To begin, understand that it's difficult to criticize the fire service for two reasons. First, we're often painted as the good guys, the hometown heros, and nobody wants to criticize a good guy. This resistance is amplified by the fact that we tend to accept, even revel in, that label. As a result, we don't take criticism well. From a traditional perspective, being critical of the fire service is both ungrateful and unpatriotic. This is hogwash, but few in or out of our profession care to suffer that sort of abuse, so they don't speak up.

The second reason it's hard to criticize the fire service is that we do so many things half-right. It's one step forward, one step back, and always with good intentions -- which results in little progress and lots of tradition. Criticism of the half that's wrong tends to be taken as blanket criticism of the good we do and the good intentions behind it, as well as tradition. At the same time, acceptance and recognition of what we're doing right is taken as blanket endorsement of the status quo. Both these claims are hogwash too, and another example of how averse the fire service is to anything but praise.

So, to mute as much baseless sniping as possible, let me be clear: there are lots of good people in the fire service, doing lots of good work. One goal of this blog is to support those people and their work by identifying where they might be making unintentional mistakes, doing things that undercut their own efforts. That's the sort of constructive criticism we need, and I'm offering. I hope this can be seen for what it is, and not taken as disrespect or insult.

Think of it like this: if I saw you digging into an undercut bank like Wiley Coyote, I'd be wrong not to point it out. I hope you'd mind my interference less than you'd appreciate the heads-up. That's all I'm trying to do here. With that in mind, let's dive into some fire service "freakonomics", look at our profession from a fresh perspective, and trade some of our reverence for tradition for a little real progress.