Firefighter Skills the Academy Doesn’t Teach: Communicating With the Public

Think back to your academy. You pulled hose until your shoulders burned, threw ladders in the rain, crawled through smoke mazes, and practiced patient assessments until you could run them in your sleep. Now think about how many hours you spent practicing what to say to a panicked homeowner watching their kitchen burn, or a daughter who just found her father on the floor.

For most crews, the answer is "not many." Yet communication runs through nearly every call. This guide looks at the firefighter skills that rarely make the academy syllabus: talking with patients, families, bystanders, and business owners; delivering fire department customer service without compromising safety; communicating inside the station and with partner agencies; and how departments can train these skills with the same seriousness they give to hose and ladders.

Why Communication Is a Core Fire and EMS Skill

The modern fire service is, above all, a people service. According to the U.S. Fire Administration's analysis of 2020 data reported to the National Fire Incident Reporting System, nearly two-thirds (64%) of reported fire department calls required EMS and rescue services, and only 4% of reported runs were fire related (USFA).

That means the typical shift is filled with face-to-face conversations: with sick patients, worried relatives, confused neighbors, and frustrated property owners. Each of those conversations affects patient care, scene safety, and how the community sees the department.

Communication also matters for firefighter safety. The "NIOSH 5," a list compiled from line-of-duty death investigations, names inadequate communications as one of five recurring contributing factors, alongside improper risk assessment, lack of incident command, lack of accountability, and not having or following SOPs. As Plano (TX) Fire-Rescue Assistant Chief Jaime Reyes writes, "Nearly every emergency incident has some sort of communications issue" (Fire Engineering).

In other words, communication is not a "soft" add-on to real firefighter skills. It's part of the job on every call.

Talking to Patients, Families, Bystanders, and Business Owners

Each group on a scene needs something different from you. Knowing what they need makes your words more effective.

Patients

Patients need to feel safe and to understand what's happening to them. Simple habits make a big difference:

Introduce yourself. “Hi, I’m Sam, I’m a firefighter-EMT. What’s your name?”
Explain before you touch. “I’m going to put this cuff on your arm to check your blood pressure.”
Use plain language. “Your heart rhythm is irregular” works better than a string of abbreviations.
Talk to them, not over them. It’s easy to discuss a patient with your partner as if they aren’t there.

Small talk matters too, especially on the many non-emergency calls. In a JEMS article, Peter Huston argues that casual conversation with patients is a vital and teachable EMS skill, and quotes providers who urge crews to be "both observant and inquisitive" and to "set the phone aside long enough to connect with the person in front of you" (JEMS).

Families

Family members are often more frightened than the patient. They need information and something to do.

Give them a job: “Can you grab his medication list and his ID?”
Give them updates in short, truthful sentences: “We’re giving him oxygen and checking his heart. We’ll take him to County General.”
Tell them where to go and how to get there, so they don’t follow the ambulance at unsafe speeds.

Bystanders

Bystanders can help, hinder, or record. A calm, direct request usually works better than a shouted order.

Instead of “Get back!” try “I need everyone on the sidewalk so we have room to work. Thank you.”
Instead of ignoring someone who’s filming, try focusing on your work and speaking as if every word will be replayed, because it may be.

Business owners and residents

After a fire, an alarm activation, or an inspection, owners are often worried about money, closures, and liability. Acknowledge the concern before explaining the requirement: "I know closing tonight costs you. The sprinkler line is damaged, so we can't let people back inside until it's repaired. Here's who to call first."

Fire Department Customer Service Without Compromising Safety

The idea of fire department customer service is closely tied to former Phoenix Fire Chief Alan Brunacini. His customer, "Mrs. Smith," stands for every person who calls for help. The Phoenix Firefighters Symposium describes her as "every person that calls us for assistance" and says she "must be magnetic true north for the fire service" (Phoenix Firefighters Symposium).

In a 1996 Firehouse column, Brunacini described being nice in a service context as involving "the basic behaviors of respect, kindness, patience and consideration." He observed that what Mrs. Smith remembers about a call rarely has anything to do with technical performance ("none of it mentions pump test results"). Instead, she remembers something like, "Everyone who responded was so kind, and I will never forget how nice they were to my family and me" (Firehouse).

Customer service is sometimes misread as "give people whatever they want." It isn't. You can't let a homeowner back into a structure that isn't safe, and you can't skip a patient assessment because someone is in a hurry. Good customer service means delivering the safe answer in a respectful way:

Explain the why. “The smoke detector is beeping because the battery’s low. Leaving it unplugged means no warning if there’s a fire, so let’s put a new battery in now.”
Offer what you can. “We can’t let you back in tonight, but we can grab your medications and your phone charger if you tell us where they are.”
Close with a next step. People calm down when they know what happens next.

Instead of this	Try this
“You can’t go in there.”	“It isn’t safe to go back in yet. Tell me what you need and we’ll see if we can get it for you.”
“That’s the code.”	“That exit has to stay clear so people can get out fast if there’s a fire.”
“We’re done here.”	“We’re wrapping up. Here’s what to watch for tonight and who to call if anything changes.”
“Nothing we can do.”	“Here’s what we can do right now, and here’s who can help with the rest.”

Communication in the Station and With Partner Agencies

The public sees the fireground. They don't see the kitchen table, the officer's office, or the mutual-aid radio channel, but communication breakdowns there show up on scene.

Inside the crew

Say the hard thing early. Small issues between crew members grow into big ones when nobody names them.
Debrief after tough calls. A five-minute conversation about what went well and what didn’t is one of the simplest training tools a company officer has.
Model respect. New members learn how to talk to the public by listening to how senior members talk to each other.

With partner agencies

Police, EMS transport, hospitals, utilities, and mutual-aid companies all depend on clear, shared language. Laramie County (WY) Fire Authority Chief Jason Caughey urges departments to ask, "Does everyone in your department use the same terminology?" He also advises that "every transmission should have a purpose" and recommends incorporating "realistic radio traffic into every training evolution" (FireRescue1).

The same discipline applies to face-to-face handoffs. A clear, structured patient report to the receiving nurse, or a concise update to the police sergeant at a shared scene, prevents errors and builds working relationships you'll rely on later.

How to Train Communication Like Other Firefighter Skills

Departments already know how to build skills: break them into steps, practice them repeatedly, and give feedback. Communication can be trained the same way.

Define what good looks like

Write down the observable behaviors you expect, such as:

Introduces self and role
Explains actions before doing them
Uses plain language and checks understanding
Acknowledges emotion before giving instructions
Gives the person a clear next step

A simple checklist or rubric makes feedback consistent across company officers and shifts.

Practice out loud

Reading about communication doesn't build the skill any more than reading about ladders does. Short, spoken role plays at shift change, during drills, or after a relevant call build the habits crews need. Useful scenarios include:

A homeowner who wants to go back inside for a pet
A patient who’s embarrassed about a fall and keeps saying “I’m fine”
A spouse who won’t leave the patient’s side during treatment
A restaurant owner upset about a closure after a kitchen fire
A bystander filming and shouting questions

Debrief real calls

After calls with difficult conversations, ask: What did we say? How did they react? What would we say next time? These debriefs turn experience into learning.

Why rehearsal matters

Under stress, people fall back on habit. If the habit is a clipped "Ma'am, you need to move," that's what comes out when a scene gets chaotic. Practicing phrases out loud, hearing your own tone, and getting specific feedback makes calm, respectful responses the default. Like any other of your firefighter skills, communication improves with repetitions, and it fades without them.

Key Takeaways

Most fire department calls are EMS and rescue calls, so communication with the public is one of the most-used firefighter skills.
Patients need introductions and explanations; families need information and a role; bystanders need clear, polite direction; business owners need the “why” and a next step.
Fire department customer service means delivering the safe answer respectfully, not giving people whatever they want.
Communication inside the station and with partner agencies depends on shared language and purposeful messages.
Communication skills can be trained like any hands-on skill: define observable behaviors, practice out loud, and debrief.

Give your crews reps on the conversations, not just the evolutions. Fire and EMS crews can rehearse difficult patient and public conversations with Foretell AI from Glimpse Learning, speaking out loud with lifelike voice avatars such as a worried homeowner, a bystander, or an anxious patient. Every session ends with instant feedback scored against a shared communication rubric your department writes.