By Eric Fleischauer
The Decatur Daily
DECATUR, Ala. — A proposal to eliminate 15 Decatur Fire and Rescue positions could leave the department out of compliance with national standards, delay firefighters’ ability to enter burning structures and hinder their ability to deal with more than one fire at a time, according to Decatur Fire and Rescue Chief Tony Grande.
He stopped short, however, of objecting to the job eliminations.
Mayor Don Kyle, who proposed eliminating the unfilled positions in a heated budget hearing last week, said the staff reduction would not increase the cost of homeowners insurance because it would not hurt the city’s Insurance Service Office fire rating.
Eliminating the unfilled positions also would save the city $800,000, a step Kyle said is necessary if the city is to balance its budget in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.
“I’m most concerned about the people’s safety and the firemen’s safety,” Councilman Chuck Ard said. “Let’s forget about the ISO ratings for now. I want to know the impact on response times if we do this.”
The 15 positions Kyle wants to eliminate were added four years ago with money from a federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response grant. In the first year, the grant paid 100 percent of the salaries. The amount dropped each year, and the city now receives no assistance in paying the salaries.
‘Two in, two out’
Grande said the purpose of the SAFER grant was to allow short-staffed fire departments to meet National Fire Protection Association standards and Occupational Safety and Health Administration rules. Referred to as the “two in, two out” rule, the voluntary NFPA standard and the mandatory OSHA standard govern the handling of structure fires.
The OSHA rule states a minimum of two firefighters can enter a burning structure, and they may do so only if two other firefighters are outside of the structure and available to rescue their colleagues. Compliance with the related NFPA standard requires each fire truck to have a crew of at least four firefighters.
Before Decatur took advantage of the SAFER grant, its firetrucks were manned with only three firefighters, not enough to comply with the “two in, two out” rule. The grant increased the department to 126 firefighters, enough to meet the standard. This year, because the city did not replace firefighters who left and because some firefighters always are unavailable because of vacation or sick leave, firetrucks again operate with only three firefighters.
Grande said multiple trucks respond to structure fires, but aggressive fire suppression can’t begin until a second truck arrives if there are only three firefighters per truck.
“If they can’t go in, the fire is going to grow at an exponential rate,” Grande said. “It’s more dangerous because it’s going to get hotter, because it can cause flashovers and injure firefighters. They’re trying to get a lot of work done while waiting on that next vehicle. ... One of the things you lose with less than four firefighters on the truck is you do lose a little bit of aggression, because they have to be much more careful.”
The only exception to OSHA’s “two in, two out” rule, Grande said, is that two firefighters can enter the structure with only one outside when the building is occupied. The practice, he said, increases the risk to the firefighters.
“That elimination (of 15 positions) is five people per shift,” Grande said. “When we have those five gone per shift, it means we’re going to have to send more of our on-duty crews to the scene from farther away. ... Anytime we lose positions, it’s going to affect how many bodies we can get to the scene within that initial time frame.”
Having only three firefighters per truck does not just affect the “two in, two out” rule, Grande said, it makes it more difficult to get enough total firefighters to a structure fire. The department now has 101 firefighters, or about 33 per shift. Vacations, sick leave and training drop the actual number lower.
Grande gave an example of a structure fire Thursday in Burningtree, caused by a washing machine.
“We sent our normal crews out there,” Grande said. “We had four trucks out there. That was half of the city force out there. At a minimum staffing level, four trucks is 12 people, and that’s not going to meet the minimum requirements. So we end up having to send a fifth vehicle.”
Ard asked Grande if that means the department can respond only to one structure fire at a time.
“If I had five trucks at this fire, that would leave me only three available,” Grande said. “If a second event occurs, that means nine folks are trying to take care of that second event. We’ll shuffle our folks and move, but all of that takes time. With fires, the first 20 minutes is the time to take care of business.”
Eliminating 15 positions, Grande said, necessarily reduces effectiveness.
“If we lose those positions, we lose that ability to respond in the quickest manner with the heaviest number of people at the very front end,” Grande said.
Kyle questioned the wisdom of staffing the department to handle more than one structure fire at a time.
“To me, it’s kind of like retail staffing at Christmastime versus other parts of the year,” Kyle said. “You can’t staff for Christmas 12 months a year.”
“I don’t think it’s a good analogy to compare Christmas shopping to the lives of our citizens,” City Councilman Billy Jackson responded.
Balance required
Kyle said the city’s financial situation requires balance.
“We cannot afford to staff the peak,” Kyle said. “If we know how often we get into a bind because we have more than one big issue going on, then we can maybe better evaluate the dollars and cents.”
Ard asked if closing one of the city’s eight fire stations would allow the elimination of 15 jobs without degrading performance. Kyle has on several occasions proposed closing Station 4, located on Nelms Road Northwest, just off Moulton Street.
Grande said closing a station slows response times, which are critical both for fires and emergency medical calls.
Council President Gary Hammon said it’s obvious more firefighters would increase safety, but that does not answer the question of whether fewer firefighters are adequate.
“If we had 126, I don’t think there’s anyone in this room that would argue that we wouldn’t be a whole lot safer with 252,” Hammon said.
Hammon said funding for ideal fire department staffing, however, would have to come from some other department.
“You’ve got to balance it with what you can financially do,” Hammon said.
Ard said he was struggling to make a decision on whether to cut 15 positions when the council had no data on how the cut would affect response times, information Grande said he could only get by studying Morgan County 911 data.
“Since we’re talking about people’s lives, I think that’s the type of analysis we need,” Ard said.
The City Council will have a public work session to discuss the fiscal 2015 budget at 5:30 p.m. Monday, on the seventh floor of City Hall.
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(c)2014 The Decatur Daily (Decatur, Ala.)
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