“Is there such a thing as too many heroes?”
That’s the lead to a story that ran in the Boston Globe last week by columnist Leon Neyfakh, who composed an intriguing piece regarding the state of the fire service in Boston and around the nation as a whole.
The story, titled “Plenty of firefighters, but where are the fires?” raises a number of valid points regarding the current state of the fire service and whether or not it’s time to readjust or completely alter the way we utilized fire departments in the United States.
Much of the story revolves around the idea that in the last forty years, the number of major fires in the city of Boston has dropped dramatically—nearly 90% since 1975, to be exact. In that same time period, however, the Boston Fire Department has seen a reduction in staff by only around 200 firefighters, or roughly 12% of the department staffing.
In many cities around the country, the fire departments are a major expense in each city’s annual operating budget. In Boston, the fire department accounts for 7.5 percent of the city’s $2.47 billion budget. This has led many in the city, including Neyfakh, to question the necessity for the size of the Boston FD’s staffing and equipment pools.
One point that Neyfakh mentions is that unlike many major U.S. cities such as Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, Los Angeles, and others, Boston’s fire department has yet to take over emergency medical service responsibilities, and two separate city-run entities run a variety of the same calls together.
Neyfakh certainly makes several interesting points in the column, and I urge you all to read the story for yourself on the Boston Globe’s website.
Times are certainly changing in the fire service, and these changes needed to embraced. The reality is, the number of fires have dramatically decreased in the last 30 years, and departments are seeing a shift to more motor vehicle accident and EMS calls.
In order for the fire service to continue to exist, they need to accept the fact that their role in their community may be changing, and that their job necessitates more of providing oxygen and administering CPR and less of busting windows and dragging hose.
However, the writer of this article, as well as politicians around the country, also seem to lack the understanding that whether a fire department is responding to 300 large fires a year or two, there still needs to be a specially-trained force of firefighters that have the knowledge, training, and manpower to combat those fires and to have the ability to save lives and property.
We saw a prime example of this last week in Seaside, where hundreds of trained personnel battled one of the biggest fires in New Jersey history that claimed several blocks and a large portion of boardwalk on the island.
Municipalities across the nation are all about cutting down staffing and resources to the fire departments, but as soon as a building burns to the ground, or a life is lost, politicians and the taxpayers as a whole are the first groups to go up in arms and question the actions of the fire department.
The fire service has done a great job in combatting the issue of fire—one that used to burn down entire American cities in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but eliminating the funds and positions that are able to combat those fires is a step in the wrong direction.
You can look at the City of Detroit as a modern day example—a city that’s constantly burning to the ground due to the extreme cuts made to the city’s fire service, resulting in a lack of necessary resources to combat what initially begin as routine fires and quickly grow to something much more.
A change of mindset needs to be made on both sides of the argument in order to put the best interests of the public ahead of political motivations and preservation of conditions, and the sooner municipalities and departments begin to accept the changing times and adapt, the better they’ll be able to serve and protect. Stay safe.
Knoll, 21, of Eldora, can be contacted by email at beyondtheflames@cmc @gmail.com. He is a student at Rowan University.
Avalon – Eighty percent of working-age Americans have jobs, and the average after-tax income is up almost $4,000 since before the pandemic, significantly outpacing inflation.
