Issues impacting the fire service are broad, but fire departments across the country—both career and volunteer—are facing issues including recruitment and retention, training variations, cancer and collecting data.
Several fire service experts sat on The State of the American Fire Service, moderated by Firehouse Editor-in-Chief Tim Sendelbach at Firehouse Expo Thursday.
Panelists included, Loveland-Symmes, OH, Deputy Fire Chief Billy Goldfeder; UL Firefighter Safety Research Institute Director Steve Kerber; Assistant to the General President of the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF) Dr. Lori Merrill-Moore; Chairman of the National Volunteer Fire Council Kevin Quinn; National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) Executive Director Ron Siarnicki and Congressional Fire Services Institute Executive Director Bill Webb.
“The state of the American fire service could be great if someone tossed a grenade on the table up here,” Goldfeder said to laughter during the opening remarks.
Recruitment and retention
The issue of recruitment and retention—including in career departments—resonated during the 90 minute discussion.
Goldfeder said membership numbers aren’t the main issue facing the volunteer fire service, but it’s the lack of people who want to do the work.
“Nobody likes to talk about it and nobody wants to admit it’s a problem,” Goldfeder said.
“Here’s my challenge, drive across the country and set off the tones and see who comes. The tones will go off again and again,” Goldfeder said. “My old department the other day, it took them like 17 minutes to get a rescue truck out for a Hurst Tool call.”
Goldfeder said all of the requirements to keep a volunteer on the rolls creates complications for people who want to help the community, but don’t have enough time to commit to the mandatory training, EMS training and advanced training.
“A truck driver who could easily handle a large fire apparatus who doesn’t want to become an EMT might be a lost asset with the way we’re set up now.”
Based on the research by the NVFC, the 836,000 volunteer firefighters in the U.S. are an aging population, so the fire departments need to recruit and teach the young members.
“We have to become marketers, we have to make change for change sake because we have to operate differently because of how it is today,” Quinn said.
Sendelbach asked; “Are we recruiting the right people to do the job we are supposed to today.”
“The fire department is an all-hazards department now, and if you’re recruiting firefighters, you’re making a mistake,” Merrill-Moore responded. “We have to tell the truth about what they’re going be doing.”
Siarnicki told the audience that the way fire stations are used needs to be changed as well. “We need to change that attitude of how we treat the firehouse as a frat house, now it’s a family home.”
Quinn said some fire stations in Rhode Island are now set up to welcome firefighter’s families for a family meal or activities.
Merrill-Moore said career fire departments are seeing an increase in in turnover rates. In the 1990s, it was about two percent, but today it’s closed to 12 percent.
“The millennials aren’t worried about pensions, they don’t mind having a 401K since they can jump from job to job and they’re not worried about health benefits because they’re young and healthy.
Collecting and understanding data
Moore agreed that staffing is an issue across the fire service, but she said departments need to collect and share data that’s key will help determine fire department needs and challenges. She added that the fire department’s data collection system is antiquated.
The law enforcement community has a great data collection system that’s been successful for funding a number of projects, including adding staffing and implementing crime prevention programs.
Moore warned about hiring consultant to find target hazards and community demographics, but communities or departments need to be able to track this information on their own.
“You should know it, from every structure to population demographics to what risks are associated with those hazards and you can use that data to show how you can deploy,” Merrill-Moore said.
“When we have it all locally and we keep it all locally, we have 30,000 departments who have 30,000 different ways of doing the same thing,” Kerber said. He said the data needs to be collected to determine how to get ahead of the problems.
Webb mentioned the 1978 America Burning report as a result of the U.S. government stepping in to look at the fire problems across the country. Even the Wildland Urban Interface was a threat at that time back in the '70s.
“Here we are 30 to 40 years later and my job is to work up on the (Capitol) Hill” Webb said.
“We (the fire service organizations) have been sitting down working on a message for Capitol Hill so we can speak from ones voice,” including the importance of Assistance to Firefighter Grants and SAFER Grants.
Siarnicki said the NFFF has put a lot of efforts into researching and sharing best practices with fire departments, adding that there’s still a lot of work to do.
Cancer, health and deaths
The panel discussed firefighter cancer, but stressed the importance of incident report and exposure data to not only understand the growing threat to firefighters, but to help firefighters who become ill fight for the
Merrill-Moore said that firefighters should take advantage of the National Fire ORS system to collect exposure reports.
“You need to log your exposures when you get back because when you are diagnosed, you need to prove you had the exposure,” Merrill-Moore said.
Quinn was happy to report a reduction in deaths involving firefighters in their personally owned vehicles after NVFC released a position statement.
The NVFC has also shared a number of methods for departments to achieve annual physicals at less than $1,000 per member.
“If you’re going to stay physically healthy, you need to stay healthy mentally” Merrill-Moore said, addressing the rising rate of firefighter suicides on the rise.
The IAFF opened a facility in Maryland that address firefighter substance abuse and mental health crisises.
Technology and training
Sendelbach asked how departments are working with younger firefighters to embrace technology and how it can improve communications.
“If I have a lesson for my firefighters, I print out eight to nine objectives of what they need to learn,” Quinn said. It’s a tiny piece of paper, but when one guy is reading it, the others are engaged. They are listening and they start talking.”
Merrill-Moore said younger process information so fast that they don’t worry about making mistakes when they try something that they learn, because they’ll read more about it to get it right.
Kerber added that UL has several young staffers who are able to break up content into chunks that are digestible for the millennials.
“There’s a way to get those war stories on an app and these people can learn from those experiences without experiencing the actual events or sharing stories,” Kerber said. “It’s on us to frontload that information on them so they can be aware and be prepared to make those decisions.”
The future
The next generation entering the workforce, Generation Z, born between the late 1990s through today are a generation focused on community service.
“We should see more of them joining fire departments, they are focused on helping others and community service," said Merrill-Moore.
Leaders need to continue to brush up on their skills and determine best how to work with all members of the department.
“Each of you, each of us needs to look at ourselves and ask if we’re sending the right message…it’s all about leading by examples," said Quinn.
