Lawrence, Mass., Mayor William Lantigua is tired of hearing about a lack of firefighters and “irresponsible comments” by acting fire Chief Brian Murphy about the dangers.
But with 93 working fires and nearly $5 million in property losses so far this year, the Chief said he’s going to keep pushing the issue to save lives.
Predictable win or predictable loss?
Is the situation in Lawrence (and so many other areas) a sign of the times that are here to stay? Looks like it according to some predictions. Even if/when the economy turns around, will those cities that have cut go back to what they once had? At some point, when a FD budget “is what it is,” the FD is simply not longer matched to the job expected previously.
Insurance rates WILL go up.
Stuff will burn down at a greater rate.
And lives may be lost.
The question facing many Fire Chiefs is: At what point do we alter being an interior FD when we are being forced to be pretty much an exterior FD?
Sort of like ALS vs. BLS EMS. If the community wants it, then it costs more money or you simply get BLS. While we don’t rate them that way, perhaps communities will need to understand “before the fire” if THEIR FD is a BFD or an AFD? (BASIC FD=Exterior fire protection at the basic level or an ADVANCED FD with adequate staffing to perform some ADVANCED interior operations).
It all sounds so damn ridiculous to us, but at what point do the city hall budget issues and their (city hall, local government) responsibility to protect their citizens (in various forms) fall ridiculously onto the BACKS of Fire Chiefs and Firefighters to go above and beyond, above and beyond?
While clearly there are few amongst us that would NOT be willing to do “whatever it takes” to do the search, make the grab and attempt to save a life, some communities are expecting their FD to “win” — although the “win” is generally predictable as a loss.
When your “hometown football team” only has 6 players, don’t expect many, or any, wins. Don’t take that bet.
No one is suggesting that we should ever give up the fight to provide expertise to our communities in helping them genuinely understand what “their” FD should look like in order to derive a generally predictable outcome.
However, the community and the elected city hall dwellers need to decide what they want while the Chiefs, like LFD Chief Murphy, have an obligation to make clear what we generally can and cannot do, based upon what the community wants and is willing to fund, career or volunteer.
And like Chief Murphy, the city hall dwellers may not like what they hear.
Additionally, other options such as mergers, collaborations and consolidations have to be looked at and very strongly considered. And while the public (and elected city hall dwellers) may not like the idea of no longer having “control” over their own “local” FD, they can’t have it both ways.
When they reduce staffing to the “losing team” levels, from a FF survival standpoint, the issue of not having adequate staffing to perform that occasional but critical rescue provides us with a much more predictable outcome.
