Where there's smoke....

   The recent events in Idaho where two firefighters were killed by gunfire when arriving at the scene of a wildfire have been alarming. While this certainly is not the first event of its kind - firefighters have been shot at before - it does give us another topic that we need to consider - self defense. 

   It is hard to imagine why anyone would want to shoot at a firefighter. After all our mission is to respond to someone’s call for help and mitigate the circumstances as best and as professionally as we can. We know that there are departments that routinely assign ballistic vests to their firefighters. We understand that in times of civil unrest or in ongoing criminal scenes - take school shootings as just one example, that shooters may not be able to distinguish us and choose to lump us in with what they consider to be their sworn enemy. This goes completely counter to our nature as firefighters. We just are not prepared for this. It is time that we did get prepared. 

   Now is the time first of all to train on the art of self defense. This often means making sure that we have cover or figure out how we can get to cover. It means not exposing our crews to any more than we have to. It means that we have to understand a little bit about psychology. What makes a person do this - if we knew this, we could perhaps do something about it. In some states, firefighters are allowed to carry firearms while on duty. It is a shame that we have to do this, but it is reality today. I will never understand what motivates someone to kill an innocent person, but it happens all the time, in the United States and abroad. 

   I hope we don’t get to the position that law enforcement must respond to all of our incidents first, which will delay our response and our ability to handle the incident. 

   Probably most important is that we have to keep our head on a swivel. We know to look for buildings that can collapse. We know to look out for exploding vehicles. We know to look out for power lines. Now we need to look over our shoulder, ahead of us, beside us, to make sure that if something looks unusual that we can act accordingly. Our trucks make pretty good cover, but that is not the only answer. It pains me to say that copy cat incidents will occur, but they could. We have to take this very serious. We know that the “routine” can kill us - and this is now part of our “routine.” Stay safe out there and God bless you for what you do for your community, because where there’s smoke...