Firefighters in Southington continue to sound the alarm about staffing issues in the department, amid talks to cut more staff and potentially close a fire station temporarily.
While no official decisions have been made yet, members of Southington Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 2033 fear what could happen in the new year.
A meeting is scheduled for Jan. 2, with the Board of Fire Commissioners, the fire chief, and town leaders.
“Even with our full staffing, which is 10 during the day, we can drop to nine during the day, seven, six at night,” Capt. Daniel Comen said. “Cutting any more than we have is just unconscionable.”
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The issues came to the forefront after a house fire the day after Christmas, when Comen and Lt. Ryan Pulver responded to the Howard Avenue home and became disoriented amid the smoke and flames.
“All the signs were there that it was about to get really bad,” Comen said. “Things weren’t going right, and we were making the decision to pull out, and reassess where we were gonna make entry on this fire, and that’s when crews got separated and disoriented and that’s when the mayday occurred.”
They issued a mayday call, and luckily were able to safely escape.
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“Had we been at minimum staffing, my crew would have had one less firefighter, which would have put us at grave risk,” Pulver said.
The union said the town’s cost-cutting measures could result in Company 3 closing, a station that’s already unmanned after 3 p.m.
“Until 3 o’clock this station is staffed and then these guys go home and we drop down to the staffing in the center and north end of town, essentially this entire area of town after 3 o’clock is not protected,” Comen said. “Closing this station, closing a headquarters station, all it’s gonna do is increase response times which makes fires dramatically worse and larger, and endangers whoever’s possibly trapped inside and creates more property loss.”
In a letter to residents, the chairman of the town council said he worked to address the concerns immediately after Thursday’s fire.
“As a result of the recent structure fires, last night I contacted the Chairman of the Fire Commission to discuss the scenarios, and the concerns raised publicly by some Southington firefighters,” Chairman Paul Chaplinsky, Jr. wrote.
He pointed to previous action the council has taken to address challenges in the fire department, and outlined that there are 37 paid firefighters in town, compared to 31 ten years ago.
Councilman Jack Perry sent a letter to the chairman on Friday calling for an immediate meeting, saying there are other options to cut costs without compromising safety.
“Safety is a number one priority in our community, and we need to keep our community safe, and there’s never a price tag in my opinion on keeping the community safe,” Perry said.
