Category: In The News

March 22, 2023 The Greensboro, NC, Fire Department arson investigators help protect the third largest city in North Carolina.

By Victorian Simmons Source firehouse.com News

According to Zippia, roughly 12 percent of arson investigators in the United States are women. The other 88 percent who hold an arson investigator position are male. The U.S. Bureau of Statistics states that there are roughly 14,600 current paid arson investigators, meaning that there are only roughly 1,752 female fire investigators in the United States.

The Greensboro Fire Department is not only a department with a female investigator, but one that had all three of their arson investigators positions (A, B and C shifts) be female at one time. Bridget Crump, Vicky Martin and Jennifer Mann call themselves the Greensboro Charlie’s Angels.

These arson investigators protect the third largest city in North Carolina and take pride in what they do. Not only do they have a full-time apparatus dedicated to their team, but they also have an Investigation Station from where they can respond to fires all over the city. This building is fully dedicated to the investigators. The newest name for this building is the House of Shadows. When asked about where the name came from, the response is that Shadow is what they called the arson investigator in the movie “Backdraft.” Therefore, with multiple investigators, Greensboro has a House of Shadows.

Crump has been with the Greensboro Fire Department for more than 21 years. Of those 21 years, she has been an investigator for more than seven of them. She currently holds her International Certified Fire Investigator Certificate. 

Recently, Mann was promoted into a captain position and Sean Walker filled her position on the team. However, two of the three positions are still female. They now just have a Charlie to their Angels.

March 22, 2023 Webster Groves officials dumped the contract over a staffing and overtime dispute.

By Nassim Benchaabane Source St. Louis Post-Dispatch (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Mar. 21—WEBSTER GROVES — The firefighters union has sued the city of Webster Groves to try to reinstate a contract the city terminated last week amid a dispute over minimum-staffing requirements and overtime costs.

The International Association of Fire Fighters Local 2665’s petition asks a St. Louis County Circuit Court judge to immediately reinstate the contract and order the city to pay legal fees.

The Webster Groves City Council voted unanimously last week to dump the contract after accusing the union of refusing to negotiate in good faith by making counterproposals the city had already said it couldn’t meet, after more than a year of bargaining.

The contract, which covered 33 of the department’s 38 personnel, expired in June of 2022 but included a provision that the contract “shall remain in effect during good faith negotiations and shall continue to remain in full force and effect until such time as a new agreement is agreed upon.”

The city violated that provision by unilaterally declaring negotiations for a new contract were at an impasse, the union argues.

Negotiators had asked the city to keep bargaining two of 12 key terms in the city’s last offer Feb. 24, but the city declined to do so, according to the union.

“The city in effect acted as judge, jury and executioner and it does not have the legal authority to do that,” said IAFF attorney Richard Barry.

A spokeswoman for Webster Groves said on Tuesday the city had not yet been served, and would not comment on the suit.

The bargaining dispute came down to whether the city would be required to pay overtime to keep a minimum 12 firefighters per shift — they also serve as paramedics — or 10 per shift.

The 12-person minimum led to more than $580,000 in overtime costs last year — almost $325,000 over the department’s budget for overtime pay, according to city records. Mayor Laura Arnold said the city, facing a budget crunch, had to act to rein in costs and plan the year’s budget.

The union disputed the city’s budget claims and argued the city used the disagreement to dump its contract.

March 21, 2023 Officials with the Firefighters Association of the State of New York say volunteers do much more than fight fires.

By Alex Gault Source Watertown Daily Times, N.Y. (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

Mar. 20—ALBANY — New York’s volunteer firefighters are saving taxpayers more than $4 billion annually, and the state firefighters association is hoping legislators will take steps to ensure volunteer departments can continue to operate and provide those savings.

On Monday, the Firefighters Association of the State of New York released a report that aims to quantify the financial savings that volunteer firefighters and emergency medics provide to their communities. Conducted by national economic and public policy analyst company Resolution Economics, the report states that replacing every volunteer department with an all-professional one would cost more than $8 billion in one-time acquisition costs, plus another $4.7 billion annually in salaries, benefits, debt servicing and operational costs.

About 1,500 stations would need to be built or renovated to support an all-professional firefighting sector, and the report indicates that property taxes would need to rise by an average of 28.4% across New York.

“This latest economic impact report underscores the importance and value of volunteer firefighting within New York state,” FASNY president Edward Tase Jr. said during a press conference Monday in Albany. “Without the dedication and service of over 80,000 brave volunteers throughout the state, local taxpayers will face significant financial burdens to find this type of emergency response that they are accustomed to.”

Volunteer firefighters do much more than just stop structure fires, too. Mr. Tase is a firefighter in Niagara County and a member of the Niagara County and Western New York Volunteer Firemen’s Association.

“Volunteer fire service is no longer just volunteers putting wet stuff on the red stuff,” he said. “Look at the December blizzard in Western New York. The volunteer firefighters were digging people out of their homes, rescuing people on the roadside, shoveling snow, doing those rescue efforts.”

He said volunteer firefighters frequently conduct water and hazmat rescues as well. FASNY is working to increase public awareness of those rescues.

Volunteer fire departments often also have a volunteer ambulance and EMS side. Operations for volunteer EMS providers have become increasingly difficult to finance and staff in recent years, and ongoing capacity issues with hospitals across New York have made EMS calls even longer and more involved. Mr. Tase said he was glad to see that New York finally passed a law last year allowing volunteer EMS services to charge patients.

“We were the only state in the United State that couldn’t charge for revenue,” he said.

But other issues persist. In Niagara County, EMS officials are bracing for the planed June closure of Eastern Niagara Hospital in Lockport.

“A closure like that causes a lot of extra stress,” Mr. Tase said. “That closure is going to cause a lot of extra stress on a volunteer firefighter or EMS medic, because that one hour call is going to turn into a two hour call, wherever you go.”

FASNY secretary John S. D’Alessandro said that despite the frequent depictions of professional firefighters in popular culture, almost all firefighters are volunteers. In New York, there are 1,640 fire departments, with 1,549 volunteer or majority-volunteer departments and 91 career or majority-career departments as of 2020. That year there were 6,944 active career firefighters on duty compared to 81,231 volunteers.

Despite the high proportion of volunteers to professionals, Mr. D’Alessandro said New York’s volunteer firefighter stacks have dwindled significantly since 2000, when there were 180,000 volunteers in departments across New York.

Mr. D’Alessandro said he is hopeful, with the numbers out in the open for how much taxpayers save with volunteer firefighting teams, that the state legislature will be willing to provide more support to volunteer departments, and provide more incentives for young people to become volunteer firefighters.

Volunteer firefighters can’t be paid, but they do have the ability to sign up for a $200 annual state income tax credit. Mr. Tase said he’d like to see that boosted to $1,000 per person.

FASNY has also advocated for a boost to the volunteer firefighter benefit.

“It’s our workers’ compensation, and the way it stands right now, if I’m at a fire and I unfortunately fall off a ladder, the rate of compensation I would get from that program is far less than somebody who works in a factory and falls off a ladder,” Mr. D’Alessandro said. “So, we’re just asking for parity.”

March 21, 2023 If a law passes, current firefighters and those close to retirement will be allowed to obtain benefits.

By Alison Cross Source Hartford Courant (TNS) Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

In July of 2017, after celebrating his daughter’s first birthday, Westport firefighter Paul Spennato received “the worst news” of his life — a stage-two myxoid liposarcoma was eating away at his left leg.

“It tore me apart,” the now 38-year-old father of two said. “It was tough on us, mentally, financially. My wife had to stop working to help take care of me. … It was very hard and scary. I never thought in a million years that I’d be sick.”

After 25 rounds of radiation therapy, doctors surgically removed the tumor from the inside of his knee, a process that left Spennato permanently scarred by radiation burns and missing muscle tissue. But five years later, the emotional scars are what keeps Spennato up at night.

“I just have that constant fear of it coming back, of being sick,” Spennato said. “I’ve lost people, I’ve seen people sick. This is a bad thing in our line of work right now.”

Spennato is among the roughly 26,800 firefighters in Connecticut living with an elevated risk of developing cancer who would receive new protections under a proposal to establish a rebuttable presumption that a firefighter’s cancer occurred as a result of their job.

S.B. 937 would allow current firefighters and those within five years of retirement to access workers’ compensation benefits for any cancer of the brain, skin, digestive, endocrine, hematological, lymphatic, reproductive, respiratory or skeletal systems.

It would not apply to firefighters with a propensity for cancer or evidence of cancer during their entry examinations. Exemptions would also occur for those who failed to submit annual physical exams, did not wear respiratory and personal protective equipment, smoked within 15 years of the diagnoses, or have worked less than five years on the jobs.

The bill is now on the calendar for a senate vote after it was reported out of the Legislative Commissioner’s Office Thursday following an eight to three joint favorable vote of the Labor and Public Employees Committee in late February.

If it passes both chambers and becomes law, Spennato said the guarantee of benefits would ease his anxieties.

“It would help a tremendous deal. It’s very difficult to worry about your bills and how you’re going to survive and then also fight a disease that is killing you,” Spennato said. “I just want to make sure that the men and women of the state of Connecticut are taken care of, God forbid something should happen to them, and have their families be taken care of. That’s all we’re looking to do, to help those who help us.”

Support and opposition

The proposal has been disputed by insurance companies, first selectmen and municipal interest groups who fear the expansive protections for firefighters will unduly burden towns and workers’ compensation insurers.

The eight people who testified in opposition to S.B. 937 said that a rebuttable presumption shifts the burden of proof from the employee to the employer, authorizing a considerable step away from the current workers’ compensation protocol. They said that such broad protections eliminate the need for a causal connection and would allow those suffering from non-work-related cancers to access the benefits. Furthermore, they argue the new unfunded mandate provides no state assistance to the towns that could end up paying out $1 million throughout a firefighter’s lifetime in a single claim.

“This bill would significantly change existing workers’ compensation laws thereby imposing crippling costs to municipalities,” a statement submitted by multiple representatives of the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities said. “The bill also would limit a municipality’s right to defend itself and narrowly lists specific instances where a municipality would be able to rebut the presumption. CT tried rebuttable presumptions once before with heart and hypertension and found that repeal of that law was the only way to keep towns solvent.”

Opponents suggest that the state should instead focus on cancer prevention and remediation efforts, assist firefighters in purchasing life insurance, offer coverage through critical injury policies, and secure steady revenue streams for the Connecticut Firefighters Cancer Relief Fund.

The last time rebuttable presumption legislation saw substantial debate was in 2016. That year legislators passed a policy that placated both sides by establishing the state cancer relief fund to provide wage replacement benefits to firefighters diagnosed with cancer for up to two years using a one-cent surcharge on landline and mobile phone bills.

The legislation aimed to start payouts in 2019, but the Firefighters Cancer Relief Subcommittee authorized to disburse expenditures did not begin accepting and reviewing individual claims for wage replacement until September of 2022.

Peter Brown, the president of the Uniformed Professional Firefighters Association of Connecticut, said problems in the program are already evident.

“There’s been a couple of applications from our organization to that fund. I think it was a great first step, but what we found over the last eight to 10 years through national statistics and through our local experience around the state is that those benefits are significantly lacking in some of the areas that really would be beneficial to our firefighters and their families,” Brown said.

While a bill passed last year would siphon more money into the cancer relief fund by requiring municipalities to contribute $10 annually for each qualifying firefighter starting in 2024, Brown said firefighters need the entire suite of benefits workers’ compensation provides.

“It starts with wage replacement as soon as you’re out of work. It provides medical coverage for dealing with that illness for the entire duration that you’re going through treatment or beyond. It protects your job and your benefits while you’re out of work. And, if you’re unable to work, or if you succumb to the illness, it would provide you disability benefits for the rest of your life and it would provide survivor benefits for your family for the rest of their lives,” Brown said. “That’s just the high-level points. There’s probably even a few more if you dive into the statutes of workers’ comp.”

Brown and others argue that if these benefits already apply for firefighters who are injured or die in a fire, they should also be available to firefighters who contract cancer while on the job — an occurrence which Brown said is far too prevalent today.

Brown said in the last 18 months he and his colleagues lost two members of the Norwalk Fire Department to occupational cancer, 57-year-old Ralph Geter and 52-year-old Craig Saris. Both Geter and Saris continued serving the city of Norwalk until their deaths.

Brown said that Connecticut’s lack of a rebuttable presumption impacts how the two men are memorialized in the state.

“I worked alongside both of those Norwalk firefighters who battled every day with that illness — going through treatment, out sick, trying to come back to work, working through days where they’re just not feeling great — and to see them ultimately lose their battle was really difficult,” Brown said. “They received a line of duty designation and were recognized through the International Association of Fire Fighters on their memorial, but they won’t be recognized here in Connecticut for losing their lives because Connecticut doesn’t recognize that as a line of duty death.”

Similar stories echoed in the ears of legislators at a public hearing on S.B. 937. Hundreds of volunteer and career firefighters from departments across the state presented written and oral testimony in support of the bill, sharing their fears of contracting cancer on the job, their personal experiences fighting the disease, and the memories of beloved coworkers who lost their battles.

“We’re really trying to make sure that all those stories are heard because each one of them is not just a number. There’s a family behind it. There’s a firefighter behind it,” Brown said. “We’ve gotta get something done and put these protections in place. It obviously won’t bring back our firefighters, but it would provide that level of benefit and protection to their families that have to go on without them after that loss.”

‘It will always be a risk’

Cancer is a leading cause of death for firefighters. According to the International Association of Fire Fighters, nearly 75% of line-of-duty deaths in 2022 resulted from occupational cancer.

A study from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that compared to the general population, firefighters have a 9% increased risk of cancer diagnoses and a 14% increased risk of cancer-related death.

Other researchers have found that risk for certain types of cancer, such as mesothelioma and testicular cancer, are up to two times greater among firefighters.

Last year, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer took the step to classify firefighting as a “Group 1: Carcinogenic to humans” after finding “sufficient evidence” of mesothelioma and bladder cancer from occupational exposure and “limited evidence” for melanoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and colon, prostate and testicular cancers.

The statistics weigh heavily on the minds of current firefighters and prospective recruits, a factor which Brown said is likely a contributing factor to the state’s shortage of volunteer firefighters and shrinking career applicant pools.

Caitlin Clarkson Pereira, a firefighter in Fairfield, told lawmakers that on her first day on the job in 2021 she was “shocked” to see signs posted with the message: “DID YOU WASH YOUR HANDS? Washing your hands helps prevent the spread of viruses, bacteria, and carcinogens. Wash your hands after any contact with turnout gear, radios and other equipment, and both before and after using the bathroom.”

Carcinogens follow firefighters in the smoke and soot of the fires they fight, the flame retardants they spray, the diesel exhaust from the engines they drive, and the protective gear they wear. These cancer-causing chemicals enter the body through inhalation, dermal absorption and ingestion.

“We see signs like these when we arrive at work for our 24-hour shifts, hanging in our kitchens, bathrooms, offices, informing us of how to wash our hands, do our laundry, how to prevent bringing carcinogens into our living spaces, our personal vehicles, and back home to our loved ones,” Pereira said at the public hearing. “Imagine working in a space for 24 hours at a time, sometimes longer, where cancer is so typical and so common that you accept the placement of such signs as this, especially in a place you call a fire house — a place you sleep.”

In a telling moment showing how accustomed to the risk some firefighters grow, Clarkson Pereira said that she has heard colleagues casually muse that if they come down with cancer, they will climb a ladder and “fall” off so that their newly broken back or neck would qualify for disability benefits.

Clarkson Pereira urged lawmakers “to ensure we are protected when our years of protecting others finally catches up with us.”

“We swore an oath to protect perfect strangers and their families and their property, and even their pets,” she said. “You don’t take an oath to save people you’ve never met before and not care immensely about the people that you are desperate to come home to in your house after every shift.”

Daniel Wuori, the Connecticut state director of the Firefighter Cancer Support Network trains recruitment classes and local departments on the risk and prevention methods to combat occupational cancer.

As Connecticut state director of the Firefighter Cancer Support Network, Wuori is often the first man to give new recruits lessons on occupational cancer risks and prevention. He is also among the first many firefighters call after a cancer diagnosis.

In 2013, after a lump on Wuori’s chest ended up being a t-cell lymphoma, Wuori started volunteering as a mentor with the support network to help other firefighters with cancer. Today he leads the Connecticut branch of the national network, connecting firefighters with mentors in the profession who have or are currently living with cancer.

Wuori’s been there to offer a listening ear and words of support to firefighters facing the darkest and most uncertain moments of their lives, and he knows first-hand the peace of mind a rebuttable presumption for cancer would provide. He’s optimistic that this session, the protection will finally pass.

In his 40th year as a firefighter, Wuori believes cancer won’t be leaving the profession any time soon.

“I think it will always be a risk,” Wuori said, adding that firefighters need to focus on “taking care of yourself. After a fire … the important thing is cleaning right away, using the wipes that we have to wipe your face and hands, taking a shower and changing your clothes. Most firehouses now have extractors in it to wash their gear. … But the hazard’s always going to be there.”

But even when faced with physically and emotionally debilitating effects of cancer, firefighters don’t leave the profession either.

“Whether it’s a male or female firefighter, it’s that pride. Firefighters want to do their job and they want to be there to help people,” Wuori said. “That’s why I originally joined when I was 20, to help my community and the people in it.”