The Fall Meeting in Kansas City was a great success, and your Board of Directors was a key part of that outcome. Coordinating this effort was Second Vice President Grant Oetting and Assistant Director of District 11 Josh Koepke. Also assisting was Seargent at Arms Jonathan Evans, Assistant Director of District 11 Kris White, Assistant Director of District 4 Kylie Frerking, and Director of District 6 Shawn Ritchie. There were 61 NVFC Directors and Assistant Directors from 41 States represented in person. The Zoom calls with several of the committee meetings engaged four additional State Directors, including 45 States.
President Jenning and your State Fire Marshal Tim Bean were part of the opening ceremonies and guest speakers. Special thanks to Cable Dahmer Auto Network for giving FFAM two large SUVs for the week (Tuesday-Saturday) which our staff drove between the airport and hotel plus three side trip activities. Also special thanks to KCFD for two vans with drivers (Wednesday-Friday) plus leaving one with Josh for Saturday. Fun fact, the first trip back to the airport Saturday morning left the hotel at 3:30 am followed by several trips before noon. Grant and Josh were kind enough to take that on themselves. When I asked Grant about the early hour, he just responded, “Talking with Josh, we considered it just an early morning call out – routine stuff!”
NERIS has arrived and is open for business. You have 2025 to make the change over from NFIRS which has been used for 50 years. That system will remain up through 2025 but will be shut down completely on January 1, 2026. All jurisdictions that now exist are in NERIS, however, the question is how old is your profile information? You must still review and re-verify what has been moved over. You will no longer need cheat sheets that NFIRS requires to navigate once you have completed a few reports. The dozens upon dozens of codes that NFIRS required are gone. NERIS was built to tell a story within a few types of incidents with a focus on information after setting the parking brake of the trucks. More emphasis on actions, tactics, metrics on rescues, emerging hazards, structures and exposures. It will be very different and not the old system in different wrapping paper. Information at state and national levels is now going to be sharable in ways not seen or available before. It was designed to equally include the small underfunded and under-resourced departments by providing a free application requiring no computer and no software to use.
The subject of energy drinks and firefighter health has bubbled up to an increasing national conversation. The challenge has been stating concerns without being sued for slandering the products involved. No surprise, they are very aggressive at protecting their brand. There were several sources producing data reflecting concerns with increased blood pressure, heart rates, and other effects on the cardiovascular functions of the body. Much of the data is coming from high school sports and this topic was believed to have been first introduced to the fire service in Fire House Magazine during 2017. Like with many things, too much of seemingly a good thing could be a bad outcome and many energy drinks not so clearly but DO post consumption rates of just two cans over 24 hours. After the deaths alleged with the Panera highly caffeinated drinks in 2023 and 2024, this topic gained traction. The concerns come down to multiple energy drinks prior to high-stress training or incidents that could create ultra-high blood pressure and heart rates especially if dehydrated. We already know that dehydration can kill. Let’s paint a picture. Drinking heavily the night before (dehydrated), possibly two more energy drinks the next morning to ramp up all the senses (two cans over 1-2 hours vs. 24) and now train/respond to a 2-3 air tank structure fire. I will put a pin in it for now before needing to call a lawyer.
The National Firefighter Registry (NFR) is currently NOT on the road to success because people do not trust it is completely confidential. Concerns in trusting the government although NIOSH in most cases can be trusted and firefighters tend to put things off. Combined, this has resulted in just 17,000 registrations since April 2023 (only 4,000 of those are volunteers) and the goal is to reach 75,000 by December 2025 with a total goal of 250,000. They want everyone to register regardless of being in the fire service for 60 days or 60 years. If you have only been in a few years, registration is very quick averaging 5-7 minutes. OK, if you have been in for 30+ years, plan on 20+ minutes but your history is the most important of all. This is currently the largest existing effort to understand and reduce cancer risk among firefighters in North America. Just Google “National Firefighter Registry” and start clicking. Your history and your story do matter.
In my last article, I mentioned “I think we have arrived at the calm after the storm regarding OSHA”. For Missouri, that continues to stand but for the 29 OSHA States same battle but a different day. Their next step is public hearings that begin November 12th mostly via Zoom and are expected to continue for 2-4 weeks. OSHA then retreats into its offices to consider all things and post its final ruling. Following that announcement could set off legal challenges and appeal directly to Congress for intervention. Fun fact, NFPA has now come out in writing they do not want their standards included by reference in OSHA. There are several working theories on that one which I will not put in writing (call me) but goes back to an earlier comment about too much of a good thing. NVFC will be presenting and has broken the overall concern of the volunteer fire service into 5 segments with a different presenter for each one. One key takeaway in this mountain of frustration has been a learning experience that “feelings are not facts.” Another summary came in as “we are not going to pancake and sausage our way out of this one”. Both comments are very true.
Thank you for your time plus allowing Rob and I to serve on your behalf with NVFC.
FFAM
