Three years into the What Firefighters Want project, surveying firefighters across the United States and Canada, one issue continues to emerge as a pain point: poor agency leadership.
FireRescue1’s 2024 state-of-the-industry survey revealed some alarming statistics related to fire department leadership:
- 76% of respondents reported concerns about their fire department leadership
- 49% indicated that poor agency leadership has a high impact on retention
- 33% have considered leaving their department because of the fire chief
Chief Marc Bashoor offers a sneak peek at a handful of the survey stats.
Download the special report here, and check out more from the What Firefighters Want project here.
Thank you to ImageTrend for sponsoring the project.
What Firefighters Want: More from the Series
Chiefs John Tippett and John Oates debunk the idea that safety and aggression are mutually exclusive
More than 1,600 firefighters weigh in on the perennial debate about whether aggressive tactics and safety culture are mutually exclusive
Aggressive tactics and operational safety aren’t mutually exclusive when policies are clear, current and consistently applied
Done right, safety briefings are a critical window to teach fire behavior, strategy and lessons from the field — not just rehearse risks
Digging into the assertion that there needs to be a new search-and-rescue-focused culture in which civilian safety comes first
