ATLANTA, Ga.-- Richmond, Va. Chief Robert A. Creecy recalled a recent fire his department responded to in which neither the house that caught fire or the neighboring house had working smoke detectors.
He said that one of the officers told the deputy chief he would work on the problem the following day.
To that, the deputy chief responded: "You're going to pull a smoke detector from the truck and install it now."
During Creecy's two years as chief, the department has undergone a reeducation of sorts as it has been turned into what he calls a "Village Fire Department."
He spoke of the progressive model along with Owasso, Okla. Deputy Chief Chris Garrett, formally an employee of Richmond, at Fire-Rescue International in Atlanta last week.
The Village model closely resembles the Community Policing model of police departments, both explained.
"It really is the exact same thing," Creecy said. "The British fire service really is all about this now."
Within the model, specific stations take ownership for their service areas. Officers and firefighters alike interact with residents, speak at schools and essentially imbed themselves in the community in order to develop better fire prevention tactics for that area.
Garrett said it makes the fire company a more integral and visible component of the community and "allows the companies to manage themselves and try to find their own fixes."
The concept simply connects the closest fire station to its community with the goal being to change the focus of the department from local fire prevention to community guardianship.
The Richmond Fire Department currently has 20 village fire departments while Owasso has two and is currently working on its third.
In order to get both departments on par with needed training Richmond and Owasso both secured Fire ACT grant money to train and certify all community officers in the NFPA-1031 Fire Inspector and NFPA-1035 Fire Education courses.
"Training needs to take place because we are giving these people new roles and responsibilities," Creecy said. "It requires that we change the way firefighters in each station think. We want them to think of it as their neighborhood."
Garrett said that once the model is in place, each local station will be able to identify the incident trends and target specific problems within the community. This allows the officers to develop risk reduction programs that are tailored to that area's needs.
Both agreed that no matter how big or small the city, every department can make use of the Village model. Richmond's population during the work day is close to 500,000 while Owasso's is a steady 35,000.
"Some people say, 'I'm in a city with high rises so I don't really have a village.' Yes you do; it's a village of high rises," Creecy said.
The Richmond chief also talked about the importance of thinking outside the box as the police ranks in his city have gone up while the number of firefighters has gone down.
"We have to make us so valuable of an organization that they wouldn't think about cutting us," he said.
Both Creecy and Garrett reiterated that the most important part of implementing the model is to get the employees to buy into it.
"This won't work unless they're on board," Garrett said.
"We're not asking you to do more. We're just asking you to do it in a different way," he said. "The days of sitting around playing checkers, waiting for the big one because it is fun to do are over."
Creecy also so said that there can not be any tension between commanding officers and firefighters and that the culture of "Us versus Them" must be eliminated.
"If you convince somebody what they are doing has value, they don't see it as work. You've got to make it not work."
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