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 Its equivalent in Scotland is Fire Master, although this title has been replaced by Chief Fire Officer in some Scotish brigades.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.
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[edit] A change of title
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. CFOs 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.
[edit] Responsibilities
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 councilors. 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.
[edit] HMFSI
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 arrangements 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. In 2007, the role of HMFSI is being replaced by the role of Chief Fire and Rescue Adviser.
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.
[edit] New Zealand
According to the New Zealand Fire Service Act 1975, a Chief Fire Officer in the New Zealand Fire Service commands a single fire district. This may be a volunteer fire brigade, with a single fire station, in a outer-urban or rural area, or it may comprise of several fire stations in a metropolitan area, staffed by career fire fighters. Auckland and Wellington, with their geographic sprawl, have their career stations divided into multiple districts - two in Wellington (Wellington City, which includes Porirua, and Hutt), and five in Auckland (Auckland City Central, Auckland City East, North Shore, Waitakere (west), and Manukau (south)). The other 14 cities in New Zealand that have career fire fighters are sufficiently compact geographically to allow each one to be a single fire district.
