You simply cannot write about current events in Rhode Island without mentioning the firefighters of Providence. Over the past 15 years at least, we've seen signs of the struggle between firefighters and city administration. Sometimes the signs are literal-like the one that stood outside the North Main St. fire station for years-while others are seen in the form of protests at city hall, letters to the editor from both sides, and angry voices all over public radio from hosts and callers alike. While many think the problems began in 2001, others look even deeper and think the problems started with the contract before 2001, that expired in that year. No matter where you stand on the timing of when it began, firefighting in Providence and the costs and problems associated with the issue is clearly a problem that's coming to a head in the immediate future.
But this isn't a problem solely in Providence. As a recent Washington Post article pointed out, rising costs related to firefighting have become a national trend. In that article, Fred McChesney pointed out the growing difference between the need for firefighting and the costs and staffing of fire departments around the nation. According to his numbers, as compared to 30 years ago, today there are half as many fires, yet 50% more firefighters. Even more shocking, nationally according to numbers released by the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) fewer than 4% of calls that firefighters respond to are actually calls for fires, with the remaining 96% being comprised primarily of "cat stuck in the tree" type of calls, fire alarm pulls, lockouts, and the like.
After reading the Washington Post article, and hearing stories from our own firefighters about long shifts and hours, I wanted to see how those numbers related to Providence firefighters. So I went right to the source, digging up the annual activity reports published by the firefighters themselves to analyze exactly what they spent their time doing:
According to their reports, over the past two years Providence firefighters have gone on a total of 97,791 total runs, spending a total of 29,591.13 hours on those runs-or 40 hours per day, split between 23 trucks (or just under 2 hours per truck per day spent on a run). Now, how do these runs break down you might ask? Let's take a look...
Of those 97,791 runs, 43,092 were EMS runs, on which a truck (or more) tagged along after an ambulance on their runs. EMS runs in Providence, make up 44% of Providence firefighters' total runs. That's nearly an hour a day each truck spends shadowing an ambulance, testing the "too many cooks in the kitchen" theory as it applies to emergency medical situations almost as a profession.
Now, of course the fire trucks leave when fire alarms are pulled also, so let's see how much of their time is spent there: During 2013 and 2014, fire trucks in Providence responded to 29,399 total box alarms, of which 12,365 were false alarms (5,022 of which were labeled "malicious"), 14,464 were classified as "other" and just 2,570 were legitimate fire alarms.
Now to the actual fires...
During 2013 and 2014, Providence firefighters responded to a total of 8,959 fires, 4,435 of which were structure fires, 466 were vehicle fires, and 4,058 "other" fires. Now to break those numbers down even further...
In 2013, the 23 trucks totaled 129,236 minutes responding to actual fire calls. That's just a shade under 2,154 hours, or 93.6 hours per truck, fighting fires in 2013.
In 2014, the 23 trucks totaled 166,833 minutes responding to actual fire calls. That's 2,780.5 hours, or about 121 per truck.
Now in these annual reports, the fire department reports how many total minutes the trucks spent on runs. For the two years, the total was 1,775,357 minutes on all runs. Of that time, 296,069 minutes were spent fighting or traveling to actual fires. That-by the minute-is 16.6766% of their time spent on runs, spent fighting fires. This is an increase over the percentage of calls in which fire trucks in Providence responded to fires, which was 9.16% of the time (8,959 fire runs of 97,791 total).
| Total Minutes on Runs | |
| 1775357 | |
| Minutes on Fire Runs | |
| 296069 | |
| % of Time Fighting Fires | |
| 16.68% |
So that's how we break down here in Providence, by the call and by the minute, in terms of the actual fire fighting production we get from our 14 fire stations, 23 trucks, and at least 435 active firefighters. More importantly, that's what we get from their $70,000,000 per year budget (not including $10,000,000 in overtime costs per year).
In total, Providence firefighter salaries cost us $37,775,801 in 2014. Broken down by the hour spent fighting actual fires, that's $13,585.97 Providence paid per hour, to our firefighters for the time they spent actually fighting fires. Broken down amongst all 435 firefighters, that's 31.23 per man, per hour, for time spent fighting fires.
Those numbers wouldn't be so bad, but remember that the Fire Department's budget is pretty much double that, doubling all of those cost numbers to 27,000 per hour for fighting actual fires, about $60 per man per hour fighting fires. The firefighters and their union would have you believe they make 50,000 calls a year, actively fighting fires for your safety all day and night long. The reality is that they spend the bulk of their time hanging around the firehouse, waiting for the 10% of the runs when they might actually get called to fight a fire. Remember these numbers when they want you to support their constant and never ending protests.
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