Same Old Song and Dance

Another cheating scandal; more missing funds. Will it ever end?

Disclaimer: The links were chosen at random and are not an indictment of the fire departments mentioned. The links are examples of what has been a growing problem in the nation’s fire service.

Firefighter cheaters.

http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2011-07-19/news/bs-ed-emt-cheating-20110719_1_cheating-scandal-exam

http://www.universalhub.com/2011/more-four-dozen-boston-firefighters-suspended-role

Firefighter thieves.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jan/04/police--duty-firefighter-used-phony-emergency-call/

http://www.ocregister.com/news/fire-380179-police-county.html

Firefighter drunk drivers.

http://www.turnto10.com/story/21800293/woonsocket-firefighter-faces-dui-charge

http://www.macon.com/2012/09/14/2176712/houston-county-firefighter-charged.html

Firefighter arsonists.

http://www.kktv.com/home/headlines/Colorado-Volunteer-Firefighter-Arrested-for-Arson-189934051.html#.UVs5ZpOG1g0

http://onlineathens.com/local-news/2012-09-14/volunteer-firefighter-arrested-charged-arson

For the most recent example, go here: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/03/virginia-couple-arrested-arsons/2048669/

The aforementioned articles have been the subject of many discussions among firefighters for the past several years. Though there are recent examples of more of the same, the problems have not been just recently uncovered. You can find discussions at the various firefighter discussion forums that date back to before the explosion of social media.

Take firefighters cheating on written exams. The motivation for cheating is that the test taker felt that he could not pass the exam without the added edge that cheating would give them. Underpinnings could be a bump in pay, bragging rights or assignment to an elite squad. To go a little deeper, this could be a person who has relied on cheating since their high school or college days. The fact that they were not caught strengthened their belief that they would never be caught. Their personal intentions would never allow for the idea that their indiscretion would be splashed over the front page of a newspaper, website or be the lead-in story of the 6 o’clock news and thereby damaging the public perception of the fire department. No; such a selfish act never considers the collateral damage that it causes.

Integrity is a key attribute for a firefighter. Trust by the community that they serve is very fragile. Whether it is a business or a private home; firefighters are entrusted to enter uninvited, mitigate the hazard and to leave without succumbing to the temptation of thievery. Think about it; a homeowner has just suffered the worst day of the life, are struggling with what the fire has taken from them, only to discover that their rare coin collection or family heirloom is missing. They mention it to a neighbor and before you can get back to the fire station, the rumors are already growing that firefighters stole something from the fire scene. The police are called in, a firefighter is arrested and charged and the worst nightmare of a fire department is realized.

Drinking and driving isn’t a problem until there’s a problem. It is less likely to happen in a career department than in a volunteer department because of a set schedule. Though volunteer departments don’t completely own this one, there are a higher percentage of volunteers that are being arrested and charged with DUI, because they were drinking after work, the tones dropped and they chose to respond while under the alcohol’s influence. The incident is magnified if there is an apparatus accident, where its driver failed field sobriety tests. The local paper throws down on FOIA and the next thing you know, the headline in the paper alerts the public to another dirty little secret. Then, someone posts it on Facebook, it goes out on Twitter, is re-tweeted and your next fire department fundraiser is a rousing fund-failure.

Although any bad behavior by firefighters will shake the moral ground; a firefighter that sets fires will rock the world of our communities and destroy the department’s image as the public’s protectors. It causes the sworn oath to ring hollow. It creates suspicion with every fire. What has taken decades and generations to build will take even longer to repair; even more so, if more than one firefighter was involved.

And then comes the excuses. From being “bored” to “hero worship” to “overtime pay” and on and on; there will be no rational justification for the firefighter who is arrested and convicted of setting fires.

Remember Coatsville, Pennsylvania? http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/local&id=6724691

It had a community living in terror and a task force desperate to solve the string of some 30 arson fires. It has been four years since Robert Tracey was arrested. I have to wonder if things are back to “normal” in that community. I am betting that it is not.

Not long ago, discussions on dealing with wayward firefighters centered upon “policing our own”. Some would bemoan news outlets for identifying a perpetrator as a firefighter or former firefighter, as if this would somehow make things better. Some of these forum scholars declared that they did not perform background checks nor did they verify firefighters’ driving records and wanted to deal with stuff “internally”. Let’s see; not smart enough to stop it before it starts and yet; smart enough to resolve deep psychological tenets of a fire-setter. Yeah; right.

And I can’t end this without giving a shout out to the deniers. They are the firefighters who believe that the actions of someone a couple of states over have no effect on their fire department. Tell that to the IAFC, who issued a white paper on firefighter bad behavior and to USFA, who has tackled the issue of firefighter arson.

Remember; when you ignore bad behavior, you reinforce it.

 
The opinions and views expressed are those of the article’s author, Art Goodrich, who also writes as ChiefReason. They do not reflect the opinions and views of www.fireengineering.com, Fire Engineering Magazine, PennWell Corporation or his dog, Chopper. All articles by the author are protected by federal copyright and cannot be reproduced in any form without expressed permission.

Rarified Air

A few days ago on March 27^th, we were reminded of the 6^th anniversary of the Firegeezer blog. It’s crazy, but I thought they had been around longer than that. It sure seems like it.

When I say “they”; of course I am referring to Bill Schumm and Perfesser Mike Ward. They complement each other very well. Bill is soft-spoken and a student of the history of the fire service and Mike Ward is an academian who can fire off articulated rants like a gangster’s machine gun.

 Firegeezer is a blog that I visit daily and it is the quality of the blog that keeps me coming back.

Do we have a point here?

Yes.

I have been writing articles; in essence, “blogging” since 2003. I started doing articles for the Memberszone at Firehouse.com and from there, I went to IACOJ. I’ll come back to this later.

Then, Dave Iannone was starting up FirefighterNation.com and invited me to come and blog for him. In the meantime, he and his partner, Chris Hebert started FireEMSBlogs with the idea that they would bring the best fire/EMS bloggers together at ONE website. I wrote somewhere in the neighborhood of 400 blogs for Dave and Company. I also wrote some articles for FireRescue1, but most recently, I have been blogging for FireEngineering.com.

I would venture to guess that I have written and posted over 500 articles over the years and some of you might remember that I also wrote and posted “The Adventures of Jake and Vinnie”. Currently, I am in the final phases of scrubbing Jake and Vinnie for a launch as an E-book. Those of you who read the series might remember that I didn’t end it with a final episode. Now, it has a final episode! Stay tuned.

My title for today comes from a small website that, in its heyday, had around 1000 members. A couple of server crashes later has seen membership drop. The IACOJ was born out of the discussions that some of us were having at Firehouse.com. In fact; we were so vocal that they created the “Off Duty” forums for the Jakes. One thing led to another and with the guiding vision of Ron “Da Gonz” Ayotte and the IT skills of Steve Gallagher, Dave LeBlanc and Matt Kivela; the IACOJ went on-line as a  website where you could engage in respectful debate and avoid the flame-throwers with their name-baiting.

But, something else came out of this distinguished group of jakes…BLOGGERS!

There may be others, but the bloggers that I follow to this day are Mike Ward at Firegeezer, Bill Carey at Back Step Firefighter, Dave LeBlanc at A View From the Front Seat, Ron Ayotte at Chief Concerns, Grant Mishoe at Sconfire.com and Mick Mayers at Firehouse Zen.

There is one more blog that I visit on a regular basis and that is Dave Statter at Statter911.

Dave LeBlanc recently wrote a blog about the proliferation of training articles and the importance of verifying the information and the “street cred” of the person posting the article. I couldn’t agree more.

As we all know; any person with a computer and an Internet connection can be anything that he wants to be and say whatever trips their trigger. Just because they say it doesn’t make it so and with all of the social media that is available; it extends the reach of what could be bad information.

But, with the aforementioned bloggers, trust and verify is certainly not an issue. They are well educated, experienced and would never dispense bad information. And on matters of opinion; they will leave no question as to where they stand with their respectful and well-reasoned reply. They all have “street cred”.

In the past several months, I have not been very active with my blogging. There have been a series of family events that have taken priority and I haven’t been in the right frame of mind to write.

I will find my groove again. Bobby H. gets concerned when he doesn’t here from me.

I hope to get to FDIC this year and perhaps I will get to talk with fellow bloggers.

In the meantime, I would encourage everyone to visit any of the bloggers mentioned in this article.

You won’t be disappointed.

Take care and stay safe.

2012 Sucked So I Will Simply Move On

I’m not going to sit here and reflect on a year that was filled with so many disappointments.

I like to think that I am an eternal optimist, but did anyone else notice the negative tone of wherever you looked? It was everywhere.

ONE positive that I noticed is that, firefighter fatalities were down in 2012. Since 2009, firefighter deaths have been well below the “100 per year” threshold. Also noteworthy is that deaths attributed to cardiac issues were also down. It would appear that health and wellness initiatives are starting to see some positive results and we should. There are plenty of blogs and books dedicated to firefighter fitness. One that easily comes to mind is Fire Service Warrior and its founder, Chris Brennan.

In fact; when you partner the work that the FireSmoke Coalition is doing with its research on the effects of gases present at the foreground that adversely affects firefighters and preventive measures AND we work to improve over all fitness, it is no wonder that there has been a reduction in cardiac-related episodes.

So, when I say that last year sucked, it is a broad response to the many personal negatives that have affected me. It is not summed up simply by saying that “my guy lost” the Presidential election. It goes much deeper than that. Since I started preparing my first article for 2013, I have lost another brother-in-law and it leaves me with the opinion that I am attending more funerals of family members than I care to.

All I know is that it has hit me like a ton of bricks and has forced me to be more introspective on setting priorities in this Life. I will strive to find the edge that saw several readers of Chief Reason blogs, but in order to do that, I have to get a couple things off of my chest.

So, this is To Whom It May Concern:

I am tired of all of the “fiscal cliff” dramedy. Our federal government has proven time and time again that the two-party system is self-destructing. The two houses of government want to go in two, separate directions with a President who doesn’t understand the art of compromise. Instead of finding real solutions to the problems that we face, they want to spend time looking for gimmicks that kicks the can down the road for future generations.

I mean; what has happened to “representative” government? When did it become this bloated behemoth of amendatory bills and points of order and all of the trickery and chicanery that it has become?

How is it that, in Congress, John Boehner decides what goes or doesn’t in the House and the singing duo of Reid and Pelosi decides what goes to the floor of the Senate?

Did you know that you don’t even have to be present to filibuster? Now, all you have to do is notify leadership of your “intent” to filibuster. You know; “phone it in”, as they say. Jimmy Stewart (Mr. Smith) must be rolling in his grave.

And why are legislative bills 2700 pages long? I actually know the answer to this one. It is because of all of the “augmentations”. Let’s call it “pork” or “sausage”. Regardless, it goes through the meat grinder known as Congress and is packed into a prophylactic to make it easier to shove…well, you get the picture.

And for the record; Illinois has its version of Boehner, Reid and Pelosi. It’s called Mike Madigan, the “most powerful politician in the state”.

Having little influence THERE, I will spend my time focused at a local level. As a trustee for our fire protection district, I will not use the federal budgetary process as a template for our fire district finances. For me, that means a balanced approach. Borrowing will be limited and money will never factor into discussions of firefighter safety. Firefighter safety will always come first and we will tax and budget for it. Period.

I have seen too many fire districts struggling just to pay the interest on apparatus or a new building that they can’t afford. If either was needed, then a budget plan that included savings, applying for available grants, increasing tax rates or calling for a bond referendum should have been in the plan. You don’t just wake up one day and discover these problems. They can be years in the making, if you don’t exercise restraint.

Next; I am tired of the pension banter. Illinois has the distinction of having the most underfunded pension system and the worst credit rating in our country. So, again I say;

To Whom It May Concern:

You believed that it was your civic duty or your “calling” to serve on your city council or in the state legislature. You sat there while your loyal public servants were negotiating employment contracts-legal, binding contracts.

And even though you didn’t bother to look at actuaries, investment statements or take the advice of financial analysts; you kept agreeing to new contracts; knowing that you would have to borrow money to pay them or skip payments all together.

Why would you lock in return on investment at 8.5 %, even though statements were showing anywhere from 0 to 5% and then express total shock to hear the economy was driving everything down?

In the Land of Lincoln, pensions are underfunded by $95 BILLION. And because pensioners are expecting YOU to honor YOUR word, you are now labeling them “selfish and greedy”!

Do you even realize that a contract is a legal and binding PROMISE? Because if you do, then quit whining and figure out a way to pay them without sending my taxes even higher than they already are; keeping in mind that I am trying to save for my own retirement.

Two years ago, Governor Quinn got a 67% increase in the state income tax to pay past due bills to medical care providers and schools, to name a few. It was only to be for one year and it has been two. He lied. He also said the added revenue would go for the purposes that I stated. Instead; the money went to pension funds. He lied again.

I am so fed up with the convoluted process known as politics that I a swearing off blogs about politics UNLESS they directly affect the fire service. You may quote me.

And last; to my friends at NIOSH:

Since we are seeing fewer firefighter deaths per year, can we see a more timely and detailed fatality report? Could you possibly widen your pool of resources and end the “template” approach?

I, for one, appreciate the work that you do, but let’s be honest; can “poor communication” or “a lack of leadership” be present at every fatal incident? You might be right; I am just asking, but consider that there is a culture to change in the fire service that may require stepping outside of the box, because without compelling, well written reports; fire departments will continue to dismiss NIOSH firefighter fatality reports as “same old/same old”.

To my fellow bloggers and critics: I am bringing back a strong voice of reason in 2013. However; I will continue to be uniquely qualified in matters of opinion.

TCSS.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the article’s author, Art Goodrich, who also writes as ChiefReason. They do not reflect the opinions and views of www.fireengineering.com, Fire Engineering Magazine, PennWell Corporation or his dog, Chopper. All articles by the author are protected by federal copyright and cannot be reproduced in any form without expressed permission.

By the Authority Vested in Me…

Has your fire department ever found it necessary to “commandeer” equipment in order to mitigate an incident?

Does your state laws allow in specific circumstances for a representative of the fire department, at the direction and command of a fire department’s ranking officer to take public control of private equipment with legal immunity should that action cause negative reverberations?

Is your fire department willing to go beyond that threshold where it becomes more important to prove one’s authority at the risk of losing the publics’ support? Are these adrenaline fueled brain farts by well-intentioned public servants causing the fire service and in particular the volunteer sector unnecessary negative publicity?

Let me say that I am familiar with this fire department and they are not cowboys from Goofy Ridge. Their demographics dictate that they be well disciplined and well trained.

The article’s author, Barb Ickes, has worked for the Quad-City Times as a columnist and Illinois reporter since 1998. She earned a BA from Northern Illinois University and a Master's Degree from the former Sangamon State University, now the University of Illinois at Springfield.

The link is to the story that is central to my lead-in questions: Backhoe was a no-no.

 As you can see from the article, the fire chief believed that he had the authority to use the 

backhoe to extinguish the fire. Here is what I could find in the State of Iowa Code: 

102.2  AUTHORITY AT FIRES.

         A fire chief or other authorized officer of a fire department, in

      charge of a fire scene which involves the protection of life or

      property, may direct an operation as necessary to extinguish or

      control a fire, perform a rescue operation, investigate the existence

      of a suspected or reported fire, gas leak, or other hazardous

      condition, or take any other action as deemed necessary in the

      reasonable performance of the department's duties.  In exercising

      this power, a fire chief may prohibit an individual, vehicle, or

      vessel from approaching a fire scene and may remove from the scene

      any object, vehicle, vessel, or individual that may impede or

      interfere with the operations of the fire department. 

It would appear that there is wide latitude with regards to the fire chief’s duties, but I think that there should be an emphasis on the usage of the term “reasonable performance”.

The defense by the municipality’s defense attorney is found in Iowa Code Section 670.4, which states among other things:

670.4  CLAIMS EXEMPTED.

         The liability imposed by section 670.2 shall have no application

      to any claim enumerated in this section.  As to any such claim, a

      municipality shall be liable only to the extent liability may be

      imposed by the express statute dealing with such claims and, in the

      absence of such express statute, the municipality shall be immune

      from liability.

         1.  Any claim by an employee of the municipality which is covered

      by the Iowa workers' compensation law.

         2.  Any claim in connection with the assessment or collection of

      taxes.

         3.  Any claim based upon an act or omission of an officer or

      employee of the municipality, exercising due care, in the execution

      of a statute, ordinance, or regulation whether the statute, ordinance

      or regulation is valid, or based upon the exercise or performance or

      the failure to exercise or perform a discretionary function or duty

      on the part of the municipality or an officer or employee of the

      municipality, whether or not the discretion is abused.

         4.  Any claim against a municipality as to which the municipality

      is immune from liability by the provisions of any other statute or

      where the action based upon such claim has been barred or abated by

      operation of statute or rule of civil procedure.

         5.  Any claim for punitive damages.

       11.  A claim based upon or arising out of an act or omission in

      connection with an emergency response including but not limited to

      acts or omissions in connection with emergency response

      communications services.

         The remedy against the municipality provided by section 670.2

      shall hereafter be exclusive of any other civil action or proceeding

      by reason of the same subject matter against the officer, employee or

      agent whose act or omission gave rise to the claim, or the officer's,

      employee's, or agent's estate.

         This section does not expand any existing cause of action or

      create any new cause of action against a municipality.  

With the invocation of this section in their defense, it is fairly clear that the backhoe’s owner is not entitled to re-imbursement by the village, fire department, chief or the firefighter who run the backhoe and caused the damage.

But, what about the damage to the public image of the fire department? I understand laws that are designed to shield, but let me ask you this: if the fire department has insurance on their vehicles and they damage one in the course of the response; wouldn’t the insurance company pay to get the damage fixed? If the fire department has the right to “commandeer” equipment, thereby using that equipment as if it was their own, then why wouldn’t insurance extend to the damaged equipment?

My point is that; even if the fire department has immunity from liability in this case, they do not have immunity from a public backlash in this case.

Therefore: a mutual agreement between the fire department and the equipment owner needs to be reached.

Otherwise; public support may disappear at a time when a fire department can least afford it.

More to come on this one.

TCSS.

The opinions and views expressed are those of the article’s author, Art Goodrich, who also writes as ChiefReason. They do not reflect the opinions and views of www.fireengineering.com, Fire Engineering Magazine, PennWell Corporation or his dog, Chopper. This article is protected by federal copyright laws and cannot be re-produced in any form.