“I can think of no more stirring symbol of man’s humanity to man than a fire engine.”
Firefighters tend to be the first in and the last out of some of the most dire situations one can imagine. This simple fact, compounded with the intense chaos of a fire scene, makes incident command and firefighter safety an extraordinary challenge, and one that has led to the development of various accountability systems in recent years. Now, to a certain extent, there have been some understandable complaints among firefighters regarding “oversafety” procedures complicating an already complex and high-stress situation on the ground; but make no mistake, this could never be said to apply to firefighter tags.