Staff Writer
LIMESTONE, Maine — The Limestone Fire Department recently was awarded the prestigious SHAPE award on August 29 by the State Department of Labor. The Fort Fairfield Fire Department, by working closely with the Limestone Fire Department, not only assisted Limestone with getting their SHAPE award, the Fort Fairfield Fire Department was presented the SHAPE award themselves, exemplifying the cooperative relationship between the two departments. David Wacker, director for the Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Standards Workplace Safety and Health Division, presented Limestone and Fort Fairfield Fire Chief Paul Durepo with two plaques, one for the Loring fire station and one for the Limestone fire station. The plaque presentation for the Fort Fairfield department took place in Fort Fairfield that evening.
“These plaques are more than a piece of metal and a piece of wood, but they are a product of evaluations, inspections, training, commitment from town leadership, from the fire chief, from fire department leadership, and the firefighters themselves,” said Wacker. “One of the things that our commissioner has always said is that we want everyone going to work with the same number of fingers and toes and coming back with the same number of fingers and toes; we want to reduce injuries and illnesses. Through this inspection and through the efforts of the two fire departments and especially you, Chief [Durepo], this has been accomplished,” he added.
Before qualifying for the SHAPE award, the Bureau reviews all the fire department records, the accident reports, all the policies and procedures, and they look at every part of the fire department, as it stands and all that’s written on paper.
Before presenting the department with the awards, Wacker issued a challenge to the firefighters.
“These [awards] are renewable every two years,” he said, “We want to come back here two years from now and give you an updated award for [2012 and 2013].
“You have done what other fire departments in the state haven’t done,” Wacker added. “We consider you the best of the best because you’ve really done a great job for safety and health, and that means less employee injuries and accidents, it could mean less workers comp premiums for the towns, it certainly improves morale for the town, so we are very pleased to present these [plaques] to you.”
Captain Michael Jalbert of the Limestone Fire Department echoed the sentiments given by Wacker.
“With this certification, everyone has been through the training and I think the department as a whole is safer,” Jalbert said, adding that getting every single volunteer from Limestone and Fort Fairfield through all the training was no simple feat.
“I think there were 13 specific classes that each [volunteer firefighter had to complete] to get this, and we had to have 100 percent of our guys go through (the training),” Jalbert said, adding that the firefighters are all volunteers and have full-time jobs outside the department.
Two things that did help both departments with the training was having firefighters from both departments complete the training together as a whole, and having somebody on 24/7 at the Loring station.
“The great thing is that we have somebody on 24/7 at the Limestone Station 2 at Loring, and we sent a lot of guys up on their free time to make up missed training,” Jalbert said. “For example, on a meeting night we might have 15 to 30 guys show up in Fort Fairfield and the same thing for Limestone,” he explained, “so what we did (and we usually work together anyways even though we’re two separate departments), is pick a night up at the base to have [the different guys who couldn’t make the normal training sessions] meet up at the Loring station to do the make-up, and we could keep scheduling nights for people to attend until [everyone completed the training].”
“To do this as a whole made it easier,” Jalbert added.
“I appreciate the support that we’ve gotten from the Department of Labor,” said Fire Chief Durepo, “but I will tell you that most of the credit goes to the volunteer firefighters; they’re the ones who put in the time every Monday night going through all the training, all the classes, and working on equipment to make sure that the training, buildings, and equipment were all at 100 percent, so I say thank you to the volunteers,” he added, “they deserve it a lot.”
Chief Durepo also expressed his thanks to Limestone Town Manager Donna Bernier for her support.
“[Getting this award] meant purchasing some equipment and making some changes, but it worked out well and it’s going to be very easy to continue to stay in the SHAPE program from this time on,” Chief Durepo said.
