Firefighter standards causing heartburn

It’s the hearts of Sundance’s firefighters that are burning this time, thanks to new regulations from the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) that are set to go into effect this summer.

“Wyoming is an OSHA state, so it kind of looks like we’re going to get hammered with these new OSHA regulations, but we do have public comment up until July 21,” Fire Chief Gari Gill told the council last week.

“I would ask all of you to send in a letter on what it’s going to cost us – which is going to be pretty significant.”

According to a press release, OSHA plans to update an existing standard and expand safety and health protections for emergency responders.

The goal is to “modernize” the “Fire Brigades” standard that was first published in 1980 and has protections that have become outdated.

“Currently, OSHA regulations protect emergency responders’ safety and health in a patchwork of decades-old, hazard-specific standards,” states the press release.

“Not designed as comprehensive emergency response standards, they fail to address the full range of job hazards faced by today’s emergency responders.”

Replacing the old standard will be the new “Emergency Response” standard, which updates protections in a manner that OSHA says is in line with national consensus standards for a broad range of workers exposed to hazards that arise during and after fires and other emergencies.

The proposal includes major changes for protective clothing and equipment and improvements in safety practice that OSHA states are generally accepted as standard within the industry.

Employers will also be required to obtain baseline medical screening for all emergency responders and ensure continued medical surveillance for responders then they are exposed to fires more than 15 times a year.

To meet the new regulations, said Gill, will cost around $14,000 “just to set the program up”, and then $695 per year per firefighter to perform the necessary physicals, EKGs and cancer screenings.

“The State of Wyoming did put in a deal if you’ve been with the fire department for ten years that you can get these cancer screenings under workman’s comp, which is awesome,” Gill said.

Some big departments across the nation believe we need this, Gill told the council, which he acknowledged does make sense for a big city with plenty of funding.

But that’s not the case in Sundance.

“We’re not a district. We beg and plead money, as you know,” he said.

Council Member Randy Stevenson concurred, commenting that this is the sort of thing that sends a small-town fire department extinct.

“The health of our firefighters is extremely important, but they can price you out of existence. A federal agency with limitless money putting regulations on small towns,” he said, later adding,

“So OSHA brings the requirements and meeting them can be very strenuous, I’ve been involved in some of that. Are they offering up any financial aid or places to go for that? Of course not.”

Fortunately, Gill said, all the department’s gear is currently in compliance. However, the self-contained breathing apparatuses will not be compliant in two years, which will cost about $150,000 to replace.

Another heartburn-inducing issue is the time requirement for volunteers, he continued. Though the department does already have a strong standard operating procedure and recently let one firefighter go because they did not obtain their certifications, all other volunteers are fully certified (except one, who is undertaking the certification process right now).

“This even includes wildland firefighters, they’ve got to be certified and they have to do the same thing,” Gill said.

Certification cannot be achieved with the snap of your fingers, though – it takes time and effort.

This, said Mayor Paul Brooks, is the part that gives him pause.

“We’re asking people to volunteer and we’re making them take additional trainings, we’re having them do this, we’re having them do that. We keep upping the amount of time we’re taking from them,” the mayor said.

Gill agreed, stating, “I’m impressed with what they’re doing, but at the same time how can I cut into their time with their families?”

Sundance’s firefighters will continue to “do what we can, and that’s all we can do,” Gill said.

“We’re working through it, we’ll see what happens after June 21, I guess,” he told the council.

It’s Gill’s hope, he said, that, “There’s going to be enough repercussions that they’ll have to back off of some of it.”

Stevenson was less optimistic.

“I’ve never seen the requirements go down,” Stevenson said. “In two years, your equipment is no good – that never ends.”