A June 24 editorial at LangleyTimes.com made the case that the rise in property taxes for Langley Township, British Columbia came after the IAFF lobbied and convinced officials they needed to switch from on-call firefighters to a career staff for its three stations. Written by Frank Bucholtz, here’s how the editorial begins:
Langley Township taxpayers who will be paying their property taxes in the next week or so are now aware of why their taxes have gone up five per cent year after year. It is primarily to pay full-time firefighters.
That editorial prompted a letter to the editor by a citizen named Rick Manuel who says he’s “worked around, in and with fire departments” his whole career. Here are excerpts:
I used to be a fireman years ago — not a “professional firefighter” as the fire department media spin doctors like to call themselves now. It was a group of enthusiastic folks back then who most likely would have done the job for free as “hero status” and having the ability to drive the big red fire truck was pretty tempting. Hose work and training can be as complicated as one wants it to sound, but realistically its stream or fog that exits the nozzle.
Before the first responder designation was tagged on to this primary fire suppression group, it was essentially two barbeques, two sleeps and then four days off for their other jobs.
Unless one was stationed in an urban domain, there just wasn’t much to do if putting out fires was your primary duty. The addition of first responder status at pre-hospital calls has been good for the fire department’s stats (for council funding) though, and also for the International Association of Fire Fighters’ demands for more dollars.
I don’t begrudge anyone what they can get, but I’m paying for it and, when we both go to bed at night, they’re making approximately $50 an hour at the fire halls and I’m not.
The president of IAFF Local 4550, Andy Hewitson, responded to the original editorial making the case that the fire protection is worth every penny:
The editorial frames the issue of fire protection in financial terms only, which is unfair to readers. Fire protection is about saving lives, and the sheer fact is that full-time firefighters are able to arrive on scene quicker, which means a better chance of rescuing trapped people, reducing property damage or saving the life of a heart attack victim.
Even when you do consider financial implications, the truth is that full-time fire protection costs each Langley household less than a dollar a day, which is a bargain when you consider the benefits.
Also on STATter911 …
- Washington Post supports DC Fire & EMS Department shift change. Editorial board calls it ‘A shift for the better’. – December 26, 2011
- Firefighters in the dark in Kinloch, Missouri. Department can’t pay power company bill. – March 10, 2011
- More on DC’s new fire chief: WTOP Radio discovers tax problem; Kenneth Ellerbe meets the press; Fire Chief’s Wilmoth questions the appointment. – December 16, 2010
- Really? Northampton, Massachusetts firefighters file grievance after orders to salvage an elderly man’s belongings. – June 7, 2011
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Why don’t ppl understand that they get what they pay for. Volunteer firefighters have TONS of heart and a true desire to help so this is NOTHING against them. In fact my husband started as a volunteer.
For example, would you rather have an accountant that has gone to school, been trained, and certified or your next door neighbor doing your taxes?
I am a IAFF Union Wife so of course I come at this through those lenses. Yet…ppl need to think more about the “what if’s” when it comes to firefighters and less about the $.
Whether you agree with Shari or not, you can read more from her interesting perspective at 2in2outblog.com. Check it out. And thanks Shari for running the NFFF widget.
Statter
How many of today’s firefighters whine and complain about first responder medical calls and minor incidents that occur in the middle of the night? How many are not shy about letting the public see how annoyed we can be when having to deal with a “B.S.” call at 0300 hrs. (Do your job while showing a positive attitude … remember lot’s of folks nowadays don’t have any job at all while you are fortunate enough not only to have a job, you’ve got the greatest job in the world!) Sadly, there are many fire departments that have become so safety conscious that when confronted by a structure fire they are no longer able to function properly when the lives and property of the taxpayers are at risk. Many departments no longer do aggressive (well planned) Vent, Enter, Search during the early stages of a fire while trapped, unconscious victims still have a chance for survival. As a matter of fact, many videos on this site clearly show firefighters slowly plodding around immediately after arrival at working fire scenes. There seems to be no great hurry to throw ladders, get that all important first line into position and operating, etc.. This method of operation leads to many civilian deaths and burned down structures. If you really want today’s cash strapped taxpayers to consider your department to be a vital asset that they can’t live without, then I suggest that you provide the very best service that you can and at the same time you police yourselves to make sure that the media doesn’t have lot’s of firefighter provided ammo in the way of DWI’s, EEO complaints and all the other garbage that firefighters seem to manage to do to detract from the heroic image that those who came before them earned.
Thaddeus Fitzhume is dead on. I’m all for adequately staffed, well equipped, well trained fire departments. I’m all for paying firefighters well and providing them with good benefits. BUT: In return, the firefighters must be intelligent, aggressive, respectful and deserving of the title ‘America’s Bravest’.
Sheri let me get this right, according to you, you have to be paid to be educated? I guess my hundred’s and hundred’s of hours of training and 30+ years as a volunteer must have all been a waste of time.
Paychecks do not make firefighters “professional” or better. It just makes them paid.
@Bubbastump – Thanks for those hundreds of hours as a volunteer going to drills as discussing for endless hours the merits of your next BBQ fund raiser, or how your volunteer company is going to spend its penance from your city; do we get new t-shirts or new hats? which one will make us look cooler?… My educated guess is that your “hundreds of hours” is more like ten hours times ten annual drills because most volunteers never learn more than the basics. Just because you show up to drills year after year, doesn’t mean your advancing your knowledge, your just maintaining your limited skill set.
On the other hand, if you could somehow manage to show up when a call came in rather than 5-10 minutes after its been dispatched because you had to respond from home or your “paid, or professional” job, perhaps anyone who knows the difference would say your argument had merit.
The volunteer fire service should have accepted that their way of doing business was a dead end, and does not meet the current standards of what a real fire service should be, and does not serve the best interest of the public they are supposedly serving years ago. The days of fifty, sixty, or even seventy year old volunteers showing up (late) to put the wet stuff on the red stuff in an engine they have had maybe a couple of hours of training on that year are over and gone.
Why is it that we can accept the fact that we need a professional police service -and yet a job that is orders of magnitudes more dangerous and technical- we allow volunteers with limited training (and to be honest, are looking for an ego boost) to be the best that we can expect? These are the same volunteers that tout their merit as being able to do just as good a job as the paid firefighters but can never back up those claims with hard numbers or facts; IE the staffing report that just came out backs me up on this.
I for one am SO SICK of hearing how us professional firefighters don’t do any better job than you, that it makes my eyes bleed. I am a master craftsman of my trade, not some amateur that comes in for a couple hours a week to BS with my buddies and play fireman like I’m seven. I’m sorry that the industry is moving away from volunteers that have been woefully inadequate for some time, and in turn are taking away your social club and your weekly ego boost, but it’s time to face the facts.
I’m sure your current employer will understand if you want to go back to school and get a few degrees in para-medicine, fire science and public administration so you can compete against the rest of us who are ready to take on this job, and truly provide the coverage that you think you do. When you decide to take off the blinders of tradition, machismo, and egotism, and accept the fact that your way of doing emergency services is outdated and unsafe, it will be a better day for everyone.
Yea, save your tax money and just send your daughters.
http://www.fredericksburg.com/News/FLS/2010/072010/07032010/559464
Career always does it better!
The professional (paid and volunteer) firefighter has done a poor job of justifying their value over the last 20 years. I’ve experienced better customer service in the USSR in the 1980s than I’ve seen displayed by professional firefighters. I don’t expect anyone to look or behave like a petulant child while on the job. I expect everyone to be as professional and hard working as possible. It is the reason that there are “elite” units in the military, and there are those that wear the uniform and change the oil on the trucks. The professional (paid and volunteer) fire service seems to have more individuals worried about what the job can do for them (20 years and a pension, lots of time off, paid for sleeping, a chance to carry a radio and wear a “No Fear” t-shirt while picking up large women at the state fair, a chance to derive meaning for their lives that is missing from some other venue of their personal life), as opposed to asking what they can do for their town, city, nation (depending on where you work or volunteer).
Many departments had to be kicked and dragged into becoming the EMS providers for our municipalities. In my city, 15 years ago, firefighters intentionally failed their EMS certification tests so they wouldn’t have to be assigned to the box. It wasn’t about justifying our existence or being better firefighters, it was a combination of sloth, ignorance, bigotry, stupidity, and a lack of leadership that didn’t start at the top and wasn’t built from the base. I’ve seen municipal departments add EMS to their roster of assignments as a means of justifying their numbers and existence.
I am amazed by the number of professional (paid and volunteer) firefighters that manage to have a BMI higher than most of their patients. Maybe Austin FD and some paid departments in California are full of vegan, macro-biotic, triathlon running fools, there are more of us over 2 bills than under it.
I’ve seen BS training done within paid departments and in all volunteer ones. This is about the culture of the department, and the leadership, not just the guys with the white hats, but those with the red ones as well. We have paid departments in Texas that do their best each year to maim and injure as many firefighters as possible, and we have volunteer departments working just as hard to do the same. There are fewer and fewer paid firefighters that reach that 10,000 hour mark of firefighting experience that Malcolm Gladwell discussed in Outliers, because there are fewer fires to fight. When you play less games each season, you need to practice even harder, and yet most departments have not increased their training hours or the intensity with which they address skill development. By contrast, the EMS side gets better and better each year, and I’m sure there are medics on the EMS side that approach sigma six quality because of the amount of repetition.
Yep, volunteer departments are rarely sitting in the station waiting to be dispatched. But in my large municipal fire department it is the rare call that receives the 1st in unit from the closest station. The manpower isn’t there to allow that to happen, and increasingly, your second due engine and 1st due ladder are coming from farther and farther away.
I’m always amazed that there are still employers that allow their workers to respond to calls while on the clock, but I’m glad they exist. I don’t know if that is a lack of support by the employer as much as it is the changing nature of the marketplace.
Most parts of Texas do not have the tax base to support a full time paid department, we don’t have the population density that you do out east.
We are entering a period of forced austerity in the USA, and the current love affair with reducing the size of municipal budgets means that professional (paid) firefighters are likely to shrink in number. Taxpayers are going to wonder why nurses, doctors, pilots, nuclear power plant operators, members of the US military all manage to work through the night and manage to be competent at their professions, it would not shock me to see departments have smaller and wide awake night time shifts.
are dad was once a firefighter for the township of langley fire dept