It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of George Wahl on Wednesday January 15, 2014. George began his service to the Skykomish community in the fire department in 1979. In 1992, George was appointed Volunteer Fire Chief for King County Fire Protection District #50, beginning his fulltime career as Chief in May of 1993, serving until 2005 when he retired. 

After moving to Skykomish George Wahl and his family have contributed in many ways to the Skykomish Valley. George operated Maloney’s General Store, built tow trucks with Josh’s, served as Town Marshal, WA State DOT aviation, and owned his own business Wahl Excavation. George was always willing to drop what he was doing to lend a helping hand. 

It is with deep regret and heavy hearts that the Washington Fire Chiefs announces the passing of Captain Don Navarre, a 23-year member of the IAFF. Capt. Navarre lost his 9-year battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma on January 19th.

Looking back, a lot has changed over the last thirty years in fire and EMS officer development.  Our industry was considered a trade and a high school diploma was sufficient to get hired.  An Associate’s degree was rare and a Bachelor’s degree was unheard of, even as we promoted through the ranks into management positions.  However, as an industry, we recognized the need to move from a trade to a profession.  There were many topics, such as human resources, finance and budgeting, strategic planning, and the like, that were not covered in high school or the fire academy. 

Realizing this, leaders began to focus on encouraging our incumbents to go back to school and earn a two year technical degree.  Employers also began to give more credit to candidates with college degrees who were seeking employment as a firefighter or paramedic.  This slow evolution created a new norm where a two year degree in fire science was an edge for those competing for company officer promotions or entry level positions.  This created a ripple effect upward and soon raised the bar within the profession for senior incumbents and chief officers.  Chief officers and chief officer candidates were headed back to school to earn their four year college degrees, and fire chief hopefuls were seeking post-graduate degrees.  Today, many entry level firefighters possess graduate and post-graduate degrees, and this has also served to encourage incumbent supervisors who want to lead these new firefighters to obtain more formal education...

The Washington State Fire Chief’s Training and Safety & Officers section are proud to announce that the new Emergency Vehicle Incident Prevention (EVIP) program is approved and in motion!  After a laborious update process the new program has been approved by the State Department of Licensing and the Washington State Patrol, Fire Protection Bureau. There are some major updates to the program that will need to be communicated state-wide.

The new program now has a trainer re-certification policy that requires trainers to have a Train-the-Trainer (T-t-T) refresher course every 5 years. Those who have been trainers under previous EVIP standards will still need to receive this most current T-t-T course and use the current course materials to remain a certified EVIP trainer.  Fire service members may register through the Washington State Fire Chief’s online for any of the upcoming T-t-T courses that are scheduled across the state.  There are also two opportunities to take the course at the Training and Safety & Officer’s Conference in Yakima the first week of March 2014. As part of the T-t-T course students will receive the newest EVIP program disc and all needed materials to bring the EVIP program back to their departments for immediate implementation...

Jan. 10, 2014 the Treasury Department issued a clarification that fire departments will not have to provide health insurance to volunteer firefighters.
 
Specifically, the IRS announced that its forthcoming regulations governing the shared responsibility provision "generally will not require volunteer hours of bonafide volunteer firefighters and volunteer emergency medical personnel at governmental or tax-exempt organizations to be counted when determining full-time employees (or full-time equivalents)."

Under the Shared Responsibility Provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), an employer with 50 or more full-time employees must offer affordable and adequate healthcare coverage to its employees. For this purpose, full time means 30 hours or more per week on average, with the hours of employees working less than that aggregated into full-time equivalents...