Guest Opinion: Fall River Fire Department cuts are not the answer to fiscal woes

Joshua Hetzler

Posted Mar. 7, 2014

Fall River once again faces damaging changes, ones that promise to greatly compromise the safety of our citizens, as well as place at risk the firefighters sworn to protect them. Cutting Fall River Fire Department staffing to 153 will absolutely hurt this city. In no way should anyone fall under the false pretense that the department will be able to do its job properly with these numbers.

National standards will not be properly met. The SAFER grant is based on bringing the Fire Department up to the standard. The fact that we qualified for the SAFER grant means that we were not meeting the standard, and the city administration signed off on that application.

Mutual aid cannot make up for the valuable minutes needed to save the property and lives of our citizens. It is completely selfish to rely on these nearby towns to save our city at the potential risk of their own. Engines and stations will likely be shut down because of these cuts. Most citizens can only hope that their neighborhoods and families will not be victims as a result of this decision. An impact not considered by the administration is the huge cost of an injured firefighter.

This reality has been documented nationally as a consequence of the reduction of personnel. If a firefighter is injured, will we have to then lay off more personnel to cover the costs? I love my family, but as a Fall River firefighter, I now have to tell them that my life would be in more danger than ever when I go to work. It is mind-blowing that this is seen as an acceptable reality for my firefighter brothers and myself.

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