The operations side of firefighting is something that needs to be discussed in the light of day as opposed to the din of the night — and that’s something I hope to do in my new column.
So why do I think operations is the forgotten part of firefighting? Well, maybe forgotten is too strong of a word for the title of this article, but in my opinion it helps put an important issue in the spotlight.
For me, the only people who count in firefighting are the firefighters and those that we go to help in their time of need. Some call them victims, but I prefer to call them customers as that is just what they are. It’s important to remember that we don’t provide run of the mill services. Our services can at times delve into the arena of life and death, and as a line from a not so recent fire service-based movie said, “If you have a bad day on this job somebody dies.”
Everything that we do in the fire service, we do for these two groups of people: the firefighter and the customer. Everything that we do to support the functions that directly impact on these two groups can come under the banner of operations. Furthermore, everything that is operational supports them — or at least that’s how it should be. But all too often this does not happen in the real world.
As well as my 27 years in public safety, fire and EMS working in every conceivable environment both as a career and as a volunteer, I’ve also had the good fortune to literally travel across the United States and the world. It gave me the opportunity to observe not only operations of the fire service but those of EMS and at times even police. All of these experiences have led me to the conclusion that the operations side of the equation is the missing link of sorts.
Murphy’s Law
Now don’t get me wrong, the fire service executes very good operations on a daily basis in the United States. But when the operational side of the response is wrongly assumed to be secondary, we open the door to major problems and Murphy’s Law of, “Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.” When the operations side of a response breaks down, all too often the firefighters and the customer suffers.
Now some of you who know me know that I have always cast myself as an “Operations Guy.” Whenever I’m sat with others at a conference or around a kitchen table discussing fire, rescue or EMS topics. I’ll always somehow try to turn the conversation to the operational aspect of the response.
Every single response, emergent or non-emergent, has multiple operational aspects. Of course, these normally go well and no problems are encountered. These likely represent 98 percent of the calls and situations that are daily occurrences in the American fire service and all the other areas of emergency services. However, in those 2 percent of the cases where some operational aspect of the response goes awry then we see degradation of the call and we see safety compromises that could affect both the responders and the customers alike.
In the coming months, I’ll be focusing on various operational aspects of the fire service. I’ll try to dissect these operations so that you can all find ways to make your fireground operations better fireground operations. I will likely say things at times that some of you disagree with, maybe even at times vehemently so. But that’s OK as long as we all keep an open mind and realize that different is not necessarily wrong and that everyone as a professional has a right to their opinion and to express it professionally in a forum such as this.
The bottom line is that there needs to be open and forthright information exchange, which will help create better working environments for those two ever so important people in the fire service — the firefighter and the customer.
I look forward to your fire service operational-related comments and questions via the member comment function on this site and I can also be reached at LNMolino@aol.com.