Some Fire Chiefs have devised a great way of showing success in their careers and within their departments. By altering the reporting criteria for call data they can manipulate the data. That data compared to former data (history) will show change. The problem is that by changing the criteria we aren’t comparing apples to apples anymore.

For example…

The prodigal department would more than likely show an increase in fires up until the post “America is Burning” era of the 70′s and 80′s. This steady increase was due to the increase in population and growth of cities and counties (more people and more houses = more chance of fires). The culmination of the report “America is Burning” was basically that this is going to increase until departments create fire prevention education. Through fire prevention education, firefighters have been able to save thousands of lives over the past 30 years by preventing fires.

Once we hit the bottom on preventing fires the decrease in fires leveled off. This created a problem for Fire Chiefs. All of that hard work that started 30 years ago with the beginning of fire prevention had paid off and had reached its limits on decreasing fires. I don’t mean that we should stop doing it, it has just done all it can do and as long as we continue on with fire prevention we will continue to stay where we are. That is a good thing.

I know that some of you are probably saying that we can do more in preventing fires and I agree. However, it is outside of the realm of the fire prevention education we all know. Think earlier detection, non combustible products and building construction, among others.

So here we are with Fire Chiefs trying to show how good they are and how good their department and fire prevention programs are and the fires aren’t decreasing. What is a Fire Chief to do? The answer that many of them found is to increase the loss criteria for structure fires. Whereas for the past 100 years the typical kitchen fire that burns the stove and cabinets above was a “structure fire” when reporting total fires is not included in those statistics anymore. If you raise the loss to say above $5000 or $20,000 to deam it a structure fire we have in fact removed many fires from the data. This in turn shows a decrease in fires. This type of thing is not done overnight. A Fire Chief might make the criteria go up a couple thousand dollars each year before meeting the goal amount.

These statistics are a problem within the fire service. This is a false sense of protection. These statistics have been used all across the globe to decrease staffing, apparatus, and stations.

The altering of criteria runs a lot deeper than the example I gave above. We see it in all facets of our jobs. Anywhere we can make things look different than they are to benefit the people holding the data it can be seen.

Response times is another big example of using statistics to show what “they” want it to show. Fire Chiefs and other administrators have found that by recording the on scene time for EMS calls works out a lot better than utilizing the much more exact “patient contact” time. Who are we kidding. On EMS calls we mark on scene when pulling up to the address, however how long does it take to get the gear and stretcher and take the elevator to the 21st floor to the patient. In reality, we should be utilizing both times. However, if we are only using one then the “patient contact” time should actually be the “on scene” time.

What do you all think?

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