When a call comes in, where does a fire chief belong: at the command post or on the rig? FireRescue1 asked readers whether chiefs should regularly “ride the backstep” and be hands-on during calls, regardless of budget. Responses poured in, with answers ranging from a flat “absolutely not” to an emphatic “absolutely.”
“Absolutely not. Someone needs to be in charge.”
The largest group of responses said a chief’s job is command, administration and keeping the department running, and that stepping onto a rig blurs the chain of command and takes reps from officers who need them.
- “No. They gave that up to be a white shirt.”
- “No. Their job is administration.”
- “Absolutely not! Someone needs to be in charge. If you want to ride backstep or drive, don’t take the promotion and responsibilities that go with it.”
- “Ridiculous. Should the president go on a night ambush? I want my chief to get our budget, equipment, manpower and promotions on track.”
- “No, they should have full schedules to make the lives of those in operations easier and progress the department ahead. They should already be aware of what life on the back is like.”
- “No. Stay at the ICP and off my fireground. They do their job and I do mine, leading my company.”
- “On fires, absolutely not. They have a role in controlling the situation. Lack of a solid command structure is cited in almost every fire LODD report.”
- “Chiefs have a duty to let their ops chiefs be ops chiefs. Low volume of working fires leaves fewer command opportunities for ops chiefs to do their tasks. Don’t steal an opportunity.”
- “No. Sorry, not sorry. Even the senior guys on the line step back to give the younger ones the chance to gain experience. They have to be ready to step up when the old hands retire.”
“Yes. I will always be a firefighter first.”
A smaller group argued that chiefs who still ride, cover shifts or pull hose understand the job, earn trust and avoid becoming desk-bound leaders who forget where they came from.
- “Absolutely. Did it myself for years. How else do you really know what’s going on with your troops?”
- “Let chief cover a Kelly once in a while; it’s easier to understand the mission if your boots are on the ground. There’s little worse for an organization than a chief who’s forgotten what it’s like to be a firefighter.”
- “I would sign up in our staffing system to ride as the OIC of the engine, ladder or as the BC on Thanksgiving and Christmas Day in order to provide an extra leave slot for the troops to get the holiday off.”
- “I will always be a firefighter first and always do foundation level tasks. Loading hose is just as important as a report. Maintenance of the fire engine is just as important as gear that is cleaned and checked over. Everything is important at the chief level.”
- “The title and color of helmet doesn’t change where you came from. You wanna lose touch with reality, your department and folks, be a desk chief.”
“You do what you gotta do.”
Commenters from volunteer and smaller departments said manpower, not preference, often decides the answer, while others pointed to the size of the organization and the individual chief.
- “Depends on the organization, the staffing, and that individual chief’s skillset.”
- “In a paid department, no, but in a volunteer setting, yes.”
- “In the volunteer setting, maybe from time to time. Career fire chiefs, absolutely not.”
- “I would say in most cases no. However, in some small volunteer departments, he or she might be the one driving the rig.”
- “Depends on the size of the organization and amount of responders first due. I know chief officers shouldn’t be on a first due rig. But due to staffing in smaller organizations, it may happen.”
- “Sometimes you do what you gotta do! As a former chief I wasn’t afraid to grab a nozzle on occasion.”
“If someone else has command, go for it.”
A middle camp said chiefs can jump in when it helps, as long as command stays clear and the chief shows up for training, too.
- “Regularly, no. As needed, appropriate and available, yes.”
- “My former chief would pull up on scene and ask the IC, ‘You got it?’ and if they said yes, he’d go fight fire. If there wasn’t anything ‘white hat’ for him to do, why waste the manpower?”
- “It’s not unusual for my BC to leave me in command after he arrives and he’ll throw his gear on and go to work.”
- “Sometimes chief wants to get dirty. If someone else has command, go for it.”
- “Yes, never forget where you came from, and show your people you mean that, as long as there is another competent person in charge at the scene.”
- “Just because you’re a chief doesn’t mean you can’t get hands on. The department I work at we are lucky enough that the chief will let the assistant chiefs and company officers run scenes and he will go hands on if needed.”
- “Calls, no. Training, YES!”
- “If so, they should be regularly attending training also.”
🔥Your 360 takeaways
Among readers who gave a direct answer, “no” came up more often than “yes,” and the strongest objections centered on command: a chief who takes a role on the line can muddy who is running the incident and crowd out officers who need the experience.
Even so, many commenters said the realistic answer is “as needed,” not “never.” The open question is how a department keeps command clear when a chief decides to throw on gear, and who is accountable when staffing is thin enough that the white helmet is also the third set of hands.
