In my eyes, electronic systems are tools, nothing more. You still need a human to operate it. I guess what I am saying is, it is more important to have a good accountability officer to run your system, than it is to have an elaborate system.
When approaching the subject of accountability I think it is important to keep in perspective what you are trying to accomplish, without losing sight of the objective.
In my 10-plus years as an Accountability Officer for my department, I have seen many accountability systems that relied on electronics to do so much more than the job that is needed to be done. These systems did everything from inventorying our equipment, to telling me how old my firefighters are. I've seen all the bells and whistles that come along with some systems. Some even claim to be "Everything an incident commander needs to run his scene."
I have also seen the price tag that goes along with them. Now it is time to ask myself "Do we really need to spend a large sum of money on a system that can be done manually?" I just can't justify spending large amounts of money on a piece of equipment to do a job that can be done without it. I have also been asked by salesmen of these systems "What price tag can you put on a firefighters life?" How dare they!
I have been accounting for my firefighters for over 10 years. Are they suggesting that if I don't buy their system, they will not be accounted for? Perhaps I should spend the thousands of dollars on their system as opposed to buying critical firefighting gear for my department's firefighters.
All of my experience in firefighter accountability has been with volunteer fire departments, not with large paid fire departments. It is very important to keep this in mind when choosing an accountability system for your fire department. The system that I use in my department with a roster of around 50 may not work for a large city department with a roster of hundreds. Although the basic principles of accountability are the same, the system used to accomplish the goal may be different.
In my eyes, electronic systems are tools, nothing more. You still need a human to operate it. I guess what I am saying is, it is more important to have a good accountability officer to run your system, than it is to have an elaborate system. I have been the one who has shown up at the funerals of our brother firefighters. I have been the one who has spoken to several fire companies with suggestions on how to make sure that we learn from their tragedies. I go to the training sessions. I go to the celebrations of my brother firefighters, and I am also there when something happens. These are things that I consider personal endeavors.
I am a brother firefighter with a mission to make sure that every family has a firefighter come home to them safely. What most of you don't realize is that I am a brother firefighter who is also a disabled veteran who spends every day of the week confined to a wheelchair. I cannot fight fires because of my physical limitations, but firefighting is in my soul. I have a deep love and dedication for accountability. My physical limitations do not and will never stop me from doing my part. The firefighters that I account for know that no matter what happens, somebody knows where they are. If something bad should happen, they will never be left inside.
The first three years of my firefighting service were spent as a firefighter. I know what it feels like to be in a burning building. The thought of being trapped in there was always in the back of my mind. Now that I can no longer fight fires, I have dedicated my life to make sure that everyone goes home safely. And that brother firefighters, is what I call accountability. The lack of good accountability of our firefighters is what scares me most. Why does it take a tragedy for people to realize how important this really is? The general public knows that no matter what goes wrong, call 911, and someone will come and fix it for you.
my years with the fire service, I have seen us fix many problems for many people. So please explain to me why we cannot eliminate the smallest of our own problems. For some reason there are fire departments that fail to make accountability part of their command system. What does that say for the leadership? How can we ask our personnel to perform duties under extreme circumstances without letting them know their safety comes first?
The lack of accountability is so easy to fix. All it takes is a little common sense. Unfortunately, electronic systems don't have common sense. Before you go choosing an accountability system, may I please suggest that you find a dedicated accountability officer? Read and study the NIOSH reports, and learn from them. The best way to honor a fallen firefighter is to learn from the mistakes and never repeat them. There is no reason that firefighters' lives should be lost due to a lack of accountability.
Find a system that requires your firefighters to work in teams. And stay in those teams. Communication with the team leaders is a must. It needs to be done in a way that does not tie up the radio - as if anything is more important than knowing all firefighters are safe.
It deeply troubles me when I read a NIOSH report and it states that a good accountability system may have made a difference. This is very simple stuff ladies and gentlemen. The politics and attitudes need to go away. We need to start thinking about us and our own safety. I don't care to go to any more funerals because of common sense issues. The leadership in the volunteer service needs to take things a little more seriously when it comes to the safety of their own personnel before it is too late.
Personally, I have assisted in setting up accountability systems for large corporations with as many as 10,000 employees. I have also assisted small volunteer fire departments with as little as ten members. No matter what end of the spectrum you may fall under, it is still a very important issue and should be high on your priority list. Fire departments have many issues that need to be addressed. For example: Funding for trucks, stations, PPE, etc. Why not take care of this issue so you can move onto other things?
Accountability is here to stay. Like it or not. It is rapidly becoming a part of Incident Management Systems everywhere. I encourage you to be proactive and have a good system in place when it is needed. Unfortunately, I have seen fire departments that have realized this after the fact, and then it is too late. It doesn't really matter how things were done in the past.
Accountability is the present and the future. If you are not willing to move forward with the times, then maybe it is time to step aside. Change is a hard pill to swallow in the fire service. It is time that we start taking care of ourselves.
I have seen departments who have encouraged the leadership to change their thought process on safety issues. Some of them going as far as making changes at election time to make sure these issues are addressed. It seems that slowly but surely elections are becoming less of a popularity contest and the more qualified people who listen to their members are coming into power.
Accountability is a great reason to implement many needed changes for the better in the incident command structure. Anyone who has taken the ABBET-RIT Inc. Accountability Systems class knows that running an effective emergency scene is not as difficult as it seems. The days of running around a fire scene like the Keystone Cops are long gone. Everything on a fire scene should have a purpose and organization. We must start conducting our selves like professionals.
Accountability is just one of the issues that can be simply organized. It is a small part of the fire scene that can make an enormous difference to the outcome.
