Get Smart

Craig Rose photo

By Mark vonAppen

There is an ongoing devaluing of the fire problem from within our industry which leads to a lack of education among firefighters.  We seek the easy fix, the next distraction, or the short answer because we don't have the attention span to sit and read (I'll keep this short, I promise), watch a video, or get out and train. We are losing the ability to walk and chew gum at the same time.

We have to take enormously complicated tasks and reduce them to simple concepts, apply them to the correct circumstance and do it all without forgetting the what and why.  All of this has to occur in a condensed time frame while our body fights our mind's (I know they're connected) ability to process information.  It's a complex balancing act in an immediately unforgiving environment.  It's a knife fight in a phone booth.  The timid and uneducated will fail there without question.

It's a knife fight in a phone booth.  Get smart. Get tough. There is no place to hide.

Until we place a premium on education and create functionally intelligent (physically and mentally) firefighters and promote functionally intelligent chief officers who have a firm grasp of the technical and tactical aspects of the job we are doomed to continue to dumb down the importance and the danger of what we do.  Education makes you respect the job.  Ignorance breeds bravado.  Fatigue and ignorance make cowards of us all.

The target does move.  The game has changed.  We try to do more with less even though we know we can't.  The more we try to do with fewer people, the better and smarter we all need to be.

Get smart.  Get tough.  There is no place to hide.