Fire Marshal Position

[jaredffemt]

My City is eliminating the fire marshal position. Has anyone heard of this before? We are an all career fire department of about 50 uniformed personnel and a city population of about 36,000. They considered using the county FM office for plan review and investigations but decided they charged too much. Can anyone give me any information on State or Federal regulations of this position. We now have no Plan reviewer, Fire Inspector, or Investigator. Thoughts or advice welcome.

[fire49]

Fire prevention office is normally first to get cut

Do you have any city ordinances requiring annual inspections, or mandating fire investigations???

What state are you in??

[jaredffemt]

I am in Texas. Yes we do annual inspections and the Fire Marshal does the Certificate of Occupancy. We are also required to do investigations on any suspicious fire.

[fire49]

Texas state does not mandate a fire marshal position or require annual inspections, or fir investigations normally

Investigations can be picked up by the cops, now it may be a low priority.

Unless you are true civil service / union positions are not mandated

Texas is an at will state

[jaredffemt]

Thanks for your help. That does not seem very smart to me. I think of Fire Marshal as a more vital role. We are civil service, but Fire Marshal is exempt. Once again, thanks for your help.

[fire49]

As you know alot of cities are cutting, and if fire prevention cannot show that they are productive and bring in a little money, they look easy to cut

[fire49]

Hay I almost forgot

I believe it is sept 2011 any required inspection such as day cares, nursing homes, hospitals, and now the AG seems to include any inspection will have to be done by a certified inspector, so that might bring back the FM.

Check with the state Fmo fir the exact date

I would post a link to the SFO but some people do not like cut and paste

[octhefirefool]

Not sure about Texas, but here if you have no identified Fire Marshall then the Fire Chief is the Fire Marsall as well. We cut our FM when he retired a year ago and contract with our nieghboring dept. Thier FM just retired so us troops have no idea whats happening next! Plan reviews can always be contracted out, and we have Prevention inspectors to take care of permit reviews/inspections.

[joeyjamz]

It does definitely depend on the state and other factors obviously. However, I agree with fire, not sure about any dates but certain inspections will have to be done by a certified inspector like he said, so I would assume fire marshal would be necessary. I know a fireproofing nyc company and they were saying they heard something about certain areas doing away with fire marshals also. It's pretty crazy.