Bellingham firefighters confronted heavy flames upon arrival before striking a second alarm to battle a fire at a church in the Sunnyland neighborhood.
September 10, 2021
Sep. 10—The Bellingham Fire Department battled a two-alarm blaze at a church early Friday on Cornwall Avenue in the Sunnyland neighborhood.
Crews were called to the 2500 block of Cornwall Avenue at 4:25 a.m. for a commercial fire, according to the PulsePoint app.
“First arriving crews found heavy fire with fire through the roof,” a Bellingham Fire Department tweet at 5:15 a.m. read.
An earlier tweet said traffic in the area was impacted and asked people to avoid the area.
A follow up tweet at 5:39 a.m. said that there were no injuries and investigators were on the scene.
The nearly $3 billion to compensate police, firefighters and others injured responding to the 9/11 attacks is part of a $3.5 trillion federal spending proposal.
September 10, 2021 – By Jonathan D. Salant For NJ.com
The $3.5 trillion spending bill now making its way through the U.S. House will include $2.9 billion to compensate police officers, firefighters and others injured responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Rep. Frank Pallone Jr. said Thursday.
The money would go to shore up the 9/11 World Trade Center Health Program, which permanently was extended in 2019 along with the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which provides financial help for injured first responders.
The bill was named for James Zadroga, a New York City police officer from North Arlington who died of a respiratory disease attributed breathing in dust at the World Trade Center site after 9/11.
It also was named for two other first responders who died after 9/11, Ray Pfeifer, a New York City firefighter, and Luis Alvarez, a New York City police officer.
But with the fund now running out of cash, Pallone said additional money will be included in the section of the bill being drafted by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which he chairs.
“As we prepare to remember the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on our country, we must renew our commitment to never forget the sacrifices first responders made on that day and the survivors who continue to endure the physical and emotional trauma,” said Pallone, D-6th Dist.
“We can never fully repay the debt of gratitude we owe to responders and survivors, but we can make sure that we do all we can to make sure they have access to the medical care they rightfully deserve.”
Other House committees are writing different sections of the legislation, which will address child care, health care, education, climate change and the Republican tax law’s $10,000 cap on deducting state and local taxes.
Congressional Democratic leaders plan to pass the measure, a top priority of President Joe Biden, under a process known as reconciliation, which will prevent Senate Republicans from filibustering the measure and allow it to get through Congress by a majority vote in both houses.
The Father’s Day Fire, 9/11, Superstorm Sandy and COVID-19 triggered evolutions to the FDNY in ways expected and otherwise.
September 11, 2021 – Thomas Richardson – Firehouse.com
The FDNY’s 20-year journey since Sept. 11, 2001, has been challenging and emotional—and the impetus for self-reflection as an organization.
Father’s Day, June 17, 2001
The FDNY responds to approximately 4,000 medical emergencies and 1,500 fires and other emergencies every day. On a typical day in New York City, we might have as many as a dozen working structural fires. Father’s Day 2001 was no different, except for the fact that we experienced a tragic fire in a commercial building and lost Firefighter John Downing, Firefighter Brian Fahey and Firefighter Harry Ford, when a massive explosion occurred about 30 minutes into the operation at the building.
Why do I begin by mentioning this fire? The members who were on scene that day were faced with a chaotic, emotional situation yet continued to operate to recover our brother firefighters. This started the process of making some needed change within our department as well as in the fire and building codes in New York City (NYC). We learned much and persevered moving forward.
September 11, 2001
On September 11, 2,977 souls were murdered by 19 hijackers, inclusive of the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the site at Shanksville, PA.
The FDNY is a large and robust organization that’s capable of responding to and handling just about any emergency. Admittedly, we were humbled on 9/11. We needed assistance. We lost several of our senior leaders, including our Chief of Department Peter Ganci Jr. With several hundred members missing and two 110-story buildings completely collapsed and still burning, we needed to quickly adapt, improvise and overcome. I can say proudly that we were able to do that but with a lot of assistance. We are rather good at incident command for most fires and emergencies, but for an event that was as large and as complex as 9/11, we needed to learn from others.
Early on, an incident management team (IMT) from the state of Alaska came to assist to establish and organize a solid framework for command moving forward for several months. We learned what an IMT is and how valuable a formalized expanded incident command system structure would be. We were introduced to the incident action plan concept for long-term events. We learned how really important a unified command structure is and of the value of building relationships with other agencies and partners.
The FDNY hired the consulting firm McKinsey & Company to study our response to 9/11. The firm produced a report that focused on how to increase the FDNY’s preparedness moving forward. Key recommendations that were in the report included: significantly improve our communications infrastructure and radio systems; develop technology to instantly account for members who operate on scene of fires and emergencies; build an automatic recall capability to enable the department to quickly bring in off-duty members when faced with a complex, long-duration incident; and develop a state-of-the-art Fire Department Operations Center (FDOC) to be a central node for situational awareness and reporting to senior leaders and field commanders.
One of the most rewarding relationships that resulted from the 9/11 attacks is the partnership with all of the branches of the military. The military has played a large role in the FDNY’s professional development and leadership programs. This relationship continues to evolve and is stronger than ever.
Superstorm Sandy
Superstorm Sandy hit the NYC tri-state area on Oct. 29, 2012. We experienced what essentially was a conflagration in the southernmost part of the city. NYC had 43 fatalities. Sixty-five hundred patients had to be evacuated from certain hospitals and nursing homes; 90,000 buildings were in the inundation zone; 2 million New Yorkers were without power; numerous major transit hubs flooded.
Eleven years after 9/11, little did we know that much of what we learned from 9/11 would be the foundation for future major emergency responses.
If that wasn’t enough, a strong nor’easter hit the east coast nine days later.
Many of our members were severely affected, losing their home and belongings. A fire lieutenant who lived in South Queens in Rockaway would receive the highest medal of valor that we award. He and his teenage son donned wetsuits and, using surfboards, rescued 25 people as houses were engulfed by fire.
Photo credit FDNY
Much of the planning that was done to prepare for major storms would come to fruition. We were able to sustain continuity of operations even amid the circumstance whereby many of our firehouses and EMS stations were being flooded.
Once again, the FDNY learned and adapted its capabilities. We truly understood the benefit of decentralizing command. Headquarters served as an area command, and our five borough commanders that were closest to the boots on the ground managed their resources to accomplish the mission.
We expanded our swiftwater capabilities within our Special Operations Command. We added high-axle vehicles. Several units that are located in flood zones received training in the use of flat-bottomed boats to access flooded areas.
Prior to Superstorm Sandy, the IMT only operated outside of the city at other major events around the country. Sandy was the IMT’s first major deployment within NYC, and it performed several different missions admirably.
COVID-19 Pandemic
The first pandemic memo that we in the FDNY published to our members was on Jan. 28, 2020. It basically gave a brief synopsis of what was happening in Wuhan, China, and that we would need to prepare for those who were traveling from that region.
The first case of COVID-19 in NYC was reported on March 1, 2020. The FDNY had two major concerns: Do we have enough PPE and how will our workforce be affected? Will we be able to maintain continuity of operations if a large part of our workforce becomes sick?
FDNY Chief of Department John Sudnik requested that our Center for Terrorism and Disaster Preparedness prepare an executive-level tabletop exercise to play out the scenario. This occurred on March 10, 2020. As the case load in the city started to mount and more of our members became sick, we adapted by changing the work schedules of firefighters, EMTs and paramedics to maintain adequate staffing levels. FDNY Chief Medical Officer Dr. David Prezant was our guiding force when it came to appropriate levels of PPE and on what members should wear to protect themselves. The IMT was put in charge of managing our PPE inventories. Our Management, Analysis and Planning Unit (MAP) was tasked with creating electronic dashboards for senior executives to use to manage staffing, PPE, unit activity, medical leave rates and other metrics.
Photo Credit FDNY
At the height of the pandemic in the spring of 2020, specifically early April, our Bureau of EMS had a day with 6,500 medical responses (on a normal day, it does 4,000). In NYC, we average about 60–70 cardiac arrest calls each day; during this time, we saw 250–300 per day. Our members saw a lot of death. We have a young workforce, particularly in our Bureau of EMS. This no doubt had a significant effect on our members. In fact, regretfully, we had a couple of suicides. Our Counseling Service Unit, which in my opinion is the best in the business, was overwhelmed by the situation.
We modified responses to medical calls for our fire units to try to preserve the workforce. This was a priority strategy for us. Our medical leave rate normally is about 7 percent on any given day. At the height of the pandemic, we were close to 20 percent. To date, we have had more than 7,000 members contract COVID and take medical leave at some point. This represents about 50 percent of our fire and EMS workforce. Sadly, 15 of the FDNY—six uniformed members (one firefighter, five EMS) and nine civilian support staff employees—lost their life because of COVID. We also remember Paramedic Paul Carey from Colorado Springs, who answered our call for help from outside of NYC, who passed away because he contracted COVID.
Remarkably, no FDNY frontline responder who works on an ambulance or in a fire company died from COVID.
Even with the staffing and schedule modifications, our members worked a lot, and we knew that this wasn’t a healthy recipe, but we knew that we had to continue to perform our mission.
So, what did we learn? We know we didn’t get everything right.
We had an existing Pandemic Response Plan that was very detailed. As we evolved throughout this pandemic, we dusted off the plan and revised it. This was done methodically, with the guidance of our medical professionals. We used data extensively. We constantly reminded ourselves that we had a mission and had to continue to meet that mission.
Our relationship with the labor unions was a key factor in being able to make changes on the fly to sustain staffing and service. I certainly won’t say that we didn’t experience bumps in the road, but the FDNY and the unions were able to work together for the greater good.
Arguably, the key to making it through the pandemic was communication. It had to be timely, it had to be accurate, and, most importantly, it had to be transparent. Our members essentially were bombarded with information every day, sometimes several times a day. In fact, we finally decided that all messages would be transmitted at the same time each day because of the volume of information and guidance that we put out. The unions’ use of their platforms to message the membership was helpful. Our IMT Public Information Officer function was invaluable, helping us to draft regular updates to be disseminated to the field.
Technology became a very important tool in communicating with the field. As Chief of Operations at the time, I was able to use a Webex platform to communicate in real time to the on-duty field units with important information and, very importantly, my leader’s intent. As senior executives, we often are accused of not being in touch with the boots on the ground. We wanted the troops to know how much we cared about them and that all of us who were working in headquarters were committed to making sure that they had what they needed to do their job and that they were being heard.
One of the things that I felt was most helpful was when we deployed our senior executives to visit firehouses and EMS stations to personally visit with the troops—taking questions and hearing the members’ concerns. The most frequent concerns that were expressed by the members, particularly at the height of the pandemic, were the lack of available COVID testing and the worry about members bringing the virus home to their family. We eventually were able to provide testing capability, and NYC did institute a hotel program for members.
One of the best definitions of resilience is “the process of adapting well in the face of adversity, trauma, tragedy, threats or significant sources of stress.” I would argue that the fire and EMS service along with the health care profession took resilience to another level.
Moving forward
Responding to and managing major crises is challenging, emotional and absolutely stressful. In my humble opinion, we need a set of guiding principles to be successful. We can’t always predict the outcomes, but we certainly can affect process.
These claims definitely can assist our organizations in beginning to discuss how to prepare for these events that we call, generally, crises or disasters.
In conclusion, I present to you the triangle, which is the strongest of geometric shapes. If one side fails, the triangle collapses. We all know that a strong foundation is critical. Throughout these past 20 years, I believe that our foundation has remained strong and maybe even became stronger as a first responder community. Along the way, we have developed relationships and networks that provide support at all levels—organizationally, strategically and tactically.
With a strong foundation, a willingness to self-reflect and understanding of our guiding principles as individuals and as organizations, we can sustain a focus on our mission to serve.
Guiding Principles
Preparedness: Sounds easy, but it isn’t. It requires commitment, not only individually, but collectively as an organization. It starts at the top. An organization that’s committed to being prepared must get buy-in from the troops. It’s a daily routine of being prepared, not only for the major incident. If we have a preparedness mindset, it’s easier to be ready when disaster strikes.
Trust: Everything that we do in this business is about trust—trust in oneself and trust in one another. If we don’t have trust, we don’t have relationships. Without relationships, we can’t accomplish the mission.
Respect: Respect for others, respect for differing opinions and views. Very simply, if we treat people with respect, they might be more willing to listen to our ideas. Organizationally, we must have the utmost respect for our workforce, for without them we don’t exist.
Teamwork: As all of you know, there is no “i” in team. To be a cohesive team, we must have mutual respect and trust in one another. The very essence of the work that we do is incumbent on the success of the team. This should be preached by leadership constantly.
Moral Imperative: When we all raised our right hands to be first responders, we should have understood the moral imperative that we are expected to adhere to. We have a duty to act, a duty to respond, and a duty to be prepared to the best of our ability. This can’t be taken lightly. I believe this is a key principle in our business.
Tulsa firefighters performed life-saving measures on a man who required emergency surgery after his wife ran him over during a domestic dispute.
September 9, 2021 – By Mike Stunson – The Charlotte Observer
A woman was arrested early Wednesday after injuring her husband in an argument that turned violent, Tulsa police said.
Lacey Maxwell called 911 around 11:30 p.m. Tuesday and told dispatchers she ran over her husband outside their home, police said. Firefighters performed life-saving measures on the husband and he was taken to the hospital, where he was rushed into surgery for non-disclosed injuries, according to police.
Officers have not given an update on the husband’s condition.
“After investigating, officers learned Maxwell and her husband have a history of domestic violence, with Maxwell typically being the aggressor,” Tulsa police said in a news release.
Witnesses also told officers that the woman has previously threatened her husband’s life, police said.
Maxwell was charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon. Jail records show she was booked into the Tulsa County jail at 4:11 a.m. and is being held on a $500,000 surety bond.
In the past year, Polk County first responders have been asked to pick up 4,495 mandatory OT shifts, totaling 89,434 hours
September 02, 2021 – By: Dustin Wyatt – For The Ledger, Lakeland, Fla.
POLK COUNTY, Fla. — At a time when they’re responding to more 911 calls than usual during a pandemic, Polk County’s firefighters and EMS personnel are “getting destroyed mentally and physically” by all of the overtime they’re required to work due to low staffing levels as more employees leave, union leaders told The Ledger.
In the past year, Polk’s first responders have been asked to pick up a total of 4,495 mandatory overtime shifts. That amounts to 89,434 hours of mandatory overtime across the department, at a cost of $2.5 million to taxpayers, according to data from Aug. 1, 2020 to Aug. 20, 2021, provided to the Polk County Professional Firefighters union by the county.
And the overtime — equal to roughly 449 hours per employee in the past year — isn’t just a few hours at a time here and there. In most cases, the employees tasked with responding quickly to life or death emergencies are required to pick up 24-hour shifts once their regular 24-hour workday ends, union representatives say.
That means they’re sometimes working 48 hours on end before getting a day of reprieve. The normal schedule for Polk County’s first responders consists of a 24-hour shift followed by two consecutive days off.
“Forty-eight hours straight is not uncommon,” said union Vice President Jon Hall, a five-year employee of the county’s Fire Rescue Division. “There are way more people in our department working 48 hours at a time than there are people working the normal 24 hours. That stretch of 48 hours off doesn’t actually exist.”
County Manager Bill Beasley did not return an email or a phone call regarding the union’s comments.
In an email, Mianne Nelson, the county’s communications director, noted that a lot of counties are struggling to fill vacancies.
One example in Florida is Volusia County, which has lost 21 paramedics this year. The staffing challenges prompted the county to roll out $4,500 recruiting and $5,000 retention bonuses last month, the Daytona Beach News-Journal reported.
Another: Lake County, which had 41 vacancies in its EMS division as of Aug. 17, prompting the rural county to turn to neighboring communities to help with 911 calls, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
“Polk County Fire Rescue is not unlike any other organization today, in that there are vacant positions that are difficult to keep filled,” Nelson said in the email.
Polk Fire Rescue currently has 199 employees working a combined 4,776 staffing hours per day to meet the county’s response goals, she said.
Since 911 calls never stop and the county has to ensure that there are enough bodies in ambulances and in fire trucks to serve the public, Nelson noted that overtime is the only answer to not only vacancies but also employees on vacation or leave.
She said that all Fire Rescue employees are given sufficient latitude, per union bargaining agreements, to schedule or choose when they will be available for mandatory overtime.
She said that mandatory overtime accounted for 4.85% of the total hours worked in the past year, and that 74% of the overtime worked was voluntary.
“In other words, these were employees who chose to work overtime,” Nelson said.
In the email, she also touched on COVID-19 and how the county has had to adjust.
“Our human capital resources are stretched in this COVID pandemic,” Nelson said. ” Polk County Fire Rescue has had to put additional transport vehicles (ambulances) into service to meet the increased call demand and the capacity concerns at our area hospitals.”
Hall and union President Lee Stringer told The Ledger these challenges weren’t introduced by the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s an issue they’ve raised to county leadership for half a decade.
“Staffing has been a nightmare; it’s not even a COVID issue,” Stringer said. “It’s an issue we’ve been having for years since about 2015.”
But the pandemic has exacerbated the situation as the 911 call volume soars and more people leave the department.
On Aug. 13, the county reported that there were 35 vacancies within the Fire Rescue Division. In the past week, three more employees have quit, Stringer said.
The county confirmed that number. One left for maternity reasons, and one left because they live out of the county and took a position closer to their home, Nelson said. It’s unclear what happened with the other employee.
To make matters worse, many first responders have been out over the past year because of COVID.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, there have been 205 Fire Rescue employees who have missed more than 16,000 hours of work because they have either tested positive for COVID or reported COVID-type symptoms and could not work until they had negative tests, Nelson said.
Also, on any given day, there are about 30 employees (positions) on leave for such reasons as illness, military time off, funerals or vacations, according to the county.
These staffing shortcomings have reached extreme levels at a time when the department is responding to as many 400 emergency calls per day, roughly 42% more than usual.
Polk County Fire Chief Robert Weech, who did not return a phone call or email for this story, told the County Commission on Aug. 17 that the emergency response system is “critically stretched.”
He encouraged the public to avoid calling 911 if they can help it. “If you have other ways of getting medical care, you need to exhaust those at this time so that we can deal with those other bigger emergencies.”
Despite the system strain, Weech said his employees have been able to keep up for the most part and 70% of patients have not seen a delay in response times.
But in some parts of the county, ambulances are reaching patients as much as four minutes slower than usual, Weech said.
That’s due, in part, to the time it takes patients to get admitted once they arrive via ambulance at the hospital.
He told the commission that he’s proud of his team.
“Our first responders are working hard,” Weech said, “That’s a group that’s committed, even when there is strain. I’m very proud of those folks.”
Nelson also thanked first responders in her response to The Ledger.
“We are proud and thankful for the dedication and outstanding care that our Polk County Fire Rescue employees have shown to our residents and guests, especially during this long, unprecedented pandemic.
Union leaders told The Ledger that the department is still able to provide a “high level of service” to the public. But Hall and Stringer fear it’s only a matter of time before the under-staffing and excessive overtime, if not addressed, results in burnout, lethargy, costly mistakes or oversights.
“Our concern is that we can’t do this forever,” Hall said. “How long can they keep this up?”
With few days off, employees are missing family time. They’re unable to attend their son’s or daughter’s sporting events or recitals, Hall said.
“The duty these people signed up for is being overrun,” he said. “We are being steamrolled.”
Added Stringer, “These guys are just getting destroyed both physically and mentally.”
With the massive Caldor and Dixie fires still burning, California’s fire season is on course to match the record 4.2 million acres burned last year.
September 8, 2021 – By Michael Cabanatuan – Source San Francisco Chronicle
Sep. 8—With the once-unstoppable Caldor Fire racing to the doorstep of South Lake Tahoe before it was steered away, and the Dixie Fire, the second largest in state history, still raging farther north, it’s been a hellish fire season in Northern California.
And it’s not over, Cal Fire Director Chief Thom Porter cautioned Tuesday morning.
“We are on a par with where we were last year,” he said during a briefing. “That’s sobering, that’s the new reality, that’s what we are looking at.”
Fires burned through roughly 2 million acres by this time in 2020, he said, on the way to a total of 4.2 million acres — the worst in the state’s long history of wildfires. So far this year, fires have again ripped through 2 million acres, with the devastation continuing.
“We could be in the same boat,” he said. “We’re right in the middle of wildfire peak season.”
Forecasters predict the next three months will bring more dry weather and bouts of gusty winds, Porter said.
“Fire activity will continue to grow,” he said.
Anthony Scardina, a deputy regional forester with the U.S. Forest Service, said hot and windy weather is expected across the state for the next two days.
Despite warming temperatures, firefighters took advantage of gentler winds to make progress on the Caldor Fire, which began its march toward Lake Tahoe more than three weeks ago. It was 50% contained Tuesday, and most South Lake Tahoe residents have been allowed to return home after a week under evacuation orders.
But the danger is not over. The fire, which erupted near Grizzly Flats in rural western El Dorado County on Aug. 14 and has burned through 217,000 acres, on Tuesday continued to threaten Kirkwood, the ski resort and small community south of Lake Tahoe on Highway 88.
While the fire remained calm in South Lake Tahoe, it was still active in Kirkwood, with fire spreading through the tops of trees and wind throwing flaming embers well ahead of the fire, starting spot fires more often than not.
“For every 10 sparks that land in the forest, nine of them light fire,” said Dominic Polito, a Caldor Fire spokesperson.
In addition to chasing and snuffing out spot fires, firefighters have been taking advantage of light winds to set backfires and burn off potential fuel around houses and other structures in the area, he said.
The Kirkwood area and other areas along Highway 88 remained evacuated. Thirty helicopters were expected to make water drops in the area on Tuesday, pouring hundreds of thousands of gallons on the fire.
Fire crews have extended containment lines from Meyers along Pioneer Trail in South Lake Tahoe, which allowed authorities to lift mandatory evacuation orders for most of the city, particularly the areas near the lake, said Jaime Moore, a spokesperson for the eastern edge of the fire.
Evacuation orders remained in effect near Heavenly Mountain resort, where crews were extinguishing some hot spots and keeping an eye out for small fires that start when sparks jump containment lines. Meyers and Christmas Valley, where the flames first entered the Tahoe Basin, also remained evacuated, in part due to danger from a large number of charred trees in danger of falling, Moore said.
“When you’re looking at South Lake Tahoe itself, mostly the threat is gone, but obviously we don’t want to get complacent and say the threat is gone,” he said. “Mother Nature has been working in our favor, but things can change.”
Crews were keeping an eye on the winds, which had been light and from the west but were forecast to shift to the southwest and may pick up speed, Moore said.
Mark Ghilarducci, California Office of Emergency Services director, urged returnees to remain vigilant.
“Even though these area have been repopulated, it’s still important to remember that we have active fire in the areas. We are not out of the woods yet.”
Forty miles away on the west end of the fire, in addition to Kirkwood, the blaze was most active in the Wrights Lake area, where fire crews have to hike in or get dropped in, Polito said. Much of the area near where the fire started has had evacuation orders lifted, and residents returned over the weekend — except in the town of Grizzly Flats, which was devastated by the fire and is filled with utility crews and tree trimmers.
Despite the voracity of this year’s fires, Cal Fire’s Porter said firefighters have saved several communities from the flames: South Lake Tahoe, Meyers, Pollock Pines, Sly Park, Hayfork, Willits, Chester, Lake Almanor West, Westwood, Susanville and Janesville.
“All were protected, all are still intact,” he said. “We’ve been able to herd these fires outside and around the main community corridors. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to do that everywhere, but these are some of the large communities that have been protected.”
The Dixie Fire, which ignited July 14 and is still burning across five counties to the north of the Caldor Fire, was 59% contained on Tuesday. The Dixie Fire had grown to more than 919,000 acres — threatening to rival California’s largest wildfire, the August Complex, which consumed 1,032,648 acres last year.
Near Auburn in Placer County, evacuations were lifted Tuesday for the Bridge Fire, which was 411 acres and 50% contained after erupting Sunday under the Foresthill Bridge. The Auburn State Recreation Area remained closed.
(c)2021 the San Francisco Chronicle
Visit the San Francisco Chronicle at www.sfchronicle.com
As call volumes and the city’s population continue to increase, demands on the Minneapolis Fire Department are being amplified by fewer personnel.
September 7, 2021 – By Christina Saint Louis – Star Tribune
When Capt. Cory Martin clocks in for his 24-hour shift at the Minneapolis Fire Department’s Station 6 every other day, he expects it to be scattered with flashing fluorescent lights and tonal alarms, the programmed system that alerts firefighters of a call for service.
Located in Stevens Square, Station 6 is Minneapolis’ busiest, with an engine that responded to nearly 6,000 calls last year. There, firefighters often sleep in uniform to be ready for calls throughout the night, Martin said.
“Dinner, any sort of thing, we know that we’re going to get interrupted,” he said. “No one really expects to complete anything without getting up and going on a run.”
Calls to Station 6 have steadily increased over the past decade, with demands on the Fire Department outpacing the city’s population growth.
Minneapolis’ population increased by 12%, according to the most recent census data, while the overall demand on the Fire Department increased by 36%. The department went from responding to 33,601 calls in 2010 to 45,835 in 2020, according to MFD annual reports. The year before, the department responded to 49,602 calls.
But despite the high call volume — and the workload associated with it due to the COVID-19 pandemic — the number of firefighters in the city’s ranks dropped after the city offered a retirement incentive last year. For rank-and-file firefighters answering calls day and night, the shorthanded staffing is cause for concern.
Through it all, the number of sworn firefighters has hovered around 400, which means MFD’s engines are typically staffed with three firefighters rather than the National Fire Protection Association recommended four. The department aims for a daily staffing of at least 102 firefighters, but that goal was strained by the pandemic causing some of the remaining firefighters to take time away for virus-related isolation or leave. The exact number of how many had to do so was not immediately available.
As of last week, MFD’s staff is exactly 400 — the smallest it’s been since 2013, based on annual reports.
Fire Chief Bryan Turner said the number of firefighters is currently 19 below its authorized number, mainly because the department was unable to hold Cadet School in 2020 and 2021 because of COVID-19 restrictions.
As a result, the department is off schedule in its normal hiring process, he said.
“The department is currently in the process of putting together a new Civil Service list with the intention of hiring back to our authorized strength and conducting a Cadet School in February,” he said.
Newly hired cadets go through three to four months of training before they become city firefighters. That means a February class would not join stations until next May at the earliest.
While the Minneapolis Police Department was recently court-ordered to reach a minimum staffing level of 730 officers by next summer due to population increase and directives in the city charter, the Fire Department was not held to the same standard.
The charter is clear in stating that the City Council must fund a “a police force of at least 0.0017 employees per resident.” The section for fire service, however, is vague. ” The City Council must fund a fire department that can maintain adequate staffing,” it says.
“We are not adequately staffed,” said Mark Lakosky, president of the Local 82 firefighters’ union about MFD. “The citizens think it’s all great, we do a great job — and our members do — but [citizens] don’t know we could do better. We could be faster.”
Nothing about the actual job responsibilities gets adjusted when there are fewer people on a shift, Lakosky said. The equipment is just as heavy, the expectations when responding to a call are the same and the hose length doesn’t change.
“Everything we do doesn’t get easier because you give us less people,” he said. “It actually gets a lot more intense and a lot more taxing, physically, on firefighters.”
In addition to fires, engines respond to a range of rescue and medical emergencies. The firefighters may be called in to lift someone who is unable to move independently, scrub blood off pavement after a violent crime, or contain a natural gas leak, among other things.
One area of improvement Lakosky points to is the amount of time it takes firefighters to respond to calls. The National Fire Protection Association standard is that engines arrive at a given scene within four minutes 90% of the time. MFD has failed to reach that standard for at least the past sixteen years.
Arriving within four minutes 90% of the time is a minimum percentage, said Curt Floyd, a safety tech lead with NFPA. The hope is that departments can beat it, he said.
Still, Floyd recognizes that firefighters can face challenges when trying to arrive in that time frame, like already being out on another assignment, for example. “There are other things that they’re doing in the course of their day, and we never know when the call is going to come.”
That’s why NFPA’s standard is 90% of the time, not 100. The 2020 annual report shows that last year, stretched by the pandemic, MFD responded to fire and emergency medical service calls in “five minutes or less” only 70% of the time, the lowest in years.
And then there’s the issue of firefighter safety. Between 2019 and 2020, firefighter injuries jumped from 131 to 161. Station 6 alone has seen several injuries: a firefighter who injured his rotator cuff, another who blew out a knee and one who tore his Achilles’ tendon.
Three firefighters to an engine hasn’t always been MFD’s approach. Station 6 Chief Staffan Swanson recalled that most stations had engines staffed with four firefighters when he joined the Fire Department 30 years ago.
“Some of the slower, outlying areas had three, but certainly, all the downtown stations had four,” he said. So did Station 7, Station 5, Station 8, and everything on the North Side, Swanson said.
But as the department’s budgetary constraints tightened, that changed. Most recently, after the city instituted a hiring freeze and offered early retirement incentives to cut costs during the pandemic, the Fire Department has leaned into overtime to fill shifts. As a result, Mayor Jacob Frey’s proposed budget for 2022 allots an increase in MFD’s noncontractual overtime budget.
Tyner said he is working with Frey to find a solution to the department’s staff size.
“I am pursuing additional personnel above our current authorized strength to increase efficiency, spread out run volume in the downtown area and reduce overtime expenditures,” he said. Ultimately, “though we do staff four on the engines when the staffing is available, there is no plan to do that on a daily basis in the foreseeable future.”
Wildfires erupt in California burning acres of trees and threatening local residential areas.
August 21, 2021
The French Fire in Kern County started Wednesday, August 18, around 4:30 pm near the Wagy Flat area, southwest of Wofford Heights on the west side of Lake Isabella.
On Saturday, August 21, 2021 the French Fire west of Isabella Lake in Southern California exhibited group torching of trees and long-range spotting, but the activity slowed during the night. The blaze has burned 13,341 acres.
For Sunday firefighters were concerned about the spot fire west of Alta Sierra which is a threat for the residences in that area.
Additional spread is possible with upslope runs and long range spotting to the east.
Fire crews have confirmed that eight residences have been destroyed.
Evacuations are still in effect.
An evacuation center has been set up at the Kern River Valley Senior Center, 6405 Lake Isabella Blvd., Lake Isabella. Animal Services will assist with sheltering companion animals at the center.
An East Contra Costa Fire Protection District firefighter was treated at a hospital and released after the tanker he was driving rolled over during a fire call.
September 08, 2021 By George Kelly – Source East Bay Times
Sep. 8—OAKLEY, CA — An East Contra Costa fire district firefighter injured during his truck’s rollover Tuesday during a grass-fire response has been released from a hospital, authorities said.
Just after 1 p.m., firefighters responded to the 2400 block of East Cypress Road east of O’Hara Avenue for a reported structure fire and arrived aboard multiple trucks and engines to find two abandoned outbuildings and an estimated half-acre of trash-strewn dry grass on fire, an East Contra Costa fire battalion chief said.
About 20 minutes into the response, a water truck driven by a firefighter managed to roll onto its roof, and fellow firefighters responded by working to free him while calling for an air ambulance that was later canceled. The injured firefighter was taken by ground ambulance for treatment of minor injuries before his release Tuesday evening.https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-1&features=eyJ0ZndfZXhwZXJpbWVudHNfY29va2llX2V4cGlyYXRpb24iOnsiYnVja2V0IjoxMjA5NjAwLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X2hvcml6b25fdHdlZXRfZW1iZWRfOTU1NSI6eyJidWNrZXQiOiJodGUiLCJ2ZXJzaW9uIjpudWxsfSwidGZ3X3NwYWNlX2NhcmQiOnsiYnVja2V0Ijoib2ZmIiwidmVyc2lvbiI6bnVsbH19&frame=false&hideCard=false&hideThread=false&id=1435349273046970368&lang=en&origin=https%3A%2F%2Fmanage.firehouse.com%2Fcontent%2Fedit%2Fnews%2F21237373&sessionId=a004787b3677e1f4688cfe5a8fa69835fdbf80b3&theme=light&widgetsVersion=1890d59c%3A1627936082797&width=550px
Other firefighters, including responding Contra Costa fire district firefighters, helped to extinguish flames while a hazardous-materials crew worked to ensure minimal fuel-spill loss from the water truck, which suffered major damage and was later towed to a contracted yard. There were no other reported injuries.
The fire’s preliminary cause appeared to be grinding metal in dry grass, a battalion chief said. Oakley police also responded, and will assist East Contra Costa fire district staff in an investigation.
(c)2021 the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.)
Visit the Contra Costa Times (Walnut Creek, Calif.) at www.eastbaytimes.com
