{"id":24780,"date":"2012-05-25T06:38:41","date_gmt":"2012-05-25T11:38:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/?p=24780"},"modified":"2012-05-26T07:01:59","modified_gmt":"2012-05-26T12:01:59","slug":"state-fire-marshal-gives-funds-to-local-volunteer-depts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/2012\/05\/25\/state-fire-marshal-gives-funds-to-local-volunteer-depts\/","title":{"rendered":"State Fire Marshal visits local fire depts."},"content":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/<\/strong>independent editor<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
State Fire Marshal Larry Flowers (left) and Middle Point Fire Chief Craig King hold a cardboard check representing $7,040 in state funding provided to King's department for training purposes. (Dave Mosier\/Van Wert independent)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

MIDDLE POINT \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a real passion for volunteer fire departments and volunteer firefighters,\u201d Flowers said prior to presenting a cardboard check representing the state\u2019s funding to Middle Point Fire Chief Craig King. \u201cThis is a great opportunity to meet volunteer and paid departments all over the state \u2026 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Chief King was grateful for the money, which he said was used to pay for training to increase the department\u2019s certification levels.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s especially important,\u201d he said of the grant money provided by the state, noting that training dollars comprise 10 percent of his department\u2019s annual budget. \u201cIt\u2019s very greatly valued, trust me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Currently, the state has three levels of certification for firefighters: a basic 36-hour certification, Firefighter 1 and Firefighter 2, a \u201ccareer\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

All firefighters, career or volunteer, are required to have the same level of basic training for state certification.<\/p>\n

Having better training also increases firefighter safety, Flowers noted.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese 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,\u201d the state fire marshal said. \u201cJust as important, the grant lessened the impact on the budgets of these fire departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flowers noted that all requests for funding this year were granted, with those receiving grants chosen on a variety of criteria, including a department\u2019s annual budget, annual number of fire incidents and population served.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DAVE MOSIER\/independent editor MIDDLE POINT \u2013 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 18:51:04","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24780\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thevwindependent.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}