Paid Firemen - do we need them

[Racerbvd]

Moses, you have a good point, but none of the professions you list require running into a burning building and knowingly risking your life, and most of the deaths in those jobs, my guess, would be do to carelessness.

Ad in the stress of accidents with dead babies, and other loss of life, then it becomes hard to put a price on their service..

[VaSteve]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

My dept is a suburban dept. Mid level housing density. Some farms. and horse farms. Light industy.Many strip malls, Large shopping mall. Has two major highways and a rail freight line running through it.
Another thing people need to realize is that the role of the modern fire dept has drastically changed. Nowadays, actual fires play a small part of most depts duties.

Besides your traditional structure fires, we handle MVAs, vehicle extrication, wildfires, confined space rescue, high angle rescue, water and ice rescue, animal rescue, storm response, dewatering assignments, etc, etc.... So for those that think most paid fire, depts just get paid to sit around and wait for something to burn think again.
Sure the amounts of fires in this country have been drastically reduced over the past few decades, mainly due to better constructon , and education, Fire depts do alot more than you think.

I live in a big suburban on the fringe of he country area that sounds similar to this. We have a big semi-volunteer fire department. The department is run by the volunteers and with some sort of grant money, but pays the career guys during the day while the volunteers are at work.

I did a recruitment night with them 3 years ago to see if I wanted to do it.

They require a massive commitment of the vols here. You work every 6 days... So work on Monday, work again this Saturday..must find your own replacement. You come in at 6 pm and stay till 6 am. They have a lounge, beds in semi private rooms and whatnot. This isn't the drive around in your pick up with a cell/scanner and show up when something is burning. It's a real actual job with training at the fire academy. You must complete the training within 1 year of joining since it does cost the company.

Like I said, I did one night...It was fun. I got there and they gave me a T shirt and a helmet and we went to dinner. Then we stopped off at fire extinguisher and they showed me how to run the cannon and the hose and how it's all rolled up and what not. We went back to the station and they showed me around and several calls came in:
- Drunk dude took a corner too fast and wiped out in his Honda.
- Supposed kitchen fire in a townhouse community (aided other company)
- Rear ender accident on the main road around here.

It was interesting how each was approached. They were all serious, but when the call came in on the supposed structure fire, stuff got serious. The dude that I rode in the back with got all quiet and suited up. We raced that massive truck to the community and I could feel the adrenalin pumping. I smelled burning and it turned out to be the trucks brakes. The other company handled it and we went back.

The worst was the rear ender accident. There was no real damage, but there was a little baby and they had the baby seat out in the street. Kid was fine, nobody hurt. They just wanted someone to come and the fire truck made it first. The crew chief told me that whenever you get out the truck, take something. So newbie me jumped out first with this big ass flashlight. They don't know I'm the "recruit/trainee" ... I just got out of the big truck that showed up. They started coming towards me. It felt awkward since I didn't know WTF I was doing. We then grabbed brooms and swept the broken parts into the weeds.

The guys told me that they handle all sort of stuff....barn/hay fires that stink to hell and take forever to get under control. Random calls, car crashes, hazmat spills. They had training on how to cut the roof of a hybrid car.....where are the wires? They told me what kind of house fire they won't enter because of possible collapse after a certain point (new homes). It's more than just squirting water.

I didn't commit after that night because of the time commitment as well as the car accident aspect. My cousin is a big time volunteer, assistant chief in suburban Philly. He's visited scenes were people are breathing their last breath, etc, etc. It's not something I can do, though I sort of feel guilty about it...I pass the firehouse here every day and they are always recruiting. I don't know what retention is like for the vols.

[silverwhaletail]

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.

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?

[GWN7]

"Why staff for structure fires during night time hours at every station?"

Unless you have a chrystal ball you never know when something will happen and when you do have a fire you need the manpower on scene as soon as possible. If you take out a station the next in machine has to travel twice as far to get to the scene. Five minutes is a long time to wait for help.

[lendaddy]

I take 911 calls and dispatch police...I don't dispatch fire yet but they sit right next to me and I do put up the calls. This is in a fairly big city....

Our Fire dept is a gigantic money pit. Fear of liability has made the whole deal crazy expensive, we respond to everything as if the world is about to end. Idiot busy-body calls in a drunk sleeping on a bench:

911:Is he responding?

IBB:No, I mean I didn't want to get too close...he didn't respond when I asked if he needed help.

We then send an entire fire engine (lights and sirens) with 6 guys on it. We also send a Squad (suburban with two guys), we also send an ambulance (lights and sirens) 2 men, you know the drill. This crew of 10 guys wakes the idiot up and maybe gets him to a local mission (which he promptly walks away from to sleep on a bench with a 40.

The firefighters union doesn't complain because these calls "prove" that we need to maintain our high staffing levels due to demand (the above incident gets logged in the stats as a priority one medical call).

In our city ~75% of the calls our fire dept goes on are medicals (never without an ambulance as well), 10-15% are unknown car accidents, 10-15% are false fire alarms, and the remaining 1-2% or so are actual fires of any significance.

There is no doubt in my mind that our fire dept is at a min twice as big as it needs to be, may even 4x.

Don't take this to mean I don't respect our guys or think they are worth their wage, they certainly are... it's that we are being mislead as to how many we need and what exactly we have them doing.

[VINMAN]

Screw it. Everyone just stock up on Home depot fire extinguishers, and garden hoses. Then we can do away with the lazy, do nothing paid guys, and the incompetent volunteers....

[daepp]

Is it fair to say, based on the four pages of responses, that some level of paid firefighter are necessary in some areas, but staff/station reduction can probably be made without a significant decrease in safety?

I know we would all love to able to afford Vinman or GLewis 24/7, and I don't know about where you live, but I don't think it's sustainable in So Cal anymore. My $.02.

Now - how about volunteer teachers and city staffers...

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

Screw it. Everyone just stock up on Home depot fire extinguishers, and garden hoses. Then we can do away with the lazy, do nothing paid guys, and the incompetent volunteers....

I can't imagine that was a response to my post, I never said they were lazy, incompetent or otherwise..nor did I imply it.

My beef is with "the system" not the guys. Heck my job is overstaffed due to similar issues. It should also be noted that I work in a bigger city and you're in the burbs as I understand it. You probably don't get anywhere near the same number of nuisance calls that we do, you're probably more properly utilized...perhaps by a factor even.

[VINMAN]

No it wasnt Len, not at all.

Just so it is understood to everyone, Im a volunteer, not paid.

[lendaddy]

Originally Posted by VINMAN

No it wasnt Len, not at all.

Just so it is understood to everyone, Im a volunteer, not paid.

Good deal, I have extreme respect for you volunteer guys...that's an amazing sacrifice for your community.

I think the general public where I work would flip if they knew the reality of our dept, that's hat upsets me...they are lied to/mislead. the obvious argument of "you'll be glad they are there when your house is on fire or they're cutting you from a car" are legit in the literal sense but not valid as a justification for staffing because the same argument could be used to justify doubling the dept...tripling it...quadrupling it...of course the product would be more desirable/better...but at what cost? Communities need to decide what balance they want, they can't do this without good info, which they don't get out here.

And to stir the pot a bit more, yes our/their pensions are freak show silly...they are not going to last, it's simple mathematics.

[glewis80SC]

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...

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?[/QUOTE]

These "slower stations" still serve the public in their area, each station has its own designated "first in" district that they respond to when a call comes in. Some of the first in areas are bigger than others based on population in that area etc. The busier stations are running the calls in their area so they can not respond to the slower stations, even at night, in a timely manner. So if that slower station is closed at night there will be a lengthy delay in an emergency.
Most of these slower stations are in residential areas where believe in or not the majority of the calls come in at night be it EMS or fire related. If you have only one centrally located station open at night when they are out on a call and another one comes in for that area the delay in service will go from 7-8 minutes to 10-15.
This may not seem like a long time but it is if there is a true emergency, I don't have the answer on how to or not to staff these stations but the people living in that area deserve the same level of service as those in busier ones.

[daepp]

I have a suspicion that we are being misled with talk about response times, but of course, that is just my opinion. Many of the responses here seem to me to suggest that the budget for these services is unlimited - and in CA I think for a long time it was. But it's not anymore.

[VINMAN]

Originally Posted by DAEpperson

I have a suspicion that we are being misled with talk about response times, but of course, that is just my opinion. .

In what way?

[daepp]

I think the FD and their union is trying to scare us with threats of decreased response times if we do anything to the FD. We are a city of 60K people, 24K households over 15 square miles. You can get from any point in the city to any other in about 10 minutes. Yet we have 4 fire stations (plus 1 county station), 39 firefighters and an administrative staff of 8, all per the FD website. And these are above and beyond all regular city staff. This is such overkill it's insane!

[glewis80SC]

The LAFD is all ready talking about reducing our staffing levels due to the reduced budget and we have been dealing with rolling "brownouts" for about a year now. I and the others members of my department pride ourselves on the premium level of care we provide and any reduction of staffing is seen by us as reducing that level of service.
I suppose it is difficult to see it from my perspective because it is my profession, I don't understand the ins and outs of being a plumber or an attorney. To me the way they "do things" may seem overdone or inefficient and it is the norm for them. Your tax dollars pay for the service I provide and for that fee we want to have the best trained personnel ready to respond at any time of day. We still have fires not every time but we still do and the more people you can put on scene to get the work done the sooner it is out.
The fire service picked up the responsibility of EMS almost by default, we all ready had fire stations and a dispatch system in place to respond. The fire engines and trucks have trained EMT and Paramedics on them as well that is why you will see them respond to EMS calls as well, they are often the first line of care before the ambulance arrives on scene.
Someone also stated that we don't mind going out on the calls for the drink sleeping on the street. That is a falsehood too those are usually cell phone drive by's where someone doesn't even want to ask the person if they are asleep. Many people also feel that going the hospital is the fix all or not feeling well, so many departments now have a policy that if you call and have any medical complaint and want to go the the ER they take you. From sore feet to a stuffed up nose....I kid you not a guy wanted a ride the the ER because he had a stuffy nose, we had to show this guy how to blow his nose.
I am defending my profession and trying to educate because I love it that much, if you are ever downtown and happen to be walking along Sid Row stop by and say hey, we would love to show you around, we make one hell of a cup of coffee too.

[glewis80SC]

Originally Posted by DAEpperson

I think the FD and their union is trying to scare us with threats of decreased response times if we do anything to the FD. We are a city of 60K people, 24K households over 15 square miles. You can get from any point in the city to any other in about 10 minutes. Yet we have 4 fire stations (plus 1 county station), 39 firefighters and an administrative staff of 8, all per the FD website. And these are above and beyond all regular city staff. This is such overkill it's insane!

What staffing level would you like to see? Would one station covering the whole 15 square mile work?

[daepp]

I'd love to take you up on that!

I want to state for the record that never claimed anyone was unprofessional. I believe the arm twisting the local cities get from the unions is unethical, but the encounters I've have had with our FD have always been tremendous.

[daepp]

Originally Posted by glewis80SC

What staffing level would you like to see? Would one station covering the whole 15 square mile work?

No, not one, but perhaps two, or two plus a volunteer component. And use city hall for administration. Else, eliminate all administrative overhead and use the county FD.

ps I am an accountant/small business owner, not a firefighter or an administrator. I do not claim to be an expert - but much of this seems to me to be common sense.

[glewis80SC]

The difficulty with the volunteer area is the level of care and that dreaded response time. In a large residential community like yours most people probably commute out to work so having the staff of volunteers ready to respond would be tough. Unless those on call for that day are required to stay within a certain mileage area from the city, but I dont know many people willing to make that commitment.
Handing administration to city hall might work, yet again the fire admin. knows the ins and outs where the city staff would not.
I know many communities have chosen to go with their respective county for fire service, but it is not always cheaper for the tax payer. For many cities that all ready have the FD infrastructure in place the cost to change to the counties ways in not always cost effective.
There will be a time when when both stations are out and another response comes in, not everyday but it happens more often then not, and the delay would be lengthy, and waiting 10-15 minutes for us to get there when a family member is really ill or whatever it may be that is a long time.

[VINMAN]

As Glen stated, one of the problems with alot of volunteer depts ( including mine) is the fact that the towns are no longer like Mayberry. Where everyone lives and works in town. A huge portion of my town are transplanted NYers, myself included. Most of us still commute to the city. We do have a number of guys that work in town. But not like we used to. We cover a 3 1/2 square mile area., we work out of 3 houses. Have seven pieces of apparatus. Our response times are usually decent. But I see in the near future , having to possibly go with paid drivers during the day. The towns ALS is paid. One of the problems is we have a number of nursing homes, retirement and assisted living communities in town. So that keeps the first aid squad busy as all hell.
We have some depts around us that have response times to rival most paid stations. Others that are sometimes scary. But those depts have the building density and area coverage that does not warrant a paid dept. So its a sticky situation there.

My dept is funded by the taxpayers. We are a fire district. Our fire budget this yr, I believe was $1.8 mil. compared to the school budget , which was $68 mil.