Chief Thomas Oesterheld preached fire and brimstone to Spotsylvania volunteer firefighters at this year’s annual banquet.
His message: The county government doesn’t care about you.
It’s a message Oesterheld said came loud and clear over the past 12 months, a period he refers to as “the year of hell.”
His 55 years of service mean nothing to county officials, Oesterheld said as he announced he would retire this year.
SETTING NEW STANDARDS
His indignation stems from the new minimum training standards, approved in October by the county’s Fire and Emergency Medical Services Commission. The Spotsylvania Board of Supervisors asked for these new standards as a reaction to a Feb. 5, 2010, fatal fire, when a resident died while on the phone with an emergency dispatcher. The scene of the incident was chaotic, according to internal and external reviews of the incident.
A comprehensive study released in November by the Virginia Fire Services Board commended Spotsylvania for its recent efforts on training, and warned that the lack of minimum training standards “presents liability issues for the county.”
Under the new rules, Oesterheld will need nearly 1,000 hours of training to continue as chief.
The county set a deadline of Jan. 1, 2013, for standards to be realized. Oesterheld said it would be impossible to acquire that training in two years. Over the years, he has attended many training courses, he said, but he doesn’t have records for most of them.
Other volunteer leaders have balked at the new requirements.
“Nobody is against training,” said Mark Kuechler, president of Spotsylvania Volunteer Fire Department. “I and my colleagues have a strong objection to the fact that there has been no accommodations for length of service and experience.”
Kuechler voted to approve the new rules and said that anti-volunteer sentiment was so strong at the time that no one on the commission wanted to object to standards. He also thought the rules would be refined to deal with cases such as Oesterheld’s.
The volunteer chief thought five decades of fighting fires should count, and asked to be exempt from the new requirements.
County Administrator Doug Barnes refused, saying the standards have just been set and that waiving the requirements at the outset would send the message that Spotsylvania isn’t committed to improving its fire and rescue system.
But Oesterheld said Barnes’ stance sends the message that volunteers don’t matter. “I’ve had 48 years as chief, but suddenly my qualifications are zero,” he said.
FRICTION EVIDENT
His outrage points to a friction between volunteers and career first responders. And it’s a scenario being played out in fire departments throughout the country.
In every town and county in America, fire departments started as all-volunteer forces, said Fred Windisch, chief of the Ponderosa Fire Department near Houston, Texas.
But eventually, public demand for services led departments to start paying some emergency workers. In the past 10 years, many departments have shifted from an all-volunteer system to a combination one.
Often, the transition has not been easy. And so Windisch co-wrote a manual on how to lead these combination systems.
The problem is often a conflict between the old ways and the new, Windisch said.
WALL TELLS A STORY
That clash is illustrated in Oesterheld’s office, where the county’s past and future collide on the wall behind his desk.
Four black frames hold photos of old firetrucks, fire stations and firefighters. They show a time when volunteers raised their own money, built their trucks and their stations, and set their own training standards.
Near the photos, a bulletin board holds several newspaper clippings: “Fire Study Urges Fixes,” “Training Goals OK’d” and “Fire, Rescue Changes Ahead.”
After last Feb. 5’s fatal fire–when emergency responders searched for 20 minutes to find Sandy Hill–the reputation of volunteer firefighters took a hit, Oesterheld said.
The year continued with more troubles for volunteers. Nine from the Spotsylvania department were dismissed for misconduct in July.
Oesterheld felt that the media attention gave the impression that volunteers are “a group of untrained, freelancing, low-life, know-nothing individuals.”
The fire and its aftermath put the entire department under a microscope, Barnes said. Suddenly, issues that had simmered bubbled to the surface.
MOVING FORWARD
Barnes hopes the county’s emergency services system will confront those issues and come out stronger. And he hopes Oesterheld will be around to lead his department through the transition.
“I encouraged him to stay there and help us,” Barnes said. “I like Tom, I have a lot of respect for him and appreciation for his years of service, and I would like him to stay.”
He said the two-year goal is fluid and may be tweaked to include accommodations made for Oesterheld’s experience.
But the volunteer chief thinks the new standards represent an agenda to get rid of volunteer officers.
“It’s a setup to take over,” Oesterheld said, adding that he wants no part of a system that doesn’t value volunteers.
He plans to stay with the department for the near future, and wants to hold public information meetings to talk about the firefighters’ successes.
Kuechler wants the training standards to be amended with an exception for experience. Without one, the standards won’t work, he said.
“It’s all set up for failure,” Kuechler said. “And ‘tweaking’ [implies] a small turning of a dial, but it’s going to take more than that.”
Meanwhile, training sessions move ahead in an attempt to make sure any willing firefighter can be trained within two years.
“We’re going through a time of change, and change doesn’t come easy,” Barnes said. “There are some hurt feelings but I think we’re on the right path.”
Reprinted from: http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2011/022011/02062011/604772/index_html?page=3
THE ISSUE Spotsylvania fire and rescue workers and officers must meet new requirements by Jan. 1, 2013. Career and volunteer representatives approved those minimum training standards. But now, a volunteer chief says the timeline is impossible and accuses the county of trying to get rid of volunteers. WHAT IT MEANS This conflict illustrates the friction in Spotsylvania’s combination system. Similar issues appear across the country as localities integrate career and volunteer firefighters to provide more service at a reduced cost. Discord could lead to cha WHAT’S AHEAD The county is offering training courses to meet the new requirements. In the meantime, the Fire and Emergency Medical Services Commission continues to work on standard operating procedures for the department. The last set was criticized for providing no accountability. Career and volunteer firefighters can work together to serve Spotsylvania, County Administrator Doug Barnes said. And the recent snowstorms offered a chance to prove it. When snow was forecast in mid-January, Fire and Rescue Chief Chris Eudailey called the volunteer chiefs and offered to keep the career firefighters two hours late in case volunteers had trouble making it to the fire stations. The next morning, volunteers stayed late to help career firefighters. “We gave the citizens of the county a cooperative effort in taking care of the calls,” Barnes said. Spotsylvania’s fire departments started combining career and volunteer firefighters in the 1980s. So why are problems popping up now? It may be that the system was not created as a true combination system. The system operates more like a dual system, where volunteer and career emergency workers both serve the county but don’t work as a team. Fred Windisch, who co-wrote a training manual on leading combination systems, said the dual system can also be called a “duel system,” because it usually leads to conflict. |
