What does “brotherhood” in the fire service mean?

                                                   

Firefighters spend a lot of their time at the fire house.  Due to the amount of time firefighters spend away from home, your fellow firefighter teammates become your second family.  Career firefighters work 24 to 36 hour shifts at the fire station while volunteers cover most week nights and weekends.

Trust is a major component towards a great working relationship for our fire service.  If you don’t have trust, how can you rely on that person to have your back in a dangerous situation?  You must feel secure and confident with your teammate’s knowledge to handle any situation, or you can’t perform your job to the best of your ability.

Having a close working relationship and serving your community together builds a friendship bond that can last your whole lifetime.  Being willing to lay your life on the line for someone you don’t know, or for your fellow teammate, is a characteristic that is hard to find these days.

Firefighters are responsible for what the station looks like on the outside and the inside.  They should treat the fire station as if it were their own house (Grant & Stephens, 2010).  After all, it is their home for a good portion of their lives (Grant & Stephens, 2010).  The fire station doesn’t have maid service, a cook, lawn service, and their parents cannot come clean up after them, so in a way, being in the fire service teaches them accountability and responsibility.

The fire service is a professional organization and the members should project a professional image that earns the respect of their coworkers and the public (Grant & Stephens, 2010).  You only get one chance to make a first impression.  Wear a clean uniform, be polite, competent and caring. If you look like you care about yourself and the organization, then the citizens will believe that you care about them (Grant & Stephens, 2010).

The service that firefighters provide to our communities does not go unnoticed.  For example, a friend of mine ran a call one December evening at a nursing home.  The residents were in the middle of their Christmas dinner when the fire alarm went off.  The firefighters arrived and got everyone out of the building only to learn that it was a false alarm.  The residents are used to the firefighters coming to their home to perform a large amount of EMS calls.  Well the residents were so appreciative of the firefighter’s work that they asked them to stay and join them for dinner, of course they accepted, firefighters like to eat.

Brotherhood in the fire service is an amazing bond among firefighters.  Although they are not really brothers or sisters, they are family.  For example, when one member is injured and out of work, his fire house family will come cut the grass or do odd jobs around the house for them; if a member gets diagnosed with cancer, the whole department will do fund drives to raise money for medical expenses and they will receive an outpouring of support; or when a firefighter loses his life, hundreds of firefighters will attend his funeral and neighboring cities will send their firefighters to go work the shift at his department so his fire house family can attend the funeral.  

                                              

Grant & Stephens, (2010, June) Are we our own worst enemies?  Fire Engineering.  Vol 163.  Issue 6, p73-78, 5p.  Retrieved November 3, 2012, from Academic Search Complete database.