Office of the Fire Marshall
St. Albans Fire Marshall
Chris Collins
The Fire Marshal is authorized by WV Code 8-15-1 and 8-14-3 to have law enforcement authoritative jurisdiction for fire related offences in the municipal boundaries.
This responsibility includes ensuring all commercial businesses meet the minimum fire and life safety requirements set forth by WV State Fire Code Title 87, and by adoption of NFPA 1 and NFPA 101 which contain the requirements for fire code compliance.
Duties, as it pertains to fire code enforcement, include investigating complaints of unsafe conditions, performing regular fire code inspections, ensuring fire suppression, detection, and notification systems are installed properly and maintained in good working order (where required), and all businesses comply with State and Municipal fire code. The Fire Marshal is also responsible for working closely with the Building Department to review plans for new business or remodel projects to ensure all work complies with national, state, and local fire code
requirements.
The Fire Marshal is also responsible for the investigation of origin & cause of every fire within municipal boundaries. To do this the Fire Marshal responds to every fire in St. Albans whether it is a structure fire, wildland fire, dumpster fire, or illegal burning to investigate and attempt to determine the cause. If the fire was set intentionally, the Fire Marshal has full law enforcement powers as it pertains to fire-related offenses to investigate, gather evidence, and arrest the suspect for arson-related crimes. If the fire was accidental, the Fire Marshal is responsible for attempting to determine the cause to prevent similar occurrences from happening in the future.
The Fire Marshal has a broad scope of responsibilities from fire code, investigations, and law enforcement duties, to ensuring operational crews can complete their job unobstructed, access to buildings is maintained and a reasonable degree of safety can be expected by everyone in St. Albans.
The ultimate goal is the preservation of life and property through aggressive proactive prevention.