The Fauquier County Board of Trustees has initiated measures to move the district’s professional and voluntary firefighters under the supervision of a single “system head”, a change intended to ensure the district can better staff fire stations to respond effectively to emergencies.
Under the system heads, voluntary and professional firefighters will report to one professional fire chief, helping to consolidate the logistics, decision making, and day-to-day operations of each of the county’s 10 fire and rescue stations.
Erin Kozanecki, deputy regional administrator of Fauquier County, announced during a supervisory meeting on March 9 that the council will hold a public hearing in April regarding proposed changes to bylaws to facilitate the switch to a head system or “for operation’ sake” model of combined systems.
But he made it clear that the new model would allow volunteer companies to continue to operate as distinct organizations.
“Voluntary (fire) companies (will) still exist separately and separately as companies and individual entities,” he said.
“There is a common misconception that (the council) gets rid of volunteer firefighters; it’s not true,” Kenneth Neam, president of the Fauquier County professional firefighters union, International Association of Firefighters Local 3762, said in a recent interview. “The volunteer organization is still standing, as is the organizational chart of who they are. There will now be a single head overseeing the entire system.”
If the county makes the change, Fauquier County will follow in the footsteps of other Northern Virginia jurisdictions that have switched to the heads of systems model, including Prince William and Loudon counties.
Darren Stevens has been the Fauquier County Fire Chief since 2016.
The inspector’s announcement follows news last month that Fauquier County Fire Chief Darren L. Stevens will retire on March 31.
“Discussions (about transitioning to head of the system) have been in the background for a while now… maybe closer to a decade,” Kozanecki said. “With the retirement of Chief Stevens, and since (the council) hired a new head, now seemed like the right time.
Interim Fire Chief Kalvyn Smith
Courtesy
Volunteer Fire Chief Catlett Kalyvn Smith will serve as interim Fauquier County fire chief until the county employs a new system chief. During a March 9 supervisors’ meeting, Kozanecki said the district would start looking for a new head of the system.
Fauquier County Administrator Paul McCulla proposed budgetThis included a 2-cent increase in the real estate tax rate, increasing it from 90 to 92 cents per $100 in appraised value, in part to add 24 full-time professional firefighter positions. The additional position will allow three more of the county’s 10 fire stations to be staffed 24/7 by at least five firefighters, according to McCulla’s budget summary.
Stevens said his goal is to employ an additional 24 firefighters by the end of this year. After successfully completing the training, the new crew will work on the ground in May 2024, he said.
The Fauquier fire department could see even more improvement if the board approves the fire department’s request to apply for a federal SAFER grant. At a March 7 work session, Stevens detailed that with the help of the SAFER grant, two more county fire stations would be able to be relocated to six-person staffing units.
Under the six-person staffing model, fire stations will be able to respond to calls with ambulances and fire trucks. An officer and driver will be sent out in a fire engine along with a paramedic in the ambulance and three technicians.
Due to staff shortages, some fire stations must decide whether to respond to emergency calls with an ambulance or a fire truck, but are often unable to dispatch both.
Stevens said stations decide which equipment to ship based on the types of calls they receive from carriers.
“We operate on a first call concept,” said Stevens. “If it’s an EMS call, we took the ambulance; if it’s a machine call, we take the machine.
Of Fauquier County’s 10 fire stations, only Upperville, Warrenton, and Goldvein had enough staff to operate engines and ambulances around the clock. Warrenton and Upperville have five professional firefighters, while Goldvein has six, Neam said.
With the federal SAFER grant, two stations will be equipped with four-person machines, which is a requirement for the grant, bringing the total number of stations in a properly equipped district to five.
Without the SAFER grant money, the three stations would be equipped with a three-man engine staff and an ambulance. “And that’s only if the proposed 2-cent increase in the real estate tax increase is approved,” said Lisa Henty, director of the Fauquier County Office of Management and Budget.
Supervisors will start advertising the new system chief this week. The county hopes to fill the new fire chief position by June 30, Kozanecki said.
