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WILKES-BARRE — On average the city fire department responded to approximately 34 calls every day last year and few of them involved smoke and flames.
Out of the 12,361 calls listed in the department’s 2018 annual report 111 were fires. The majority of the dispatches involved medical emergencies that required sending an ambulance and fire apparatus to the scene.
The total followed an upward path over the past five years and a bare bones staff of firefighters carried the workload.
The department’s roster posting for 2018 contained 51 firefighters with six open spots, compared to 67 and two from the previous year. The number of paramedics stayed the same at eight.
Mayor Tony George acknowledged there were fewer firefighters. But, he added, that’s been the case with other departments too – City Hall is down five or six people and the police department has open positions.
“Actually, the whole city is doing more with less,” George said Tuesday.
The work is getting done and the fire department’s report backs him up, the mayor noted.
“This shows even with the decrease in firefighters, we’re still responding,” George said. “They might have to work a little harder, but everybody is.”
Relief should be coming soon in the form of new hires. However, George warned it won’t be as much as the 100 firefighters the union wants on the roster. The mayor has held off on filling the spots until after the binding arbitration with the Wilkes-Barre Firefighters Local 104 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
Fire Chief Jay Delaney deferred comments on department staffing to the mayor.
Nonetheless, Delaney lauded the professionalism of the department and said it’s reflected in the report.
Fighting fires is a small part of what the department does. Delaney described it as “all hazards department” that on any given day the firefighters and paramedics could be dealing with a motor vehicle accident, a water rescue on the Susquehanna River or administering the opioid overdose reversal drug naloxone to someone.
“There’s nothing different when it comes to saving a life,” Delaney said. “We’re in the business of saving lives. It takes manpower. It takes equipment. It takes training and financing to get the job down.”
As the mayor continued to delay hirings, the number of vacancies rose to 17, firefighters’s union president Capt. Mike Bilski pointed out. One firefighter recently left to work in Bethlehem, he said.
Even though the mayor likes to say there are 11 firefighters on duty at all time, meeting the minimum staffing level often means overtime shifts, Bilski said.
“Last week I worked 60 hours,” Bilski said.
The department is budgeted 63 firefighters this year, a reduction of seven from 2018. Filling the overtime shifts isn’t a problem. But, Bilski explained, overtime affects emergencies, such as the two fires last week when off-duty firefighters were called out.
“The problem was finding guys that aren’t (on overtime),” Bilski said.
Operating under the current staffing level for the long term isn’t sustainable, Bilski said. The pay is good, but the men are tired, he said.
The overtime was tripled in this year’s budget to $150,000 from $50,000.
Among the figures in the report were:
• 4,365 Fire calls.
• 7,996 Emergency Medical Service calls.
• 111 fires.
• 651 false alarms.
• 19 severe weather and natural disaster calls.
• 6,340 people treated and transported by EMS.
• 311 doses of naloxone, also known as Narcan, administered.
• One of 11 departments in Pennsylvania with a Public Protection Classification Class 2 rating. Class 1 represents superior property protection. Class 10, on the other hand, indicates the minimum criteria are not met. Insurance companies use the ratings to establish fair premiums for fire insurance.