By Ron Menchaca and Glenn Smith
The Post and Courier
CHARLESTON, S.C. — Charleston Fire Chief Rusty Thomas has lost the faith of his men and must go, the head of the state firefighters union said Wednesday.
Michael Parrotta, president of the South Carolina Professional Firefighters Association, said the Charleston Fire Department never will move forward as long as Thomas remains chief. He described Thomas as a “dinosaur” who clings to tradition while the profession has evolved and become more safety-conscious.
“He should have already been suspended and relieved of duty,” Parrotta said. “He needs to go.”
Parrotta spent 25 years fighting fires with departments in the Myrtle Beach area. The association he oversees represents about 735 firefighters around the state, including roughly 100 firefighters in Charleston, about half of the city’s firefighters. Parrotta said he could no longer hold his tongue on the issue after a televised address Tuesday in which Mayor
Joe Riley reiterated unwavering support for Thomas and other fire department leaders.
On Wednesday, Riley again voiced his unqualified support and “enormous respect” for Thomas. The mayor said Thomas is “energized and committed” to making an excellent fire department even better and that he has the complete confidence of his men in doing so. “He will continue to serve our city for as long as I am mayor and as long as he continues to do the outstanding job he has been doing,” he said.
But others also are questioning Thomas’ leadership in the wake of the June 18 furniture store fire that killed nine city firefighters. Opinions vary on whether he should remain in charge.
Roger Yow, president of the local union chapter, called Thomas a “failed department head” and said Riley’s support of Thomas is “nothing more than blind allegiance.”
Yow said his group, the Charleston Firefighters Association, will take a formal position on Thomas once a city-appointed panel of experts releases its comprehensive analysis of the fire department later this month. Thomas likely will face increasing pressure to resign if the panel’s report is as damning as its initial findings, which faulted the department for failing to keep pace with national firefighting standards, Yow said.
“The department’s major shortcomings in just about every important function ... are a direct reflection on Thomas’ failed leadership. Recommendations for change have been made to Chief Thomas for years, and he has flat out ignored them. “
In the initial aftermath of the fire, Thomas was quick to defend his department’s aggressive tactics and traditional firefighting methods. He told The Post and Courier that he trusted the department’s time-honed techniques, regardless of what written standards might say. “We are never going to get away from that — never,” he said.
Thomas did not respond Wednesday to a request for comment on the union leaders’ statements.
City Councilman Henry Fishburne on Wednesday said that a leadership change might be the only way for the department to move forward, but he said he has not made up his mind about Thomas’ future. “I am not quite there yet,” Fishburne said. “The problem for City Council is we do not have the authority to hire and fire employees.”
Riley alone has that authority under the city’s strong-mayor form of government.
William Dudley Gregorie, who is challenging Riley for mayor, said that authority comes with the responsibility to recognize when change is needed. The city needs to hold someone accountable for the problems in its fire department and the culture that allowed those deficiencies to linger for so many years, he said. Gregorie said the city should sack not only Thomas but other top commanders as well.
“I think that in order for the culture of that department to be changed, changes would have to go beyond the chief level,” he said. “Just how far, I am not sure.”
Pete Piringer, spokesman for the review panel, said it’s not the group’s mission to recommend whether department leaders need to be replaced. He said the panel’s report will touch on administrative and cultural issues in the department but won’t outline specific personnel changes.
“There is not a recommendation in there to replace the chief. I don’t interpret it to be our job to do that. But I will say it’s pretty comprehensive and in-depth about the organization as a whole. It should be obvious there will be changes.”
Piringer said early indications are that the department is willing to change and is making every effort to embrace all of the panel’s initial recommendations. Still, he said it could take years for the department to catch up with current national practices.
City Councilman James Gallant, chairman of council’s public safety committee, agrees that Thomas and the fire department are working hard to correct the deficiencies that have been identified.
Gallant said it is unfair to call for Thomas’ ouster before any of the major investigations into the fatal blaze have been completed and the results are known. “Let’s see what the investigation says,” he said. “Every time someone does something wrong and he is the leader, we want to slam him or fire him. I just don’t think that’s the way you solve problems in a democratic society.”
Following recent firefighters’ deaths in other parts of the country, some city leaders were quick to hold fire officials accountable for mistakes. Less than two weeks after the Deutsche Bank tower near Ground Zero in New York caught fire on Aug. 18 and claimed the lives of two of the city’s firefighters, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the city’s fire commissioner reassigned a deputy chief, battalion chief and captain. The reassignments were reprimands for not completing mandatory inspections that could have identified dangerous conditions inside the tower, which was damaged by the collapsing World Trade Center buildings on Sept. 11, 2001.
In Baltimore, three fire commanders lost their jobs after a fire cadet was killed in a fire training exercise on Feb. 9. Some Baltimore leaders also have called for that city’s fire chief to step down.
Jay Lowry, a former Charleston firefighter and city fire inspector, has been chronicling the Charleston response to the sofa store fire in his Internet blog, Firefighter Hourly. He said the mayor needs to replace Thomas with an outside leader who can make the changes that are necessary.
“The only way for the culture to change is to remove the person responsible for the current culture,” Lowry said. “It is also the only way that the fire department can truly heal.”
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