PARIS – Fire Chief Brad Frost and Oxford County Emergency Management Agency Director Scott Parker have been asked to present a workshop on lessons learned at the NEPW Logistics warehouse fire during an upcoming statewide conference in Augusta.

Maine’s Emergency Management Agency Director Robert McAleer recently extended the invitation for the pair to speak at the annual all hazards emergency planning conference on April 30 and May 1 at the Augusta Civic Center. The event will mark the first time that all local emergency management personnel will gather for a statewide conference, Parker said.

“There has been nothing at the state level for local EMAs,” said Parker, who is entering his fourth year as director of the Oxford County Emergency Management Agency. Parker said up until now other municipal employees such as public works, code enforcement and other agencies have had their own conferences. But each county emergency management director was encouraged to hold their own training conference for emergency management workers.

“We planted the seed six months ago to encourage local EMAs to attend the all hazards meeting,” Parker said.

He said it only made sense to have an all hazards responders conference that will allow different agencies to train together in the same way they have to work together during an emergency such as the recent ice storm in York County. The training will involve everything from a statewide disaster to a local fire.

The lessons learned from the NEPW Logistics fire will be included in the training sessions.

Fire broke out in the massive Pine Street warehouse during the early afternoon of Dec. 3 when a spark, possibly from a welder’s torch, touched off a high pile of shredded paper in the north end of the 187,000-square-foot building and sending 15 workers scrambling for their lives.

A total of 44 municipalities from central and southern Maine sent some 150 firefighters and equipment to quell the roaring fire that was fueled by 20,000 tons of paper pulp from Canada on its way to Maine mills.

“The New England warehouse fire was a great example,” said Parker of the need to train everyone together.

Parker said the reality is that when an event such as a fire occurs, it is not just about fighting the fire and maintaining the least amount of damage to a building. “We don’t operate that way if something happens,” he said.

A fire may involve ammunition and chemicals or other hazards, and a number of agencies such as communications, hospital personnel, traffic and so forth, generally have to work together.

“We need to train to all these hazards,” said Parker, who noted the number of Oxford County events he has been at just in the past three years including a plane crash, chemical release, two mass casualty training sessions at local schools, state and county emergency declarations and major fires.

Parker said he and Frost may be asked to present their program again at the annual Maine Fire Chiefs’ Association conference in Bangor in mid-April.