It's that time of the year again for Washington Fire Chiefs (WFC) members to consider their peers for nomination for the WFC "Chief Dan Packer Fire Chief of the Year Award".

Nominations for the special award may be submitted by any WFC member or Section member in good standing, including a City or County elected official, an administrator or a fire commissioner.  Nominations must be submitted by April 1st of this year....

Fifteen-year-old Jake is a high school basketball star. We invited Jake to go into another room and toss beanbags through holes of various sizes in a plywood target, then report back to us with his final score. Our hidden camera recorded that he scored six out of a possible fifteen points (not too good for a basketball phenom). As Jake approached our table to report his score, we wondered—would he embrace his shame and tell the truth? Or would he lie to get the extra $1 per point we promised him? Eighty percent of his colleagues in our experiment had lied. Would Jake follow suit—or fess up?

Most of us lie. Studies have shown that lying is actually the natural order of things. From the time we are small, we learn there are powerful incentives to say what works rather than what’s true. The question is, why? Do we lie because we are morally bankrupt from birth? Or is there something more fixable going on? Given the importance of trust to healthy relationships, families, and communities, how can we help people do the unnatural? How can we, in spite of all the immediate incentives to do the opposite, influence people to tell the truth?

A recent report released by the State Auditor’s Office found, local governments (including fire protection districts) still struggle to file their reports on time or at all. All local governments are expected to file their annual financial reports with the State Auditor’s Office within 150 days after the end of their fiscal year.

In both 2011 and 2012, more than 700 of 1,956 local governments did not file their reports as required for each year. Due to increased outreach by the State Auditor’s Office in 2013, such as trainings and workshops, about 100 more local governments filed their required annual reports...

As I reflect on the past years events, we see that firefighters across the nation have responded to many different and sometimes difficult to deal with issues. We have ramped up to treat the latest biological threats, or battled the routine calls that seem to be common for most organizations.  It’s sad that we are still finding the loss of life in the fire service to be something coming across our email or written documents almost weekly. There are many studies looking for reasons behind the line of duty deaths that are occurring in the fire service.  Some are pointing to things that are preventable such as heart disease or cancer which are both preventable and treatable provided we are obtaining physicals annually. Recently our college obtained a grant teamed up with the local fire departments to do fitness testing to give us a baseline physical assessment. Something like this may work for you as well. We have also placed emphasis on stretching and fitness related to the types of work we perform. With in-house evaluators we have evaluated the members of the department and given them baseline recommendations for their fitness.  We all found little weaknesses that we didn't even know about, ones we can improve for the future.

Our organization has also placed an increased emphasis on the immediate cleanup at fire scenes for our firefighters, with wipe downs of critical areas such as face, neck and any other exposed skin and then immediate showering upon return to the station.  As well we remove gear from service after the event and clean it. This coupled with the exhaust fans in the stations will hopefully limit the exposure that our firefighters have taken for granted for so many years.  

In honor of and at the request of Otto and Betty Jensen, a fund was established in 1996 to pay all the costs (registration, lodging and mileage) to a Volunteer Fire Chief and spouse to attend the WFC Annual Conference. This volunteer chief, due to financial limitations of their organization, would otherwise not be able to attend. Please complete the attached Application and return it to the Fire Chiefs office no later than April 25, 2013...