State Fire Marshal visits local fire depts.

DAVE MOSIER/independent editor

MIDDLE POINT – State Fire Marshal Larry Flowers was in Van Wert County on Thursday to perform one of his most enjoyable tasks: Give money to volunteer fire departments.

Flowers, who began his career as a volunteer firefighter in Licking County, presented checks of $7,040 and $8,100, respectively, to the Middle Point and Ohio City fire departments.

“I have a real passion for volunteer fire departments and volunteer firefighters,” Flowers said prior to presenting a cardboard check representing the state’s funding to Middle Point Fire Chief Craig King. “This is a great opportunity to meet volunteer and paid departments all over the state … with 70 percent of fire departments volunteers, this is one way the Department of Commerce and Division of State Fire Marshal can help them out.”

The money is a reimbursement for money spent by the departments on training firefighters. With such a large percentage of Ohio fire departments manned by volunteers, state training assistance is crucial in helping those departments maintain a high level of competence.

Chief King was grateful for the money, which he said was used to pay for training to increase the department’s certification levels.

“It’s especially important,” he said of the grant money provided by the state, noting that training dollars comprise 10 percent of his department’s annual budget. “It’s very greatly valued, trust me.”

Currently, the state has three levels of certification for firefighters: a basic 36-hour certification, Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2, a “career” level certification. Chief King said eight of his firefighters are at the Firefighter 2 certification level, while seven others are at the Firefighter 1 level.

All firefighters, career or volunteer, are required to have the same level of basic training for state certification.

Having better training also increases firefighter safety, Flowers noted.

“These communities now have more firefighters trained at a higher level that will better enable everyone to go home safely at the end of the emergency call or shift,” the state fire marshal said. “Just as important, the grant lessened the impact on the budgets of these fire departments.”

Flowers noted that all requests for funding this year were granted, with those receiving grants chosen on a variety of criteria, including a department’s annual budget, annual number of fire incidents and population served.