By Robert Moran
The Philadelphia Inquirer
PHILADELPHIA — Starting Monday, Philadelphia residents might need to keep a bucket of water handy because who knows when the Fire Department will show up. At least that’s the spin from the firefighters union.
Top city officials, however, say that residents will hardly notice that fire companies are being closed, based on a temporary rotation.
The truth lies somewhere in between amid what has been a fierce city budget battle. Some response times will be slower, but the city won’t burn down.
Mayor Nutter last month balanced the city budget by cutting $47 million in spending. The Fire Department was cut by $3.8 million, and officials have scheduled temporary closings — called “rolling brownouts” — to reduce overtime costs.
Around the nation, cities that are struggling financially have resorted to brownouts, including Los Angeles, San Diego, Cincinnati, Milwaukee, and Sacramento.
A brownout in San Diego might have contributed to the choking death of a 2-year-old boy last month, news organizations there reported. Firefighters at a station one block from the boy’s home were responding to a call that would have been handled by another station that was scheduled for a brownout that day.
Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters, the city firefighters’ union, is expected to have a news conference Monday morning at one of the first companies to be closed, Engine 57 at 5559 Chestnut St., West Philadelphia.
The union plans to distribute fliers and post signs that accuse the mayor of endangering public safety for budget expediency, union spokesman Bob Bedard said.
Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers was not available for comment late Friday.
Of the department’s 56 companies, only 23 will be part of the rolling brownouts, Ayers said last week.
Though seven companies were closed permanently last year, the city experienced the fewest number of fire deaths since the 1950s, when such records were first kept.
The department has a 10-hour day shift and a 14-hour night tour, and three companies will be closed during each shift.
Two other companies will be closed during the day tour Monday: Engine 34 at 1301 N. 28th St., and Engine 38 at 4960 Longshore Ave.
Engine 34 will be reactivated Monday night. Engine 38 will remain closed and its personnel will be reassigned until a new firehouse is built. That could take up to two years. The company had to move to make way for expanding I-95.
Engine 38’s ongoing closing counts as one company per shift, so other companies will rotate through the two other slots each tour.
Throughout August, two Center City ladder companies will be closed on alternate nights: Ladder 9 at 21st and Market Streets, and Ladder 23 in Chinatown.
Ten engine companies will make up the day rotation in August. Engines 57 and 34, closed Monday, will be closed again Saturday.
“It’s a shell game,” Bill Gault, president of Local 22, said in a statement on the union’s website. “One day you’re protected, the next you’re not. If you live in Center City or Chinatown you are protected during the day but not at night. This plan makes no sense.”
Ayers said that several factors were considered when determining which fire companies to close and when: workload, the area covered, proximity to other companies that were closed last year, the capability of surrounding companies to respond.
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