Fire Department

The borough's two fire companies are asking residents to pay more for fire protection next year. The council decided March 8 to place the Fire Department's request for a 2- mill increase on the November ballot. The increase would generate an additional $30,000, to be split between the Capitol View and Union companies. The borough now earmarks 5 mills, or $75,000, annually for fire protection. Residents owning homes assessed at the borough's $4,500 average would pay an additional $9 for fire service, or a total of about $32 annually, if the fire tax rate jumps from 5 to 7 mills.

Two Camden firefighters filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court yesterday, alleging that city and Fire Department leaders used racial slurs to describe them and denied them promotions. Kevin Hailey and Terrence Crowder, both African Americans, have been Camden firefighters since the early 1980s. Hailey is acting deputy chief, and Crowder is a battalion fire chief. The two are seeking punitive damages for what they say was a poisoned atmosphere that tainted their "ability to be promoted and receive pay raises.

When Mary Guenzel's 74-year-old husband thought he broke his leg, she called 911 and told the dispatcher that he took a bad spill on black ice and needed help. The Fire Department dispatched a medic unit, but it never arrived at her Somerton home. Instead, paramedics stopped to examine a woman involved in a minor car accident half a block away. "How could they not know the difference in the addresses, and the difference between a car accident and a broken leg? A bent fender and a broken leg are worlds apart!"

A Philadelphia Fire Department captain has been dismissed on charges that he tried to coerce two subordinates into certifying as competent a paramedic intern they were training and evaluating. Capt. Asa Grimes, 45, a 24-year veteran, was served notice Aug. 9 by Fire Commissioner Harold B. Hairston that he would be fired within 10 days on allegations of conduct unbecoming a firefighter and neglect of duty in connection with the matter, fire officials said. In a brief telephone interview yesterday, Grimes denied the allegations.

Kevin Folkman remembers the day they came. He was sitting in the living room of his two-bedroom apartment in the 1000 block of Collings Avenue in Camden, watching TV and paying bills, when the doorbell rang. Three men, two plainclothes Camden police officers with their badges hanging around their necks and Camden Fire Capt. Raynaldo Santiago, asked to search his house. It was Jan. 19, 1997, Folkman's 25th birthday. Thirty minutes later, after looking through his cupboards, mail, refrigerator, dirty laundry, and medicine cabinet, after speaking with his neighbors, Santiago handed Folkman a rejection letter.

The fire department here will soon move beyond its role as a total volunteer agency with the hire of the township's first full-time fire marshal. "It's a monumental step for us to add a paid person," said Clint Boyd, chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners, which is the funding and governing body for the fire department. The position traditionally has been part time and under the township's administrative auspices. A recent council decision, however, put the job within the volunteer department.

The case of Katrina Northern vs. the City of Philadelphia and Fire Commissioner Harold Hairston is now settled. Northern was fired from her job in 1996 when she allegedly refused to make a medical run. A review board acquitted her, but Hairston fired her anyway. She claimed she didn't refuse and that she was fired because she was black and a woman. To back up her claims, she and others testified to discriminatory and harassing behaviors she and other female firefighters have been subjected to. And it's this testimony - more than the details of Northern's particular case - that has shed the most damaging light on the department.

The offensive bore a marked resemblance to a drug raid yesterday as teams of uniformed officials moved in and out of homes in the Nova Vista development in Chester. Their mission, however, was one of goodwill as the warm reception from surprised residents attested. The 72 visits were part of a continuing Chester City Fire Company program to install smoke detectors in 11,000 living units at no charge in the city. Since Jan. 1, the fire department and the Philadelphia Electric Co. have raised more than $7,000 for the purchase of detectors and batteries.

Two witnesses to the missed emergency call that resulted in the 1996 firing of Philadelphia firefighter Katrina Northern testified yesterday that they never heard Northern refuse to make the run. Despite differing views of the Sept. 25, 1996, incident when firefighter Kevin Bell drove an ambulance solo while partner Northern remained behind at Engine Co. 45 in North Philadelphia, firefighters Thomas McGraw and Derek Paige both told a federal jury they did not hear Northern turn down the run. Testifying uneasily as their boss, Fire Commissioner Harold B. Hairston, sat in the courtroom, the two firefighters closed the first week of testimony by giving conflicting views of a woman struggling with a demanding job, working at odds with her partner, and being treated as an outsider in an organization permeated by sexism.

Fire Department investigators yesterday were trying to determine what caused the boiler explosion Saturday night in a North Philadelphia firehouse that killed one firefighter and injured three others. The explosion killed Edward Friel, 37, a 13-year department veteran, in the Engine 34 firehouse, 29th and Thompson streets, about 10:20 p.m. Saturday as he was checking the boiler in the basement, the Fire Department said. The firefighters, members of Engine 27, 19th and Oxford streets, were in the Engine 34 firehouse covering for that company, which was fighting a four- alarm factory blaze in Southwest Philadelphia.