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THE OBSERVER | WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2013
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this time for about $5.7 million – enough to pay salaries and benefits for 36 additional fire training with the new gear,” Stahl said. (More details about personnel during a two-year period to beef up the 29-memthat later.) ber department. “We feel 36 Stahl said the feds denied more is what it will take to the town’s SAFER request get us to the recommended because, even had they granted it, the extra personnel minimum,” he said. Meanwhile, the Kearny Fire still would’ve left Harrison Department – which has met shorthanded by federal fire protection standards: ensuring with two previous SAFER dethat a minimum of 15 firefight- nials, first for four, then eight ers would be “on the ground” additional firefighters – is 90% of the time to respond to now deploying a strategy similar to Harrison’s by asking for a first alarm. $1.9 million to cover the hiring Stahl declined to make of 15 additional fire personnel available a copy of the denial for two years, to supplement explanation sent to the town by the feds on the grounds he the existing complement of 83, according to Fire Chief Steven didn’t want to compromise Dyl. Even if the application is the town’s position. The town could have asked successful, however, it would still leave the department for more, Stahl said, “but we went conservative,” figuring it below its allowable ordinance would have a better chance of strength of 102, he noted. Dyl joined other fire chiefs snagging some of the federal in the region in publicly pie split up among paid and questioning Harrison’s firstvolunteer fire departments response firefighting resource around the country. capabilities and its alleged Now, having become more over-reliance on mutual aid, in savvy in the process, Stahl said local department experts the wake of a March 10 multialarm fire in the 600 block of “crunched the numbers” and Frank E. Rodgers Blvd. North the department reapplied to that left 25 residents homeless the SAFER grant program –
SAFER from
and injured five Jersey City firefighters. Kearny’s governing body – at the behest of Mayor Alberto Santos – voted in May to reduce its initial mutual aid response to Harrison, from three to two fire companies, saying it wanted to minimize the risk of endangering its firefighters and to cut down
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TOP: Firefighters display rescue tools. BOTTOM: They power up equipment.
on overtime costs. Santos said the town would look to cut back even more if it felt the perceived risk to its fire personnel persisted but, so far, that threat hasn’t yet materialized. Meanwhile, Harrison is thankful for its Assistance to Firefighters grant, secured through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Department of Homeland Security (which also provides SAFER grants), allowing the acquisition of rescue products from ESI Equipment Co. of Montgomeryville, Pa. Devices like a circle/flat cutter/spreader capable of cutting out windshields,
an hydraulic 1,000 PSI ram designed to push in dashboards and control panels and a heavy duty “come a long” winch (a ratchet-type tool with chain attachment) that can pull off a door or steering wheel, will all be helpful in freeing a driver from a smashed vehicle, as will “hi lo stabilizer jacks” that can raise and steady a vehicle “in a matter of minutes” prior to extricating occupants, Stahl said. And another weapon the department will now have in its arsenal, Stahl added, is a light-weight 10,000 PSI hydraulic power pack designed to operate two rescue tools at the same time.
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