- Author
- Neal, C.
- Title
- Fire Officer Professional Development in the United States: A Varied History, Recent Developments, and Future Challenges.
- Coporate
- Oklahoma State Univ., Stillwater
- Book or Conf
- International Fire Information Conference, 2nd. Proceedings. May 27-31, 2002, London, England, 2002
- Keywords
- fire departments | fire fighters | planning | decision making
- Identifiers
- first generation (1700-1945); second generation (1946-1969); third generation (1970-today); Chief Fire Officer Designation Program (CFOD)
- Abstract
- Over the past three centuries, the fire service in the United States has evolved not in a planned, organized, or rational manner, but rather more convulsively in reaction to significant or tragic events. While each of these events had a direct impact and was significant in their own right, together over time they read like a roadmap of this evolution - Charleston, Chicago, Rhodes Opera House, Iroquois Theatre, Triangle Shirtwaist, Coconut Grove Club, Beverly Hills Supper Club, MGM Grand Hotel, Hamlet Processing Plant (Wieder, 1993), and more recently, Oklahoma City and September 11th. At each of these stages, the professional development of the service as a whole has supported and in turn been supported by the evolution of the professionalism of the individual firefighter. Yet, as one would consider this evolution as a function of change over time, the graph would not only rise significantly with each event, but even more exponentially over the past few decades. Interestingly, if one were to similarly compare this progress with that of the U.K fire service over most of the latter half of the past century, one would see a parallel movement, but through a different approach. While the latter moved towards a national, common model for firefighter progression, the former struggled to gain a national consensus on an overall approach, resulting in varying degrees of professionalism across local jurisdictions. While this primarily is a reflection of the systems of government to which each is primarily responsible (i.e. U.S. - local focus, U.K. - national focus), it may also be a result of each service's individual experience to a common event - World War II. And yet, it is impressive that while the approaches were different, each has made significant (and as noted substantial and parallel) progress in individual firefighter professional development and subsequently, substantial advancement in the professionalism of their respective services.