THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AS THE COMMUNITY CRISIS DEPARTMENT

THE FIRE DEPARTMENT AS THE COMMUNITY CRISIS DEPARTMENT

En route to a discussion of mission statements for fire departments, the change officer stumbled over a fundamental obstacle: How does one define “fire department”? A small sampling of mission statements from fire departments across the country verifies that defining “fire department” is a problem. You can’t write a mission statement for a diffuse and ill-defined operation.

Suffice it to say that there are fire departments that do nothing but fight fires. A few others do practically everything—except firefighting—for the community. The spectrum between the extremes is fully represented. Such chaos may be nondefinable, but the persistent change officer does not surrender easily. He/she detects the emergence of the Community Crisis Department in his/her own community and elsewhere.