What’s Your Mutual Aid Agreement…? (2011}

Mutual aid is a wonderful tool when it works. Does yours? Take a minute and really think about the last call you ran that you either gave or received mutual aid. How did it go? Hopefully, you answer something along the line of, “just like we train it.”
        The department I cut my teeth on worked mutual aid at both ends of the spectrum; really awesome to downright inexcusable. The department was highly dependent on mutual aid to safely mitigate emergencies. We gave and received equally. Now when I say mutual aid, I don’t just mean the town 5 miles over. I’m talking about being tapped out to send an engine to a neighboring town that often was more than 20 miles distance. For one town in particular, if the call was for a structure fire, the cherry was to get on the first engine out, even though it was called for “in station standby”. We knew if it was an “all hands, working fire” we would be upgraded to go to the scene. My old department also had a 100 ft truck, which made us somewhat more desirable. Either way, we seemed to work a lot of mutual aid calls.
        Not that it was always like that. Most memorable are the ones that we didn’t run on because they turned out bad. For reasons only those involved know (but I can guess), we weren’t called to some towns. One, in particular, ended up burning five multi-story commercial buildings on their main street. They refused to call us for help. A few years later (after I had moved away) a nearby city refused our ladder truck for a fire that ended up taking an entire city block. That fire had mutual aid offered mayor to mayor and was refused. Career city didn’t want help from the vollies….
        So now I find myself on the opposite coast, over a decade later and perhaps overly expectant that the fire service has overcome the personal hurdles that make mutual aid so difficult. Not so. As a matter of fact, it’s worse. The area I volunteer in rarely employs mutual aid. We have automatic aid in overlapping areas, but I feel that the agreement and execution of the plan does more harm to the relationship than it helps. Ok, there, I said it. Perhaps, the key word to making mutual aid agreements truly work: relationship.
        Does your department have a relationship with the neighboring department, or is it just an acquaintance? Look at it like this: when I walk down the street and I see someone across the street that I have a relationship with (no, not that kind!), I gladly cross the street to shake hands, say hello, and ask about their family. But if I am only acquainted with them, I may wave and in some instances, not even make eye contact.
        My current department has acquaintances with the neighboring departments. We know each other because we have to. Period. I’m talking on an organizational level, of course. Down in the trenches, we have some very solid bonds. Unfortunately, policy and SOG’s are set at the organizational level. When personal needs go unmet and relationships are suppressed by management, the effects on operational issues really have no chance of achieving resolution. In my area, of the four adjoining departments (two combination, one federal, and one volunteer), mine has isolated itself as a non-player. The other departments no longer “reach out” to us or offer joint training. They continue to train and work with each other, just not with us. More recently we find ourselves not called for mutual aid on calls that historically used us, and on the flip side, our department responds apparatus past a staffed combination station rather than call it for aid.
We have become an acquaintance. We took the relationships for granted; we didn’t foster them and grow them through strong leadership and hard work. I am not OK with this. From the trenches, I will continue to rebuild the relationships our organizations once shared. Someday, a leader that puts relationships above politics and personal egos, will emerge and take over our department.
        So, what sort of mutual aid agreement do you have? Are you a part of a department that builds relationships with neighboring departments, or are you content to have acquaintances?