Firefighters' career field streamlines for success
by Staff Sgt. J.G. Buzanowski
Secretary of the Air Force Public Affairs
9/5/2007 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- The Air Force's top civil engineer wants to change the way Air Force firefighters do business.
As force-shaping measures decrease the overall numbers of firefighters in the Air Force by more than 900 people, Maj. Gen. Del Eulberg said he has had to find new ways to maintain their mission capabilityy to make a streamlined firefighting force more efficient and more effective.
"The secretary of the Air Force challenged us to look at ways to get the mission done with fewer people," General Eulberg said. "For firefighters, it means changing from a 'risk avoidance' stance to a 'risk management' mindset. It means looking at everything we do and asking if that's the way we should still do it."
To solve the manpower issue, General Eulberg said his people adopted several principles laid out by Air Force Smart Operations for the 21st century, or AFSO 21, an Air Force-wide program where organizations re-examine their own procedures and business processes to find ways to save time and money.
What they found were several ways to update and change their own business practices, policies, on-duty staff requirements and other 'old ways of doing business' that did not allow for risk considerations.
There are many things the firefighter career field can change to help them increase their mission performance, while still taking better care of people. For example, installation civil engineer squadrons currently require a full crew of firefighters on duty every single day, whether there are flying operations or not, whether it's a weekend or a holiday or not, General Eulberg said.
"We did a five-year study and found that 70 percent of calls are during duty hours, 17 percent on the weekends and only 1.3 percent on holidays," the general said. "Further, we respond to an aircraft fire about once every 611 days and a structural fire once every 108 days. We don't need to have the same number of people constantly on duty 24 hours a day for that. By varying the number of firefighters on duty, we could provide the level of protection we need to protect people and property with fewer firefighters.
"Other than prevention, the key to fighting a fire is speed, not necessarily numbers," he said. "The ability to intervene early at a fire is the essential element to minimizing damage and injury. The earlier intervention occurs; the fewer firefighters will be required.
"Our firefighters exceed Department of Defense standards when it comes to response time," the general said. "In addition, there are new technologies we're testing to make firefighting more efficient. With all of this in mind, we'll not only maintain our current level of capability, we'll actually exceed it."
Also, the Air Force spent more than 99,000 man-hours in 2006 with a fire crew overseeing supposed hazardous operations, most of which involved aircraft maintenance procedures. Yet, experts could not find a single incident when they've had to put out a fire in five years, General Eulberg said.
"We're challenging the way we do things and 'because we've always done it this way' is no longer an excuse to do something that may not make sense to do anymore," he said.
All of this adds up to being able to staff a firehouse with fewer people during low risk periods and more firefighters during higher risk periods. It will mean more time for firefighters to spend with their families. And because these principles will also be applied at deployed locations, it will mean fewer firefighters will have to be deployed as well, General Eulberg said.
"There will be no change in our ability to respond and no reduction in response time standards," General Eulberg said. "Our firefighters will be better trained and have more effective equipment. Change in the Air Force isn't new, and after all of these improvements, we'll still get our mission accomplished."
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