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What Are Firefighters?

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Firefighters are civil servants and sworn officers that adhere to the standards, policies and procedures of the Fire Service as well as standard operating procedures of their departments. They take an oath of tradition that date back to the first generation of firefighters in 1853. The Fire Service has since taken major strides and made many advancements since its birth. Unfortunately, many of these advancements and strides exist due to the misfortune of others. Many of these misfortunes can be attributed to a lack of education and technology available to fire service personnel. The Fire Service is about 20 years behind the education and technology curve, yes, we still extinguish fires with water, but now and days we need a balance of quality …show more content…

Succession planning is a progression method used to categorize and aid in the development of future leaders (i.e. senior FFs, LTs, Captains, etc.), who can or will replace former leaders when they retire, take leave, promote, or pass. “Succession planning aims for continuity of leadership by increasing the availability of experienced and capable employees that are prepared for future roles (Drotter, 2013)”. Acting U.S. Fire Administrator for the USFA, former Fire Chief of Jersey City, and Superintendent at the National Fire Academy Dr Denis Onieal, gives a great lecture and insight about how there is a huge misunderstanding of professional development models in the fire service. He states that “Many times we forget to ask ourselves where are we going, and will we be ready if opportunity presents itself? (Onieal, Denis, 2012)”. Dr. Onieal conveys the need for departments as well as their employees to embrace that the “Quality” of training, college education, experience and certification be perfectly balanced. The days of experience only or those individuals with binders full of crackerjack certifications is over, and anyone who favors one of the 4 objectives over the other will hinder department efficiency, effectiveness, growth, and development. Once hindrance of this nature begins you will see it effect employee retention and a department will slowly start to rot and …show more content…

We are in a new era of the Fire Service, an era where we have entry level firefighters are coming in with college level degrees asking why, and firefighting technology is advancing faster than we can keep up with. Valuing that department personnel have professional and personal stakes in the organization gives them the capability to be confident and furnishes motivation to be start a new tradition of success within them self as well the

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