Protests mark first day of fire-company closings

ABOUT 80 firefighters, union leaders and residents protested yesterday outside one of three Fire Department companies closed during its 10-hour day shift, trying to get the public to call City Council and the mayor with safety concerns.

Yesterday's launch of the city's "rolling brownouts" - a rotational schedule in which three companies are closed during the day, and three at night - "is dangerous, is mistaken and is undertaken without any regard to its impact," said Bill Gault, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

Speaking outside Engine 57, at 56th and Chestnut streets in West Philadelphia, Gault told the crowd that fire-service response times will be negatively impacted by the brownouts.

Councilwoman Jannie Blackwell told protesters that she, too, was "frightened" and that "certain things should be exempt from cuts."

Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers, Mayor Nutter and Everett Gillison, deputy mayor for public safety, said separately that the brownouts would not affect safety.

Gillison said engine and ladder companies are routinely taken out of service on a daily basis for training and school presentations, and during those times, their runs are covered by surrounding companies.

"Any claim at all by anyone, and I mean anyone, that this is [being done] on faith and is risky, is patently trying to do nothing but fearmongering in the worst sense of the word," Gillison said.

The mayor, meanwhile, said: "This is a lot of unnecessary hysteria for reasons that have nothing to do with fire safety. This is about overtime. That's what it's about."

The brownouts are expected to save the city money by shaving off $3.8 million in overtime costs.

According to the August schedule, three engine companies, including Engine 38 in Northeast Philadelphia, will be closed during the day shift. Engine 38 will remain closed at night, while another engine company and one of two affected ladder companies will be closed during the 14-hour night shift.

Engine 38 will remain closed for the next two years as a new station is being built at its site.

During shifts when a company is closed, firefighters will be redeployed to fill in for others who are out sick or on vacation, or to fill in spots left open through attrition.

Gillison said the brownout plan is not much different from what has been happening for years.

Going back almost 30 years, five companies of firefighters were sent to the Fire Academy for training or went to schools to conduct presentations almost every day, he said.

Surrounding companies covered their runs, or they would be covered on overtime, Gillison said.

Under the brownout schedule, surrounding companies would still cover a closed company's calls. The difference is that the firefighters wouldn't have to be paid overtime, he said.

Gault yesterday painted a different scenario. He said that under the previous schedule, firefighters undergoing training could rush back to their fire station if there were an emergency and that training only took about three to four hours of their shift. Now, firefighters of a closed company can't return to their station to get their equipment for an emergency, he said. They would be redeployed at another station farther away, he said.

Gillison disputed Gault's contentions, saying that firefighters couldn't rush back so fast from the Fire Academy to their neighborhoods and that accounting for travel and meal times, a training day generally took up a majority of a firefighter's day shift.

Gillison said the brownouts would continue for the next 12 months.

The August schedule is posted on the local firefighters' union's Web site, iaff22.org.

Twenty-three engine companies out of the department's 56 and two of the 27 ladder companies are involved in the rotation.

Staff writer Catherine Lucey contributed to this report.