Two or Three Minutes

by Mike Newall

Last Monday afternoon, 500 firefighters shuffled off from their union hall near Spring Garden Street, processed down Fourth and then up Market toward City Hall. They marched in opposition to Mayor Nutter's proposed closing of seven fire companies. Some men carried homemade coffins on their shoulders while others waved placards bearing an image of Nutter as the devil, and the words, "Burn Nutter Burn."

"There will be blood," yelled the protesters.

Construction workers put down their tools and cheered along.

As emotional and over-the-top as the proceedings were, there was also a sense of resignation. The attendance itself was telling. Barely a third of the roughly 1,500 firefighters not working the afternoon shift attended. Union plumbers and electricians there in support almost outnumbered firemen.

"There's a sense of apathy," said firefighter Ray Clothier with a shrug. "A feeling nothing can be done now anyways."

Indeed, the company closings, set to take effect Jan. 5, have received less attention from an overwhelmed public than library and pool closings. Partly that's because Philadelphia could probably safely absorb the loss of one or two fire companies. But not seven — and not this way. The mayor's cuts are haphazard, dangerous and justified by a flawed internal fire department study.

There was supposed to be an independent study. As part of a 2005 arbitration hearing, the firefighters' union won the right for an independent impact study reviewing possible service cuts. The city appealed and lost. It then appealed again, and won, and now the case is before the State Supreme Court, unlikely to be decided before next month's closings. (Union attorney Rick Poulson filed a motion last week, asking the court to postpone the cuts until the study matter is settled.)

Meanwhile, Commissioner Lloyd Ayers released his own study of the department's resources. It reads like a political document, a strained defense of the mayor's budget agenda rather than an honest accounting of fire department service. The response times the report used to justify closings were calculated by an outdated computer program, rather than with recorded response times from fire dispatch, says Poulson. Plus, many front-line commanders say they weren't consulted, and at last week's injunction hearing, the department's own witness, Deputy Commissioner of Technical Services John Devlin, testified that the study was not complete, and if the city were to do an accurate review, it would need to add new fire companies in less protected areas even as it closed others.

Getting rid of fire companies is, as Poulson likes to say, like throwing a boulder in a pond. There are ripple effects. The city did not study these effects. For example, the elimination of a company at 12th and Reed means there are now only three ladder companies covering South Philadelphia — from river to river, Navy Yard to Market Street. Ladder 19, at 24th Street, is part of a Hazmat task force and often gets pulled out of its local; Ladder 27, at Fourth and Snyder, to traffic accidents on I-95; and Ladder 5, on Broad Street, into Center City. When all three are occupied, the closest ladder companies to a fire in South Philly will be a long ride away, at 10th and Cherry or 21st and Market.

The report is more of an insult when one considers that the Nutter administration may have been contemplating fire cuts as early as last January. Just a couple of days after Nutter was sworn in, Fire Union official Mike Bresnan attended a closed-door meeting with Fire Union president Brian McBride and the mayor. The meeting was about lagging morale, and McBride suggested the mayor make a pledge not to close fire companies.

Bresnan remembers the mayor then referencing cuts proposed in 2005, saying, "Let's just say they won't be as drastic."

"He said that and my jaw dropped," Bresnan says.

McBride denies Nutter insinuated cuts were coming.

"That would've set me off," says McBride.

The mayor says the city is safe. But that's not how things look to the men of Ladder Company 11, who will be put out of service by the closings. They responded to a fire near Chadwick and Morris streets the other afternoon, and were the first firefighters in the burning house by two or three minutes. "Somebody is inside," yelled the neighbors. The firefighters fought through the smoke and found a woman lying in the second-floor bathroom. She was heavyset, and it took three men to maneuver her out of the bathroom, down the stairs and outside. The men took a quick breath and went back in. The woman, who is 28 years old, is recovering in the hospital. Two or three more minutes and she probably would have been dead.

Dispatch is filed from all corners of Philadelphia. E-mail mike.newall@citypaper.net.