency Medical Services (EMS) has been embraced by many fire departments across the country.  Fire based EMS, where EMS is directly provided by the fire department, has been adopted along with Fire Assisted EMS, where the fire department only supports a separate EMS provider organization.  Some fire departments today are not involved in any EMS and others only respond to auto accidents.  Although EMS is one example of additional missions that the fire service has embraced, a great deal of variation exists among the whole of the fire service.

This program will discuss how the fire service interacts with other organizations, agencies and groups.  As the fire service continues to evolve, working more closely with others is front and center on the radar in order to continue to reduce community risk.