9:35am | A longtime veteran1 of the Long Beach Fire Department who resides in the service area of Fire Department Station 14, which was recently reduced to housing only a two-person paramedic unit, has spoken to the Long Beach Post regarding Station 14’s service reduction.
The firefighter, who we’ll call Heath, notes that when Station 14 was built in 1986, many of the communities it now serves had yet to be built. He says this is why in 2007 a ladder truck was added to Station 14 to complement the engine and paramedic unit already present: increased development necessitated increased protection.
Heath has high praise for former 3rd District Councilmember Jan Hall, in office when Station 14 was built. Heath says Hall had the foresight to express concerns about what might happen as the service area became increasingly developed.
That development has come to pass, and Heath says the situation is going to get all the more precarious with the planned project at 2nd & PCH, plans, which he says will include a seven-storey high-rise.
“Pretty soon we’re going be developing 2nd & PCH,” Heath says, “and it’s going to be high-rise — and you don’t have a truck [within that service area]. You gotta have a truck for high-rises. You have only one truck now on this side of town: Truck 17. So now when you have a fire in this area, [a truck] has come from Stearns [Street] and [Los Coyotes] Diagonal. And if that truck is on the freeway — which happens a lot, [because that truck has] the jaws of life and other heavy equipment — then we’re waiting for Station 7, which is at 23rd [Street] and Long Beach Boulevard. … You have to plan for the big event, the big fire. And if you gotta wait for [Station] 17 [for a fire there], that’s too long.”
As for the present, Heath intimates that city officials are spinning the service reduction to seem less severe than it is, noting that the paramedic unit at Station 14 is primarily for making “Charlie runs,” i.e., providing advance life support for situations like head injuries, abdominal pain, chest pain, and drug overdoses — extremely important, but also limited.
“All those paramedics can do is advance life support,” Heath explains. “They don’t do CPR. One [of the paramedics] is talking to the hospital and getting drugs; the other is administering drugs. That’s why you need those other four firemen [who would be on a truck]: you have the captain, who’s controlling the scene; you have the engineer, who’s getting all the equipment there; and you have the other two firemen, one who’s doing the CPR and one who’s doing the breathing.”
Heath also takes issue with the City’s attempting to placate concerned residents by saying that even with the service reductions at Station 14, 90 percent of all calls will still be responded to within six minutes, which is the standard set by the National Fire Protection Association.
For starters, he says the LBFD “has always responded within a three- to four-minute timeframe. All of a sudden this six minutes is a national timeframe that they’re spreading. … If you have a fire, and [the response] is within four to five minutes of the fire, you can really save a lot of property. … That’s why [Station 14] was built there: so that within less than three minutes they could be at your house.”
Secondly, he disputes claims that the LBFD will still be able to meet the NFPA’s standard to Station 14’s area, saying that typically a response from either Station 8 or Station 14 “is going to take more than six minutes.”
Contrary claims, Heath says, come out of politics, not the facts on the ground. “I have never seen the politics that are going on in this city as bad as they are right now. … ‘Do more with less’ — we’ve been hearing that for about 13 years. … The chief’s trying to do what he can, but his hands are tied … Our councilpeople need to be told 10 minutes is not acceptable — six minutes is not acceptable.”
And Heath says the situation may worsen, as next year the LBFD has a $3.9 million deficit it is supposed to absorb. “And that means two more fire trucks. … The bottom line is that if you take policemen and firemen off your streets, bad things are going to occur.”
While Heath acknowledges that the City has serious budgetary problems with which it must deal, he says that because much of how those problems are being dealt with is political, if 3rd District Councilmember Gary DeLong and LBFD Chief Alan Patalano receive enough of a response from concerned citizens, Station 14 will get its equipment back.
“I’m just a fireman,” Heath says. “Firemen can’t make the decisions that others who get paid the big bucks can make. “
1 I.e., with over 20 years of service within the department.