By Josh Jarman
The Columbus Dispatch
NEWARK, Ohio — Firefighters’ response to a Saturday blaze that left a local family homeless was delayed by staffing changes in the city’s most recent contract, a union president told city officials this week.
Newark Fire Department administrators, however, dened that. They say the staffing cuts, made during the most recent contract by an arbitrator’s ruling in early November, had nothing to do with the time it took a fire engine to arrive at a house fire that broke out about 7:30 p.m. on Canal Street in Newark. No one was injured in the fire.
David McElfresh, president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 109, told the City Council about the situation on Monday. He said that the first three firefighters who arrived at the home — in an ambulance — could only watch the fire burn because they did not have the necessary equipment to fight the blaze.
The new contract removed a provision requiring that at least 19 firefighters be on duty at all times, a rule that had been in place since 2003. Had there been three more firefighters, McElfresh said, some of them would have arrived in a fire engine.
Although a firetruck from another station arrived one minute after the ambulance, McElfresh said even a minute makes a difference in a fire.
Assistant Fire Chief David Decker said yesterday that the number of firefighters on duty that night had little to do with the time it took them to respond to the fire. He said the fire engine on call for that area of the city was handling another emergency when the fire broke out, which was the main reason a firetruck didn’t arrive earlier.
Other factors, such as firefighters from the city of Heath working a traffic crash and not being available for mutual aid, also affected the situation, Decker said. He said the response time of the first firetruck to arrive -- seven minutes -- was within the department’s guidelines.
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