The 66 members of the Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., Fire Department has been selected by an international board as the Best Medium Size Fire Department in the entire Marine Corps.
Marine Corps Logistics Base BarstowStory by Keith Hayes
The fire department aboard Marine Corps Logistics Base Barstow, Calif., has been officially recognized as the best medium-sized fire department in the USMC and is also the first Marine Corps fire department to be re-accredited by an international agency.
MCLB Fire Chief Paul Purdy received word of the re-accreditation from the Commission of Fire Accreditation International at a hearing in Atlanta Aug. 26.
Purdy added that the recognition is a source of pride for the 66 members of the fire agency. The crews respond to an average 1,000 mutual aid calls every year over a wide area. “We provide mutual aid for two major freeways, the 15 and the 40, for sixty miles in either direction from the base,” Purdy said. That means the department’s response area is a 120-mile stretch of roadway on both freeways for a total of 240 miles.
“That’s massive,” Purdy said. “Our skill set is unmatched in the entire Marine Corps Installations West area,” Purdy explained. “At a normal traffic collision we have to extricate, do treatment care, and provide advanced life support. We do the work of two engine companies with only one engine. Compare that to a large city like Los Angeles where they may have five or more engine companies at an incident and have mutual aid support from other services as well,” Purdy continued.
In 2010 MCLB Barstow became the first fire department only in the Marine to be accredited by CFAI, as well as being named the best medium-sized department in the DoD.
“We have a lot of firsts,” Purdy acknowledged. “We’re the first to be accredited, the first to become reaccredited, the first to be named best in the DoD, and the first to establish an active shooter response program. Other agencies were doing parts of active shooter programs, but we were the first to put it all together,” the chief explained.
“We saw the value of getting to patients quickly, treating them and getting them out of harm’s way. That takes a certain task force mindset to accomplish.
“Now the entire Headquarters Marine Corps has adopted what Barstow put in place. From there it will go out to the entire DoD,” Purdy said. “Chief (Ryan) Tworek and Chief (Gregg) Kunkel train other departments in MCI West on active shooter programs.”
To achieve accreditation from the CFAI the fire department has to not only meet 258 criteria, or baseline standards, but improve upon them.
“The reaccreditation, which is required about every five years, means I can go to my superiors and have a measureable report on the effectiveness of the fire department when asking for more resources,” continued Purdy.
He concluded, “I am extremely proud of my staff and firefighters for their commitment to excellence. They are outstanding at their jobs and that allows me to successfully pilot the organization. They add real value to our department.”
