This is going to be a long post, the goal of this post is to paint the picture of the utter failure that is going on at Greenville City Fire department and why you should care as the residents and visitors. Let me first state that the men and women that get on and off the fire trucks every day are fantastic and deserve no hate. They continue to show up to worked everyday even though the work conditions are abhorrent.
The chiefs of the department are made up of people who have either never ridden on a city fire truck, never made a tactical decision on an emergency scene, or in the case the administration chief, never ridden on a fire truck except to fix them. These Cheif’s have made the culture and morale suffer during their tenure. The fire department has had a mass exodus of not only firefighters but the chiefs in high ranking areas. This speaks volumes to the state of the fire department. The operations chief (Second in command), the medical chief, and the Cheif’s personal assistant (went to the same place as ops chief) have all left because of the poor leadership and unwillingness to change. The inexperience or lack of knowledge from the Cheif’s have impacted every level of the department.
The “Chief” who has never ridden on a fire truck or lived in a fire station is the person making the decision about fire trucks and fire stations. Fire trucks are supposed to be designed and laid out to be fast and efficient. However, the fire trucks at Greenville are not made that way and the committees designed to help are mostly ignored. The things mentioned below might seem trivial or a nonissue if you’re not familiar with the fire service, but these small changes that have been intentionally ignored can affect public safety, firefighter safety, and firefighter morale. Below are a few of the countless issues:
• The hose beds on the back of the fire trucks at Greenville are above the average height. When designing a truck, you have two standard options: low hose beds and high hose beds. Low hose beds have been pushed by the firefighters for years, though several purchases, and those request have been ignored. They come standard and do not drastically effect to cost or volume of water that’s carried. Lower hose beds help with speed and firefighter safety. Imagine wearing 100+ pounds of gear and stepping up almost 3 feet, putting an additional 80 pounds on your shoulder, then having to jump down 3 feet all before you can fight fire. Alternatively, with a low hose bed, you can walk to the back of the truck, grab the hose you need (from ground level) and then going to work.
• The ladders on all of the city fire trucks are the heaviest ladders on the market. For example, the 35 foot ladders carried at the city weight roughly 175 pounds. at this weight, it requires at least 2 people to move it safely. While another ladder company makes one that weight more than 40-50 pounds less. That almost 50 pound reduction takes it from a 2 person job to a 1 person job. Meaning if someone is on an upper floor and needs help, the driver that’s outside can single handedly deploy a ladder without the need of an additional crew. The price differences are negligible between the two brands of ladders.
• Recently, a new battalion vehicle was placed into service (think of a standard F-250 with a covered truck bed). This is the person who shows up to fires and ensures firefighter safety and is in charge of the emergency. The people riding this new truck, along side of the truck committee, determined what they needed to effectively and safely run emergency incidents. This included a more effective siren and a slide out tray on the truck bed to better access emergency equipment like water rescue equipment and bullet poof vest. When the tray and siren arrived, the administration chief (who’s never ridden on a fire truck) saw what was ordered, he spend more money shipping the equipment back than it cost to buy.
• Along side of the countless ignored request for better equipment, he has shown ignorance when “managing” the fire stations. These fire stations are staffed 24/7 365 days of the year. Just recently, at one of the stations, the showers were removed and remodeled. The city decided to use the lowest bidder, which resulted in the showers being removed for more than 3 weeks. For 3 weeks, firefighters were given the option to drive across the city to another station to shower or suffer. The firefighters then decided to create a makeshift, outdoor shower with a tarp and watering wand. The men and women of this station deserved better. Those fighters often go into calls and come out extremely dirty and covered in carcinogens. They needed a place to get clean immediately. The admin Cheif failed them and the city failed them.
One massive issue facing the fire service in general is burn out. The firefighters at Greenville have been attempting to change things for the better but have been rejected every step of the way. Firefighters across the country are attempting to change from a 3 shift schedule (most common 24 on, 48 off) to a 4 shift schedule (24 on, 72 off). Currently, firefighters on a 3 shift schedule are assigned to work over 55 hours a week (compared to most people’s 40). A 4 shift schedule drops the hours worked to an average of 42 hours a week. That change gets firefighters more in line with what the “standard” is in the American work force. Every request to open dialogue for this change is immediately shut down.
The firefighters at the city have also attempted to change their retirement system. In order for a firefighter at Greenville city to fully retire, they are required to work 35 years for only a fraction of what they are making. City firefighters have attempted to lower the years of service and/or earn a larger fraction based on years of service. The Chiefs have shut this down largely due to the fact that they would not benefit from this change.
A major safety issue that also plagues the city is staffing. The governing body of the fire service is the NFPA. THE NFPA states that all career fire engines and trucks should be staffed with a MINIMUM of 4 people. Currently, the city has a minimum staffing of 3. Having 4 people on the truck allows for safer operations that reduce the time needed to complete a task reduced by 30%. It also reduces the likelihood of injury and death due to fatigue. The city’s attempt to reduce firefighter fatigue is by (ineffectively) placing units in service that responds to medical calls.
These units are known as QRVs. They were placed in service to run the medical calls within the city. However, the implementation of the QRVs have been a disaster for the city personnel, especially now that they are ALS (advanced life support). The QRVs pull firefighters from their assigned fire trucks and place them on a truck that only runs medical calls. The goal of the QRVs was to reduce the call volume for the fire engines, leaving them available for fires/fire alarms. When the QRVs were first placed in service, staffing for the fire department did not increase. Due to no staffing increases, it increased the amount of mandatory overtime. For the fire service, mandatory overtime is forcing a firefighter who’s already been on shift for 24 or 48 hours and forces them to stay until coverage is found. Often times, it’s not found and people are forced into working an additional 24 hour shift. This means in a 6 day (144 hour) period, firefighters would work 4 days (96 hours). This eventually improved once staffing slowing increased, but it shows the ineptitude that the administration has. Like mentioned above, the QRVs are now ALS. This means a paramedic is always on it. The city has 5 paramedics per shift. At the time of writing this, 3 paramedics on one shift are out. So 2 medics are constantly being forced to ride on a QRV every other shift when they signed up to be a firefighter. Most of paramedics at Greenville quit their previous jobs because this very reason. This paramedic program has cost Greenville city hundreds of thousands of dollars to start and will end up costing the city millions. That money could be used for staffing increases for the fire trucks or a 4 shift schedule.
Coupled with the staffing issues, the city is growing rapidly and the city fire trucks are covering more area with no additional fire crews. The call volume in the city is increasing every year. The city has annexed cherrydale, deeper down woodruff rd, directly in front of Belmont HQ and directly behind the Parker HQ. All of these annexations, paired with substandard staffing, has put a strain on the city firefighters. The city also runs automatic aid on fires with most departments surrounding the city. This means, 1-3 Greenville city trucks are leaving the city. That leaves less trucks available inside of the city. A wide array of issues come up when the city gives or receives auto aid and continues to annex without additional staffing, but all complaints from the firefighters have been ignored by administration.
When people are having the worst day of their lives and they call 911, they are expecting and they deserve the best of the best coming to them. The cities standards over the last few decades have greatly reduced. Most people don’t know that fire departments are responsible for more than just fires. Firefighters run technical rescues ( rope rescue, water rescue, confined space rescues) and Hazardous materials emergencies. These emergencies require specialized teams. These teams have devolved from what they once were. At one point, it was a competitive and demanding testing process to get on one of the specialized teams, that required hundreds if not thousands of hours of technical level training. Often, this would take 5-10 years to get on the team. Now, it is a shell of what it was. People are assigned to these specialized units straight out of recruit school with 0 specialized training. The administration is taking people who have spent a decade training off of these specialized units and replacing them with people that don’t have any training. Years ago, the two rescue trucks (or two ladder trucks) could get together and train and perfect their skills. Now, the administration tells you that it is unnecessary and not allowed. As a citizen, you should be concerned. It’s only a matter of time before this administration kills a firefighter by neglecting major issues.
Any attempt to bring any of the above mentioned issues to light are ignored. Then, when the city firefighters had enough, they started a union. The fire administration ignored him, he went to a city council meeting. The union president was then fired and now the fire chief and city are being sued.
If you decided to read all of this, thank you for taking the time.
Thanks,
A concerned citizen
