Bill Gustin, an FDIC keynote speaker and a captain in Miami-Dade (FL) Fire Rescue Department, explores the reasons “firefighters have gone from hero to zero in the eyes of the public in these hard economic times.” Gustin reaches out to the younger members, the inheritors (if you will) of the fire service that, which, he says, “will be vastly different from the one from which I will be retiring in the foreseeable future.”
Gustin explains that he believes that he and other fire service veterans “tend to instill a feeling of inferiority among our younger members by telling them that they will never have the fire experience that we did. In fact, they will face tremendous challenges in their future.” Gustin explains:
The next generation of firefighters will have to do their jobs with a fraction of the people we have today, and they will be fighting fires that will reach flashover faster than today, and they will be operating in lightweight, “engineered” construction that will collapse faster than structures built in the past.
Among the tips Gustin shares for meeting these challenges are the following:
▪ Do not forsake the basics of our job. If you get water on the fire, everything will get better and personnel will not need a rapid intervention team or have to bail out of a window with their escape harness.
▪ No one, no matter how many fires they have been to or how many years they have in the Fire Service, can rely entirely on their own “learn while you burn” personal experience. We must all be lifelong students of the Fire Service so that we can learn from the lessons and the tragedies of fires that we were lucky not to have to experience personally.
▪ Slow down, and stop this insane trend of fire apparatus accidents.
Addressing the economic difficulties surrounding the Fire Service today, Gustin says fire departments will continue to serve “by doing more with less.” He explains:
The Fire Service is continuously being tasked with nonfirefighting duties, such as EMS, which in many urban areas is really “door-to-door socialized medicine.” Many fire departments have gotten into the ambulance transport business without increasing the number of vehicles or personnel. Fire Service members continue to hold themselves to a high level of service even as budget cuts have significantly reduced staffing and resources.
Gustin, a 38-year veteran of the fire service, began his fire service career in the Chicago area and is a lead instructor in his department’s officer training program, is a marine firefighting instructor, and has conducted forcible entry training for local and federal law enforcement agencies.
He has been attending FDIC for 13 years and looks forward to “obviously, learning and bringing back information to my department.” He also appreciates the chance “FDIC gives you to step back and reflect on your career, because you just don’t learn in the classroom–you also learn a lot by socializing with like-minded, motivated, and dedicated firefighters from all over the United States and Canada.”
