NFPA Journal - Spring 2022 - 33

needed to do, but we didn't have the
training. We didn't have the equipment.
We didn't have the resources
that they have today. We did our best,
but it was mainly a trial-and-error
kind of situation. And that's one of
the reasons I think we lost a whole lot
more firefighters back then than we
do today.
How did you go about trying to
change that?
GC: When I came to Hampton,
Virginia [as fire chief in 1992], I
brought that kind of safety-first
outlook with me. I came in and
made a list of things that needed to
change and set out to do it, which
was difficult as an outsider. But I was
hardheaded enough and believed in
what needed to be done, that I started
putting policies in place. It was an
interesting time-I have the lawsuits
to prove it, and I won 'em all. Some of
them took a little longer than others,
but it was my belief that it was the
right thing to do for the people that
worked for us.
What was your argument to the
rest of the department?
GC: I'd tell them that I worked in
Prince George's County, including my
volunteer time, 24 years. And in 24
years, I went to 22 line-of-duty-death
funerals. I've been to all the line-ofduty
funerals that I ever need. I'd say
that the majority of those who lost
their lives didn't need to lose them. I
mean, there were open cabs and no
seatbelts in fire trucks, and several
of them lost their lives by just falling
off the truck. I tried to instill that
same type of safety attitude to all three
of the departments that I was fortunate
enough to be a part of, and then
ultimately when I ran the US Fire
Administration.
Has the past 50 years brought
improvements to the fire service
across the board, or are there
things you would bring back if you
could?
RS: Without question, time has
brought improvements across the
board in every aspect of the profession
compared to when I came in. It's not
near as exciting today, maybe, because
back then it was exciting. But it's a
good tradeoff.
different ideas, the different cultural
backgrounds, all these things bring
strength to a fire department and its
operations, and its ability to understand
a community and its needs. If
everybody in the room thinks like
you and looks like you, you're really
not going to get any kind of creativity
when you're looking for solutions
to problems. We've completed a policy
draft and supporting documentation
on this issue that we'll present to our
membership in May.
Greg Cade
" I'd love to see the federal
government better fund the
US Fire Administration so
that they could be the key to
providing training. I think part
of it is just getting the elected
leadership to understand
the challenges. "
Russ, the Metro Chiefs have
always been on the leading edge
of most issues concerning the fire
service. What do you think are the
most pressing challenges faced
by today's fire service?
RS: The Metro Chiefs have a system
where we actually identify those challenges
by polling our members, and
then we work through those challenges.
Right now we're focused on
ensuring diversity in our departments
and figuring out how to maximize the
use of data-driven decision making. I
believe, and the Metro Chiefs believe,
that there's strength in diversity; the
What about the data piece?
RS: Data is certainly nothing new,
but the challenge facing fire departments
now is how to process more
data faster for preparedness, prevention,
and operations, as well as for
firefighter safety and well-being. It's
more important than ever to manage
the huge input of data we get from
both structured and non-structured
sources. When I say structured data,
I'm talking about data that are typically
well organized, easily formatted,
searchable databases, things like
addresses, incident numbers, response
times, that type of thing, whereas
unstructured data has no predefined
format and is more difficult to analyze,
such as social media, dispatch and
radio recordings, and traffic cameras.
One of our goals is to increase the
data integration into everyday activities.
A key tactic in doing this is the
establishment of more automated data
capture. The chiefs are working to
identify opportunities to integrate technology,
including artificial intelligence
and machine learning into their everyday
data collection. They want to create
partnerships with the tech industry at
the national level so that publicly shared
data can be coupled with the response
data to better understand local communities
and how to provide better fire
department services. It's also a goal to
train everyone in the department so that
we don't just have a few technologically
sophisticated personnel; the idea is to
go through the ranks so that all of our
personnel can be involved.
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