[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 12 (Tuesday, February 8, 2005)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E183]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




          BOSTON GLOBE SERIES ON FIRE FIGHTER STAFFING ISSUES

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, February 8, 2005

  Mr. MARKEY. Mr. Speaker, today I am inserting in the Congressional 
Record, excerpts from an excellent series on fire safety by Bill Dedman 
that ran in the Boston Globe on January 30 and 31, 2005. The series 
investigates the overwhelming problem of shrinking resources in local 
fire departments and the resulting threats to public and fire fighter 
safety. I urge my colleagues to read the entire series on line at: 
http://www.boston.com/news/specials/fires/.
  Mr. Dedman conducted what may be the most thorough analysis of the 
many threats to public safety resulting from understaffed fire houses, 
tight municipal budgets and ever growing responsibilities. Just this 
month my staff met with mayors of towns and communities in my 
congressional district in Massachusetts who are concerned that the fire 
fighter staffing problems are reaching crisis levels. Since September 
2001, Massachusetts has lost 800 paid fire fighters by layoffs and 
attrition. We have too few fire fighters who are too thinly spread. And 
the work has essentially doubled.
  According to the National Fire Protection Administration, it is 
critical for fire fighters to arrive at a fire within 6 minutes. But 
that is not happening. The Globe series revealed that nationwide only 
35 percent of fire departments were able to reach 90 percent of 
building fires in that time. Why? As the chiefs say, ``more work, fewer 
people.''
  I would like to share the following excerpts from the Globe with my 
colleagues:

     . . . Lisa Collum was breast-feeding her baby, and her 3-
     year-old was getting ready for a playdate, when the fire 
     started in the apartment downstairs . . . The firehouse a few 
     blocks away was empty. Only three firefighters were on duty 
     to cover all 33 square miles of this seaside town, and they 
     were busy with two ambulance calls on this January evening in 
     2001. One firefighter drove back for the fire engine, then 
     hurried into the chaos at the Collums' home . . . It was 
     standing room only at the funeral . . .
       . . . Once a day on average in this country, someone dies 
     when firefighters arrive too late, an investigation of fire 
     response times by the Globe has found. America's fire 
     departments are giving fires a longer headstart, arriving 
     later each year, especially in the suburbs around Boston, 
     Atlanta and other cities, where growth is brisk but fire 
     staffing has been cut . . .
       . . . In Massachusetts, people waited 10 minutes or more 
     for firefighters to arrive at 214 building fires in 2002, the 
     last year for which data is available. Since 1990, there have 
     been 2,786 such fires, including blazes at jails, mental 
     hospitals, apartment buildings, shopping malls and private 
     homes.
       . . . The fire department budgets are not growing to keep 
     up, but shrinking. As a share of all municipal budgets across 
     the country, fire spending has slipped, from 6.1 percent in 
     fiscal 1987 to 5.7 percent in fiscal 2003, the Globe 
     calculated from the US Census Bureau's survey of governments 
     . . .
       Small-town departments are increasingly undertaking 
     aggressive interior assaults on fires. Some of these smaller 
     fire departments do not have the training, equipment, and 
     backup personnel to safely accomplish these dangerous 
     tactics,'' warned a 1998 report by the National Institute for 
     Occupational Safety and Health . . . After the Worcester fire 
     that killed six firefighters in 1999, federal investigators 
     warned of the need to have a rested crew standing by with 
     safety equipment. But fire chiefs in the Boston suburbs say 
     such a team is usually assembled only after the fire is 
     nearly out.

  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to visit the web and read this 
series more closely. We owe it to the public and to our brave fire 
fighters whose lives are on the line every day.

                          ____________________