Here are recent Fire Chief's columns from
The Arizona Republic
City
of Phoenix Public Information Office - News Clippings - azcentral.com
- November 7, 2009
Cutbacks to halt recruiting of firefighters for a while
In 1982, I was offered a job by the Phoenix Fire Department and I can still remember Bob Cantwell, a Deputy Chief at the time, calling and asking me if I would like to work for the fire department starting in August of that year.
With absolutely no hesitation I said, “Yes! When do I show up?” At that time part of the process was an orientation about where to buy your uniform. In those days we were sent to a specific store to purchase our uniforms. When we started the academy we wore red shirts. Twenty-seven years later, our recruits still wear red shirts through their basic training. It’s a 12-week process and has been refined over the last quarter of a century to include modern-day hazards, social changes, and more sophisticated equipment and technology.
I guess I’m showing my age; however, the message for the last 100 years for any new firefighter has always been the same. It’s not that you sign up and just show up, but that you were selected out of a pool of candidates to be chosen as a firefighter to attend the training academy.
For anyone who has been in that arena, there is no better feeling or sense of accomplishment. Although that invitation is merely a “ticket to the dance” – you have to survive 12 weeks of intense training and a year-long probation. You do feel like you’ve got your foot in the door in one of the greatest careers available in public service.
I’m telling you all this just as a reflection on current events and something we have not seen in the history of the Phoenix Fire Department. We will be going through a period without new recruits and other new members of our department for up to a three-year period. This is unprecedented in the history of the Phoenix Fire Department. We are not alone in these fiscally challenging times. There are fire departments all across the United States that are making adjustments in the way they manage emergency fire and medical services for their communities.
For people waiting to become firefighters, I can only imagine how difficult this time must be. For members of the fire department, we are feeling the crunch in the sense that we are stretched about as thin as we can possibly be and still deliver efficient emergency services. All of the economic indicators at this point are leading us to believe that the next fiscal chapter will be as grim or nearly as grim as the one we just went through last year.
Inside the fire department the administrators are starting to look at ways to reduce expenditures, along with every other City of Phoenix department. Truly, in over 50 years the city has not seen an environment that has us on the brink of reducing critical services inside one of America’s greatest communities. We will answer 911 calls. A worst case scenario might be deciding what neighborhoods to slow service to, so that we can have a presence in other parts of the city? For all of us that is not acceptable on just about every level.
This fall season seems to have a dark cloud over it. At the same time it reminds me of a time when I might have taken for granted how fortunate we all were as young people to get a shot at becoming firefighters. Now we have to brace ourselves for the next chapter of this “Great Recession” and make good decisions on behalf of all the people we are charged to protect. I see all of the people who work for the Phoenix Fire Department, from dispatchers to civilian staff and frontline firefighters, thinking through ways of delivering the same level of service while at the same time minimizing our expenditures.
I have to thank them for keeping the morale up and the continued hard work through another difficult period. As they say, this too shall pass. In the end, we will be here when our neighbors are having a bad day and need some help. Be safe.
Send comments to Bob Khan at firechief.pfd@phoenix.gov or call (602) 26-CHIEF.