Fairfax Fire Department Staffing

[HayesFXFD17]

 
Hello fellow citizens and taxpayers,

As town meeting day approaches the fire department has included in its budget the hiring of a full time fire officer for the town of Fairfax.  This person would work days Monday through Friday when we are the most vulnerable with staff.  In 2011 we did have day time fire calls that went either unanswered by Fairfax Fire or incidents where no fire apparatus was able to respond due to our lack of day time support.  We understand that having one full time person will not fix all of our staffing issues during the day but this person would GUARENTE a respone and be able to provide important scene size up information and make formal requests for mutual aid from neighboring departments.  The impact of having a full time person is much deeper than just having a committed person to respond to calls it reaches into the core operations of the department with the ability to relieve some of the burden on our volunteers.  Listed below are some of the highlights that reflect the current state of our department and roster.

The term “Fire Department” has changed greatly over the years transitioning its primary focus on just fires to dealing with any issues deemed important enough for the requester to dial 911.  As a direct result of this the number of emergency responses has increased as well as the state and federal training requirements to maintain firefighter certifications.  

Requirements have a significant impact on the family lives of our firefighters, remember, that all these functions and responses are outside of their normal 40+ hour work week.  Often times both spouses are working and children have several after school or sports activities that parents attend or assist with.  The Fairfax firefighters have less and less time available to commit to the fire department activities, yet the demand for their time continues to increase.

From 2007 through 2010 the department has averaged 2760 hours per year consisting of incident responses, training, maintenance and administrative.  In 2007 the roster was at 39 members meaning each member averaged 70.77 hours per year.  Currently our current roster is 30 (with a recent recruitment drive) meaning each member (if all was equal) would average 92 hours.  

Staffing is an ongoing concern as Fairfax is a bedroom community with little to no industry meaning that our department struggles to find members whom are available during the day time hours.  

Currently 86% of our roster works out of town and those that work in town are limited as to when they can respond due to constraints and commitments in their respective places of work.

Aside from responding to calls there are countless behind the scenes activities that make the department functional.  The department meets every Tuesday evening to conduct station and fleet maintenance, business meetings, and training to maintain the required continuing education credits.  We prioritize our tasks based on the following three categories:  Items we NEED to do, SHOULD do and WANT to do.

Having full time fire officer available through the work week will greatly reduce the burdensome impact placed on our current roster.  This would allow for a well managed, streamlined organization that can as a whole focus more efforts in the SHOULD and WANT to do categories of our business.  

Thank you for your continued support of the Fairfax Fire Department in supporting our mission to protect lives, property and the environment.

Justin Hayes, CFI
Fire Chief
Fairfax Fire Dept.

[rod anode]

guarantee.........  spell check works

[gasman353]

How do other small towns manage? Also St.Albans Town who's calls far exceed ours, can do it without a full time firefighter? It seems to me mutual aid was developed to help rural departments get the coverage they need. It also seems to me that the City of St.Albans is toying with the idea of going to a volunteer force only. It took Williston years to add two full time men, they needed the "boxes" to come in. What would the cost be to the town for a full time person, not just the 40 hours but OT, call in pay, health, etc... Just asking. I'm sorry but I don't see the need and cannot justify the added cost.

[vtoutdoorguymb]

As a Fairfax resident, I feel like the bottom line here is this:

If something happens in your home during the middle of the day, wouldn't it be nice to know that someone is at the fire station instantly responding for your call for help? Even something as "simple" as a chimney fire can go from bad to very, very bad in a short amount of time. Currently, if nobody is available in town for your call, other towns must be called in to help. Since most surrounding towns are in the same situation Fairfax seems to be in with volunteer departments, you could be looking at a considerable amount of time before Cambridge or Essex makes it this far out to help you. Add to this the problem of them not living here, and therefore not knowing the area and you can tack on even more time to their response. This is just my opinion, but I would rather be safe than sorry, and having a full-timer seems like pretty cheap insurance to me. By the way, I wouldn't use St. Albans as an example of something that works, it's only a matter of time before a civilian or firefighter gets hurt or killed out there due to that situation...

[7F24]

I too believe St Albans is an accident waiting to happen (I hope it doesn't), and I've heard rumors that the Town is thinking about a full timer.  The one thing St Albans does have in it's favor is there are jobs in that city, which means there are probably people around that can respond.

[gasman353]

I do agree having an available firefighter all times is important however being a former firefighter, I know you cannot realistically run a fire scene with one man. It would be great to have them here for a scene size up but for him to do anything is impossible. He would still be left waiting for mutual aid or other department members to arrive. In my opinion it could add more time to the response time, he is dispatched, arrives on scene, then decides mutual aid is needed. I think insurance would require more than one fireman to fight a house fire. Also given the rural nature of Fairfax, water would be an issue. Even if he is able to mount an attack on the fire the 1000 gallons of water are going to go very quickly, then what? Please don't get me wrong, I think having people available for a quick response is essential but one person will not be able to handle the situation alone. Two men on duty would be more of a possibility. Mutual aid is there to use and neighboring towns are available for a quick response. Westford, Cambridge, Georgia, St.Albans, Fairfield. If during the day any type of fire is called in, the first thing central dispatch should do is call a predetermined mutual aid force. I do fully support these people, it is an amazing thing that they do and I appreciate what they do, however for their safety it is a bad idea for only one man to take on. Are there any other departments with one man on for daytime calls? How does it work for them?

[7F24]

Underhill - Jericho has one paid person.  They are extremely happy with the arrangement.  He takes care of a lot of the maintenance on equipment and buildings, record keeping, fire/building site inspections, training, and is the fire dept contact for the public during normal business hours.  Our department has 6 vehicles.  How do you think they get inspected or repaired?  One of our members gives up vacation time, or their day off, or they do it during the day before they go to work for their 8 hours.  We have a lot of very expensive equipment in our fire station that could be maintained better if we had someone with the time to do it.  It is true that 1 person would not be able to do much at a structure fire, but we don't have a lot of structure fires.  We do have quite a few car accidents.  One person could easily pull a line and protect victims and rescue personnel while waiting for assistance.
The bottom line is this, we identified a serious problem and explained it to the select board.  We also gave them a proposal on what we think could help.  The select board agreed with us and chose to enact part of our proposal.  The concern of the fire officers is that something serious could happen in town with no one available to respond, and lawyers/people would start asking "why didn't you tell us about this problem?".  Everyone knows about it now.  If it gets vetoed then it gets vetoed.  We have a dedicated group of individuals that will continue to do everything we can to keep things running.

Tom Snyder

[Margie]

I wish I could "like" Tom's post...Well said!

[gasman353]

I agree that the individuals involved with the department are very dedicated and do a great job. However I still have a hard time seeing where the justification is for a full time person. I would like to be able to read the proposal given to the selectboard to read for myself the reasoning. Is this available or could it be posted on this site? Thank you guys for what you do, I did it for 10 years and loved it, however with 3 kids and 2 jobs I could not devote the time. Time will tell where the towns people want to go with this issue.

[ohhman]

The cost is 50k a year & that's for starters as the selectboard was originally approached to add 2 full time employees but are opting for 1.  I think in these times, this should have been a line item on the ballot & not just put in the budget.  I feel something of this cost, along with all the other necessary possible increases in our budget, the voters should be having the right to chose what each feels.  As it stands now, for the voters to say no to this issue, no to the land purchase & whatever else, we need to vote the budget down.  Is it really needed?  We do have 3 capable firefighters that work @ J&L whom respond to fires, another works @ the old Morse Lumber building & there maybe others.  Times right now are tough for some people & I just don't think things like this should be added "into the budget".  The school budget is going up this year also & I see families struggling.  I agree with gasman this is why we have mutual aid.  We have a wonderful volunteer fire dept. & for now, that works well;  we are a small town that is growing, but I dispute the need/cost at this point.  So, you know what my vote is; first time in 29 years I am voting no to a town budget.  sorry & I do thank the board for all their hard work!

[Chris Santee]

The firefighter position and the Sheriff's increase to 56 hours weekly coverage are in the budget.

The land purchase/Town Office is a separate Article.

The proposal to the Selectboard was about the same as Chief wrote to begin this thread.

If you know me, you know I do not want to increase a budget now,
but your safety and the safety of the students is a top priority.

As 3plusk stated "we have a wonderful fire department"
and when Chief brings a problem to my attention, I respond.

and I'd click "Like" to Tom and Margie.

and Thank You to all who can and do respond when the tone goes off.

[gasman353]

3plusk "like"

My sentiments exactly

[mkr]

I truly have much to thank our volunteer fire department for when my house was on fire, they saved a lot for me.  This also required the Cambridge crew to come down as well, so what would have happened if none of Fairfax could have come? 

If I had to wait for someone from Essex to show up, I surely may not have had my pets alive, any of my house or my garage for that matter.

These guys are required to have trainings, maintain all the equipment, work their regular jobs, and have a family.  If hiring one person takes some of the burdon off our volunteers so they can focus on training at the meetings and not have to focus on maintenance, this saves them time. 

What happens if it is too much like, gassman said, to juggle and he no longer is a volunteer because of it.  What if many of them said, I can't fit it in anymore too.....

I am in favor of the full time person.  I hope no one has to go what I went thru, but if you do, you want them there.

Thank Fairfax Fire Dept for taking your free time and saving our homes, businesses, and families while I get to sit home and watch tv, be with my family, and know you are there if I need you!  ~ Mary Kay Raymond

[trussell]

I'd also like to comment that yes, there are a few FD members that work within Fairfax and they do generally respond to calls when they're able to- but they also have jobs that they're expected to be at.  Their employers are extremely generous to allow them to respond to calls as often as they do, but there's nothing guaranteeing that they always can or will always be able to in the future.

Budgets/expenses go up.  That's just how life is.  In the 13 years I've lived in Fairfax, I've always felt that the Select Board has keep increases (and the tax rate overall) at reasonable levels for the town budget.  When you look at the value of what we receive for what we pay out- an excellent road crew, law enforcement/fire/rescue coverage, trash removal, a decent Parks & Rec dept- you would see that residents of many other towns have much less yet pay more.

In emergency services minutes literally DO matter and before you claim that it seems hard to justify investing [more] money on a line item such as this, you should first decide whether or not you would want to wait that extra 5, 10, 15 minutes or more for mutual aid to arrive.

[HayesFXFD17]

Thank you to all for the feedback.  I have noted a couple of items that have come up between threads that I feel need some clarification or further explanation.

Cost Associated:

The correct figure of 50k was posted earlier.  This figure includes annual salary, family plan insurance premiums, retirement, social security and uniforms and is on par with the Underhill-Jericho model that we are using as a program guidance. 

Members whom work in Town:

Yes we do have members (very few) who work in town during the day.  Unfortunately they are often times not allowed to leave work due to constraints and best business practices to stay profitable.  The person noted from Morse Hardwoods is only allowed to leave for large scale events now, and J&L has a reduced employment of firefighters due to career changes leaving only 1 full time and 1 part time person.  Due to lean practices all business are running at minim staff to remain competitive often times not allowing for our members to respond to the “smaller in nature” calls such as motor vehicle accidents, alarms, carbon monoxide and public service.  Both business noted have been excellent supporters of the department and allowing members to respond but are making managerial choices that do impact our department.

Mutual Aid:

The board of Fairfax Fire Officers did their due diligence by investigating  potential options before deterring that the possibility of a full time person was the most viable.  We spoke with area departments and chiefs asking their thoughts and many of the noted issues below were conversed:

Mutual aid is a great resource that should not be overused or abused.  If we suddenly began relying on  automatic aid request for all of our day time calls how quickly would this go from a great thing to one that is beginning to burden our neighboring towns?  We would not only be adding to their existing call volume, but also placing extra burden to their existing volunteers - The same boat we are in now here in Fairfax.

Lets shift the vantage point slightly and pretend Fairfax Fire begins going automatically during the day to Cambridge for all of their calls.  How much extra wear and tear on our vehicles, members, added maintenance, increase payroll excreta would it take before our select board began questioning these actions?  Remember those departments entered into the mutual aid agreement can not bill for their services!!

We don’t have to look far to see this playing out.  Westford Fire whom only runs a fraction of the total calls we do, relies on Essex for automatic aid for all calls day or night.  As of recent Essex has begun reevaluating how they choose to respond for the exact mentioned reason above. 

The Job:

The volunteer fire service has changed dramatically over the past decade and there is no slow down in sight as far call volumes and demand are concerned.  Please keep in mind the proposed position roots  much deeper than just responding to calls.  Citizens see us respond and see us return - that is it.  What is not seen are the countless hours of behind the scenes work that goes into keeping the department a viable resource for the community. 

Justin Hayes, CFI
Fire Chief
Fairfax Fire Dept.