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AZ Reels as Fire Marshal’s Office Suspends Programs
Arizona Reels as Fire Marshal's Office Suspends Programs
By Shannon Pieper
The State of Arizona is officially without a system to certify fire instructors or train firefighters. On Thursday, Jan. 7, following budget cuts announced by the Governor’s office, the Arizona Office of the State Fire Marshal (OSFM) announced suspensions in its programs and changes to office policies (PDF).
The cuts appear to be part of a program Governor Jan Brewer (R) introduced in her state-of-the-state address Monday: “I’m establishing the Commission on Privatization and Efficiency, or COPE,” she said. “COPE will identify state services and agencies whose functions can be eliminated, consolidated, streamlined or outsourced to achieve greater operational efficiency in meeting the needs of our citizens.”
The Cuts in Detail
Specifically, cuts to the OSFM include but are not limited to:
- Suspension of all training and certification programs conducted by the Training Division.
- Reduction in OSFM involvement in the State Fire School (its role will now be limited to supporting the initiatives and work of the State Fire Training committee).
- Discontinuation of regional outreach planning and coordination.
In addition, the OSFM will no longer:
- Coordinate statewide fire training curricula and validate fire instructor qualifications.
- Accept any training programs for national accreditation.
- Coordinate and certify high school fire science and community college fire career preparation programs.
- Apply for the annual fire training grant from the National Fire Academy.
- Support or offer assistance for the National Fire Incident Reporting System.
- Make available statewide fire life and property loss information and statistics.
- Participate in the State Fire Mutual Aid Plan.
- Compile, catalog and track the availability of fire resources in Arizona.
- Develop and support a centralized Juvenile Fire setter tracking database.
- Investigate fires in school, state and county buildings.
- Provide fire investigation assistance to local fire jurisdictions.
- Conduct regular fire inspection of business occupancies in unincorporated areas.
Ron Dennis, executive director of the Arizona Fire Chiefs Association (AFCA) notes that although these cuts don’t officially close the OSFM, they come pretty close. “There’s two different kinds of Arizona legislation as it relates to the fire marshal,” Dennis says. “There’s legislation that specifies what the Fire Marshal is obligated to do, with language such as shall. And then there’s language that’s uses the word may—it may conduct training, may do fire investigations, may assist communities, etc.” Certification and training fall into that “may” category; there’s no legislation in Arizona that requires firefighters to be certified, although Dennis stresses that 30 years of voluntary cooperation has made for a very strong system in which most departments see the value in training and certification and choose to participate.
Next Steps
What’s probably on most readers’ minds—and certainly the minds of fire service personnel in Arizona—is what happens next. Dennis stresses that everything is very much up in the air right now, with the Governor’s office scheduled to reveal its executive budget on Friday.
“Right now, the state training director is being retained to participate in the possible transition of training to some other type of state fire service entity,” Dennis says. “The AFCA, along with other major Arizona fire service groups, including labor, volunteers, districts and metro departments, is currently conducting meetings to determine how such a transition might work—in such a way that the training curriculum, coordination and certification isn’t lost. Those are the questions that we’re trying to deal with. What are the moving parts, the administrative nuts and bolts and costs? What can be transitioned and how will it function? How can it maintain cohesiveness? Who will control training in the state of Arizona?”
One of the challenges in this process: lack of precedent. Dennis says he’s unaware of states where “the state had control of training but all of a sudden said, ‘Stop, we’re not required to do this, so we’re not going to.’”
He welcomes information about how other states coordinate and fund fire training and certification. “In Missouri, fire training is delivered through the college system through a memo of understanding with the fire marshal’s office, from what I understand,” he says. “But that may not be an option for us.”
For now, the AFCA is focused on ensuring that it’s part of any discussion involving state fire training and certification, and trying its best to work toward a unified solution that doesn’t leave the state’s training program fragmented and inadequate.
“This is the most challenging situation from the standpoint of state training that I’ve seen in my entire fire service career,” Dennis says “I’ve seen significant lack of support for training, but I’ve never seen a move to completely abolish it. We spent 20 years working with the OSFM, working through some issues to build a good program. But with this, everything is taking a huge step back. As a state, we’re worse off than before the fire marshal’s office was established 1970.”
Shannon Pieper is managing editor for FireRescue magazine.
To reach Ron Dennis, email him at ronboden@cox.net.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Duane on
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Maybe it is time to look at the term "privatization". Maybe this is an opportunity for the fire service to become self sufficient- i.e. outsource some of the training allowing it to become competitive and available to a wider audience base than before... one thing for sure about the fire service, amazing things happen when we put our heads together to solve our problems....
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Permalink Reply by Bob on
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Take a look at some of the other states and their training and certification. The State Fire Academy here in Ct. handles ALL certification for volunteer organizations as well as offering the standard 13 week recruit classes for career firefighters. The academy property is available for on weekends for volunteers who want to train and the recruit classes are open to ALL participants wether associated with a department or not. This makes for a very marketable well trained firefighter when he goes to the testing process for hire. Our State FireMarshal's office is a seperate entity iunder the State Police and has nothig to do with firefighting training or certification. Along with training and certifying, the Academy also has responsibility for Prevention and Education, and all other NFPA certification classes.
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Permalink Reply by WCFPD 2006 on
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HOLY CRAP........sounds like some thing stupid a politician would do.........nothing really suprises me anymore......so sad but true
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Permalink Reply by Michael Gove on
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Hey Captain Busy,
Maybe we could privatize the fire service and allow the private companies who run prisons to use the prisoners as free labor to fight the fires. It might work and would reduce our taxes. Low bid is low bid, baby!
Additionally, we could have the building trades take over building inspections. They could use injured or retired tradesmen as cheap labor to do building inspections.
The building of bridges seems frivilous. If a particular bridge is needed badly enough, private parties would build a toll bridge. There is no need for public dollars.
It would also save tax dollars to have industry groups oversee their particular industries instead of government regulators, for instance the Insurance Commissioner could go and the Insurance Companies could hire and pay their own guy to oversee the Insurance Industry.
I hear that in some places they are even hiring foxes to guard chicken coops.
Go Tea Baggers!
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Permalink Reply by GMM on
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Essentially, the reason the Fire Marshal can no longer file for grants is because there is nobody left to file for them. The training section was also responsible for grants. As Ron Dennis has stated, much of what was cut was not a state requirement, but a major portion of the training section was self sustaining and bringing in revenue for the sole purpose of revolving it back into the community for establishing a qualified instructor and certification program, fire training, outreach training, fire conferences, fire school logistical support, etc. The state gov't was kind enough to swipe most of that fund for their budget without thinking about the consequences, and they're still not finished. Not to mention that those who have already paid for certification testing or who have tested already are stuck in limbo, will not receive the certifications, which they have paid for and reimbursement for their payments is delayed for a questionable amount of time. This is testing season for most FF I&II programs, so now FDs and Educational entities have to tell all their students that IFSAC certification will not be available and most FDs require their recruits to be certified. The state loses their credibility, the FF I&II training curriculums are left on their own without guidance and oversight. Trust me when I say, there have been issues with some entities, both FDs and colleges, with enterpreting how training should be conducted, especially without oversight. Does a FD really want to hire a firefighter who has received a qualification, when say his live burn may have consisted of just a 55 gal drum barrel and a fire extinguisher? Or how about under age 18 students going through training and something happens during an exercise, but legal responsibility hasn't been established. In this state, you have to be 18 just to test and do the live burn. For the most part, all that is left is the Fire Marshal and a few fire inspectors, everyone else is gone. OSFM is just short of being closed. To be truthful, the fire training director is now very temporary, so how far he'll be able to get, is grim. This is a complete disaster for the agency, the fire service, and the state. We have no legislative support in this state for the fire service. The administration is dead wrong for making this move without ensuring that these services were supported by outside entities first.
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Let me tell you about how privatization works. Your private fire department shows up with just a engine to your house, which is on fire, to determine if your house fire falls within the matrix and thus qualifies for additional fire apparatus. Each fire apparatus that shows up means that the bill you receive for fire suppression services grows. While these privateers decide if your house falls within the matrix, your neighbours homes are being exposed to heat and flame. If their home should become involved then a new work order will have to be submitted. At which time, a determination will be made if that house fire falls into the matrix qualifying the fire building to qualify for additional fire apparatus. Your neighbours will also receive a bill for fire suppression services, even though it was your house that was on fire and not theirs.
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Unfortunately, that's pretty accurate. I live in an area covered by Rural mtro. I am by no means degrading the quality of their work, it's just that if houses are on fire, I assume the house that's covered through a subscription will be addressed first. Afterall, the subscriber is the paid customer whereas the latter may only be covered by their insurance. Privatization brings some interesting twists. In regards to fire training in AZ, an established standard for curriculum, testing, and instructor qualifications ensures that all entities are maintaining the same standards, reducing risk. In the 3 big cities, this was never really an issue to begin with. It's the small rural communities where departments are manned by volunteers and have little to no budget, adequates resources for training and/or operations, or qualified people to teach, can raise some serious issues. Just because someone has been a firefighter 5 or even 10 years, doesn't mean that they're qualified to teach something for certification. The processes established by the OSFM ensured that colleges and FDs had the right kind of people teaching their respective courses. This raised the bar on instructor credibility and cut liability. Not to mention, the process helped make sure instructors were covered by insurance through the AFCA. That being said, instructor qualifications may still continue through the AFCA, but is a moot point without any kind of across the board state fire training/program standards.
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