CAFMA Now Hiring Firefighters!

Jun 01, 2023

ByStaff|onJune 09, 2023

Applications are now available for new firefighters! If you’re on social media, please take a moment to spread the word by sharing our flyer and posts on all your favorite platforms. There was good engagement with our posts leading up to "opening day" with lots of questions and phone calls to HR. Seems we’ve generated solid interest, but need your help leading people to CAFMA. Please like and share early and often. You can talk to people in person as well – I think that's still a thing.

We held our first ‘Meet the Fire Chiefs’ night on Monday, June 5th at CARTA. We partnered with Yavapai College, Sedona Fire, Verde Valley Fire, and Prescott Fire. Chiefs Ed Mezulis, Danny Johnson, Holger Durre, and I sat on a panel discussing our agencies, and philosophies, and answering questions from the 30 people in attendance. The feedback from the event was positive, so look for additional offerings like this moving forward.

So far, things on the street seem better; not perfect, but better since the CAD-to-CAD link was reduced to a one-way CAD link. We’re still waiting for PRCC to have the CAD system programmed to automatically pick the closest most appropriate Priority unit for our jurisdiction. They’re the primary transport provider for CAFMA's area just as AMR is the primary transport provider for the City of Prescott.

There have been a couple of questions regarding billing for ALS and the gift clause concerns CAFMA has raised. CAFMA bills both agencies the same when they send a BLS unit to an ALS call requiring us to provide the paramedic and equipment. Regarding our co-staffed Rescues, under the agreement, CAFMA is to provide the paramedic. If we don't have someone willing to take overtime on the ambulance, the medic will have to come off of the engine to ride into the hospital. That one is on us, not on Priority.

Our co-staffing plan is both short-term and imperfect but is providing more consistency and better response times. The question was raised in Labor/Management as to whether it might be better to pick a different unit rather than send the one we know will require us to utilize the medic off the engine. In short, no. We knew this would happen when we developed the plan and we accepted the inevitability knowing it would still be better than what had been happening.

Once Priority has been able to ramp up their operations to 100%, when we have our CON, and when PRCC has the CAD programmed properly to choose ambulances, these challenges should no longer be a problem. Our hope is that things will be much improved by December.

As I mentioned last week, for those that read that far, we received our Notice of Hearing from the Bureau of EMS. My understanding is that we received the notice because AMR has indicated that they plan to intervene in our CON, i.e., challenge our CON in a court proceeding. No matter, we’re ready to proceed and remain confident that we have a much stronger case for CAFMA to have ambulances than anyone would have against CAFMA having ambulances.

I’ll be attending a seminar this weekend hosted by the Western Fire Chief's Association (WFCA) called Struggle Well. It's a pre-seminar to the WFCA FORCE Conference that runs Monday and Tuesday. My understanding is that Struggle Well is the proactive part of dealing with mental and behavioral health issues.

Over the last several years, we’ve done a good job identifying the issue and developing programs to help emergency response personnel, e.g., our agreement with Start Moving On Counseling. It's time now to start looking at a model that focuses on the proactive side of mental and behavioral health, meaning finding individual baselines and identifying resiliency tools before someone has a problem. It's the preventative side of maintaining our psychological well-being. I’ll have more on this once I return.

I had an opportunity to visit with Tucson's Fire Chief, Chuck Ryan, briefly about the program. He said the Tucson PD has put all their officers through the program and that Tucson Fire is looking to do the same. Feedback from the police officers has been overwhelmingly positive, as has the feedback from the Tucson FD Chiefs that audited the training for their agency. I’m hoping the program is as good as it's been billed.

I’ve been asked to attend the Board of Regents meeting at NAU next Thursday in Flagstaff. They want to hear directly from me regarding the request for an attainable housing study. The proposal has been submitted by NAU staff, now the Board of Regents has to decide whether to support the project. I think it's an important study as it will provide real options for addressing the housing challenges we face. And, if some of those solutions require special finance options, or monies at the state level, we’ll have a comprehensive study to support our request. It's at least worth a shot.

I’ve noticed, for those interested, that Agency vehicles with Ford badges seem to be in the shop more than those that say Ram or Chevrolet. Just something I thought I’d mention for some of our Ford-loving friends out there. FYI, Runo and Abel, I’ve thrown a tow rope in my Impala in case you need help getting home… This is not a squirrel moment, I just happened to be at Fleet and Rescue 58 was in the shop. As Domenic said, we removed the Ford emblem, but it still knows it's a Ford.

Hope you all have a great weekend! It's officially summer, meaning time for BBQs and outdoor activities with friends. Please don't do anything stupid… designate a driver, Uber, Lyft, or taxi.

CAFMA has now introduced The CAFMA Connect Podcast! Get to know the personnel and stay connected to your local fire service agency. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast on their youtube channel at www.youtube.com/channel/UCshgJvK9iKOILA-Z3TEDvVQ.

Or subscribe:

Apple Podcasts: apple.co/3k2m0azGoogle Podcasts: bit.ly/38fRB6nSpotify: spoti.fi/32DIN6J

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