Claim Firefighters Busier Than Ever;

Cite Total Responses
Claim Firefighters Busier Than Ever


A significant drop in false alarms in recent years has spurred renewed claims from fire unions that overall workload for firefighters is increasing even as the number of fires citywide declines.

PETER L. GORMAN: Numbers justify restorations. According to Fire Department statistics, malicious alarms - calls that report a false fire or emergency incident - accounted for 262,998 out of 459,567 total incidents in 1977, the year that's generally accepted as the benchmark for all-time FDNY productivity.

Far More Legit Calls

Discounting the number of alarms that turned out to be insignificant, the fire unions contend, means firefighters in 1977 responded to 196,569 incidents, 50,941 of them structural fires.

In contrast, the unions say, firefighters in 2005 responded to 32,138 false alarms and 485,702 total incidents, leaving their final workload tally at 453,564. The fact that only 28,455 were structural fires shouldn't obscure the significant increase in demand, union leaders have argued.

FDNY officials have questioned those assertions, noting that today's statistics include medical emergencies, which comprise about 40 percent of all calls. The FDNY maintains that workloads across the years can't be compared by numbers alone, since the nature of the job has shifted away from predominantly fighting fires to include other types of emergency response.

Recent FDNY statistics bear out the statements from both sides. Fire-related emergencies have been on a general downward trend since 1978, with a few minor spikes. Total incidents were declining during the 1980s, but jumped significantly when the Emergency Medical Service Bureau was folded into the department in 1995. After nearly 10 years of steady increase, those numbers leveled off and began a gradual descent in 2000, dipping as low as 426,542 in 2002.

Rising Since Closings

In 2003, the year that Mayor Bloomberg shuttered six engine companies to cope with budget shortfalls, total incidents began to climb again.

The Uniformed Fire Officers' Association had believed the workload in 2006 would exceed the record set in 2005, but the final numbers fell just shy.

In a letter dated Jan. 16 to Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta, UFOA President Peter L. Gorman took issue with the methodology used to arrive at 484,954 for a total incident tally in 2006.

That's just 748 fewer incidents than the high set in 2005, Mr. Gorman noted.

He added that he was "puzzled" by the sharp drop in responses to Non-Fire Emergencies that FDNY statistics showed in the last quarter of the year.

"Compared to October, November and December of 2005, the statistics show 5,613 fewer incidents in 2006, of which 5,364 (95 percent of the total) were from the Non-Fire Emergency category" he observed in his letter. "If there has been a change in the methodology for counting Non-Fire Emergencies, please instruct the Statistics Bureau to advise the UFOA of any changes in protocol."

'Reopen Companies'

Mr. Gorman, like his Uniformed Firefighters' Association counterpart Stephen J. Cassidy, argued that Mayor Bloomberg should reopen the six closed companies to better enable the FDNY to handle the surge in workload.

"The UFOA wishes to go on record once again that it is time to rethink the May 2003 decision to eliminate six engine companies," Mr. Gorman said. "The FDNY is answering 13-percent more calls for help than it did in 2002, the last full year before the company closings."

Several of the closed firehouses have already been transferred from the FDNY to the Department of Citywide Administrative Services in preparation of their disposal, however. UFA Brooklyn Trustee John Kelly, speaking at a public hearing Jan. 23 chaired by Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz, told community members that the union strongly opposed the city's plan to sell several defunct firehouses, including two in the growing area of Williamsburg.

A Booming Business

"In 1956, total firefighter emergency responses in the borough of Brooklyn were 20,466. Fifty years later, in 2006, that volume of emergency calls to our firefighters has increased a staggering 700 percent, to 138,683 firefighter emergency calls," Mr. Kelly told the room. "During that same period of time, the total number of engine companies serving the people of Brooklyn decreased by nine, including the four taken away from you in May 2003."

FDNY officials declined to respond to the UFA figures.