Chief Fire Officer
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The rank of Chief Fire Officer or CFO is the highest in the Fire Service in England and Wales. Its equivalent in Scotland is Fire Master, although this title has been replaced by Chief Fire Officer in some Scotish brigades. Other titles for this office can include 'County Fire Officer' (no longer widely used) and 'Chief Executive' (a recent style that remains a rarity). In the London Fire Brigade, the CFO is known as 'Commissioner of the London Fire Brigade' - the post is currently held by Sir Ken Knight.
The name of the rank is being changed by some UK fire services to 'Brigade manager' as part of an on-going modernisation of the fire service in the UK. CFO's do occasionally attend major incidents, in December 2005, the CFO of Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service, Roy Wilsher, spent a great deal of time at the Buncefield oil storage depot. He also hosted press conferences and was part of the major incident gold command team.
The use of the title 'Chief Executive' is deprecated by some firefighters who believe that it creates the false impression that the post is a non-uniformed, civilian role. Although the title has been adopted to reflect the modern "business approach" of many fire brigades, almost all Chief Fire Officers have progressed from frontline roles through the rank structure. The employment of civilian Chief Fire Officers by some brigades has been met with resistance by many firefighters.
A CFO is responsible for the day-to-day operational command of the fire service. Ultimately however major policies and procedures have to be agreed and passed by the Fire Authority to whom the CFO reports. The Fire Authority is a committee of locally elected councillors. The committee's prime responsibility is to ensure that the fire service is run properly and responsibly. In simple terms the Chief Officer is directly answerable to someone who represents the interests of the general public. The collective voice for CFOs on policy, planning and strategy in the UK is the Chief Fire Officers Association.
Many CFOs join Her Majesty's Fire Service Inspectorate, or HMFSI which is a government agency directly under the control of the Department for Communities and Local Government or DfCLG. The rank of appointment is known as HMFSI - separate arrangemnts exist in Scotland. Inspectors are uniformed and seen to be superior to that of a Chief Fire Officer, however they have no power to directly command front line fire crews.
A Chief Fire Officer is assisted by one Deputy Chief Fire Officer and a number of Assistant Chief Fire Officers— each of whom will be delegated with commanding one or multiple areas of fire brigade operations such as training, vehicles and equipment, information technology or human resources.
