By Ralph Ellis
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
ROSWELL, Ga. — Roswell’s fire department depends on “two hatters” like Brian Wolfe.
Wolfe, 38, works full time as a Gwinnett County firefighter and part time in Roswell. With a 24-hours-on-and-48-hours-off schedule, he usually finishes a Gwinnett shift and goes straight to a Roswell firehouse.
Most metro departments don’t use part-timers at all, but Roswell hires them by the truckload. One hundred twenty-two of Roswell’s 140 fire employees are part-timers — by far the most in the area.
Other fire chiefs don’t like two hatters because they might suffer from fatigue and have divided loyalties. Roswell Fire Chief Ricky Spencer acknowledged a part-time department creates an immense scheduling problem but said public safety isn’t compromised.
For Roswell, the financial advantages outweigh the inherent risks of a part-time department. The city just hired three full-time battalion chiefs, but is not converting to a full-time or “career” department.
“I like the current arrangement because it’s very cost effective,” Roswell Mayor Jere Wood said. “It saves us millions of dollars.”
Roswell, a city of about 100,000 people, has a fire budget of about $6 million. Johns Creek and Marietta each have full-time departments and populations of about 70,000. Their fire budgets are about $10 million and $11 million, respectively.
Roswell evolved into a part-time department about a decade ago when it quit relying on volunteer firefighters. Though no study has been conducted, Spencer said the city saves about $8 million yearly with a part-time department. The city doesn’t have to provide benefits or extensive training to part-timers. Wood said he’s heard the city saves $3 million yearly.
Moonlighting is a way of life for firefighters, who aren’t paid highly and usually have 48 hours off. Firefighters may paint houses, work for landscape companies or run their own home repair businesses.
About 22 percent of metro Atlanta firefighters work for another public safety agency, according to “The Two Hat Syndrome,” a 2002 study co-written by Rebecca F. Denlinger, former Cobb County fire chief. She concluded reliance on two hatters may create staff shortages and confusion during a major emergency.
On a day-to-day basis, Denlinger said, “It works to the community’s benefit most of the time. Is there risk? Yes.”
Scheduling is an ongoing problem for Roswell because it’s based on the needs of 15 other fire departments. Twenty-six part-timers are scheduled every day. Spencer said the usual problems — sickness, injuries and family matters — keep firefighters out of work. Some Roswell fire stations have gone unmanned for up to 12 hours because of absences and scheduling problems, he said.
Spencer said that doesn’t happen often, but two or three days a week Roswell shuts down one of seven stations between 6 and 8 a.m. — the shift change — because part-timers may be arriving late from full-time jobs. Other stations double up then.
Spencer said the department maintains a response time of about seven minutes, despite staffing challenges. A Freedom of Information request for resident letters about the fire department in the last 18 months yielded only compliments. The city’s fire insurance rating improved from 4 to 3 several years ago when volunteers were phased out.
“We’re not missing calls,” said Nancy Diamond, the city council liaison to the fire department. “People are not dying. We’re trying to be proactive.”
Decatur Fire Chief Toni Dixon doesn’t like part-timers because she wants to be certain a firefighter will show up, even when it’s not their shift.
“When there’s an issue in the metro area and you have a big incident, who’s your first priority to?” she said. “With everything that’s going on in the world you never know when something will happen.”
Spencer said the Roswell department only had a few no-shows on Sept. 21, 2009, the day metrowide flooding peaked. If people don’t come in, the Roswell full-timers can handle a fire hose or drive a truck. The city also uses mutual aid from surrounding towns.
Wolfe said he’d have to respond to Gwinnett, his main job, if called.
“When that day comes,” he said, “I’d have to go.”
Sandy Springs, which has about the same population as Roswell, is one department that uses a lot of part-timers. It has 91 full-timers, 60 part-timers. Dennis Ham, an assistant fire chief, said the financial upside is clear, but that relying on part-timers can cause organizational problems.
“It would be harder to keep a part-timer accountable when you don’t have any full-timers around,” he said. “It’s harder to set the pace of the department in philosophies, ways of doing things.”
Dixon said she wouldn’t even allow a Decatur firefighter to work part time for another department. Marietta Chief Jackie Gibbs said he’s considering a similar stance, though five Marietta firefighters now moonlight for other departments. Gibbs said most of those firefighters go straight from Marietta to their part-time job, which can result in sleep deprivation. Firefighters rarely go straight from a part-time job to a full-time fire job.
“The call volume in my jurisdiction is so high that these guys are getting off duty and haven’t slept,” Gibbs said. “If you’re a patient, you don’t want somebody whose been awake 36 hours making a decision about dosage levels.”
Wolfe said he sometimes arrives in Roswell exhausted from a hard night in Gwinnett. When that happens, he tells his boss and — if no calls are coming in — catches a nap in a firehouse bunk. “They understand if we’ve had a hard day. I lay down on my bed in uniform and get refreshed for the day.”
Spencer said even full-time departments like Atlanta sometimes have problems keeping firehouses open. Keeping firefighters is a hard job everywhere.
“We’ll do what we have to do,” Spencer said, summing up the philosophy of the Roswell Fire Department. “We’ll make do.”
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution