Courage and Safety are not Mutually Exclusive
By Dan Jones
Used with Permission of National Fire and Rescue Magazine July/August
For more information go to: www.nfrmag.comThe definitions of courage and safety are found on the Internet and reflect common thinking about what the two words mean. Both are words used frequently in the fire service and both words are important to our culture in emergency services. However, the word courage carries more weight emotionally. Courage is an expected norm in our firefighter culture. It is a subconscious measuring tool we apply to our colleagues and ourselves. It is a word used reverently to describe those lost in the line of duty regardless of circumstance. It cannot be overstated how important this word and concept is to our fraternal culture.
Safety is also important but does not carry the emotional baggage for the fire service like the word courage does. In fact, I think that we as an industry view the word and concept of safety as counter to courage, which we place such value upon.
In our traditional risk-taking culture, do we believe that the concept of safety is a threat to our value of courage? Have we over a long period of time come to value courage over safety and our own lives? We must learn to keep courage in its rightful place and put our effort and priority on safety. We clearly put heart and soul into creating safety for our citizens and victims, but we are not so zealous when it comes to ourselves. Firefighters are risk takers. It is valued in the brotherhood and sisterhood of firefighting. We have deluded ourselves into believing that safety tears at our fabric of courage. We rationalize that belief by buying the best safety gear and then taking even greater risks and pushing deeper into the flame. Safety is something we spend money on, not something we practice. Our collective cultural belief is flawed.
Policy notwithstanding in most fire departments, violations of safety practices are frequently overlooked or winked at. Safety technology is frequently purchased by fire departments but unused by its firefighters. Eye rolls and yawns are the expected reaction from firefighters if a training officer spends “too much time” on the subject of safety during a drill. A fire officer who halts or holds back on a fireground operation sometimes has his courage questioned in the aftermath.
So, could it be that the whole concept of a Stand Down for Safety idea was an initial effort to begin the process of changing how we as members of the culture we call “fire and rescue” think about safety? Are the leaders of the International Association of Fire Chiefs, International Association of Firefighters, National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, United States Fire Administration, National Volunteer Fire Council and other fire service organizations asking us to reconsider how we view safety and what it should really mean to all of us?
I believe a lot of credit for this beginning wave of awareness should go to the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation, which with its 16 safety initiatives, has called upon us all to pause and consider what we allow to happen and then rationalize it to each other and ourselves as the cost of courage. If you have not yet taken a good look at those initiatives, please be sure to do so
They can be found in their entirety on page 20 of this issue of National Fire and Rescue as well as on our web site at www.nfrmag.com. You can also find them on the web site of virtually any of the leading organizations in the fire service. Look them over and think about how broad and deep necessary change is in our culture.
I truly hope that the National Stand Down for Firefighter Safety was not a one-time event. We should do it again and again and again until the cultural change begins to take hold. Make sure your fire and rescue department participates in every Safety Stand Down and commits to the follow-up that makes the lessons useful and accepted.
The Firefighter Life Safety Summit, which helped create those 16 initiatives, was created by courageous fire service leaders who recognized the futility of burying firefighters and accepting it as part of the industry. Fighting fire and making rescues will always have inherent dangers, but not using all of our skills, intelligence and technology to apply safety practices for those who must take the calculated risks is collective idiocy. IAFC Executive Director Garry Briese once described the firefighter death rate as “fratricide”, the killing of our own.
Let us all work to create a fire service culture that values safety at the same level we value courage and celebrate both with equal fervor. Courage is not working a vehicle accident without a roadblock or visibility vest. Courage is not working a vehicle accident without a roadblock or visibility vest. Courage is not making a deep interior attack in a well-involved abandoned building. Courage is not driving a fire apparatus so fast that wheels leave the ground. Courage is not using flammable liquids in an acquired structure training burn. All of those are stupid and we should stop glorifying them under the veil of courage.
I do not know how or when safety became counter to courage in our collective psyche, but now is when it must stop. Safety and courage can both be expected norms in our work. They are not mutually exclusive.
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