Guest Opinion: Don’t let Flanagan’s FRFD ‘solution’ endanger public safety more

Joshua Hetzler

Posted Apr. 2, 2014

I would like to clear up a few misconceptions that a number of people have in reference to Fall River Fire Department staffing levels and the proposed layoffs. If the layoffs occur, our city will not meet the National Fire Protection Associations standards for fire protection, and our citizens will be at a greater risk than they are today. The answer that the city’s administration and some citizens are proposing to solve this problem is irresponsible.

That would fund only 153 out of the current 213 firefighter positions that are filled. To make up for the reduction in manpower and attempt to meet those NFPA standards, they plan on training all the paramedics in our Fire Department’s Emergency Medical Services division as firefighters and taking some of the firefighters in Fall River’s Fire Prevention Bureau and putting them on a fire truck so they can respond to fires. Neither one of these options is possible.

First of all, making the paramedics become firefighters will not add one firefighter to the department. That newly trained paramedic/firefighter will almost never get a chance to practice their skills because the paramedics in Fall River are busy all day. It is very rare that they are not on a call.

The paramedics are so busy that the city asks for mutual aid from surrounding departments almost daily to help save the lives of those in Fall River. So taking these paramedics and making them firefighters solves nothing. It only adds to compromising our public safety and would increase our request for mutual aid from surrounding towns, leaving their citizens at risk.

 

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