Feb. 1, 2008
Life is full of choices. We all have to work for money, except for the privileged few whose money works for them. The choices we make about what type of work we do for our money, full time or part time, are indicative of our character. I don’t think that firefighters or others who serve the public are necessarily “better” than merchants or lawyers but I do think that there is in the heart of every firefighter a higher moral character that leads them to their courageous and generous calling. Just as I could have spent my career in private business or academia, my fellow firefighters could have chosen other paths. And although we are well paid, many of these paths could have been much more lucrative.
Likewise, most, if not all of us have activities away from work. Again, we have choices on what we do with our time, whether it be leisure activity or additional employment. If I choose to, I could start up a small business, volunteer as a marshal or starter at a municipal golf course or work part time for an hourly wage.
In an earlier article, I praised two hatters for the noble donation of their time to their communities. I believe unreservedly that community service is a noble calling. This is as true of part-time or on-call firefighters as it is for those of us who have chosen a firefighting career. If you question the motivation or character of a two-hatter on the basis that they are paid for their duty time, haven’t you also done the same of all career firefighters? Money is money; we need it and use it and it isn’t inherently dirty or immoral. However, firefighting is inherently noble.
Feb. 1, 2008
Coming up in my February column in Fire Fighting in Canada are my thoughts on residential sprinklers. A lot has happened in the last few weeks on this important issue. A public demonstration of the effectiveness of sprinklers by the Ontario Association of Fire Chiefs is described elsewhere on this site.
It is too early to tell if the snowball has enough momentum yet but it appears that the Catastrophic Theory of Reform is in action once again. The theory holds that significant positive changes in code reform are enacted in the shadow of catastrophic loss. The “great fires” of London, Chicago and Toronto each resulted in changes in municipal planning to reduce the probability and severity of conflagration. If the firefighters reading this blog do not know the historical significance of the fires in the Iroquois Theater, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company or the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, they should. I’ll leave it to you each to look them up if you need to.
Similarly, on a local but no less tragic scale, some recent fire deaths in Ontario have brought residential sprinklers into the mainstream news.
Let’s face it, the general public pays less attention to fire safety than they do to the latest celebrity in rehab. That isn’t going to change anytime soon, so we have to grab the opportunity for attention when it presents itself.
Keep your messages consistent. Your public education, fire prevention and operations personnel from the top of the organization to the street level have all got to be as knowledgeable and current on residential sprinklers as they are on smoke alarms. What a waste it would be if a member of the community stopped into their local firehall for information after seeing the sprinkler demo mentioned earlier and no information was available.
That would be an opportunity lost, a snowball left to melt. And in the case of the families devastated by the recent losses, it would be a catastrophe without resolution.
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Jeff Allen
Written by Jeff Allen on 2008-03-07 17:19:04
One of the reasons I enjoy living here in South Carolina is because we do not recognize unions. Therefore, somebody who desires to serve their community off duty, on their own time is entitled to do just that. Is it a perfect world? Not even close, but if we could afford to have paid firefighters manning every fire station there would not be a need for volunteers, but this is a long way off and certainly not something I will see in my lifetime. The Professional Firefighter Union needs to focus on getting more paid firefighters in areas where they are needed and support those that volunteer (free or paid on call) firefighters who go above and beyond their normal call for duty. In the interim, let those members who benefit from the training they receive at their career department share some of that experience and education with their brothers in the not so fortunate areas. We’ll never know how many lives are saved by allowing this, but we can be sure some will be. Then when I travel back home twice a year to Ontario, I can feel rest assured that my family members who still reside there are being guarded by men and women who belong to a responsible and mature organization.
Investigator Jeff Allen,
Fire Marshal,
Irmo Fire District,
Columbia, SC
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| Peter Sells
Written by Peter Sells on 2008-02-21 18:39:24
Eric, we are each certainly entitled to our own opinions.
As I have already said in my blog, we each have choices on what we do with our time, whether that time is compensated monetarily or not. Firefighters, career or otherwise, give their time, sweat and sometimes blood for the security and safety of their fellow citizens. For a career firefighter to denigrate the paid-on-call firefighter because they are paid is illogical.
As for the argument that two-hatters are taking jobs away from potential career firefighters, I have already shown that that is also not true. Denying two-hatters the ability to serve their home towns in no way increases the resources of that home town to a point where it could afford a career department, even if a career department could be shown to be the most effective staffing model for that town (which it likely isn't, or they would already have implemented such a model).
I would like to answer your point regarding the Charleston Fire Department, because I assume you perceive a deficiency that in some way led to the tragic loss of nine firefighters last year. I have my own thoughts on that incident, and anything that can be discussed here that would help avert a similar incident would be beneficial to us all. However, I see no connection between that incident and two-hatters, so you are going to have to help me sort out whatever your point was. If you feel that strongly about what happened in Charleston, share some of your considerable experience as a district chief on fire ground command and safety, and let's start a constructive and professional conversation.
| Tim Beebe
Written by Tim Beebe on 2008-02-21 15:05:13
Well said.
| Written by Guest on 2008-02-21 15:00:51
Pete, let’s look at the benefits and see it everything is as rosy as you'd have us believe it is.
First off lets deal with "Giving something back to the community". If I'm a two hatter and my home town is paying me $25-30/hr, I'm not giving them anything, they’re paying me for my time. Want to give something back? Coach the local sports team, run a Scout troop, deliver meals on wheels, but getting paid for what you do doesn’t come anywhere near "giving something back".
If they really want to be a volunteer firefighter, fine, do it for nothing. Let’s see how many of them step up to the plate then.
The home town employer – they're the real winners here. No training costs involved, the full-time employer supplies all that, no benefits. If the two hatter goes on compensation, the full time employer bites that bullet and loses the employee for the term of the injury. It effectively keeps younger firefighters from gainful employment. The two hatter is occupying two jobs, not just one.
As you well know, there is now a steady stream of good young firefighters coming out of community college and university fire fighting courses, who can't find jobs as it is. Why make it harder?
As to learning leadership skills, command experience et al, two hatters can only lead us down the road to where the right to work states in the U.S. are now. I'm pretty sure that the chief of the Charleston Fire Department has all those skills that small-town volunteer fire departments offer and or look for. Not sure how well it has served the citizens of Charleston though.
The individual firefighter, well he's gonna' make a pretty decent part-time wage, but I'm not sure how far you can trust a man who gives his brothers and sisters his solemn oath when being sworn into his local association and then turns his back on them when it suits him – although men and or women who do this are probably the type of leaders that local politicians are looking for to lead their own small town departments.
Eric Cotter,
District Chief
Toronto Fire Services...
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