On December 16, 2019, Gov. Cuomo signed into law Chapter 678 of 2019 (S.6524 Gounardes/A.8341 Abbate – Relates to the minimum qualifications to serve as a fire chief in any fire department, fire district or fire protection district that employs six or more paid firefighters). The new law will require the state fire administrator to establish minimal training standards for fire chiefs in departments that have at least six paid fire fighters. This chapter clarifies the initial legislative intent of Chapter 406 of 2018, which was designed to create a basic and minimum level of training for volunteer chiefs in combination departments, that currently do not exist. This law will help protect the health and safety of our members. More importantly, it will ensure that communities served by combination fire departments will have fire chiefs who are adequately trained and prepared for fires and/or other catastrophic events. We greatly appreciate Gov. Cuomo signing this bill into law as well as the work of our legislative bill sponsors, Sen. Andrew Gounardes and Assemblyman Peter Abbate.
The new law goes into effect on June 13, 2020 and the bill language can be viewed here.