NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 14
Dispatches Commentary
COUNTRY ROADS
NFPA Responder Forum participants considered many
significant topics, including issues currently facing the
country's rural fire service.
FIRE SERVICE
AS THE FIRST CLASS FROM NFPA'S RESPONDER
FORUM GRADUATES, ONE PARTICPANT REFLECTS
ON THE EXPERIENCE
Interview conducted and edited by Angelo Verzoni
n November, 28 fire service leaders from the
United States and Canada became the first
graduating class of the NFPA Responder
Forum, a three-year fire service education and
networking program that began in 2015. The
graduates came from communities of a few thousand people
to ones with populations over 1 million.
One of the graduates was Joe Maruca, a fire chief from
West Barnstable, Massachusetts, a small town on Cape Cod.
Maruca, a longtime NFPA technical committee member and
advocate for the rural fire service, recently spoke with NFPA
Journal about his experience in the forum and how NFPA
can better its relationship with smaller departments like his.
I
14 | NFPA JOURNAL * J A N U A R Y / F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8
It's not an uncommon viewpoint in smaller departments.
They can see NFPA as this organization that tells them what
they're supposed to be doing without having a clue about
reality. One of the reasons, I think, is that NFPA could do
a better job of explaining its standards-they leave that up
to interpretation by the people who adopt them. How is a
department of 12 volunteers in a town of 800 people supposed to read and understand all of these standards?
They lack the skills and resources, and what happens
is information trickles down through rumors. Fire chiefs
from neighboring small towns will run into each other at
the gas pump and say, "Would you believe what NFPA has
done now?"
How do we fix this?
The Responder Forum is a good first step. It's still a small
group of people, though-it's a big fire service and the
forum is just the tip of the iceberg. So NFPA needs to keep
GETT Y IMAGES
SAFE SPACE
I've heard you speak a couple of times, including
at this year's Responder Forum, and each time
you've described how you used to think NFPA
was "the enemy." Tell me about that.
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - January/February 2018
Contents
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - Cover1
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - Cover2
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 1
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - Contents
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 3
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 4
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 5
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 6
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 7
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 8
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 9
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 10
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 11
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 12
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 13
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 14
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 15
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 16
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 17
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 18
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 19
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 20
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 21
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 22
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 23
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 24
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 25
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 26
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 27
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 28
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 29
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 30
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 31
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 32
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 33
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 34
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 35
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 36
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 37
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 38
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NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 40
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 41
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 42
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - 43
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NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - Cover3
NFPA Journal - January/February 2018 - Cover4
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