Mayor: “Chief Thomas’ incident command system is a model.”
Mayor Joseph Riley is standing behind his fire chief. This is what he told reporters:
“I watched Chief Thomas the night of the fire. I have never seen better evidence of leadership in my life than Chief Thomas in control.”
“The spokespeople (referring to those speaking at Wednesday’s IAFF news conference) have not been the chiefs and they haven’t a run a fire department. And Chief Thomas’ incident command system is a model. It’s efficient.”
Fire Chief Rusty Thomas, who told The Post and Courier, “Our firefighting techniques are not going to change”, has apparently modified his stance just a little. According to WCIV-TV Thomas has also said, “I’ll never resign”. Here are some of his latest statements:
“When the final report comes out from ATF and OSHA and Sled and everything, if we look into the report and our incident command system in some way or another needs to be changed a little bit one way or the other, then we will look into changing it.”
“If we had to do it again today in the same situation our guys would do it the same way they did it.”
“If we can make improvements to make our department better that’s what we will do. It’s all about making things better.Whether it’s the buildings, whether it’s my department. And that’s what I have always been done since I have been the chief.”
These quotes were transcribed from TV coverage of Thursday’s news conference with Mayor Riley and Chief Thomas. WCIV-TV’s report is here. WCSC-TV’s report is here.
Quotes from IAFF officials and their press conference can be found here.
