At the March 26th Firefighters’ Forum at the Island Institute, there was much talk of training problems, the cost of fire insurance, recruitment woes and aging equipment. But there were also grant success stories, idea sharing and a renewed commitment to improving island fire departments.
The forum was designed to connect island fire departments in the face of myriad problems including rising prices for homeowners’ insurance, difficulties with recruitment and training and a lack of funding. Attending were members of strictly volunteer departments (Long Island, North Haven, and Swan’s) as well as municipal departments (Islesboro, Vinalhaven and Chebeague as part of the town of Cumberland). Also attending were Fred LaMontagne, fire chief for the city of Portland, which oversees departments on Peaks and Cliff Island, and Tom Kane, the Island Liaison for the Portland Fire Department.
Many islanders spoke of the difficulty in recruiting new firefighters. “We can’t get the young guys interested,” said Tom Calder of Chebeague, and many other chiefs assented. All islands except Swan’s faced the problem of finding new firefighters and most blamed much of the problem on the training requirements mandated by the state. Achieving Firefighter I certification (the level required to enter a burning structure) requires 120 hours of training – a number that island chiefs claim is extremely difficult for their firefighters to achieve, especially since they are all balancing jobs and family with their fire department commitments. In addition, a department must field a minimum of eight trainees at one time in order to bring an instructor out to the island, a difficult number to reach for many islands. Chief LaMontagne shared his fear that “small fire departments will be mandated out of business.”
Bruce Hensler, who attended the meeting representing Maine Fire Training and Education, the agency that provides training and certification for the state, acknowledged the difficulties smaller departments face in reaching training goals. He also expressed his fear that the standards, now under review for the first since 1987, may get more stringent and become even harder for small communities to reach. He suggested that concerned fire chiefs join the statewide committee that crafts training requirements and firefighter standards, in order to ensure that smaller departments have a voice. He also defended training, by pointing out that since more stringent training has been required, deaths of firefighters have been significantly reduced. One possible solution to training woes would be utilization of Asychronous Transfer Mode (ATM) or other distance-learning technology on islands, which could bring training to islands without a minimum class size. Chief LaMontagne shared his view that there should be a special “Island Firefighter” training level that would meet the lower-level firefighting needs of islands.
To help bring down their insurance ratings and better prepare firefighters, several islands have mapped their islands, including house locations, road names, and water supplies. Murton Durkee of Islesboro shared a map his department had put together using GIS data, which marked each water supply on the island and the radius of land covered by it. Islesboro has encouraged homeowners to build ponds on their land, which can then be tapped by dry hydrants. The Chebeague department has similarly mapped its island in a more low-tech way, marking each structure as well as water supply and labeling each road with its official state emergency “e-911” name. Similarly, Portland is also in the process of updating its island maps.
The major difference between island communities and other small fire departments is isolation. Marc Candage, the Vinalhaven chief, mentioned that would take a minimum of approximately two hours for mutual aid departments to arrive at an island fire. Such a time lag means that many mutual aid agreements are “in name only.” The firefighters agreed that meeting several times a year would be beneficial, and tentatively agreed to meet again in the fall.