Through “Chief’s Corner,” Firehouse Magazine speaks with fire chiefs across the country to better understand today’s leadership challenges and to bring leadership ideas to our readers. For this edition, we spoke with Bob Baker, who is the fire chief of South Metro Fire Rescue (SMFR) in Centennial, CO.
Baker is a second-generation firefighter. He joined the fire service in 1982 via the Parker, CO, Fire Protection District. He was in the first group of paid firefighters there and experienced rapid community and organizational growth while ascending the ranks from engineer through assistant chief of administration and, finally, chief of operations, including during the time that the department and SMFR unified. He served as operations chief at SMFR for seven years and assumed the role as fire chief in 2014.
FIREHOUSE: SMFR is one of the largest fire districts in the United States. How did the department begin and what steps did you take to get the agency to its current size?
BAKER: SMFR’s history dates to 1890, when the first volunteer fire department was formed in what is now SMFR’s district. Over the next century, farm and ranch land became more populated, and community members came together to organize fire protection districts. As the southern metropolitan Denver sprawl brought those smaller communities together geographically, mutual and automatic aid became the norm. In the late 1980s the first official fire district consolidations began, and by 2019, seven fire districts had unified into present day South Metro, spanning nearly 300 square miles with 30 firehouses.
FIREHOUSE: During the mergers, Parker and Cunningham both saw a decrease in fire tax while seeing an increase in fire and EMS protection. How did that occur?
BAKER: Cunningham and Parker Fire Districts were largely residential and required a higher mill levy to fund adequate fire and EMS protection. The legacy South Metro (formerly Castlewood) fire district encompassed a large area of high-rise and mid-rise commercial, large retail and industrial complexes, which yielded more commercial tax funding, and, thus, a lower mill levy was in place. When the unifications with Cunningham and Parker occurred, their district residents and business owners enjoyed a mill-levy decrease while benefiting from a fire district with more resources.
FIREHOUSE: Your department is a true all-hazards response agency, from responses in the wildland urban interface (WUI) environment and mountains to urban and rural areas, airport protection and harsh winter weather. How is the department organized and equipped to handle myriad challenges? How did you establish your training to ensure that all annual training mandates are met?
BAKER: SMFR maintains specialized teams, including aircraft rescue and firefighting (ARFF) to protect Centennial Airport, which is one of the busiest general aviation airports in the country. SMFR also has a dive rescue team, which regularly responds to two highly trafficked reservoirs within state parks, swiftwater incidents in the South Platte River, and numerous neighborhood lakes and ponds, where ice rescues are a usual occurrence. SMFR also maintains hazmat and technical rescue teams. Each of these teams has two special team firehouses, where their cross-staffed apparatus and qualified personnel are housed. Those firehouses are geographically located to the best response time advantages possible.
Much of SMFR’s district is immersed within the WUI, so all firefighters are trained in wildland firefighting, with four Type III and 15 Type VI brush trucks strategically located across the area. Additionally, SMFR maintains a robust wildland team whose members regularly deploy nationwide. Three firehouses are considered wildland specialty stations, which are staffed by highly qualified team members and store a cache of additional equipment.
Each team has assigned captains and lieutenants at the specialized firehouses who ensure all members receive proper training and maintain their certifications. Ultimately, they are overseen by a special operations battalion chief.
Unfortunately, mass shootings have occurred in our area several times, so a small group of firefighter/paramedics make up a specialized SWAT Medic Team. Those individuals, who must pass the law enforcement academy, are sworn deputies with our sheriff partners.
SMFR’s Incident Dispatch Team is specially trained in radio communications and interoperability. The team responds regionally with a cache of spare radios, satellite phone and internet, advanced GIS mapping and printers, equipment to dispatch units from the scene and a small fleet of UAVs for aerial reconnaissance.
The Colorado Front Range has a seemingly ill-tempered climate at times. Firefighters have been faced with overlapping Red Flag and Blizzard Warnings, going from a wildland interface fire to snowfall over the course of an afternoon. During the worst snowstorms when we measure accumulation in feet, a tracked rescue vehicle and even our ARFF apparatus will be used to reach our community members in need. SMFR’s emergency vehicle technicians will staff district-owned snowplows in each battalion and assist apparatus with scene access and any mechanical needs that arise.
BAKER: One of the biggest challenges to SMFR achieving our ISO Class 1 designation was rural water supply since a significant portion of the district is on well water. SMFR operates six 3,000-gal. water tenders and places engine companies with 1,500- or 1,000-gal. water tanks in rural or borderline rural areas to help achieve the needed fire flow. We also rely on strong automatic aid agreements with neighboring fire districts, especially in the rural areas, to ensure the fastest water tender response possible. Many of our community members have benefited from lower insurance premiums because of this achievement.
FIREHOUSE: What role does the SMFR Board play in the management and operations of the department? For departments who have similar boards, what suggestions do you have as fire chief to ensure that you work cohesively with the board members?
BAKER: SMFR is governed by a seven-member board of directors. The directors are publicly elected during regular elections and represent approximately 540,000 citizens within our district.
The relationship we share with our board of directors is very successful. Throughout our organization’s history, we have experienced a transitional board due to consolidations—from authority boards to special district boards. I would say that having a board that is highly connected to the organization and community—from attending meetings, to being part of ceremonial events, to being truly connected with individuals within the organization outside of the typical board monthly meetings—is highly critical to the success and partnership between board members and staff. SMFR currently has very connected directors who truly care about the community they serve, along with the staff and personnel providing these services, making it a cohesive and successful relationship.
FIREHOUSE: What programs have you implemented to address firefighter fitness and cancer prevention and to ensure that firefighters’ mental health and wellness are priorities?
BAKER: SMFR firefighters are industrial athletes and for that reason we operate a comprehensive wellness bureau, which focuses on physical, mental and emotional wellness. During a visit to the Wellness Center at headquarters you’ll find strength and conditioning coaches, physical therapists, a physician assistant and a neurofeedback clinician among the staff, who are dedicated to helping employees maintain their health.
Cancer prevention is deeply important to SMFR as four of most recent line-of-duty deaths (LODDs) were due to occupational cancer. Firefighters go through tedious decontamination after every fire and have two sets of bunker gear to ensure their equipment is always clean. SMFR’s newest firehouse was built with buffer zones between the apparatus floor and living areas, to further separate contaminates, and existing facilities are being modified and updated to existing cancer prevention protocols.
FIREHOUSE: SMFR has a terrific public information office. How important is telling the department’s story through social media and other mediums?
BAKER: We live in a world where information on social media is expected to be available immediately, and SMFR’s public information office team strives to provide facts about what is occurring in our district within minutes of the dispatch. In worst case scenarios when the community needs to take action to shelter in place or evacuate, the PIO team does their best to push minds from denial to deliberation and decisive action as quickly as possible. We communicate to our community members and news media simultaneously through social media with text, video and photos. It’s common to see SMFR incidents on the news even though no reporters or news photographers were ever on scene, because SMFR public information officers (PIOs) are essentially multimedia journalists.
Between incidents, we have the incredible capability to be proactive and tell SMFR’s story across social media platforms. The PIO’s regularly interact with community members and reporters on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Next Door and YouTube. Risk reduction, district information and recruitment all tie into the video productions, which are seen by people across the street and across the world.
FIREHOUSE: What community risk reduction programs are unique to SMFR because of the diverse response area, including geography and weather, multiple communities, and a diverse population.
BAKER: SMFR assigned one risk reduction specialist to each of our five geographic battalions to focus on the unique needs of those communities. Response data in each battalion is regularly analyzed and paired with information from firefighters, paramedics and fire investigators to quickly identify emerging risks and react to them. Statistical data on threats, like wildfires, tornadoes, lightning, hail and flooding, are also used to identify community risk and education opportunities. On a typical day you’ll find our risk reduction specialists simultaneously providing different community education. There could be a home wildfire assessment in Battalion 4, water safety at a state park in Battalion 1, smoke alarm and close-before-you-doze posters being posted in different languages in Battalion 5, an elderly safety seminar in Battalion 2 and a youth fire-setter intervention in Battalion 3. Various safety messages are also provided by video and shared on the most appropriate social media channels, where hundreds of thousands of our community members will see them.
FIREHOUSE: What role do higher education degrees play in promotions. Why is it important that members seek out higher education to climb the career ladder?
BAKER: Higher education is required for officer promotions and various other positions within the organization and is highly encouraged for all employees, with tuition reimbursement available to everyone. Lieutenants are required to earn an associate degree. Captains and battalion chiefs must earn a bachelor’s degrees. District chiefs and above are required to earn a master’s degree. Some chief officers have chosen to earn their doctorate. It is important that SMFR’s officers possess diverse knowledge obtained through higher education because it makes our organizational leadership stronger.
FIREHOUSE: What goals are you still looking to implement in 2021 and beyond?
BAKER: I am set to retire in a few years, and I have goals in which I’d like to see SMFR accomplish before this (roughly 4 years). This includes:
- Continuous Firefighter Safety—One of the ways we are doing this is through four-person staffing/companies on engines. We have a goal to have this completed by 2024 to ensure continued safety for our firefighters.
- Shift Schedule—SMFR is looking to transition away from 48/96 work schedules, as we have determined that working 48 hours straight can be detrimental to mental and physical health due to the sleep disruptions over the course of a firefighter’s career. Therefore, we are looking to change this in the next 3–4 years to be less contiguous hours and exposure for our men and women.
- Continuing to Build Upon Strong Culture—Because SMFR has gone through recent consolidations, I’d like to see that we continue to strengthen the culture we have with created with each parent organization and continue to grow into and solidify our positive SMFR culture, we have including what we’ve built between labor and management, our community, the board of directors and more.
FIREHOUSE: What do you consider being a successful fire chief?
BAKER: As I close in on the end of my tenure as fire chief, I often think about what it means to be successful. To me, treating everyone like they are family is a staple that I stand by. If we can continue to nurture the culture that we have embedded within SMFR that we need to take care of one another like they are family, including our community, citizens, and our brothers and sisters at the department, we will continue to be successful.
Lastly, when I started my career as fire chief, it was important for me to do whatever I could to not add anymore names to our LODD wall. Unfortunately, we’ve had to tragically add names to our wall over the past few years, losing some of our beloved brothers to job-related cancer. As fire chief, it is important that I continue to do whatever I can do to lead the charge to learn from those we have tragically lost, to remember their legacies and to always strive to make it better for those who come after us.
FIREHOUSE: What is the one thing that you wish that you knew before you became a fire chief or joined the fire service?
BAKER: Once you get to fire chief, no one can adequately communicate the level of responsibility, depth or breadth that you feel of when you’re responsible for the fire organization—for individuals who work there and for the citizens who you serve. A lot of what it takes to be the fire chief comes with continuously learning every day. To me, personally, I find the job of the fire chief to look more like being a pastor and taking care of people than it is to be a corporate CEO because of the familial feel and type of organization that makes up a fire department. Caring about people and others should always come first.
