Firefighter vaccine refusal as a reorganization opportunity

In the past I've written about how fire departments these days mostly respond to medical calls, but most departments haven't reorganized to reflect this fact, in part a result of labor contracts which mandate stasis.

-- "Rationalizing fire and emergency services," 2011
-- "Fire department issues in municipalities," 2014
-- "DC's fire department is in the same situation as WMATA in terms of the necessity of a redesign of culture and behavior through a human factors approach," 2015

A column in the Los Angeles Times, "To anti-vax firefighters, bye-bye. Now let's build back better at the LAFD," suggests that the Los Angeles Fire Department has an opportunity to do some reorganization in view of the likelihood that 300-400 firefighters will be put on permanent leave for refusal to get vaccinated.  From the article:

That’s why Andrew Glazier, a former member of the Board of Fire Commissioners, sees a potential mass departure as an opportunity rather than a problem. 

“If you lose several hundred people, and you refuse to change your operating model, then, yeah, you’ll have a big problem,” said Glazier. “But … if they were willing to add single-function paramedics to the department, you can hire them up and have them in the field in six weeks or less, and you can continuously hire them as needed.”

About 85% of the calls for the fire department are medical.  The Firefighters Union represents firefighters not paramedics, and firefighters get paid more.  So the union continues to advocate for firefighters being cross-trained as paramedics, rather than hiring paramedics specifically and reorganizing services to focus on paramedics.  

Although cross-training makes sense too, the reality is that fewer firefighters and related equipment are required to serve the average city today than in the past.

And as it is, comparable to crime analysis approaches in police departments, if fire departments put some resources into "fire suppression" by providing assistance to communities and households where buildings have characteristics indicating the potential for catastrophe, house fires especially would be less of a problem.

As I wrote in 2017, in "I get tired of all the talk about rewarding "failure" because it shows people are trying, and won't be penalized for it":

... [the] article ("Cities Are Having a Data and Analytics-Driven Moment, and It's Likely to Stay") in Government Technology [describes] an initiative in  New Orleans, where the firefighters decided to be proactive in distributing smoke alarms in neighborhoods with a higher rate/risk of fires. From the article:

In New Orleans, the city has been saving lives by using data to predict which of the city’s buildings need to be equipped with fire alarms. Using data collected by the Census and New Orleans Fire Department, the city identified building age, building inhabitant income, and building inhabitant occupation length as strong predictors for determining if a structure may not have a smoke alarm installed. It then mapped this information along with fire risk calculated from resident age data and fire data over the previous five years. The program’s results now inform NOFD’s door-to-door program to install free smoke alarms.

To me the issue isn't big data, but first, the decision (1) to be proactive in distributing smoke alarms, (2) not willy-nilly, but in those neighborhoods with a higher risk for fires.

I find it hard to believe that the Fire Department doesn't analyze runs and fires already to know what types of properties and situations are high risk.

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I do note that DC Fire Department has recently undertaken such an initiative ("Neighbors offer support for family of 7-year-old who died in D.C. rowhouse fire," Washington Post).  But likely such efforts could be more systematic.  From the article:

As the investigation continued into what caused the blaze, D.C. fire officials and firefighters returned to the neighborhood Wednesday morning in hopes of preventing future fires. They arrived with free smoke alarms in hand and printed sheets of fire safety tips, and were welcomed by neighbors, who said they are making efforts to help the family moving forward. 

 “Any time something happens to any of the neighbors, it affects all of us,” said Geoffrey Tate Sr., 65, who has lived in the community for nearly 50 years.... 

Visiting nearly 200 homes Wednesday, groups of fire officials talked to residents on Quebec Place, Rock Creek Church Road, Princeton Place and Warder Street NW. Fire Inspector Celina C. Primus went door-to-door on a block of homes, making sure residents checked for working smoke detectors and had a fire escape plan. 

“When a tragedy like this happens, they want to know someone outside of immediate family cares for them,” Primus said. “We care.”