By now most of you have heard, and hopefully read, the recently released Wingspread VI report.
The report contains 14 “Statements of National Significance to the United States Fire and Emergency Services.” If you have not read it, please do. It is the output of a diverse group of approximately 40 people from the American fire service who looked at the industry’s challenges and opportunities. I was fortunate enough to be a recorder for this event and hope to provide some perspective beyond the report.
About the Report
The Wingspread report gets its name from the Wingspread Conference Center located in Racine, Wisconsin. The center was developed around the former home of the Johnson Wax family designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. The self-contained campus includes a small hotel-type facility to house participants. This report marked the 50-year anniversary of the first report. It has been published once every 10 years since it started in 1966. The conference started at the same conference center, hence its name, and was held there in 1966, 1976, and 1986. In 1996, the conference was in Dothan, Alabama, and in 2006, it was in Atlanta, Georgia.
The previous five conferences received very little publicity except for a short time after each report was released. For the most part, they were very general in nature and without any controversy. However, the 2016 report is a radical departure from the previous reports. It was put together by a larger group. It has the capacity to be distributed through multiple outlets, thanks to electronic and social media. But more importantly, it was decided that if the report was to have any impact, it must address key issues that are potentially controversial.
Another major departure of this report from previous reports is that it contains an action plan for each statement. Each plan identifies who is responsible for taking the action steps to address the challenges and opportunities. This could be a national group or several national groups. It could be a state or regional group. It could be each local fire and emergency service. Or, it could be each member of a fire and emergency service organization.
Tough Topics
Most of us are familiar with how difficult it is to reach consensus about “thorny” issues we face in this business. The U.S. fire and emergency services have always been very fragmented. There is no single governing or leading organization. They are services that rely on volunteers as well as people who choose the profession as a career. You can imagine the angst that ensued from some of the participants as the report was developed. For example, in this column I am using the term “fire and emergency services.” There was general, if not unanimous, consensus that the term “fire service” was no longer adequate to address the service level provided in most jurisdictions, nor was it a term that will adequately address the service into the future. After several possible terms and votes through a process of elimination, the group decided that “fire and emergency services” was the most appropriate term to use.
Another issue that remained contentious until the final draft of the document was whether to use the word “should” or “must” in the action plan. In the end, mainly because there is no enforcement authority, the group decided that “should” was the better word to use. But this was not a unanimous decision.