Massachusetts Firefighter's Death Raises Training Issues
"Fire service has progressed to the point where it is a science; it's not just running into a fire," said state Rep. Louis Kafka, a Sharon Democrat whose bill for uniform firefighter training has been withering in the Legislature for 11 months.
"It's not something that's just done off the cuff anymore," Kafka said. "In light of the tragedy, this is something that is at least worth making the argument."
State law does not require about 40 percent of Massachusetts firefighters -- the 8,000 or so civilians who serve their towns in a part-time or volunteer capacity -- to participate in mandatory training, said Lawrence Holmberg, president-elect of the Massachusetts Call/Volunteer Firefighters Association.
"All training is local," Holmberg said. "It's handled by the chief and maybe more importantly by the select boards and mayors and city councils. There are states that have set standards. This state has not chosen to do it."
Lancaster Deputy Fire Chief Sanford "Sean" Ford bristled at the suggestion McNamara died because of poor training.
Ford said McNamara was trained to the town's own mandatory code.
McNamara, a 31-year-old Clinton resident, pulled a hose into a Lancaster home with three full-time Clinton firefighters but became disoriented and trapped in the cellar, and died "doing his job," Ford said.
"Any new recruit that comes on the department has one year to complete Firefighter One training in surrounding towns," said Ford, who said McNamara fulfilled all the requirements. "Then they take the state test at the Massachusetts Fire Academy (in Stow), which is three levels: a written, a non-fire practical, and a fire practical."
McNamara took night firefighting courses, had certified emergency medical training, did well on the civil service exam and was a candidate for a full-time position at the Clinton Fire Department, said Clinton Fire Chief Richard Hart.
"I'm a huge proponent of all training, no matter who," Ford said. "It's not something that should be a local option. There should be some more minimal requirement guides, but it's very difficult to do when the towns don't have the money."
Fire cause
The state fire marshal said overburdened extension cords caused the Nov. 29 blaze, but federal occupational safety investigators are still examining the circumstances surrounding McNamara's death.
"It doesn't matter if you're in a city of 10 million or a rural hamlet of 50. This is something that could have happened to anybody," said Holmberg, who is also a call firefighter in Chesterfield. "From what I've heard of preliminary reports, they did an excellent job, they had all or most of their protocols in place."
Fitchburg Fire Chief Kevin Roy, head of a professional city force of more than 80 firefighters, said the incident appeared to be "like one of those fires that seemed like it was going to be routine."
"Certainly if that's where the fire is, you go in and protect that area," Roy said of the decision by the four firefighters to enter the basement, where explosions had been reported. "We've gone to vacant buildings and found people on numerous occasions. You never know when a life is involved."
An audit of the Lancaster Fire Department by Bennett Associates, based on interviews with Fire Department staff, found the department's "informal and poorly organized training program has generated several complaints against the organization. As such, the department has recognized this as inadequate."
Westminster Fire Chief Brenton MacAloney, whose town manages one of the regional training programs, said any troubles found in the Lancaster fire investigation may reverberate across the state.
"We're all kind of waiting to see what transpires from this investigation, what may come out of that in terms of what didn't work right and what we can do better," MacAloney said. "Some people may or may not like the answers they come up with, like in Worcester (the 1999 cold storage fire that killed six firefighters), but the facts are the facts."
Kafka, who's pushing for mandatory training, said any new state regulation should come with money so call firefighters don't drop out of departments.
"Until they figure out how many call firefighters we have across the commonwealth, there's no way of knowing what the cost is of sending all of those people to a specific program," Kafka said.
He said financial concerns may be the reason for the delay in examining the bill he presented last January along with state Rep. William C. Galvin, a Canton Democrat, and the Professional Firefighters of Massachusetts.
In Lancaster, members of the all-call force get paid between $10 to $14 and hour, depending on experience and training, for responding to a call.
The department has more than 30 call firefighters on paper, but, in reality, it's closer to 22 men, said Ford.
No time for firefighting
"Nobody wants to do this job anymore," Ford said. "People have other jobs; they have commitments."
Ashby Fire Chief William Seymour said his 34 on-call firefighters have busy work and family lives, making it difficult for them to work during crucial daytime hours, and even more difficult for training.
"One of the big problems with the call firefighters is being able to find time to do the proper training. We do the best that we can," Seymour said.
"When you get to be a certain size -- we run about 1,000 calls a year -- what you're running into is it's more than some call firefighters can afford to put in," MacAloney said. "The trend has been in a general sense for communities that reach 4,500 to start to hire full-time people."
After initially failing an override attempt, MacAloney said his department eventually succeeded in getting a group of full-time firefighters added to a roster once made up entirely of volunteers.
"We had situations where only one person would show up for a call, and that's not a safe situation," MacAloney said.
Holmberg said the state's call firefighters are not permitted into the full-time recruit program at the academy but have other opportunities to "get the exact same type of training, but in a different format."
Hart, whose Clinton department has more permanent than call firefighters, said he would endorse "mandatory minimum standards, maybe," if those standards were "reasonable and attainable."
Kafka said his firefighter union-backed proposal wasn't originally directed specifically for call firefighters, but instead for firefighters who worked in agencies outside of traditional municipalities.
The bill, if passed, would make anyone in the firefighting profession bound to the same approved firefighter recruit training program.
"The intention of the bill was basically geared towards the firefighters out at Massport -- to make sure they were trained -- but the logical extension of the language of the bill would include any person, whether it be a regular firefighter or a call firefighter," Kafka said.
Jefferson Smith, a researcher for the Legislature's joint Committee on Public Safety, said the bill was put on hiatus in March when state legislators decided to have a subcommittee investigate a host of fire safety issues in the wake of The Station club fire in Rhode Island.
The committee expects to release its recommendations Tuesday, but the issue of mandatory training has remained on the periphery of the fire safety dialogue.
Without the mandatory requirements, area fire departments each take their own interpretation of what kind of training is needed.
Townsend Fire Chief Jack Collins said many of his most dedicated call firefighters live near the fire station so they can best respond in times of need.
"It's getting the experience that makes the difference," Collins said of his call force. "They've got to get the calls to really learn how to do the job."