Life Safety Initiative #2 Accountability

Today's installment will be covering Life Safety Initiative #2 Accountability.  Initiative #2: Enhance the personal and organizational accountability for health and safety throughout the fire service.  So what does this initiative mean to us.  Accountability is very important in the fire service and typically we do a very good job of accountability at fire incidents.  Where we seem to be lacking accountability is away from the fire scene back at the station and in our personal lives.  We will discuss our short comings in a minute but first lets talk about the areas where we do well with accountability.

In the fire service we use what is called the Incident Command System or ICS for short.  ICS is a system that was developed by wildland firefighters and then eventually adopted by the rest of the fire service.  ICS is a concept that helps define roles and responsibility and better establishes the chain of command.  Its intent is to provide a system where everyone uses like terminology and interoperability between multiple department and agency operations.  It can be used on large scale incidents or it can be scaled back and simplified to be used in routine incidents where only 1 or 2 companies are involved.  I won't go into ICS too in depth because honestly I could devote 20-30 blog posts to the topic and still only brush the surface of it.  One of the most important components of ICS is accountability.  In the fire service accountability is a key factor as it allows us to track our resources and know where all personnel and assets are at any given point in an incident.  If an incident goes south the incident commander can review the accountability board to determine what companies are assigned to what task and what everyone is doing.  It allows the incident commander to keep tabs on the entire incident.  If you look back at line of duty deaths you can see examples of where accountability has failed.  A catastrophic event during a fire incident is not time you want to find out that you have not kept track of where your personnel or assets are located.  We need to be ready for anything during a fire incident so using accountability well can save lives.

Where we need to improve our accountability is back at the station and off duty.  Health and safety are not always a high priority to firefighters away from the fire scene.  Some firefighters have a tendency to look at themselves as invincible so they don't always worry about taking care of themselves mentally or physically.  Its not uncommon to see over weight and out of shape firefighters at a firehouse.  For too many years eating healthy, exercising and preventative maintenance has not been a huge priority for firefighters.  We typically like to eat and almost every company has a firefighter that is a good cook and likes to feed their fellow firefighters.  We need to do a better job of taking care of ourselves.  With accountability we can take steps to improve our health and safety.  We need to start taking better care of ourselves.  Just like we work to prevent fires we need to work to prevent injuries and illness.

Accountability for health and safety starts at the top and goes all the way through to the bottom.  Everyone from the Chief to the rookie firefighter needs to buy in.  The department and all of its members need to promote safety and being healthy.  It is an attitude the department needs to embrace.  We need to be eating healthier, exercising and taking preventive measures with our health.  An easy way to get this started is by requiring annual physicals.  Yes there is cost involved to the department but  it gets the guys into the doctor at least one a year and allows for screenings of various ailments that wouldn't otherwise be caught without the physicals.  For career departments this can actually be forced upon you because many pension systems require yearly physicals for firefighters.  Many departments are installing fitness equipment in the stations and either encouraging or require firefighters to exercise while on duty.  Some department even go as far as to bring in wellness coaches and nutritionists to help promote health and safety within their department.  It is wonderful that departments are trying to promote health and safety but it can't stop there.  Firefighters need to promote health and safety and take personal accountability for themselves and their health.  Take time to workout at work if your department allows.  Don't just stop their, take care of yourself off duty as well.  Join a gym and exercise regularly or come into the station and workout on your off days.  Take care in what you are eating and how you are taking care of yourself.  This is personal accountability.

We work in a field that is strenuous both physically and mentally.  We are put into conditions that the body doesn't always like.  If you are over weight and out of shape you have a far higher likely hood of going down on a fire scene or having a cardiac event.  If this happens you could be putting your crew at risk as they may have to divert from their original assignment in order to rescue you from harm.  We live in a era where ignorance is a poor excuse for taking care of yourself.  The goal is for everyone to go home.  We practice our fire and EMS skills to ensure we are able to do our jobs well but it shouldn't stop there.  We need to take accountability for our health and safety and that means exercising and eating better.  This is not a job where you can get by being over weight and out of shape.  Take care of yourself so you can take care of the job.