City of Meridian

Carly Shears serves as the Community Risk Reduction (CRR) Division Manager at the Meridian Fire Department, leading strategies and programs to reduce community risk and improve public safety. With more than 16 years in the fire service, she has progressed from frontline emergency response as a firefighter-paramedic into leadership, bringing a perspective that connects emergency operations, organizational leadership, data-informed decision-making, and proactive risk reduction.

Shears uses incident and performance data to identify emerging risks, challenge assumptions, and develop targeted prevention strategies that move the fire service from a reactive model toward addressing risk upstream and improving measurable outcomes. She also plays a key role in the department's accreditation efforts, fostering accountability, innovation, and continuous improvement. Shears is a student in the National Fire Academy’s Executive Fire Officer (EFO) Program and remains committed to advancing an evolving fire service through intentional leadership, innovation, and evidence-based practice.

Building a Proactive Fire Service

Traditionally, the fire service has been defined by its emergency response. While this reactive approach remains fundamental to the mission, today’s challenges require more. Communities are changing, risks are evolving, resources are limited, and public expectations are rising. The challenge is to build organizations capable of moving upstream; understanding the root causes of emergencies, reducing risk before incidents occur, and continually adapting to improve outcomes.

Transitioning from a reactive to a proactive approach requires more than new programs or additional data; it is an adaptive challenge that demands a fundamental shift in how organizations view their mission. Responding repeatedly to the same incidents without addressing their underlying causes does little to reduce community risk. Leaders must ask different questions: Why is this happening? Who is most vulnerable? What factors contribute to the problem? Can we reduce risk before a 911 call occurs? Most importantly, are our efforts achieving meaningful outcomes?

Leaders must be willing to act on what the data reveals, even when the findings challenge existing priorities, programs, or comfortable assumptions.

This shift can be difficult because it challenges long-held beliefs about what constitutes valuable work. Emergency response is visible and immediate, while prevention and risk reduction are less apparent, as their success is often measured by incidents that never occur. A firefighter can see the direct impact of responding to a cardiac arrest, but a prevention initiative may never produce a dramatic result. Adaptive leadership requires recognizing that preventing emergencies is as meaningful as responding to them.

Turning Data into Action

Data offers significant opportunities in this transition, but data alone does not make an organization adaptive. Fire departments have access to more information than ever through dispatch systems, records management, GIS, performance dashboards, and community risk assessments. The leadership challenge is transforming that information into understanding and action - using data to determine why incidents occur, identify patterns and vulnerabilities, prioritize resources, and evaluate whether interventions are producing meaningful outcomes. This requires a culture of continuous inquiry where asking “why” is encouraged rather than viewed as criticism. Leaders must be willing to act on what the data reveals, even when the findings challenge existing priorities, programs, or comfortable assumptions. Adaptability is about being willing to recognize when past solutions may no longer be sufficient.

This also requires shifting from measuring activity to measuring effectiveness. The number of inspections completed, presentations delivered, or calls for service demonstrates workload, but not necessarily impact. Continually evaluating whether our efforts are changing the conditions that create risk transforms data from a reporting requirement into a powerful leadership tool.

These principles become increasingly important as fire departments operate within tighter financial constraints. Resource limitations require leaders to think critically about organizational priorities and the outcomes they are intended to produce. Data-informed decision-making provides a way to evaluate whether current practices align with community needs. Adaptive leaders must be willing to challenge established practices and make changes when evidence suggests a better approach.

Leading for a Changing Future

The future of the fire service will be defined not only by how quickly departments respond, but by understanding the conditions that create the need for response in the first place. Leading upstream requires organizations willing to question assumptions, learn from data, and adapt when evidence points to a better path. In an environment of increasing risk and limited resources, adaptability is not just an advantage; it is a leadership imperative and essential for excellence in the modern fire service.