We’ve been discussing public accountability at major fire service conferences for at least the amount of time that I have also been at these conferences—about 20 years. Most of those discussions centered the scope of accountability around the intuition and experiences of respected fire service leaders, and rightly so. Those leaders were generally from the largest departments, with the broadest experiences dealing with the most diverse communities on the most sensitive issues under the most limiting of circumstances.

Because the largest departments often had the greatest resources, we looked to the way they prevented accountability from becoming liability (and how they sometimes failed) as precedent for effectively governing our own futures.

If you listened carefully during conference sessions about how accountability (and liability) issues found their way to the fire chief, I think you would have heard that the most common means was through city (or local) administrators—the colloquial ‘hill’ that ‘trouble’ always seems to flow ‘down’.

In fact, the extent to which someone was considered a fire service leader was often better understood by the relationship they were able to maintain with their local governing councils in times of conflict between the fire service and various aspects of the community. Brilliant leaders like Al Brunacini, Tom Brennan, Gordon Graham, Wayne Morris (and I apologize to those I respect and admire but did not mention) not only responded with pioneering leadership, but were also able to somehow even predict and develop programs that would keep them ahead of the accountability curve.

But how do we apply those traditions of superior leadership to one of the most pressing issues in today’s fire service, diversity, and in a digital world of Facebook, Twitter, Flikr, YouTube, Wikis, Blogs and texting—where the circumstances of one event occurring after midnight can circle the globe, be viewed by more people in an hour than the largest daily newspaper in a day, and be solidified in the minds of taxpayers who will be forming opinions and considering action long before the local councilors are even awake?

It’s a trick question, of course, nobody knows. The best bet is that the old rules still apply in that we should now be looking to current fire service leaders for the answer(s).

In that regard, there is a common theme emerging: Understand the issues at the same level as they are understood by communities; be able to participate in the digital dialogue; and develop meaningful responses using modern tools of real-time civic engagement.

There are, no doubt, numerous leadership examples across our respective nations, and we need to hear a lot more about them, especially during our future fire service conferences.

I am in the best position to speak only about some recent models from Toronto Fire Services (TFS), where industry leaders like Fire Chief Bill Stewart (past-president, Metro Chief's Section, IAFC and current president IFE) and Deputy Chief Daryl Fuglerud (Staff Services and Communications) are piloting at least three related projects.

The first was the launching of the Toronto Fire Services Facebook page in April 2009, and which now enjoys more than 1,200 fans who read frequent, related postings about the latest recruitment issues and diversity initiatives.

The second project placed an officer from the TFS Recruitment and Community Outreach Section, headed by Division Chief David Sheen, initially on one of the city’s Neighborhood Action Partnerships (NAPs)—special localized committees designed to address community-specific needs in the city’s identified ‘priority areas’—in May 2009. TFS is now represented on three NAPs.

The third is the Fire Chief’s Council on Access, Equity and Diversity, which held its inaugural meeting in September 2009—meeting again in November, and with a third meeting tentatively scheduled for late January 2010. With representation chosen from the top visible minority communities, as well as communities not included in that definition, but which have commonly sought to be represented, and several community consultants, the Council sits to assist Toronto Fire in increasing its multicultural capacities, and better understanding the issues as they relate to diversity so as, among others, to help TFS better become and remain more reflective and representative of the communities it serves.

When you take into account that the November meeting of the Council was attended (through conference call) by a major fire department some 3,000 miles away, followed almost immediately by an internet MS LIVE® meeting with a private-sector partner (and that other major fire department) also more than three time zones distant, well… Dylan said it best; “The times they are a-changing.”

And if you weren’t at the meeting: No problem. The virtual boardroom is not constrained by solid walls. You can see pictures from it, and other initiatives, on the TFS Facebook page.

This is just one way one department is attempting to listen and engage at the civic level.

Let the dialogue continue.