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9 January 2026
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Featured FRI Magazine article: Competent team members by Wayne Bailey, US
https://www.frimedia.org/uploads/1/2/2/7/122743954/fri_vol_3_no_10.pdf
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Competent team members written by Wayne Bailey from the US (FRI Vol 3 no 10). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Competent team members
By Wayne Bailey
The word competent was first used in the 15th century. We associate other words like capable, equal, fit, good, qualified or suitable with competent. Someone that is ‘on the ball’. The opposite is incompetent, which is an adjective and describes someone not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. We associate the opposite of competent with someone that is unskilled, inexpert, amateurish, unprofessional, bungling, blundering, clumsy, inadequate, substandard, inferior, ineffective, deficient, inefficient, ineffectual, wanting and lacking. We cannot tolerate these traits in emergency services.
What if you were reading the description of incompetence and you immediately thought of yourself? I remember a time when I exhibited several of these characteristics. One of these was lacking. I was late for meetings, did not finish projects on time and lacked the initiative for the work I was performing. I was not giving my employer my full attention while I was on the clock. With help from a few close friends, I found the resources needed to correct these issues and you can too.
Let’s look at a couple of the above characteristics and see how we can turn a lemon into lemonade.
Skills
When I think of an unskilled fire fighter, it breaks my heart because ongoing training is easily accessible through online, in the classroom and in-house department training opportunities. Even with a low training budget, we can still train on the basics. Aristotle said, “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Find something every day to keep up your skills. We could be studying the district map for street names, using a piece of body cord to tie knots, or studying flash cards for medical terms and definitions.
Professionalism
There’s much to be said about how we act as professionals in our profession. There was a recent call where there was a civilian death in a structure fire. After the fire was knocked down, they found a deceased victim. While waiting on the medical examiner, the official that does the investigation on deaths, the fire fighters were letting off steam by joking with each other as to separate themselves from the not so fun things about their job. In this case, the timing was bad. A good friend of mine said that bad timing can make an exceptional man look average, in this case, below average. There was a family member standing in the crowd that had gathered and took offense to the laughter coming from the fire fighters.
I’ll share some of the Fire Fighter Code of Ethics written by the National Society of Executive Fire Officers:
Look for the complete Fire Fighter Code of Ethics in coming months.
Qualified
Through different means, we train and qualify personnel in emergency services in their respective areas such as trench, confined space, wilderness, structural rescue and fire fighting, vehicle machinery, live fire burn, liquid propane, high rise and hazardous material.
The first step in becoming qualified is to train and receive a certification and meet objectives and job performance requirements (JPR) by local, state and international standards such as National Fire Protection Association or NFPA.org. By obtaining a certification, this doesn’t mean you are now an expert. I learned as young professional, an ‘ex’ is a has-been. A ‘spurt’ is a drip under pressure. So an ‘expert’ is a has-been drip under pressure. Being named an expert is not self-titled but one from your peers.
In closing, there is a fine line between competence and arrogance. When you look at the definition of arrogance in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “It’s an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter or more important than other people.”
Be sure to complement your team and not overlook their talents.
This week’s featured Fire and Rescue International magazine article is: Competent team members written by Wayne Bailey from the US (FRI Vol 3 no 10). We will be sharing more technical/research/tactical articles from Fire and Rescue International magazine on a weekly basis with our readers to assist in technology transfer. This will hopefully create an increased awareness, providing you with hands-on advice and guidance. All our magazines are available free of charge in PDF format on our website and online at ISSUU. We also provide all technical articles as a free download in our article archive on our website.
Competent team members
By Wayne Bailey
The word competent was first used in the 15th century. We associate other words like capable, equal, fit, good, qualified or suitable with competent. Someone that is ‘on the ball’. The opposite is incompetent, which is an adjective and describes someone not having or showing the necessary skills to do something successfully. We associate the opposite of competent with someone that is unskilled, inexpert, amateurish, unprofessional, bungling, blundering, clumsy, inadequate, substandard, inferior, ineffective, deficient, inefficient, ineffectual, wanting and lacking. We cannot tolerate these traits in emergency services.
What if you were reading the description of incompetence and you immediately thought of yourself? I remember a time when I exhibited several of these characteristics. One of these was lacking. I was late for meetings, did not finish projects on time and lacked the initiative for the work I was performing. I was not giving my employer my full attention while I was on the clock. With help from a few close friends, I found the resources needed to correct these issues and you can too.
Let’s look at a couple of the above characteristics and see how we can turn a lemon into lemonade.
Skills
When I think of an unskilled fire fighter, it breaks my heart because ongoing training is easily accessible through online, in the classroom and in-house department training opportunities. Even with a low training budget, we can still train on the basics. Aristotle said, “Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Find something every day to keep up your skills. We could be studying the district map for street names, using a piece of body cord to tie knots, or studying flash cards for medical terms and definitions.
Professionalism
There’s much to be said about how we act as professionals in our profession. There was a recent call where there was a civilian death in a structure fire. After the fire was knocked down, they found a deceased victim. While waiting on the medical examiner, the official that does the investigation on deaths, the fire fighters were letting off steam by joking with each other as to separate themselves from the not so fun things about their job. In this case, the timing was bad. A good friend of mine said that bad timing can make an exceptional man look average, in this case, below average. There was a family member standing in the crowd that had gathered and took offense to the laughter coming from the fire fighters.
I’ll share some of the Fire Fighter Code of Ethics written by the National Society of Executive Fire Officers:
- Always conduct myself, on and off duty, in a manner that reflects positively on myself, my department and the fire service in general.
- Accept responsibility for my actions and for the consequences of my actions.
- Support the concept of fairness and the value of diverse thoughts and opinions.
- Avoid situations that would adversely affect the credibility or public perception of the fire service profession.
- Be truthful and honest at all times and report instances of cheating or other dishonest acts that compromise the integrity of the fire service.
- Conduct my personal affairs in a manner that does not improperly influence the performance of my duties, or bring discredit to my organisation.
- Be respectful and conscious of each member’s safety and welfare.
Look for the complete Fire Fighter Code of Ethics in coming months.
Qualified
Through different means, we train and qualify personnel in emergency services in their respective areas such as trench, confined space, wilderness, structural rescue and fire fighting, vehicle machinery, live fire burn, liquid propane, high rise and hazardous material.
The first step in becoming qualified is to train and receive a certification and meet objectives and job performance requirements (JPR) by local, state and international standards such as National Fire Protection Association or NFPA.org. By obtaining a certification, this doesn’t mean you are now an expert. I learned as young professional, an ‘ex’ is a has-been. A ‘spurt’ is a drip under pressure. So an ‘expert’ is a has-been drip under pressure. Being named an expert is not self-titled but one from your peers.
In closing, there is a fine line between competence and arrogance. When you look at the definition of arrogance in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, “It’s an insulting way of thinking or behaving that comes from believing that you are better, smarter or more important than other people.”
Be sure to complement your team and not overlook their talents.