Tight Budgets Risk Firefighters' Safety, Violates Standards

Unable to meet certain national staffing standards, some area fire chiefs are sounding the alarm.

Four firefighters should be on each truck per response call, no matter how large the municipality, according to the National Fire Protection Association's standards. But budgetary constraints mean usually only between two and three firefighters are on each truck. And that tests both efficiency and safety.

"I think we should have more people for the shear safety of the firefighters and the safety of the people," said Wilton's Fire Chief Paul Milositz. "We can put fires out more quickly and do more rescues if we have more people."

Wilton has six firefighters on duty at any given time, Milositz said. When an alarm sounds in Wilton, three pieces of equipment are dispatched with two firefighters aboard each one.

This means Wilton is staffed 37.5 percent lower than the standard recommends, Milositz said.

If there is a 'Full Alarm Assignment' such as occurred with the apartment building fire in Norwalk last month, the standards say 15 to 16 firefighters should arrive within nine minutes, 90 percent of the time. Units from across Fairfield County assisted Norwalk on that call.

The "Full Alarm Assignment" includes one incident commander, two pump operators, two firefighters on attack lines, two firefighters on backup lines, one firefighter on attack line support, one for backup line support, two firefighters for search and rescue, two firefighters for ventilation, and two firefighters as IRIC, or initial rapid intervention crew.

Milositz isn't alone. Other area chiefs agree that having one or two more personnel per truck would mean increased safety.

In Westport, only two to three firefighters are on each truck when it answers a call; never four, said Westport Fire Chief Christopher Ackley.

"It's a best practice, but if something happens we'll be held to those standards," Ackley said. "We can operate safely with three, but two is a stretch. It's unreasonable to expect a municipality to have an engine company with two firefighters."

That's precisely the situation at the Coleytown and Greens Farms stations where only two firefighters work each shift.

Under-manning engines violates national standards, and currently Westport has the lowest manning of fire apparatus in Fairfield County, Ackley said.

It also means that departments can't meet Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulations, which require two firefighters enter a scene and two remain outside as backup.

"To be honest we violate regulations all the time," Ackley said. "If there is a fire and there are only two men on the scene, they're both going to go in."

Yet it didn't have to be that way.

Earlier this year, the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved Westport for a $1.2 million SAFER Grant. The highly competitive grant is designed to help departments comply with federal occupational safety regulations. The town voted it down.

At the time Board of Finance chairwoman Helen Garten said accepting the grant would eventually cost the town millions in salaries, benefits and pensions. The grant would have allowed the department to hire eight new firefighters for two years. After that, the town would be responsible for funding their employment.

Westport was alone in being approved for the grant, but it isn't alone in not being able to comply with the recommended standards.

In Fairfield, a far larger municipality, it isn't much different.

Fairfield has two universities and 32 schools. It's firefighters are also first responders. That means every firefighter is also an emergency medical technician. Still only three firefighters are on every truck that goes out.

 "We answer 10,000 calls a year in a 32-square-mile town," said Fairfield's Fire Chief Richard Felner. "The standards recommend four to operate efficiently. Would I like four? Sure. But you do what you can."

 "Westport turning down that deal was silly," Felner said. "That's my personal opinion. Sooner or later they're going to have to put more men on the trucks. As industry, schools, shopping grows."

Neither Darien, with its three volunteer firehouses nor New Canaan meets the recommended standards.

"They try to follow the same standards as career departments," Fire Marshall Robert Buch said. "They try to ensure they leave with the same number of personnel on the apparatus as career departments."

Because of staffing shortages across departments, there is more regional cooperation. The building fire in Norwalk in mid-August highlighted that.

"The walls are down and we're working together," Ackley said. "Mutual aid is good, but I need to provide protection to the town."

And that can't happen if budgets aren't approved.

 "It's a case of balancing what the town can afford to pay," Milositz said.