The decline of the volunteer fire service

The above video is a humorous take on American volunteer fire departments and the people who are likely to show up to your emergency should you be lucky enough to live or work in an area without a paid fire department.   The video shows a homeowner with a nice new house who has called 911 apparently for an activated smoke detector.  He is nonplused when his call is answered by two Bobby Blue Lights (technical term from my Pennsylvania brothers) in their private cars and no fire truck shows up.  One of the firefighters drives in at mach 5 and runs over the citizen's flowers.  He questions them on the perceived lack of service and gets answered with lots of technical jargon and references to firefighter heroism.    They then ask him for a donation and to use his bathroom.

Yes the video is a bit over the top.  But a lot of the themes are right on the money.  Consider:

VFDs all over America are reporting declining membership due to increased family and job commitments.  Thus it is not uncommon for members to show up in their private vehicles and for only a few members to show up at all.

Training demands are up.  Most states mandate basic levels of training for a firefighter to be able to engage in interior operations.  For a VFD that provides medical aide and firefighting it is not uncommon for it to take a couple of years for the volunteer to complete what would be considered entry level training.  Studies show that the average "career" of an active volunteer is about three years.  This means that there is a huge retention issue for trained personnel.

Take the two factors I have mentioned above and what that means is that at any volunteer fire house you are likely to find a large pool of enthusiastic, but minimally trained, young members; and a few "lifers" who are the ones that largely make sure that there are drivers for the trucks and fill other vital roles.  The young members have no positive role models in the middle management ranks and are usually not attuned to customer service.

Now let's take the citizen who is outraged at his service.  Bottom line is you get what you pay for.  When you move out to the exurb and marvel at how much house you can buy and how low the taxes are compared to the big nasty city or suburb well guess what - the taxes are low because there are no paid firemen.  Trash collection is provided by a dude with a pick up that you pay yourself once a quarter.  At night there is 1 cop on duty for the entire township.  There is one library and one park.  You get the idea.    In other words there is no free lunch.

If you want to assess the health of your local VFD walk in and ask a few questions:

• What are your response time goals?  (Most "with-it" departments try to meet the NFPA standard of within 4 - 8 minutes to a fire 90% of the time).  
• What is your average response time?  
• What is your average crew size?  
• How many members of that crew are certified Firefighter 2s?
• If your department provides medical services ask how many members of the ambulance crew are certified EMTs?

If you find any waffling or blank stares when you ask these questions make sure you up your fire insurance and install lots of smoke detectors in your house.  "With it" departments are proud of their accomplishments and will be happy to answer your questions.

Now as to why career firefighters dislike volunteers its simple - they give us a bad name.  As an example if you visit any online media that remotely criticizes the local firemen you will be appalled at the language that comes back at the author.  Attempts to call the local VFD to account will be answered with "hope you never need us" and other such unprofessional answers.  Volunteers routinely threaten to quit when the local politicians try to reign in the excesses.  Volunteers are disproportionately more likely to commit arson.  Volunteer companies are usually poorly managed financially and are easy prey for leaders with sticky fingers.  

I call myself a firefighter.  I have thousands of hours in formal training and experience on actual calls.  It chaps my butt (technical term) to have some Bobby Bluelight who just turned in his application to call himself the same thing and to pretend to have the same technical competence as I have.  In the medical world it would be like a candy striper being confused with a cardiac surgeon.

I recognize that there are some volunteer departments that are out there that do have standards, that do meet their service goals and provide great service to the public that they serve.  My hat is off to them.  However, they are not the norm.

In the interests of disclosure I have personal experience as a career firefighter in two jurisdictions and have volunteered in three others.  I have traveled the country providing training to some great volunteer FDs that were hungry to get better.  So I know a little bit of what I speak.

Thanks for reading,

A disheartened Schmuckalooski

Addendum:
My initial reasons for writing the post were my reactions to the video and some disturbing conduct at one of our local VFDs.  I tarred with a very broad brush in an immature reaction.  I don't dislike volunteers, in fact I used to be one and probably will be one again at some point.  I do dislike people who don't take their profession (whether they are paid for it or not) and their responsibilities to themselves and the public seriously.  I owe a big apology to those volunteers and volunteer departments who are serious and who do provide great service; and do so often times on a shoe string budget.

Part of this blog writing process has been pretty humbling.  I am finding that I don't write or express myself nearly as well as I think and I am in awe of the many bloggers who can.  I am rapidly trying to improve.

One of the best posts I have seen on this video and topic is by Bill Carey at Backstep Firefighter.  Here is the link:
http://backstepfirefighter.com/2011/02/13/youre-offendedvideo-shared-by-statter911-reveals-some-of-you-have-a-high-opinion-of-yourselves/

Thanks for reading,

A rueful Schmuckalooski

When time outs don't work......

Entropy's latest literary effort

  This resulted after she decided to viciously elbow Banshee in the back for no apparent reason.  I was spanked as a child and as I recall I was pretty well behaved; or at least I wasn't stupid enough to get beat for the same sin twice.  The Wife decreed that our children would never be spanked.  Says it just teaches them to act with violence.  There is probably some truth to that.  Time outs do work - they are just more work for the parent because they require more repetition to get the small child to get the point.  Today I just decided to get more creative with the punishment - thus the time out and the writing.  Entropy needs to practice her writing and spelling anyway so we were able to kill two birds with one stone.

Thanks for reading....

This is why we can't have nice things......

So Banshee and Entropy got home from school today and after doing their homework were sent upstairs to clean up their rooms.  (That's what's on the weekly activity schedule for Wednesdays in the Schmuckalooski household.)  I guess I should have know that something was going on by how quiet they were - as any parent can tell you quiet is generally a harbinger of doom - or at least a sign that your little miracles (technical term) are up to something.  So anyway, I go upstairs to find out that Entropy has peed in a cup in her room - just to see if she could - and then spilled it on the carpet.

 

 Banshee then decided to clean it up with baby wipes and epsom salt.  There was epsom salt everywhere in their rooms.  It was a mess.  Fortunately the builders of our house used high quality carpet (i.e. they scotchguarded the hell out of it) and I was able to clean up the pee pretty easily.  The salt I will probably be vacuuming up for a week.

You can't make this stuff up.

Thanks for reading,

A bewildered Schmuckalooski.

Leadership & Communication...

So last month the BCFD (as were a lot of East Coast FDs) was hit with unusually severe snow storms.  The storm hit our particular area right before the afternoon rush hour and Joe and Josephine Taxpayer got stuck trying to get home.  And I mean stuck to the point where entrances to subdivisions became impromptu parking lots and you had to slalom your way down the main roads.  Our area wasn't unique in this - some Washington D.C. area commuters were stuck over night on the road.  And I mean stuck in the cars, not forced to take shelter in a nearby hotel in Spartanburg S.C. like Old Red did on a trip to Florida one year for Spring Break.  I wish FDs gave a Spring Break.  Why do college students need a Spring Break anyway?  But I digress...

  In any case, a truck company from our department responded to a gentleman having a heart attack.  No ambulances were available or likely to be available soon due to the traffic/snow/shitty (technical term) conditions.  The patient was truly critical and circling the bowl (technical term).  The truck officer made the decision to transport the patient in the truck to the hospital - which fortunately was pretty close.   The ER doc stated that they made the right call and saved this man's life.

So do you think I heard about this great example of decision making and customer service internally???  No - I had to read about it in our local media.  Unfricking believable.

I'll be the first to admit that I am not the world's greatest supervisor but one of my mentors taught me that any time your subordinates do something extraordinary you should circulate it.  I always copy thank you letters to the District Commander, our County-wide Shift Chief and anyone else I think needs to know about the employee.  It has always had a motivational and cumulative effect on the guys and girls on my shift.

Thanks for reading,

A peeved Schmuckalooski

Super Bowl

So in a couple of hours I will be sitting down on my tush cush (technical term) to watch the annual gridiron classic.  I will be rooting for "los" (more on this later) Green Bay Packers.  I have no animus against the Steelers and would indeed root for them if they were playing some other team.  However, my bleeding liberal heart has a special spot for the only publicly owned team in the NFL.

The last time I watched the Pack play in the Super Bowl was memorable.  The local cable operator some how got the wrong feed and thus my wife and I watched the first three quarters listening to the Spanish feed.  Commentary, commercials, etc. etc. - all in Spanish.  The only recognizable language was "touchdown los packers!!!" which I remember hearing a lot.  They won.

Super Bowl days at the fire house are usually fun.  Everyone usually brings in a dish of munchables, sometimes the spouse and kids come to enjoy, and the call load is usually pretty light to non-existent during the game (the public doesn't want to interrupt the game either).  After the game is over however, wow!  Calls are off the charts.  Not a good time to be driving.  However, the only post game incident Red ever had was hitting a doe.  Stupid animal ran into the side of my car despite my best attempts to avoid it.  She must have been on the way back from a party where she had too much Bu(ck)weiser.  Hah!

Here is an amusing list of Super Bowl legends from Snopes including the hoary old chestnut that claims that mass toilet usage after the Super Bowl has caused havoc with sewer pipes (not true).  Enjoy!  www.snopes.com/sports/football/superbowl.asp

Sick Leave

So I am sitting at home using up some of my sick leave.  I recently got surgery and so will have to be out of action at the BCFD for a while.  I was reading an article this morning about how some Clark County, NV FFs apparently scammed their system by taking over 1000 hours of sick leave and then working 1000 hours of overtime in a year's time.  I don't see how this is possible without some type of management collusion bearing in mind that on our usual 24/48 shift schedule we work just under 3000 hours a year.  (You would have to really be hustling to make another 1000 hours.)  At the BCFD we are required to submit a note after 4 separate shifts off; and three shifts off in a row earns you a trip to our medical clinic for a review by our fire surgeon.  I suspect that as usual the press has left out some salient details.   Here is the link for those that want to read it.  www.lvrj.com/news/firefighters-sick-leave-theater-makes-you-laugh-until-you-cry-115171014.html

Public Sector pensions

There has been a lot of vitriol in the press lately about "bloated" public pensions.  Indeed, one Washington DC based fish wrapper has a column called "Pension Pig Out" by one Mark Hemingway.  (His pic makes him look a little like old Rush Limbaugh - overfed, self satisfied etc. etc.)  So every week this Hemingway cat lists the name of a public employee that is collecting a pension that Mr. Hemingway deems excessive.  Normally the poor slob he is picking on lives in California.  One wonders what pensions in California has to do with pensions in the Washington D.C. area.  In any case, only the annual pension amount is listed.  There is no mention of how many years the employee worked, no mention of what his annual salary was before he retired - in other words no background information that would allow you to figure out for yourself whether this is an overly generous pension or not.

When I started working for the Big County Fire Department, defined benefit pensions were the norm for the corporate and public sectors.  Pretty quickly after I got hired, the corporate world starting axing their pension plans in favor of self funded 401ks etc.  Everyone at the time hailed this as part of the new corporate flexibility where employees and employers could be hired and laid off as business conditions required.  There were glowing articles in the business press how employees could now expect to have 8 or more employers in their working lifetimes - so it made sense to have a portable pension.

During the go-go 90's and early 2000s. the BCFD suffered in its recruiting.  Even with our "bloated" benefits and pensions - we could not find people to hire.  There was too much money to be made in the private sector.

Now flash foward to 2011.  Things are good for corporations - making more money than ever before.  Labor is cheap and plentiful.  However, whether willful or not, there has been a sustained assault on the midde class - it is shrinking and hurting.  It is easier to shift people's attention and blame to another closer target (i.e. public servants) than the impersonal forces of globalization.

My point with the last two paragraphs is that I went in to the FD knowing I wasn't going to get rich.  My salary, up until the last couple of years, has lagged way behind those of my college classmates.  However, I did expect a certain amount of job security in return for my dedication and service.

I am pushing 50.  My employer made a contract with me at time of hire that I would contribute x amount to my pension and that they would contribute the rest.  I have to work 30 years to collect 60% of my salary.  I keep my health care benefits (of which I will have to pay 20% of) for an additional year for every year that I worked.  Yes in today's world these are great terms - but again, this was the norm when I started my working life.  In the 8 or 9 years that I have left working for the BCFD, how am I supposed to now save up enough money to switch to a self funded 401K?  Do people realize that the average firefighter drops over dead about 10 years after retirement?  Do people understand that the reason a lot of pension systems are in trouble is because the politicians didn't fund them sufficiently?  How is this my fault?

I'm just saying......