Mac McFarlane helps to improve firefighting expertise in Belize

As he prepared to leave his native Belize some 22 years ago, Archibald “Mac” McFarlane, a firefighter for nine years there, promised his chief he would find a way to continue helping his comrades there, who need a lot of help. “Firefighting was very different in Belize,” said McFarlane. “You would respond to calls in whatever you were wearing. There was little protective equipment and no self-contained breathing apparatus, or air packs.”

Twenty-two years later, McFarlane not only has made good on his promise to continue helping his firefighting comrades in Belize, but wound up expanding on it by getting involved with the International Code Council’s separate work with bringing codes to Belize. Code Council officials recently signed an agreement with the Ministry of Infrastructure Development and Housing in Belize to assist in developing, publishing and implementing custom building and residential codes — based on the 2021 International Building Code and International Residential Code.

McFarlane’s been pretty busy since coming to America in 1999. With his experience in firefighting and fire training in Belize, he was able to get hired as a firefighter in Chesterfield County, Virginia, just south of Richmond, where he completed the Chesterfield Fire & EMS Training Academy. Ultimately, he would become an American citizen, and, with the all-clear from his chief in Chesterfield County, he arranged for two members of the Belize National Fire Service to attend Chesterfield’s Fire & EMS recruit school. “One of them, Benisford Matura, is now deputy chief in Belize,” McFarlane said.

“There are no formal training academies in Belize. You learn on the job,” McFarlane explained. “And the training depends on which station you are assigned to and who the person training you is and how much training they’ve had. The people who trained up here now can go back and train others in Belize.”

Mac McFarlane didn’t stop there. He noticed the equipment being discarded by Chesterfield and other area departments and thought that it would help in Belize. He has continued to ship the equipment to his comrades in Central America on his own dime. This led to an additional job to help acquire funds for shipping. “A lot of firefighter / paramedics work in local emergency rooms on their off days, helping with the prep we usually do: blood pressure, setting up IVs and other checks, as well as cardiac help, if necessary. One day, one of the nurses asked me, ‘You’re taking orders from me? You need to just train as a nurse.”

He did, and as a registered nurse on his off days, his salary pays for shipping the surplus fire equipment to Belize. But a friend suggested he go a step further, and save some money, by incorporating as a non-profit. So, in 2017, McFarlane founded the nonprofit Virginia Emergency Services Assistance Program (VESAP) for Belize (also known as Belize Heroes), which collects used fire equipment donations and helps facilitate training for Belize firefighters. The nonprofit status provides opportunities and benefits otherwise unavailable. One is the use of military transport available to nonprofits providing humanitarian aid, recently used to deliver two ambulances to Belize, one donated by the Forest View Volunteer Rescue Squad and the other by Dupont.

“The funding we later received through the U.S. Embassy Belize to expand the EMS program is paying for three additional ambulances, budgeted at $15,000 each or $45,000 total,” McFarlane explained. Bought from Chesterfield Fire & EMS and the Forest View Volunteer Rescue Squad, he was able to get three of them for the cost of what one used ambulance normally costs, around $50,000. “We got a pretty good deal,” he added. “They will be able to use those ambulances, and I’ll keep my eye out for more.”

But his heart is into training and making sure the firefighters in Belize are properly prepared. The mission is personal as well: His younger brother is a firefighter and has been on the job for 14 years, and his older brother, who passed in 2013, was a firefighter as well.

Thirteen years ago, Mac McFarlane realized Chesterfield had it all, so maybe he needed to go to a smaller department that would be more in line with what Belize had to work with. He was hired by the Hanover Fire Department, and not too long after, he arranged for six firefighters from Belize to live at Hanover Station 11 while they were attending firefighter training at the Hanover Fire Academy. When travel was again possible in late 2020, McFarlane and five volunteers traveled to Belize. As part of the pilot program that they are now expanding with $250,000 in grant funding, they provided Emergency Medical Responder and Emergency Vehicle Operator Course training for Belize firefighters who not only will be able to do their jobs better and more safely, they can help train others as well. This is the first time in history that the Belize National Fire Service is expanding its services to include EMS.

“Most recently, we piloted an EMS program in Belize to cross-train the member of the Belize National Fire Service in providing pre-hospital emergency care,” he said. “And in August of this year, we were awarded a two-year grant through the U.S. Embassy in Belize to expand that program to the western region of the country.”

Through all this work, he has continued to further his education, including earning an associate’s degree in fire science, which led to him volunteering as an assistant fire marshal for the city of Colonial Heights, Virginia. According to McFarlane, one of the benefits of joining the fire marshal’s office is networking with other code officials and investigators to provide life safety training to firefighters assigned to the fire marshals’ office in Belize. The job also put him on the radar with the International Code Council, where he was able to become more familiar with fire codes. “ICC opened a lot of doors,” he said. “I learned about what they are doing with fire prevention and building codes. That will help so much in Belize.”