Fire Commission to Weigh Easing the Path for Firefighters Moving to Texas

The Texas Commission on Fire Protection will meet Nov. 12 and take up a rule that would, for the first time, let firefighters certified under the other national standard transfer into Texas without effectively starting over. Nothing is adopted that day; a vote would send the rule to the Texas Register and open it to comment.

Two national bodies accredit firefighter certification programs. Texas belongs to the International Fire Service Accreditation Congress, and a firefighter who arrives holding its seals can convert them into a Texas certification. Many other states and academies instead certify to the National Board on Fire Service Professional Qualifications, the Pro Board, and a firefighter who arrives holding that cannot. That firefighter pays $75 for a records review, proves course by course that the training was equivalent, repeats the skills evaluation and sits the Texas exam. A proposed new rule would put Pro Board certification on the same footing.

The difference is not academic. Writing in Fire Engineering last year, the veteran chief Rick Lasky described moving to Texas with decades of certifications behind him and still sitting the basic firefighter exam alongside recruits. The commission has had the authority to fix this since its 2021 Sunset bill, which let it waive a prerequisite for applicants licensed in states with substantially equivalent requirements. Alongside the reciprocity rule it will consider gathering its seal provisions, now scattered across ten chapters, into a single rule.

The rest is a rulebook sweep. The commission is working through a four-year review chapter by chapter, and Nov. 12 brings continuing education, the certification curriculum manual, administrative inspections and penalties, part-time fire protection employees and heads of departments. A new certification for emergency managers is also on the agenda, referred by the curriculum committee; its text is not yet public. Commissioners will set their 2027 meeting dates and hear from a subcommittee on remote access to their own meetings.

If the reciprocity rule is published, the comment period will decide how much of it survives. Texas departments short of staff and the training academies that sell the equivalency reviews will both have a view.

Meeting at a glance

Commission members

• Michael Glynn — presiding officer; Roanoke; fire captain, Fort Worth Fire Department.
• David Coatney — assistant presiding officer; chief executive, TEEX.
• Bob D. Morgan — secretary; Fort Worth.
• Daniel Buford — Bryan; fire lieutenant.
• Sue De Villez — Georgetown; retired nurse.
• Amanda Friedeck — Alice.
• Paul Hamilton — Amarillo; retired.
• Michael Johnson — Texas City.
• James Mallinger — Cedar Park; fire chief.
• John Ortega Jr. — San Antonio; Bexar County Fire Marshal’s Office.
• Tim Smith — Lubbock.
• Brandon Wade — Corpus Christi; fire chief.

Twelve of the 13 seats are accounted for on the commission’s roster page, read November 5. The governor appointed Enrique Mata of El Paso, of the Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute, to this commission in August 2026, and he does not appear on that page; the August 20 minutes record 12 members, so the Dispatch could not confirm whether he has been seated. Neither the agency nor the governor’s releases say which statutory category each member fills, so none is assigned here. Terms run to February 1 of 2027, 2029 or 2031. Glynn was named presiding officer in April 2025.