Quote:
Originally Posted by glewis80SC
There may be the perception that we just sit around all day and wait for calls to come in, that is not the case again. Our day is spent on continuous training, fire prevention, station and apparatus maintenance. Yes we have down time it is not possible to be running for 24 hours straight. Come spend a day at my station and you will see how much we sit around.
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I don't think the complaint here is with "busy" fire stations. The complaint is with "slow" fire stations.
At stations where there are "structure fire runs" all night long, then yes, there is no substitute for sworn firefighters.
The question is, What about Newport Beach, Fountain Valley, Westminster, Costa Mesa, Laguna Beach, Los Alamitos, Manhattan Beach, Sierra Madre, Arcadia and on and on and on...
I just built a custom home last year. ALL SINGLE FAMILY RESIDENCE NEW CONSTRUCTION IS REQUIRED TO HAVE FIRE SPRINKLERS in the city that I live. (added about $8,000 to the construction cost). In 19 years as a police officer, I have been onscene on maybe 5 (???) residential structure fires...
Even for medical emergency runs, it is tough to justify staffing every station all night long. When I was at Long Beach (1990 - 2002), many stations MADE NO RUNS between 9 pm and 8 am. Alot of stations made only a couple of runs. Two or three stations made runs all night long. (Station 11 on Market at Long Beach Blvd was one of them)
There are 24 stations!!!
At night, there is no traffic. Long Beach is only 53 square miles. At 10 pm, a centrally located fire engine or ladder truck could be anywhere in the city within 7 or 8 minutes (excluding the harbor, which has its own fire station anyway.)
The question is, Why staff for structure fires during night time hours at every station? Why staff for medical runs at every fire station during night time hours?