HANSON – What’s in store for the Hanson Fire Department now that there’s a new chief in the corner office?
More of the same, if you ask Chief Robert O’Brien – who sees himself as something of a conduit between the department’s past and its future. A 27-year fire service veteran, O’Brien took command officially in June, after some five years as a deputy chief and several weeks as acting chief after the retirement of Chief Jerome Thompson Jr.
“Chief Thompson was always very encouraging,” he said of new ideas he had suggested as he climbed the ranks. “Some of them work, some don’t work, and that’s where encouraging people is valuable.”
It is an approach he is continuing as chief of a department that Thompson had already brought a long way from where it was 16 years ago.
“We’ve got a lot of stuff going on, which is good,” he said. “We have a very young department. Their enthusiasm, their way of thinking, is – I’m going to call it non-traditional.
“That’s what I’m really pushing for the direction of the department now, for the firefighters and the officers to think outside the box … basically throw it against the wall, and if it sticks, great, If it doesn’t, then we continue the way we’ve been going.”
There have already been a lot of ideas they are trying, including use of the experience new hires have until they can go to fire academy. One has fire experience and has been put on shift, another has paramedic experience but not firefighting training, so he is assigned to the first ambulance out the door, which leaves three firefighters and a lieutant available to answer fire calls until he can attend the academy.
“Firewise, we don’t want to put him in a precarious position without being trained,” O’Brien said. It also allows the second ambulance to get out the door faster.
“My mantra to them is, ‘Let’s give it a try,’” he said. “Having a young department, the experience level is different from what I have.”
While maintaining a lot of the department’s traditions and respect for its history, O’Brien said technology is making a lot of changes as it adheres to the department’s tradition of aggressively seeking grant funding for equipment, projects and programs. Emergency management has provided a weather TV system – which, no doubt, came in handy during Saturday’s tornado warnings – and ROCC 911 funding pays for the department’s security and dispatch systems. Those are just two areas where grant funding has been secured for the department.
A lot of information on what to do to prepare for weather extremes, and what resources in town are available, for example, are posted to residents via social media on the department’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.
“We’re really fortunate here that Rob Heffernan is a big technology guru,” he said. “All these TVs and monitors that you see, especially the big one [in the main room which is used for virtual classes and webinars], the townspeople didn’t pay for any of it.”
As he spoke, one of those video screens, which displays a map most of the time, alarms went off as Whitman Fire was dealing with a heat emergency involving a person collapsed on South Avenue. A line of white LED lights was illuminated along the ceiling as well as a shorter line of red LED lights. Had it been at night the red lights would be more prominent at first, so it would be less jarring to the 24/7 crews being awakened by alarms until firefighters’ eyes adjust to the light.
“That’s why I’m encouraging people to come on in,” he said. “Come see your fire station. You paid for it, but what’s interesting is what they don’t have to pay for.”
While most technology equipment is funded by grant money, a majority of that in the apparatus bay is a combination of grant money and the ambulance account. The ladder truck replacement, for example, is being looked at as a 50-percent grant-sourced project.
“I’ve been very fortunate my whole career,” he said. “Other chiefs outside [of town], because of my involvement with technical rescue … I’ve gotten very involved with MEMA.”
It’s been a boon to networking, he said.
Hanson Fire and Mass. Maritime Academy plan to run a big tabletop exercise in April, that the school’s seniors are working.
“It’s going to be a little different for the town,” O’Brien said. “Chief Thompson allowed me to handle all the emergency management stuff, but I’m starting to go through things now of a continuity of operations plan for the town.”
Hanson does not currently have a robust emergency operation plan. A comprehensive plan was developed just about the time Thompson retired.
O’Brien has also presented a training course at Mass. Maritime for the helicopter aquatic rescue team, for which he is a program coordinator. The team specializes in flood and swift water rescues, from a concept developed in North Carolina.
“We’ve been working on it for five years and now it’s up and running,” he said.
O’Brien is also pushing for firefighters to be better educated in their craft and learning from what other departments have done or what they’ve experienced outside of Hanson Fire, to be more valuable members of the department.
Shifts are excited about new training techniques they can learn as a unit, as well.
“Firefighting is changing constantly and what it was 30 or 40 years ago is much different than what it is today,” he said, adding that department leadership is also sitting down with firefighters to discuss their short-term and long-term career goals.
While ambulance receipts also fund equipment like the new amulance being sought at the October Town Meeting, O’Brien said most ambulance costs to patients are handled through insurance.
“We don’t go to collections for it,” he said. “We don’t want people not to call the ambulance because of the cost.”
He also stressed the importance of calling 911 when help is needed, instead of the business line, because there might not be someone available to answer the business line if they are out on a call, prevention or training.
In fact, if O’Brien had an unlimited budget, staffing would be his top priority.
“Right now, we are looking at a SAFER grant,” he said. “It will pay 100-percent [of costs involved with] firefighter hiring – physicals, equipment, training, health care and retirement for three years, which is a great deal … But at the end of three years, the municipalities take ownership of that.”
He’s working with the Select Board and Finance Committee to determine how the department can afford that level of staffing.
More people on ambulances get them out the door quicker and more people on the fire line are important because fires burn hotter and faster than they used to because of chemicals used in buildings.
The May 2022 Town Meeting also approved funds for a feasibility study for the station, which should be going out to bid shortly, but O’Brien is aware a new Highway facility is a more pressing priority in town right now, and rightfully so, but the fire station is approaching 50 years old – and originally shared space with the library and senior center.
“The building was not designed for 24-hour occupancy,” he said. “Our bunkrooms are make-shift and are in the attic.”
It was also not designed for a co-ed fire crew, and the department now has two female firefighters.
“We’re the best-looking building in town, and a lot of that is due to the [maintenance and upkeep] done by the firefighters,” O’Brien said, noting he does not see any reason to move the Fire Department to a different location – which leaves a decision on how to improve the building where it is.
“We’re doing the groundwork,” he said.