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Questions
Frequently Asked.
- Do
firefighters get appointed to boards and committees? What are they?
- Can a FD get reimbursements for extinguishing fires and other incidents along MN highways?
- How many fire fighters are there in Minnesota? How many are volunteer? How many are career?
- How do you arrive at these numbers?
- What is a career fire fighter? Do volunteer fire fighters get paid?
- How many career female firefighters are there in Minnesota?
- Who oversees fire fighters in the state?
- What are the estimated conditions of
the Fire Service In Minnesota?
- How
much does it cost to start a fire department?
- Do fire fighters get pensions? What is a relief association?
- I hear the words "State Aid" used allot. What is it?
- How many fire fighters in the U.S.? (How many career, how many volunteer?)
- How many fire departments are there in Minnesota?
- How many fire departments are there in the U.S.?
- Where can I find fire data?
- How do I become a fire fighter in Minnesota?
- How can I become qualified to fight forest fires?
- How many emergency medical service providers are there in Minnesota?
- How many sites in Minnesota provide training in emergency medical response?
- How did state fire training start in Minnesota?
- What is the tuition voucher program?
- Are there any firefighter death benefits?
- Is there required or mandatory training for firefighters?
- Is there annual refresher training
for firefighters?
- Is there a mandatory age requirement for retirement?
- Is there a mandatory residency requirement for firefighters?
- What is the proper way to wear a flag patch on one's shoulder sleeve?
- Sales Tax - Do Fire Departments pay sales tax on equipment?
1. Do firefighters get
appointed to boards and committees? What are they?
Firefighters serve on several
Boards that are appointed by the Governor. Firefighters also serve on
Boards and other committees as representatives of an organization that
they are associated with.
Click here
to see appointments by the Governor. Click here to
see appointments by associations.
2.
Can
a FD get reimbursements
for extinguishing fires and other incidents along MN highways? Yes:
Any fires that do happen in the jurisdiction that handled the fire(s) should submit a bill to the Mn/DOT District Office in their area. The bill should include the location of the fire.
Sample Form - click here
161.465 Reimbursement for fire services
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/161/465.html
(a) Ordinary expenses incurred by a municipal or volunteer fire department in extinguishing a grass fire within the right-of-way of a trunk highway must be reimbursed upon certification to the commissioner of transportation from the trunk highway fund. In addition, ordinary expenses incurred by a municipal or volunteer fire department in extinguishing a fire outside the right-of-way of any trunk highway if the fire originated within the right-of-way, upon approval of a police officer or an officer or employee of the Department of Public Safety must, upon certification to the commissioner of transportation by the proper official of the municipality or fire department within 60 days after the completion of the service, be reimbursed to the municipality or fire department from funds in the trunk highway fund. The commissioner of transportation shall take action practicable to secure reimbursement to the trunk highway fund of money expended under this section from the person, firm, or corporation responsible for the fire or danger of fire.
(b) The provisions of this section shall not be construed to admit state liability for damage or destruction to private property or for injury to persons resulting from a fire originating within a trunk highway right-of-way.
MnDOT Contact Person:
Mary Ann Frasczak
MnDOT Central Office
St. Paul.
Phone number (651)297-3563
MaryAnn.Frasczak@dot.state.mn.us
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3. How many fire
fighters
are
there in Minnesota? How many are volunteer? How many are career?
There are about 19,862 fire
fighters in Minnesota. About 1,842 of them are career fire fighters.
(About 18,020 are volunteer fire fighters)
4.
How
do you arrive at these numbers?
Nobody is responsible for keeping
track of the number of firefighters; there is not a central reporting
agency. (There are some self-reporting surveys such as the National
Fire Experience Survey, see below.) It is difficult to track the
numbers, since fire fighters can belong to one of several unions (not
just the ones with “fire fighter” in their names), including the
Teamsters and the unions who represent nuclear power plant personnel.
5.
What
is a career fire fighter? Do volunteer
fire fighters
get paid?
Career fire fighters have
full-time paid benefited jobs as fire fighters. Volunteers are any
other people who fight fires. They may receive no pay at all (there are
about 100 volunteer departments in the state which provide no
compensation at all), be paid on an hourly basis, or a per-call basis.
Usually, volunteer fire fighters have jobs and careers outside of fire
fighting.
6. How
many
career female firefighters are there
in
Minnesota?
According to the Women in the Fire
Service 2005 Status Report http://www.wfsi.org/women_and_firefighting/status_report.php there were 95 women on 8
departments, including two engineers, 15
captains, and two chiefs. Minneapolis Fire Department, with 70 (16%),
at the time of the report, also had the highest percentage of women
firefighters in urban career departments. Other urban career
departments in the United States with high percentages of female
firefighters include Madison, WI (15%), San Francisco, CA (15%),
Boulder, CO (14%), and Miami Dade County, FL (13%). No organization
that we know of at present tracks female volunteer firefighters or
female wildland firefighters.
A good Minnesota resource for
women wanting to know about female firefighters is the
North Star Womens
Firefighters Association
http://www.nswfa.org/
7.
Who
oversees fire fighters in the state?
Fire protection, and the people who provide it, are local issues in the same way that street cleaning is a local issue. In other words, there is no legislatively mandated state director of street cleaners. Localities decide on their own fire protection services. The Legislature does regulate fire fighters’ pensions.
8. What are the estimated conditions
of
the Fire Service In Minnesota?.Commissioned by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the U.S. Fire Administration, the NFPA’s comprehensive national survey of fire departments, first released in 2002, revealed that many departments lacked basic equipment and response capabilities and were severely under equipped for more challenging terrorism or hazmat incidents and major natural disasters.
The report, which NFPA President James Shannon called a “call to action,” provided convincing data to national policy makers of the need to increase federal resources for the nation’s fire departments. Click here to see a summary of the report.
The state reports can be downloaded free in PDF format from the NFPA One-Stop Data Shop at www.nfpa.org. For printed copies of your state report, e-mail Nancy Schwartz at osds@nfpa.org or call 617-984-7450.[Top]
9. What
does it cost to start a fire department?
[Top]
10.
Do
fire fighters get pensions? What is a relief
association?
Career fire fighters are covered
by the Police and Fire PERA (Public Employees Retirement Act).
Volunteer fire fighters can get pensions if the fire department has
organized a pension plan for them. These private, non-profit
associations for volunteer fire fighter pensions are called relief
associations and are managed by fire department trustees. There are
over 700 relief associations in Minnesota. Click here for
additional information.
11. I hear the words
"State Aid"
used allot. What is it?The purpose of state fire aid is to subsidize (1) the service pensions paid to retired firefighters, (2) the disability benefits paid to disabled firefighters, and (3) the survivor benefits paid to the surviving spouses and children of deceased firefighters. Municipalities may use their state fire aid for other limited purposes (see MN Statutes, 424A.08) if their firefighters are not members of a local volunteer firefighters relief association and are not members of the Police and Fire Fund of PERA.
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12. How many
fire
fighters are there in the U.S.?
(How many
career, how many volunteer?)
According to estimates based on the National Fire Protection Association's (NFPA) 2002 National Fire Experience Survey (released January 2004), there were approximately 1,108,240 fire fighters in the U.S. in 2002, an increase of 2.8% from the previous year.
The information comes from an annual survey sent out to fire departments and a weighting formula used by NFPA in their estimate equation. In this survey, career fire fighters were defined to include full-time fire fighters regardless of assignments (e.g. suppression, prevention/inspection, administrative).
This survey defined career fire fighters who work for public municipal fire departments; it does not include career fire fighters who work for state or federal government or in private fire brigades. Career fire fighters were 26% of the total, or 291,650.
Most career fire fighters (76% of the 291,650) work in communities that protect 25,000 or more people.
The survey defined volunteer fire fighters as any active part-time (on-call or volunteer) fire fighters. Active volunteers were defined as being involved in fire fighting. Of the total number of fire fighters, 74%, or 816,600 were volunteers.
Most of the volunteers (95% of the 816,600) are in departments that protect fewer than 25,000 people. More than half of the volunteers are located in small, rural departments that protect fewer than 2,500 people.
Since 1983, a generally upward
trend in career fire fighters has been more than offset by a generally
downward trend in volunteer fire fighters. However, in 2002, the number
of volunteers was up 4.1% from the year before, the highest it has been
since 1995.
13.
How
many fire departments are there in
Minnesota?
The Tuition Voucher
program recognizes 791 fire departments in Minnesota. Some of these are
no longer in existence. Click here to see additional information on fire
departments.
14.
How
many fire departments are there in the U.S.?
According to the NFPA’s 2002 National Fire Experience Survey, there are an estimated 30,310 fire departments in the U.S. 12% of all departments are all career or mostly career but protect 60% of the U.S. population, while 88% of the departments are mostly volunteer or all volunteer and protect 40% of the population.
- 2,044 departments (6.7%) are all career, comprised solely of career fire fighters
- 1,480 departments (4.9%) are mostly career
- 4,886 departments (16.1%) are mostly volunteer
- 21,900 departments (72.3%) are all volunteer
15.
Where
can I find fire data?
National Fire Loss Data and
National Fire Fighter Injury and Fatality Data are reported annually in
the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Journal, usually in the
Sept./Oct. and/or Nov./Dec. issues.
16.
How
do I become a fire fighter in Minnesota?
Most cities and towns set their own requirements; check with your local fire department. However, many departments want you to:
- Be a high school graduate
- Have a valid drivers license
- Be able to use computers and have some math and science courses
- Be healthy and in good physical condition
- If you are in high school, check to see if your local fire department has a Fire Explorer program. Many previous Fire Explorers have gone on to become fire fighters in their communities.
- Take courses at a Minnesota State College or University. Thirteen Minnesota State Colleges and Universities offer Firefighter I and Firefighter II courses. Hennepin Technical College, Lake Superior College, and Northland Community and Technical College offer a two-year AAS degree. Southwest Minnesota State University offers a Fire Service Administration bachelor degree.
17.
How
can I become qualified to fight forest
fires?
Meet the requirements of the state
or federal agency doing the firefighting to get on a list of qualified
people to be called up. You must take and pass a physical work
capacity test. Check out the Wildland
Training Information page at the Minnesota Department of Natural
Resources. Several Minnesota State Colleges and Universities offer some
wildland fire training. Itasca
Community College offers a one year diploma and a two-year AAS
degree.
18.
How
many emergency medical service providers
are there in
Minnesota?
As of March 2004, there are about
10,800 EMT-Basics (emergency medical technicians), about 300
EMT-Intermediates, and about 2,000 paramedics. There are 311 ambulance
services. There are about 16,000 first responders not involved with
transit. More EMS details
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20. How did
state fire
training start in Minnesota?In 1957, the Minnesota State Fire Chief's Association asked that there be a state level training program established to administer and deliver training to
The Minnesota Department of Education Adult Vocational Education was given the responsibility for this request. Ward Willford was the first full time employee and started the program. The fire and rescue unit had three rescue instructors and six fire instructors. Click here for historic time line.
The first State agency to offer fire training was the State Fire Marshal's Office back in September 22 - 26, 1919. The event was called the "Minnesota State Fire College" and was held in St Paul at the Armory. 163 firefighters attended from around the state. Click here for additional details and photos.
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21. What is The Tuition
Voucher Program?
In 1985 the State Legislators created $285,000.00 funding for the Tuition Subsidy Program for firefighters. Laws of Minnesota 1985 1st Special Session", Chapter 11, Sec. 4, State Board of Vocational Technical Education, Subdiv. 1. Total Appropriations Subdiv. 3. Non Instructional Expenditures. (Second paragraph) This appropriation authorizes $212,500.00 for the first year and $250,000.00 for the second year for supporting up to 25 percent of the tuition costs of firefighter training programs.
In the fall of 1998 at the direction of the Chancellor of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities (MnSCU) the original subsidy program was modified to a Fire Fighter Tuition Voucher program. The old subsidy program paid the colleges directly and the new tuition voucher program held the credited funds for each fire department in a special dedicated account which the fire chief would control. The Fire/EMS/Safety Center office manages the Voucher program.
Initial
vouchers establishing
accounts were sent to all fire departments in Minnesota in the Fall of
1998 based on the average number of hours of training the department
participated in during the previous three years of the old subsidy
program. Click here for
complete details.
22. Are There Any
Firefighter Death
Benefits?
Death
LODD Funerals of Firefighters - Funeral Procedures for Firefighters
One-Time:
As of 2001, $110,692 is paid out to spouse or spouse and
dependent
children. If no spouse or dependent children, payment goes to dependent
parents. The benefit is adjusted annually based on the consumer price
index.
Contact: Office of the Commissioner, Minnesota Department of Public
Safety. Town Square, 444 Cedar Street, St. Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651)
296-2432 or (800) 342-5354.
Workers Compensation:
The benefit covers all firefighters killed or disabled in the
line-of-duty. Benefits for spouse with no children are 50% of wages
earned by paid employees performing similar services at time of death.
Benefits for spouse with two or more children are 2/3. Benefits for
spouse with no children last for 10 years. For spouse with children,
benefits continue 10 years after last child is no longer dependent.
Unmarried children are eligible until age 18 or longer if disabled and
incapable of self-support, or until age 25 if full-time student.
Benefits are adjusted to reflect cost of living increases. Medical
costs directly related to the injury are paid. Combined total of
government benefits cannot exceed 100%. Spousal benefits continue after
remarriage.
Contact: Workers’ Compensation Division, State Department of Labor and
Industry. 443 Lafayette Road North, St. Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651)
296-2432 or (800) 342-5354.
Funeral:
Maximum burial allowance of $7,500.
Contact: Workers’ Compensation Division, State Department of Labor and
Industry. 443 Lafayette Road North, St. Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651)
296-2432 or (800) 342-5354.
State Sponsored Pension:
None.
Child's Education:
Waiver of tuition and fees for undergraduate or certificate
programs at
state-supported colleges and universities. If the student attends an
approved Minnesota private college or university, the state will pay no
more than the highest tuition and fees charged by a Minnesota public
institution. Children are eligible until age 23. The benefit is
renewable for a maximum of ten semesters or 15 quarters, whichever
occurs first.
Contact: Department of Public Safety. 211 Transportation Building, St.
Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651) 642-0533. www.mheso.state.mn.us
Spouse's Education:
Waiver of tuition and fees for undergraduate or certificate
programs at
state-supported colleges and universities. If the student attends an
approved Minnesota private college or university, the state will pay no
more than the highest tuition and fees charged by a Minnesota public
institution. The benefit is renewable for a maximum of ten semesters or
15 quarters, whichever occurs first.
Contact: Department of Public Safety. 211 Transportation Building, St.
Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651) 642-0533. www.mheso.state.mn.us
Support Organizations:
Minnesota 100 Club
201 Lowry Avenue NE
Minneapolis, MN 55418
(612) 781-3371
Provides immediate contribution of $1,000.
Education
Training is available through the Minnesota State colleges
& universities at a cost. Library is available for loaning.
Contact: Fire/EMS/Safety Center, Minnesota State Colleges &
Universities. Phone: (651)-649-5454. Toll Free: (800) 311-3143. FAX:
(651) 649-5409.
Workers Compensation
Workers' compensation covers all firefighters disabled in the
line of
duty. Benefits are based on the wages earned by paid employees
performing similar services at the time of injury. The amount is based
on extent and permanence of disability.
Contact: Workers’ Compensation Division, State Department of Labor and
Industry. 443 Lafayette Road North, St. Paul, MN 55155. Phone: (651)
296-2432 or (800) 342-5354.
Funding
Grants for equipment and training are available through the
Division of Emergency Management.
Contact: Minnesota Division of Homeland Security and Emergency
Management, Emergency Response Commission. 444 Cedar Street, Suite 223,
Saint Paul, MN 55101-6223. Phone: (651) 296-2233. Fax: (651) 296-0459.
Health
There is no state benefit. However, many fire departments
offer annual physicals and Hepatitis B vaccinations.
Legal
By state statute, the city or township must provide legal
counsel for
any firefighter if an action is brought against the firefighter for
damages caused by the operation of a motor vehicle in the course of the
firefighter's official duties. The municipality must also pay the
expense of defending the suit, including providing witness and
reasonable counsel fees.
Malpractice
Firefighters who render emergency service without compensation
or the
expectation of compensation are not liable for any civil damages as a
result of acts or omissions, unless the firefighter acted in a willful
and wanton or reckless manner.
Retirement
Each department has the right to establish a Firefighter
Relief
Association. The program is funded by 2% fire insurance premium tax.
Programs differ for each fire department.
Tax
The state reimburses volunteer firefighter relief associations
up to
$1,000 in exchange for paying state taxes on their lump sum pensions.
The amount of the benefit is 10% of the lump sum distribution up to a
maximum of $1,000.
Contact: Minnesota Department of Revenue. 600 North Robert St., St.
Paul, MN 55146.
Additional
Volunteer firefighters are eligible for special license
plates. The fee is $10.
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23. Is there
required
or mandatory training for firefighters?[Top]
24. Is there annual refresher
training for firefighters?[Top]
25.
Is
there a mandatory age requirement for
retirement?
Federal law does permit public employers to establish mandatory retirement ages for police and fire personnel. Click here for greater detail.
[Top]
26. Is
there a residence requirement for
firefighters?Minnesota law does permit cities to establish mandatory residency for employees.
http://www.revisor.leg.state.mn.us/stats/415/16.html
415.16 Employment; residence requirement.
Subdivision 1. No exception for on-premises residence. Notwithstanding any contrary provision of other law, home rule charter, ordinance or resolution, no statutory or home rule charter city or county shall require that a person be a resident of the city or county as a condition of employment by the city or county except for positions which by their duties require the employee to live on the premises of the person's place of employment.
Subd. 2. Reasonable area or response time requirement. A statutory or home rule charter city or county, except if it is located in the area defined in section 473F.02, subdivision 2, may impose a reasonable area or response time residency requirement if there is a demonstrated, job-related necessity.
Subd. 3. Volunteer or nonprofit firefighters. A statutory or home rule charter city or county may impose a reasonable residency requirement on persons employed as volunteers or as members of a nonprofit firefighting corporation if there is a demonstrated, job-related necessity. The residency requirement must be related to response time and established without regard to political subdivision boundaries.
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