Burning Down The House

Ask any group of elementary-school aged boys what they’d like to be when they grow up, and a number of them will respond: firefighter.

Society at large has had a love affair with the profession since its inception, and for good reason: firefighters are the very embodiment of the phrase ‘public servant’. They respond to disastrous emergencies, often at great personal peril, with the selfless bravery, guts and fortitude we all wish we possessed.

We point, with great pride, to the heroic actions of the firefighters in New York on September 11; at the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, and Center City Philadelphia’s Meridian Plaza inferno in 1991.

They are our heroes, and we have a natural tendency to stick up for them. Even folks who traditionally have nothing nice to say about the police would never bad mouth the fire department.

This could explain why you didn’t hear much of a public fuss last week when an arbitration panel awarded city firefighters a four-year contract award which includes three percent annual raises for the next three years. The firefighters’ contract could cost Philadelphians an estimated $146 million over the next five years, including nearly $80 million in health-care costs.

With the city facing economic meltdown, and many departments forced to cut services, salaries and personnel; the firefighter’s contract seems like a fat one, and Mayor Michael Nutter has said he will appeal the arbitrators’ decision.

The Philadelphia Fire Department employs about 2,100 uniformed officers and 110 civilian employees, who responded to 221,000 emergency medical calls and 48,000 fire calls last year. Also in 2009, the 30 people who perished in city fires represented the lowest in history, down from 39 in 2008, and well below the 52 deaths in both 2005 and 2006.

Facing a $1 billion budget deficit, the Nutter administration closed seven fire companies last year, and then instituted the controversial “rolling brownouts” – rotating temporary closings of selected fire stations, in an effort to save an additional $3.8 million in overtime.

Administration officials say the 56 engine companies and 27 ladder companies remaining are still too many, since the city’s population has decreased there are fewer fires, and improved firefighting techniques which make the department more efficient.

That’s a hard sell with residents who watch their homes and belongings burned to cinders, and with neighborhoods left with fire-scarred rowhouses. It is, as you can imagine, an especially hard sell with the firefighters themselves, who point anecdotally to houses and victims who may have been saved but for a rolling brownout that day at their neighborhood fire house.

To its credit, the city has joined with fire officials who called for an independent, state-run study and assessment of Philadelphia’s fire department. Everything from work rules to deployment strategies to management structure would be evaluated in light of the city’s needs, population, and budget restraints.

The key word here, of course, is independent – since firefighters are suspicious of city bean counters putting dollars ahead of public safety, and city officials fear unions will circle the wagons around their members, no matter the burden on taxpayers. Both sides have more than enough evidence to back up those suspicions.

Having spent many years as a newspaper reporter, I’ve covered my share of fires. Even in those fires that don’t result in bodily injury or fatality, the sense of loss is overwhelming. Sometimes, in an attempt to be encouraging, you’ll hear someone say about the loss of property, “Well, that’s just material things, and material things can be replaced.”

Having witnessed it so many times, I respectfully disagree.

A fire doesn’t just destroy easily replaceable items like television sets and clothing. Far too many items destroyed by fire can never be replaced, at any price. Photos of dead grandparents, college graduations and baby’s first steps; precious heirlooms passed from parent to child – everything from the family Bible to those ticket stubs from the World Series – all gone.

To walk through a home after a fire is a sad, sobering event – even for a supposedly objective news reporter. It is impossible to do so without wondering if the affected family will ever be whole again. A home is far more than the sum total of material possessions inside.

No one doubts the commitment of firefighters, or questions their worth. Even at twice their salary they’d still be underpaid, and we’re lucky to have every last one of them.

But when times are tough, everything has to be put on the table. Even our heroes.