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March 23, 2004
Fire Fighter memories
The Laughing Wolf has reviewed his cousin's autobiographical work, "Firework". I like the sound of it and shall be looking out for a copy. It sounds as if his journey through this career has some similarity to my own journey through the last thirty plus years. It will make an interesting read.
Fire fighting is not everyone's cup of tea. After all, it takes someone with a really warped sense of self preservation to run into a burning building when everyone else is running out! It requires being able to switch off emotions and sometimes your rage at the evil you are seeing. It provides pathos, bathos and probably the finest team spirit you will ever encounter. Sometimes, as the Weekend Pundit has reminded me, we are called to make that ultimate sacrifice. When one of ours is killed in the line of duty - the entire service mourns, not just in his or her brigade or department, but all fire fighters who hear of it.
Over the years the fire service's role has expanded and the image of fire and smoke represents only one small part of what a firefighter does today. Unfortunately it is the one small part of it all that is the focus all non-firefighters tend to give it. The fire fighter who died in Laconia didn't die in a fire. He died while conducting a trial dive in an icy lake as a member of a diving unit. Diving Unit? Yes - a specialist unit within the fire service and one which is staffed by specialists who are also firefighters.
This is part of the problem for the modern service. A century ago it dealt with fires in structures and the occassional flooded building or basement. Gradually over the first part of the last century that role expanded to include rescue from jammed lifts, accidents involving trains, trams and the occassional motor car. Since the second world war, the spread of new technology and the growth of populations has seen a rise in the number of fires, but it has seen an explosion in the number of other disasters or potential disasters that the fire service is called upon to deal with. Almost everything from the proverbial cat up a tree to an overturned chemical tanker on the motorway is now a case of "call the Fire Service". Fire now probably accounts for less than 50% of the services activities. The list includes saving lives from fire, protecting property from fire, fire prevention, fire safety enforcement and inspection, rescue from motor accidents, dealing with chemical spills, dealing with animals and humans trapped in drains, rivers, mudholes etc., dealing with the aftermath of terrorist incidents, and the assessment of fire risks to the public and to fire fighters. Roughty-toughty water squirters? Think again!
Added to this, in the UK and other industrialised nations, has been the legislation which requires the fire service to police fire safety in most work places. In some countries this includes an enforcement role, in others it is simply an inspection and advisory role to some other enforcement agency. Whichever regime is in use, it is another role which the service must fill professionally. It is also something for which little direct funding is provided! Yet, our politicians and to an extent the media look at the service, and see only an opportunity to provide jobs for their pals - replacing uniformed and experienced professionals with "managers" and directly recruited "specialists" whose only knowledge of fire comes from books and demonstrations.
Equipment is another very sore point sometimes, as the service tries to keep pace with technology. Anyone who has had to explain at great length to a "civilian" "manager" in charge of purchasing why one piece of kit that he/she thinks is the best thing since sliced bread is not able to perform what the service requires will know what real frustration is. Especially when, thinking that the point has been effectively put across, you find that the "manager" goes off and buys what he/she wanted to get in the first place - and you and your team have to live with its shortcomings.
The move in this country is to do away with any rank structure. It is too "militaristic" and "elitist". Selection criteria have been all but thrown out of the window in an attempt to select people on ethnicity and gender rather than ability. One Brigade (worryingly the largest in the UK!) is arguing that simple subtraction should not be part of any selection tests as this might disadvantage someone. These are the people who will, in the future, stand up at funerals and weep their crocodile tears and insist that it is all the fault of the firefighters - for trying to do the impossible with the inadequate management, inadequate and politically correct selection processes, and inadequate equipment and funding that have been mandated for political reasons only.
The real tragedy will be that they will be killed in buildings approved by the "specialist inspectors" recruited to inspect and approve fire safety provisions without understanding fire, and by their "managers" whose inability to understand the service ethos will lead to the sort of thing the armed forces now face in combat zones - wrong ammunition, no body armour, and inadequate supply arrangements.
Britain is justifiably proud of its fire service and of the fact that we lose very few firefighters in the line of duty. We can still weep with those who are killed in the service of their fellows, and we will still do our utmost, despite the interference of politicians, to do that duty, even though it costs us health, and life itself. This is not a "job"; it is a vocation. It demands far more than simply turning up for work and going home again at the end of a shift. It demands commitment, it demands teamwork and, yes, that breeds a little elitism. But, when I go into a burning building, I need to know that the guy with me, the guys outside, on the pump and on the other tasks, know exactly what they are doing and will be there to back me or retrieve me if at all goes wrong.
Once you are a part of a team like that, you can never want for friends, you can never share it with an outsider, either. They simply do not understand it. As I said at the beginning of this post, the fire services of this world transcend national boundaries, they wear a uniform and they are soldiers of a sort, but they are the soldiers of peace. They are the guys who deal with the aftermath when defence forces have failed to stop an enemy attack, they are the people who deal with the consequences of failures in fire precautions, and of personal failures in road traffic accidents and other life threatening situations.
I have worn this uniform for more than thirty years now and will wear it for a few more. I wear it with pride and know that, like the author of the book in my opening paragraph, my faith has been strengthened by my service to my community in my service. In that time I have buried a few friends, seen others broken in spirit or in body, and we have not caste them aside either. Their sacrifice has been the same, and perhaps more so, than if they had died.
I salute all my colleagues and comrades in the fire service - the politicians may not appreciate us; they certainly know how to abuse us and to take credit for our performance. They can never take from us the sense of comradeship and of satisfaction for a job well done.
May all our fallen colleagues rest in peace and rise in glory.
Posted by The Gray Monk at March 23, 2004 10:58 AM