M03
Advocating for Toxic Free Fire Safety
Matthew Vinci, International Association of Fire Fighters
John Martell, Professional Fire Fighters of Maine
Don Lucas, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

 

The International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) remains very active advocating for Toxic Free Fire Safety. Fire Fighters across North America continue to be affected by increasing occupational health issues, with cancer being the greatest; it accounted for over 60% of the line-of-duty deaths of IAFF members in 2014. This panel discussion will review the IAFF's continued advocacy to reduce and eliminate exposures to harmful toxic flame retardants through education and lobbying efforts at the local, state and federal levels. Included will be both success stories of passing meaningful reforms and an examination of the challenges associated with efforts to pass legislation and regulatory measures that ban or phase-out toxic flame retardants.


Presented by:

Matthew Vinci, International Association of Fire Fighters
Matthew Vinci is the Director of Education for the IAFF, a position he has held since 2013. Prior to coming to the IAFF, he served on the Executive Board of the Professional Fire Fighters of Vermont for 15 years, with 6 years as the President. Matt served as a Captain with the South Burlington (VT) Fire Department where he started his fire service career in 1993. Matt was appointed in 2002 by Governor James Douglas to serve on the Vermont Homeland Security Council, where he served until 2013 as the Co-Chair with Lt. Governor Phil Scott. He is the past Chair of Congressman Peter Welch's Labor Advisory Board and served for 6 years on the Vermont Technical College Fire Science Advisory Board. He also served as the Governor's Representative to the Emergency Services Benefits Board. Matt serves on the NFPA Fire Tests Technical Committee and has been very active with regulation surrounding toxic flame retardants. He graduated from New Hampshire Technical College in 1991 with an AAS in Fire Science.

John Martell, Professional Fire Fighters of Maine
John Martell has been a career Fire Fighter/Paramedic for the past 24 years. He started his career with the Saco Fire Department in Maine in 1991. In 1993, he joined the Portland Fire Department, where he retired in 2014. In 2008, John was elected President of the Professional Fire Fighters of Maine (PFFM). During his tenure, the PFFM has worked to pass state legislation that provides health care for retired fire fighters, enacted a law that bans and restricts the use of toxic flame retardants, passed a bill that provides line of duty death benefits in the Maine State Retirement system for the beneficiaries of fire fighters, and successfully secured a rebuttable presumption under worker compensation to protect those members who contract cancer. John serves on the NFPA Fire Tests Technical Committee as the representative for the IAFF and remains very active advocating for Toxic Free Fire Safety.

Don Lucas, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Donald Lucas, PhD, is a scientist in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and an affiliate in the Energy and Resources Group at the University of California at Berkeley. His principal areas of research are combustion generated air pollutants, experimental chemical kinetics, novel diagnostic techniques for hazardous species, and combustion chemistry. He received his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from UC Berkeley.