Attorney General Charlie Crist, Governor Jeb Bush, Chief Financial Officer and State Fire Marshal Tom Gallagher and Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson present the resolution to Rand Napoli, Division Director of the State Fire Marshal's office.
The State Fire Marshal’s Office has many functions – from determining the cause of suspicious fires to developing state fire codes to overseeing the firefighting and rescue missions at the state’s Emergency Operations Center. In all that the office does, the primary goal is to protect Floridians, including those who answer the call to protect and serve.
At today’s meeting of the Florida Cabinet, Chief Financial Officer Tom Gallagher, who also serves as Florida’s State Fire Marshal, recognized Rand Napoli, Director of the State Fire Marshal’s Office, for securing agreement on critical new rules to protect Florida’s firefighters. Last week, the Florida Professional Firefighters’ Association also gave Napoli “The Firefighters’ Hero Award.”
“When it came to rulemaking to implement the Florida Firefighters Occupational Safety and Health Act, Mr. Napoli gained consensus among different constituent groups with competing concerns,” Gallagher said. “Today, Florida has some of the strongest protections in the nation for firefighters.”
Among the significant requirements in the rules, which took effect last month:
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Requires firefighters involved in structural firefighting to have a minimum of two firefighters inside and two firefighters outside to ensure safety.
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Requires fire departments to have a Comprehensive Firefighter Safety and Health plan with “fail safe” steps to ensure all parties involved cooperate in resolving safety issues.
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Requires training commensurate to duties performed. Allows firefighters to file anonymous complaints with the State Fire Marshal’s Office.
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Requires firefighters to follow safety procedures.
"It is a wonderful honor to be recognized by the Cabinet,
but this honor is shared with the many members of the State Fire Marshal’s
Office who made the process successful,” Napoli said. “Their efforts and
the work of many fire departments and law enforcement agencies around the state
were critical to the implementation of these rules.”
Gallagher appointed Napoli, who has more than 33 years of operational and
administrative experience in fire and rescue services, to the position of
director in 2001.
The skyline for October is Daytona Beach,
photo courtesy of the Daytona Beach Area Convention & Visitors Bureau.