Last May, Cortez Trotter became the commissioner of the Chicago Fire Department. The department had been the subject of controversy and examination since six people died from smoke inhalation after they were trapped in a stairwell during a high-rise fire.

A Chicago native, Trotter spent three years as a firefighter/paramedic with the Markham Fire Department and two years as an emergency medical technician at Ingalls Memorial Hospital in Harvey before joining the Chicago Fire Department in 1976. After numerous promotions, including assistant chief, chief paramedic and first deputy commissioner, Mayor Richard M. Daley named him executive director of the Office of Emergency Communications in 2001.

As executive director, Trotter was responsible for planning the city's response to major emergencies and defining the activities of city departments at disaster scenes. He has coordinated city procedures with the federal Department of Homeland Security, as well as with the federal and state emergency management agencies. His office has developed a number of new systems, including a new communications vehicle and an emergency telephone notification system.

Trotter received the Paramedic of the Year award in 1980 and the Department Achiever award in 1987.

There have been a lot of changes in the Chicago Fire Department since you took over last May. There's also a perception that you're a different commissioner than previous chiefs.

Different? Probably. I believe that in the years that I've spent with the Chicago Fire Department, it's been my experience that the one thing the department was not able to develop and embrace is a strong strategic plan — a vision, a focus for the department. That's not to say my predecessors didn't have a vision, but I think that … it's missed in government agencies, specifically public safety agencies. If you don't have a strong mission that backs up your vision or vice versa, then you have a tendency to become so tied to the day to day that you somehow miss the opportunity to fulfill the long-range vision you had for the department.

Am I going to be different? I learned from the Jim Joyces and the Ed Altmans, Lou Galantis and even a thing or two of what not to do from Bill Blair, but in learning from these former fire commissioners, I felt that it was time for us to do things a little bit differently. Learning some of the good things that they were able to do, I intend to build on those, but I intend to push down below that.

What do you have in mind?

If there's anything that underscores the direction I want us to go in, other than the abstract progressive, other than the modern-day fire department, it would be one of intensified training and executive development. I believe that at the street level, the core mission of the department — as we state, “We'll be there when the people need us” — it involves an intense amount of ongoing training.

Chicago is no different than every other city in this country. We are, thankfully, experiencing a decline in structural fires. We should be grateful that our fire prevention efforts and code changes have come to a place in our cities where the fires are down.

We are also a department, not unlike many others, where a lot of the senior and more experienced fire chiefs and officers have reached a point of retirement. When you factor in those two things, it's easy to see there exists a void of whether or not your next wave of chief officers, captains, and even frontline lieutenants and firefighters have the depth of experience we once had across the country. If people are honest, they'll admit it exists.

So what do you do? Do you live on your laurels? Do you live on the fact that you once had a whole host of fires that gave you this experience? Or do you look at it differently and say, without these fires and without the attrition rate of any major city or department being what it is, how do you ensure that your next generation of firefighters and company officers know exactly what to do when the alarm sounds? Well I believe the key to it is training. I believe the key to it is developing policies that are training-centered.

Unlike what I believe I experienced in the department — develop a policy, issue the policy, and count on the grass-roots level embracing the policy and conducting the training — I think that you issue a policy based on real-life experiences, based on ideas and suggestions from the bottom person up. I think you check that policy through exercises and drills, and then you institute that policy, but you don't leave it there.

Once you institute the policy, then you ensure that every person in the fire department is trained in that policy so you can gauge the level of effectiveness. At the same time, you're giving them an opportunity to do a hands-on training exercise on that policy so that if and when the time comes and they have to use that policy, whether it's for incident command at high-rise fires or a non — incident command rubbish fire, you are sure that if they are one of those units that does not have one of those long-time experienced chiefs on the scene, you can still know you are giving them the best tools and the best experience you can offer them short of an actual long-standing series of fires.

If they don't follow through, how are you going to be able to enforce that?

This is what I mean by training and executive development. The executive development is extremely important in terms of your command-level and executive command — level personnel. The way you ensure that it's done is exercise and drills to see how proficient they are in carrying out this policy. I'm the type of commissioner who is just out there. When I'm invited to lunch, I'm out there. I need exercises. I don't just sit back there and count on people to carry them out for me. I don't micro-manage, but I am very much engaged in what's being taught not only to the rank-and-file firefighters and paramedics, but to the command-level staff as well.

I believe that the way to ensure that the training and policies that you create are embraced and carried out is to

1. Make sensible policies and people will embrace them, and
2. They're carried out because people are made more accountable.

The 53-page high-rise incident command order that was issued over my signature breaks the level of accountability and responsibility down to every individual who responds to a high-rise incident. If there is some type of breach in the structure of the command and control of an event, you can easily trace it back to where it broke down, and those individuals will be held accountable.

It's difficult to hold people accountable when you have not given them the level of training that they should have. You can easily charge people with infractions and suspend them, but is that really fair? If I know that from the fire commissioner down to the lowest-in-seniority firefighter and paramedic have received this policy not only in terms of written document, but also a hands-on in how this policy fits you and your specific role in your specific company, if I know that's been done, then I have no problem holding people accountable in terms of progressive discipline.

With all the training you're planning, will the training facilities and staffing the department currently has increase?

The CFD training facility is at its capacity of what it's able to do. We are looking at different options in terms of seeking outside financing for a new training facility. We feel that the programs that are yet to be unveiled won't require us to have more space or more personnel. I believe we can accomplish that training without wreaking havoc on our corporate budget. It's a delicate balance of how much you can get done with new programs and new initiatives without standing out by the budget director's door every month tapping into the corporate fund. I believe there is a balance that can be struck, and I plan to do that.

As a former paramedic, what was your role in the department's overhaul and necessary changes to EMS?

It was very significant. It was my responsibility as deputy commissioner of EMS to look at what strategy made sense for the types and volume of calls we were receiving for EMS and how they impacted the larger fire department. Simply put, it didn't take a statistician to figure out that 53% of the call volume that EMS received was for Basic Life Support — type calls. Another 20% were no-service calls and didn't require any paramedic role at all. That left 27% of the calls that were in fact Advanced Life Support calls.

We questioned if we were getting to the patients with the proper medical care in a timely manner. In a capsule, were the emergency medical services in the City of Chicago operating efficiently and in the best interest of the public? We did a pretty substantial analysis that not only was revolutionary for this fire department, but that fulfills that question completely.

There was a call for more ambulances, but what we determined from the analysis was the foundation of a strategy that while we probably did need new ambulances, we also needed the right type of ambulances and a broader level of response to EMS calls. We ended up adding BLS ambulances to absorb some of the Basic Life Support calls to which we were sending Advanced Life Support ambulances. If the ALS ambulance is out on a BLS call, then that ALS is not available for a heart attack.

How do we absorb some of those BLS calls so that the ALS ambulances are available for true emergencies? One way was to add BLS; another way was to add paramedics to the engines and create ALS engines. Another component was to increase the BLS staffing on engines and trucks and make them all AED-equipped engines and trucks. We ended up with a tiered-response strategy. In that strategy — it needs to be revisited and tweaked — but the tiered-response strategy brought in a dual-response strategy on engines and trucks and brought the BLS ambulances with EMTs and kept the ALS at the level they needed to be. That's where we are now, and there's more to be done in that area.

All new recruits from the fire academy are trained EMTs, too?

They are trained to EMT level, a change made when I got here. When new candidates came into the academy, they received their firefighting first, and then as an add-on they received their EMT training. What I changed was the emphasis to be on the actual calls where the volume exists. They will see dozens if not hundreds of medical emergencies before they see an actual fire.

When they come into the academy now, they do their EMT first and as a result, as they say, the first impression is the lasting one. While all candidates come from an existing firefighters list, we want them to be dual-purpose firefighters. We want them to be firefighters who can deal with the structures and can deal with medical emergencies. As it stands now, unless statistics change drastically, we will continue to do 80% of our work in the area of medical emergency; that's not only in Chicago but around the country.

We have to think differently. The tiered-response strategy was pretty revolutionary for this fire department, and that was my personal project as deputy commissioner of EMS.

In the James Lee Witt Associates report on the fatal high-rise fire in October 2003, were there any surprises?

It's appropriate for me to thank James Lee Witt and his associates and prior to that, Judge [Abner] Mikva and his commission that released what I thought was a well — thought-through report. I believe both of the reports are insightful. Both reports offer some good advice, good recommendations.

I was pleased to read the initial report, and subsequent to that the Witt report, to know that we were already on the right track with what we had already started to institute. That gave me some level of comfort and confirmation that we had already started to do the right things. The other initiative that we had that was being fleshed out was through training and policy revisions that made sense for the CFD were some of the recommendations that they brought forth.

Without attempting to say we have all the answers, I was happy to see we were happily out in front of that curve.

As result of that fire, you introduced Rapid Ascent Teams. How did the RATs come about, and on what is that training based?

We have received inquires from a number of cities on what we're doing with Rapid Ascent Teams, as well as requests for our new incident command for high-rise buildings and anything else to reshape response to high-rise buildings.

I don't know that the concept is so revolutionary. We're not giving any specialized training per se: We're taking the teams of individuals who already respond and do search-and-rescue functions, and dedicating them solely to that very early on in an incident.

For example, when your readers see RAT, some will say, “These are just search-and-rescue teams,” and that's exactly what they are. However, the operative word here is rapid. You take the search-and-rescue teams. We take the baseline of two trucks — that's 10 people — and we can inject as many other RATs as would be driven by the height of the building and the amount of square footage we have to cover in a short period of time.

Everybody knows about primary search and secondary search. What we've done here is take the primary search and squared it, raising it to another level. It's recognized around the country to include a few floors above and a few floors below, and then as you get into your secondary search, it's expanded. What we are doing with RATs is effectuating the primary search not only in the immediate area of the fire floor, but we're getting to the other parts of the building in the first few minutes of the fire. These teams are experienced and already have the equipment in place. We're moving them up in the process.

What other fire departments across the country do you look to for innovative ideas?

I look at them all. One of the departments that I believe continues to be very progressive in the way they approach public safety — and fire service in particular — is Seattle. Phoenix does a nice job; very progressive-minded in the way they initiate strategies that are not mundane and not already out there. They believe in being progressive. I can't leave out New York and Los Angeles, which I think are also reaching outside of their norms to create departments that are more modern.

When I had my executive-development [training] for my top-level command staff, I brought in Alan Brunacini from the Phoenix Fire Department. It was interesting because he couldn't believe that Chicago was actually reaching out to him to come in and teach on anything.

I think large metropolitan departments need to get away from that “we have all the answers” [mindset]. We need to have an appreciation for smaller departments, maybe for no other reason than they have more time to explore different things than we have, or maybe they have a work force that is more aggressive in pursuing the different. Large departments need to acknowledge that we can learn from everybody.

I have no reluctance in calling out to Chief John Norman in New York; he came in to teach high-rise incident command. I have no problem in reaching to Los Angeles to teach any variety of subjects, but at the same time, I believe that I can do a service to my command-level staff if I reach out to the Brunacinis of this world. I formed an unprecedented partnership with the University of Illinois and the Illinois Fire Service Institute's Director Dick Jahne. They are heavily involved in the high-rise incident command training we're doing.

We cannot continue to believe that, by virtue of size and volume, we have all the answers. The one thing that holds true is that yes, we have the size, but what continues to change is that we don't have the volume we once had. Not having the volume means that you have to have those levels of training to keep people interested and aggressive, and that's what I found that a lot of the smaller departments have continued to do. They don't have the volume, so they train and train again and come up with innovative ways to address the fire situation and all-hazard type of events.

One big difference we've seen in the past several years is that the Chicago Fire Department is working with suburban mutual aid departments. It sounds like you plan to continue that relationship.

One of my first meetings was with Chief Jay Reardon of the Illinois Mutual Aid Box Alarm System. I happen to believe I don't have all the answers, and I happen to believe that CFD doesn't have all the answers just because it's the biggest department.

In my estimation, CFD is a world-class fire department, no doubt about it, I just believe we can always do better.

There's a new breed of city chiefs and commissioners coming about. How much longer will fire chiefs exist?

Administrators. You hear this thrown about a lot and it's old, but I believe from the depth of my heart this is a business and you have to manage it like a business. You cannot afford to be in the apex of leadership in a fire department and view it as a big firehouse. You will fail. You will make decisions that are completely biased. You will make decisions that are extremely counter-productive. You will make decisions based on yesteryear as opposed to making decisions that are based on facts and data. When you do something other than that, then the emotion comes in. When you make emotional decisions, you will get emotional results. When you make logical decisions, you'll get logical results.

As a result, it's my strong belief that's where the whole idea of strategic-planning process comes in, in terms of leading organizations. Not just the large Fortune 500 companies, but for the Chicago Fire Department and departments across the country.

You have budgetary constraints; you have equipment and personnel restraints. You have an industry that at one time thrived and was well-experienced because of the volume of calls you had. When you start to see a change in any of those variables, it's foolhardy to think you're operating the same fire department, because you're not. No business does for long because they're either out of business or somebody else steps in to take their place.

For fire departments it's incumbent upon the leaders, and that's why when I'm long gone from here, it's certainly my hope that the executive-development process that I put in place while I'm here will outlive me in terms of producing fire commissioners that not only have a passion for the profession, but also a firm grasp and passion for the business side of how this department operates.

There's a big push currently on health and safety. It drives me nuts that here in Chicago, I don't see seat-belted firefighters and particularly white shirts in the front seats. What's your position on safety issues?

I recently unveiled a very aggressive physical fitness program for CFD. It will be completely voluntary, but I believe that you can institute voluntary programs and get mandatory-type results if you institute it properly.

Part of the rollout of this program is to provide instructors, almost like personal trainers, to go the companies and work with the individuals at each firehouse and show a department-made workout video and demonstrate the type of exercises they should be doing — the exercises that yield the most results and can be easily done without putting on sweats and gym shoes.

In addition to that, we'll be providing nutritional guidelines so we are cooking healthier. I'm not trying to put every firefighter on [the] Seattle Sutton [healthy-eating program], but I'm trying to say there are ways to prepare a meal that is less dangerous than you are now.

I will continue to work with the union to make the mandatory component a reality, but I'm not going to sit and wait on that. It's incumbent upon me to do what I can do right now for the men and women of this department.

About the seatbelts, I can assure you that the CFD already has a policy about seatbelts, and anyone who is not meeting that policy will face the consequences. I'm glad you mentioned that to me, in the whole sphere of safety, it's something that will receive a renewed level of interest from everybody from the fire commissioner down to the company officer. We will be in seatbelts.

Another issue that's close to my heart is bunker gear. We're one of the last major cities to go with bunker gear. Why? That's unbelievable. I took a very aggressive approach with bunker gear, and as a result I have a recommendation from the committee and it will go to procurements. I anticipate we will be in bunker gear; beginning in the next 90 days they will start to transition to bunker gear.

New bunker gear! What's a life worth? It's proven to be safer. It's proven to add other levels of flexibility of what a firefighter is able to do. I don't need any more proof. I just need to move the program.

And for the die-hard traditionalist who doesn't want to give up his smoky, used, battered gear?

They have an option — or they can work some place else.

What are some of your other plans for CFD?

The CFD is investigating our first-ever symposium, … a large-scale symposium. We'd bring in some of the best, talented people we know and give people a chance to showcase their talent. We're seriously investigating an avenue to bring in some of the nation's finest and most respected, to draw people from around the country and be part of what's taking shape in Chicago.

I believe we have a lot to offer. We have a new and very aggressive perspective. A very old cliché is when people say we need to think outside of the box. I don't want to see any boxes. I want our thoughts to be so progressive that we're not thinking outside of boxes because we've already confined ourselves. I don't want to see any boxes.

Orozco Runs Down Response Changes

Chicago Fire Department Chief Ray Orozco was incident commander at the LaSalle Bank fire on Dec 6. While Orozco describes himself as being much more comfortable in the background, he shared some insight on the high-rise fire and the department's new response plan.

The Chicago Fire Department has implemented a series of changes since Commissioner Trotter took over last May. How did it go?

The commitment to resources was one area that we changed. For a still alarm, we went from sending two engines, two trucks and two chiefs to sending four engines, four trucks, three chiefs, a rescue squad, an ambulance and a field officer. And everyone has a designated task to perform. The way the order is written, that allows us to simultaneously get water on the fire and start searches.

How were you able to train and implement a new response order in just over 60 days?

When the order came out, we did an in-service training and it was intense. We brought down all the chief officers who were working that day … in shifts to go through the order with them. It didn't just get put out and with 72 battalion chiefs there were 72 different interpretations of the order.

We came up with a hands-on training and used the same template we used for the rapid-intervention training and the large-area search. For 45 days we trained two four-hour training sessions a day, hands-on. We went through the stairwell searches for the Rapid Ascent Teams. We used props — rabbit tool, theatrical smoke to fill a building — and we ran everybody through that. And for 45 days, that allows us to get every member in operations.…

One of the goals of the training we did was evacuation of the stairwells and the smoke tower.

The bank building had an old-fashioned smoke tower, not mechanical. It had double-hung windows, similar to what was called a Philadelphia tower in the '30s, but not exactly that. A Philadelphia tower was actually attached to the outside of a building; this one was attached inside the building, and that remained the evacuation stairwell. We kept that stairwell pristine and we brought people across and down the evacuation stairwell.

There were only two stairwells that serviced above the 25th floor in the building. One was the fire attack stairwell and the other was the evacuation stairwell. We don't know how many people were above the fire floor at that time of the fire, but there was a lot — trust me, there was a lot.

The training worked. The lobby control company guy was on the firemen panel making announcements through the PA. The chief officers and the company officers used the fire phones every five floors in the stairwell to keep the radio clear. All this stuff we went over in the training paid dividends.

What really helped us too was that we had done five walk-through drills in high-rises. On Saturdays and Sundays over the past three or four months, we went through with no fire clothes. What are you thinking? What are you going to say? How are you going to go to work? We had everybody go through a still alarm response and a box alarm response.…

We got feedback from those in the drill; this works and this doesn't.… It all helped tremendously.