Braintree MA cuts

grumpy grizzly

grumpy grizzly

Joined
Jun 27, 2007
Messages
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Braintree FD is facing the following cuts: 5 on duty members, the loss of an engine company and a ladder company with a reduction to 13 man minimum manning which does not meet the state requirement of having 4 FF's per apparatus. There will be 3 engines and 1 ladder available.
 
Not a cool thing to hear. I am familiar with the area and their department is going to be very similarly staffed like Wilkes-Barre City by me now. They run 13FFs per shift. We have no mandate of 4FFs per apparatus so they run 3 engines with 3FFs and a truck with 2FFs. They other 2FFs are one a piece on the 2 Medic units which usually don't count because they run calls all day long.
 
nfdcanman said:
Prop 2.5 strikes again
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Yes, "nfdcanman", many of us DO REMEMBER Proposition 2 1/2.
Many fire companies were closed down in Massachusetts, including in the City of Boston.

As I remember, Boston's Engine 43 and Ladder 20, located right around the corner from a Howard Johnson's with it's parking lot referred to as "whip city", as many Sparks as they were called, aka Buffs, hung out listening to their scanners on the low band of 33.74 mhz with the big antennas, referred to as "whip antennas".

With busy fire departments like the FDNY Budget Crisis and Massachusetts Prop 2 1/2 closing fire companies, several other cities, particularly in the northeast, followed with closing fire companies.

This certainly DID have an affect on more injuries and deaths from fires

Perhaps "grumpy grizzly" will add to this, or tell us more about those days just before Proposition 2 1/2.
 
A town of 39,143. 3+1 for a city? 4+2 is still pushing it for a city. Does the city have a mutual aid policy in place? The nearest towns/cities are Quincy, Milton, Randolph and Weymouth.
 
nfd2004 said:
Yes, "nfdcanman", many of us DO REMEMBER Proposition 2 1/2.
Many fire companies were closed down in Massachusetts, including in the City of Boston.

As I remember, Boston's Engine 43 and Ladder 20, located right around the corner from a Howard Johnson's with it's parking lot referred to as "whip city", as many Sparks as they were called, aka Buffs, hung out listening to their scanners on the low band of 33.74 mhz with the big antennas, referred to as "whip antennas".

With busy fire departments like the FDNY Budget Crisis and Massachusetts Prop 2 1/2 closing fire companies, several other cities, particularly in the northeast, followed with closing fire companies.

This certainly DID have an affect on more injuries and deaths from fires

Perhaps "grumpy grizzly" will add to this, or tell us more about those days just before Proposition 2 1/2.
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Every 2 engine/1 ladder house lost an engine, including Engine 12 @ Fort Dudley, the cities busiest house. East Boston lost 2 engines, my still engine was cut. Engine 43/Ladder 20 was closed, Engine 25 and Ladder 8 as well, Engine 10 moved in In addition two of the busier ladder companies, L-13 in the South End and L-30 in Jamaica Plain were also dis-banded.. I had moved to Chicago two years prior so I wasn't around for all this. These reductions proved to be the basis for the cities unbelievable arson outbreak, as chronicled in "Burn Boston, Burn" by Miller. The only thing that kept Boston from burning down was mutual aid but because Boston could not always provide aid there was a move to not provide that aid, thankfully that never happened. Mutual aid is a blessing and a curse to me. It is there to help you control events that are out of your control but why the hell should apparatus paid for by my taxes sit in your house on a cover assignment because all your 4 companies are tied up. And what if my house catches on fire, do I have to rely on mutual aid from nearby towns? What a mess.
 
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Darrell said:
A town of 39,143. 3+1 for a city? 4+2 is still pushing it for a city. Does the city have a mutual aid policy in place? The nearest towns/cities are Quincy, Milton, Randolph and Weymouth.
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Quincy is a fairly large city, the others are just like Braintree more or less.
 
nfdcanman said:
Mass Metro Fire has a robust m/a system

Metrofire.us
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Will the reduction in staffing per apparatus effect their participation in the mutual aid system? Most metro mutual aid systems have a minimum staffing per apparatus to allow departments to be in the plan.
 
kidfrmqns said:
Will the reduction in staffing per apparatus effect their participation in the mutual aid system? Most metro mutual aid systems have a minimum staffing per apparatus to allow departments to be in the plan.
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I believe they encourage 4 persons per piece but will accept 3 persons per piece.
 
In my city prop. 2 1/2 was a disaster out of the 7 Engines and 4 Trucks we lost an Eng. and a Truck (E 5 and Lad. 1) in the year that followed there were 5 or 6 fire related deaths in Lad. 1 still area. Somerville Mass. back then had about 80 thousand people in 4 sq. miles with many three deckers. We could hardly lose any companies but the powers to be made all the decisions. Today there is talk of adding an engine company due to the new area at Assembly Sq. but time will tell if that happens. When I came on the job in 1969 we had 246 Firefighters on the job now in 2024 they have about 155 to do the job for about fifteen thousand incidents. They still have fires granted not as many and a lot of medicals like all the other cities, and due to the new construction the population has increase to about 90 thousand plus. I believe the only City in are area not to lose anything was Cambridge. Grumpy Grizzly might remember better than me. When there is cuts to be made the Fire, Police, and Teachers are the first to go in that order.
 
Evidentally these are state mandated budget cuts due to six months of missed revenue marks. 33 towns, including Boston, Quincy and Worcester will be affected. Information from a January 11 2024 article on Firehouse.com.
 
kidfrmqns said:
Will the reduction in staffing per apparatus effect their participation in the mutual aid system? Most metro mutual aid systems have a minimum staffing per apparatus to allow departments to be in the plan.
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more than likely yes

they have a set # available for M/A so lets say Braintree had 2 Engine 1 Ladder available for M/A that may be cut to 1 and 1 or just 1 Engine since they will only have 1 staffed ladder - we shall see how this plays out
 
Tight lips 46 said:
In my city prop. 2 1/2 was a disaster out of the 7 Engines and 4 Trucks we lost an Eng. and a Truck (E 5 and Lad. 1) in the year that followed there were 5 or 6 fire related deaths in Lad. 1 still area. Somerville Mass. back then had about 80 thousand people in 4 sq. miles with many three deckers. We could hardly lose any companies but the powers to be made all the decisions. Today there is talk of adding an engine company due to the new area at Assembly Sq. but time will tell if that happens. When I came on the job in 1969 we had 246 Firefighters on the job now in 2024 they have about 155 to do the job for about fifteen thousand incidents. They still have fires granted not as many and a lot of medicals like all the other cities, and due to the new construction the population has increase to about 90 thousand plus. I believe the only City in are area not to lose anything was Cambridge. Grumpy Grizzly might remember better than me. When there is cuts to be made the Fire, Police, and Teachers are the first to go in that order.
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Tight lips 46 said:
In my city prop. 2 1/2 was a disaster out of the 7 Engines and 4 Trucks we lost an Eng. and a Truck (E 5 and Lad. 1) in the year that followed there were 5 or 6 fire related deaths in Lad. 1 still area. Somerville Mass. back then had about 80 thousand people in 4 sq. miles with many three deckers. We could hardly lose any companies but the powers to be made all the decisions. Today there is talk of adding an engine company due to the new area at Assembly Sq. but time will tell if that happens. When I came on the job in 1969 we had 246 Firefighters on the job now in 2024 they have about 155 to do the job for about fifteen thousand incidents. They still have fires granted not as many and a lot of medicals like all the other cities, and due to the new construction the population has increase to about 90 thousand plus. I believe the only City in are area not to lose anything was Cambridge. Grumpy Grizzly might remember better than me. When there is cuts to be made the Fire, Police, and Teachers are the first to go in that order.
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Cambridge lost Engine 7 in 1993.
 
nfdcanman said:
more than likely yes

they have a set # available for M/A so lets say Braintree had 2 Engine 1 Ladder available for M/A that may be cut to 1 and 1 or just 1 Engine since they will only have 1 staffed ladder - we shall see how this plays out
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Generally, one engine for every three in service, and one ladder for every two in service, can be available for mutual aid.
No area wide apparatus numbering. (Cambridge E1 to Dedham E1, charge Waltham L1's line, etc.)
 
As stated above, the accepted standard for mutual aid availability is, what I heard it referred to as the 1/3 rule. It’s not a mandate and hopefully everyone plays nice. If a department has 9 engines & 3 ladders, then 3 engines and 1 ladder could be used for mutual aid. What is good about their system is that, in theory, the only empty firehouses which need to be covered are the ones in the city which has the fire. If Braintree has a 4th alarm going, then only the Braintree firehouses would need station coverage. The cities surrounding Braintree would still be able to cover their own stations because they didn’t send 50% or more of their apparatus.

I’m not sure what would happen if during Braintree’s 4th Alarm, Milton got a 3rd Alarm. Both fires would be pulling apparatus from many of the same cities. Probably a MetroFire dispatcher’s nightmare!! Again, hopefully some out of the box thinking, common sense, and understanding chiefs who would not denying the request to respond to another fire because they reached their 1/3 commitment. Situation dependent, but hopefully they would send additional equipment to the 2nd fire and request coverage.

This is where task-forces come in handy. If the fire is in the south part of MetroFire and there is a rapid deployment of apparatus, then a north task-force from various cities (6 engines, 2 ladders, 2 chiefs) could be dispatched to the effected area. Once they arrive at the assembly point, the engines and ladders can be parsed out to provide coverage where needed. (Basically a bulk movement of apparatus with one dispatch.)
 
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