Today, Fire Chief Matthew Tobia of the Harrisonburg (VA) Fire Department provided testimony on behalf of the IAFC at an administrative hearing. The hearing examined the draft Emergency Response standard proposed by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). The hearing was part of OSHA’s formal rulemaking process.
The rule seeks to better protect emergency response workers from on-the-job hazards they are likely to face. To do so, OSHA has proposed revising its existing Fire Brigades standard (29 C.F.R. 1910.156) to include more covered emergency responders, such as workers that provide EMS and technical search and rescue functions, in addition to already covered industrial firefighters.
In his testimony, Chief Tobia thanked OSHA for its efforts to update the emergency response standards, as well as offered constructive input to improve the ability of fire chiefs across the country to implement such updates.
Chief Tobia discussed the need for OSHA to ensure that the revised Emergency Response Standard can adapt to continuously updating National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards and suggested that OSHA use general incorporation to connect the Emergency Response Standard to most NFPA standards. He also discussed specific concerns with the proposed wildfire and medical evaluation standards.
Another concern that Chief Tobia raised was the applicability of the Emergency Response Standard to volunteer fire departments. He requested that OSHA use the U.S. Department of Labor’s 20 percent rule to define volunteer fire and EMS personnel. Furthermore, Chief Tobia expressed concerns that volunteer fire departments have raised about the Emergency Response Standard’s cost of implementation. Chief Tobia requested that OSHA consider an exemption and extended implementation timeline for volunteer fire departments. He also discussed the general cost of compliance with the rule for all departments.
Finally, Chief Tobia recommended extending the timetable for implementation to 10 years for all departments. This extension would bring the greatest number of organizations into compliance while also limiting the amount of interruption to the departments’ operations.
Chief Tobia’s comments today are based on written comments regarding the OSHA draft Emergency Response Standard that were submitted on July 11. The written comments were developed with input from more than 30 IAFC members representing the various operational components of the IAFC. Here is a summary of the IAFC comments. The IAFC will continue to update its members on developments on this rulemaking.
Draft Emergency Response Standard IAFC Comments