Volunteer Firefighter Priorities For years the fire service has taught us Incident Priorities are Life Safety, Property Conservation, and Incident Stabilization. These are constants in the service, ever present and always being evaluated. A volunteer firefighter should have his or her own set of priorities, to have a healthy volunteer career and sustained, long lasting family life. Personal Priorities: Personal Life Safety, Family Conservation, and Financial Stabilization. Life Safety: Ones personal safety is, and always will be, the most important aspect over the career of any public servant. A volunteer firefighter must grasp this concept early on. Volunteers are usually living their daily lives when a call comes in, and have to switch to responder mode in seconds. Take your time and stay calm. Remember it isnt your emergency. Family Conservation: The fire service requires a large amount of time, if you are giving it the time it deserves to do it the right way. With that said, be sure to take time to be with your family. Find a way to give the job the time it takes to properly train yourself, to remain safe and prepare yourself to serve your community. However, dont neglect your family to do this. There are certain aspects of life you can never get back. Family time is one of those things, so be sure to give them the time they deserve as well. Remember your family loves the service you do, but in the end they love you more, and you being with them is most important to them. Financial Stabilization: There are often times in a volunteers career, when the service will take you away from normal life and throw you into someones emergency. Be sure to balance this appropriately and never neglect your personal finances. Your family may be depending on you to support them and failing to provide for them, giving an abundance of time to the service, may not be whats best for you and your family. If the volunteer service is taking away from the needs of your family, you may need to reevaluate your priorities, and your membership. The volunteer fire service is a great organization to be a part of and it will afford you many great opportunities to give back to your fellow man. But it is also a volunteer service, which is beginning to require more and more time, for higher levels of training and emergency responses. If you have the time, by all means volunteer. However, if you do not have the time to give it what it takes, then dont. If you arent making trainings, meetings or runs, then you are most likely missing out in valuable information to keep you safe. Chief Jerrad Blacker 4/28/2014
Posted on: Mon, 28 Apr 2014 21:12:32 +0000
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