The head of the Detroit Fire Department, ordered to cut 15% from his 2012-13 budget, is considering some novel approaches to firefighting and addressing the proliferation of vacant houses in the city.
Executive Fire Commissioner Donald Austin, who was appointed last May after retiring as an assistant chief in the Los Angeles Fire Department, said he's creating three different proposals for the mayor to consider. The department's 2011-12 budget was $183 million.
"I'll give him every penny I can without cutting people," Austin said, although he noted some positions will be lost through retirements and attrition.
Austin admits some of his proposals may be controversial.
"Name another city in the United States that lost 200,000 people in 10 years," he said. "So we're in a unique position. And I believe it takes unique approaches to deal with situations that are not the norm."
Austin said his department's biggest challenge is vacant homes, the origin of 40%-60% of fires in Detroit and a threat to nearby occupied homes.
"I believe the sooner we can get rid of these vacant homes, the better off we're going to be," he said. "One reason people are not coming back to the city is because it looks like hell."
His more controversial suggestions include:
-- Allowing vacant homes that are more than 50% ablaze when firefighters arrive to burn to the ground, as long as no lives are in jeopardy. The approach isn't feasible in high winds or other dangerous conditions, Austin said.
-- Asking the U.S. Navy's construction division -- the Seabees -- to raze 10,000 vacant and dilapidated homes.
-- Creating a demolition unit in the Fire Department, much like the Tractor Company he created in Los Angeles that cut breaks around wildfires, maintained hillside fire roads and overhauled large industrial fires. Detroit's crew would use heavy equipment to raze the remnants of newly burned buildings, he said.
"When these houses burn up and there's no value left, I can get my firefighters, with proper training, to raze that house -- get rid of it," he said.
The 1,000 members of the Detroit Fire Fighters Association, including 918 in the firefighting division, voted in March to modify their union contracts with their own proposed cuts.
The tentative agreement proposes $14.9 million in cuts in staffing and operational changes, realigning personnel from six fire stations and reducing overtime, among other things.
The changes include demoting more than 30 people in management to put more firefighters on the streets, including cutting the arson section from 16 to six investigators and cutting 12 people from fire prevention.
"We wanted to keep an emergency manager out of the city of Detroit," union President Daniel McNamara said. "We wanted to stay safe with no layoffs and protect our benefits the best we could. ... Instead of taking it out of our paychecks, we call it taking it out of our hides."
McNamara said he opposes Austin's idea of letting vacant homes burn -- unless they're on a predetermined demolition list, like what occurs in Flint. Firefighters responding to a fire are alerted if the building is on the list, which is compiled by building officials.
"If we could have that kind of communication, we wouldn't have this kind of discussion right now," McNamara said.
McNamara said the arson unit cuts were proposed with the thought that firefighters could take over some of the initial fire investigation responsibilities now held by arson unit investigators.
And he's hoping a $20-million federal grant -- the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Resources (SAFER) grant that offers $10 million in annual funding for two years -- will help prevent layoffs.
Austin said he disagrees with cutting arson investigators because responsibilities would then shift to the Detroit Police Department, which has its own budget woes. He said fire prevention should be a priority moving forward.
Meanwhile, Austin and six firefighters were headed to the Tribeca Film Festival this week for a screening of "Burn," filmed in Detroit -- and to receive a $25,000 donation to the department.
"We'll take whatever we can to try to deliver the best service we can," he said. "Hollywood could not have dreamed up the script I find myself in."
Copyright 2012 - Detroit Free Press
McClatchy-Tribune News Service
