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Fire Rescue News - With retirements, layoffs looming and no overtime, Atlantic City firefighters say they're spread thin

Fire-Rescue News

AC Press

The fire chief looked around cautiously before he spoke.

Nearby, 35 firefighters were finishing work on a devastating fire that burned dozens of people out of an Atlantic City rooming house. It was about 1:30 a.m. Aug. 29.

That left only four firefighters to protect the rest of the city, he said,.....Continue Reading



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 all of them on the west side of town in Chelsea Heights.

Driving time to the far end of the city is more than 10 minutes without Saturday night traffic. The National Fire Protection Association standard calls for a response time of four minutes for the first arrival and eight minutes for a full crew.

“I don’t want to scare people,” Chief Dennis Brooks said last week. “We’re going to respond with everything we have every time we are called, and we’re going to give 100 percent.”

But the Memorial Avenue fire that burned 42 people out of their homes raises questions about department staffing, which has caused companies to close for most shifts this year as overtime was cut and 23 members retired. Another 30 members are set to be laid off Thursday.

The fire also sparked a limit on mutual aid response from the Downbeach fire departments of Longport, Margate and Ventnor, which were angered that Longport and others were called in to man empty stations without off-duty city officers being recalled to their posts.

“You’re so understaffed, it’s just ridiculous,” said Chris Emmell, vice president of the Atlantic City firefighters union, who worked the fire that night. “The city’s putting our citizens at risk.”

Business Administrator Michael Scott said the union had nine months to work out something that could have saved the 30 jobs that will be lost.

“If the union had acted in an unselfish manner, by way of either opening their contracts or making some type of preparation months ago, we would not be at this situation now,” he said of the cuts, adding that the administration is still working to possibly decrease the planned citywide layoffs — which include 63 jobs in other departments.

Closed quarters

Meanwhile, even without losing those people, Brooks has been closing fire companies when staff citywide drops below the 43 on a shift that allows the manpower for each piece of equipment in the city to be staffed according to national standards. That number for the city used to be 47, but the Ladder 3 company has been closed indefinitely.

The night of the Memorial Avenue rooming house fire, the Engine 7 company also had to close because of eight additional absences that night, the manpower sheet shows. Engines bring water to the fire, while ladder trucks do ventilation and high rescue.

“The residents have no idea this is going on,” Emmell said. “They see an engine in the firehouse and they don’t know it’s closed.”

At about 1 a.m. Aug. 29, Brooks called in help from Pleasantville, Absecon and Longport. They were not needed to fight the fire that began 90 minutes earlier. Instead, they filled the stations that were left empty. No off-duty Atlantic City firefighters were called in, a result of the chief’s decision in February to try to save money — and possibly jobs — by not allowing overtime.

The out-of-town personnel were there for more than two hours, said Longport Fire Chief Levon “Lefty” Clayton, who sent five of his 25-man, all-volunteer department into the city that morning.

But it’s not something he’ll do again, he said.

“We can’t afford to send our people to sit in their firehouses,” said Clayton, a former member of the Atlantic City Fire Department. “On that fire, they didn’t recall any of their (off-duty) personnel back, they just used on-duty personnel and had mutual aid companies in their stations. They hadn’t exhausted their resources.”

Clayton stressed that if Atlantic City needs firefighters to help them battle a blaze, he’ll send in whatever is needed. But he won’t call his volunteers away from paying jobs or much-needed sleep to sit in another municipality’s firehouse.

The paid fire departments of Ventnor and Margate agreed: Help is only coming to a fire scene, not a firehouse.

Brooks ended overtime to fill vacant spots in February in an attempt to save jobs, he has said.

Last year, the city spent about $306,260.17 on overtime for the Fire Department. This year, nearly $122,000 of the $250,000 overtime budget was spent, mainly during events such as storms and special events such as the air show.

When off-duty firefighters are called back to work, they get time and a half and are guaranteed four hours, Public Safety Director Christine Petersen said. Every recall costs the city about $15,000. Usually, mutual aid comes in until off-duty personnel can get into work.

“There’s no order not to do overtime,” Petersen said this past week. “I think Chief Brooks made a decision to be very frugal.”

Emmell said the firefighters don’t blame Brooks. Instead, they look to Mayor Lorenzo Langford.

“He’s using the chief as a pawn,” he said.

Since February, the former 267-firefighter department has seen 23 retirements. Layoff notices went out last week, holding to the same 30 layoffs already warned about due to budget cuts. None of the planned layoffs — which affect the least-senior personnel — was avoided by the retirement of higher-ranking and higher-paid officers.

Even before those take effect Thursday, short staffs have caused Ladder 3’s permanent closing, Emmell said. Most shifts have another company closed as well. With the additional loss, Emmell said two companies will permanently close, and in some instances, shifts will lose a third company.

Brooks previously said, before Ladder 3’s closing, that when staffing falls below 47 firefighters on duty, rather than allow companies to go short-staffed, certain ones close — usually two per shift — and their personnel are redistributed to other companies.

Manpower

When the blaze began in the rooming house late Aug. 28 on the 1400 block of Memorial Avenue, the closest engine was a half-mile away. Usually there would be two at Station 1, but the second was Engine 7. There were originally five men assigned to Engine 7 that night, but they were dispersed to other areas depleted by routine absences. The practice of closing companies allows each crew to meet a safer standard set by the National Institute of Standard and Technology.

A study the institute released in the spring shows tasks get done minutes faster with four- and five-man crews than with those of only two or three.

Four-person crews completed all tasks at a fire scene seven minutes faster — or nearly 30 percent — than two-person crews, and a little more than five minutes faster than crews of three, according to the study, which used a low-hazard structure fire to measure. Getting water on a fire was 16 percent faster — or nearly 1½ minutes — with four people than with two.

The sheet listing manpower for Atlantic City the night of the rooming house fire shows several members working with other companies to make up for personnel shortages even before the eight additional absences.

At 11:39 p.m. Aug. 28, Atlantic City dispatch received a call from the John Brooks Recovery Center. Smoke was coming from the rear of the rooming house at 1401 Memorial Ave.

The call brought in the first alarm at 11:41 p.m. Within two minutes, a battalion chief was on the scene, the call log shows. Also called at that time were two engine companies, a ladder company and Rescue 1, which also has a ladder. The responders came from Stations 1 and 2 — both about a half-mile from the rooming house. They all were there within five minutes of the call.

By then, the battalion chief had called in three more engines from two stations about a mile away.

That brought to about 30 the number of personnel on the scene. At 11:48 p.m., Ladder 2 was called from Station 4 at California and Atlantic avenues, a little more than a mile away.

Leaders’ updates to dispatch from the scene were constant as about 35 residents and seven children rushed from the building and firefighters worked to get the fire under control. One firefighter was hospitalized for lung damage from the smoke.

Mutual aid

At 12:50 a.m. Aug. 29, Deputy Chief Scott Evans radioed that the fire was under control. About that time, leaders realized there was just one company not on the scene: Engine 5 in Chelsea Heights. That’s when the call for mutual aid went out to fill the empty stations.

That was too long to wait, said Atlantic County Fire Marshal Whitey Swartz, who monitors radio calls. He pointed out that it can take 15 minutes for a company to get from Pleasantville over the Atlantic City Expressway.

Usually, Ventnor would have been one of those called early that morning, but work on the Dorset Avenue Bridge caused Longport to temporarily take that spot. When things switch back, Ventnor will have new rules set in place before responding to the aid call.

“We’ll come to the fire scene,” Ventnor Fire Chief Bert Sabo said. “But the city must put a page out to start a recall of their off-duty guys.

“When the fire’s over, we’re going to return to our station,” he said. “By manning (Atlantic City’s) stations, all it does is put a burden on my city. We can’t afford to pay for Atlantic City’s shortage of manpower.”

“What I think is going to happen is when they have a second-alarm fire, it’s probably going to go to a third alarm right away (which is when off-duty personnel are called in) because he doesn’t have sufficient manpower,” Sabo said.

But Sabo — whose once-45-man department decided not to replace four recent retirements — has his own budgetary struggles.

“By no means are we saying we’re not coming,” he said. “I’ve been in the place where I’ve been at a fire and I need help. That’s what mutual aid is for.”

But what it’s not for is cutting costs, the Downbeach chiefs say.

“I can’t put a financial burden on my city to help out Atlantic City,” Margate Fire Chief Anthony Tabasso said.

Margate is not on the first-call list for Atlantic City, but he and the chiefs of his neighboring municipalities are still looking to help in some way.

“We’re in the process of trying to put together as quickly as possible kind of like a Downbeach task force,” Tabasso said. “If they needed us to immediately come to a fire scene, (Margate) would send our truck with a ladder and Ventnor would send an engine, both with four people each.”

“We do want them to be calling back their own personnel at the same time,” he added. “Because when we leave, we have to do that and authorize overtime on recall.”

Pleasantville Fire Chief Bob Hoffman said his firefighters will not limit how they help.

“Whatever Atlantic City needs, they’ll get from us,” he said.

Swartz said the county is working on a new mutual aid agreement that would be signed by all the municipalities. When asked if there would be any demands that the municipality in need recall its off-duty personnel at the same time, he replied, “That would be up to the town whether they made that call.”

And Atlantic City’s Brooks would not blame neighboring municipalities if they didn’t come.

“They’re struggling as much as we are,” he said.

Contact Lynda Cohen:  609-272-7257  LCohen@pressofac.com

This story was taken from the news source stated above. It's content and comments are not necessarily the opinion of The Elwood Vol. Fire Company or it's members.

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