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

Suspicion of non group members

Forming judgements about people in particular neighbourhoods was not confined to fire fighters, however, and was equally prevalent amongst residents. Whereas fire fighters seemed suspicious of non-fire fighters in general and residents of certain neighbourhoods in particular, resident participants formed negative judgements about those from outside their neighbourhood, whether they were residents of other neighbourhoods, about which they exhibited similar stereotypes to the fire fighters, or in other cases, members of public services attempting to work in their neighbourhood. This potentially inhibits the ability of residents to form relations and develop encounters beyond their neighbourhoods and estates, limiting social mobility and outside experience. It also makes neighbourhoods increasingly impermeable to outside agencies seeking to promote healthier lives or communities within the neighbourhood, the fire service included.

Although it is not inevitable for group distinctiveness to promote bias and social conflict, social identity approaches show the ways in which it can happen. This is clearly the case for the two groups of fire fighters and residents, and occurs, as shown through the data in earlier chapters, in a number of ways. Distinctiveness between groups can easily become suspicion of different groups, with a degree of distrust over the motivations for contact between them. For instance, whilst the fire service are keen to attend fires in any neighbourhood, there may be a degree of resentment of those who are seen as requiring a number of community safety interventions, and it is, inevitably, in these predetermined neighbourhoods that the majority of these are focussed. Further, there are distinctions made between those who are more or less deserving of such interventions, linking to debates about the underclass (Murray, Lister et al. 1996).

For residents, the relationship between fire fighters and their neighbourhoods is equally tense. There seems to be a prevailing sense of intrusion, whereby fire fighters (and other agencies) are seen as outsiders intruding in ‘their’ neighbourhood, whether or not participants seemed overtly law abiding. For those hovering around the wrong side of law abiding, the fire service is very clearly an intruder (although such participants were few and far between), with concerns about their ability to put out bonfires and interrupt barbeques, even if these were causing distress to other residents. For law abiding residents, the sense of intrusion was perhaps more subtle, whether through sirens, fire engines or direct encounters. Fire engines were visible symbols of outside intervention, and widely perceived as ‘racing’ or ‘training’ on local roads, even if this was not the case. Sirens (which were not differentiated from police or ambulance ones) were seen to intrude into the home on a daily basis, and were a source of some considerable resentment for a number of participants. The experience of the home fire safety visit was also, in some cases, endured as something of an ordeal, where disproportionate numbers of fire fighters were seen to be involved, questions were overly intrusive, and information given rather dramatic. This was especially felt to be the case amongst a number of participants who considered themselves respectable and responsible, and who, again, drew a distinction between themselves and those who were less so, and might, therefore, be better suited to this type of intervention from the fire service.

Traditional roles

Fire fighters spoke at length about how they joined the service to fight fires, and although many conducted other, especially community fire safety, work with a degree of skill and enthusiasm, this was not where their passion lay. Further, their identity as fire fighters was challenged by this change in role, with a number of participants seeming unhappy or uncomfortable about the direction in which it took them and the fire service as a whole. This sentiment was echoed by a number of residents, who similarly seemed uncomfortable about the extension of the fire service’s role into community fire safety work, although they were more satisfied about the extended ‘rescue’ function, seeing the role of the fire service including both hot fire work, but also the cliché of rescuing cats from trees. Any deviations from this were potentially confusing to residents, who tended to have fixed and traditional ideas about fire fighting and fire fighters.

Although this research project has not taken an explicitly gendered focus to the fire service, it is hard to ignore this avenue of analysis, both in response to work that has gone before (Childs, Morris et al. 2004, Cooper 1995, Hall, Hockey et al. 2007), but also in relation to perceptions in the community. The fire service remains overwhelmingly male, both in composition and in image, and fire fighting continues to be viewed as ‘men’s work’, by many in the fire service (albeit surreptitiously) and those in the community. How fire fighters were responded to depended, in many instances, on the gender of the participant, with women pursuing a sexualised line of discussion around fire fighters, and men maintaining a preoccupation with physical size and authority status. For both of these groups, these preconceptions produce barriers to encounters and to the dissemination of community fire safety messages.

There are very real concerns here about the potential for social conflict, especially when, in demographic terms, groups of fire fighters and young men might actually be quite similar. For young men in many hard pressed neighbourhoods, there are scant avenues for legitimate manliness, and those that are illegitimate may be directly challenged by the fire service. Even where there is scope for legitimate displays of masculinity, the presence of the fire service is likely to detract from it, as much by their novelty as their portrayal of ‘immaculate manhood’ (Cooper 1995). This creates another tension in the pursuit of community fire safety, where this is not seen as man’s work, it undermines the status of the fire service both for fire fighters, and, perhaps, for female observers, whilst exacerbating the relationship between male observers, who, as discussed above, resent the intrusion, and the fire service.

Entitlement and resentment

Whilst suspicion of external groups can easily turn into resentment, as discussed above, another source of resentment, more typified by familiarity, is through a sense of entitlement. For many participants, this was closely allied to what they perceived as being their ‘rights’, although, invariably, these were not rights for which they were required to take responsibility. For the fire service, the sense of entitlement pervaded many of their dealings with the public and was a similar cause of concern to them.

Many fire fighters hold the fire service in very high standing, and are keen to act to preserve its reputation and integrity. They pride themselves on their ability to provide a service, potentially saving lives twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. However, the provision of an emergency service is provided alongside a sense that they felt entitled not to be asked for more, so as not to have to provide vehicles for fetes, conduct schools work or carry out home fire safety visits.

As discussed above, many resident participants felt that it was the role of the fire service to provide an emergency service, and that anything else was either an aberration or a bonus, rather than just part of the job. However, once offered additional services, such as home fire safety visits, residents seemed to feel entitled to them immediately and unconditionally, with resentment occurring if this was not the case. Many residents seemed to feel entitled to things that they did not think the fire service should provide, demonstrating a very complex and dependent relationship with their public service providers, and one which is very hard to satisfy, with more contact providing more opportunity for grievance. Further, there was potential for far greater resentment for residents if they were engaged in a community safety activity (which they did not think the service should provide) and the fire fighters were called away to an emergency (which is what they thought the service should be doing). As with much of the police engagement work, there is a fine line for the fire service to tread between having a high public profile, but also incurring the regular wrath of the public, whereas a lower public profile, and less awareness raising work, might, perversely, have the effect of an least not diminishing their standing in the community. This will be discussed in more detail in a later section.

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