Why FirstNet Still Matters: A Fire Chief’s View from the Street to the Nation

Written by Brian Schaeffer

I’m writing this as a local fire chief in mid-Missouri and representing NAEMT on the Public Safety Advisory Committee to the FirstNet Authority. Those two roles are not separate. What happens in Washington DC, directly affects what happens in a patient’s living room, in the cab of a fire engine, or in the middle of a multi-agency incident where nothing is clean and nothing is predictable.

Right now, FirstNet is at risk of being eliminated, just another bureaucratic program. That worries me. FirstNet wasn’t created because public safety wanted something new. It was created because what we had wasn’t working.

For years, first responders were told that commercial networks were sufficient. They weren’t. We were told interoperability could be solved with grants, pilot projects, and regional fixes. It couldn’t. Billions were spent after 9/11 trying to stitch together systems that still failed when networks were overloaded or infrastructure was damaged. When things went wrong, responders did the best they could, but communication was often the weak link. I supported the enabling legislative efforts due to my experience in the Pacific Northwest with wildfires, where we became accustomed to never having service. Commercial systems didn’t care—providing service where we needed it wasn’t profitable. We admired the problem, and I just accepted it, until September 13, 2017. On that day, public safety from every discipline converged on Freeman High School for an active shooter. The LMR system was overloaded, cellular services were unavailable, and the chaos was unacceptable. I knew that day that the United States could do better—we had to do better.

There were thousands of similar experiences throughout every political subdivision in the US. Congress paid attention to reality. That’s why FirstNet exists. Why public safety needs its own network.

Public safety communications are fundamentally different from consumer broadband. Anyone who has worked a major incident understands that instinctively. We don’t just need coverage. We need reliability when everyone else is trying to use the network at the same time. We need priority and preemption. We need hardened infrastructure that holds up during disasters, not just on normal days. We need security that recognizes the sensitivity of law enforcement operations, medical data, and critical infrastructure response.

A commercial network that is adapted to maximize consumer convenience cannot simply be repurposed into that role. That isn’t a criticism of the carriers. They have performance needs based on ROI and other financial measures. FirstNet’s mission is different. It was designed around public safety from the start, including dedicated spectrum and operational requirements that reflect how we actually work during the most austere conditions and critical activities.
From my seat as a fire chief, interoperability today is not just about radios talking to each other. It’s about whether data, geographic location, video, and live situational awareness data move smoothly across agencies and jurisdictions. When a wildfire crosses county and state lines, or when a task force deploys under EMAC, communications either support coordination or slow everything down. FirstNet has materially improved that reality.

Governance matters, not just funding

The current debate isn’t only about money. It’s about control and understanding. Congress intentionally created FirstNet as an independent authority. It placed it administratively within the National Telecommunications and Information Administration for spectrum expertise and fiscal oversight, not to replace public safety leadership with bureaucratic management or control. That distinction matters.

Public safety fought for independence because we had already lived through federal programs where accountability was weak and their solutions didn’t match operational needs. Independence was never about ego. It was about protecting the mission, regardless of political changes. The needs of first responders on the street change fast. Technology must meet that need as quickly as possible, and bureaucracy has never been nimble or responsive.

The existing governance structure works because it reflects how public safety operates. A board with real operational experience sets direction. Public safety advisory bodies provide input from the field. The contractor builds and operates the network under clear obligations. Oversight exists, but it does not override mission leadership. The FirstNet network keeps pace with the speed of change. Change that balance, and you risk turning a life-safety system into a policy experiment.

What this looks like to leaders

As a local fire chief, I don’t evaluate communications systems by reading academic or scientific papers. I evaluate them by watching our crews function during routine and complex calls. When communications work, nobody notices. When they don’t, everything suffers.

I’ve witnessed incidents where coordination depended on secure, reliable data, and delays would have compounded risk. I’ve also watched how far we’ve come compared to where we were fifteen years ago. That progress didn’t happen by accident. It happened because FirstNet stayed focused on public safety needs instead of drifting toward convenience or political priorities.

As a PSAC member, my job is to make sure national decisions stay connected to that operational reality. The risk right now is that FirstNet is being discussed as an abstract policy issue instead of what it is: a critical public safety capability.

The larger responsibility

FirstNet is self-sustaining. It serves millions of connections. It has proven itself during disasters and large-scale incidents across the country. It is one of the rare national technology efforts that was designed with end users at the table and governed accordingly. Weakening it, defunding it, or eroding its independence would not be a neutral act. It would push public safety backward, back toward workarounds and fragmented systems we already know don’t hold up under pressure. Public safety communications are not optional. They underpin disaster response, homeland security and daily emergency services in every community. Interoperability is not a talking point. It is a prerequisite for coordinated action.

I see FirstNet every day through a local lens. I also see it as part of a national commitment to protect the people who run toward problems instead of away from them. Those perspectives reinforce each other. Congress made a deliberate choice when it created FirstNet. That choice was informed by hard lessons and real consequences. It remains the right one.

As a fire chief, I owe my people systems that work when it matters. As a PSAC member, I owe the country my voice when those systems are put at risk.

This is one of those moments.

About the Author

Brian Schaeffer is the fire chief of the Columbia (Missouri) Fire Department. His professional life has spanned over 36 years, serving in high volume EMS systems, fire departments, and air medical programs in the Midwest and Northwest. Schaeffer has served on the NAEMT Board, represented Washington as the State Advocacy Coordinator and continues to represent the NAEMT on FirstNet’s Public Safety Advisory Committee (PSAC). In addition, he frequently lectures on innovation, leadership and contemporary urban issues such as the unhoused, social determinants of health, and our industry’s integration with multicultural communities.