Sacramento PIO writes to STATter 911 about “brown-outs”

As many of you know I am a strong believer in responding to allegations made about me in our comments section or elsewhere on the Internet. It isn’t that I have thin skin. My reasoning is, in our electronic age, someone will Google me and read that I am anti-volunteer or anti-career or a racist or just plain ugly (probably true). If I don’t try and set the record straight and leave it unchallenged, that’s the perception the Googler might be left with of the Googlee (me).

Apparently the PIO for the Sacramento Fire Department, Capt. Jim Doucette, has a somewhat similar philosophy. We have been running the story of his department’s efforts to deal with “brown-outs”, the rotating closures of fire companies. Click here and here to see our stories.

One of the comments about our coverage came from someone identified only as 2020. This writer was quite critical of Capt. Doucette’s response about the first of two fires over a three-day period where the first-due company was closed.

Capt. Doucette responded today in the comments section of the original story. I thought what he wrote should be seen by a wider audience. Here it is:

This is in response to 2020’s comment. I am the PIO for Sacramento FD and I do not typically respond to comments , however in this case it seems like 2020 is a credible person who deserves to hear from me. I did say, “I had no idea if we would have lost one or two homes if Engine 20 would have been available”. I said that right after I arrived on scene and it was one of the first interviews I did. In fact I didn’t know at the time, but both houses were burning when our first crews arrived. As the PIO I am supposed to speak the “company line”, although for me sometimes it is hard. I am also lucky that our current administration does not want me to “sugar coat” anything, they want me to tell the truth, nothing more, nothing less. There isn’t a person in our department from the Chief all the way down that supports these brownouts. We all know that we are taking a huge risk and we are not happy about it. The SFD has been upfront with the public, City Management, and the City Council about what can happen with these brownouts, and now what the Chief and others have been saying is coming true. The Sacramento FD is an extremely busy Fire Department, and any company closure can and will affect all of us. In fact when these budget cuts first came about, our Chief told the City Council that he should not be talking to them about “closing companies’ he should be asking them for more companies and more fire houses. Hopefully someday soon, the Sacramento FD will be brought up to standards, and these brownouts will be a thing of the past.

Below is the original comment by 2020:

“It did throw us a little behind,” Doucette said. “Whenever that happens, the rescue company has to go into a completely separate mode.”

Doucette said Engine 17 arrived seven minutes after the initial fire call, just over the department’s preferred five-minute response time to emergency calls.

As for whether an on-duty Engine 20 would have made a difference or been able to save any portion of the burned homes, Doucette said simply, “I have no idea.”

You simply have no idea?

Capt. Doucette, you mean to tell me that in all of your years of firefighting experience, you have “no idea” if an extra two minutes would have made a difference in the effectiveness of firefighting operations, had that first due engine company been in service?

Ridiculous! Just keep spitting out the company line, and drinking the Kool-Aid. I wonder if it’s the same flavor that the upper brass of the D.C.F.D. have been consuming?