Folks dislike change. It's this belief that makes some skeptical that cultural change as related to firefighter safety is capable on the grand scale that we may hope for.

It's said that regular organizations change in three to five years and that the fire service changes in about a decade, but better a decade than not at all. Organizational change can and often does start with one person and one event. For me the event was on July 12, 1987. On that hot summer day I experienced something that changed my life and my perspective about safety in the fire service forever.

I was a firefighter in the Seattle Fire Department. We received a call to a fire in a set of vacant apartments in the Capitol Hill neighborhood. For this particular call we “dumped the house” and sent an engine, truck, BLS transport unit and the on-duty deputy chief. Upon arrival at the scene, we encountered a well-involved fire that was fairly standard for the times, but the outcome wasn't standard at all.

I had less than six years in the fire service and had only been at this station for about two months. As a fairly new person, I didn't have the experience necessary to make many independent decisions that day. Therefore, I was glued to my officer, who was one of the better ones I worked for in my career. Where he went, I went; what he did, I did. On this particular day, my lack of experience may have saved my life.

One of the crew members that day was the driver from another shift, who was working an extra day — what we called a “debit.” Our regular driver was off that day, so he very well could have taken the driver seat. But being the nice guy that he was, he allowed another member of our regular crew to do the driving, and he sat in the crew cab with me. This firefighter was a seasoned, well-respected veteran. He knew his job, of that no one doubted.

To go along with our crew, which was pretty good, we had three of the department's most-respected fire companies and the top-two chief officers in the city. Battalion 2 is the busiest battalion in Seattle and believed to be a grooming place for future deputy chiefs. Battalion 1 was the deputy chief in charge of the entire city on the Operations side. The Battalion 2 chief was one of the department's hot shots who was destined for the top. Battalion 1's chief was a 40-plus year veteran who had forgotten more about the business than most of us knew. You would think that only good things could happen, but we were products of our culture.

The department's culture at the time was not dissimilar to most of the era: “Aggressive interior firefighters” who didn't stop until the job was done. “Experienced” firefighters did what they thought needed to be done — they didn't have to wait for direction from the incident commander. They just got it done. This worked hundreds of times a year. But on this particular day it didn't.

While checking for extension inside the building by himself, the veteran firefighter who was riding with us became caught in a room with boarded-up windows and no escape. He ran out of air and died. The fire proved to be arson. Five more Seattle firefighters lost their lives in vacant building over the next eight years. Thankfully, due to a significant focus on safety, there hasn't been a firefighter killed in Seattle for the last 10 years.

According to a recently released NFPA study, there were no firefighter deaths in vacant structures in 2004. Wouldn't it be nice to use this occasion as a springboard to a new tradition? What would it be like to go two, three or 10 years without a firefighter being killed in a vacant structure? We did it in hazmat. Who can remember the last firefighter killed at a hazmat incident? We could soon have a day when we ask ourselves, “Do you remember when firefighters used to get killed in vacant buildings”?

The International Association of Fire Chiefs has proposed a National Fire Service Stand Down on June 21. Take time to ensure that the members of your organization know the organization's and their personal responsibility for safety. Perhaps this could be another opportunity to drive a point home and see progress in your fire department. This act of solidarity could instigate change in other areas of firefighter safety, health and survival.

It's said, “Try to learn from the mistakes of others, because you can't live long enough to make all the mistakes yourself.” If you've never seen an unresponsive colleague carried out of a vacant building, take it from me, there's nothing good about it. Perhaps you could use my story during the stand down, along with others, to help make the changes you have been considering regarding safety. Ask yourself, “What will it take to get me to change?”

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I. David Daniels, MIFireE, is chief of the Fulton County (Ga.) Fire Department. He holds a master's degree in human resources management and is certified as a quality improvement specialist, safety and health specialist, and fire service health and safety officer.