HARRY R. CARTER, Ph.D., MIFireE

I have been in the fire and emergency service world for a long time now. I first stepped into the rear of an ambulance in March of 1964. My first trip around the block on a fire truck took place in October of 1966. I have seen a lot and I have done a lot. My credentials as someone who has been around the block should be impeccable.

My work as a student of the fire service, writer, teacher, author, and lecturer goes back over three decades. I have seen a great deal. I have also devoted a significant portion of my life working to make the fire service a better place to be. You have seen my commentary and many of you have heard me speak at some point in your career.

As a person who has served in the streets of a major city, as well as on the highways and byways of a rural/suburban community, I have seen many forms of stupidity. Whether it is plain stupidity, selfish stupidity, or institutional stupidity, the results have been strikingly similar. Stupidity is dangerous. It can kill and maim people and it can kill and maim organizations. However, you cannot outlaw stupidity. That’s just the way it is. Through my writings, I am working to chip away at the epidemic of stupidity that appears to be running rampant among us.

In this week’s column I will not use any names. I want to share concepts, and not point fingers. Many of the instances that I will mention are familiar to you. They will call to mind the names, dates, places, and faces of many offenders in the world of institutional stupidity. It is not my intention to be kind this week. I want the computer keys to burn as you touch them to reach my commentary.

My first candidate for the skewer comes from the southeastern part of our great nation. This candidate is a politician and apparently cares little about the people who labor in the fire and EMS vineyards of their community. For you see, an investigation is underway into allegations that this community has withheld the negative results of the physicals for their personnel.

Firefighters and EMS people are dying of Hepatitis C. It is this politicians thought that the municipal legal staff should conduct an investigation of the ‘alleged’ withholding scenario. Once again I see pictures in my mind’s eye of the fox standing guard duty at the municipal chicken coop in this community. Fortunately for the troops in this fire and EMS department, the local governing body felt that an independent study should be conducted. Thankfully they voted their consciences on this one.

This is a terrible case of selfish and stupid. But it is not unheard of in municipal government, a major northeastern city has been conducting a similar stonewall and whitewash operation. Both of these places are aided and abetted by the folks at the Centers for Disease Control. The political hacks at CDC in Atlanta keep stating that their research indicates that fire and EMS people are being infected at the same rate as the general public. BULL&%#T !!!

When was the last time that you had the general public standing next to you when you were knee deep in bodily fluids at the scene or a fire, motor vehicle accident or medical emergency? Not in the 35 years I was on the job! I am afraid that this is another case of the ‘we are here to help you and we know better’ mentality that pervades certain levels of the federal government. Thank the Lord that Ken Burris and Denis Onieal of the U.S. Fire Administration and the National Fire Academy stand firmly rooted in the groves of the practical fire world.

From the world of denial, we travel to another part of the world where reality is apparently not an issue. There are a couple of fire departments that have become famous in the last week or two because of the loss of staff. In one instance there were significant layoffs, and in the other, people just walked away from positions that apparently paid only pennies more than the minimum wage.

I read the comments of the Fire Chief who actually said that even after the sudden departure of personnel, they were still able to protect their community by keeping all their stations open by running two people per firefighting unit. Now there is a brilliant statement. Please note that this chief did not keep half of the units in service with four people per vehicle. No, in order to give the public a false sense of security by seeing fire vehicles in each station, this person actually seemed to brag that the job could be done with two people per unit.

City managers and fire chiefs are out there across America wondering why so many of us have fought for the new standards for staffing. The answer is simple. Too many city managers, politicians, and fire chiefs are willing to play municipal roulette with the lives of their firefighters and citizens. They are nothing but power hungry political hacks.

That is why this battle is so critical. It is cases just like this that give fire professionals cause to wonder about letting local people set their own standards. It is like the old television show of my youth, Name That Tune. The object was to win money by naming the song being played. And the less notes it took, the more money you won.

Sound familiar? The name of the song is Municipal Fire and EMS Protection. And you people are out there yelling that they can name that tune in two notes (or one in some cases). Talk about a lousy melody. How can people in positions of municipal authority be so incredibly simple-minded?

Remember my commentary from May of 2000 entitled Beware the Mutual Aid Mooch? Well folks, the mutual aid mooch tried to strike again in the great state of Michigan. A particular fire department in that great state laid off a significant number of their force. Apparently it was their contention that they could play the game of Name That Tune with a lot fewer notes. And they thought that they could count on their neighbors to toss them a few notes from time to time in the form of mutual aid to fill in their self-created gaps.

Their neighbors saw through that one real quickly. In fact, the day after the article appeared on the Internet outlining their layoffs, another article came zipping in to my office telling of how the surrounding chiefs in that area told the Culprit City that they were not going to fund the layoffs on the back of their own budgets.

BRAVO!! - to that astute body of regional fire service managers. I am all in favor of mutual aid as a supplement to the available forces in any community. But everyone in the equation has to come to the table honestly. They must stand ready to pay their fair share of the tab. Every time I see a local government attempt to mooch from their neighbors, it sets off alarms bells of anger in my mind. However, there are new players stepping into the Name That Tune contestant’s booth every week. I urge you, dear readers of this commentary, to always be on guard for the Mutual Aid Mooch.

Let us move back east for a moment. How about the fire department that chose to fund pajamas rather than people on their fire trucks? My spies have been keeping me apprised of that one. It seems that there have been some issues about men and women sharing bunkrooms. So the leader of this particular ship decided to buy everyone pajamas.

Now this might not be a bad idea. But this is also the same fire department that cried impoverishment when it came time to fund an adequate number of firefighters on their aerial ladder truck companies. Personally, I cannot recall the last time that I ever saw a set of pajamas vent a roof or rescue a baby. But then again, maybe I have led a sheltered life. However, I am sure that more information on this critical fashion issue will emerge. I would hate to be the person who had to justify the PJ or People issue.

My last place to visit this week involves a case of southern short-sightedness. My good friend and fellow writer Bill Manning has done a bang up job of putting a fire chief on notice with his August 2001 editorial in Fire Engineering magazine. I am just sorry he beat me to print with his scathing attack on gutless fire chiefs and fawning politicians and administrators.

I am particularly pleased with his statement on page 4 where he says, "to those chiefs with weak stomachs who either don’t know how to begin or are too scared for themselves, I say, you’d better start relearning the tactical end of this business" He goes on to suggest that they will be better able to market their product if they can relearn how many people it takes to really do the job of fire protection in their communities. Bravo Bill!

Of course there really are people out in the world who cannot handle thinking very well. More particularly these people operate according to the "my way or the highway" school of communications interaction. Now a story has trickled into my office that there is actually a fire chief out there in these United States of America (Land of the Free Home of the Brave) who was heard to say that he didn’t want his people reading editorial like that. So he has banned the magazine from his stations and cancelled all subscriptions.

Now there is a really brilliant approach to information management. Remind you of any place back in the dark recesses of history? I wonder if he has a tiny little moustache? Might book burning be next on the drill schedule for this bastion of enlightenment?

Ladies and gentlemen, free discourse and the sharing of ideas is the basis for any profession. I guess this person who banned Fire Engineering feels that all knowledge comes from the head of the master. Once again I want to mention to all such as will listen, that knowledge is a threat to those who are truly ignorant.

So much for my recap of this weeks journey to the Land of The Little-Minded. I urge you to pray that these trends are NOT coming to a theater near you. You must work to educate yourself, so that you can know when someone really ignorant is trying to kill you.

Stay safe and keep reading.

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