Fire Fighters, Neighbourhoods and Social Identity: the relationship between the fire service and residents in Bristol

Discussion

Although the name of the occupation that was once termed ‘fireman’ has been changed in recent years to ‘fire fighter’, as an attempt to gender neutralise the profession as part of the modernisation process, the term fire fighter is still far from neutral in itself, and the way that fire fighters speak of themselves and of their profession reflects this, and further reinforces the difference between them and residents. Many fire fighters that I spoke with still referred to themselves as ‘firemen’ (and also to the FRS as a ‘brigade’). This was not unique to older / more senior fire fighters, but prevalent even amongst probationers and staff who had been part of the service only in the post-Bain years. Whilst this might not seem superficially problematic (after all, there is an argument for people calling themselves the name they prefer), it reflects a deeper failure to address such gender stereotyping, and potentially echoes a more pernicious feeling that fire fighting is a particular sort of man’s work, despite the protestations of management, reinforcing the stereotype of physical work, and further undermining that of more public facing safety work. It must be added that I had been assigned to watches that had women on them, as if such an exotic creature as a woman might upset the watch’s fragile equilibrium if they were not used to such a being.

Further, the problems of being called a fire man are only changed to different problems by being called a fire fighter. Fighting fires is only a small proportion of the modern FRS’s workload, as discussed elsewhere, with far greater emphasis increasingly put on prevention, community fire safety and other such interventions. However, recruits join to become fire fighters: to fight fires (Weick 1993), and although this is not solely the fault of the job name (recruitment advertising and popular stereotype having their own part to play), it does suggest quite strongly that the role is predominantly associated with fighting fire, and not with community work and outreach. This sets up fire fighters to feel aggrieved at work that is not fire fighting (Childs, Morris et al. 2004), as discussed below, community safety work is ‘not what they joined to do’. Moreover, there are other consequences to the naming of this work fire fighting, and that is that it posits it as a conflictual activity.

As Weick (1993) discusses, fire is a dynamic opponent, and misjudging it can, quite literally, be fatal, as he demonstrates in the discussion of events in Mann Gulch. Fire behaviour clearly responds to outside intervention (Quintiere 1998) and although it is somewhat far fetched to view fire in social terms (Canetti, Stewart 1984), it is reasonable, to some extent, to attend to relational elements between fire and fire fighter in intergroup terms. As with the ESIM described by Drury et al (1999), the fire service will view a fire in a particular way. As with the police in the football and protest examples (discussed more fully in the literature review), they are in a position to act in relation to the fire, which will respond in a dynamic, if not deliberate, fashion². To an extent then, fire fighters go into fires with conflict on their mind, and metaphors of war abound. They are keen to ‘beat’ the fire and refer to past incidents as ‘won’ or ‘lost’ (the latter particularly where there are ‘fallen’ colleagues) (Cooper 1995). As such, the identity of operational fire fighters has much to do with conflict, although, according to popular stereotype, that conflict is against fire. It was particularly noticeable, towards the end of my time on shifts with fire fighters that one thing they did not speak about was serious fires or incidents or fatalities. There are a number of potential explanations for this: perhaps they were protecting my sensibilities, or perhaps these topics are verboten in front of strangers. However, my feeling is, that in these instances, fire was seen to have ‘won’ and that this had an impact on their identity as fire fighters, as the ones who usually emerge victorious. In instances where fire wins, they are not just fire fighters, but also mere mortals.

However, as discussed at some length above and elsewhere, much of the role of the fire fighter is no longer concerned with fighting fires, but with responding in the community. I have already touched on how fire fighters might resent residents for requiring community interventions, but by looking at the relationship in terms of how fire fighters see their roles, it could well be that they approach the community, like fire, in a conflictual fashion, as if residents themselves were something to be beaten. If this is the case, following from the ESIM, it is no wonder that the response is sometimes hostile. This has a number of interesting ramifications for assaults on fire fighters. Fire fighters discuss assaults, in many instances, as badges of honour, and seem to relish the telling of these ‘war stories’. Some indeed seem to quite enjoy the thought of some riposte with locals, perhaps because it reinforces the masculinity of a profession increasingly driven by performance targets and prevention. However, there are implications for ongoing community relations in this realisation, and its linkage to wider issues of an identity which is associated with conflict.

Further, hostility to fire fighters takes many guises. Whilst fire fighters were keenest to discuss outright assaults or verbal abuse, the experiences I had whilst shadowing them were that they were not universally welcome into people’s homes. In one instance, (described in the Preface) this took the form of the partner of the householder refusing to turn the television off when the fire fighters were delivering part of the HFSV (indeed, he actually turned it up), and at no point acknowledging their presence. The crew I was with expressed very little surprise at this behaviour on the ground, but when discussed at the station, felt that most people welcomed them into their homes. To an extent, they seemed surprised that I was suggesting this might not be the case, indicating a lack of engagement with the public’s actual perceptions of them.

This type of experience was also repeated in interactions with staff, some quite senior, at Head Quarters. Although the nature and scale of attacks are known and documented through a process called ‘Fires of Special Interest’ (FOSIs), other anti social or hostile behaviour directed at fire fighters is not recorded. FOSIs cover, amongst other things, fires where there are fatalities, issues of particular interest to the public, very large fires and exceptional (both over and under) performance by the service. Of particular interest in this research project is Type C – attacks on fire fighters and civil disturbances. A number of acts can constitute a Type C FOSI, including thrown objects and verbal or physical abuse. However, verbal abuse tends not to be reported, and thrown objects only are when they make contact, especially with appliances. Although only a small number of attacks are recorded a year, the perception is that these happen in isolation from the community as a whole, and that they are an aberration, rather than the extreme manifestation of patterns of behaviour which run through society and which become expressed in relation to the fire service and not in isolation. The inability (or refusal) of support staff to acknowledge the difficulties in working relationships between fire fighters and residents simultaneously reinforces and undermines the fire fighters position. In the first instance, fire fighters continue to be seen as distinct from the community, which is itself viewed as somewhat pathological. In the second instance, the reluctance to engage with the relationship neglects the nuance of the work that operational fire fighters engage in, and the negotiated role that they play in the community.

Many previous researchers have also found fire fighter identity problematic (Baigent 2001, Ward, Winstanley 2006, Yarnal, Dowler et al. 2004), in terms of minority stereotyping (Ward, Winstanley 2006) and inflexibility (Myers 2005, Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Fire Services 1999). Further research, looking at the relationship between residents and fire fighters has found a pathological relationship, whereby innocent fire fighters are attacked (Labour Research Department 2005, Brunsden 2007, Labour Research Department 2008a), and make allowances for their attackers’ behaviour. This study argues that the relationship between fire fighters and the communities in which they were work is dynamic, evolving and reciprocal, and in this way is a useful subject for social identity approaches. Further, the ESIM (Drury, Reicher 1999) has looked at short term, localised events, but also contributes to this study in two ways: firstly through better understanding the relationship that fire fighters have with fire, and in turn how this affects their social identity, and secondly, with communities, akin to the standard ESIM work, but occurring over longer timescales. This community factor is dealt with in more detail in the next chapter on Study Two.

Despite popular preconceptions of fire fighting, and the type of stereotyping found in children’s dressing up outfits or raunchy calendars, most fire fighters have a balanced view of how they are viewed by residents, and similarly, seem to view residents in a balanced way. However, their identity remains riven with masculinity, and although this is not necessarily associated with conflict, the proximity to other young, male groups makes this a plausible outcome, particularly when mutual resentment is also added to the equation (Tajfel, Turner 2003 (1979), Stott, Reicher 1998). The idea of the social contract also goes someway to explain this resentment: fire fighters are happy to provide services to those genuinely in need, but there is an element of responsibility, as in any contract, on both sides. As such, a number of residents ‘breach’ the social contract by making unrealistic demands (getting the spider out of the bath), having unrealistic expectations of the service (that they should recover someone’s coat from the bus) or ‘questioning’ (as discussed above) operational decisions. This is also concerned with residents who are overtly hostile to the fire service, or who seem to take no regard for protecting themselves.

Further, as discussed in the literature review, stereotypes are socially constructed and can have a useful social function. As such, stereotypes in some instances do not just represent negative sentiments about residents (for example, X sort of people live there – discussed in greater detail in the next chapter), but can also serve an operational purpose. For instance, if a crew know that they are more likely to be attacked attending a car fire in Shiregreen in the after school hours, they might send two appliances, rather than the usual one. This allows the fire to be dealt with, thus protecting Shiregreen property, whilst also protecting fire service property. In this instance, a stereotype serves an operational purpose as intelligence. The problem comes when the cultural and social transmission of information in this way comes to negatively impact upon the provision of service delivery in certain neighbourhoods, in other words, when stereotypes are acted on to become prejudice or discrimination.

That fire fighters also make a distinction between the type of neighbourhoods that they live in and how they were brought up then adds a normative dimension to their differentiation from residents which could potentially exacerbate this relationship. When looking at perceptions of hostility, this becomes particularly evident, in as much as fire fighters view a negative response to them as problematic and indicative of moral failings within that community. Stott and Drury (2001) discuss intergroup dynamics in terms of the ESIM, and in this instance this also appears to be happening, albeit over a longer time frame: as hostility to the fire service grows, fire fighters are required to undertake more engagement work in those communities, causing fire fighters to resent those residents more.

This gives the unfortunate impression that all engagement work is counter productive, however, this is not entirely the case. Fire fighters undertake much engagement work with good grace despite their reservations about it, and understand the point of schools visits and HFSVs, even if they are less pleased with the actual delivery of these interventions. Further, activities such as schools rugby programmes are actively engaged with by a number of fire fighters, in some part at least because they allow for a continuation of masculine fire fighter identity alongside the achievement of operational objectives. People outside of the fire service are quick to discuss the risks which fire fighters take in their daily work, however, this is not something that operational fire fighters often discuss. What does preoccupy them is their availability to the public, and this suggests a disjuncture between what fire fighters know about fire fighting and what the public expect of them. Further, many of the fires that fire fighters attend are not likely to pose great risk to them (although, of course, there is always a possibility), but, although they do not view themselves in a heroic light, they do not seem quick to disabuse the public from their misconceptions.