Firefighters fighting fatal arson on December 6th, 2010
By Glenn Usdin
It’s just been a year of bad news for firefighters. Layoff, cutbacks, hiring freezes, demotions…it probably couldn’t get much worse for our profession.
Cities across the US have been hit with the worst run of bad economic luck in years, and no good news is on the horizon.
Life hasn’t been good for the all career Lancaster Pennsylvania Bureau of Fire over the past 20 years.
Staffing has shrunk from a high over 100 firefighters in the late 1980’s to a current level around 75. There have been 3 rounds of lay-offs during that time, and the latest round last year has been followed by the prospect of more reductions in early 2011. Labor and management have been locked in a bitter battle over a schedule change from a 4 platoon system to a 3 platoon 24/48 work schedule, along with negotiations for wage and benefit concessions. None of this is much different than a host of other cities around the country have been going through.
In nearby state capital Harrisburg PA, their mayor there is proposing closing of the (only) downtown fire station, as well as layoffs and a schedule change to a 24/48 work schedule. Pennsylvania cities are running out of money, Republican Governor-elect Tom Corbett has promised more budget cuts statewide, and the State is not expected to offer much help to distressed municipalities.
Lancaster Pennsylvania is a densely populated city of 50,000 citizens packed into a roughly 2 square mile area, living in rows and rows of wood frame attached dwellings. The city has had a long history of major fires, and the depleted firefighters have done an outstanding job of handling the consistent work that they face. In Lancaster, if you don’t stop the fire in the original fire building, it’s down the block in minutes. The city FF’s don’t let that happen very often.
Truck 66 sets up in the rear of the fatal row home fire
The unexpected loss of the city’s 2 aerial ladders, their ONLY aerial ladders, has created a perfect storm and it exploded in the last few weeks.
Both city aerial rigs, a 75’ quint and 100’ aerial platform, had been unexpectedly taken out of service. One needed extensive repairs from a vehicle accident with another city rig, the other suffered a major engine component failure.
Aerial Ladders left in city….NONE.
The city is surrounded by volunteer fire companies that offer various ladder company services, and the city began adding one of the volley units to structure calls. The first unit added on most assignments was from a neighboring station that many members who are career union firefighters in other jurisdictions. Manheim Township also has taken the progressive step of hiring part timers to assure minimum staffing of their high value suburban community. Many of the part timers hired are also career firefighters in other department, working part-time in this area. It has been a win-win for their community, the department gets a guaranteed crew and the township does not have to support a full career department.
Immediately Manheim Township Truck 24 (a Pierce 100’ tractor trailer ladder/rescue rig) was called in to every city fire, and then the storm hit.
Because so many of the township crew members are union members, even though they are volunteering at the time, there were allegedly words exchanged between parties at various fire scenes. The union members riding into the city as volunteers were supposedly accused of violating union by-laws regarding “two-hatting”. Two of the volunteers put themselves on “leave” because of the situation. The interactions were reported to Manheim Township Fire Chief Rick Kane, and he directed his units not to assist the city and respond to mutual aid calls until the situation was defused.
Now the city turned to other departments for mutual aid. The other surrounding volunteers have no career staff and have agreed to respond when called.
Earlier this week, two surrounding ladder companies assisted the city at a General Alarm fatal arson fire.
Today the Lancaster newspapers report that City Mayor Richard Gray is fighting back at the unions for their treatment of the Manheim Township firefighters assisting in the city. The mayor is threatening a law suit against the union for interfering with the cities mutual aid agreements with surrounding departments. Union officials are quoted in the article as saying they are not aware of the activities. The entire situation will play out in coming weeks, and hopefully both of the city ladders will be back soon, and the surrounding vollies can go back to coming into the city on a much less regular schedule. The mayor also commented on the city fire union calling for a meeting with the neighboring fire chiefs
Lessons learned from this storm for all departments….have a Plan B in place for emergency replacement of necessary apparatus. While most of our departments are already limited on the apparatus we use, imagine the prospect of losing a major portion of your firefighting vehicles. How would you handle that situation?
The Mayor seems to know how to step in the “Stuff” on the front lawn.
He’s “Mooching” from the surrounding FD’s because he can and at the cost of his own City’s firefighters.
He or someone else on the City Council needs to see that this approach is wrong.
Buy or repair, or Replace the two trucks that are out of service and get on with serving the citizens of the community.
both ladder units are being repaired and are due back in the service in the upcoming weeks.
I’d like to call BS as well. I do believe there is at least one career firefighter, if not more, that volunteers at the two other departments now responding to Lancaster City for mutual aid.
You can add the following cities in Pa that are reducing or have reduced their personnel to include City of Scranton, Reading, Erie, Bethlehem and Philadelphia. If you wondering that most the cities in Pa with career fire departments. Coincidence, I think not. In Pa their is an organization called the League of Cities which is comprised of the mayors or managers of these municipalities. They meet monthly and discus strategies on many different topics but mainly they develop ways to bust public safety unions. Most recently they lobbied the Governor to veto a Cancer Presumption bill that would of provided extended coverage to over 70,000 firefighters both volunteer and career who contract cancer.
If you follow developing stories the mayors of most of these cities have not filled open positions and have allowed OT cost to rise. Now that its budget time these mayors are crying about how the public safety unions are bleeding them dry. The true problem with these municipalities is the politicians fiscal irresponsibility in which they ran up massive long term debt with spend and barrow economics creating multi-million dollar yearly debt payment that they are paying off on the backs of public safety.