Whether they're volunteer, career, combination, metropolitan or rural, fire departments all face the same issues regarding firefighter health and safety. Those issues require us to develop a strong safety officer program throughout the fire service. A well-developed safety officer can overcome departmental cultures, budget restrictions and any of the multitude of issues that face every department's health and safety program.

Being a safety officer isn't easy, and neither is hiring one. While there are several publications that offer insight into the roles and responsibilities of the incident safety officer or the health and safety officer, most don't address the selection and professional development of this individual. Additionally, information required by the safety program to enhance firefighter health and safety is limited at best.

I was promoted to chief safety officer during a brief badge-pinning ceremony in my fire chief's office. After everyone left the office, the chief handed me the keys to a Crown Victoria and instructed me to go to our uniform supplier for my new uniform. I asked him what he wanted me to do after that. His reply went something like this: “Hey big boy, you're the safety officer — you figure it out.” This sounds like the plot for a TV sitcom, but it has happened in too many chief's offices of too many departments throughout the fire service.

Safety officers are appointed strictly to satisfy laws, standards and union contracts, but they're almost never given proper guidance or the support to become successful. There is no magic potion to drink or mystical chant to quote. There is no one-size-fits-all educational program to attend or one single answer to the question of how a safety officer becomes successful.

Personal attributes

Although the fire chief who promoted me didn't have a clear vision of my responsibilities, he did support my vision for a program. He also had the characteristics needed to help me become successful, characteristics that are needed by safety officers and their chiefs in any department.

Character. You must be a person of character, because it determines not only who you are, what you see and what you do, but how effective you are in doing it. There are thousands of individuals born with talent, but your character is a daily personal choice. You aren't born with character, and no one can give it to you. You alone have the responsibility to make character choices each day, and those choices give you a track record.

You must be willing to address safety issues head-on regardless of who's involved. Any member of your department who expects you to overlook a safety violation is asking you to compromise your entire attitude about the value of a department member's life. When a safety officer overlooks any health or safety issue, a standard is set that will soon become the department's “norm.”

The violation you overlook today can become the standard practice for tomorrow. For example, motor-vehicle accidents are the number-one non-health — related killer of firefighters. Does your department enforce safe driving practices? Is each member belted in before the rig or private vehicle rolls on an incident? Do we still laugh and brag about near misses? Is the “Mario Andretti” in your department a hero or a zero? If your answers are no, no, yes and hero, then your department is flirting with disaster.

Being a person of character will get others involved in your safety cause, and there's always power in numbers. When the need arises to address safety issues, do so in a manner that helps you to maintain the good character you've worked to develop. On minor safety issues, remember that it's ok to step on a person's shoes as long as you don't mess up the shine. Use only the force required to properly address and resolve the issue. If you never compromise on safety issues, you'll bring lasting success to you and your department.

Commitment. Each and every officer, especially chief officers, must have a commitment to improving the health and safety of their departments. Notice I did not limit this commitment to the fire chief. All officers must be committed. Commitment will separate the doers from the dreamers. Commitment comes from believing in health and safety issues, and it starts in a person's heart. No one else can make you passionate for health and safety issues. It's a personal choice, much like character.

Leadership guru John Maxwell says that there are four types in any organization: copouts, holdouts, dropouts and all-outs. Copouts are people who have goals but don't commit. Holdouts don't know if they can reach their goals, so they're afraid to commit. Dropouts start toward a goal but quit when the going gets tough. All-outs set goals, commit to them and are willing to pay the price to reach them. Which type are you when it comes to your commitment to health and safety issues?

I am often asked to define commitment verses dedication. The best way to remember the difference is to think of a good old-fashioned country breakfast: two eggs over easy, grits (after all, I am Southern), homemade cat-head biscuits smothered in sawmill gravy and a thick slice of fried ham. Now with a picture of this breakfast in your mind, remember that the chicken was dedicated to the creation of this meal, but the hog was committed to it.

Communication skills can make or break a safety officer. Effective communication skills could take up this entire magazine and still not address all of what the safety officer needs to know about them. The condensed version includes keeping your safety message clear, concise and simple. Whether you're writing a policy or procedure, presenting a safety training program or addressing a violation of a safety policy, you should offer information that can be backed up by facts.

You also need to know your audience. Different people require different communication techniques. Do you speak or write to the mayor or city manager in the same way that you address firefighers? Each target audience is different, and the safety officer must be mindful of those differences when communicating with each.

The most important thing to remember about effective communications is that it's a two-way street. If you aren't soliciting a response, then you're only talking and not truly communicating.

Courage is the next characteristic that both the safety officer and fire chief must have to ensure a safety program works. Unfortunately, very few departments can say they totally embrace safety. Take a deep look into the safety culture of your department. Do we, as a whole, make health and safety our priority? If we truly do, then why are we losing firefighters to motor-vehicle accidents and heart attacks at a higher percentage rate than we were 20 years ago? Why are we still killing firefighters in structure fires at the same rate we were in 1978?

You may say that we have nearly 54% fewer deaths in structure fires than we did in 1978, and you're right. Structure fires have decreased by 58% since then. However, we have only maintained our average, and we should never accept average when it comes to the health and safety of our firefighters. Safety officers everywhere, with the support of their fire chiefs, must have the courage to address these issues if we are ever going to reduce these statistics.

Actions speak loudly

To be successful, safety officers must remain focused on their mission. This can be tough, as more often than not safety officers must wear many hats within their departments. However, that situation can be an asset rather than a liability if safety officers apply their mission to all of their tasks, instead of just those that fall under incident safety or health and safety.

Of those safety officers who fulfill dual roles, most are also training officers — a role that provides a tremendous opportunity to focus on safety. No training exercise should be conducted that doesn't have its main focus on a firefighter's health and safety. It's easy to turn that dual role into a positive, focus is paramount: Never forget that if you chase two rabbits at the same time, both will get away from you.

Safety programs, in general, have only been prevalent in the fire service for less than 15 years at best. The individuals running these programs have to show initiative. Often there are limited resources to support safety programs, both in personnel and finances. The majority of your department's membership will not like the changes that safety programs bring at first, and at times a safety officer might feel like an IRS agent with leprosy!

Never allow these issues to discourage you. Plan your safety program. Start today! Take the risk and don't wait for opportunity to knock. Open doors yourself. Know ahead of time that you may experience some failure, but press on with the safety mission knowing that you will succeed. Take delight in every small victory; they will come. Never be discouraged by disappointments; they are only failures if you allow them to be. Learn from each one and move on.

At conferences and seminars I'm often approached by recently appointed safety officers who are hungry for knowledge and support from fellow safety officers. While I offer them reference materials and other resources, if I were able to pass on only one bit of advice, it would be to keep a positive attitude.

Your attitude is a personal choice. No matter what happened yesterday, you determine your attitude today. Each person's attitude determines their actions. I believe attitude far outweighs aptitude. I'd rather work with a safety officer with the right attitude over a well-educated one with a poor attitude any day. The other members of your department will mirror your attitude toward safety. To change their attitudes, you must first examine yours. It's much easier to maintain a good attitude than to try and regain one.

Another aspect of attitude is vision. Safety officers must have a vision for where they want to see their fire department in regard to health and safety issues. Vision starts from within, but it gains momentum as others begin to see results. The best way to develop a vision for your safety program is to examine your department's needs. What fits in one place may not in another. Use historical data to find your individual department's needs and build your program from that information.

To-dos for fire chiefs

These characteristics will help ensure that a safety officer becomes a success, and they're also a good outline for developing all officers within your department. Chief officers can assist in cultivating these attributes in all officers by supporting the safety officer's professional development.

When it comes to budget time, consider the needs of your safety program as a priority. You might be pleasantly surprised at what you can implement with a very limited financial commitment. Organizations such as the IAFC, IAFF and many state volunteer organizations offer educational material to support the learning process for new safety officers. The National Fire Academy library is another excellent resource for this literature.

The Fire Department Safety Officer's Association is an international organization dedicated to the professional development of all safety officers, and it's also an excellent resource for departments developing and improving health and safety programs. In addition, the FDSOA offers the only nationally recognized certification for incident safety officers and will soon offer the same for health and safety officers.

For your safety program to be successful, chiefs must be about the business of safety everyday. They must keep a sense of urgency about their job function and the importance of health and safety in the fire service. They must remain focused on the goal of sending their firefighters home healthy and ready for the next call after every incident, every shift and every training exercise. If the safety officer and the fire chief can accomplish that, then the mission is a success.

The successful safety officer isn't a person who is constantly on the lookout for safety violations to point out where others have stumbled or made mistakes. Successful safety officers will educate themselves on health and safety issues and devote their efforts to changing the safety culture of their departments, even though there will be days when they'll feel as if no one else cares about the health and safety of department members.

The successful safety officer knows deep down that they can and will make a difference to the health and safety of firefighters, “so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory or defeat.”

---

A member of our editorial advisory board, Charles "Sandy" Davis is the chief safety officer for the Shreveport (La.) Fire Department, the first fire department in the United States to have full-time district safety officers assigned around the clock to each of its 24-hour shifts. His tasks include managing all aspects of health and safety such as scene safety monitoring, inspection of personal protective equipment, station safety inspections and various safety training.