NVFC unveils summer programmes for volunteer firefighters

by AmericasFeatured News

National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) launches trio of beneficial programmes for volunteer firefighters this summer

MSA Cairns XF1 Fire Helmet Giveaway: Helping Firefighters Stay Protected

In an effort to further support its members, the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has announced the second entry period for the MSA Cairns XF1 Fire Helmet giveaway. The helmet, noted for its innovative, jet-style design that reduces snag hazards, incorporates a personalised fit and has its own integrated light module. The helmet giveaway offers active US volunteer firefighters, who are also NVFC members, the chance to bolster their protective gear at no cost.

NVFC has outlined the eligibility criteria, requiring applicants to be active volunteer firefighters in the US and members of the NVFC. Those interested in applying for the helmet giveaway, which concludes on June 30, can find more information on the NVFC’s website. The lucky recipient, chosen randomly, will be announced in July.

Columbia Southern University Scholarships: Fostering Education for Volunteer Responders

Recognising the challenges volunteer responders face in managing their time between service and education, NVFC is teaming up with Columbia Southern University (CSU) for the 15th year to present a scholarship opportunity. Two NVFC members will be awarded scholarships that cover up to 60 credit hours towards any one CSU online degree programme.

Eligibility requirements include being a volunteer responder and NVFC member, having a high school diploma or equivalent, and meeting certain academic standards. The wide range of degree programmes offered by CSU includes fire science, fire administration, emergency medical services, emergency management, and many more. The deadline to apply for these scholarships is August 17. An NVFC scholarship committee will choose the recipients, to be announced in October 2023.

CHEMTREC HELP Award: Grant to Boost Hazmat Preparedness and Response

Aiming to improve local readiness for hazardous materials (hazmat) events, CHEMTREC, through its HELP Award, will provide four volunteer fire departments with $10,000 each in 2023. This marks the fifth year of the programme that has already extended $115,000 to 12 departments for enhancing their hazmat response capabilities.

Departments wishing to apply for the HELP Award must meet several eligibility criteria, including serving a population of 25,000 or less, and having more than 50% volunteers. The grant also mandates that the department’s chief or the individual applying on behalf of the department must be an NVFC member. The application period for the grant closes on September 1. More details about the HELP Award can be found on CHEMTREC’s website.

Federal funding granted to NVFC for boosting volunteer fire services

by AmericasFeatured News

In a crucial advancement for volunteer firefighter recruitment and retention, the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has been granted a Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). This marks the third time NVFC has received this grant since 2014.

NVFC’s tireless efforts to address the critical need for adequate staffing within the volunteer fire service have led to this recent accomplishment. According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), volunteers comprise 65% of firefighters nationwide, and 90% of fire departments rely on their efforts. Additionally, volunteer firefighters save communities an estimated $46.9 billion annually. Despite their importance, many departments grapple with maintaining sufficient volunteer numbers to meet the communities’ needs safely and effectively.

Recognizing these challenges, NVFC has utilized previous SAFER grants to successfully initiate several initiatives, including the ‘Make Me A Firefighter’ campaign. The campaign has developed materials and tools aiding departments in their recruitment endeavors, established a national database for prospective volunteers to locate local opportunities, and launched a nationwide public awareness drive about the necessity of volunteers.

This newly acquired $2.9 million grant, spread over four years, will further enhance the NVFC’s efforts to support fire departments’ staffing and recruitment. Three strategies are at the core of this grant’s usage.

Resource development will see NVFC creating research-based materials to support recruitment and retention and expand the ‘Make Me A Firefighter’ campaign. Planned resources include a mentorship program guide, leadership handbook, and an onboarding kit.

Training initiatives will continue to offer existing programs on recruitment and retention and develop new courses. Two recruitment and retention conferences are also scheduled within the grant’s timeframe.

Outreach efforts will involve public campaigns to inspire volunteer participation and inform departments about available recruitment and retention tools and resources.

Expressing gratitude for the grant, NVFC chair Steve Hirsch said, “Recruitment and retention are top priorities for the NVFC. If a department does not have sufficient staffing, this impacts the safety of both the firefighters and the community members. It is critical that we work to address the key barriers to recruitment and retention and develop solutions to help departments thrive. We thank FEMA for providing this critical funding so we can continue our work to make sure our fire departments are best prepared and equipped to protect our communities.”

The SAFER grants, part of FEMA’s Assistance to Firefighters Grant program, aim to bolster local fire departments’ abilities to comply with the NFPA’s staffing, response, and operational standards.

NVFC announces winners of 2023 Fire Service Achievement Awards

by EventsFeatured News

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has announced the winners of its annual fire service achievement awards, recognising those who have demonstrated exceptional dedication and service to their department and community.

The awards for 2023 have been presented to LeRoy Koopman for Lifetime Achievement, Chief Mahlon Irish Jr. for the Chief James P. Seavey Sr. Health & Wellness Leadership Award, Kyra Kozey for Junior Firefighter of the Year, and East Norwich Junior Program for Junior Firefighter Program of the Year. The awards are sponsored by California Casualty, VFIS, Lincoln Financial Group, and Ward Diesel Filter Systems.

NVFC chair Steve Hirsch praised the winners for their exceptional contributions, highlighting the ways in which volunteers give back to their communities every day. The winners will receive their awards at an event in May, with Koopman, Irish, and Kozey honored at an awards ceremony during the NVFC spring meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on May 21.

The East Norwich Junior Program will receive their award at a local ceremony to ensure all members can attend. The awards underscore the importance of recognising and rewarding those who serve their communities and promote safety within the fire and emergency services sector.

Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement Award, sponsored by Lincoln Financial Group, has been awarded to Chief LeRoy Koopman in recognition of his long and dedicated service to the fire and emergency services. Chief Koopman joined the Colton Volunteer Fire Department in South Dakota in 1963 and has continued to serve for more than six decades.

He has held leadership positions in numerous fire organizations, including the South Dakota Fire Chief’s Association, where he was elected as Fire Chief of the Year in 1982, and the NVFC Board of Directors. Koopman is also dedicated to training and mentoring firefighters, providing his expertise across South Dakota.

Health & Wellness Leadership Award

The Chief James P. Seavey Sr. Health & Wellness Leadership Award, co-sponsored by VFIS and Ward Diesel Filter Systems, has been awarded to Chief Mahlon Irish Jr. Chief Mahlon Irish Jr. of the Homer Fire Department, NY, was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer in 2014, which doctors linked to his time in the fire service. Irish has made it his mission to educate firefighters across New York and beyond about protecting themselves from certain types of cancer.

He has delivered presentations to 202 fire departments, reaching 2,886 fire service personnel over 11,734 miles. Irish has made significant changes to his lifestyle since his diagnosis, and in his home department, he assembled decontamination buckets, convinced the village to pay for significant upgrades, and converted an unused apparatus bay into a clean gear storage room.

Junior Firefighter of the Year

The Junior Firefighter of the Year Award, sponsored by California Casualty, has been awarded Kyra Kozey. Kozey, 17, of the Scotts Valley (CA) Fire District has been a junior firefighter for four years. During this time, she has completed over 400 hours of community service, demonstrating a passion for helping others. She has organized and led several community events, including a diaper drive for the Santa Cruz Pregnancy Resource Center, a candlelight vigil for 9/11, and an annual Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Kozey has completed the district’s firefighter academy and assists with regular training and maintenance of the department’s tools and equipment. She has also taken the initiative to create and maintain the department’s Instagram account and actively recruits new junior firefighters.

In addition to her community involvement, Kozey is a high school honor student, plays varsity soccer, and is involved in the school’s Interact Club. She plans to pursue a career in the fire service after college.

Junior Firefighter Program of the Year

The East Norwich Junior Program has been awarded the Junior Firefighter Program of the Year Award, sponsored by California Casualty. Established in 1994 to aid in the recruitment of firefighters to the East Norwich Fire Company #1, the program has since evolved into a structured youth program, providing valuable firefighting and safety skills to young leaders on their path to becoming future firefighters, officers, and chiefs.

These juniors have received extensive training in various firefighting techniques, including hose lines, aerial and ground ladders, and forcible entry. Additionally, they have taken part in community activities, such as organizing Safe Kid’s Day, conducting fundraising for sick firefighters, and participating in an international exchange program that brought junior firefighters from Germany to the U.S. to participate in training and fire camp.

The program has produced current chiefs, officers, firefighters, and medics, highlighting the benefits of training and the development of leadership skills from a young age.

National Volunteer Fire Council releases annual report

by Featured News

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has released its annual report for 2022, looking at how it supported volunteer firefighters with the likes of training, advocacy, benefits, programs, resources, or addressing critical issues such as health and safety, recruitment and retention, and equipment and funding.

The NVFC ended 2022 with 28,078 members, including individuals, states, and corporations.

Benefits of being an NVFC member include: access to the First Responder Helpline. $10,000 AD&D insurance policy, free access to all courses in the NVFC Virtual Classroom, access to the Volunteer Voices online member community, educational discounts to online universities and fire service training, eligibility to apply for members-only giveaways and scholarships and discounts on products and services from NVFC partners

New for 2022, NVFC members can now take advantage of Amazon Business for special offers and discounts for their fire or EMS department purchases. Also in 2022, the NVFC launched Volunteer Voices Live, a live virtual conversation series hosted on Zoom in which participants discuss a hot topic circulating in the Volunteer Voices community.

The First Responder Helpline

In October, the NVFC launched the First Responder Helpline to provide members with support for a variety of behavioural health issues and work-life stresses. Similar to an employee assistance program, the First Responder Helpline provides NVFC members and their household families with immediate assistance in a crisis moment as well as confidential counseling, resources, and referrals to assistance for a range of issues.

Advocacy

The NVFC has representatives on 20 National Fire Protection Association standards-setting committees and represents the volunteer fire and emergency services on numerous national workgroups and task forces. The NVFC advocates on Capitol Hill for legislation that will benefit the fire and emergency services. Members can also take action through the NVFC Legislative Action Center, which moved to the VoterVoice platform in 2022.

The NVFC issues an Action Alert when there is a legislative priority before Congress, and members can then use the platform to easily contact their Senators and Representative to ask them to support the legislation.

Training

The NVFC Virtual Classroom contains 40 courses, and in 2022, there were 5,888 course registrations. There are also more than 70 recorded webinars in the Virtual Classroom. All courses are free to NVFC members and webinars are free to all. Select courses are available for CEUs.

A comment from the Chair

Stever Hirsch, Chair of the NVFC, said: “This Annual Report highlights our initiatives over the past year. These include the launch of the NVFC First Responder Helpline, which provides our members with support and assistance with behavioral health challenges and a variety of work-life stresses. We were able to bring our signature Training Summit back in full force in 2022 and hosted our second Recruitment & Retention Experience.

“We’ve added 11 new courses to our Virtual Classroom as well as a New Recruit Track that departments can incorporate into their onboarding process. We’ve joined with our partners to offer gear giveaways, product donations, scholarships, and more to help our members be safer and better prepared. And we’ve fought for volunteers on national work groups, standard setting committees, and on Capitol Hill.

“Our mission is to serve you, and we will continue to do so by providing quality programs, resources, advocacy, and training to help you be at your best. If you are not currently a member, I encourage you to join so you can take advantage of all of the benefits of membership.

The report can be found in full here: https://www.nvfc.org/nvfc-2022-annual-report-now-available/

MSA, DuPont and NVFC’s Globe Gear Giveaway returns

by Featured NewsFirefighting Equipment

Since 2012, Globe by MSA, DuPont Personal Protection, and the National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) have partnered to provide turnout gear to fire departments in need. Applications for the 2023 giveaway are now open.

In 2023, MSA Safety will donate a total of 52 sets of turnout gear and 52 helmets (four per department) to 13 all-volunteer or mostly-volunteer fire departments in the U.S. and Canada.

To be eligible to apply, departments must meet be over 50% volunteer, serve a population of 25,000 or less, be located in the United States or Canada and be legally organized under state/province law [Indian/tribal entities not organized under state/province law are eligible].

Individuals applying on behalf of the department or department chief must be a member of the NVFC. MSA will provide complimentary NVFC memberships to the first 500 applicants.

Departments must also demonstrate a need for the gear. Only one application will be accepted per department and any subsequent applications received for that department will be disqualified. Recipients must use the donated items for the benefit of their department and not for any other purpose and cannot be resold.

Finally, recipients agree that their department name, details from application essay, and photo may be used in media by MSA, DuPont, and the NVFC for the purposes of promoting the donation program.

The scheme said that previous winners from the past two years are not eligible to apply.

View the official rules here and apply for the giveaway here.

NVFC announces focus for 2023 Training Summit

by Featured NewsTraining

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has announced that the 2023 Training Summit will feature tracks focusing both on first responder health and safety topics as well as volunteer recruitment and retention.

Taking place June 23-24 in Oklahoma City, OK, the conference will provide an opportunity for firefighters and EMS providers to participate in valuable classroom training, idea sharing, and networking. The expanded Training Summit incorporates the NVFC’s Recruitment & Retention Experience, previously offered as a separate event, to allow more first responders the opportunity to take advantage of courses on a variety of topics.

Registration for the Summit is now open, and includes two days of breakout sessions with nationally-known instructors, keynote speakers, general sessions, networking events, mini vendor expo, and most meals.

The expanded agenda features a selection of 18 courses relating to critical topics impacting the volunteer emergency services, with a focus on physical and behavioural health, safety considerations during different types of response and training, recruiting new volunteer responders, best practices for retaining volunteers, and leadership. The agenda can be found here.

The conference will be held at the Sheraton Oklahoma City Downtown Hotel. The hotel is in the Bricktown district of Oklahoma City, which has a river walk with water taxi, restaurants, shops, and a minor league baseball stadium. As in previous years, the NVFC will offer a networking social event after class concludes on Friday, June 23.

The reception will include a vendor area featuring sponsors and partners. Sponsorships are available. Attendees can also choose to extend their weekend of networking by attending a casual dinner social hosted at the Oklahoma State Firefighters Association headquarters on Saturday evening.

To remove the cost barrier for some attendees, stipends are available that reimburse up to $900 of conference-related expenses, including hotel, airfare/mileage/transportation, and the event registration fee.

NVFC opens registration for Regional Wildland Symposium

by EventsFeatured News

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has opened the registration for its inaugural Regional Wildland Symposium on March 17-18 in Box Elder, SD.

This wildland fire focused event will bring together fire and EMS personnel from across the region and country to participate in valuable classroom training and idea exchange. Space is limited.

The symposium will provide an opportunity to learn from interactive classroom training and share ideas and best practices with wildland firefighters and other stakeholders from across the Plains region.

Attendees will have their choice of breakout sessions to attend, with sessions addressing key topics in wildland fire mitigation and response.

The event registration fee of $129 covers two days of training with breakout sessions, keynote speakers, and general sessions, as well as a networking reception, vendor expo, and most meals.

To help more first responders attend, a travel stipend for NVFC members of up to $600 is available that will reimburse expenses related to the conference, including hotel, transportation, and the registration fee. The deadline to apply for a stipend is January 1. 

NVFC urges senate to pass Fire Grant and Safety Act

by Featured NewsSafety

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) and other national fire service organisations have urged the Senate to pass S. 4882, the Fire Grant and Safety Act, before the end of this Congress.

The Fire Grant and Safety Act would reauthorise the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) and Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) programs as well as the U.S. Fire Administration (USFA) through 2030.

The AFG and SAFER grant programs provide departments across the country with needed funding for training, staffing (including volunteer recruitment and retention), and equipment.

The USFA ensures the fire service is prepared to respond to all hazards and is the lead federal agency for fire data collection, public fire education, fire research, and fire service training.

The current authorization for these critical programs expires at the end of Fiscal Year 2023. The NVFC has asked members to reach out to Senators by December 9 to ensure their preservation and urge them to support and pass S. 4882.

NVFC adds support to National Fire Registry

by Featured NewsPeople

The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC) has issued a position statement in support of the National Firefighter Registry.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) is in the process of starting their enrolment initiative for the National Firefighter Registry (NFR), a voluntary database that will help increase the understanding of the link between on-the-job exposures and cancer rates among firefighters.

Over the next month, NIOSH will be enrolling firefighters at select fire departments for a “soft rollout” of the NFR, followed by a full launch in January to align with Firefighter Cancer Awareness Month. The goal is to enroll at least 200,000 firefighters.

The NVFC’s position statement strongly supports the NFR and recommends that all members of the fire service enroll. The statement elaborates on the importance of the NFR, expressing that many existing studies showing potential links to cancer and firefighting lack participation from volunteer firefighters and contain other significant knowledge gaps. It also thanks NIOSH for making privacy and data security top priorities for the NFR.

View the NVFC’s position statement supporting the NFR here. Once it become active, the NFR may be accessed at https://NFR.cdc.gov.

Operational training guide for fire departments released

by Featured NewsTraining

A new operational training guide for firefighters has been released. The National Volunteer Fire Council (NVFC), International Association of Fire Chiefs’ Volunteer and Combination Officers Section (VCOS), and the International Society of Fire Service Instructors (ISFSI) joined together to create Training Volunteer Firefighters to Be Combat Ready 

The guide is designed to help fire departments develop a training program that meets the needs of the community and the individual firefighter with safety and relevancy at the forefront.

NVFC said that the guide recognises that training can be a constant challenge for volunteer and combination departments as it requires planning, commitment, and time to make sure it is done correctly.

The new guide is an update and expansion of a training white paper released by NVFC in 2012, incorporating key considerations and specific best practices to form a blueprint for a successful training program.

Authors from the NVFC, VCOS, and ISFSI contributed their expertise and insights to help direct department leaders in creating a strong foundation for fire department operational training.

Chief Brian McQueen, co-author and NVFC board member commented: “So much has changed in the 10 years since the NVFC released the original training white paper. We needed a new document that reflected the advances and knowledge that today’s firefighters need to know to be operationally ready when the next fire call comes. It is through proper training that firefighters can respond safely, effectively, and appropriately when it matters most.”

Chief John M. Buckman III, co-author and member of VCOS, said: “Training is a critical responsibility of all fire departments. Departments must ensure that training is relevant as well as interesting and fun so that firefighters will remain active and engaged. Everyone plays a part. We strongly encourage all fire department leaders to use this guide to make sure their operational training program best serves their firefighters and the community.”

The new guide contains 10 sections that cover the following topic areas: Training delivery and engagement methods; Surviving the job; Why training is important; Roles of the training officer, instructor, and student; Planning training; Training policies and procedures; Assessing firefighters’ capabilities; NFPA standards and OSHA regulations; Developing and implementing training best practices; and first due recommended firefighter performance criteria.

In addition to the core subject areas, seven appendices provide additional resources, insights, and sample documents that departments can use when developing or enhancing their training program.

Training Volunteer Firefighters to Be Combat Ready can be downloaded from the NVFC web site at www.nvfc.org, the VCOS web site at www.iafc.org/about-iafc/sections/vcos, and the ISFSI web site at www.isfsi.org.