A Meeting with Tokyo (Japan) Fire Department Leadership

One of the many highlights in Chicago last week was having the opportunity to spend about 1.5 hours with Deputy Chief Jun Takahashi and Sergeant Misa Tokunaga of the Tokyo (Japan) Fire Department. Myself , 1st VP Chief Bryan, 2nd VP Steve Dean, and Executive Director Mark Light enjoyed a great conversation with the Chief and Sergeant.   This was my second time to meet with TFD leadership - I also had the chance to meet with the Fire Chief last year when FRI was in Denver.  Tokyo Fire Department is the largest urban fire department in the world with more than 18,000 employees and over 26,000 volunteers serving the entire Tokyo metropolitan area and, as we learned, providing mutual aid support throughout the nation and Asia.

A couple of observations as I think back on our meeting:

-  Even though our departments are dramatically different in size, many of our issues are exactly the same!  They are struggling with ever-increasing demands on the EMS component of their system....with the challenges caused by the dramatic influx of non-Japanese speakers to the community....loss of leadership due to retirements....and the increasing costs of doing business.

-  Since one of my priority issues is to reframe our conversation about firefighter line of duty deaths, I asked Chief Takahashi about their experience.  He said that, as an entire country, they have on average one (1) line of duty death in the fire service every 5 years or so.  They have been surprised to hear about our death toll.  I told him that it was obvious that they are doing something right and much better in Japan and we need to learn from their experience!

-  Last year, we spoke at length about the TFD response to the Fukushima nuclear power plant and the long-term impact on their department.  The good news is that - so far - they have not seen any significant illnesses among their personnel who responded to the incident.  They still have personnel deployed to the area and the problems at the power plant continue (even thought there isn't much media coverage these days).

-  TFD and the Japanese fire service in general looks to us here in the US as a model for them to follow when it comes to the fire service (well.....maybe everything EXCEPT our LODD experience).  Their EMS system is fire-based - both first response and transport - and includes both EMT and Paramedic levels of providers who are cross-trained firefighters.  They have also developed what they call an International Response Team (IRT) that is based on our USAR model.  Their teams deploy throughout the country and throughout Asia as needed.  They are very engaged with helping the Chinese to develop a USAR capability.

As an interesting side note, every time I have the opportunity to do something like this where I have to speak through an interpreter, I find it very mentally exhausting.  Sergeant Tokunaga did a terrific job of interpreting, but it is just difficult to carry on a conversation and stay focused when you have to constantly break your train of thought and allow time for the interpreter to pass along your words.  I've spoken to big groups using an interpreter, but I think I find these one-on-one conversations more challenging.

Although our uniforms and apparatus may look different, I am always struck by the fact that we in the fire family around the world have so much in common.  It is truly a family worldwide with common threats, risks, concerns, and challenges.  We need to do more bridge-building with other fire service leaders from around the world.