By Eric Valliere
In recent years, “safety” — once a universally positive term — has become a point of contention in the American fire service. Some firefighters now speak of it as if it’s a limitation rather than a lifeline, a word that signals hesitation, bureaucracy and a shift away from the aggressive firefighting they were trained to deliver. But how, when and why did the word “safety” start to feel like a bad word? And how do we shift our collective mindset to one of aggression and safety working together?
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By the numbers
FireRescue1’s What Firefighters Want (WFW) survey recently explored this very topic. One of the questions asked of respondents was: Has your department changed its fireground tactics in response to the fire service’s heightened focus on firefighter safety over the past 10 years?
- 66% said Yes
- 26% said No
Another question: “Do you believe your department’s enhanced safety focus compromises members’ ability to do the job?”
- 18% said Yes
- 82% said No
But the why behind those numbers is where the story lies.
Common themes around compromised efficacy
Many of the comments from the survey (and from ongoing field feedback) share common themes as to why they believe their department’s enhanced safety focus compromises members’ ability to do the job. Here’s what some of the participants had to say:
From risk management to risk avoidance
Some firefighters feel victims are being put at higher risk because of the focus on our safety over their survival:
- “We encourage members to prioritize themselves over the mission.”
- “Rescue should be our focus but we’re stuck on safety protocols.”
- “Them before us — not the firefighter’s safety first.”
Tactical delays and missed rescues
Long safety briefings, mandatory staging and backup line requirements delay water on the fire and search operations:
- “The department’s overemphasis on firefighter safety — particularly strict adherence to policies, checklists, and ‘two-in/two-out’ style rules — delays or prevents aggressive interior operations, which in turn reduces civilian rescue opportunities and overall effectiveness.”
- “Officers default to transitional attack due to lack of understanding.”
- “Strict adherence to 2-in-2-out causes small fires to grow unnecessarily.”
Training limitations
Live-fire temperature caps, banned acquired-structure burns and overly risk-averse training erode readiness for real-world conditions:
- “We avoid live burns, realistic training, reps in gear ... and end up more unsafe.”
- “Fog machines don’t prepare individuals for superheated environments.”
- “More focus on RIT and Mayday drills than on search, fire attack, and rescue.”
Cultural shifts
Aggressive tactics are equated with recklessness; leaders favor “rule-followers” over tactical problem-solvers:
- “Aggressive firefighters have been vilified.”
- “It has created robots instead of thinking firefighters.”
- “Aggressive firefighters get in trouble more than those who play it safe.”
Resource misalignment
Budgets diverted to compliance gear and safety tech instead of functional tools and apparatus:
- “The department is too safety focused... safety is the only thing they focus on.”
- “HQ is over focused on accreditation... they have not kept up with new studies.”
Operational inefficiencies
Repeated pauses, overstaffed command structures and excessive rehab cycles disrupt fireground momentum:
- “The culture has created hesitant officers and firefighters.”
- “Sometimes we are letting the fire burn too long to ensure everything is perfect before extinguishment.”
A safety culture done right
The environment has changed for us exponentially. The products of combustion have changed the burn curve and decreased our time to make good decisions and act! That means our tactical decision-making must change too. But here’s the truth: Safety should never hinder our ability to save lives — if we do it right. That’s not to say bad things won’t happen. Firefighting is, by nature, dangerous. But done right, safety is a force multiplier, not a brake pedal.
Doing it right starts with the following:
- All operating personnel shall work within a standard Risk Management Plan during all emergency operations on every emergency incident. This application will be continuously re assessed at all levels of the incident until all units leave the scene.
- Green (Go): We will risk our lives, in an educated and calculated manner, to save savable lives.
- Yellow (proceed with caution): We may risk our lives, in an educated and calculated manner, to save savable property.
- Red (No/go): We will not risk our lives for lives or property that are already lost.
- Understanding risk vs. benefit at every level, from recruits through the fire chief.
- Breaking down the training/operations disconnect, ensuring what’s practiced on the drill ground matches what’s expected on the fireground.
- Leadership buy-in (at all levels), seeing safety as a supporting set of eyes, not a leash.
- Identifying survivable space — training members to assess victim viability, read smoke and anticipate hostile fire events. This is the key to understanding and driving your Risk Management Plan. Do we have victims and could they be they alive?
- Adjusting conditions, not avoiding them — using skill and decision-making to change the fireground environment in our favor.
Ultimately, it all comes down to making good decisions based on a good size-up of critical factors, implementing an incident action plan with a strategy based on the Risk Management Plan, and continually re-evaluating.
What’s the real goal?
If you had three options when saving a life, which would you choose?
- Save a life and die doing it.
- Save a life and be critically injured doing it.
- Save a life and not get injured or killed in the process.
Of course, we’d all choose Option 3. While that’s not always reality, it can be the target we train toward. With the right knowledge, tools and mindset, we can push aggressively when it matters — without defaulting to risk avoidance as a substitute for smart risk management.
Final thoughts
We in the Fire Department Safety Officers Association (FDSOA) and in the Pheonix Metro Auto-aid System love aggressive firefighting. We believe safety, applied correctly, makes us better at it. The enemy isn’t the word “safety” — it’s when safety is used as an excuse to avoid action rather than as a tool to empower it.
In the end, the mission remains unchanged: We risk a lot to save a lot, and we train hard to do it well. Safety is part of that, but it must serve the mission, not replace it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Assistant Fire Chief Eric Valliere has been an active member of the fire service since 1991 when he started his career at the Mesa (Arizona) Fire Department. During his career, he has worked in and managed all areas of the fire department to include Operations and EMS, and currently holds the rank of assistant fire chief over Professional Services, managing Professional Standards, Training, Resource, Fleet, IT, and Safety for the Scottsdale (Arizona) Fire Department. Valliere also serves as chair of the Fire Department Safety Officers Association (FDSOA) as well as the chair for the SH&S section of the AFCA, advocate for the NFFF’s EGH program, and a member of the IAFC Safety Health & Survival Section.
SIDEBAR: More food [statistics] for thought
Statistically significant demographic patterns emerged when the 194 members who said their department’s safety program does compromise their ability to do the job (“Yes”) compared with the 873 who said it does not (“No”).
Department type: More likely career, less likely volunteer.
- Career: 56% of “Yes” vs. 45% of “No”
- Volunteer: 21% of “Yes” vs. 32% of “No”
Age: Skews toward the mid-career cohort, away from the oldest group.
- Age 28-43: 35% of “Yes” vs. 19% of “No”
- Age 60 +: 17% of “Yes” vs. 28% of “No”
Years in service: Heavier representation of 10- to 20-year veterans, lighter at 30+ years.
- 10-20 years: 26% of “Yes” vs. 17% of “No”
- >30 years: 35% of “Yes” vs. 44% of “No”
Rank: Line-level officers and engineers are the most dissatisfied; chiefs are the least.
- Captain/Lieutenant/Sergeant: 30.9 % of “Yes” vs. 22.1 % of “No”
- Engineer/Driver: 11.9 % vs. 6.0 %
- Deputy/Asst./District Chief: 8.2 % vs. 18.6 %
- Fire Chief: 15.5 % vs. 25.5 %
What’s it all mean? Dissatisfaction with the current safety regime is concentrated in career, metropolitan departments and among the mid-career, company-level ranks — crews that are experienced enough to want tactical latitude yet still spend most shifts on the nozzle. Older chiefs and volunteers are more accepting of present safety rules and staffing formulas. The pattern suggests the conflict is not about rejecting safety outright but about how policy translates into day-to-day tactics, especially for the backbone 10- to 20-year firefighters who must carry out those policies on busy urban firegrounds.
