Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News A Detroit firefighter battles a house fire from the roof on the 4100 block of Joe Street on the city’s west side. Staff shortages often leave large sections of the city virtually unprotected when station houses are closed.

Lack of staffing closes firehouses

Crews are idled 61 days this year

By Melvin Claxton and Charles Hurt / The Detroit News, Copyright 2000

Frequent shutdowns led Ladder 4’s crew on the southwest side to raise residents’ awareness.

he Detroit Fire Department routinely closes fire companies for hours or even days because it doesn’t have enough firefighters, leaving city neighborhoods without any immediate fire truck protection.
    And even on days when staffing levels are critically low, officials make matters worse by pulling firefighters off active duty and sending them to headquarters to do clerical work.
    The result is a fire department that was forced to close companies on 61 days this year because of low staffing, according Fire Department records obtained during a nine-month Detroit News investigation.
    Last year, fire companies were closed on 49 days.
    Few Detroit neighborhoods are unaffected. So far this year, 33 of the department’s 72 companies have had trucks parked at least once because the department didn’t have enough people to operate them. One company, Ladder 30, was closed on nine days.
    Residents and businesses affected by the closings are never informed that their fire companies are out of service, leaving them with no clue that the nearest ladder or pumper truck may be two or three times the usual distance away.
    By closing companies, fire officials force the trucks that remain in service to cover larger sections of the city. This can add minutes to the department’s response time to fires.
    Experts with the U.S. Fire Administration estimate it takes 15 to 20 minutes for the typical house fire to gut a three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot wooden home. For those in the house, the heat and poisonous smoke could prove deadly in as quickly as five minutes.
    With a time frame this tight, experts say, every second counts.
    Fire officials have repeatedly downplayed the danger the closings pose. But the threat is real.
    Department officials saw firsthand the impact of closing fire companies when fires on consecutive days in December 1998 left three children dead. Yet, they continued the practice.
    In both cases, the closest ladder truck — the department’s main vehicle for rescuing trapped potential victims — was badly needed but out of service because of low staffing.
    On the morning of Dec. 10, 1998, a fire started in the two-story house at 20317 Albany on the city’s east side. Because it was a chilly morning with light snow flurries, the children at the home played inside.
    Three-year-old Dontez Earle was with his baby sister and 10-year-old aunt on the second floor near the stairs. Arson investigators believe one of the children lit a match. The fire started near the top of the stairs, trapping Dontez on the second floor. His aunt escaped and Dontez’s mom, Stephanie Earle, rescued her baby girl.
    But when she tried to save Dontez, the stairway was engulfed in flames. A neighbor called 911 at 10:52 a.m.. Within three minutes of being dispatched the first pumper truck was on the scene.
    As firefighters battled the blaze from the first floor, Stephanie Earle remembers screaming at them to rescue her child.
    “I kept telling them my baby is trapped upstairs, please save him,” Stephanie recalls. “But they kept telling me there was nothing they could do. They had to wait for the ladder truck.”
    The first ladder truck to arrive was Ladder 18. By the time it raised its aerial, flames had gutted the second floor and Dontez, 25 days shy of his fourth birthday, was dead.
    The ladder truck, which traveled more than four miles to the fire, wasn’t the closest to the scene. Ladder 30, at Mt. Elliot and West Davison, was two miles away.
    But Ladder 30 was closed that day because of low staffing. It was one of five fire companies closed across the city that day.
    Even after the tragedy, the Fire Department closed 10 companies the next day. That day, a fire claimed the lives of two more children, and again the nearest ladder station was closed because of low staffing.
    At 1:09 a.m. on Dec. 11, less than 15 hours after the Albany blaze, firefighters were called to 2156 Pennsylvania. A fire started in an upstairs bedroom of the two-story house. Letitia Hudson and her 13-year-old son desperately tried to put the fire out. Hudson’s two other children, Porsha, 9, and year-old Ryan Burt were trapped upstairs.

Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Engine 23 responded to this fire on the city’s east side with only three men. Even after the department graduated its largest class of 90 firefighters this summer, many trucks remain understaffed.

    The nearest truck, Ladder 14, was six blocks away at Crane and Brinkett. But Ladder 14 was out of service because of low staffing.
    So dispatchers sent Ladder 19, which was more than two miles away. By the time it arrived, the two children were dead.
    Fire officials have denied the closed stations contributed to the deaths of any of the children, but concede their response time would have been quicker had the companies been open.
Dwindling ranks
    The city has so few firefighters that for 356 days last year it failed to meet the national standard of assigning at least four firefighters to each truck. In the first half of this year, the city didn’t meet this standard once, a News analysis of Fire Department daily attendance records showed.
    Still, the Fire Department continues its practice of sending firefighters to headquarters to do clerical work — even when doing so means closing fire companies. At headquarters, firefighters file papers, sort mail and act as messengers for senior fire officials — duties typically performed by civilian employees.
    The fire department needs 223 firefighters on duty each day to have at least three on each truck, the minimum below which a fire company simply can’t operate. But on the 18 days last year that staffing fell below that figure, fire officials still sent firefighters to headquarters.
    On Aug. 7, 1999, a day when there were 209 firefighters on duty — the fewest for the entire year — fire officials sent 24 firefighters to headquarters for clerical and public relations duties and closed four fire companies.
    In 1999, if the department didn’t assign firefighters to headquarters it would have had enough staff to keep every company open on all but four days, according to a News analysis of fire department assignment sheets.

Fire Commissioner Charles Wilson was appointed by Mayor Dennis Archer in January.

    On Aug. 7, 1999, a day when there were 209 firefighters on duty — the fewest for the entire year — fire officials sent 24 firefighters to headquarters for clerical and public relations duties and closed four fire companies.
    In 1999, if the department didn’t assign firefighters to headquarters it would have had enough staff to keep every company open on all but four days, according to a News analysis of fire department assignment sheets.
    Fire officials continue to use firefighters for civilian tasks even though in the past five years alone, the department has increased its civilian work force 13 percent and cut fire fighting staff by 5 percent.
    Fire officials defend their policy of using firefighters for civilian tasks. Wilson said many of the tasks require a knowledge of firefighting.
    Since 1970, the department has seen the number of uniformed firefighters fall to fewer than 1,300 from 1,824. While Detroit’s population has dropped, the number of buildings in the city — particularly arson-prone abandoned structures — hasn’t.
    And Detroit has fewer firefighters per capita than any of the nation’s 10 largest cold-weather cities, where fires are more frequent.
    What’s more, Detroit is the only major cold-weather city in America that dispatches fire trucks with only three firefighters.
    Each of the 10 largest cold-weather cities dispatch trucks with at least four firefighters each. Many of those cities, including Boston, Washington, D.C., Milwaukee and Philadelphia, dispatch trucks with five firefighters.
Pointing fingers
    Fire Department officials maintain the blame for the department’s staffing problems lies with firefighters, not management.
    The problem, they say, isn’t a lack of firefighters, but the abuse of sick leave and injury time.
    Charles Wilson, the new fire commissioner appointed in January by Mayor Dennis Archer, said he has asked the department’s doctor to review the medical leave cases to identify system abusers. He said battalion chiefs also will be expected to identify firefighters who are chronically sick or injured.
    On any given day, an average of 38 firefighters are out injured and 14 call in sick.
    Firefighters’ union officials dismiss the commissioner’s claim that firefighters worsen the department’s staffing shortage. They note that the department’s doctor determines when a firefighter is placed on injury leave. They say the department has too few firefighters.
    Department officials say that in addition to trying to curb injury and sick leave, they are addressing the staff shortage by recruiting firefighters. The fire academy graduated its largest class, adding 86 firefighters in September.
    But even with the new recruits, the department failed to have four people on all its trucks every day. And with at least 20 firefighters slated for retirement by Jan. 1, the staffing problems could get worse. Wilson said he plans to form a new class of recruits later this month to have replacements ready by spring.
Dispatcher shortages
    The shortage of staff in Detroit’s Fire Department extends beyond firefighters to other critical areas.
    In August, the department finally hired five trainees for the dispatch division, which operated for the past four years without the dispatchers it needed to monitor calls around the clock.
    The fire department was forced to spend more than $100,000 in overtime for dispatchers last year because of the shortage. This year, that figure is expected to again top $100,000.
    Because dispatchers are the nerve center of the department’s operation and coordinate which trucks are sent to which fires, keeping the division fully staffed is crucial, says Don Koch, chief of the dispatch division.
    With so many of the department’s trucks not working and alarm systems routinely down, experienced dispatchers with knowledge of the problems are critical.
    “After you have been around for a while you get to know important things that the department doesn’t necessarily tell you,” says Muirlene Jones, a former dispatcher who retired earlier this year. “Most dispatchers keep handwritten sheets of paper taped to their terminals reminding them which aerial ladders don’t work, which squads don’t have working Jaws of Life and which fire companies don’t have working alarm systems.
    “Those are the kinds of things that can mean the difference between life and death in some circumstances. It’s important to have people who know what they are doing.”
Few skilled repairmen
    The shortage of skilled civilian employees in the Fire Department extends to the repair shop, responsible for keeping the city’s fire trucks maintained and running.
    For years, the department has functioned without a fully certified welder. And it doesn’t have the number of certified mechanics it needs.
    Many of the mechanics who work on fire trucks and equipment have little formal training and learned their skills on the job.
    The workmanship of the shop’s fire truck repairs has been condemned by Underwriters Laboratories Inc., the national independent testing firm. It has triggered sanctions by the Michigan Occupational Safety and Health Administration. And it has been criticized by just about every fire truck manufacturer who supplies vehicles to the city.
    In March, Sutphen Corp., a ladder truck manufacturer near Columbus, Ohio, condemned the department for the condition of a truck sent back for repairs. The manufacturer reserved its harshest criticism for the department’s welders.
    After complaining the Fire Department used a welder who “wasn’t qualified” on the truck, the manufacturer’s letter described the repairs as “so horrible, it looked as though a 2-year-old had done it.”
    Seven months after Sutphen sent its letter, the department still doesn’t have a fully certified welder. The manufacturer’s letter was also scathing in its review of work by the department’s mechanics.
    “It appears that the maintenance department doesn’t wish to see obvious problems and address them,” the letter states. “They also like to be creative and modify things which they are not trained or authorized to do.”

Contact the reporters at churt@detnews.com and mclaxton@detnews.com.