Fire Service Fear Mongering
Our PPE and equipment clearly state the consequences of our actions. SCBA, helmets, and turnouts clearly state, firefighting is a dangerous job that could result in death. I think we all enter the job understanding the dangers which we face, not only with fires or motor vehicle crashes but we are realizing the dangers of cancer and mental health. We get it, we don’t need people reminding us every day that our job is dangerous. We need people reminding us to train more!
When this happens, we become more risk-averse, placing our own well-being ahead of the citizens. This creates a mentality shift within the fire service to become overly safe and often to the point of mission failure. We are proud of our mission statement, values, and catchphrase, “Save lives and protect property”. We openly tell our citizens this and even paint it on the side of our apparatus. When we are so inundated with fear of search, fear to ventilate, or fear of aggressive firefighting, we are placing the mission at risk of failure.
Jeff Rothmeier says, “The more aggressive we are, the safer we are”. Some may see this as an oxymoron, you can’t be aggressive and safe. But to those who challenge this logic, what is a consequence of inaction? Things usually don’t get better, they get worse. We face an aggressive enemy who is strengthening by the second. To win, we need the violence of action to meet and exceed the fire’s level of aggression. To put this in firefighter terms, if we have heavy fire from the exterior on multiple floors, we will lose with a booster line, we need to punch it in the face with the biggest weapon we have! Aggression is often viewed as a negative term, usually, by people who are disconnected or don’t understand what aggressive is.
Mo Davis, Houston FD says, “Aggressive Command Leads to Successful Outcomes on the Fire Ground” and “Aggressive is just a mindset we train to”. He explains Aggressive is not reckless, untrained, or uncalculated. It’s the exact opposite. Aggressive firefighters are usually the most trained, have a plan of action, have great situational awareness, and understand fire dynamics. They can be aggressive because they have become a student of the game and a student of the craft. They understand fire dynamics and can read building construction to predict where the fire is going. Aggressiveness comes from experience, knowledge, education, training, and drilling. Those who fail to prepare themselves are usually the ones sitting at the front door unsure of the next move. We don’t want timid firefighters. AGGRESSIVE IS SMART!
Interior Fire Attack, Search, Ventilation, VES; all have been categorized as the enemy. The tactics we can’t do because we are going to kill someone. We want to be data-driven, here are some stats:
1994-2013- Roof Ventilation LODD accounted for 4% of all LODDs
ZERO- LODD during VES in U.S. EVER! (1 recorded in Europe)
2020 LODD- 96 total LODDs: 10 advancing hose, 3 search, 0-ventilation.
18% of all victims were recorded as “out of the structure”
Yearly Average- 60% LODDs: Cardiac /Overexertion
Let’s overlook the elephant in the room and blame our LODD problems on firefighter tactics. This is not the case and if it is, you need to educate yourself. The fire service is growing rapidly as more science and data is being developed than ever before. If you are concerned about your organziaiton’s ability on the fire ground, you need to be better trained. Fear mongering in the fire service needs to stop. If data shows we have a problem, they need to be addressed, but placing blame on things like search, ventilation, and VES as the reasons for our LODDs is misplaced.
Stop the fear-mongering and start understanding fire dynamics. When it’s hot, air rises; ventilation pulls superheated gases off our victims, makes visibility better for interior fire attack and search, and we dictate where the fire vents. Firefighting is dangerous, we live in a dangerous world, this doesn’t mean the mission stops or we become more important than the citizens.
I will leave you with this; if the unthinkable happens tonight at your home, do you want aggressive firefighters to come for your family? Or do you want the risk-averse caution driven tactics? I choose to live in the community I protect, not just because it’s convenient because I know when we show up, things are getting done and our guys will lay it on the line for the citizens.
Can your department say the same thing? I hope so but if not, you got work to do.
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