Matt Hinds-Aldrich

In the shadow of 9/11, a great rallying cry went out across the fire service-interoperability. No longer could we operate within our own silos. Like the move to standardize hose couplings a generation before, having a radio grid that allows us to communicate and collaborate with our neighbors was no longer a luxury. Fast forward 15 years and interwoven radio networks, enormous mobile command units, and plain language communication are prevalent, if not universal. Yet, departmental silos remain as prevalent. The most pressing silos in the fire service these days concern data...

If You Take This Oath

If your steady hand can speak volumes in the midst of the worst,
And your calm voice guide the way out into the light;
If you can treat every call as if they were your first,
Even when it comes at the end of an unslept night;
If you can ignore the venom that tragedy may bring,
Without so much as breathing a word of the slight;
If you can train tirelessly yet be ready for the next bell to ring,
Content with the pride from having fought the Good fight:

If you can break the uneasy silence with a well-timed joke,
Yet know when that joke is best left unspoken;
Always be quick with an answer though not to provoke,
And be able to improvise a fix when the best option is broken;
If you were to consider how every action reflected on the rest,
So that nothing tarnishes our cherished professional reputation,
And respect our occasional differences even when stressed,
Yet be the first to offer me a hand at a fire or around the station:

If you can capture the hearts of those with shirts of white,
To become the leaders they admired when running calls,
And the minds of the rank and file standing watch tonight,
To develop a vision that transcends the firehouse walls;
If you can work to prevent fires like you prepare for “The Big One”,
And can see tradition in progress and progress in tradition,
Yet treat them both alike knowing how much is left to be done,
For we owe nothing less to those who secured our modern position:

If you can enjoy every moment as if the next did not matter,
Yet live every instant as though we will all remember the date,
And prepare for the day when my Mayday cuts through the chatter,
Work tirelessly to find me though take care so not to share my fate;
If you will stand beside my family if my helmet they solemnly retire,
And let the ones I love never have to bear its weight alone,
For with this oath I shall be beside you whatever should transpire,
So take comfort now that you will never again be on your own!

~ Matt Hinds-Aldrich (2010)

Firefighters occupy a special place in modern society.  The fire service provides a rich cultural script to understand how firefighters, like other workers in dangerous occupations, organise themselves as well as derive meaning from their work.  One conclusion that emerges regularly in this literature is that firefighters tend to share a distinctive firefighter culture that binds firefighters to one another and makes their work meaningful. Yet in practice this concept proves exceedingly difficult to empirically or even theoretically explain. 
Here I critique the traditional concept of firefighter culture arguing that it is a myth.  I draw heavily upon Pierre Bourdieu’s Field Analytic Perspective to provide an alternative explanation for the underlying organisational and interpersonal dynamics observed in fire departments.  Accordingly, I argue that what is often referred to, as “firefighter culture” is simply the most visible manifestation of the competitive struggle to monopolise control of the profession, police its boundaries and maintain legitimacy in the field of structural fire protection.  This boundary-work suggests that we should reconceptualise firefighter cultures as imagined moral communities, as they are necessarily fluid and contextual.  Moreover, I argue that the distinctions between “us” and “them” are predicated upon subjective moral judgments about the relative worth of particular abilities, attitudes, values and by extension the people who hold them.
This research project is empirically based upon 35 semi-structured qualitative interviews and a quasi-ethnography carried out in an American fire service.  The research and analysis was driven by three research questions:
1. Can the existence of a distinctive firefighter culture account for both the occupational affinities and disputes often exhibited among firefighters?
2. What are the signals and characteristics firefighters use to draw boundaries to distinguish between the “us” they identify with and the “them” they attempt do distance themselves from?
3. How do these fluid subjective boundaries come to be viewed by firefighters as taken-for-granted, objective boundaries?

There have been a number of articles recently advocating the use of nontraditional mediums to teach criminological theory. Many of these articles have advocated using music and/or music lyrics to illustrate and enliven the various theories taught in introductory theory courses. Despite the growing attention paid to teaching criminological theory, few, if any, discuss how to help students understand the more fundamental ontological question—what is “theory.” This article proposes an alternative pedagogical approach that draws upon students’ understanding of musical genres analogically to explain: (1) the historical development of the various theoretical approaches, (2) the historical, cultural and theoretical antecedents of the various approaches, and (3) how to identify the theoretical orientation(s) and influences in an unfamiliar text. Ultimately, this approach is intended to counter the overly compartmentalized and linear understanding of theory unintentionally brought on by the dynamics of teaching schedules, generic “theory” textbooks, computerized presentation software and testing methods.

This article reconsiders the historical problem of firesetting firefighters. The research draws upon an original dataset of firefighters arrested (n = 1,213) for arson dating back to the early
nineteenth century. The quantitative analysis provides an empirical foundation upon which I base a theoretical argument that questions traditional understandings of the problem. In particular, I challenge the literature that suggests that firefighter arsonists exhibit a deviant and distinctive hero complex. I argue that the most striking feature of this problem is the fine line that separates enthusiastic young members who are always the first to help out from those who attempt to prove their meddle by creating opportunities to evidence their dedication and fire-
fighting prowess.

This short research note discusses the unanticipated methodological difficulty encountered in an ongoing study of firesetting firefighters. This research note discusses the methodological problems that developed from the simple effort to operationalize the fundamental question: what constitutes a firefighter arsonist? This paper draws upon an original, purpose-built, dataset of firefighters (and other fire service personnel) arrested (n=1019 at the time of writing) for arson dating back to the early nineteenth century. The findings of this research project are not presented here; rather, the discussion is limited to
the effort to operationalize the research question with a mind to assisting other researchers and fire service leaders as they begin to draw attention towards this important and troubling issue.

In this paper I attempt to bring into focus the symbiotic relationship between political agitation and visual media. First, I forward a methodological argument on the utility of ‘found’ visual imagery in sociological research. Second, I deploy the concept of ‘performative violence’ in order to account for the persistence of arson as a tactical preoccupation and as an icon of resistance. I offer a protest arson typology in an effort to
interrogate and expose the various interpretations at play in the collection of photographs and visual media assembled. This typology is offered principally to make sense of images so as to facilitate the subsequent theoretical explorations of the cultural,
instrumental and affective nature of political protests and violence.

The relationship between man and fire has always been precarious. History has cast fire in various roles: heat, tool, ceremony, weapon and metaphor.  The history of fire is a history of man.  The mechanical utility and the symbolic imagery of fire transcend historical, geographical and cultural divisions.  From Prometheus to Lucifer, fire has found regular employment in allegorical social admonition.  Arson continues to be utilized by the revolutionary avant-garde despite centuries of technical and political refinement.  Insomuch as fire frightens us it fascinates us; this essay attempts to excavate a subjective appreciation for what it means to brandish fire for political gain. 
This study employs contemporary case studies to examine the continued use of arson in fringe political movements—guerrilla politics.  The first study contextualizes the use of arson as subversive politics in reviewing the 1933 Reichstag fire in pre-War Nazi Germany.  The final case study explores the transition to arson as terrorism.  The 1990s witnessed the emergence of a church arson ‘epidemic’ in the American Deep South that revived memories of the racial symbolism employed by the Ku Klux Klan.  Each case of arson while loosely connected soon fell subject to the same familiar political rhetoric. 
While widely condemned, the social outcry over perceived arson threats are generally short-lived. Every ‘epidemic’ is met with conveniently amorphous definitions easily recast by ‘moral entrepreneurs’ awaiting infamy.  The utility of arson paradoxically becomes less a function of the arsonists seeking change, rather benefiting the very structures it seeks to destroy.  Conceived out of resistance, arson is easily co-opted by whoever commands the larger audience, to which chemistry happily obliges.