By Josh Kovner
Hartford Courant
Copyright 2006 The Hartford Courant Company
All Rights Reserved
MIDDLETOWN, Conn. — Deputy Fire Chief Robert Kronenberger recently finished the second leg of a prestigious national training program that teaches fire officers how to prepare their departments for the full spectrum of emergencies.
Kronenberger, second-in-command at the 55-member Middletown Fire Department, is midway through a four-year commitment at the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Md.
The program consists of four, two-week sessions. The training, much of it at a graduate level, is exclusive — 175 fire officers from across the nation are accepted each year — and each participant must complete a research project in order to advance to the next session.
Kronenberger’s first report was a critical look at the department’s emergency medical services. Now he has chosen his second topic — disaster preparedness and response at Wesleyan University. He has until June to finish it.
He said that when he’s done with the four sessions he’ll have four reports that, taken together, will serve as a training and operations manual for the department.
The mantra of the Executive Fire Officer Program is that the fire service must be proactive, not just reactive. It must use all of the resources at hand — quick response, state-of-the-art training, code-enforcement, legislation, public relations — to reduce risk in a community.
Kronenberger calls it the “all hazards” approach.
For him and his boss, Middletown Fire Chief Gary Ouellette, that means mastering response plans for all of the district’s varied features — the Connecticut River, Route 9, an active downtown, pockets of dense population in the North End, high-rise buildings, Wesleyan’s campus, and Middlesex Hospital. The city department is one of three fire agencies protecting Middletown. The other two are the South Fire District and the Westfield Fire District.
“We’ve done an excellent job [locally and nationally] with fire prevention,” said Kronenberger, 43, a 15-year veteran. “It’s no secret that fires are down, so all of the advanced training today goes beyond fire. They’re trying to open your eyes to everything that is involved with medical response, hazardous materials, terrorism and natural disasters.”