Vote on proposal set for Tuesday night
FirefighterNation Staff
WORCESTER, Massachusetts — The Worcester City Council will consider on Tuesday night bringing in a consultant to review the fire department following the line of duty death of Lieutenant Jason Menard last fall.
Lieutenant Menard was killed while fighting a house fire at 7 Stockholm Street on November 7, 2019 almost one year after the line of duty death of Firefighter Christopher Roy.
FirefighterNation: Worcester Lieutenant Dies Saving Other Firefighters at Blaze
According to Boston.com City Manger Edward Augustus, Jr. announced plans to create a task force to study firefighter safety after Menard’s death, but in a letter dated February 4 Augustus, Jr. wrote to the council a letter asking for the hiring of a professional fire service consultant to “conduct an examination and analysis into the administration, operations, training and deployment practices of the Worcester Fire Department.”
Augustus, Jr. wrote that request came from Fire Chief Michael Lavoie.
Along with the request for a consultant, Augustus Jr. added a review of the Division of Inspectional Services.
The expectation of the review, as written in the letter, is to have a data driven study that compares the Worcester Fire Department to national standards and best practices.
The main part of the study, or the “master plan” is to assess internal operations and staffing and compare current shortcomings against those national standards and practices.
New England Public Radio reports that the study will include recommendations on staffing, apparatus, and firehouses.
Fire Chief Michael Lavoie told NEPR that the proposal for the consultant has the support of the department leadership and Worcester Firefighters IAFF Local 1009.
Augustus, Jr. hopes to hire a consultant by March.
Chief Lavoie expects the report to take six to eight months to compete.
Lavoie told the Worcester Telegram & Gazette that when the study is completed and the strategic plan is in place, the department will seek accreditation through the Center for Public Safety Excellence.
He expects the department will become accredited within five years.
Talking with the Telegram & Gazette Lavoie said that accreditation requires continuous improvement and that process will ensure the department will meet or exceed national standards as well as provide for its firefighters “the greatest margin of safety possible for decades to come.”
As far as the fire department’s current situation Lavoie said they respond to over 30,000 calls annually, to include EMS and other incidents.
He pointed out that the main problem for Worcester over the
decades was wood-frame buildings with contents made from natural materials
inside.
“Today’s fires burn far hotter and faster than the fires of decades past,”
Lavoie said, pointing to plastics and synthetic materials inside homes today.
