Thousands of fire chiefs from around world attend IAFC conference in Kansas City

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Firefighters from around the world will be in Kansas City this week.

It’s part of a massive international Association of Fire Chiefs Fire-Rescue International Conference and Expo.

The 150th IAFC anniversary event, held in KC this year, draws in around 10,000 fire chiefs and company officers.

Donna Black, the president of IAFC, says it helps firefighters learn and grow in a changing world.

“Looking at what you need in the future,” she said. “Part of it is just the collaboration to come together, talk about our issues, see great presentations that bring us possible solutions.”

With climate change leading to more brush fires and EV cars with huge batteries that burn different from other fires, new solutions are necessary.

“So technology is getting almost ahead of us a little bit,” Black said. “Part of why we’re all here together is to try to find solutions.”

Recruitment, a hot topic in any fire station, has changed too.

It’s another topic KCFD Assistant Fire Chief Jimmy Walker says will be discussed at the conference.

“The world’s changing and people are motivated differently than they were when I began my career,” he said.

With firefighting leadership from across the globe all in the same place, they learn the latest research and share what firefighting and recruitment strategies they’ve found work best for them.

“It helps,” Walker said, “Because it breaks us out of our silo, gets us to educate, and learn from everybody else and collaborate. Because it’s all about knowledge. It’s all about never stopping training.”

The world will never stop changing, so firefighters won’t stop training and changing too.

—