Why do you do this job?  What makes you tick?  For me, it’s the tradition, brotherhood and challenge of the job and the excitement of not knowing what the next shift will bring.  These may seem like clichés, but they are all true and undeniable.  Unfortunately, tradition, brotherhood and challenge are being replaced by bureaucracy, self-preservation, complacency and Internet learning which has turned the excitement of the unknown into the fear of the unknown.

The fire service if filled with people who have a stack of degrees and certificates inches thick and can regurgitate the “Essentials of Firefighting” by definition and page number.  However, these same people can’t tell you the difference between burning contents versus burning structural components, haven’t carried a tool since being a Probie and go offensive when they should go defensive and defensive when they should go offensive.

All of a sudden, the fire service is consumed with “customer service”.  Constantly bending over backwards to meet other people’s standards and expectations often at the expense of out own training and safety.  Coincidentally, everything looks good on paper (I.S.O. makes sure of that)!  Meanwhile, we still lose 100+ brothers a year.  How, and to whom, do we address this problem?

Education is invaluable.  Know one should ever be ridiculed for wanting to learn and better themselves.  However, real world experience or real world training are required to reinforce that knowledge.  That class you took, the article you read and that new tool on the rig doesn’t mean squat unless you get out and use it.

So, how do you get people back into hands on training?  The truth is…you don’t.  I recently attended a workshop with Chiefs Rick Lasky and John Salka and absorbed/realized a few new things:

• “Your attitude is up to you.”
• The only motivation is self-motivation; you cannot motivate someone else, you can only lead them in the right direction and provide inspiration.
• “Your people are a mirror of your attitude…be a model.”

How do we put the tradition, brotherhood and challenge back into the fire service?  The answer is… by living it and breathing it every single day!  Hold each other personally accountable for your words, actions and attitudes.  Passion is easily noticed and easily contagious.  We don’t have to hold hands and sing our “Essentials” A, B, C’s together and we don’t have to agree on everything.  It’s about sharing ideas and experiences, but not necessarily the same ones.  It’s about taking new and knowledge as well as new and old experiences and meshing them together.

If you want to teach someone about tools, go use them.  If you want to teach someone about fire behavior, go to hands-on training classes or get online or grab a fire magazine (Firehouse, Fire Engineering, Fire-Rescue…etc) and size-up the incident photos. If you want to preserve the tradition and brotherhood of the fire service, then be a mentor and a leader.  You don’t have to motivate, just inspire.

FTM-PTB and Be Safe