Editor’s Note: This article originally appeared in the What Firefighters Want in 2025 industry report. Download your copy here.
Describe your personal mindset about fire service safety culture. This prompt in the survey generated nearly 1,500 responses covering the full range of the issue. At its root, the question required the respondent to examine their visceral response to the term “safety culture.” Expectedly, respondents placing a high value on safety used the term with respect, while those who leaned into the aggressive mindset responded with disdain toward the culture.
The views fell into five general themes:
- Risk vs. reward mentality
- Safety through training and competence
- Balance between firefighter safety and civilian rescue
- Concern over safety culture overreach
- Personal responsibility for safety and situational awareness
Let’s dive into each theme and review representative quotes from the respondents.
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Risk vs. reward mentality
“Our job is inherently dangerous, but unnecessary risk is unacceptable.”
The concept of risk vs. reward is nothing new to the fire service, nor is debate surrounding its intent. Introduced to the American fire service on a national level by the late Phoenix Fire Chief Alan Brunacini in 1985, the “We Will Risk” Doctrine from his book “Fire Command” revolves around how much risk should be shouldered to achieve a fireground objective. Chief Brunacini’s full quote is worth stating to frame the rest of the discussion.
“We will risk our lives a lot, in a highly calculated and controlled manner, to protect a savable human life; we will risk our lives a little, in a highly calculated and controlled manner, to protect savable property. We will not risk our lives at all to protect lives or property that is already lost.”
The debate erupts when two firefighters – really, pick any two – are asked to define “savable” and “already lost.”
Two distinct camps emerged through the survey comments, although there was agreement on one point — saving lives. There were nuances, of course (e.g., defining “savable”), but saving lives was a point every respondent believed in and subscribed to. Several poignant comments sum up the discussion.
- “Firefighters need to recognize when the reward is worth the risk — and when it’s not.”
- “I have always tried to do my best to save as much property as possible by being aggressive, even though all occupants were safely outside. When the fire is out and the structure is torn down in a couple months because it is not repairable, it makes you think if it was worth the risk for saving a structure that wasn’t worth saving and putting numerous lives at risk.”
- “Firefighters need to recognize when the reward is worth the risk — and when it’s not.”
- “If you completely remove all the risk, the job is completely different, and the public suffers (life and property).”
The fire service is not alone in wrestling with the concept of risk vs. reward. The U.S. Army has been dealing with a culture clash of risk as well, as reported in the piece “Our Risk-Averse Army: How We Got Here and How to Overcome It.” In the Army version of the discussion, there are advocates recommending commanders become risk adapters. There are some valuable lessons the fire service could glean from this approach, and it may even provide a bridge between the safety culture camps. In a similar vein, revisiting the military principle of assembling overwhelming force (risk dominance) to defeat an enemy may also be worth exploring in more detail.
Safety through training and competence
“The job can be safer based on the repetitive training the firefighter endures.”
While the job is inherently dangerous, the key is to make yourself harder to kill or get injured by being educated and physically fit. Know building construction and fire dynamics. Study the craft and don’t get complacent.
There was consensus on two points here: Firefighting is dangerous, and training and competence are two ways to reduce the exposure to danger. For the safety culture advocates, training and competence were pillars firefighters could stand on to do their jobs well and make it back to the station for the next call. One respondent stated, “You can’t help others if you haven’t taken care of training and fitness yourself.” Another noted, “Having the knowledge and experience to do an accurate size-up, then making sound decisions” was key to getting through the call.
One is hard-pressed to argue against training and competence. We expect that the individuals providing service to us, from the person taking our fast-food order to the surgeon operating to remove a brain tumor, is prepared to do their job. Since this area was a consensus point for the safety culture proponents and opponents, maybe it could be used as a starting point of common ground.
Some additional representative views on safety through training and competence:
- “We don’t need more safety protocols — we need more competency on the fireground.”
- “Safety culture is using data present and learning modern fire science and tactics, and combining them to make fire operations effective aggressive and safe.”
- “Training is the cornerstone of safety. If you don’t rise to the occasion, you fall to your level of training.”
Balance between firefighter safety and civilian rescue
“Victims end up in precarious situations. To rescue them, firefighters also then end up close to those situations. But we do so with a number of mitigation practices in place — good incident command, sound size-up, robust training, solid situational awareness.”
Respondents were most vocal when it came to this intensely personal topic. There was significant concern that the pendulum has swung more toward firefighter safety than civilian safety. Some representative comments of this mindset:
- “The fire service is prioritizing firefighter safety over civilian life. That’s not what we signed up for.”
- “Safety is important, but it should never delay a needed rescue.”
- “We’ve become too focused on our safety and not enough on the people we swore to protect.”
At the other end of the spectrum, respondents shared feedback like the following:
- “We say we are the #1 priority, but that is not really how we act as a fire service.”
- “I believe we should move mountains to save those who can be saved, but we shouldn’t kill firefighters to save the unsavable.”
There did seem to be a disconnect between concepts within the perceived safety culture mantras and practical interpretation. Some responses:
- “How do we save lives if they want us to not risk ours?”
- “If we cannot conduct ourselves in a safe and effective manner then how can the public we serve rely on us to be effective in their time of emergent need?”
Both questions deserve further examination. When it comes to saving lives, lives that are in danger and not lost, safety culture firefighters are all in. The divergence comes in the evaluation of conditions. What one firefighter may deem “survivable,” another may see as “non-survivable.” The repeated emphasis on training and competence noted in the previous theme may be helpful in reaching common ground.
Two sub themes emerged among the anti-safety culture respondents — the concept of our “sworn oath” and “what the public expects.” An interesting survey to pursue would canvass groups of citizens to see if what they expect from the fire service is in line with what the fire service believes the public expects. Once we have the feedback, we would be in a better position to determine if the public truly expects the fire service to go “all in” on every incident, or if they expect us to make calculated decisions that results in lives saved, firefighter and civilian.
Concern over safety culture overreach
“The pendulum has swung too far. We’ve safety-ed ourselves right out of a job.”
Chief among some respondents’ concerns was the perceived overreach of the safety culture mindset. These firefighters noted standard operating procedures (SOPs), orders and directives stifled decision-making and aggressive action. Some respondents went so far as to state that safety culture was used as a crutch to shore up incompetence, fear and accountability. One respondent noted that while safety was “a wonderful thing,” they believed we have “OVER safety’ed” the fire service. They further remarked that SOPs were taking things to an extreme.
There was mention of the fire service shifting to a “risk-averse” mindset and the adverse impact this approach has on “what firefighters are sworn to do.”
There were other observations that appeared to strike a balance. One firefighter noted they operated in an “aggressive” fire department but did not believe the aggressive and safety cultures were mutually exclusive. The firefighter stated their department operated “with safety, accountability and purpose. In order to TRULY practice aggressive firefighting, you must be highly trained, experienced, and have proactive incident command, control, and safety operations … I’m not sure I believe all ‘safety culture’ departments are not also aggressive.”
The overreach concern comments primarily focused on regulation and fear. Firefighters identifying as “aggressive” want the freedom to take actions in situations they believe they have trained for, are prepared to handle, and took an oath to perform. Firefighters comfortable with the safety culture of their department tended to view regulation as directives put in place to provide guidance in managing risk, avoiding unforced errors, and reducing preventable mishaps while they operated in hazardous situations.
Some additional quotes that represent this mindset:
- “It’s not that safety is bad, but we can’t let fear drive policy.”
- “Too often, safety is used to justify inaction. That’s not safety, that’s hesitation.”
Personal responsibility for safety and situational awareness
Safety starts with me – If I don’t know my job or my crew’s limits, we’re in danger.”
The final theme to emerge from the comments touched on who was most responsible for safety, plus the concept of situational awareness. One firefighter voiced a unique perspective that encompassed nearly all the other themes, “I train so I don’t have to rely on policy to keep me safe.” This succinct statement verbalizes personal responsibility, self-awareness and situational awareness, the value of training, and a balanced view of policy.
Another respondent stated, “We have to take risks to serve the citizens but should train and educate ourselves to make good decisions and take calculated risks.” The statement was punctuated by “(SERVICE over THRILL-SEEKING).” One could extrapolate from the statement that the respondent understood their role in being knowledgeable and experienced in the craft, with an emphasis on calculated decision-making (of which situational awareness is a key component).
There were notable references to empowerment, some overt, some subtle. One firefighter applauded the efforts to introduce situational awareness to create smart firefighters but believed the focus put first responders over the public. Another noted, “It’s everyone’s responsibility to point out issues on the fireground.” This observation directly ties to personal responsibility and being properly oriented to one’s surroundings (a key component of situational awareness).
Some additional quotes that aligned with this theme:
- “Be your own safety officer. Don’t rely on someone else to watch your back.”
- “The safest firefighter is the most aware one.”
- “Safety is common sense, and everyone’s responsibility — not just the incident commander’s.”
Final thoughts
One respondent provided an excellent conclusion to this analysis. The observation sums up the topic quite well and, in many ways, speaks to the practical and emotional elements of firefighting. The firefighter said, “Firefighting is not safe. Recklessness is not safe. Freelancing is not safe. Egos are not safe. Training is the cornerstone. Constant training creates intelligent firefighters. Intelligent firefighters create safer firefighters. Safer firefighters create confident firefighters. Confident, intelligent firefighters aggressively extinguish fires and save victims.”
In other words, a personal mindset that balances aggressive firefighting and safety culture could be summed up as follows: Prepare for the worst, constantly orient to the conditions around you, act with intent and dominate the risk.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Fire Chief (ret.) John B. Tippett, Jr. began his career as a volunteer and later became a career firefighter in Montgomery County, Maryland. Chief Tippett retired from Montgomery County as the department’s safety battalion chief to take a position as the first deputy chief of operations with the Charleston (S.C.) Fire Department following the Sofa Super Store fire, where he assisted in the department’s recovery. He served one year as interim fire chief there as well. Tippett continues to be an active firefighter with the North Beach (Maryland) Volunteer Fire Department, and served as director of fire service programs for the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation (NFFF) until December 2024. He has worked extensively on firefighter safety initiatives throughout his career, including introducing Crew Resource Management to the fire service and the Fire Fighter Near-Miss Reporting System.
