Last month, more than 80 fire service and risk management staff traveled to three locations around the state to learn about the National Fire Protection Association 1500 Standard and why striving toward compliance is worth the effort. The SC Municipal Insurance Trust hosted the meeting.
The
standard outlines minimum requirements for an occupational safety and health
program for fire departments or organizations that provide rescue, fire
suppression, emergency medical services, hazardous materials mitigation,
special operations and other emergency services.
Curt
Varone, director of the Fire Service Division of the Legal
and Liability Risk Management Institute, noted the dramatic decrease in firefighter
fatalities since the first edition of the standard was published in 1987.
As an
attorney with 38 years of experience in fire service, and the former director
of public fire protection at the NFPA, Varone addressed challenges in
implementing all 12 chapters of the standard. However, he contends that firefighter
injuries and deaths usually result from a series of failures, not just one
Varone compared
compliance with each standard to a domino removed from the series that could prevent
the injury or death. He also showed how non-compliance with NFPA standards can
result in OSHA citations for employers.
Varone pointed attendees toward “low hanging fruit,” such as existing fire service
model policies available to SCMIT members which meet NFPA standards. He
encouraged attendees to tailor the SCMIT model policies to their departments
and train their firefighters on the new policies which would improve their
level of compliance.
Finally, Varone helped attendees prioritize compliance efforts and
provided a sample compliance scoring matrix which is available to SCMIT members
on the Municipal Association’s website.
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