Fire service members view themselves as dedicated, well-trained, hard-working individuals, seeking to make their communities better. And for the most part, they are. But does that make the fire service a profession?

There are many hard-working, talented, passionate people who serve the community in a variety of ways. Are they all professionals? Perhaps the question isn't whether fire service members are professionals, but rather if others view the fire service as such. If government officials or the general public don't think so, the fire service will never be fully integrated into the decision-making levels of government.

Occupations once were categorized as professionals, craftsman, and skilled and unskilled workers. Many factors determined this hierarchy, including education, training, skill and independence of action. The definition of professional has expanded. The Department of Labor and the American Management Association consider such factors as education, credentials or licensure, ongoing education, and an identifiable professional standard of performance when defining professionals. How would the fire service rate in such a system?

Education is usually a defining factor distinguishing professionals from laypeople and it is required before entering the profession, not after. Training is not education. Often it is presumed that college- and even graduate-level education are required to function effectively in a profession.

The fire service has mixed experience with education. Few fire departments require any college-level education for entry. Many require an associate's degree for low- and mid-level managers, or give preference to those with degrees.

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, combined with the expansion of online education, higher education in the fire service has exploded. With the proliferation of programs, which include not only fire administration programs but also ones in public administration, organizational leadership, emergency management and other related subjects, the fire service is becoming increasingly more educated. To match this component of professionalism, however, education in some form must become mandatory.

Credentials and licenses provide a form of regulatory professional oversight. Recognizing both the complexity of certain roles and the potential catastrophic nature of failure in fulfilling those roles, governments long have regulated critical professions, including medicine, engineering and the law. In the United States, the fire service is largely unregulated, except in areas that are overseen by other fields (EMS, which is controlled by the Department of Transportation and the medical profession, and hazardous materials, which is regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, are two examples). Some states have robust training programs based on NFPA standards, but 34 states do not require any firefighter certification. Of the remaining states, 11 require certification only for firefighters employed by government. Obviously, most organizations require their members to achieve certain training requirements, but it differs among departments.

It may appear to the public that the fire service requires no formalized training to achieve success — otherwise, government would regulate the field, as it does law enforcement and emergency medicine. To some extent, this lack of mandated training works against the fire service's efforts to be viewed as professionals.

By some metrics, the fire service has excelled at ongoing education. Typically, fire departments require far more weekly or monthly training than most other agencies. In-station training covers a wide range of topics, including discussions of new ways to handle unusual incidents. These are all indicative of successful ongoing education programs. Some crews, however, could repeat the same basic level training or spend time viewing videos instead of engaging in practical evolutions. They might spend all their training time on refining basic skills and not enough on tactical decision-making, which is more often a contributing factor to unsuccessful operations. To be effective, ongoing education must hone existing skills while increasing the operational and administrative capacities. This is not a balance easily achieved.

Professional standards are accepted parameters within which professionals act. The legal profession has its canons, providing ethical standards by which all lawyers are judged. While some aspects may carry criminal sanctions, they are for the most part overseen and enforced by professional peers, with all attorneys bound to respect them. The medical profession has expected standards of performance, which also are overseen through peer review. The accepted standards of performance of both professions are encompassed within their certification processes: the medical boards or bar exams.

The NFPA does provide a framework for performance standards, but the "according to the authority having jurisdiction" clause found in all its standards permits customization in each state, and could be used to justify customization in the estimated 36,000 fire departments in the United States. The same applies to many of the standards established by OSHA, which permit the employer to determine how to meet specific performance standards. Accreditation agencies provide a skeleton for identifying standards, but they too allow organizations to establish their own criteria for operations and administration.

Such customization can be a good thing, as it permits localities to create and maintain the level of fire protection that best meets their needs, matching their concept of the proper size and scope of government. In effect, this permits local governments to operate within the system of federalism devised by the founding fathers. Such frameworks are not standards, however. They permit organizations to develop standards that in some ways parallel one another and have similar components, but whose parts are distinctly different. All aircraft have engines, control systems, seating and landing gear, but there are distinct differences between cargo planes, passenger jets, crop dusters, helicopters and seaplanes. As these aircraft are distinctly different, so too are fire departments that build differently on shared conceptual frameworks.

Even if the fire service is able to create and sustain these four pillars of professionalism, the work ultimately will be unsuccessful if it is built on an unstable foundation. The foundation for any public agency is public image; a favorable public image contributes to an agency's support, funding and freedom to operate with limited oversight. While the fire service typically has high favorability ratings among the public, that doesn't always translate into a professional image.

Consider some of the internal discussions the fire service has had over the past few years from the view of the public. There have been debates on whether to permit drinking in fire stations or deny line-of-duty-death benefits to members with illegal drugs found in their systems. There have been discussions of when and why it is acceptable to feed fellow fire service members dog food and instances of childish hazing that would embarrass college students. The debate on whether members should comply with existing state laws or departmental regulations to wear seatbelts seems never-ending. While many would argue that these are simplistic representations of these events, or argue that there are cultural issues making handling such issues problematic, they negatively affect the fire service's image of professionalism.

It is interesting to note that in the discussion of professionalism, the issue of pay has barely emerged, and even then it was not a critical issue. Some believe that compensation in any form is the definition of professionalism. If it is, it is only one shadow of the concept. Volunteers have served this nation in many ways: the fire service, the Red Cross, free medical clinics, state militias early in the country's history. Clearly, they were able to provide valuable and valued services. Professionalism is based on preparation and performance — not on pay.

To join, most fire departments require applicants be at least 18 years old and have a high-school education or GED, a valid driver's license, good physical health and no felony convictions. While these requirements have served the fire service well in the past, it may be time to set the bar higher.

Fire departments should consider at least some college-level education, if only to show that the applicant is prepared to learn at higher levels in the future. Fire chiefs should pursue state-mandated minimum training certifications, if only to commit symbolically to increased professionalism. Ongoing education should be monitored closely, ensuring crews do not inadvertently waste the opportunity to spend on-duty hours improving their skills. At least at the state level, the fire service needs to eliminate all forms of territoriality and agree on some standardized best practices. Doing so will support the fire service's professional image and improve collaboration on major incidents.

The pursuit of professionalism isn't about fixing something broken; it's about making something good even better. The fire service has been able to step up and meet the demands of large-scale catastrophes like the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, the Pentagon and the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005. And the public admires firefighters for doing so. But the fire service deals with routine emergencies out of the public's view.

Increased professionalism will help the fire service serve the public even better. Perhaps more importantly, increased professionalism will give the fire service a place at the policy and planning tables at the local, state and federal levels, allowing it to help to make communities safer and more disaster-resistant than before.

None of this suggests that the federal government should impose a national standard, or that state legislatures should create systems for processes with which they are unfamiliar. For many professions, Congress or state legislatures have mandated certain certifications or licenses to practice within a field, but have insisted that the profession create its own oversight board to monitor and regulate performance according to accepted professional standards. Perhaps this model would suit the fire service best. Perhaps not. It is also likely that the system will have to be crafted to address the large numbers of volunteers within the fire service.

This is a path the fire service is inevitably going to have to take. It would be better served to move proactively now, seeking to create a system that will meet the public demands for professional service, while simultaneously protecting the core values and traditions of the fire service, instead of waiting for a system to be imposed at some future date. The choice is ours. Why not make it a wise one?

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Thomas E. Poulin, ABD, MIFireE, is a doctoral candidate in public administration and urban policy and serves on the adjunct faculty of Nova Southeastern University, Old Dominion University and the National Fire Academy. He currently serves as a battalion chief with a metro-sized fire department in southeast Virginia. He may be contacted attpoulin@odu.edu.

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