By Vanessa Miller
Daily Camera (Boulder, Colorado)
BOULDER, Colo. —The Boulder Fire Department is sending two of its eight fire engines to Longmont for training on six days this month, including today, and some firefighters are upset that the department isn’t calling in back up for the engines that will be 15 miles away.
The department would have to pay between $10,000 and $12,000 in overtime costs to have reserve firefighters fill in for the men and women being trained in Longmont, said Boulder Fire Chief Larry Donner.
“That would make the training unaffordable and we couldn’t do it,” he said.
The president of Boulder’s firefighters union said if the department can’t afford to keep the city fully staffed with fire engines, then they shouldn’t be doing extra training. But, Donner said, the department rarely needs all of its engines at the same time.
“We do that probably in the neighborhood of four to six times a year,” he said.
And, he said, if a fire does start in Boulder on any of the training days, Today, April 20, 21, 23, 28 and 30, the engines will be called back from Longmont.
“There is a risk, but I think the benefit in this case outweighs the risk,” Donner said.
The training is a partnership between the Boulder and Longmont fire departments and will focus on hazardous-materials situations, Donner said. It might happen a few times a year, Donner said, and next time, Longmont’s crews will come to Boulder to train.
The goal, he said, is for the crews to become more effective when working together in mutual-aid situations.
“We want to help provide better service and improve safety for firefighters,” he said.
Union president Donald Olguin said that if the administration really had the citizens’ best interest in mind, they would either back up the training engines or cancel the Longmont exercises all together.
“The thing is, we are the Boulder Fire Department, and we are here for the citizens of Boulder,” Olguin said. “They expect the services that we provide, and they expect them to be there, when they’re needed.”
There are eight engines scattered at seven stations around town, Olguin said, and the training will pull two engines at a time out of the city on six days. Olguin said a pair of engines will go to Longmont in the morning, and another pair will go in the afternoon.
“We are concerned about the citizens of Boulder,” he said. “We are there for them, but apparently our management is not.”
Olguin said his peers appreciate the importance of training, but agree that there are appropriate times and places for that.
Had Olguin, who works in the station at 1308 55th St., not been immediately available to respond to a two-alarm fire at the Fairways Apartments, 5620 Arapahoe Avenue, on Nov. 15, more people would have been burned and someone might have died, he said.
“We are the ones who know what safety is,” Olguin said. “Those guys up in management, they are so far from knowing what’s going on on the front line. They haven’t worked on a fire truck for more than 25 years.”
Recently, Olguin said, he responded to the home of a man who lives next to the station. The elderly man’s wife called to say, “Bill’s gone,” Olguin said. But, when crews arrived, they determined “Bill” was still alive and having a stroke.
He survived and is back at home, Olguin said.
“His wife made us a cake and said that the doctors said, ‘You guys saved his life,’” he said. “If we wouldn’t have had engines right there, what would have happened?”
Olguin said he’s prepared to take his training shift later this month, but said he’s not OK with leaving behind an unstaffed station.
“If something happens, I want them to be accountable,” he said.
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