SEBASTIAN COUNTY, Ark. — In a meeting with Sen. John Boozman on Wednesday, firefighters in Sebastian County said changes to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) rule could have unintended negative consequences.
The Emergency Response Standard looks to modernize and update OSHA’s rules and regulations regarding keeping first responders in the country safe. However, volunteer firefighters in Arkansas expressed concerns in the meeting regarding changes they said are vague.
"A lot of these departments, they will not be able to afford to keep open," Sebastian County Fire Association President and Hartford Volunteer Fire Department Chief Bobby Cox said. "It's really going to hurt us."
At the meeting held at the White Bluff-Rye Hill Volunteer Fire Department, fire and emergency personnel said they were worried about age requirements, vehicle restrictions, physical exams, and the cost of implementing mandates that they said are proposed in the rule changes.
"On the physicals, for example, on a volunteer department, if you've got somebody that's 60 years old that may not be able to pass that physical and that agility [but] he can drive a truck or drive a tanker to at least get water to the scene, that's a vital asset on the volunteer fire department," President of the White Bluff-Rye Hill Fire Department Dale Seiter said.
Most volunteer fire departments in the state are funded through various measures such as grants, residential dues, and donations. Many in the meeting said the changes required of volunteer fire departments are not affordable.
"The new OSHA proposed emergency standard could drastically affect a lot of departments — volunteer, paid, on-call, full-time career departments as well," Seiter said. "It's going to be extremely difficult for even career departments to abide by the new standards if it ever becomes law."
Boozman said although the OSHA rule is intended to do good and has some good elements, there will be unintended consequences that the state's 974 volunteer or part-time departments will not be able to manage.
"We’re working with OSHA. We're trying to get them to realize that you can't have a one-size-fits-all," Boozman said. "Certainly, it's very different here in Arkansas than it is in a place like California or Manhattan. And then even within Arkansas, it's very different in downtown Fort Smith as opposed to here where we are in Rye Hill.”
Cox said retention of volunteer firefighters across the state is hard enough. He said further OSHA restrictions will only make the situation worse.
"During COVID, we were hurt on volunteers and we're still recovering," Cox said. "We're still trying to get people. You see us out trying to get volunteers, and to take another hit to where we're going to start losing vehicles and our trucks, we just can't do it."
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