Discipline..........

Yesterday I worked my shift at the Big County Fire Department.  I had interesting separate conversations with two of my crew members about accountability.  I thought this was an interesting coincidence.   Both are highly motivated employees but at widely separated points in their careers.  FF Mouth was raised in a firefighting family and can drive just about every vehicle in our department.  FF Xenia came to us later in her professional life and is just now going through engineer training - however their values and concerns are similar.

The BCFD provides a full spectrum of emergency services, including EMS.  FF Mouth made the point that when providing EMS, that there was plenty of oversight and correction from the BCFD and the State EMS agency.  Record keeping is electronic so the feedback cycle is pretty immediate.  Although our department is fairly well known for the quality of its care, we all know examples of those that have made mistakes - and suffered the consequences.  FF Mouth also made the point that it is the relatively junior members of our department who are in a position to make these mistakes and are therefore affected by the sanctions.  He contrasted this with the officers of the department.  His viewpoint is that we have a fairly weak officer corps and that officers are allowed to make mistake after mistake on fire calls without correction.

I tend to agree with him.  In my district there are two other captains that I regard as peers, and three others that I believe need some help.  Yesterday we ran a rural house fire (our county includes a little bit of every kind of land density) and the first due engine officer could barely identify a fill site for our water tenders.  He utterly failed to articulate a location for a water dump site for the folding tanks and so forth that are necessary for a successful rural firefighting operation.  All of this is mandated by our SOGs.  Myself and one of the other captains worked it out via radio between ourselves - so it was pretty obvious what had happened - and fortunately the rest of the call ran smoothly.  However, I don't think there will be any consequences to this officer.  Our District Commander was on another incident and the fill in officer covering the next district didn't even come in to the scene to talk to the first in officer.

I talked about the call later with FF Xenia who was interested to learn about the water supply considerations.  She then brought up Captain Homes (the first in officer) and what would be done about his lack of actions.  I replied honestly.  She contrasted the probable lack of action with her experience in the corporate world.  I couldn't disagree with her.

Hopefully, our District Commander will hear about the call and take some actions.  Its not really my issue, other than I need to be on my toes to come up with a plan B the next time I respond to a call involving Captain Homes.

Thanks for reading.