NFD lays out override need

The Norwood Fire Department (NFD) hosted a meeting last week at the Norwood Public Safety Building to lay out what the proposed Public Safety Override would do for the department and for the safety of Norwood residents.

The proposed override would bring the regular firefighter shift from 15 personnel to 18 personnel.

The talk was led by semi-retired Norwood Firefighter Paul Ronco – last Friday was allegedly his last day as a NFD firefighter but he has his last class to teach in the Norwood School system this Friday, so he’s not completely out of it as of the date of publication – and not-retiring NFD Lieutenant Mike Chisholm led the discussion.

Chisholm and Ronco said those three additional firefighters can make a lot of difference, and so detailed how NFD responds to a fire, each division of firefighters in such a response, and what their responsibilities are. Ronco said currently, the department has about 15 firefighters per shift (but noted many times due to sickness or PTO that number is around 14, the bare minimum), and each firefighter is assigned to a specific truck. Chisholm said that there is a team assigned to the ladder truck, one to fire Engine 5 and one to Engine 6.

Engine 6 is the first response truck, and Chisholm said it has about three minutes of full-pressure water in its tank. Engine 5 is the water truck, and is used to run lines from the nearest hydrant to Engine 6. The ladder truck, Chisholm said, is where more manpower is most needed.

“Their job is probably the most important, I would argue” he said. “Their first job is search-and-rescue. We refer to that as a primary search. Even when buildings were reported empty – there is a study out there from the Fire Safety Rescue Institute – where a significant number of times where neighbors said there was no one in the house, and they later found victims in that building.”

Chisholm said there is no hose line, just a two-gallon bucket and a firefigher’s regular turnout gear. He said the Ladder truck has one lieutenant and three firefighters, but he said the staffing there is usually short. Part of that is by design, as the driver is needed to stay in the truck at all times.

“The person driving, their job is to stay with that truck,” he said. “That driver has to stay with that truck because, sometimes all of a sudden in a second- or third-story building and someone pops in the window screaming, that firefighter has to be there to get that ladder to them and get them out.”

The other issue is that the 15-firefighter shift is usually short. Illness and vacation push the department to the minimum 14 firefighters per shift “more often than not” according to Chisholm, and that can also mean overtime and pulling double shifts for some to cover those out.

And so, if the department is short, Chisholm and Ronco said that it can mean a response will be stilted rather than simultaneous.

“I can go to my guy and say, ‘Hey we’re going to the roof,’ and ‘Firefighter Rourke and Firefighter Chisholm (referring to his younger brother Firefighter Stephen Chisholm), you go do search and rescue.’ We’re now able to do those jobs simultaneously. And the National Fire Prevention Agency (NFPA) stanrdards1710 – https://gvimes.link/firestandards – says how important it is to do those things simultaneously. Fires spread quicker now in modern structures, and the time you have to get out of a building is significantly decreased, so to accomplish those tasks all at once is more important than ever.”

Pretty early in the conversation with residents, Doris Dickson asked the presenters why they aren’t using “scare tactics” to drum up support for the override, which she said she felt was worth the average homeowner tax increase of $94 a year.

“What I’m thinking is you need to make this scarier; this isn’t scary enough for some of the tightwads in this Town,” she said.

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Firefighter Dennis Mawn answered this.

“Let me interrupt you,” he said. “We purposely didn’t fear-monger here, or on our Facebook pages… We have friends in Fall River, we have friends in Chelmsford. Two people died because they didn’t have enough firefighters. We could easily fear-monger. We don’t want to do it. We grew up in this Town, and we love this Town. We’re praying we don’t have to fear-monger, we’re praying people see that the bang-for-their-buck that they’re getting for the short money they’re going to be asked to pay: the services, the benefit to morale to all firefighters, and the increase to service. We could stand here and fear-monger all day. But we don’t.”

“My fear is that they’re going to choose the schools over you,” Dickson said.

“All we can do is provide the information and make our case,” Chisholm said. “The fear-mongering doesn’t get us anywhere.”

More public safety override information sessions will be presented but have yet to be scheduled.