Fire Department

THE PHILADELPHIA Fire Department is facing extraordinary budget cuts for the next fiscal year. In the mayor's budget proposal, the department is going to lose as many as 11 fire companies (4 engine and 7 ladder), a staggering number. This budget not only eliminates neighborhood fire companies, it also reduces the staff of every ladder truck in the city by one firefighter. These cuts are going to put our children and senior citizens in grave danger, response times to fires and emergency medical calls can only lengthen with a cut of this magnitude.

West Bradford supervisors have asked for an independent assessment of the township's volunteer fire department, following a blaze that destroyed the house of one township official. On Tuesday, the board voted to withhold its quarterly payment of $6,625, pending the outcome of that evaluation. Hired to conduct the probe is Robert H. Jones Associates of West Chester. The firm will evaluate the township's fire protection services and review its municipal codes. "We're investigating everything - all our strengths and weaknesses - when it comes to fire emergency services in the township," Chairman Ken Klunk said Wednesday.

Westville residents may soon begin footing the bill for fire protection for the first time in the borough's history, officials said last night. Council President Charles Owens said the 80 firefighters, who previously relied on various forms of fund-raising events for financial support, could no longer raise enough money to run the fire company. Owens and the six other council members said they intended to include the fire department in the borough's budget next year. The council members and Mayor Francis Duer refused to estimate what such a move would cost the taxpayers.

A six-month dispute over which of Pine Hill's three fire departments will close is expected to be settled tomorrow night during a meeting of the Pine Hill Fire Commission. Talk of consolidating the departments - Pine Hill Fire Company No. 1, Eagle Fire Company and Amber Terrace Fire Company - began in March, when an 11- member committee was formed to discuss such a move along with the reduction of equipment owned by the three. Borough Fire Chief William Dukes said plans call for Pine Hill Fire Company No. 1 to give up its charter, sell its properties, pay off outstanding debts and give any remaining assets to the newly created fire department.

Five weeks after Camden laid off a third of its firefighters, the shock waves are reverberating outside city lines. Camden's fire department was cut to such bare bones that a structure fire on any given day requires all seven companies to respond, leaving none to attend to any other fire or rescue emergencies in the city. Suburban fire companies - most staffed by volunteers - are filling the void in the densely populated, nine-square-mile city. "We've seen a direct impact," said Robert Mortka, president of the Camden County Fire Chiefs Association.

In 1974 the Club Valiants, an organization of African American firefighters, filed a discrimination suit against the City of Philadelphia charging that blacks were under-represented in the Fire Department. The Third Federal District Court found that hiring practices for firefighters were indeed discriminatory, demonstrated by the fact that minorities made up only 7 percent of the department at that time. The court eventually imposed hiring and promotion quotas and after years of litigation, the suit was settled in 1985 with the acceptance by the Valiants and the city of a consent decree that mandated a hiring formula for black candidates for firefighter.

The George Clay Fire Department has called a special meeting of its members for tonight to discuss the West Conshohocken Borough Council's decision to halt funding until it receives a complete audit of the company. "We haven't gotten our appropriations," fire company president Jim Smith said. "That's all I'm going to say until after Monday's meeting. " Company members only will be allowed to attend the 7 p.m. meeting at the firehouse on Ford Street. They will discuss what action to take before the council meeting tomorrow night.

Rumors are circulating in local fire departments that East Fallowfield Township - which is served by Modena, Westwood and Pomeroy Fire Companies - intends to form its own fire company within the township's boundaries. Or that Modena Fire Company will relocate in East Fallowfield Township to serve the residents. But the rumors are false, East Fallowfield supervisors said at their work session Wednesday, in response to questions posed by Westwood and Pomeroy fire officials.

The Philadelphia Fire Department will soon begin charging for emergency medical services that previously were offered free. Fire Commissioner William C. Richmond said the fee program, which was proposed to City Council last July, will save the city money and should curtail abuses of the system by people who make unnecessary emergency calls. "We have people calling in for animal problems," Richmond said. "It seems funny now, but it's not humorous at 4 o'clock in the morning after a squad's already been out 13 times.

Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers defended the proposed "deactivation" of seven fire companies yesterday, saying that overall staffing in the 2,400-member department would be maintained, and that firefighters would respond to "any and every emergency in an urgent and timely manner. " The data presented - a compendium of color-coded maps, tables of total runs of individual fire companies, and charts and graphs showing response times to fires and medical emergencies - reviewed the comparative performance of the city's 61 engine and 29 ladder companies.

An alternative school in South Philadelphia was evacuated this morning after a staff member reported smelling acrid fumes. Some 25 students spilled from the Ombudsman South Accelerated School, on the 2700 block of S. Front Street, about 10:40 a.m. as officials called the fire department. One student was taken to Methodist Hospital for chest pains, and two other students were went home early after reporting they did not feel well, said district spokeswoman Deirdre Darragh. Darragh said an inspector traced the fumes to the school's air-conditioning system.

400 passengers had to be evacuated from a stalled train on an elevated section of the Market-Frankford El this morning. There was no fire, no one was in jeopardy, and no one was injured, said SEPTA spokeswoman Heather Redfern. "It was a mechanical issue," she said. After the westbound train become immobile about 7:15 a.m. between the Erie-Torresdale and Tioga stations, the fire department determined that the best course of action was to use another train to evacuate the passengers.

Remember the Fire Department report that came out earlier this year, the one recommending that labor and management play nice if they want to solve their problems with the city? Bill Gault, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Firefighters, may now be trying to take that advice to heart. But only after he nearly got into another public dustup with City Hall. In the aftermath of the tragic fire in Kensington on April 9 that killed Lt. Robert Neary and Firefighter Dan Sweeney, emotions were raw among members of the department, Gault said last week.

NEITHER of the two Philadelphia homes destroyed by fire Sunday and Monday, leaving three adults and three children dead, had functioning smoke alarms. In fact, 27 of last year's 32 fire fatalities occurred in buildings without smoke detectors, or with detectors with dead or missing batteries, according to the Fire Department. Anyone who can't afford a detector can call the smoke-alarm hot line at 215-686-1176 to get a free one from the city. "We ensure that our Fire Department personnel get out there and install the alarm immediately," said Executive Chief Richard Davison.

On Chancellor Street in West Philadelphia, where neighbors describe one another as "like family," one member loomed particularly large: Seneca "Chuck" McClendon, a retired postal worker who kept potted plants and flowers by his front door and swept the block clean every morning. McClendon, 75, was aware of the hazards near the 5200 block of Chancellor, residents said. He blocked off access to the alleyway next to the house so crackheads and burglars couldn't sneak into the backyard, put his grandson on a bus for day care each day, and always kept an eye out for his neighbors.

THE INVESTIGATION into the Kensington fire that killed two firefighters Monday could take more than a week, Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers said Wednesday. "There are tons and tons of rubble in there, beams partially burned," Ayers said of the former five-story Thomas W. Buck Hosiery warehouse, at Jasper and York streets. "All of those things have to be carefully examined. . . . It's a very arduous process. " He said that it was important to first get a crane at the site to remove hazardous material there.

Bill Gault, the leader of Philadelphia's firefighters union, doesn't yet know whom to blame for the five-alarm fire that killed two firefighters when the wall of a vacant mill collapsed on them Monday morning. As funeral arrangements were being made Tuesday for Lt. Robert P. Neary and firefighter Daniel Sweeney, questions remained about whether the city or the building's owners should have taken responsibility for its dilapidated condition. "The problem is the Fire Department gets caught in the middle," said Gault, president of Local 22 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.

The neon orange notice on the front door of the Divine Lorraine Hotel on North Broad Street - declaring "repair or demolish" - set off alarm bells for preservationists. Was the city going to bring down the bedraggled, yet beloved, historic hotel? Fear not, said Deputy Mayor Alan Greenberger. It's all just an attempt by the city's Department of Licenses and Inspection to make the building more secure. In the aftermath of Tuesday's fire at the abandoned and blighted Divine Lorraine, L&I is sealing off the building to discourage vandals.