Date: 08/24/2015
Final
Auxiliary Emergency Service
WILDFIRE MATTERS REVIEW COMMITTEE
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01:06 PM
The committee reconvened.
01:07 PM -- Auxiliary Emergency Service
Mr. Robert Wareham, Section Emergency Coordinator for the Amateur Radio Relay League's Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) for the state of Colorado, discussed his responsibility for coordinating the training and response of over 800 amateur radio operators who have made themselves available to serve their communities during an emergency. Mr. Wareham spoke about the role volunteer amateur radio operators have had during the response to various emergencies across the state and country, including large wildfires in Colorado. Mr. Wareham spoke about his previous experience working at the Communications Support Unit at the Colorado Office of Emergency Management. Mr. Wareham continued to discuss his experience during several large state emergencies where agencies often called on amateur radio operators to be their auxiliary communications experts.
Mr. Wareham spoke about the need to more broadly define the workers' compensation coverage and tort immunity in statute to include volunteers that assist with a disaster and are engaged in training exercises. In addition, he spoke on the need to clearly define local coverage responsibilities so that these volunteers can be moved around more freely from one area of the state to another in response to emergencies. Related to this, Mr. Wareham suggested creating an Auxiliary Emergency Communications Unit within the Office of Emergency Management that could provide the workers' compensation coverage and tort immunity, and to also establish guidelines for training and certification criteria.
Mr. Wareham responded to questions from the committee regarding how volunteer amateur radio operators are used during emergencies.
Mr. Wareham spoke about the importance of amateur radio during emergencies. Mr. Wareham also discussed past attempts at drafting legislation that would create the Auxiliary Emergency Communications Unit within the Office of Emergency Management. Mr. Wareham indicated that this would be consistent with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) report to Congress, which encouraged states to work more closely with amateur radio operators and to include them in disaster response plans. Mr. Wareham discussed the desire to create the new Auxiliary Emergency Communications Unit, and that this would result in having a uniformly trained unit of communication volunteers available for disaster response across the state. Mr. Wareham also discussed the volunteer status of amateur radio operators and that operators are prohibited from accepting compensation for their services by federal regulation under their licenses.
Mr. Wareham responded to questions from the committee related to the potential fiscal impact of this suggested legislation. Mr. Wareham also discussed the potential for federal reimbursement for volunteer hours during federally-declared disasters by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).