Brownouts

Spending nearly a half-million dollars and taking half a year to study the Philadelphia Fire Department seems to have more to do with politics than public safety. In fact, it's remarkable that Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers has kept from gagging at the notion that his assessment of how personnel and equipment should be deployed isn't worth a tinker's damn. But how else can he take the idea that only an independent review can figure out how his department can best serve the city? The city's financial overseer, the Pennsylvania Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority, has been asked to pay the study's $300,000 to $450,000 cost.

MAYOR NUTTER has been trying to save a little over $3 million from the fire department budget. Some firefighters and city residents think "rolling brownouts" are very risky. Maybe he should just enforce the "no talking on cell phones while driving" law. I estimate it should be easy to get the $3 million just during the rush hours on I-95 or Roosevelt Boulevard (at $75 a ticket for 200 cars for 200 working days). Mayer Krain Philadelphia

Funeral services are Friday for the 12-year-old boy killed in a West Philadelphia fire Saturday that also injured his mother and two firefighters. Frank Marasco was found in the second-floor of his rowhouse Saturday evening, following a fire that began around 6:50 p.m. The boy was described as autistic, and fire officials said he resisted attempts to coax him out of his home during the fire. The incident inflamed the debate over the effects of recent Fire Department cuts. Fire officials said the fire's cause was "smoking materials" that ignited a couch on the first floor.

City fire officials, faced with budget cutbacks, costly union contracts, and complaints about the Nutter administration's commitment to public safety, have asked the state to fund a first-ever study of the city's needs for a 21st-century Fire Department. The request came on the same day that City Council bashed the administration's decision to save money by putting fire companies on temporary closings known as "rolling brownouts. " Top administration officials asked the city's state-appointed overseer to study everything about providing fire safety, from deployment of fire companies to management structure and revenue.

FIREFIGHTERS are nuts. I don't mean that in a bad way. It's their most endearing quality. But anybody who would strap 20 pounds of lifesaving equipment to his back, climb a ladder above a raging fire, crawl through acrid smoke and broken glass to rescue a stranger is not wired the way normal people are. But bless their abnormal hearts - the city is a safer place because of them. One of the first stories I ever went out on was a raging fire in a chemical plant in South Philly 37 years ago. Even as the front wall collapsed, firefighters rushed into the plant to rescue a worker who was rumored to be inside.

AS A Philadelphian, I am glad that the New Year's parade will go on without any problems ("Mummers miracle," Daily News , Dec. 12). This happened as a direct result of the men and women of Local 22. Engine 3, around the corner from this fire, got there quickly. They put water on the fire and reduced the heat generated. The miracle for Fralinger is that the fire happened on Dec. 10. If this fire had broken out just one day later, then Engine 3 would have been "browned out. " They would not have been in service for that day. The fire would have grown in intensity.

It was the preseason and Buddy Ryan could lean back, put his feet up on the desk, look at his defensive line depth chart and breathe eeeeasy. Reggie White. Jerome Brown. Mike Pitts. Clyde Simmons. Mike Golic as a very capable backup. Inhale . . . exhale. Not a worry in the world. A lot has changed since then for Ryan and the Eagles, and yesterday it changed some more. It appears that Brown will be held out of Sunday's game with the New England Patriots at Veterans Stadium because of a slight tear of the left bicep muscle and a hyperextended elbow suffered in the first quarter of last week's victory over Dallas.

A game ago, just seven short days ago, the Eagles transformed themselves into a team lit by a brilliance that would not be denied. They played inspired, meaningful football in front of a home crowd desperate for those incandescent sparks. Seven short days ago, it was paradise in shades of green and silver. But that was last week, last game, in another environment entirely, and moments such as that are as rare as Eagles' three-game win streaks. The Eagles (now 3-4) transformed themselves again yesterday, back into a team we knew well, back into a band of players habitually knocked low by the miseries of their own inconsistency.

EVEN IF City Council were to provide the Fire Department with the money needed to end the controversial rotating "brownouts" of fire stations, the Nutter administration said it would still stand by the policy. During his budget presentation to Council yesterday, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers was asked if given the $3.8 million the city says it saves from brownouts, which began in 2010, would he discontinue the policy? "If Council came up with $3.8 million to eliminate brownouts and I were allowed to?

Leenell Pressley looked at the fire station across the street from her fiance's home in North Philadelphia and easily imagined a scenario in which the neighborhood would be endangered by firefighting cutbacks. "What if they're at another fire and we have one here?" Pressley, 32, asked. "We got to wait? It's not fair. It's not right. " On Monday night, Engine 45 at 26th and York Streets was deactivated for the shift and its normal crew deployed elsewhere. Other firefighters and equipment were available at the station, but maybe not as much as the community has come to expect.