Some serious questions for fire chief

The local media has reported that Fire Chief Don Adams of the Lehigh Acres Fire Control and Rescue District asked fire commissioners to consider planning for more ambulances, rescue trucks and support for next year's budget. The current 2006/2007 year's budget is $36.2 million.

"It is critical, even though I understand the taxpayers' concern with the budget, that as we grow we move forward to adding more units and fire trucks in the area," Adams said.

Growth is leading to higher call volume. Assistant Chief Jeff Haugh said there were 30 more calls made to the department this November compared to November of 2005.

Are these 30 more calls a day or a month? Please explain Assistant Chief Jeff Haugh? So if there is one more call a day, so Assistant Chief Jeff Haugh just hired 16 more staff and cut the working hours form 52 hours a week to 48 hours a week and given each firefighter a pay day off every three weeks.

Hire more, cut hours and still a staff issues - what type of management is the fire department running?

Adams has said that in a given hour of the day recently there were not enough ambulances and trucks to service all the emergencies and there were no fire engines to cover Lehigh, which they had to begin to call for mutual aid from nearby fire departments and the county, Adams said, and was reported in The Lehigh Acres Citizen.

Click Here to see the pictures

Please, we have mutual aid agreements with all the districts, but according to the 2006/2007 Budget Chief Adams we have the following vehicles:

Six Fire Engines 200 / 210 / 220 / 230 / 240 / 250

Six Ambulances 110 / 120 / 130 / 160 / 170 / 180

One Aerial Platform 310

Four Brush Trucks 400 / 410 / 430 / 450

One Tanker 710

One Special Tanker 707

Ten Staff Vehicles 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 / 8 / 9 / 31 / 35

Two Inspector Vehicles 32 / 33 and Two Maintenance Trucks 510 / 520

And according to the 2006/2007 Budget the fire dept will purchase

One new engine for $500,000 + plus added Advanced Life Support equipment.

One Quint (ladder truck) for $600,000 + must likely will be a million dollars.

Two Ambulances for $250,000 + each, plus added advanced life support equipment.

Trades person vehicle for $35,000 and an assistant chief staff vehicle for $35,000.

How about doing the following instead?

One advance life support engine to replace engine 200 or 240 and then sell 200 or 240 and fix the other one we keep.

One Advance Life Support Ambulance

One advance life support fast attack rescue Unit - This unit can do everything a engine and ambulance can do excerpt for transport. In fact every fire department from Sarasota County to Naples except for Fort Myers Beach uses this type of vehicle. I wonder why because it works and it does get through traffic so much quicker and save lives.

Also the fire department needs to convert Vehicle 35, which is a van to a maintenance vehicle for the trades person and fix Special Tanker 707’s upper turret and retrofit this unit with newer class of foam suppression.

Why do we need to spend, spend, spend your taxpayer’s dollars; why can’t we start thinking out side of the box and resolve the maintenance issues?

We already have 33 vehicles and budgeted to buy six more this year. When is the hemorrhaging of our tax dollars going to stop?