Short Title: An Act amending Title 35 (Health and Safety) of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, in volunteer firefighters, repealing provisions relating to special fire police and providing for fire police officers.
​
Prime Sponsor: Representative TALLMAN
Last Action: Referred to VETERANS AFFAIRS AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS, June 9, 2016 [House]
Memo: Fire Police Act Rewrite Updated
​
MEMORANDUM
Posted:June 2, 2016 03:36 PM
From:Representative Will Tallman
To:All House members
Subject:Fire Police Act Rewrite Updated
After speaking to a few fire police professionals, we decided to make a few small changes to the legislation that was introduced on May 23, 2016. This entails reintroducing the legislation.
This is legislation that will rewrite and amend Title 35 relating to Fire Police to provide for the appointment, powers and control of fire police officers and to further define their powers and duties.
Fire police officers are defined as members of a volunteer fire company nominated by members of the fire company and confirmed by the chief elected executive officer of a municipality to perform traffic and crowd control duties at incident sites or local events.
Though fire police officers are volunteer firefighters who work under the fire chief, they also take on law enforcement duties and powers.
Fire police officers can often be stuck in limbo between different organizations and individuals when performing duties. My proposal provides for these duties and command to be in line with the National Incident Management System when it comes to incident command and control.
Furthermore, fire police are often the first to be called, yet the last to be funded and no one organization takes responsibility for their operation. This results in insufficient funds being appropriated to fire police, which places a financial burden on these organizations and individuals.
Fire police officers serve an important role in our communities and it is vital that they are receiving adequate support and funding.
Please consider cosponsoring this legislation.
Introduced as HB2154