NFPA Journal - July/August 2017 - 33

GREEN
ACRES

FARMING REMAINS an important element of rural America.
And with the expanding legalization of marijuana around
the country, cultivation of
another sort is also emerging
The cannabis industry as a challenge for many rural
departments.
presents yet another
About 100 miles east of San
challenge for rural fire
Francisco sits Calaveras County,
departments
a 1,037-square-mile expanse
with only one
incorporated
city. Perched
on the edge
of the Sierra
Nevada, the
county's elevation ranges
from about
600 feet above
sea level to
almost 5,000
feet. In recent
A marijuana growing operation
years, the
in Northern California.
secluded, hilly
community has

attracted polarizing visitors in
the form of marijuana growers.
The industry has been a major
economic boon to the area
since recreational marijuana
use was legalized in California in 2016, feeding about $11
million in yearly taxes to the
county, according to Coco
Kelly, a firefighter with Central
Calaveras Fire and Rescue. But
even as marijuana production
jump-starts the local economy,
grow operations present unique
fire safety challenges, a topic
explored in NFPA Journal's
September/October 2016 cover
story, "Growing Pains" (online at
nfpa.org/marijuana).
Kelly says the county has
already seen fires result from
grow operations, mainly related
to the generators used to power
grow lamps. But she says the
majority of growers want what's
best for the community, and
she's hopeful public education

for departments, says James Graves, the institute's director.
"Training is a significant part of recruitment and retention-
it keeps firefighters motivated," he says. "Firefighters don't
stay at stagnant departments."
Brigance squints at the scene and offers a bit of perspective. Seven or eight years ago, he tells me, such classes would
draw 50 or 60 firefighters. I do a quick count of the trainees
hauling hose under the hot sun. Today's class numbers 11.

According to NFPA data, communities of fewer than 5,000
people have a higher frequency of fires per thousand population and a higher rate of civilian fire deaths than larger
communities. The rate of fires per thousand population in
communities of 1 million or more is 3.1, according to NFPA's
"Fire loss in the United States in 2015" report, released last
September. The national average is 4.5. For communities of
2,500 to 4,999, it's 6.8, and for communities under 2,500,
it's 10.8-more than double the national average. The trend
holds true for fire deaths, as well. According to the report,
the rate of civilian fire deaths per million people in communities of 1 million or more is six, almost half the national
average of 10.9. For communities of 2,500 to 4,999, it's 19.3,
and for communities of under 2,500, it's 20.9.
While rural fire officials address human behavior-related
problems through education and enforcement, many say
their communities lack the money to spearhead large-scale
education campaigns. Similarly, enforcement efforts can be
hamstrung by a failure on the part of town governments to
adopt the necessary codes, and by citizens' unwillingness to
listen or comply. Dustin Free of the East End Fire Department
in Little Rock, Arkansas, says his solution to problems like
these lies in treating enforcement like customer service. "You
have to get the community to buy in to what you're telling
it," he says. "If you go out there and try to enforce something,
people are gonna try to enforce something back, so if you go
out there and make it their idea and build a positive relationship with your customers then all these things are gonna be
very easy. You'll run into a few bad apples, but for the most
part you're gonna get your community's support."
More specific demographics breed equally specific challenges. Farming, for example, remains the livelihood of
many rural communities. But with properties that stretch
for hundreds or thousands of acres, barns stuffed with hay
and gasoline, caches of heavy, expensive equipment, and
unpredictable animals, farms can be challenging places for

GETT Y IMAGES

Enforcement & education
As daunting as volunteer recruitment and retention can
seem, when symposium attendees are asked to identify the
biggest challenges facing their departments, the top answer
is human behavior and a lack of fire safety knowledge.
"They're ignorant, typically" of fire safety, Kayla Cross of the
Mapleton, North Dakota, Volunteer Fire Department says of
people in her community, who accidentally start fires with
space heaters or by cooking. Others share similar "I didn't
know I shouldn't do that" stories of residents who inadvertently start fires with generators, electronics chargers,
unattended grills, and more.
While such behavior is largely universal and hardly limited to rural communities, other pursuits lend themselves
to the isolated nature of rural areas. Troy Lumley of South
McCreary Fire and Rescue in Pine Knot, Kentucky, says burning trash and other unwanted items is a common occurrence
in his community, resulting from an unfamiliarity with fire
safety as well as learned behavior from previous generations.
"We had a gentleman literally burning a house," Lumley says.
"He took the whole house down and piled it in a pit he dug.
There was PVC, couches, everything, and I'm like, 'Come up
here and talk to me.' I said, 'Do you realize what you're burning?' He said, 'Oh, I've done this forever. It don't bother me.
Grandpa used to do it down here.' We get a lot of that mentality: 'Grandpa used to burn his garbage so it's OK for me to
burn my garbage.'"

efforts will help stem the problem. "I know a lot of them now,
so I can go to some of their
meetings, and I'd love to get
out there and get handouts
and information to them," Kelly
says. "Most of them are highly
receptive."
As more states push to legalize medicinal and recreational
pot, situations like Kelly's will
likely become more common
across rural America. Statistics
on marijuana production in the
U.S. aren't very detailed-state
level is as granular as they
get-but anecdotal evidence
suggests rural cannabis production is on the rise. "Although
the lion's share of recreational
cannabis is consumed in urban
areas, more and more of that
weed is being produced outside the city limits-often way
outside," according to a recent
article on Leafly.com, an industry website. -A.V.

N F PA . O R G / J O U R N A L * NFPA JOURNAL

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http://www.nfpa.org/marijuana http://www.Leafly.com http://nfpa.org/journal

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NFPA Journal - July/August 2017