PUTNEY — State officials from several public safety agencies came to town to brief fire and emergency personnel on new training programs and requirements - and to listen to local needs.
They got an earful.
The Oct. 23 meeting at the Putney Fire Station brought representatives from the state Public Safety, Fire Safety, and Emergency Management departments to meet with representatives from Rescue, Inc., area fire departments and Selectboards, and representatives of the Windham Regional Commission, who could ask questions of the state staff and air their concerns.
Two huge concerns - training requirements and the challenges of recruitment and retention - turned into hot topics, with Putney Fire Chief Tom Goddard unconvinced that a state solution to the crisis in recruiting EMS volunteers or quasi-volunteers would come fast enough.
“Do you think recruitment and retention talks will happen more often at the state level?” he asked the state fire and safety officials.
“Because change will take years, not days,” said Goddard, “and before that time, the bottom will fall out for a lot of us.”
Why is recruitment so difficult?
Public Safety Deputy Commissioner Chris Herrick revealed that at the top levels of state government, the response to concerns about fire department recruitment and retention is, “We're losing people because they move out of state, and that's why the volunteer pool is shrinking.”
Paul Fraser, president of Jamaica Fire and Rescue, Inc. and chair of that town's Selectboard, was having none of it.
“The reality is, we're not losing them to moving, we're losing them to the training requirements,” Fraser said.
Other municipal fire officials agreed that asking firefighters to leave their homes, families, and jobs to complete fire-safety training, while necessary, was a lot to ask, especially because most towns rely on volunteers. With few exceptions, many towns' firefighters are paid only for the time they respond to a call.
Division of Fire Safety Executive Director Michael Desrochers agreed.
“Firefighting is different today than it was 20 years ago. It's faster, hotter, and we're dealing with different materials,” he said.
And, he said, volunteer firefighters now must know how to safely respond to such challenges as methamphetamine labs and suspicious packages.
“Thank God for mutual aid, or we couldn't operate,” said Fraser, who recommended that towns and the state offer firefighters some financial benefit, such as breaks on taxes, automobile registrations, or hunting licenses.
“It may not be huge, but it demonstrates the state values us,” Fraser said.
Without some real changes, Fraser argued, “we're going to lose houses and lives.”
Guilford Selectboard Chair Sheila Morse noted these are the same issues Guilford is dealing with in trying to find a town constable who will do the job on such a part-time basis and commit to required training.
“This is a state issue,” she said, and described as “facile” the argument that the smaller volunteer pool is a result of people leaving the state.
Dave Emery, Vernon's emergency management director, said this is a nationwide problem, and it requires local, grassroots activity to solve it, including identifying a target population for recruitment.
Herrick noted some fire departments in Vermont “have waiting lists for volunteers.”
“What are they doing?” he asked. “We should look at that.”
New training opportunities at Vermont Fire Academy
Desrochers announced some new components to the state's fire training facility in Pittsford.
A renovated dorm will let fire personnel from Windham County attending the Vermont Fire Academy have a place to stay - Pittsford is about two hours' drive from Brattleboro.
Desrochers encouraged attendees to take advantage of the academy's many training workshops, such as how to handle hazardous materials (hazmat). Instructors can often customize the classes, he noted.
The Fire Academy chief of training, Peter Lynch, said that getting out into the field and “meeting folks” is helpful in “making changes at the academy to make it your academy.”
During their travels around the state, “the number one thing” academy staff has heard, Lynch said, is the need for an entry-level exterior firefighting workshop.
And one is about to start.
“It'll be 50 hours in length, hands-on, and will be available in February,” said Lynch, who noted the instructors can add procedures for individual towns and counties.
“We'll train the trainers,” too, he said, so attendees can bring their knowledge back to their fire stations.
Additional new workshops include rapid interventions training, which helps keep firefighters safe, and an expanded program to incorporate mutual aid personnel when instructing firefighters along the state's borders.
Desrochers encouraged anyone interested in any Fire Academy trainings to contact Lynch via the academy's website (firesafety.vermont.gov/academy) or by phone at 800-615-3473.
Disaster response on the national level
Urban Search and Rescue Program Coordinator Mike Cannon encouraged emergency personnel to join USAR VT-TF1 - Urban Search and Rescue Vermont Task Force One - which is part of a national organization whose members respond to natural and man-made disasters.
Cannon briefly recounted the Vermont task force's swift-water response during the team's deployment to Bladen County, N.C., after Hurricane Florence hit the area.
In their 10 days in Elizabethtown, between the Cape Fear and Black Rivers, 17 USAR VT-TF1 members dealt with freshwater flooding from record-breaking rainfall, Cannon said.
There, task force members helped rescue people from water, trees, cars, and the attics of their homes. No member was injured in the response, Cannon noted.
New planning requirements for local disasters
Outlining new requirements for how municipalities plan for local disasters, Department of Public Safety Regional Emergency Management Program Coordinator Rich Cogliano announced that local officials must change their respective local emergency operations plans to LEMP.
Whereas municipalities previously had to file a LEOP - a local emergency operations plan - now they must complete a LEMP, a local emergency management plan.
And, he said, they have to do so no later than May 1 to receive increased state reimbursement for disaster-related costs.
Cogliano assured town officials they don't have to work on this transition alone. The Department of Public Safety offers templates on its website (vem.vermont.gov/plans), and he and his colleagues will help complete the documents.
“We can get folks in a room together and actually build the plan there,” he said.
Cogliano mentioned other training opportunities through the Department of Public Safety on incident command, catastrophic events, and school crises.
The latter are funded through a grant from the federal Department of Justice to help with school emergencies, he said, and interested parties can contact Sunni Eriksen, vice chair of the School Crisis Planning Team, at 802-241-5413.
'We don't have a budget for this'
Morse asked if towns with a volunteer fire department can get reimbursed by the state when responding to disasters.
“We don't have a budget for this,” she said.
Herrick told Morse that if it's a declared disaster, “all [labor] hours can get reimbursed through the federal government.” He noted it's important to keep good records of equipment and of any hazmat incidents.
Otherwise, “I'm not aware of any real reimbursements,” he said.
Herrick said this is when residents must decide, as a town, whether firefighters' service is valuable.
Is it acceptable to “make them stand in the road with a boot or cook chicken on the Fourth of July” to cover their expenses as emergency responders? he asked.
Lynch noted that at every meeting he attends, “we talk about recruitment and retention.”
“How do we do this at the state level?” Herrick asked, noting that he would “raise these issues” at the cabinet meeting later that afternoon.
Another such issue, Herrick said, is “how many fire departments [in the state] have just enough people to just put them on the trucks” to answer a fire call.
A full day
The regional meeting took place as part of Gov. Phil Scott's “Capitol for a Day” initiative, launched in June to take the Statehouse beyond Montpelier.
The governor, his cabinet, his extended cabinet, state officials, and legislators travel to a county for the day and visit businesses and schools.
They hold public meetings on a variety of subjects, such as health care, taxes, economic development, and emergency services.
The goal is for the traveling troupe to visit all of Vermont's 14 counties in the summer and fall.
Oct. 23 was Windham County's turn for the program, which “gives local constituents, municipal governments, and other partners the opportunity to connect directly with State leadership and staff,” according to a news release for the event.
The state officials' day began in Brattleboro at the Retreat Farm with an 8 a.m. cabinet meeting with Scott and state officials.
The day ended with two simultaneous events: a roundtable discussion at Mount Snow about the ski industry as an economic driver, and a tour of the Southeastern Vermont Transit Center in Wilmington, with the Center's CEO Randy Schoonmaker and Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn.