Tag Archives: fire service

I’m sitting at my computer on a beautiful Sunday morning, Mother’s Day as a matter of fact, and I’m working on this blog post. And I’m getting madder by the minute. Mad because I’m collecting the written comments from the survey on Sexual Assault and Rape Against Women Firefighters and I cannot comprehend the idea that the same men who are treating the moms in their lives to flowers and cards and dinner are the same men who have sexually assaulted or raped their female colleagues in the fire station.

I've been fortunate to have had many positive role models and mentors and colleagues during my Fire and EMS career. I'll bet you do as well. So who are they?

Recently, one of my fire service and LinkedIn colleagues, Chief Cheryl Horvath, wrote about the continuing struggle that women face trying to become a part of the Fire and EMS world in the USA. I would challenge you to read both pieces—keeping in mind that the sexual misconduct and crimes at APG surfaced in 1996—and ask yourself, “How come we’ve not gotten past this kind of behavior?”

I’ve always believed that people are more likely to comply with policy through their own individual effort—or through group persuasion—when everyone clearly knows what’s at stake.

Why do we continue to "hold on to" a fire protection model that is "overloaded" with risk and expensive to operate? There is a better way, but it's a way that requires a fundamental shift in responsibility in our society: the individual is responsible for not having a fire, rather than the locality is responsible for putting out a fire when it occurs. Fire service leaders and local political leaders need to "re-engineer" the fire protection model for their communities using the "Three E's": Engineering, Education, and Enforcement.

None of us becomes the Fire & EMS leader that we want to be in our career without the guidance and direction and inspiration of those who have gone before us and who we've had the opportunity to meet and learn from. Role models: can't make it without them and they make you want to be a better man or woman in our business.