What are your feelings about the IFSAC accreditation process? Now before you jump to your first thoughts of being “For or Against” IFSAC let’s take a few moments to look at the program as it stands in the State of Washington.

The IFSAC website relates this: IFSAC was founded in 1990 to establish a new national accreditation system for fire service certification programs. In 1992, the development of an accreditation system for fire related degree programs began...

• Dress for success.
• Always arrive early and stay late.
• Always come prepared.
• Be present.
• Ask questions during your presentation and allow time for questions to be asked. 
• Always say "thank you" at the conclusion of your presentation.

What image in your mind do you have of a leader? It was very clear what leadership looked like when George Washington was leading troops across the Delaware River. He was standing upright leaning into progress with eyes on the objective, one knee up braced for action, but with a sense of calmness. An early image of fire service leadership looks very much the same; recall Currier and Ives prints. All of them have scenes of action, a bent knee, and eyes on the objective, leaning into the task. In every multi company scene there is, a commander, bugle in hand, majestically pointing the way. These images indicate what fire service is very good at, coordination, where others see chaos. That coordination is that what is critical to our safety, the safety of the citizens we serve, and the quick solutions to progressing problems.

Today the image portrayed of fire service leadership is often from television; a chief officer with a white helmet, grey hair, and deep creases of character in his face, with a presence of calm competence. He is usually behind the main characters not part of the action but playing a role we all know the importance of.

On February 25th, 2015 the Training, Safety and Officer’s section wrapped up another successful annual conference held in Yakima, WA.  The event was a great success solely because of the hard work put in by the Board members and their spouses from around the state who volunteered their time to make it happen.  And another round of ‘Thank You’ is necessary for all the staff at the Washington Fire Chief’s office.  There were 5 full days of classes covering topics of leadership, instructions, driver safety, Train-the-Trainers and more!  It was great to see so many departments represented and the networking that took place is always an added benefit. 

Chief Rick Lasky (Ret.) was our keynote speaker and did a fantastic job.  If you have ever heard Chief Lasky speak or if you have read his book Pride and Ownership then you can imagine the lasting impression he left with all of us.  In his general session presentation he delivered a powerful historical overview of the fire service and touched on why we as a fire service have come to do things the way we do.  From code enforcement changes to safety practices developed Chief Lasky relayed real life examples, which have killed civilians and firefighters, and the resulting changes that emerged following these tragic events.  As the class was entitled, it truly was something that They Should Be Teaching This on the First Day of the Academy...

As I reflect on the past years events, we see that firefighters across the nation have responded to many different and sometimes difficult to deal with issues. We have ramped up to treat the latest biological threats, or battled the routine calls that seem to be common for most organizations.  It’s sad that we are still finding the loss of life in the fire service to be something coming across our email or written documents almost weekly. There are many studies looking for reasons behind the line of duty deaths that are occurring in the fire service.  Some are pointing to things that are preventable such as heart disease or cancer which are both preventable and treatable provided we are obtaining physicals annually. Recently our college obtained a grant teamed up with the local fire departments to do fitness testing to give us a baseline physical assessment. Something like this may work for you as well. We have also placed emphasis on stretching and fitness related to the types of work we perform. With in-house evaluators we have evaluated the members of the department and given them baseline recommendations for their fitness.  We all found little weaknesses that we didn't even know about, ones we can improve for the future.

Our organization has also placed an increased emphasis on the immediate cleanup at fire scenes for our firefighters, with wipe downs of critical areas such as face, neck and any other exposed skin and then immediate showering upon return to the station.  As well we remove gear from service after the event and clean it. This coupled with the exhaust fans in the stations will hopefully limit the exposure that our firefighters have taken for granted for so many years.