Rochester, N.Y. --- The union representing city firefighters blames recent cuts and a reorganization plan for putting lives and safety at risk on Locust Street last week.
The fire last Thursday at 105 Locust Street destroyed a family’s home and left one firefighter recovering from first and second-degree burns. Three other firefighters were evaluated for minor injuries at the scene and four people inside the home were taken to the hospital.
In a letter to City Council and Rochester Mayor Tom Richards, the President of the Rochester Fire Fighters Association Local 1071 IAFF said the negative effect of budget cuts and department-wide reorganization were illustrated at that Locust Street fire. President Jim McTiernan went on to detail various fire units that were out of service at the time that this fire was called in as well as the location of a Battalion Chief who had to respond from South Avenue because another Battalion Chief post was recently eliminated.
McTiernan’s letter also detailed the need for a round-the-clock Group Safety Officer that happened to be present at this fire scene but had been cutback on various shifts due to budgetary restraints. A letter McTiernan sent to those same city leaders last week argued the union’s objections and concerns to cuts that lowered the number of on-duty firefighters from 99 to 86 over Fire Chief Caufield’s 4-Year Plan.
"These kind of closing of companies for training and the reduction of companies and putting companies out of service, this is going to cause problems continually," McTiernan said. "This is just to put them (the City) on notice and know that they were the ones responsible for this, that we've told them and that we're going to keep holding them responsible for what is going to inevitably happen."
Fire Chief Caufield fired back late Wednesday with a response of his own during an interview with 13WHAM News. Chief Caufield said he disputes nearly every word of McTiernan’s letter and said that 13 firefighters were on-scene at Locust Street in four minutes and a total of 26 were on scene in eight minutes. Caufield also pointed to a report from a senior officer, and a union member, who was at the fire scene and applauded the efforts and decisions of the firefighters that day.
"It was an unbelievably heroic effort that all those firefighters performed that day including the officers,” Chief Caufield said. “We had a fantastic outcome, we did have a firefighter burned but his protection, his training, his gear, his crew integrity, his safety was protected at all times and that's our goal."
This week Caufield said he went to Mayor Richards’ office and lobbied for him to again fund a round-the-clock Group Safety Officer position. He provided 13WHAM News with a copy of his administrative order that re-established that position immediately.
"Can we do it better and smarter? Absolutely, but in this case we far exceeded any standards even our own expectations to be honest,” Chief Caufield said. “This was a really difficult fire and it's unfortunate that somebody's going to point to the efforts that our officers and our firefighters performed at that particular fire to advance a political agenda."
