Conducted annually as a small, invitation-only conclave of U.S. and British chief officers, the United Kingdom/United States Fire Service Symposium met for the ninth time April 18-20 in Cincinnati, hosted by Chief Bob Rielage of the Wyoming (Ohio) Fire Department.

Compared with previous symposia, this one featured slightly fewer topics covered in greater depth and with more discussion among the two-dozen delegates.

First on the agenda, Sunday morning, was a progress report on the U.K. fire strike by CFO David O'Dwyer of the Hereford and Worcester Fire Brigade.

As things stand now, the Fire Brigades Union will receive a total 15.2% pay increase between November 2002 and July 2004, as opposed to the 40% for which they originally went on strike. The downside for local government is that fire authorities have to self-fund this increase, by service cuts if necessary. One possible result will be even greater regionalization, from the current 61 brigades in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to just 21.

Next up was “9/11 Plus Two Years” on progress in homeland security by Cortez Lawrence, director of National Fire Programs at the USFA. “There's a lot of activity going on,” he said, “but the problem is making sure it's the right activity.”

One initiative he described was a memorandum of understanding with the IAFC Metro Chiefs Section on Incident Management Team training at five levels, from Type 1 (village or township) to Type 5 (national and state level). A pilot program was started in April in Arlington, Va., and the next one will be in Pennsylvania. For more information on this program, visit www.usfa.fema.gov/fire-service/incident/imt-roadmap.shtm.

Monday kicked off with a presentation by CFO Paul Young of the Devon (U.K.) Fire and Rescue Service on “Integrated Risk Management as a Part of the Strategic Change Process.”

One of the key components of implementing the program is replacing the standards of cover that have been in place in the United Kingdom since soon after World War II. The new system, which isn't yet in place, will focus on outcomes, such as lower life and property loss, rather than on fixed expectations about response levels and times. While some chief fire officers have abetted the government's expectations of significant financial savings, others disagree, saying there just isn't much fat left in most fire brigades.

Young anticipates that his extra managerial flexibility under the new system could let him save 20% of his roughly $1 million annual cost of answering automatic fire alarms, simply by reducing the normal response to one engine. Overall, though, he described the cost savings driven by the IRMP as “quite limited.”

Chiefs from both countries weighed in on the difficulty of demonstrating results from prevention programs, whether targeted at fire or something else. Lawrence mentioned the recent uproar over the DARE program's highly publicized lack of results.

Monday afternoon's main presentation was by Jim Smalley, senior fire specialist with the NFPA, on the 2003 U.S. wildfire season. Smalley pointed out that more wildland firefighters will be needed to fight ever-larger fires, but where will they come from? A related issue is that it's a 10- to 15-year process to produce a qualified wildland incident commander.

Tuesday, the final day, began with CFO Jeff Goddard of the Buckinghamshire Fire & Rescue Service giving an update on the U.K. fire service's Integrated Personal Development System. IPDS is outcomes-based, like IRMP, and in fact is intended to underpin it. It's a comprehensive development strategy for all personnel, including volunteers and support staff.

Similarly to IRMP, IPDS will give fire brigades more flexibility to decide how to provide training opportunities and even, to an extent, what competencies are needed. Volunteer firefighters will be expected to be trained to the same standards as career personnel. In theory, their skills should be indistinguishable from each other.

The final session, “What We Know About the Structural Collapse of the World Trade Center,” was given by Stephen Cauffman of NIST.

FIRECHIEF.COM

Read “Union Jinx,” Aug. 2003, for more on the U.K. fire service strikes.