Maine fire service membership,
We, the fire service stakeholders, sincerely appreciate your participation in the OSHA Emergency Response Standard Survey. As we have many times throughout history, the collective fire service in Maine has a new challenge to navigate and overcome. Most of us are familiar, to some degree, with the proposed change to the former OSHA Fire Brigade Standard to an emergency response standard, which would pull municipal fire departments under its regulatory authority.
This rule change will potentially implement standards of fire training, Fire and EMS protective clothing, fire service response, and health and safety. All fire service stakeholders hold your safety as paramount, and consider you a valuable asset to the communities you serve and the State of Maine as a whole. With that said, we acknowledge the strain meeting these standards may place on many municipalities and fire service members.
On June 7th the Southern Maine Community College – Maine Fire Service Institute Advisory Committee held its bi-annual meeting. This committee consists of representatives from the following Maine fire service stakeholders:
- Maine Fire Chiefs Association
- Professional Fire Fighters of Maine
- Maine State Federation of Fire Fighters
- Maine Fire Protection Services Commission
- Maine State Fire Marshal’s Office
- Maine Emergency Management
- Maine Bureau of Labor
State Senator Chip Curry represents the Maine Fire Commission on the committee and he heard the concerns from members regarding this issue. On June 20th Senator Curry sent a written request for information regarding these concerns to the MFSI Administration.
To provide the most valid information possible, we created the attached survey to obtain maximum participation and feedback. We understand that the data is not perfect and additional questions could have been useful. However, considering the time constraints, we believe the data captured provides a glimpse into the potential challenges we may be facing in the future. A report was submitted to Senator Curry on July 10th and he is working on a letter in support of our efforts.
This would not have been possible without the level of cooperation throughout the fire service in Maine. The response to this survey was impressive and we hope the same will be true for in future surveys conducted to advance our fire service.
We are happy to provide the following results of the survey for your review. Feel free to reach out with questions. Please remain attentive to future communications on this very important matter.
Respectfully,
James A. Graves
Director