This paper analyzes historic and contemporary documents about the Ten Standard Fire Orders in the Lessons Learned Center Library and elsewhere, to examine how justifications for these traditional safety rules have changed over time. Using ethical theory as a lens for analysis, the paper shows how the original Fire Orders attempted to codify an individual “virtue ethic” for firefighter safety traditionally managed through narrative write-ups. However, their introduction simultaneously ushered in an individual “duty ethic” that would come to eclipse the virtue ethic over time. The findings from the South Canyon fire accident investigation reflect an organization at odds with whether it manages safety as a virtue or safety as a duty. The 2002 revision of the Fire Orders is said to be a return to basics. Whereas the early Fire Orders were intended to harness individual loyalty to the group as a way to repair defects in individual thinking, the analysis shows how the new Fire Orders are intended to function as a resource for individuals to repair defects in group reasoning. Therefore, while the new Fire Orders may indeed attempt to recover a virtue ethic, it is a distinctly organizational one. However, this is at odds with investigations that attribute accidents to violations, which a view that is more compatible with an individual duty ethic.