New fire marshal

Randy Collins accepted the Mason County fire marshal job after having lunch with Todd Cunningham, county building inspector. Cunningham mentioned he had just written a job description for the open fire marshal position.

“He kind of bugged me about it so I thought, well, why not?” Collins told the Journal. “I applied and here I am.”

Before coming to Mason County, Collins spent more than 40 years in the fire service. He started as a volunteer in the Arcata Fire District just north of Eureka, California. Collins, who started the job May 16, spent the majority of his fire career in Healdsburg, California, about 70 miles north of San Francisco. He started as an engineer driving fire trucks and apparatus engineer and retired in 2010 as fire chief after 13 years. After that, Collins worked at Santa Rosa Junior College, running its fire program until he retired just before the pandemic.

Collins said he went to Humboldt State University in Arcata and didn’t see a career in firefighting until he sublet an apartment two blocks from a fire station.

“Every time there was a call, there was a siren on top of the fire station that would go off,” Collins said. “It was like, what the heck is that? As it turned out, I was working for a plumber and one of the other plumbers was a volunteer firefighter so I was remarking about how annoying the siren was. He said, ‘Well, that’s how we get summoned to fire calls.’ So he started telling me about it and asked if I was interested. And I had always wanted to give back to the community and help out and I said ‘yeah.’ ”

Collins decided to move to Mason County, a place he had visited often while traveling to Crescent Lake in Olympic National Park.

The fire marshal generally enforces applicable fire codes, and the primary document that’s enforced is the International Fire Code, but also includes the Revised Code of Washington and the Washington Administrative Code.

Collins said most of what he has done so far on the job is listen. He said he’s met with stakeholders, including the public, attended fire district meetings, and met with the state Department of Natural Resources.

“Let’s face it, prior to me, they had a person who came in one day a week and did plant checks,” Collins said. “Let’s be honest about it, you cannot run an effective fire prevention division or fire marshal’s office with just that small of commitment. One of the things I’ve been tasked with is basically developing the program, which means putting together standards, policies and procedures so when I retire or when I leave the position, whenever that happens, someone else can step in and everything is established, everything is working, everything is coordinated with all the fire districts, department of natural resources, with the building planning, law enforcement side of things so everybody knows their roles and responsibilities.”

He said while he has this job, he hopes to establish the framework and consistency to have an effective office. Collins said he also plans to establish clear lines of communication between all the fire districts and state officials, including the Department of Natural Resources.

Collins said there needs to be communication with law enforcement, although enforcement is “a measure of last resort” and the job is intended to educate the public.

“You educate, educate, educate, and only a measure of last resort if they just totally refuse do you pursue enforcement,” Collins said. “I was a fire marshal for 13 years and I think I wrote six citations and that was after exhausting every other means.”

The fire marshal is responsible for implementing burn bans along with two state agencies. Collins said it has been an abnormally wet winter and spring and the odds are in favor of no burn ban being put into place through the July 4 weekend.

“I think it’s safe to say that there will always be at least some point during fire season where burn restrictions will be put in place,” Collins said.

Collins wanted to inform people about fireworks season coming soon. Fireworks are legal at noon June 28 to 11 p.m. July 5, and to please only shoot off legal fireworks.

“One thing I have learned is the incidents of wildland fires in this county almost double during the window we have with fireworks,” Collins said. “If you buy fireworks, buy the legal ones and please use them responsibly and by responsibly, it’s really common sense.”