KINGFIELD — The Maine Department of Labor has awarded the town’s Fire Department the DOL’s highest recognition for maintaining a safe work environment — which means insurance rates are likely to go down.

Fire Chief Chuck Twitchell told selectmen Monday night that the state’s SafetyWorks! outreach program, designed to reduce job-related injuries, illnesses and deaths, has a stringent review process.

“This is sort of a big deal,” Twitchell said.

The Safety and Health Award for Public Employers (SHAPE) recognizes public-sector employers who maintain an exemplary safety and health management system.

Assistant Fire Chief Fred Nichols did the work to apply for the SHAPE recognition award, Twitchell said.

The Fire Department’s administrators and employees were required to have a consultation visit and to complete a hazard identification survey. All hazards had to be identified and corrected, and the department had to maintain lost-work rates below the state average. 

The Department of Labor will formally recognize the town’s worksite at a future awards ceremony. 

Twitchell noted that Mt. Abram High School student Brooklyn Brown, a junior firefighter, has raised $800 to buy smoke detectors for all of the children at Kingfield Elementary School. Later in the month, Twitchell, Brown and Fire Department personnel will do a presentation of the smoke detectors at the school as part of Fire Prevention Week activities.

Twitchell’s quarterly update also included some less positive news.

“Engine No. 5 is still in the garage (in Lewiston), and we don’t know what’s wrong with it,” he said.

Although the pumper can’t meet state requirements — it works for a while but then loses pressure for no known reason — it will put out a house fire if necessary, Twitchell said. The 2006 vehicle, obtained through a Homeland Security grant, has only 8,000 miles on it. He’s hoping to get repairs covered by any remaining warranty terms, if possible, but the problem must be identified first.

He said he always hopes to find new volunteers who are willing to learn to become firefighters. Of the 18 volunteers, at least half show up when called, he said.

“We depend a lot on mutual aid,” he said.

Nichols, Administrative Assistant Leanna Targett and Selectman Heather Moody will serve on the town’s new Safety Committee, which will review projects and goals related to the Fire Department.

In other matters, selectmen discussed the town’s definition of perpetual care for its cemeteries. A family had come to the Town Office to ask that the town’s sexton address the problem of sunken stones in their private plot. Selectmen agreed that sexton Bryan White was not obligated to raise stones that have sunk into the ground. The plots are private, and the work should be done by an outside contractor with the proper equipment and training.

“The $300 you pay when you buy your cemetery plot covers mowing and raking and things like that,” Moody said.