Connecticut
In CT, tow companies can sell people’s cars after 15 days
REPORTING HIGHLIGHTS
An Outlier: Connecticut allows towing companies to sell some people’s cars in just 15 days, one of the shortest windows in the country.
Towed From Home: Many cars are towed not for violating the law but instead for breaking a rule like parking the wrong way or failing to display a parking pass at their apartment complex.
Far-Reaching Consequences: The sales have particularly affected low-income people, who have lost jobs after they were unable to get their cars back.
These highlights were written by the reporters and editors who worked on this story.
This article was produced in partnership with ProPublica through its Local Reporting Network. Sign up for our newsletter to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.
Melissa Anderson was trying to wrestle her squirmy 2-year-old daughter into a winter coat in December 2021 when she heard the neighbors yelling outside, “She’s coming right now!”
Anderson immediately knew what was happening. The tow truck company that regularly roamed her Hamden, Connecticut, apartment complex was back, and it had zeroed in on her recently purchased 1998 Dodge Neon.
She rushed downstairs only to see a MyHoopty.com tow truck driving away with her car.
Her temporary parking pass from the apartment complex had expired. She’d tried to get an extension because her Department of Motor Vehicles appointment to register the car was two days away. But she said the management wouldn’t give her one.
“I only came upstairs to put the baby’s jacket on,” Anderson said. “It was within like five minutes, my car was gone.”
She never saw her car again.
Exactly 15 days later, as Anderson realized she didn’t have the money to pay the mounting bill, MyHoopty took advantage of a little-known state law available to towing companies: It submitted a form to the Connecticut DMV to sell Anderson’s car.
On the form, MyHoopty typed that the Dodge was worth $600, half of what Anderson had paid for it less than three months earlier. And, DMV records show, the agency quickly approved MyHoopty’s application to sell the car.
What happened to Anderson exemplifies how Connecticut’s laws have come to favor tow companies at the expense of low-income residents. Connecticut’s window allowing towers to sell people’s cars is one of the shortest in the country — just 15 days if they deem the value to be $1,500 or less. Only two states — Iowa and North Carolina — have shorter time spans. Massachusetts, New York and Rhode Island require at least 60 days, giving owners more time to reclaim their vehicles.
The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica reviewed thousands of the forms that towers submit requesting the DMV’s permission to sell people’s cars. Many cases didn’t start with parking tickets, accidents or police involvement. Instead, people were towed for breaking parking rules at their apartment complexes.
Towing and storage charges can quickly add up to several hundred dollars. And once cars are hauled away, some tow companies make it harder for people to get their cars back. Some only take cash. Others refuse to release cars unless they’re registered in the person’s name — even if that person had recently bought the vehicle and wasn’t required to register it yet.
In some cases, the 15-day window can be shorter than the time it takes to get a registration appointment at the DMV. And it’s far shorter than it takes for a complaint to be heard challenging the legitimacy of a tow.
When cars are sold, the owners are again at a disadvantage. Under Connecticut law, tow companies are required to hold on to the proceeds for one year so owners can claim the money. After that, tow companies are supposed to subtract their storage fees and turn over any remaining funds to the state. But the DMV has never established a process for towers to submit the money, and the state treasurer’s office said it has no record of receiving any money from the sale of a towed car.
How to lose a car in 15 days
Credit: Anuj Shrestha / Special to ProPublica
That’s the system Anderson faced as she fought with MyHoopty and sought the DMV’s help.
“We live paycheck to paycheck and Christmas was coming, and we just couldn’t afford to try and get the car back,” Anderson said.
Michael Festa, the owner of MyHoopty, said he is simply following the law, which allows property owners to remove cars that break rules. In an emailed response to written questions, Festa said he’s never turned over money to the state because the proceeds have never satisfied the towing and storage bill.
The majority of the cars are “in severe mechanical and structural disrepair,” he said. “Any vehicle of any value is either redeemed by its registered owner or lending institution.”
Exactly how many Connecticut residents this system affects has been hard to pin down because the DMV has been slow to provide information. The CT Mirror requested the DMV forms 2 1/2 years ago under the state Freedom of Information Act. Agency officials initially said the request would cost $47,000 but lowered the cost after the CT Mirror’s attorney intervened. Yet the DMV still hasn’t produced all the forms.
The DMV is supposed to review each form and record the car’s book value in the top right corner, which ensures tow companies don’t undervalue cars and sell them faster. If a car is worth more than $1,500, towers have to wait 45 days. The book values regularly exceed the towers’ estimates.
Still, more than half of the roughly 4,200 forms the CT Mirror and ProPublica have received so far show the tow company requested to sell the vehicle citing the 15-day rule. In nearly 700 of those cases, the company asked to sell a car within three weeks.
DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera said in a written statement that he believes the 15-day window “strikes the right balance for consumers and towers,” protecting drivers’ rights while ensuring vehicles don’t “remain on a tow company’s property for months, amassing large storage charges.”
The DMV said it rigorously reviews the towers’ forms and requests additional documentation from them when their estimate differs greatly from the book value. Officials also said that the initial $47,000 records fee was “an error” and that the request has taken time because they have to manually redact thousands of documents.
State Rep. Roland Lemar, D-New Haven, who co-chairs the legislature’s Transportation Committee, said lawmakers need to look at the 15-day threshold and other towing practices in the upcoming legislative session.
“There are obvious abuses happening to residents across Connecticut, and those impacted are folks with lower economic means who can’t possibly be expected to access that amount of cash in such a quick time frame,” said Lemar, who will chair the General Law Committee, which oversees consumer protection, next session. “There needs to be reform within the DMV, but I think there’s also clear and obvious consumer protection issues.”
“Somebody Is Going to Get Hurt”
Connecticut’s towing law initially passed in 1921 with good intentions: As more people owned cars, more were abandoned, and municipalities needed a way to get them off the streets.
As car ownership grew with the development of highways and suburbs, state lawmakers in the 1960s increased penalties for abandoning vehicles and made it easier for towing companies to sell them.
Before those adjustments, towers had to store a vehicle for 90 days. If no one claimed it, they were required to notify the owner of the intended sale via registered mail and advertise it three times in the newspaper. In 1963, the legislature decided to allow sales within 30 days if the vehicle was worth $35 or less, about $360 today.
Lawmakers cut that time in half to 15 days in 1987 for vehicles worth less than $500 at the time. Local police officials said in public hearings that there were so many junk cars that even local scrapyards didn’t want them and that the shorter time frame would help towns dispose of abandoned vehicles more quickly.
How Connecticut’s Towing Laws Compare to Nearby States
The state has the shortest time before sale among northeastern states.
Note: In Connecticut, New Hampshire and New York, the time varies based on the age or value of the vehicle. Maryland has a different time period for Baltimore. (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)
The measure did face some pushback, though. State Sen. Thomas Upson, R-Waterbury, questioned whether the new law would violate due process because it did not offer a sufficient way for drivers to challenge a tow. Still, the measure passed easily.
Lawmakers continued to crack down on abandoned cars through the 1990s. They expanded the ability of tow companies to remove vehicles from private lots, where residents and owners complained people were parking without permission, and lowered to 45 days the time after which more expensive vehicles could be sold.
But by the late 1990s, lawmakers started to recognize the effects that towing policies had on people with low incomes.
“I’ve seen a car towed overnight and people not able to pay one and two days of charges, and every day they try to hustle the money to put it together, they can’t do it because the choice now is whether I pay rent, pay the food, pay the doctor or redeem my car,” Rep. Richard Tulisano, D-Rocky Hill, said during a 1998 debate in the House. “Somebody is going to get hurt.”
Yet instead of heeding Tulisano’s warning, the next year, following concerns about parking from property owners, lawmakers expanded the number of cars that could be sold within 15 days by raising the threshold from $500 to $1,500.
Timothy Vibert, president of the Towing & Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, defended the industry, noting that in many cases, vehicles are towed because owners have been skirting the law by driving without registration and insurance. So they don’t try to get their towed cars back because they can’t afford the towing fees or the cost of owning a car.
“I’m not stealing cars,” he said. “I am removing cars that are either illegally parked, whether they be law or condominium rules.”
Most of the complaints, he said, relate to what’s known in the industry as “trespass towing,” when companies tow from private lots rather than in response to police stops and accidents. Some companies have contracts with apartment and public housing complexes to search their lots for cars that don’t belong to residents or violate other rules like not being backed into their parking spaces.
One large trespass tow company in Connecticut that has faced scrutiny is MyHoopty, which is based in Watertown, a small town northwest of New Haven. Since 2022, Watertown police have responded to 87 complaints from people who had gone to MyHoopty. Most said they either couldn’t get their cars back or were being overcharged.
In an incident last January, the police threatened to charge Festa with larceny when he wouldn’t release a car to its owner. Body-camera footage shows that the woman presented Festa with the title and bill of sale and asked him to let her have it towed out of his lot. Festa told the police he couldn’t release her car until she showed proof it was registered in her name.
The department did not follow through with its threat. Festa said MyHoopty “goes above and beyond” to help customers get their cars back. “We understand that having a vehicle towed without consent can leave a person feeling violated, and some may even perceive it as theft,” he wrote in an email. The company provides several resources, he said, “ensuring a smooth and efficient process for vehicle recovery.”
Festa, who wears his own body camera as an “extra measure of security,” has sued the police twice in state court in the past few years after the complaints prompted the department to take the rare action of removing MyHoopty from a list of tow companies they call after accidents and police stops. One lawsuit was dismissed. The other accuses Watertown officers of launching a “campaign of persecution” against Festa.
Watertown police Chief Joshua Bernegger declined to comment on MyHoopty, citing the pending litigation, and the town has asked the judge to dismiss the suit. But Bernegger said, generally, while “many standup towing companies” perform “crucial public services” in a dangerous environment, “there are, however, some tow companies that are operating on the fringe of a very ambiguous law.”
Festa has also faced criticism at the state level. In late 2022, Festa led an effort with other towers and the towing association to get the DMV to increase towing rates, arguing at a DMV hearing that expenses on everything from truck insurance to workers’ compensation had gone up. The DMV approved a modest increase, but the hearing also offered an opportunity for several people, including Anderson, to complain about MyHoopty refusing to give their cars back.
In response to those concerns, Lemar proposed a bill to require tow companies to give drivers 24 hours’ notice before a tow and to take multiple payment methods, including credit cards. The bill passed the committee, but facing fierce opposition from towers and property managers, it wasn’t called on the House floor. The 15-day rule was not part of that legislation.
Complaints to the DMV Go Nowhere
In some cases, Connecticut’s laws and the DMV’s processes make it harder for people to get their cars back once they’re towed. And for low-income people, the consequences of having their car sold can extend far beyond the cost of the car.
After her Dodge Neon was towed, Anderson pleaded with MyHoopty to release her car. She told them she had the bill of sale, title and proof of insurance and was going to the DMV in two days. But Anderson said Festa told her it wasn’t his problem; he wouldn’t release the car until it was registered.
This is where low-income people can get trapped. The law says that tow companies shall release vehicles to their owners once the fees have been paid and they present proof of registration. But there’s another law that seems to conflict with that: The DMV allows up to three months for drivers to register vehicles purchased out of state. And for private sales in Connecticut, the DMV says there is no deadline. So people can still run into problems even if they follow DMV rules.
Because Anderson bought her car in a private sale, she didn’t receive the temporary license plates usually provided by car dealers. She instead had to make an appointment at the DMV, which at the time took weeks to get, or go to an authorized dealer, which costs extra.
Plus, it was difficult for Anderson to get to MyHoopty’s lot, which was a 40-minute drive from her apartment. She said, one day, a person who answered the phone told her, “You’re wasting your time coming down here anyway, with all the fees and everything, you ain’t getting your car back, sweetheart.”
Anderson said her husband lost his job shortly after the car was towed because he couldn’t always get rides and it took more than an hour on multiple buses to get from Hamden to the restaurant he worked at in Milford.
To make matters worse, Anderson said, in the car were all of her husband’s chef tools, including knives he had been given in culinary school, which he estimates were worth more than $1,000.
After learning her rights from a tenants union, Anderson filed a complaint with the DMV in early 2023. In a three-page letter, she wrote, “It may be just a car to some, but for my family it was sanity, peace of mind stolen from us by MyHoopty.”
DMV records show MyHoopty sold her car to a Waterbury auto salvage facility for $800 within two months of towing it from her apartment complex. Anderson said her husband’s chef tools were never returned.
Festa declined to comment about specific cases, including Anderson’s. But he said MyHoopty employees “take the handling and return of personal property very seriously” by documenting every step of the towing process and “allowing customers to retrieve all personal belongings from their vehicles.”
The CT Mirror and ProPublica interviewed dozens of people across the state who had their cars sold after being towed. Like Anderson, they said their complaints to the DMV went nowhere.
This does not seem to be unusual. From 2021-23, the DMV conducted 17 investigations into complaints from drivers accusing MyHoopty of exorbitant bills and questionable reasons for towing their cars, according to records obtained by CT Mirror and ProPublica.
But most of the cases ended with no action being taken, records show. The law allows tow companies to sell people’s cars and doesn’t give owners a quick process to challenge a tow. The DMV has the power to issue fines of up to $1,000 or suspend or revoke companies’ licenses, and in a few cases, the department issued an infraction for overcharging on a towing bill — the legal equivalent of a speeding ticket.
Guerrera said the agency wants to make sure that everybody is held to the same standard. “If we receive complaints, we investigate and we adhere to the statutes that allow us to do things in regards to penalties or whatever it may be,” he said. “If it’s a formal complaint, we look into it, and if we find there’s something wrong, then we hold them to the letter of the law.”
Guerrera and other DMV officials said that tow companies could be charged with filing a false statement for lying on the forms, although they acknowledged they don’t remember a case when that happened.
Rachel Massaro filed a complaint against MyHoopty after the company towed her 2004 Honda Civic from her townhouse at Seramonte Estates in Hamden in 2021. But the DMV didn’t find any violations.
Massaro had just bought the car for $3,000 two days earlier. She brought it home that weekend and said she was told by the property manager that she couldn’t get a temporary pass until Monday.
“She told me, if I park, I had to park where the visitors” parked, Massaro said. “I did that and I was still towed.”
Massaro said MyHoopty told her it would cost more than $700 to get her car back. State regulations permit companies to charge $125, plus $5.65 per mile, for a tow, and daily storage fees range from $23 to $37.
“I told them I just bought the car, and I can’t spend another — he wanted $740,” Massaro said, “and he was like, ‘I don’t know what to tell you, honey.’”
MyHoopty submitted the form, seeking permission to sell the car, to the DMV 17 days after towing Massaro’s vehicle. On the form the company listed the car’s value as only $600.
The reason: There was no key to see how well the vehicle ran. It was the same explanation MyHoopty gave the DMV for the price of Anderson’s car.
Massaro said the car was worth a lot more and that MyHoopty knew she had the key. “I told them to let me go in and at least get my stuff out of there,” she said. “He told me that until I paid that fee, I couldn’t.”
Massaro never got back the shoes and clothes she had just bought at TJ Maxx. And the Honda was also sold to a salvage dealer in Waterbury for $800, according to DMV records.
Massaro cried when she saw a copy of the DMV form showing her car had been junked.
“It’s just an abuse of power that they hold over people they know can’t afford to pay the fees,” Massaro said.
Under the statute, when a towing company removes a vehicle from private property, it must inform the local police within two hours. The law is designed to ensure that police don’t mistake stolen cars for ones that were towed.
Hamden is a town of 60,000 people. But call logs from the police department show that from January 2022 to June 2024, more than half of the agency’s 1,082 tows were from Seramonte Estates, where MyHoopty had a contract to tow vehicles.
The law requires tow companies to send a certified letter to the car’s registered owner informing them it’s going to be sold. Several people, however, said they were never notified.
Abdul-Basit Ajia was studying business and playing basketball at Post University in Waterbury in April 2023 when someone broke into his Toyota Avalon in his apartment complex parking garage, shattering the window and damaging the steering wheel and gear shift. He reported the break-in to police and left it parked until he could afford to make the repairs necessary to take it home to Rhode Island.
Ajia said he didn’t know it had been sold until a reporter called him to ask what had happened. He said he never got any notification from the state or the towing company, Durable Radiator & Autobody, about the request to sell the car.
DMV records list Ajia’s mother’s address in Rhode Island, but he said no notice arrived there either.
Durable Radiator declined to comment and referred questions to the Waterbury towing association, which didn’t return calls and emails.
Ajia said the lack of transportation as he finished college made it more financially difficult to get started. He still hasn’t been able to purchase another car and rents one from his uncle.
“You need a car for almost anything,” he said. “So I was really out there just struggling, even to find a job.”
Shahrzad Rasekh, José Luis Martinez and Andrew Brown of The Connecticut Mirror and Asia Fields and Ryanne Mena of ProPublica contributed reporting.
You can help
We’re investigating towing practices in Connecticut, where companies can sell people’s cars after just 15 days. If you’ve been affected, we want to hear from you.
An Ashford man has died following a crash in Tolland Monday afternoon.
It happened around 3:30 when a Honda Civic was getting off Exit 69 on I-84 East in Tolland.
State Police say the Civic had gone off the roadway for an undetermined reason and the driver, later identified as 68-year-old Robert Bickford, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The circumstances surrounding this accident remain under investigation and any witnesses that haven’t spoke with State Police yet are asked to contact Trooper Miranda at 860-896-3200.
Police arrested a man who is accused of exposing himself to customers in a Walgreens in Southington on New Year’s Eve.
Officers were called to the Walgreens at 359 Main St. around 8:58 a.m. on Dec. 31 because a man was exposing himself to females in the store a sexual manner, police said.
When they arrived, a man matching the description was getting into a vehicle and leaving the parking lot.
Investigating officers obtained statements from multiple females who were in the store and secured video surveillance from the business.
As they were searching the area, officers found the vehicle around a mile from the store and stopped the driver, police said.
A 37-year-old Waterbury man was charged with two counts of indecent exposure and two counts of disorderly conduct.
He posted $25,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in New Britain Superior Court on Jan. 14.
Brian Scott-Smith caught up with Lauri Volkert, who was appointed State Fire Marshal in November, to talk about the job and the busy wildfire season Connecticut had in the fall after a summer of record heat.
TRANSCRIPT:
Brian Scott-Smith: We are talking to Lauri Volkert who is the new state fire marshal for the state of Connecticut, just a month in as well. Lauri, how’s it going?
Lauri Volkert: It’s going great. It’s definitely a big change from being a local fire marshal, stepping into this new state role, but I have been welcomed by the team and I’m really excited about the opportunities that this kind of larger scope presents in promoting fire safety across the state of Connecticut.
Brian Scott-Smith: You step into some very big shoes. William Abbott, retired, who was the previous state fire marshal, did that for 19 years.
I believe 25 years as a firefighter. You also have many years in firefighting as well. Why did you want to step into this role? Obviously, we need a state fire marshal, but what attracted you to it?
Lauri Volkert: So, I started in the fire service young following in my father’s footsteps. He was a volunteer firefighter.
I grew up going to the firehouse with him, joined on my 16th birthday. And I fell in love with it as a kid pursued it in college and then realized that through experiences and internships that fire prevention and working in the fire marshal’s office is really the most effective way to have a positive influence in the fire service.
We always think of firefighters as the guys running into the buildings that are on fire, rescuing people, all of that type of thing. But fire prevention is really where it’s at. If you want to make a meaningful difference in your community the biggest bang for your buck. And so, I got into this and the role of fire marshal, all of the other stuff in the fire service.
So, we’re talking about fire safety, going out and presenting to community members. Getting to visit the schools and hand out the plastic fire hats that everyone remembers from fire prevention week, but also doing fire investigations, figuring out the origin and cause of fires and doing fire code enforcement and making sure that people have safe buildings to live, work and play in.
And so, I’ve been doing that at the local level and Windsor had been doing that for about 15 years. And then the opportunity presented itself to move up to the state level. And I’m excited to see where I’m able to build my network and really assist other local fire marshals and being effective at keeping the community safe.
Brian Scott-Smith: You are the first female state fire marshal. I’m sorry it’s an obvious question, what challenges do you think that brings? Because it’s always that thing, isn’t it? You’re breaking the glass ceiling. It’s great to have that diversity, but there’s always that question is, what other challenges does that bring being, the first female state fire marshal?
Lauri Volkert: So even though I’m the first state fire marshal in the state, I’m not the first female state fire marshal across the country. And so have a great network of other folks to chat with. And everyone’s been very welcoming in the office. The state building inspector is also a woman. So, it’s a supportive atmosphere, but it’s also exciting to break that glass ceiling and know that even though I’m the first, hopefully I won’t be the last.
And recognizing that the fire code enforcement and fire prevention activities is a great job regardless of gender. And so hopefully we can inspire some more women to get into the fire service.
Brian Scott-Smith: Like you said, you’ve had a very long career of being a firefighter and being in the fire service, but I mentioned this before we started the interview, I was just having a quick look at a social media site that you’re on, and you were once a junior high school science and health teacher, which is great.
So, from teacher to firefighter, what made You know, jump from education from that type of education to a different type of education.
Lauri Volkert: So, my undergraduate degree is in fire science. But when I graduated, the economy kind of tanked and nobody was hiring firefighters at the time.
And so, I had a connection with this particular school, and they were looking for somebody with a science background and help out with teaching junior high science and health. And so, I was able to step into that role. Get a temporary teaching license based on my undergrad and then did that for a little bit and as, fate would have it.
I was actually teaching at a school in the town where I had done my internship when I was an undergrad in the fire marshal’s office and they had some changes in staffing and had a position open and so the fire marshal actually Came to do an inspection at the school and pulled me aside and said, Hey, you should apply for this job at the fire marshal’s office.
And the rest is history. So that was how I made my jump from teaching over, but there’s been a lot of transferable skills. I learned a lot doing that and gave me a real comfort in the classroom setting. One of the big things as a fire marshal is Teaching both at, community level, talking in classrooms, having that familiarity with how to teach and how to manage a classroom, but also have had the opportunity to speak at a number of conferences and put together continuing education classes for adult learners who are in the fire service.
And so that time teaching really has served me well and has paid huge dividends moving forward in terms of transferable skills.
Brian Scott-Smith: How long was the process for you to become the new state fire marshal? Because I’m guessing there was a lot of competition for that job because it is the top fire job in the state.
Lauri Volkert: I’m not sure how long the process was on the state side, but I know that it was a few rounds of interviews and about a month through the process here and then, spent some time Closing down my responsibilities in Windsor before moving up here into the office.
Brian Scott-Smith: So, as we said, just a month into the job. So, what are some of the things that you want to put your stamp on as it were for 2025?
Lauri Volkert: so we’re in the middle of the code adoption process. And so, we’re in the middle of figuring out the minutiae of what the fire code is going to look like moving forward for the next few years. And so that’s taking up a lot of our time, but most of the time spent here in the office is in support of local fire marshals.
And I would love to provide more support to local fire marshals when it comes to teaching about fire prevention and how to make what we do in the code and fire investigations and taking some of that technical knowledge and helping folks translate that into something that’s easy to share with community members so that way we can get them on board as partners in fire safety.
Because you know there’s only so much, we can do if we’re doing an inspection. For that, half hour that we’re in the building. But as soon as we leave, we don’t know what happens inside that building. But if we can promote fire safety through education and getting those partners, convince folks who own buildings, work in buildings, that fire safety is in their best interest and kind of train them to see what those fire safety things tips and tricks are then we can have multiple eyes on all of these buildings throughout the state and really get people to take ownership of their own safety.
So, I think that’s really my biggest thing.
Brian Scott-Smith: Looking at the website actually for administrative services of which you come under it says, office of the state fire marshal. There’s quite a long list of things that your office does, and a lot of people probably wouldn’t think that you would get involved in.
I’m looking at one here, the licensing of demolition contractors, crane operators, hoisting operators and registration of cranes. There’s a lot of very different skill sets, lots of very different industries. And also, it appears a lot of working with multiple agencies as well here in the state.
Can you just give us a bit of a sense of all of that?
Lauri Volkert: I’ve always thought of the fire marshal’s office is the Swiss Army knife of the fire service where we’re doing a lot of different jobs in a lot of different directions. And so here at the state level, like you mentioned, we’re involved in licensing and investigations for cranes, hoisting, demolition contractors.
We also maintain records for all of the burn injuries across the state. We’re the clearinghouse for the national fire reporting information across the states. We hold those records. And then we are also, like I said, providing local support to local fire marshals, reviewing requests for modifications for the state fire code for different existing buildings.
But then also we’re tasked with inspecting all of the state-owned buildings for fire safety compliance and doing the plan review and construction inspections for those state projects as well. And then we also may provide certifications for fire safe cigarettes and do product reviews and things like that.
So, we’ve got a lot of different responsibilities in a lot of different areas.
Brian Scott-Smith: How is it working with the other state agencies? Because we’ve got a lot of state agencies, they’ve got their jobs as well. I’m guessing that’s quite an interesting sort of job working and getting them to understand where you’re coming from and vice versa.
Lauri Volkert: Working at the local level, that was always one of my favorite things about being in the fire marshal’s office was building those partnerships interdepartmentally, and working with other community partners, whether it was social services, the police department, etc. And so, I’m really excited to be able to use those skills to build those relationships here in the state of Connecticut.
We have a very close working relationship with the Office of State Building Inspector and Construction Services, for working on all of those state projects. And the Fire Code and Building Code really work hand in hand to keep buildings safe both during construction and then afterwards. But I’m looking forward to working with all of the other departments as well as building owners.
We’re helping them keep their buildings safe. But then also I see that there’s a lot of opportunity to meet the needs of the most vulnerable residents here in Connecticut and making sure that we can work together to remove barriers to safety.
Brian Scott-Smith: One of the things that we see in the modern world that we live in is that, sadly, people aren’t volunteering as much as they used to.
And of course, the fire service, a lot of it depends very much on volunteers. What are you seeing here in Connecticut? Are we still at a point where we desperately need a lot more firefighters? And if so, is that something that your department will be working on or is possibly responsible for working towards to try and engage people and get them interested in becoming firefighters?
Lauri Volkert: So absolutely. Connecticut in particular, and definitely across the region, we have a strong history of volunteer fire service here in Connecticut. And I’m sure that if folks talk to their local volunteer fire departments, I’m sure Not sure any of them would turn folks away necessarily for volunteers.
They’re all looking for volunteers. And it’s a big commitment, but I also know that fire departments are starting to pivot a little bit and recognizing that a volunteer firefighter may not look the same way that it was assumed they would look a generation or two ago, and recognizing that it takes all types of skills and abilities to make the organization run, but all of the fire departments are locally managed, whether it’s a private volunteer organization that’s contracted by the town or a town organization.
So, they don’t necessarily fall under my chain of command to use my position to really get information out there and let folks know that the volunteer fire service is a great way to serve their communities and to promote safety.
Brian Scott-Smith: Do you foresee not just maybe for firefighters, but for, other volunteering jobs that, things will have to change a bit, maybe some more incentives or something to trying and make sure that we keep those numbers up because obviously the service will suffer greatly if they can’t get the numbers there and, and then that rolls into public safety as well.
Lauri Volkert: I think that a lot of communities are already starting to look at that, looking at different types of incentives. I know you’re in the state of Connecticut. Municipalities are able to give discounts on property taxes, and other types of incentives.
Length of, insurance, pensions, those types of things for volunteer firefighters and a number of them do mileage reimbursement or some type of stipend reimbursement for those. So those are really great tools. But I think another way that we can help preserve the volunteer fire service is by really good fire code enforcement and good fire prevention.
If we’re able to build buildings that are safer and get folks to pay attention to the common causes of fire. Most causes of fire are preventable. If we look at unattended cooking or people who fall asleep smoking, those types of things are really easily preventable with just a little bit more care and attention.
And so, if we were able to reduce the occurrence of fires and also provide safer buildings, then that’s going to help the volunteer fire service be able to focus their efforts where they’re really needed instead of responding to ever increasing numbers of calls for service.
Brian Scott-Smith: How do you see modern technology helping you to achieve that?
Lauri Volkert: I would love to get more involved working with other partners across the state to promote fire safety through education, utilizing social media to get the message out partnering with other organizations to get the information out, because I recognize that, not everyone’s going to follow me in particular on social media or my office but if we can get the information out and build that connective tissue between different fire departments and different organizations, Then I think that could get the message out even more clearly.
And I’m looking forward to being able to use access to all of the data and information that we hold in the state fire marshal’s office to help us refine that messaging. So, it’s really particular and localized using community risk reduction as a model for deciding where we’re going to spend our time and money in making those fire prevention messages, PSAs, those types of things.
We can make sure that we’re actually focused on what’s causing risk here locally in Connecticut.
Brian Scott-Smith: The other thing, of course, which was a big media point a couple of years ago, and it’s an ongoing thing is AFFF foam and something that the fire service used to use a lot of and obviously, constantly looking at ways to use different things which are maybe less harmful on the environment.
Where are we with that situation?
Lauri Volkert: There’s been a lot of research in the realms of Creating, using new chemicals like you mentioned, the green foam to replace the AFFF and the PFAS but then also, better sprinkler systems, better types of extinguishers.
There’s been a big push for a new standard for smoke alarms that’ll actually so now they’re being tested to reduce nuisance alarms and to make sure that they’re sensitive to all types of fires because we noticed that I’m modern home furnishing spires are burning differently than they were 20 and 30 years ago.
And so, we needed to upgrade that technology. And so that testing standard is now becoming common practice. And there’s always new technology. And I think that’s really exciting. And I look forward to this office. Being able to get information out to local fire marshals who may not have the information coming in directly.
They have a lot of responsibilities on their shoulders and so may not see all of these journal articles popping up or newer technology. So, I’m really hoping that my office can serve in that respect to get that information out there and to provide good information both to the fire service and to the community at large about these different fire safety tools.
Brian Scott-Smith: Yes, because like you were saying, I’ve done a little bit of research, obviously, on some of these things. And like you said, some of the furniture and even things like siding on people’s houses burn hotter. So of course, it just causes you guys more issues when you’re trying to deal with that.
And I don’t think that’s something that the public always comprehend or understand. They just think, oh, it’s a fire. It’s not just the fire. There are so many more things involved in dealing with that and how safely to put it out, one thing I will just quickly ask you were you involved or keeping an eye on obviously all the brush fires that we had?
Because of course, that was a big deal for us in 2024. Can you talk to us a little bit about that?
Lauri Volkert: Yes, absolutely. We have two main wildfire seasons here in Connecticut. One that’s normal that we saw was October, November, and then also March until things start greening up. Both those shoulder seasons are really where we have the highest risk for wildfires here in Connecticut.
Unfortunately, the fall wildfire season coincided with a pretty nasty drought that we had. And so, it was very dry here in the state for a number of weeks. And so, we saw a number of wildfires. And it’s one of those things that it’s always been a risk here in Connecticut. But just because the hazard hasn’t been as big as maybe out west where we’re seeing, millions of acres burning.
Just by the lay of the land, we don’t see those types of fires normally here in Connecticut, but it’s always a hazard. We’ve had a, a wildfire season twice a year for a long time. And so, it’s really, it was a good reminder for everyone to pay attention to those outdoor fire safety hazards and really.
To think smartly about how they’re using fire and oven flames out of doors.
Brian Scott-Smith: And without sounding overly dramatic, you juxtapositioned about out west and we’re always sadly seeing, those pictures of, acres and acres burning, but I’m guessing it’s actually more of a concern here when it does happen because we are such a smaller state.
And yes, we do have obviously the wooded areas and forests, but we’re more densely populated as well. The chances actually of a brushfire impacting somebody’s property or properties is greater. I’m guessing than possibly, some of the areas out West.
Lauri Volkert: Absolutely. We have a lot more people who are living in the wild land urban interface.
We call it the WUI in the fire service. And we have a very high percentage of our population that lives in that in between area of the woods and the suburbs. And we’re very interconnected with all of those woodlands here. And so when there is a brush fire that’s burning through woodland.
It can sadly affect a number of homes. And so, it’s really important that people pay attention and use fire wisely outside and make sure that campfires are put completely out that they’re clearing brush from away from their homes. And that, if they are going to use sparklers or things like that, they’re being careful about it and making sure that everything’s fully extinguished before they get rid of it.
Brian Scott-Smith: It’s been great talking to you and again, congratulations on becoming our State Fire Marshal. We look forward to hearing more from your department as continue to reach out to the community. But in the meantime, Lauri Volkert, ever so many thanks for speaking to us.
Lauri Volkert: Thank you very much. It was great to speak with you, Brian.
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