New Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Ray E. Orozco Jr. knows the community the department serves very well. In his 26 years with the CFD, Orozco has served in every neighborhood in the city.

Last year, as deputy fire commissioner in the Bureau of Operations, Orozco taught one of the High-Rise Incident Classes as part of the CFD's 2005 High-Rise Life-Safety Conference. He coordinated operations at the LaSalle Bank Fire, the Ford City gas explosion and a commuter train derailment. Orozco's philosophy is strong on sharing experiences, as well as learning from others.

How are you enjoying your new role?

It's a lot of responsibility. People ask me if I was happy [to be appointed], and that's the wrong word. It's more of a somber feeling only because I look at the city a little differently than I did before. It's a tremendous sense of responsibility, and a lot of people are counting on me — men and women who wear the uniform, and then there's the people who live in this city.

You taught some of the high-rise classes and participated in the high-rise drills last year. Will you do that again as commissioner?

Last year, the CFD's High-Rise Life Safety Conference was created to be different from other conferences. It was very interactive and hands-on.

We opened up to share our experiences, and more importantly, we opened up to listen to the experiences of others. In this business, we can't afford not to learn from other people's mistakes….

This year will be a little bit of a shift to focus more on large-scale evacuations. In light of recent disasters in this country, we need to really focus on the events that brought about large-scale evacuations.

The only large-scale evacuation in Chicago that I'm aware was in 1982; we had to evacuate the central business district due to a large flood. That's one of the things I'm looking forward to sharing with colleagues at this conference. Whether it's the 1982 flood or an 80-story high rise, the concept of mass evacuations is one that we will examine.

In Chicago on Sept. 11, 2001, it was interesting trying to get a train out of this city. Everyone was calm, but masses of people were trying to leave.

It also happened in the blackout in New York. That's one of the elements of human behavior. Whether you're a fire or police chief, chief safety officer or emergency management, the conference is going to look carefully at human behavior. We know human behavior at a fire, but evacuations are new and it's really good that we've got this experience to bring people together to start to share with our colleagues. There's a real need for interactive programs.

Obviously NIMS is a big topic for 2007. How much of NIMS will be part of CFD's conference?

It's woven into a lot of what we will do in the Life-Safety Conference. For the recent immigration march with over 400,000 people in Chicago, we created Incident Action Plans that were all NIMS-compliant. We started doing that over two years ago to be NIMS compliant and looked at it differently from other departments. It's like muscle-memory to us, and this conference allows us to share the actual concept of NIMS and IAPS with others.

We develop IAPS on a daily basis. We had a three-day tabletop about the pandemic, and it was good for other departments to see what we're trying to do. It was good also because we didn't think to include the health department. Who thought we'd be talking about pandemic? Five years ago if I talked to you about anthrax, you'd think it was something you found on a farm, not a city, but a few years ago we had 75 anthrax runs a day here.

Why should chiefs and officers attend the Chicago Life-Safety Conference?

No matter what type of an evacuation it is, the call for evacuation will fall on the shoulders of the fire chief. Chiefs are no longer guys standing in front of a burning factory; that's not the role of a fire chief anymore.

One of the sessions we will include is how small towns should learn to reach up — reach for state assistance, reach up for the feds to get this stuff going and get the help they need. It's a chance to interact and share ideas with people from all over.

The networking is really critical, and it's a way to give back to people. I talk to people of all ranks whom I met last year on a regular basis. There was a large demand for our high-rise orders, so I zipped it out to a lot of people, and the feedback with additional suggestions has been great.

Another reason to come to our Life-Safety Conference? It's the most beautiful city in the world. Where else can you come to the lakefront? And it's held the same weekend as the Chicago Air Show. The city sells itself.

It's a very unique opportunity. Only a fool rests on his laurels. We'll listen to anything.