I am a concerned citizen.
Most of us don’t think twice about our emergency response teams until we have to call 911. When we do call 911, we are confident that we will receive immediate and competent help for whatever our emergency is.
No one is more proud than I am of our Capital City Fire/Rescue team. They work, train, and prepare tirelessly to give the residents of Juneau the emergency medical help they need. They do everything they can to keep us safe from fire damage and fire-related injuries and even worse deaths. However, Juneau is asking our Capital City Fire/Rescue teams to answer our every call while not providing them enough manpower.
We recently had a deadly fire on Seward Street. The fire call came in at about 4:30am and for the next four or so hours CCFR did their work. 30 people responded to the fire; 19 people were career firefighters, six people were volunteer firefighters; five people were administrative staff (chief officers, fire marshals).
Of the 19 career firefighters that responded; eight were on regular duty; which means they had been responding to emergency medical and fire calls since 8 a.m. the previous morning; four of those were transported to the hospital for evaluation and treatment for exhaustion and smoke inhalation (all were released); 10 were on duty the following shift. They left the fire and went to their fire hall and began answering the continuous emergency calls for the next 24 hours.
Our CCFR is seriously understaffed, and it is our responsibility to remedy this problem. They are not looking to overburden the community in any way, but they are at a crisis level. Their immediate goal is to secure six new positions to staff a third ambulance 24 hours per day year round, and add one additional firefighter to each shift. This would be a total of nine additional positions to the career staff, and it’s a start toward the recommended staffing levels set by the National Fire Protection Association.
Please talk to your assembly and encourage them to give our rescue team the additional staff they need.
Shelly Wright, Juneau