“So what would you say, you do here?”
“What exactly is it that the fire inspector does? Why are
you here? There’s nothing on fire!” some of the common questions you are faced
with when greeting a business owner or tenant. “I’m not responsible if anything
is wrong.” My personal favorite is, “I didn’t do it! They did it! Arrest them!”
as a joke to our uniforms looking similar to law enforcement. This is followed
by a chuckle induced on their part, and an awkward explanation that I’m not the
police. (Which usually makes me wonder what this person may have done that this
is their first reaction.) You explain why you are there to perform your
inspection. As a matter of fact, Aside from insurance company, (or OSHA
post-accident) we are the only ones that perform an inspection on a routine
basis. And why is that? Why is it that the fire service is the only agency out
to ensure safety of the public in terms of unsafe structures?
I find that to be a rhetorical question. As with most things
in this fire service, we devout ourselves to Life safety. It is our universal
creed to “protect life and property”. This is something that is on display when
there is a fire. There is smoke, flames, commotion, and action. Water is flowing,
lights are flashing, and radios blaring. Jargon is thrown around and understood
by all involved, while countless onlookers can’t help but be enamored by the
brave and heroic actions performed in front of their eyes. Their motions seem
seamless. Ladders being thrown into the sky, humans climbing into a dangerous
caves of heat and flames, all while those working stay calm and collected.
Sounds pretty wild and exciting right? But there is another
side to the fire service. The other guys. The fire inspectors. They are like
the hall monitors of the real world. “Don’t do this, don’t use that. This is
against code. This is has to be repaired.” We are the last people a business owner
wants to see for fear of two things, Shutting down their business due to safety
risk, or assessing penalties and taking from their profits. However, it is the
goal to not have to do this at all. The last thing any fire inspector wants to
do, is create tension from those we are trying to protect, and themselves. We
are in the business of safety, we want everyone to be safe and not have to
worry about their own safety when working or visiting in our jurisdiction. In a
perfect world, everything would never be a risk, but that’s not why we are
here. We take our jobs seriously, some more serious than others, but our goal
is to keep not only fires, but disasters from happening.
We do not have legal right to inspect private dwellings, a
man’s home is his castle, and we can’t tell them how to live. Statistically,
most fires occur within living dwellings, and aside from Community Risk Reduction
programs, our hands are tied. Whoa, he just threw out a term, what’s it all
mean? Community risk reduction is a fairly new concept to the fire service. Although
forms of it have been around for decades, this is the new fancy term. It’s a simple
concept, figure out what is causing harm in your community, and fix it. If your
community is having an issue with car accident, you launch a campaign to
reducing distracted driving. If you identify that senior citizens are unable to
maintain their household smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, you implement a
program to change their batteries and install detectors. It is not reinventing
the wheel, and if you spin it in the right direction you can shed a positive
light on what the functions your agencies provide. Sometimes something as
simple as changing a battery makes a world of impact to a resident.
Although we cannot tell people how to live, we can educate
them on safe practices. The overwhelming majority of adults don’t know how
dangerous extension cords are. Many made from cheap materials overseas and
often overloaded due to societies dependency on various forms of electronics.
Once you hit a certain part of your education, it’s assumed that you understand
how to prevent fires from happening. In my experience it is something that needs
to constantly be taught. Before media and viral videos were a thing, our
delivery method was to educate the children and hoping that the kids will speak
to their parents over dinner.
One particular jurisdiction I worked for, utilized a video
released by a worldwide recognized association, used a scare tactic of a
missing child in a fire. This scared the living hell out of these kids, only to
have her happily and cheerfully return at the end of the video because she was “staying
at a friend’s house during the night of the fire”. Ha-ha that old gag! Complaints
flooded in and the video was never shown again. But it worked. It got the
family talking. Although that was not a great tactic, as a profession and with
the use of social media, we have been able to make leaps and bounds on being
able to spread information to the masses.
Which, Side story: Every year in October, we as a profession
designate a week to educate the masses, each year it’s a battle for children’s
attention in hopes that they will retain some of the information we present
them. However, something refreshing happened yesterday. I delivered a
presentation to a group of special needs adults, who were genuinely excited to
see us. It wasn’t forced, it wasn’t scripted, and it was fun! (Not that presentations
with children are not fun). But they were excited for us, and we were excited
to answer their questions. They even taught us a few things.
So aside from us educating the public, we ensure safety in
the buildings people use every day. The malls, the supermarket, office
buildings, the circus, anywhere the public has access to, we inspect routinely.
Why? To ensure the public can safely attend and leave in the event of an
emergency. As society has evolved, fires are less and other forms of mass
evacuation are more common. Which further emphasizes the job that we do in
keeping the public safe. The best part, 99.9% of the population, don’t have any
idea that we do this, until something doesn’t go to plan. But that’s why we are
here, to make sure that simple things like doors and emergency lighting
function when the excrement strikes the oscillator.
In the event something does occur and there is a fire, we
take on the responsibility of investigating it. We have an obligation to the
public to discover why the fire happened and to prevent it from happening
again. This occurs not only on a local level but on a national level. We
utilize a national incident reporting system that allows us to enter our
findings and compare them across the nation to find trends. These reports and
investigation help to identify consumer product defects, thus keeping the
public safe.
This line of work is not always exciting. Many times, it is
far from it. (Nobody aside from myself and a few select eager beavers have
gotten excited about codes) However, when you take a step back and look at what
we do on a daily basis, it’s a pretty unknown. But those who know the job, know
we keep disasters from happening, all while most don’t know we are doing it.
(All those words to make checking exit signs and fire extinguishers
seem exciting. Happy Fire Prevention Month!)
