Speaking Up About Safety

The death of Baltimore fire cadet Racheal M. Wilson earlier this year proved to be a wakeup call for the city’s fire department.

An investigation revealed the training exercise in which she died was riddled with errors — but, it appeared, no one dared voice their concerns to superiors about it.

Within the Baltimore Fire Department, the tragedy brought to a head the longstanding issue of firefighters being afraid and even unable to challenge supervisors over safety. Firefighters there are now actively encouraged to speak out about unsafe conditions.

But with many departments still lagging behind, the fire service as a whole will remain riddled with unnecessary deaths unless proactive measures are taken, according to Gary Morris, former Seattle Fire Department fire chief and the current chief of the Rural/Metro Fire Department for Maricopa and Pinal Counties in Arizona.

It was in Seattle that he first introduced a policy for safety best practices. He loosely based it on the British fire service’s “safe person” concept and the aviation industry’s crew resource management system, in which everyone takes responsibility for safety, from the captain to the cabin crew.

The policy was drawn up, Morris said, in response to the U.S. fire service’s major problem when it comes to safety awareness: the one-way incident command system.

“It’s implied that it’s almost one way,” Morris said. “In other words, the incident commander tells you what to do.

“In old, traditional fire departments especially, it’s tough to challenge any senior officer. There’s an atmosphere of, ‘Do what I say, then we’ll get along just fine.’”

Different cultures
The culture of the U.S. fire service, particularly when it comes to safety, differs greatly from that of organizations overseas, according to Morris.

He said the U.K., for example, which has a lower rate proportionally for line-of-duty deaths, places more emphasis on safety, stretching from recruits to the chief.

“The U.K. and others from outside the country often look at how we do business here with an eyebrow raised, almost saying, ‘What are you guys doing? We would never be allowed to do that in our country,’” Morris said.

“We have a reputation of bulldog firefighters who take unusual risks that often aren’t justified.”

Sadly, the policy was not around in Seattle in 1995, when four city firefighters were killed tackling a warehouse blaze. Had it been, Morris said, the outcome may have been very different.

The four died when the first floor of the building they were operating in collapsed into the basement, the existence of which crews at the site were not even aware of.

As Morris was introducing his new safety policy, a firefighter who was at the scene that day told him that he had seen smoke rising from the sidewalk outside the building. He suspected it might indicate a basement beneath the warehouse, but did not voice any concerns to incident scene commanders.

“He did not feel comfortable raising the warning,” Morris said. “No one really knows if it would have made a difference, but it shows the need to stop, talk and decide.”

Accepting concerns
However, actively encouraging firefighters to speak up when it comes to safety concerns is only the beginning, he said. An equally big challenge is getting supervisors to listen to, and accept, concerns.

Morris said that when he holds seminars on his safety guidelines, number four — which authorizes any member to say no to unsafe practices or conditions — is always challenged by a supervisor.

“They feel threatened, as if that kind of challenge is insubordination,” he said. “But what we are talking about is not insubordination — you simply raise the question.”

He added that the supervisor responsible can then address the concerns by having a brief look around before continuing as planned, modifying the plans, or withdrawing from the scene.

“Whichever course of action is taken, at least it means everybody is looking out for everybody else,” Morris said.

His views are echoed by David Daniels, fire chief and emergency services administrator for the City of Renton, Washington.

“I was exposed to my first fire service fatality two years after I became a firefighter,” he said. “Between 1983 and 1995, nine people died in the line of duty who I worked with. Those events really focused my mind — did I really want that to happen to me?”

In his department’s SOPs, Daniels always stresses the need for firefighters to have self-awareness and the courage to speak up if something concerns them safety-wise.

“Everyone has the right to challenge a supervisor when it comes to safety, and no negative impact can be taken on them,” he said.

He added that the current culture wrongly encourages firefighters to ignore safety concerns and assume that supervisors are always right.

“It goes against the natural reaction for people to take care of themselves,” he said.

Different skills needed
Good firefighters, Daniels said, do not always make good safety officers and supervisors, which contributes to some of the existing problems.

“The fire service does an outstanding job of making firefighters out of people, but we don’t make them anything else — and then we promote them,” Daniels said. “They are still thinking like firefighters.”

While firefighters can still act aggressively, it is vital a supervisor is on hand to rein them in when needed, according to Daniels.

“Too often we have supervisors and even fire chiefs who are just as aggressive as firefighters, and then there’s no balance,” he said.

Tom Woodley, general counsel to the IAFF, said a major problem is the fact many departments have policies limiting what firefighters, particularly local union leaders, can say publicly on safety issues, and those who do speak out often face disciplinary action.

Billy Schmidt, FireRescue1’s Company Officer columnist and district chief of the 3rd Battalion at Palm Beach County Fire Rescue, Florida, said firefighter fatalities are often caused by a combination of poor decision making, a lack of communication, and the inability of firefighters to speak up when they see a safety issue.

He said the fire service needs to follow the aviation industry, as well as other high-risk professions such as the military, in recognizing the importance of crew resource management.

“The fire service must begin to foster an understanding of the philosophy of CRM and develop and implement it into all of our training and operations, beginning with the new recruit,” Schmidt said.

“Safety shouldn’t just be a position or a policy; it should be the way we do business.”