HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., MIFireE

Over the past several years, I have noted a striking difference in the way fire departments are treated, at least as they compare to police departments. As I wrote just a few days ago, the fire service is waxing euphoric over a partial victory. I can imagine the smirking that is going on amongst lobbyists for the law enforcement community.

I must now circle back to the original problem in this arena. Why do we find the fire service in the position of political pauper that it currently occupies? Although there are those who will dispute what I am about to say, so be it. Until we can point the finger of blame at ourselves, progress will be minimal at best.

I have done some great soul searching in this arena. I want you to know that it is difficult to write about certain things in the fire service, without angering certain people. However, so be it. Like I state on my web site, "we say what we mean, and we mean what we say." Fortunately, I have also come to understand that Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said that you cannot please all of the people all of the time.

My search for meaning within the context of the law enforcement versus fire service dichotomy has not been easy. Luckily, I have been blessed with a number of friends who, like me, are not hesitant to share their opinions and feelings. The genesis for this piece came from a friend who must of necessity, remain nameless. While he is a longtime volunteer firefighter, he is also a well-placed member of the law enforcement community. However, for those of you who really know me, I will simply say that I worked with his two brothers in the Newark Fire Department.

In his reply to my Meatless Bone for the Red-headed Step Child commentary, he stated the following: " I have a theory about why the fire service is treated so radically different than the law enforcement community. The fire service has always taken care of ourselves. How many police departments build their own police cars? How many police officers scrub the toilets in the precinct. How many police officers build their own locker rooms, or exercise rooms or kitchens for that matter? Right., damn few. But the fire service has always taken this approach. I am not sure that it is anything to be ashamed of or anything to change. I do believe, however, that our current situation arises from this difference in the two cultures."

Bravo! It may well be as simple as that. Culturally we are different. The law enforcement world does not have the same heritage as the fire service. Further, when did you ever hear of a fulltime volunteer police department? I do not know a great deal about the law enforcement community. Like the late humorist from the 1920’s and 1930’s, Will Rogers, most of what I know about the law enforcement world, I learned from reading it in the newspapers.

Let me make a few short comments to verify my buddy’s view of the difference between the police and fire worlds. Can you imagine how many toilets I swabbed during my career in the fire service? Even as a Captain in Newark, I was still forced to take my periodic turn in the throne room of the porcelain palace. This came from the fact that I frequently had only two people working with me. And it is not my nature to sit back and watch my troops labor heavily, while I would rest my butt drinking coffee.

At the same time that I was doing this, every precinct house in the city was covered by a janitorial cleaning contract. The same held true for police headquarters and all of the staff locations. The only building in the entire fire department that had a cleaning contract was fire headquarters. And even then, the light duty fire personnel had to pitch in from time to time.

That says something very simple to me. The cops were considered too valuable to waste their time in the porcelain palace, but not the louts over at the FD. But where did the money go that was saved (de facto, in that it was not spent) by have us clean our own bathrooms? Take one guess.

Let me ask a few more questions.

• When was the last time that a police department held a dance or a pancake breakfast to buy a new cruiser?
• How many police departments run a weekly bingo game to gather the money for their new 9mm pistols?
• How many police departments stand on the side of the road snagging coins at a coin to buy their bullets?

Please do not confuse these questions with the honest community relations efforts of local Fraternal Order of Police, or Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association locals. I myself have broken bread to help the police do good works within their communities. This falls into the same general category as the International Association of Firefighters’ outstanding support of the Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy campaign. I have shed many a tear while watching Al Whitehead hand Mr. Lewis a check for many millions of dollars.

Let me share another truth with you. One of the slickest things going in the law enforcement world involves laying a guilt trip upon the community to create private donations for bull proof vests. Do you want our poor police people to die from gun shot wounds? Oh, would you please dig deeply into your pockets and help us protect our people. Well if it is a recognized hazard then the police department should issue everyone a new vest immediately. And each time the technology changes, another new one should be purchased. I wonder if there is a national bulletproof vest standard. Hmm, can you imagine a nationally-recognized standard that would mandate constant changes in the way manner that pieces of protective equipment are manufactured. Wouldn’t that increase the cost of doing business?

Let us pause a moment and ponder about how far back into history the problem of police being shot by criminals really goes. I am sure that there has to be some moment way back in the dark pages of history when the first police officer fell victim to a felon’s shot. And if I know the police, they have a wood-carved engraving of the incident.

Why, you might ask, do I have such negative feelings about our associates in the world of law enforcement. The answer is quite simple. If it were just a matter of their public relations attack being better than that of the fire service, so be it. But I am sick and tire of them getting a large piece of the budget pie, and then watching them reach across the table and attempt to snag mine.

I want you all to be clear about the thrust of this column. We in the fire service are the "poster boys (and girls)" for the age-old concept which states that nice guys (and gals) finish last. Taking a page from the book used by our law enforcement associate, let me suggest that we need to increase our public presence through use of "community fire protection."

No, I don’t want you out in the community starting and fighting fires. But I do suggest that we starting leaving our castles within our communities. I can remember when the fire chief ordered us to stop sitting on the bench outside of our fire station. I thought that was a bit short sighted.

My buddies and I did a great deal of relating to the community out there. I can recall talking with our neighbors in the Central Ward of Newark on a number of occasions. I came to know them as people. We do not do enough of that. And the friends we made would clue us in to the problems that were brewing in the area. Unfortunately, in many of our larger cities, this is precluded by the violence of their neighborhoods. But where it can be done, it should be done.

Let me provide an example for those of you who study history. Remember the final days of Adolph Hitler. He spent his time deep within a bunker planning for battles that would never be fought, using troops that did not exist. Now I am not comparing all fire chiefs to Adolph Hitler.

We as a fire service need to become more deeply involved in public fire safety education. During my years as the Executive Officer of the Newark Fire Department’s Community Relations Division, I worked with our public educators. I was amazed that we were forced to provide education for more than 60 schools in the city with a budget of less than $4,000 and a staff of three. Now I am sure that there are those of you who would be tickled pink with three people and that much money. But when you do the math, it comes out very thin. It works out to about $65 per school. It took a great exercise of my professional network to rustle up help from the outside world.

One afternoon, the city business and my boss were complaining about the size of the telephone bill for my office. I was more than a little miffed. It was only with the greatest of restraint that I delivered my report to them. I spoke on how I had tapped into the insurance industry to the tune of a full video instructional package for each school, as well as receiving a great deal of free literature for distribution among the senior citizens in the city. At the same time that I was begging on the phone for help, grants were flowing into the city for the law enforcement community educational efforts.

Let me pound home the fact that we too often downplay the impact of fire on our respective communities. We simply fail to tell people of our good works on their behalf.

I can remember a time when the fire department in a major northeastern city came under fire for its reporting of the car fire problem. The chief in charge of the Division of Investigations was following the appropriate guidelines. And there really were a lot of car fires, and most were arson-related. Can you believe his disbelief when the police leadership actually called and asked him to hold down the reporting, as it was ruining their crime statistics? I was floored by that occurrence. But I guess that’s the way the crime statistics game is played.

Can you imagine what would happen if crime disappeared tomorrow? I can’t, but I do suppose that the law enforcement community has a survival plan for that eventuality. Actually, it is sometimes tough for me to tell whether I am writing out of anger, jealously or envy.

But my point is this. We have to start telling our story. We cannot wait for someone to ask us, we have to hunt them down, grab them by the collar and tell them. We must stop hiding our story. Why do people have the perception that fire always happens to the other person. Because we fail to tell the whole story each time it happens. Maybe we need to have a column in the local papers like the police. How many of you have seen the Police Blotter column in your local paper? Well, where is the Fire Reporter column. There is no such animal because we fail to seize the opportunities to tell our story.

This changing of attitudes will be a monumental journey involving literally millions of steps, for many among us. But to paraphrase the wise old ancient proverb, "journeys like this do not begin until the first step is taken."

I am not excusing you from any janitorial duties. Sorry. But feel free to tell the public about every good work you do.

The commentary in this column does not necessarily reflect those of Firehouse.Com, Firehouse Magazine, their employees or parent company Cygnus Business Media. Harry R. Carter, Ph.D., MIFireE, is an internationally known municipal fire protection consultant and contributing editor to Firehouse Magazine. He recently retired as a Battalion Commander with the Newark, New Jersey Fire Department. His commentary appears regularly on Firehouse.Com. For more commentary and information, visit Carter's web site at www.harrycarter.com Harry has published several books available for online ordering, including Firefighting Strategy and Tactics and Management in the Fire Service