The Courage To Be Kind

‍ ‍Humility, Health, and Humanity in the Fire Service

Why are we so afraid to show kindness in the fire service?

Why is kindness often treated like a special reward—something offered only after a person has proven themselves—instead of a basic expectation for how we treat one another?

We work in a profession built around helping people. We enter their homes on their worst days. We comfort frightened children, support grieving families, care for strangers and protect communities. Yet, inside our own halls, kindness can sometimes be mistaken for weakness. Compassion can be rationed. Humility can be confused with insecurity. Vulnerability can become ammunition.

That contradiction deserves an honest conversation.

Kindness should not be a treat. It should be part of our professional standard.

That does not mean lowering expectations, ignoring poor performance or refusing to hold people accountable. Kindness is not the absence of standards. It is how we uphold those standards without unnecessarily destroying the person standing in front of us.

You can correct someone without humiliating them.

You can demand excellence without making people afraid to learn.

You can lead firmly without needing to prove that you are the toughest person in the room.

You can be accountable, competent, gritty and kind at the same time.

Humility is an operational strength

The fire service rightly values confidence. On an emergency scene, hesitation and indecision can have serious consequences.

But confidence without humility becomes dangerous.

Humility is the ability to say:

“I do not know.”

“I made a mistake.”

“Show me a better way.”

“You were right.”

“I need help.”

Humility allows firefighters to remain teachable. It allows instructors to continue learning. It allows officers to hear concerns before those concerns become injuries, grievances or operational failures.

A humble leader does not surrender authority. A humble leader understands that rank does not make someone infallible.

We train firefighters to recognize changing fire conditions, conduct continuous size-ups and adjust tactics when the original plan is no longer working. We should expect the same flexibility from our leaders and organizations.

Changing your mind when presented with better information is not weakness. It is good command.

What fear does to firefighters

There is a difference between healthy pressure and a culture of fear.

Healthy pressure prepares people to perform under difficult conditions. Fear teaches people to hide.

When firefighters are constantly worried about being mocked, judged or branded as incompetent, they begin second-guessing themselves. They stop asking questions. They avoid practising skills in front of their peers. They conceal injuries, personal struggles and gaps in their knowledge.

Eventually, the desire to avoid embarrassment becomes stronger than the desire to improve.

That is not resilience. That is self-protection.

A firefighter who is afraid to say, “I do not understand,” may nod through an explanation and carry that uncertainty onto the fireground. A member who fears being labelled weak may hide a physical injury until it becomes worse. Someone struggling mentally may wait until they are in crisis because the station never felt safe enough for an earlier conversation.

Canadian firefighters interviewed about mental health identified barriers that included pressure to appear stronger than everyone else, resistance to asking for help, leadership gaps and inconsistent access to appropriate support. They also reported that programs such as peer support, CISM and resiliency training were not universally available across departments. (cipsrt-icrtsp.ca)

This is where kindness becomes a safety issue.

Kindness creates room for early conversations. Humility creates room for questions. Psychological safety allows concerns to be raised before they become emergencies.

The statistics are people

Statistics cannot measure the exact amount of kindness inside a fire hall. They can, however, show us why health and culture deserve serious attention.

Statistics Canada’s 2023 data found that 19.6% of Canadians outside the territories rated their mental health as fair or poor. The rate was 19.4% in Alberta, 19.4% in Saskatchewan and 23.8% in Manitoba. Only 42.2% of Manitobans rated their mental health as very good or excellent, compared with 50.1% of Albertans and 49.5% of Saskatchewan residents. These figures represent the general population—not firefighters specifically—but they provide important Prairie context for the communities from which our members are recruited and to which they return after every call. (Statistics Canada)

Firefighter-specific research following the Fort McMurray wildfire offers an even clearer warning. In a cohort of 998 Alberta firefighters deployed to the fire, researchers estimated prevalence rates of 21.4% for PTSD, 15.8% for anxiety, 14.3% for depression and 17.3% for substance-use disorders. This was a uniquely devastating event and should not be treated as representative of every firefighter, but it demonstrates the lasting consequences that major incidents can have long after the flames are extinguished. (cipsrt-icrtsp.ca)

A 2025 federal report also noted that frontline workers reported moderate-to-severe PTSD symptoms more often than other Canadians—11% compared with 7%. (Canada)

These numbers are not evidence that firefighters are fragile.

They are evidence that firefighters are human.

Health must mean more than being fit for duty

The fire service talks constantly about health and safety, but our understanding of health can become painfully narrow.

Can you pass the medical?

Can you climb the stairs?

Can you drag the hose?

Can you fit into your gear?

Those things matter. Physical readiness is essential. But a firefighter can pass every physical evaluation while quietly falling apart.

Health includes sleep, nutrition, mobility, recovery, relationships, identity, emotional regulation, financial stability, substance use, mental health and the ability to experience life outside the department.

It also includes the environment in which people work.

We cannot promote individual resilience while refusing to examine unhealthy organizational behaviour. We cannot give people a mental-health presentation once a year and then send them back into a workplace where asking for help damages their reputation.

Research involving Canadian airport firefighters found that organizational stressors could overshadow operational ones. Peer support was considered essential, but firefighters still reported barriers to treatment, including stigma, fear of being placed on leave and concerns about confidentiality. (Canada)

Sometimes the call is not the only thing hurting people.

Sometimes it is what happens after the call.

Sometimes it is the silence, the gossip, the unnecessary cruelty, the poor leadership or the feeling that there is no safe place to land.

Having the cojones to be uniquely you

The fire service talks a great deal about courage.

We usually picture courage as entering a burning structure, performing a rescue or standing steady when everything around us is chaotic.

But there is another kind of courage: having the guts to be yourself in an environment that often rewards conformity.

I have spent too much time second-guessing my personality. I have wondered whether I was too loud, too passionate, too emotional, too feminine, too direct, too enthusiastic or simply too much.

I am beginning to understand that constantly shrinking myself does not make me more professional. It makes me less present.

Being uniquely yourself does not mean refusing feedback or using authenticity as an excuse for poor behaviour. It means knowing your values, accepting your strengths, recognizing your rough edges and continuing to grow without sanding away everything that makes you human.

There should be room in the fire service for different personalities.

There should be room for humour and seriousness.

There should be room for quiet leaders and bold ones.

There should be room for femininity, emotion, creativity and compassion without questioning a person’s competence.

Belonging should not require becoming an identical copy of everyone else in the hall.

Kindness and accountability belong together

Kindness without accountability can become avoidance.

Accountability without kindness can become cruelty.

We need both.

True kindness tells someone when they are falling short because their safety and success matter. It does not gossip about them, publicly embarrass them or wait for them to fail.

True humility accepts correction without immediately becoming defensive. It understands that being wrong does not make someone worthless. It simply means there is something left to learn.

The goal should never be to create firefighters who are terrified of making mistakes.

The goal should be to create firefighters who identify mistakes, speak about them honestly, correct them and help prevent the next person from repeating them.

That is how learning organizations become safer.

Ask yourself

What would change if kindness became an expectation in every fire hall?

What would happen if officers modelled humility instead of demanding perfection?

How many mistakes could be prevented if firefighters were comfortable asking questions?

How many people would seek help earlier if they knew it would not be used against them?

How many talented people have we lost because they were different, because they challenged unhealthy traditions or because they became tired of shrinking themselves to belong?

And what kind of fire service could we build if people no longer had to choose between being respected and being human?

“Mop-up”

We do not need a softer fire service.  In fact, in my opinion, that is the last thing we need, but we need a healthier one.

We need firefighters who are skilled, disciplined and accountable. We also need firefighters who know how to care for themselves and one another.

Kindness will not weaken the fire service.

Humility will not lower the standard.

Allowing people to be human will not make them less capable of doing an extraordinarily difficult job.

It may be exactly what allows them to keep doing it.

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