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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 Rob on
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WTF? Someone has no idea what it takes to train, retrain, certify, recertify, and generally keep things in order do they!
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Permalink Reply by Marc A. Muench on
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Dangerous
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Permalink Reply by Firefighter Walther on
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wow, sounds like a opposition of terms, and uncertified Firefighter? surely all Firefighters must have some training, or you have just a bunch of guys wanting to run into a burning building, with no tactics. seems like NOT a good choice to me.
David Walther
HCCS Fire Training Academy
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Permalink Reply by Steve Davis on
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And once the first person brings a law suite to the state because of injuries quoting a lack of training, this will be revisited and suddenly the state will have a huge alotment of money for training and certification programs. Politicians do not care about you or your needs. They care about getting re-elected and saving face in the eyes of the public. Personally, I would love to see the first politician be held legally responsible for making stupid decisions such as this one.
This is a huge slap in the face to our brothers and sisters in Arizona.
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Permalink Reply by Derek R. on
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I don't have the words to say what's on my mind right now. Rediculous.
I sincerely hope they come to an agreement.
If they need to make cuts to save money, first of all, de-commission COPE, then thin out un neccessary gov't seats, such as the senate and others. They want to save money by cutting emergency service training credentials and marshalls duties at the potential cost of human lives? Again...rediculous. Give your head a shake people.
At least they kept the training director to try and figure out how to fix it so they don't have to worry about it themselves. Talk about passing the buck.
I'm sure though, that between the fire service groups, they can come up with something to keep, like mentioned above, the training curriculum, coordination and certification.
I wish you in Arizona, the best.
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Permalink Reply by Travis Hofmann on
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Real Bad move somone is going to get hurt or killed and it's going to cost them More money when they get sued
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Permalink Reply by William Greg Smith on
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I think the Governor needs to think long and hard. thus make right choice. This is not it. If she can't she needs to be removed. Shes taken a big chance and gamble.
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Permalink Reply by Jeffrey S Austin on
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Amazing, the Governor of Arizona playing Russian Roulette with the safety and lives of the citizens and visitors to the state. I'm a Republican and understand the need for belt tightening but to go after Public Safety is criminal. I smell lawsuits on the horizon that will cost the state far more than what they would have saved closing the OSFM.
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Permalink Reply by Eng Co 4 on
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Typical political correctness! Get rid of Public Safety bureaus
and keep Social Welfare Programs! Abolish FD and PD functions
so there is more money to hand out to those who don't/won't
work for a living and collect the monthly allotment (tax-free by
the way!) and can add to it every 9 months!
This is happening in all states, just AZ seems to be breaking the
edge. This also might be a political ploy by the governor to shock
people into raising taxes.
I DON'T understand why they won't file for GRANTS, though! That's
"found money" that could go a LONG way towards keeping the cert
and training bureaus alive!
The politicians will keep cutting essential programs like public safety
and public works to fuel hand-outs and eventually the system will
collapse and wil become uncontrollable. Want to guess who will get
the blame? Yup! NOT the politicians! This is also happening on a national
scale.
If this were "privatized" it would be called a PYRAMID/PONZI SCHEME
and would be illegal!
Others here are correct! Lives WILL be lost because of this! COURT
CASES will be lost because of this! These politicians who "know what is
good for us" HAVE NO IDEA!
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Permalink Reply by Raymond T Berger Sr. on
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Just another failed Republican theory that benefits no one.They cut taxes and leave it up to someone else coming in after them to resolve the budget deficits that they create. We all want to come home after every call,and the surest way to be able to do that is to TRAIN,TRAIN,AND MORE TRAINING.No training can cover every situation,but it sure can help.The safety of every firefighter, or auxilliary person depends on it. Just hope that there are no LOD or injuries due to this policy.
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Permalink Reply by Bill on
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It's hard to believe that the state, any state, would think that there could be a positive outcome to this. As for training....fire departments excel at, among other things, adapting and overcoming. Departments will need to document that training was conducted within the scope NFPA Standards to cover their own tail.......
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Permalink Reply by Roy Blackburn on
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These folks have no clue as to what is necessary to remain alove in a hostile environment. What does it take for someone to realize that this is a dangerous situation? Some body is going to die because of this, and I hope that those responsible can live with that outcome.
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