NEW HAVEN -- The fire union is objecting to a new emergency plan by the city that includes replacing a fire vehicle with a paramedic unit at one of the city’s 10 fire houses.
Union President Frank Ricci said the department’s current deployment plan is working well and he believes changing it could affect response times to fires and emergency and other medical calls.
“We provide the best service to our residents,” Ricci said. “This will have an impact on resident safety across the board when you remove the entire balance.”
The fire union, International Association of Firefighters, Local 825, launched the “Save Your Neighborhood Fire Engine” initiative on its website Thursday and some firefighters have gone door-to-door to with petitions informing residents of their concerns.
The Fire Union’s website urges residents in large, bold letters to “Save your neighborhood fire engine.” The city’s plan could cause delays in obtaining service and decrease “your chance of survival,” the website says.
The site also urges resident to call or email Mayor Toni Harp to urge her to reject “Fontana’s plan.”
“Your neighborhood fire engine will be there in 4 minutes or less!,” the website claims, “but not for long if Deputy Emergency Manager Rick Fontana has his way!”
But Office of Emergency Management Deputy Director Rick Fontana said the information shared by the union is misleading and he defended the plan, which he said was the result of a deployment analysis worked on by the city controller, chief administrative officer, EMS supervisor, and former fire chiefs Allyn Wright and Ralph Black for several years.
“This makes the most sense for the city to ensure the entire community is protected with paramedics,” Fontana said. “We want to increase public safety and that’s what this plan does.”
The plan is to add two additional paramedic ambulances to the city’s emergency response system, but remove fire equipment in the process.
“With 75 percent of the emergency calls requiring EMS (Emergency Medical Services), and only two paramedic units currently in place, the city is not being provided more of an equal level of response,” Fontana said.
There are two paramedic units currently located in the Annex and the Hill neighborhoods. In addition to that, American Medical Response also provides ambulance services to New Haven residents, but Fontana said it’s not enough.
“The entire western part (of the city) is uncovered,” Fontana said.
The City’s stance is to minimize the use of a 750,000 fire engine on medical calls where a 90,000 paramedic unit is more appropriate.
An engine is a type of fire truck that carries water, a hose, and other equipment commonly referred to as a “fire truck” by the average citizen. Each of the city’s 10 districts has its own fire house with an engine company that is strategically placed to provide medical and fire assistance to residents in those areas.
The fire houses on Ellsworth and Whitney avenues each have an additional vehicle, called Squad 1 and Squad 2, which according to Ricci are equipped with supplies necessary to perform some levels of rescue operations and they are currently a resource for the entire city.
Under the new plan, Fontana said the Squad 2 located at Ellsworth would become the fire engine in place of the current Engine 9 company that’s already there. Squad 2 would then become a local resource for that area, while Squad 1 would cover the entire city.
Fontana justified the change by comparing New Haven to larger cities such as Brooklyn and Queens that have only one squad.
In the end the Ellsworth firehouse would have one new paramedic, a squad serving as an engine company, and a battalion chief. The Whitney Avenue firehouse would include a new paramedic, the city’s only squad vehicle, and its Engine 8 would remain there.
Ricci disputes the change. He said in 2002 the city attempted to take Engine 17, which covers the aging population in Bella Vista senior housing off Eastern Street and is the primary back-up responder for Fair Haven, out of service. In 2011 the city attempted to do the same to Engine 8, the company that responds to calls in East Rock, including the Yale Chemistry & Biology Labs, and parts of Newhallville. Ricci said fire engine usually arrives before a paramedic.
“This district protects some of the most expensive property in the city, along with some of our city’s residents that have the greatest need for service,” Ricci said. “Had this company been cut, it would have had a domino effect of overtaxing three of the busiest neighborhood engines: Downtown’s Engine 4, Dixwell’s Engine 6, and Fair Haven’s Engine 10.”
Ricci believes it would also affect the city’s Class I ISO rating, the highest rating possible, which New Haven earned in 2016. The Class I Insurance Service Office is the top insurance rating for fire agencies. ISO is an independent company servicing fire departments with risk assessment by collecting information on municipal fire-suppression efforts to formulate a classifying number, officials said at the time the city earned Class 1, the highest possible rating, while Class 10 is the lowest.
New Haven is one of 178 departments nationwide classified Class 1, of 48,632 departments belonging to the ISO ratings, officials said in June. The department’s rating was upgraded from Class 2 to Class 1. Connecticut has 234 ISO rated fire departments, with only two others classified as Class 1.
To maintain the rating, engine companies must arrive within four minutes of a call for service, 90 percent of the time.
The New Haven Fire Department responded to 25,562 alarms, more fires and emergencies than any department in the state in 2015. Fontana said most of the calls the fire department responds to are medical calls. He hopes having additional paramedics will “free up” some of the fire personnel for actual fires.
Ricci said he believes the two additional paramedics would be “in and out of Yale(-New Haven Hospital)” most of the time and they will not provide the service Fontana hopes for.
The city purchased the two new paramedic vehicles last month and is in the process of hiring 25 new certified paramedics to train them as firefighters. The new vehicles are not yet in service.
Fontana said the fire chief has the authority to redeploy fire resources, in accordance to the bargaining agreement.
The Fire Department is currently running under Acting Chief Matt Marcarelli as the mayor looks for a new permanent chief, which she is expected to do in the coming days.
“If the new fire chief decides to utilize a different strategy from what Fontana proposed to the union, the chief may do that too,” Fontana said.
The union’s campaign against the fire engine plan is not the first time friction has arisen with Fontana. The fire union recently filed a complaint against the city, citing safety and labor concerns related to Fontana, who the bargaining unit alleges has been performing the duties of Fire Department employees.
The emergency management department is separate from the city’s police and fire departments, but they sometimes collaborate to address major safety concerns.
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