By William Howe
The tones drop. A crew misses a radio transmission. Somebody freelances. A mayday comes too late. Accountability breaks down in a fast-moving scene. An exhausted medic makes a medication error at three in the morning after running nonstop calls for hours. Somewhere after the incident is over and the rigs are back in quarters, somebody inevitably says, “We’ve got to learn from this.”
The problem is, we often do not. Or maybe more accurately, we learn from mistakes temporarily. A close call sparks conversations. Policies get rewritten. Training gets emphasized for a few months. Leadership talks about accountability and lessons learned. Then time passes. Personnel changes. Staffing shortages return. Complacency creeps back in. Eventually, the same mistakes begin to reappear under different department names, incident reports and years.
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Communication failures, freelancing, poor accountability, fatigue-related errors, weak command presence, training culture and resistance to change have been identified repeatedly throughout decades of line-of-duty death reports and after-action reviews. We also see how an organization’s reluctance to address mental health can impact membership, not to mention department culture and retention.
We already know the problems. The challenge is that we still struggle with institutional learning, the ability to permanently absorb lessons and consistently apply them across generations.
Resistance to change
One of the profession’s biggest weaknesses is confusing experience with expertise. Time on the job absolutely matters, but years alone do not automatically equal competence. A firefighter with 20 years of repeating poor habits is not necessarily experienced; sometimes, they are simply comfortable. Yet parts of the fire service still resist change with the familiar phrase, “We’ve always done it this way.” That mindset becomes dangerous when the profession itself continues evolving rapidly.
The firefighters who remain effective over long careers are usually the ones who stay teachable. They continue training, continue adapting and continue asking questions long after probation ends. The moment someone believes they have nothing left to learn is often when danger begins to creep in.
Communication failures
Communication is another area the profession continues to relearn the hard way. After almost every major incident or near miss, investigators identify the same recurring issues: incomplete size-ups, missed assignments, poor radio discipline, unclear command structure or delayed mayday declarations.
The frustrating part is that we already have systems designed to prevent these failures. Incident Command System principles, crew resource management and standardized communication models are no longer new concepts. Yet under stress, many departments still fall apart operationally because communication standards were never fully built into the culture.
Completing online ICS courses and checking training boxes does not automatically create disciplined fireground communication.
Departments that communicate effectively during major incidents are usually the ones that practice disciplined communication in routine operations every time. Chaos does not create weak systems; it exposes them.
Freelancing
Every firefighter who has spent time on a busy engine, truck, rescue or medic unit has witnessed freelancing — crews taking assignments without communicating, companies self-deploying to another division because they “saw smoke” or officers operating outside the incident action plan, believing they are helping the operation move faster. On a single-house fire, that behavior can already create accountability and safety problems. During large-scale disasters involving hospitals, healthcare systems, evacuation operations and regional coordination, freelancing becomes exponentially more dangerous.
Imagine a major hurricane in which EMS units begin independently transporting patients to facilities already on diversion or fire companies self-assign to overwhelmed hospitals without coordination, while coalition partners are actively trying to balance staffing, fuel, oxygen delivery and patient movement across an entire region. Even during mass-casualty incidents, a single uncoordinated decision can create traffic congestion at treatment areas, overwhelm receiving hospitals, or disrupt resource tracking for emergency management and healthcare partners.
The modern fire service prides itself on disciplined operations and strong incident command for a reason. Regional disasters demand the same discipline on a much larger scale. Healthcare coalitions and unified planning help reduce freelancing by ensuring that agencies understand not only their own mission but also how their actions affect the broader response system around them.
Fatigue-related errors
Fatigue may be one of the most normalized dangers in modern fire and EMS culture. The profession has become remarkably good at joking about exhaustion while simultaneously ignoring its operational consequences. Sleep deprivation has become part of the identity. Firefighters brag about nonstop shifts, endless overtime and running all night without rest as though exhaustion somehow proves dedication.
But fatigue is not a personality trait. It is a physiological impairment. Exhausted firefighters and medics make mistakes. Medication errors increase. Driving performance declines. Situational awareness narrows. Decision-making suffers. Emotional control deteriorates. Yet many departments still treat fatigue management as a weakness rather than as an operational risk management issue. No firefighter would knowingly disconnect their SCBA in an IDLH environment, but the profession routinely expects providers to make life-and-death decisions after functioning for extended periods with little meaningful sleep.
At some point, the fire service must stop glorifying burnout and start recognizing fatigue for what it truly is: a threat to responder and patient safety.
Poor accountability
The profession also struggles with how it handles mistakes internally. Too often, firefighters and medics remain silent about near misses, bad decisions or operational failures because they fear humiliation, punishment or becoming the target of station gossip and social media criticism. That culture creates dangerous consequences. Organizations that focus exclusively on blame eventually teach people one lesson above all others: Hide mistakes better next time.
That is not how high-reliability organizations improve.
Accountability absolutely matters, especially in cases involving recklessness or negligence. But there is a difference between accountability and public destruction. A profession focused entirely on punishment limits honest discussion, and honest discussion is where meaningful learning happens. Departments that genuinely improve are usually the ones willing to ask uncomfortable questions after incidents, rather than immediately searching for someone to sacrifice.
Weak command presence
Equally important is the issue of command presence and leadership integration during unified operations. Weak command presence during multi-agency incidents quickly creates uncertainty, especially when fire/EMS agencies operate alongside healthcare administrators, emergency managers, public health officials and law enforcement partners who may not traditionally function within the fire service’s command culture. A hesitant or poorly coordinated command structure can lead to conflicting priorities, communication breakdowns and delayed decision-making at the exact moment regional coordination matters most.
Fire officers today must be comfortable not only managing tactical fireground operations but also operating within unified command environments where healthcare system impacts, evacuation coordination, resource shortages, shelter operations and public health concerns compete for attention simultaneously. Strong command presence in these environments is no longer just about controlling the scene; it is about building confidence across multiple disciplines, maintaining operational clarity, and ensuring that every agency involved understands the mission, priorities and direction of the response.
Mental health stigma
The fire service has also been slow to fully accept mental health as part of operational readiness. For decades, firefighters and medics were expected to absorb repeated trauma silently. Fatal pediatric calls, suicides, violence, abuse, gruesome accidents, and death notifications became normalized parts of the job while emotional reactions were often viewed as weakness. That culture is changing, but not fast enough.
Behavioral health is not separate from operational readiness. Firefighters carrying unresolved trauma eventually bring those effects back into the station, into decision-making, into relationships and sometimes into destructive coping mechanisms. Departments have significantly improved peer support systems and behavioral health resources in recent years, but stigma persists in parts of the profession. The idea that emotional suppression equals toughness has probably damaged as many firefighters as the job itself.
Training culture
Training culture presents another challenge. There is growing pressure for training to look impressive rather than simply be effective.
Departments sometimes focus heavily on flashy drills, dramatic videos and aggressive training culture branding while neglecting basic competencies that actually save lives. The fundamentals remain what matter most:
- Disciplined communication
- Building construction knowledge, reading smoke
- Scene accountability
- Strong EMS fundamentals
- Consistent size-ups
- Repetition under stress
Nobody posts viral videos of firefighters calmly performing routine tasks correctly, but those routine tasks prevent tragedies every single day. Real professionalism is often repetitive, disciplined and honestly a little boring. But boring fundamentals win emergencies.
Why don’t we learn?
So why is learning from mistakes still so difficult in the fire service? Because this profession is deeply personal. Firefighters and medics build identities around this work. Departments become family. Traditions matter. Pride matters. Criticism, even constructive criticism, can feel personal because people care deeply about the profession and the organizations they serve. Nobody wants to believe their department could fail. Nobody wants to imagine tragedy happening under their leadership or on their watch. But meaningful growth requires uncomfortable honesty.
The fire service does not naturally drift toward excellence. It drifts toward complacency unless leaders intentionally fight against it.
Departments that improve in the long term are usually the ones willing to self-evaluate honestly, train consistently, adapt when necessary and admit weaknesses before tragedy forces the issue publicly.
Reason for optimism
Despite all these challenges, there is reason for optimism. Firefighters and medics entering the profession today are often highly educated, motivated and eager to improve the culture. Many care deeply about training, leadership development, communication, responder wellness and professional accountability. Across the country, there are outstanding departments and leaders working hard to move the profession forward while preserving the traditions that truly matter.
The fire service will always make mistakes. Every profession does. The real danger begins when organizations convince themselves they have already learned the lesson, even as they continue to repeat the same behavior. That is when history stops being history and starts becoming a pattern.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William R. Howe is a public safety professional, educator, emergency manager and public health practitioner with nearly four decades of service. After serving in the U.S. Navy from 1986 to 2000, Howe spent more than 24 years with the Sarasota County (Florida) Fire Department as a firefighter-paramedic, building a 27-year career in the fire service. He also spent more than 15 years in education at Suncoast Technical College, formerly Sarasota Technical Institute, serving as lead EMT instructor and adjunct paramedic instructor. Howe currently serves as logistics chief for the Tampa Bay Health and Medical Preparedness Coalition, managing response logistics, preparedness initiatives and deployment operations in support of the Florida Department of Health and Florida Division of Emergency Management.
Howe earned a bachelor’s degree in public safety administration with concentrations in homeland security and emergency management from St. Petersburg College. And he holds a Master of Public Health degree from the University of South Florida College of Public Health with a focus on global health and humanitarian assistance, and a minor in infectious control.
