**LEAD STORY**
As editor of this publication, I am asked from time-to-time: "Why don't you include more Fire/EMS articles in the daily report, or on the webpage?" The only reply that I can give is that the number of news-worthy incidents involving fire/EMS services has declined.
When I first started perusing the major news wires, about three years ago, there weren't many but there were always some stories on fires. Unfortunately, most of those stories involved a family killed in a tragic blaze. Every once in a while there may be a feature on some fire department in the U.S.
In all honesty, in the past year, those kinds of stories have all but disappeared from the news wires. Why? First, I don't believe its because of lack of interest. Hopefully, we all think that if there are no reports about a family of five being killed in a fire -- that's a good sign.
Statistics show that the number of fires in the United States has dropped dramatically in recent years. This appears the first reason and most important reason that I must give. There is just no longer a large number of incidents to report about. In Chicago, 90 percent of the phone calls to 911 are for police service. About seven (7%) percent of 911 calls are for EMS service. That leaves about three (3%) percent for fire service. Of that three percent, only a very small number are of news consequence.
The second reason that I must give, and it's unfortunate, is that the fire service, on a whole, does a poor job of promoting itself to the media. As an example, the Chicago Police Department gives a monthly news conference just to disseminate crime statistics. Why does the CPD do that? Well, they know that the reporters will go back and write a story about it. So? In the view of the police department, the more that they are mentioned in the news the better. Why? Mainly, because it helps them at budget review time. Mayors and city councils are always looking for ways to cut their budgets and city department heads must justify their budgets.
The Chicago Fire Department does not give any such news conference. In my opinion, the Fire Commissioner, himself, shys away from the media as much as possible. I'm not entirely sure why. And, Chicago is not much different from most major city fire departments. Many seem to avoid the press at almost all costs.
I don't know why the fire service does not do more to promote itself. I, as the editor of this publication, would be more than happy to help promote it. Everyday I scan a number of both local and out-of-town newspapers just looking for fire-related news .... But, folks, it's just not there.
The following article I wrote in November of 1994, to show how far back I'm going to find fire-related material. It explains how the fire service is going through a change and I think that it explains, very well, how the number of fire-related incidents has dropped in recent years. Until then ... I will search high and low for news for our friends in the fire and EMS service.
The number of serious structural fires in Boston has been halved in the last ten years, reflecting a national trend that may force the tradition-bound fire department to redefine and broaden its mission.
Boston's 1,570-member department fought fewer than two "Working" or multiple alarm fires a week last year, less than half the number of 1983. And while the department responds to more calls of service -- more than 40,000 a year -- less than 5 percent of those calls are building fires. And less than one in every 500 building fires is considered serious.
In fact, the only firefighter who died of injuries sustained in the line of duty in 1993 was a veteran department member who fell down a dimly lit staircase while checking out a defective furnace -- a call that reflects the diverse nature of the chores in which the department is involved.
Between 1980 and 1992, the number of fires in the United States dropped dramatically -- from 2.9 million to 1.9 million, according to the National Fire Protection Association's annual survey of fire departments. Fire-related deaths and injuries of both firefighters and civilians have also fallen markedly.
The number of building fires has diminished because of improved code enforcement, mandatory sprinkler and smoke alarm laws, and stepped-up fire prevention methods, experts say. Technical innovation has also provided firefighters with better equipment, enabling them to contain and extnguish fires faster.
Fire is an unpredicatable phenomenon and a certain level of firefighting readiness is considered essential and prudent, but the success of firefighters and others in reducing fires is raising fundamental questions about staffing and funding levels for fire services, which consume large portions of city budgets.
"About 15 or 20 years ago, we set a goal to reduce fires in the United States. We have been very successful, probably more successful than we ever imagined we would be," said Gary Briese, director of the International Association of Fire Chiefs.
In Boston during the first eleven months of 1993, there were 33 "Working Fires" and 49 multiple-alarm fires. Only nine of those fires went beyond two alarms. Three engines, two trucks and a rescue company -- 30 people in all -- respond to each confirmed structural fire. At each subsequent alarm, the department dispatches more equipment and firefighters.
Yet more than 80 percent of the department's $84 million budget is reserved for "fire suppression." And Fire Commissioner Martin E. Pierce, Jr says he needs 100 more firefighters to reach what he considers a level sufficient to maintain the best service to the public and optimum safety conditions for the firefighters.
Pierce, a 26-year veteran of the force, said that because so many firefighters respond to calls, they are able to contain and extinguish fires more rapidly -- an advantage in highly congested, densely populated neighborhoods.
But the fire department -- the fourth largest Boston city department after schools, Health and Hospitals and police -- has resisted change, even as other city departments have sustained major cuts to adapt to more austere economic times. The fire department budget was cut only slightly in the last fiscal year.
"It's more a question of getting the fire department to change its emphasis and content than in cutting it," said District City Councilor David Scondras, who first came to public prominence fighting arson in Boston's Symphony Road area.
Some observers argue that Boston is more vulnerable to fire and more in need of a large department than many other cities of comparable size because of its old wooden housing stock, density, topography and large population of low-income residents and immigrants -- whose poverty, customs and lifestyle are said to make them more vulnerable to accidental fires. Yet critics say the department clings to outdated practices, including the maintenance of 1264 municipal fire alarm boxes at an annual cost of $1.2 million. About one-fourth of the department's 43,401 calls during the first 11 months of 1993 were false alarms, and about a third of the false alarms came from street boxes.
Meanwhile, John DeJong, chairman of the Boston Finance Commission, a state-appointed fiscal monitoring agency, said a preliminary review of the fire department has found what appears to be an excessive number of supervisory positions.
"We have looked at other city departments and they have a triangle structure. With the Boston Fire Department, it's not a triangle, it's a rectangle," he said. He also said that contract provisions allow firefighters to collect hazardous pay even if they never leave the fire house.
At a time when Mayor Menino has said he wants to improve and streamline city services, the fire department is mentioned by many in and out of government as a prime place for realignment. As critics say, the department is taking some steps toward broadening its mission. A reveiw of its 40,000-plus calls shows the department is turning into an emergency and disaster response service. The fire department responds to myriad emergencies -- from rescues on the Charles River to automobile accidents, overlapping in some cases with the city's Emergency Medical Services.
Pierce said he wants to absorb the Emergency Medical Services fleet and staff, which now works for Health and Hospitals, and takeover the firefighting component of the Massachusetts Port Authority, which deals primarily with airport-related disasters. "We respond to anything," said Pierce. "I think we have a lot to offer."
Emergency medical services and disaster response are the jobs of the future for major urban fire departments, said the International Association's Briese. Boston's Emergency Medical Services fleet of 14 ambulances and staff of 200 responds to more than twice as many calls as the fire department each year, at a much lower cost of $10 million.
But because of the size of the Boston Fire Department and the location of fire houses in virtually every neighborhood, it is able to respond more quickly to emergency calls than any other city agency. To take advantage of this quick response time, Boston's Health and Hospitals Department has agreed to train all firefighters in the use of external defibrillators, a device that jump-starts the hearts of heart attack victims.
As Pierce sees it, "I still need people and always will."
(c) EmergencyNet News Service, 1996, All Rights Reserved.