Valley Fire says ‘no tobacco’

A smoke or a job.

If you need your nicotine, don’t even think about being a Spokane Valley firefighter.

Effective Jan. 1, no new employees will be lighting up – on the job or off.

The policy of hiring only “nonusers of tobacco products” was approved unanimously by the Spokane Valley Fire Department Commission at a recent meeting.

The new language does not apply to the dozen or so present firefighters who smoke or use smokeless tobacco, however under current rules even they cannot smoke or chew while on duty.

The no-tobacco use on duty policy was implemented three years ago, before Fire Chief Mike Thompson arrived.

“That was the first small step,” Thompson said.

“Then we started looking at the increasing costs for insurance,” he said. “Collectively, between management and labor, we decided to become self-insured for medical in 2006.”

The department felt an important piece of controlling rising medical and insurance costs was a comprehensive wellness program.

“One thing that I felt that we could do is with the new people we hired,” Thompson said, “is to eliminate any tobacco use that causes some of those ongoing, long-term problems.”

Thompson presented the change in job description language to the Spokane Valley Fire Department commissioners for their review and approval at their meeting in September.

“Our primary reason for implementing the no-tobacco policy is the health and the wellness of our work force,” said Joe Dawson, chair of the department’s board of commissioners.

“Obviously a positive spin-off could be less calls to the doctors for bronchitis or other things that go along with the smoking lifestyle,” he said.

Dawson stressed that this policy does not preclude the occasional celebratory cigar.

“We are not going to fire somebody because he goes out with his buddies on a hunting trip and has a cigar around the campfire,” Dawson said, “or the guy whose wife has a baby and he buys a box of cigars and hands them out.

“We want the policy to be implemented by the intent of the policy,” he said, “which is the promotion of a healthy lifestyle.”

The Spokane Valley Fire Department joins dozens of other fire agencies across the country with a similar tobacco-free policy as a condition of employment.

Almost 20 years ago, Massachusetts was the first state to pass a statute banning smoking by police officers and firefighters, on and off duty.

The American Civil Liberties Union’s National Workrights Institute was quoted as stating that more than 6,000 companies and agencies refuse to hire smokers.

While the city of Spokane Fire Department does not have a no-smoking policy, said Chief Bobby Williams, his former department in Billings, does.

“We implemented a policy in Billings back in the early ‘80s stating that no new hires could smoke on or off the job,” Williams said.

John Staley, a 25-year veteran with the Billings Fire Department, said the policy has since been amended to no tobacco use of any kind on the job and no smoking anytime.

“Years ago there was an in-the-line-of-duty death study,” Staley said, “and one of the things that came out was that over 50 percent of the firefighters that were dying on duty were dying as a result of heart-related disease.”

The study took a look at how fire departments could help prevent heart-related deaths.

“Half of it is physical conditioning which is easily remedied,” he said. “The other half includes the behavioral issues such as over eating, excess drinking and smoking.”

Thompson said he does not see that the new policy will have a negative affect on recruiting high quality applicants.

“People will know coming into the job that this is the criteria,” Thompson said, “just like they know they have to be an EMT.”