A Vision of the Future Fire Service
As the economy continues to struggle – and we can expect it to -- public budgets will continue to tighten. Cities will push departments to become ever more cost-effective, and federal grant support will shrivel. In line with the findings of America Burning (and its updates ),this will lead the fire service to invest in prevention more deeply than ever before – and shift manpower accordingly -- for the simple reason that prevention is so much more efficient than emergency response. While effective prevention will reduce the need for costly line personnel, the inherent threat of existing building stock will continue to demand a certain response capacity. Cash-strapped cities will fill the gap with a more skilled workforce utilizing labor-saving technology. Our educational and manufacturing industries will adapt to meet those needs. This will work because fire is a physical force amenable to engineering control. It will happen because we can’t afford to do otherwise, in either lives or dollars.
Future Educational Structure
Education will be the cornerstone of a more-effective fire service precisely because in a service industry, the people are the product. Even without the imaginative leap that can turn existing technologies to innovative use, the US fire service can vastly improve its quality, inclusiveness, and cost-effectiveness by reforming its intake, development, and promotional systems.
The greatest gains are likely to be had by restructuring intake to convert the present (and flawed) job lottery into a job auction. This can be done through the relatively simple step of eliminating paid training. It needs to be done because with falling fire incidence, opportunities for on-the-job training (OJT) shrink. This deprives new entrants of skill development, old hands of skill maintenance, and the public of adequate service on a per-dollar basis. By shifting initial training costs to the individual, municipalities can reduce outlay while improving quality. Quality will improve because the cost in time and money will sort candidates for dedication, while the rigor of the coursework sifts for talent.
Improving selection should have two more benefits. First, improved worker fit should increase intrinsic concentration, easing wage and therefore tax pressures. Second, auxiliary technical skills with low expected value on the job can be cost-effectively used as part of the screening process. This will result in a well-rounded worker whose expectations of the job are less restrictive -- again easing wage pressure. Whether or not these non-core duties are divested to private specialty firms, this rewards the tax payer with a more versatile service provider at lower cost over short and long term. This is how we build a sustainable public workforce by investing in education and the technical education industry.
It is important to note that initial training would be a skill-intensive, hands-on affair – something the community college system is designed to provide. The fire service can greatly benefit by trading its long-standing independence and vertical integration for an integrated partnership with this industry. Better economic and organizational integration means greater value at lower cost. We’ll achieve this through better oversight and instruction as education is delivered by subject-matter experts in partnership with professional educators with real expertise in curriculum development, delivery, and evaluation.
It also holds the prospect of greater social integration and opportunity, as traditional intake structures are handed over to professionals with the experience and incentive to recruit a diverse student body. The more the fire service shows by action (and not just words) that it respects what other professions and demographics have to offer, the more we realize the promise of our national ideals and the potential of our citizenry.
Future Educational Technology
Educational content will improve along with structure. The natural overlap between education structure and workplace technology occurs in the classroom. The sooner we recognize the real training deficits we’re experiencing due to declining OJT and how that contributes to risk, the sooner we’ll embrace simulation. The faster that happens, the faster we’ll progress because virtual training allows low-cost innovation. New techniques can be attempted and refined without threat to life or property.
Moving to increasingly realistic simulation will take advantage of both the game design industry, and the gaming skills of upcoming generations. Interactive games that use historical data from fires and other emergencies to simulate condition will allow firefighters to practice extensively at minimal cost and risk. Instead of the single simulation of a live burn, a firefighter could experience a dozen virtual fires in a day’s training. While the benefits of live training are not to be discounted, the more we invest in technology like the apparatus and exoskeletons described above, the more like the game the actual work will become. In other words, firefighting will become a technology-moderated activity in the same way air combat is.
Simulation will not be limited to structural firefighting. Every technical discipline can be modeled, essentially applying computer-aided design and play testing to service activities instead of just manufacturing. EMS delivery could be modeled, letting game designers’ imaginations help drive the development of “Star Trek” style mobile patient assessment and treatment devices. Some of this technology had been available for years – portable bone scanners, for instance, and more is being developed.
Large scale emergency management scenarios can be created too, and played singly or as part of an interactive, multi-player exercise. This would allow managers at all levels and across agencies to practice coping with disasters more easily and affordably than is now the case. Bonus points could accrue for keeping costs low. Talent could be identified and recruited from the general population – talent that would otherwise not be recognized, developed, or captured. This is how gaming simulations might become a tool for high school guidance counselors and college admissions offices. Further, if these games are made available to the public – and there is no reason they shouldn’t be – the “wisdom of the crowds” might prove an excellent source of intelligence, allowing officials to identify new threats, new problems, and new solutions to them by mining the collective intelligence of the gaming community.
Improved fire education will not be limited to fire service members. We can build additional first-response capacity, bolster our democracy, improve our domestic security and blunt the threat of terror by empowering the public to use extinguishers and provide first aid as part of the driver’s licensing process. By expanding a contingent workforce of paid-on-call staff, we can sort those who really want the job from their less-dedicated competitors. We can then reward them with partial tuition support for further training to prepare them for full-time positions. And as the fire service shrinks but housing stock remains, the immediate need for supplementary personnel in initial response can be met by better training public works and police department employees to function as first responders under a NIMS/ICS structure.
In keeping with the intent of NIMS/ICS, we’ll train city department heads to work as command and general staff, reducing redundancy and improving communications efficiency in large incidents. In a post 9/11 world, every public sector employee -- especially department heads -- should accept the fact that he or she may have to act in an emergency situation and be trained to do so. Shrinking the protective blanket of an isolated fire service by expanding emergency response will give them that opportunity. Democracy requires an educated, active public rather than one dependent on the resources of a nanny state. By shrinking our service intelligently, we do more than provide cost-effective service: we act as stewards for our Nation, its values, and its promise.
Future Workplace Technology
We say it today: the learning organization is the workplace of the future. For the fire service, this means that simulation training game begun as part of an associate degree program at the local community college will be an on-going part of every firefighter’s career. Firefighting simulations must and will become the “Angry Birds app” of the firehouse. Such simulations will allow a culturally-moderated activity to evolve into a closely monitored and measured profession much liker professional sports. In doing so, the playing field will level for all contestants regardless of demographic, and a culture of demonstration will arise.
Gaming will bleed over into actual work as suppression technology advances. Part of the technological fix will be improved detection and suppression systems. Mandatory retrofitting older structures will be enabled by government subsidies meant to stimulate the economy. This will prove successful as it incents design, manufacturing, installation, and insurance industries. High- and low-rise structures alike will increasingly rely on intelligent or remotely operable systems, both built-in and robotic. Robots may be provided internally or externally, scaling walls or climbing stairs to access the highest floors without fatigue or risk of life and limb, or take the form of smart or remotely-operable sprinklers. Private residences will rely on alarms and sprinklers for early detection and suppression.
Fire service apparatus will become much more high-tech, and utilize the computer gaming skills of the new generations. Based on today’s logging technology, the fire truck of the future will have a large tank, a high-capacity pump, and twin telescoping-articulating arms -- a Jules Verne/Buck Rodgers dream-come-true. One arm will be equipped with a scanner head, the other with a combination claw/nozzle. Additional special-purpose heads (fan, jack-hammer, bucket) may be stored on the rig itself. The driver will scan a building for the best ventilation location, then use claw to tear or punch the vent hole. The driver will then scan for the seat of the fire, punch an access hole, and flow water through the claw-arm nozzle. With the fire knocked, the rider clad in an astronaut suit will be sent in with a small line to mop up. Rescues could slightly alter this timeline, though advances in haptic technology may allow for safe and timely hydraulic-mediated extraction.
Tactics will evolve with tools. High rise buildings are inhumanly larger-than-life, and so are fires in them. We must develop tools to match instead of sending more and ever-more expensive personnel into such problematic environments. Oil-well techniques may be applied to high-rise fires, with a robot delivering a massive, directional dry-chem burst actuated by a small shaped charge - a sort of mobile claymore mine that is anti-fire instead of anti-personnel.. Another way to do so, using existing technology, could be to equip a helicopter with a Mark 19 (40mm) grenade launcher and lob dry chemical rounds into a high rise from afar. Coordinated with an interior advance, this ‘artillery’ barrage would knock down the fire, softening the target just as the Army does ahead of a ground assault.
High-end technologies will appear too: the fire service is better suited than the military to develop exoskeletons for the simple reason of power supply. A combat exoskeleton requires a battery; a firefighting exoskeleton would need only enough battery to get close to the building power supply. In an exoskeleton equipped with SCBA and an extinguisher , and a variety of “transformer” tools, a firefighter could climb any number of stairs and conduct a quick recon/rescue. Or she could plug in to building power and winch up all sorts of equipment. It would be a good, practical environment in which to work out the bugs ahead of military application, and would also likely bring federal funding.
The Future Public-Private Interface
As we move from the 19th century into the 21st and replace human-wave tactics with technology, fire departments will become primarily code-enforcement agencies with a small, “fighter-pilot” response cadre. If the fire service evolves along these lines government interference will be limited to its proper sphere – setting and enforcing rules to balance individual rights, and certifying professional competence. At the same time, competitive bidding for the inessential elements of this “essential service” will address the unavoidable monopolistic failings that plague every fire department.
Specialty response will be spun off to private firms with comparative advantages. This will shrink the size and cost of government while stimulating the economy by creating private sector opportunity to service existing demand. Outsourcing will also improve safety (and workers’ compensation expenses) by removing relatively inexperienced fire service personnel from the scene and replacing them with more practiced industrial workers. Hazmat response will be contracted to firms already used for clean-up. The same will go for trench rescue (excavation companies), confined space rescue (local industrial teams), vertical rescue (window washing, roofing, or sport climbing firms), and structural collapse (engineering/construction firms). An alternative to multiple contracts is a single contract with a firm specializing in technical rescue. Again, privatization will limit government to its proper role of regulation and oversight.
Alternatively, the fire service might retain specialized response capabilities, but use nascent technology like exoskeletons to work faster and more safely, at least in trench or collapse settings where there is room to operate. Powered by an extension cord from a rig-mounted generator, a device like this would allow personnel to lift greater burdens and operate multiple technologies like IR and UV scanners, chemical monitors, sonic locating devices, power shovels, and blower/vacuums. Airborne and terrestrial robots could be used in confined space settings to reconnoiter the space and its atmosphere without risk to rescue personnel. Intelligence acquired by robot would make for a safer, more efficient action plan, while real-time, SOG-based computer analysis could inform fireground decision making or provide a standard for post-incident discussion.
There will always be tension between the brains and calculated odds of the computer-aided bean-counters and the instincts and intuition of the “real” firefighters – but this is the same tension that exists between flight controllers and pilots in the Space program, and look at what that effort has achieved for our Nation and our world. There is no reason not to treat our homes and businesses as seriously as we treat outer space; indeed, in a world of finite resources, it seems wise to still dream, but dream a little closer to home.
Future of Emergency Healthcare
The withdrawal of the fire service from EMS response holds equally great promise for the Nation. EMS will return to private ambulance companies, preventing local government from serving as a liability screen for hospitals, and avoiding the costs of service provision. Even if the Nation should move to protect its human capital with socialized medicine, EMS would leave the fire service and be incorporated into the Dept of Public Health. Paramedics will become triage experts, referring those in need of acute care to mobile Physician Assistants for treatment or further referral to the appropriate specialist. Paramedics can transport patients needing more than acute care directly to the ER and into the care of an MD. Patients with chronic problems will be referred to mobile Nurse Practitioners who can coordinate for home health care or other social services.
By returning medical services to a house-call model, health-care firms will avoid log-jams at centralized emergency rooms – an ineffective, inefficient practice that informally rations health care. In the past the size and expense of medical technology required centralized facilities, but today and in the future we can be much more mobile and take medicine to the sick and injured, rather than the other way around. By returning EMS to the health care industry and specialty response to specialty providers, the fire service focuses on core competencies where comparative advantage lies. It also might reduce costs associated with the environmental maintenance of centralized health-care facilities, as it should be much cheaper to sterilize an individual PA or NP than an entire hospital floor, especially one filled with immune-compromised patients. This might help slow the advance of microbes like MRSA and buy time for global pharmaceutical industry.
Stepping Stones to the Future
While the greatest benefit would be realized by moving to this 22nd century model as quickly as possible, this evolution will likely require at least one intermediate step. That middle step will reorganize the fire service along hub-and-spoke lines where several super-light rigs are supported by one heavy apparatus, where taxes pay only for availability and fees are levied for broad-spectrum emergency service. The move to this middle-ground, 21st century model will be done to shrink response times, address call statistics, and reduce idle capital while protecting line strength. It will also give us the time to overcome resistance to change, adopt needed codes, generate support for prevention effort, and reconfigure our professional education system. Nor must we forget to establish national standards and open fire service labor markets to allow the skilled workers of the future to travel laterally within our borders. In the end, however, money will ineluctably drive this change; the underlying economics are that compelling. We can accomplish it all by mid-century if we try.
Today, international comparisons show our traditional fire service to be something less than cost-effective. To stay at the head of the international economic pack, our nation and all levels of its government must become more efficient. By reducing both public and private fire-related costs, we can cut waste and aid our economy. In a world of increasing competition for scarce resources, unless we do this we consign ourselves to something less than we are capable of achieving, something less than our children deserve.
Currently, the US Fire Service is the Cubs of the G20, happily playing .500 ball. We may the best at putting out fires, but that’s only because we get the most practice -- not the cost-effective way to conduct business. It’s time to start managing to win. To do so, we must start measuring effectively, and acting on the data – i.e., adopt a Moneyball approach. With a slow economy and real concern about safety as spurs, and given an increasingly educated officer corps, the time is right for change. Automation means fewer workers in harm’s way. It also reduces the size and cost of government. It’s worked for mining, logging, farming, construction, manufacturing, the military, and even banking. It will work for the fire service.
