Editor’s note: This commentary is by Josh Kirtlink, who is a firefighter/AEMT for Rescue Company No. 1 of the Burlington Fire Department.
[A]s some of you read this article there is little doubt that you are preparing to make your voice heard and vote on the many issues facing the city of Burlington. While each ballot item carries weight, we want to take a moment to provide insight into why the Infrastructure Bond is so important for your Burlington Fire Department.
Currently, the BFD responds to over 7,500 calls for service per year; that is over 20 calls per day! This call volume puts a lot of wear and tear on our fleet and the age of some of our trucks is starting to show. When we call attention to the condition of our apparatus, we speak not of the cosmetic signs of 13 years of service, but rather to the mechanical failures and weakness that manifest after 13,800 hours (or an industry equivalent of over 600,000 miles) of front line fire service work. Leaking pumps, electrical issues, aerial device issues, and lack of A/C (in Engine 2) are just the beginning. This summer the rear leaf springs on Engine 1 were so rusted and worn that one mount snapped off while the truck was on Main Street, leaving a critical piece of frontline apparatus out of service, and forcing us to borrow a spare engine from our supportive neighbors in South Burlington.
Trucks are out of service on a daily basis in Burlington. This means that the apparatus that you rely on to protect your loved ones and your property may not be there when you need them most. This means that the apparatus that we rely on to do our jobs and keep us safe may fail us, potentially preventing us from returning home to our loved ones after shift.
The oldest truck in the BFD fleet is a 2003 E-One Rescue Pumper. It is safe to say that many standards in the fire service have changed since 2003, and all of those changes are designed with safety and efficiency in mind. As two of our engines and our tower sit today, they wouldn’t meet the current NFPA standards for apparatus safety. Proper markings, SCBA retention systems, and equipment mounting systems do not meet the current national standards that are designed to protect firefighters as they respond to, and answer the call for, service.
When we call attention to the condition of our apparatus, we speak not of the cosmetic signs of 13 years of service, but rather to the mechanical failures and weakness that manifest after 13,800 hours (or an industry equivalent of over 600,000 miles) of front line fire service work.
We often get asked why five stations are needed in Burlington and the answer is truly multi-faceted. The number and placement of apparatus in Burlington is a well thought out and researched topic that provides maximum safety for Burlington residents, improves response times when you call for service, and improves the city’s ISO rating, resulting in better home insurance rates for all of those who live in the Queen City.
We also get asked if we will need a new tower truck due to the proposed height of the Burlington Town Center mall. Due to advanced fire suppression and notifications systems, the answer is no. The two items are not related.
Perhaps our chief engineer summarized all of this most succinctly in a recent open letter he published:
Hello, my name is Steven Locke and I am the Fire Chief for the Burlington Fire Department. When I came on as Chief early this year, my first priority was taking an inventory of the assets and liabilities of the Department. The Burlington Fire Department possesses many strengths, including a highly trained, dedicated and professional staff, yet there is an obvious and chronic weakness in the Department when it comes to its most vital equipment: its fire trucks and ambulances.
The Department’s trucks are used heavily on a daily basis to provide both fire and medical services to our citizens. The Department averages over 20 emergency calls each day, and our trucks are always on the move, navigating the challenging traffic terrain of Burlington’s streets. Despite careful maintenance and care, this intense usage has simply worn them out. As a result, we have at least one truck out of service on a daily basis. In fact, earlier this summer we were forced to borrow a truck from a neighboring department when two of ours were down for repairs for an extended time.
While we have a very competent group of maintenance staff at Public Works, it is difficult to balance the public safety needs of our community with such an unreliable fleet of vehicles. The typical expected useful life for fire trucks we use in Burlington, given the climate and volume of calls, is about 10 years, but Burlington has extended its use of outdated equipment beyond this useful life, resulting in the chronic out of service issues we are experiencing now.
Now that the City Council has voted to support the capital improvement plan, I wanted to be sure that voters have the background information above as well as other information to consider when evaluating the need to replace the fire department fleet. The trucks proposed to be replaced were purchased in 2003 after a successful bond vote and are now over twelve years old.
I have been asked if the Department needs a larger ladder truck because of the height of the proposed Burlington Town Center mall development. The answer is, quite simply, no. Because modern building and fire codes require robust fire suppression and escape features, we expect that a project built to current code standards will meet the needs of life safety in the event of a fire even without the use of ladder equipment. We expect that any changes to the mall will meet the requirements of the current fire code, which provides safeguards to all.
I have greatly enjoyed identifying and working together towards solutions to the challenges our Fire Department is facing, while making advances based on the many opportunities we have had in my time as Chief. If you have any questions, feel free to contact me. I can be reached at slocke@burlingtonvt.gov.
