I believe that most ideas in the fire service don’t start in a classroom or a policy manual. They start in the station, for example, with someone leaning against the front bumper of the pumper after a call and saying, “Next time we should try this.” Someone else pushes back. Someone else adds something that they learned years ago. Sometimes, the conversation continues around the kitchen table. Sometimes, it happens during the hot wash after a fire.
These small conversations are where the job evolves. Ideas get tested on the fireground and improved back at the station, and eventually, they become the way that things are done.
If you stay in the fire service long enough, you’ll notice something interesting: Many of the things that we now consider part of the profession’s legacy started in the station.
Don't stop chasing the idea
Legacy doesn’t mean that you have your name on a building or have a policy written about you. Although those things might be important in the moment, they often fade quickly and eventually are forgotten. Legacy can be much more than that.
Legacy also doesn’t have to begin at the end of a career. In fact, many of the legacies that we discuss in the fire service derive from people who shared ideas long before anyone thought of them as a legacy. Those people simply were trying to make the job better.
If you approach this profession from the perspective of leaving it better than you found it, legacy will find you. Don’t stop chasing the idea. The fireground is where ideas are battle-tested and proved or disproved. That’s where real progress in the fire service begins.
Better because you were there
We often romanticize the idea that authority in the fire service comes from big city departments, such as FDNY. To be fair, there has been a lot of valuable experience and knowledge gained from such places. However, we sometimes forget that most of the fire service in the United States still is made up of volunteer and combination departments. Sometimes, what works in a large metropolitan department doesn’t translate directly to a small-town volunteer station. If you try to take a legacy that was built in a place such as the FDNY and apply it word for word to a volunteer department, it probably won’t fit. That’s OK.
Legacy in the fire service shouldn’t be about copying someone else’s environment. It should be about improving the one that you’re in. A small volunteer department that develops strong firefighters, trains consistently and builds a healthy culture is just as meaningful of a legacy as anything that’s created in a major city department. Legacy isn’t defined by a department’s size. It’s defined by whether the place is better because you were there.
Legacy also isn’t one person, even though it often is credited to the one who says the idea out loud. Legacy is the thousand improvements that were worked on together on the front bumper of the pumper, around the kitchen table or during the hot wash after a fire. It’s the firefighter who tried something different on the next call, the officer who encouraged someone to speak up, the senior firefighter who passed along a hard-earned lesson from years on the job.
Of course, not every idea works the first time. Anyone who has been around long enough has seen a “great idea” fall apart on the fireground. That’s part of the process and never should be discouraging. It’s just as valuable to learn what didn’t work.
Beginning, middle and end of a career
The fire service always has improved through trial, experience and honest conversations about what worked and what didn’t. Those moments when people are willing to admit something didn’t go the way that they planned often are when the best lessons emerge, and those improvements add up over time. Eventually, they shape the department’s culture.
If you’re new to the fire service, learn everything that you can. Be curious. Ask questions. Be the change that you want to see in the profession.
If you’re in the middle of your career, you probably have far more to share than you believe that you do. You saw things work and fail. You learned lessons along the way. Find your “why” and build on it.
If you’re at the end of your career, every shift is an opportunity to mentor someone. Pass along that institutional knowledge that only comes from being there as long as you have.
Legacy doesn’t belong to one stage of a career. It can begin the moment that a person joins the fire service and continue long after that person leaves it.
So, the question becomes simple: What will your legacy be? Will you be the firefighter who’s known for sharing TikToks or the one who helped to make the department the best place to work? One of these things disappears with the next scroll. The other leaves the fire service better than you found it.
