Recently I wrote about how Chicago Mayor Richard Daley requested that all first responders take 24 days without pay, which would save the city millions in 2010. Some readers were supportive of the mayor, and I was surprised.

One reader wrote, “I applaud Mayor Daley’s courageous and principled stand on furloughs. Firefighters, police, and EMTs are no different from other municipal employees, or for that matter, the millions of other Americans who have lost their jobs or suffered cuts in hours or benefits as a result of the financial crisis.”

I feel for Americans who’ve lost jobs — I have friends and family members among them. But I’d like to be assured that their lives are somewhat secure; if they were in an accident or a house fire, I want them to survive because our first responders are on the job. Public-safety still is a priority, even when citizens are losing their jobs.

The same reader commented that, “Your thesis assumes that the community depends on firefighters, police, and EMTs in a way that if true suggests the community has lost more than just its economic footing. In a functioning community, police, EMTs and firefighters serve as an extension of the community’s capacity to organize itself to provide for mutual security.”

I agree with him — an engaged citizenry in Chicago would be great. If people took responsibility for their community and showed 5% more courtesy, it would be a safer, warmer place to live.

But it’s totally unrealistic.

It just doesn’t happen in this city, which is segregated by either ethnic or socio-economic standards. In addition, Chicagoans are self-absorbed. In fact, children in the city are taught to yell “fire” versus “help” if in danger because residents are more willing to react if their own safety is threatened instead of the safety of others. It’s sad to say, but generally in people the city are not helpers. In fact, folks usually just try to stay out of each others’ way.

Finally, he wrote, “When Chicago firefighters went on strike many years ago, the number of fires actually went down. Something very similar happened in the United Kingdom during their recent industrial dispute with firefighters.”

I am unfamiliar with the case in the United Kingdom. I lived through the Chicago Fire Strike in 1980 — and I learned there was an uptick in fires and violence throughout the city. In addition, union leaders jokingly called it “the second Chicago fire.” So I doubt fires go down if fewer firefighters are on the job.

Maybe looking at the way funding is distributed would help the budget crunch, even more than furlough days, implied another reader. I’d be interested in hearing other readers’ thoughts on his suggestion below:

“[I] consider Chicago my hometown. Many of my friends and family are firefighters and paramedics on the city. My only concern is this; most cities have a very large fire department with millions of budget [dollars] for equipment and salaries. Most buildings have fire sprinklers. Would it not be better to have a fire department that does 80% EMS response and have more ambulance personnel with two per ambulance and less fire apparatus with four to six people per vehicle to save lives and decrease the budget by decreasing salaries and equipment expenditures?”

In the end, I agree with a reader who said society needs first responders as their first line of defense against a disaster.

“[T]he nation’s first responders are — whether anyone wants to pay them or not — our nation’s first and last line of defense against any catastrophe, manmade, intentional or accidental,” he said. “We need those men and women to show up and be compensated for placing their lives on the line daily and not have to worry about anything but being the best they can at what they do, protect you.”

I take the bus to work. And yesterday, my fellow riders and I were startled by a middle-age man who was screaming angrily about the current government, taxation, health care, 401K fraud and cutbacks in public services. Nutcases on public transportation add to the joy of living in Chicago. It’s a daily event to hear someone off his rocker preaching about one issue or another. But when he started to yelp about the city’s plan to force police and fire personnel to take furlough days, he caught my attention.

Last week, the city rolled out its 2010 budget. Mayor Richard Daley included 24 unpaid days (12 holidays, 12 furlough days) for all non-union and many union city employees — including the city’s firefighters and police officers. Of course, the mayor can’t force the departments to take furlough days based on union contracts. But he seems determined to strong arm the city’s first responders into being team players and making sacrifices like the rest of the city’s workers. In fact, he said publicly that, “Everyone has to be part of the solution, not part of the problem. And that’s why I’m taking 24 days without pay, and I got other people to take that, because you have to show that government understands the suffering that is going on throughout your communities.”

If police and fire unions agreed to furloughs, the city would save $120 million, city Budget Director Eugene Munin said publicly at a city council budget hearing. That is a huge cost savings. It’s great the city can save money by forcing folks to take a month off. But to save money at the expense of public safety is ridiculous. Many will argue that there are not enough first responders on the street already, especially after nationally publicized events like the beating death of a Fenger High School student. And a time when the nation is at war against domestic and international terrorists, as well as facing threats from biological, chemical and radiological attacks and then the potential swine flu pandemic, don’t we need our first responders at work more than ever?

In fact, cutting the amount of first responders on the street may actually cost the city money. Imagine the lawsuits and liability coming from this. If it takes an ambulance or fire department 10 minutes longer to reach a victim who then dies, will a lawsuit ensue? And how much money would it cost the city’s lawyers to fight the suit, and then ultimately settle it to keep the victims’ families quiet? My guess is somewhere in the millions of dollars.

I give Daley credit because he also plans on taking furlough days. I understand the city’s broke. But the firefighter union shouldn’t have to take these days. I have another idea. Maybe the city should look at the layers of leadership and cut from there. Instead of 50 aldermen, maybe we should combine districts and cut that number by half. Or maybe they only need to meet once a week, and get paid for 52 days. Or maybe, just maybe, being an alderman shouldn’t be a full-time job. Maybe instead it should be a calling to public service. Yes. Maybe they should work for free. Cost-savings should come off the backs of politicians and their cronies, not first responders. Because in the end, an alderman rarely saves a life — while for police and firefighters serving and protecting the community is part of their moral code. We need them on the streets, 24/7. If not, the consequences may be great.

Like most Americans, I have been forced to buckle down and count my pennies to survive the current economic climate. I’ve clipped coupons. I’ve cancelled cable. And I bring my lunch to work every day.

According to economists, the U.S. economy will be slow to recover, as corporate profits take time to stabilize and governments try to meet their budgetary shortfalls. Fire departments are no different, said Bruce Evans, the assistant chief of support services for the City of North Las Vegas Fire Department. He’s responsible for EMS, training, business processes, accreditation, facility maintenance and vehicle acquisition — and just learned he must cut $3 million from his budget.

That’s a tall order, and Evans said one area that won’t be cut is firefighting training.

“Sometimes the first thing fire departments do is cut the entire training budget,” Evans said. “So that obviously not wise because that is an investment in the future and can also lead to a risk management issue later on.”

Instead, Evans said support services will be cut across the board. At the same time he’s considering ways to save money. For example, he’s re-negotiating prices on service contracts or on reconsidering equipment purchases — sometimes choosing the lower bidder and sacrificing bells and whistles. He also is working with vendors willing to deliver items right the first time in an efficient manner, which saves money in the long run, he said.

Evans also is considering ways to generate revenue by reexamining fees for ambulance services. In many cases, fire departments can start expanding coverage areas or bill car insurance companies. Departments can raise other fees, such as building inspection and permitting for hazardous materials.

“Those are all things that would potential have increases in fees,” Evans said.

Evans said departments need to track every penny and get reimbursed. For example, he said a neighboring department transports 600 patients a year and doesn’t bill for it because it occurs in an overload situation when a private ambulance doesn’t have a unit unavailable.

“In the past, those would have went uncollected or unprocessed,” he said. “Even though it’s a small amount of money you can’t leave that sitting on the table anymore. You have to go after it.”

In addition, fire departments should know how much each response costs, including what a fire engine costs per hour based on the specific staffing pattern. Documentation of staffing and other administrative processes is important money as well, Evans said. He recommends chiefs track costs on a mapping software so city officials can be convinced with data how much the fire service needs to operate based on the types of calls, their location and the response time.

“So when the city council says ‘well do we really need this fire truck in this location’ based on calls you can go back and prove the need using the data,” Evans said.

Evans noted departments must be innovative without compromising a good work environment, safety or gains toward technology and better service to the community.

“But if you are not innovative, your [department] won’t survive,” he said.

The U.S. Fire Administration came up with an ingenious — if not necessarily original — idea: an online archive where members of the fire service can share information. Fire Prevention and Public Education Exchange aims to serve as a centralized location for national, state and local fire-prevention practices and public-education materials. I recently spoke to Chief Sandy Facinoli, Prevention & Information/National Fire Programs for the USFA, about the program and how it can help chiefs in their day-to-day decision-making.

Facinoli said the administration has been working on ways to make it easy for information across the U.S. fire service, and the new archive provides such an opportunity.

“We have noticed for some time that there are all kinds of great materials being generated nationally and regionally and it’s hard to find it all,” Facinoli said. “Sometimes it’s on the Web, sometimes it’s not. … And so our strategic plan from 2009 to 2013 included a goal to create a repository of fire-prevention and public-education materials.”

Information-sharing between leadership and those in the field can only lead to positive results. Where one department might have a lessons learned on aerial rescues at a high rise, another may have documents on how to tackle a wildfire in the wildland-urban interface. Facinoli said the USFA’s goal is to make such resources available to the fire service. If one department has a successful program, fact sheet, podcast or other media, it can be sent to the USFA for posting on its Web site.

It only makes sense that the USFA should create a forum where all of the information will be categorized and organized for all of the fire service to use. It’s long overdue. If other departments have found the best way to tackle an issue, why should another re-invent the wheel? Instead, they now can tap into the Web site and read the strategies that were successful to other departments.

“Anything that will be helpful to our fire service in helping reducing fire loss is what we are looking for,” she said. “We just want to be a conduit of sharing the information from one source to another. We are not in the middle of loaning the materials but hope the exchange allows collaboration across the fire-safety community.”

Rural fire departments struggle to provide services. They depend on free manpower, the goodwill of community fundraising and the empathy of a city council that believes the fire service should be properly funded. Without such support, volunteer fire departments have to depend on their own sweat equity to make the department run, including tweaking equipment to make it last one more year or spending mornings flipping pancakes for a fundraiser in hopes of purchasing new bunker gear.

It’s not fair. And frankly, I don’t understand it. How do people work full-time jobs, take care of family responsibilities, and still find time to not only train for the fire service and fight fires, but also to donate to fundraising administrative tasks like stuffing envelopes for a letter-writing campaign?

I spoke recently about this with Jim Bollinger, 30-year chief of the Marble Hill Fire Department in southeast Missouri. The department is one of the lucky ones; it has an annual budget of $100,000 to support community services and to provide gear and training to the 22 volunteers on the team.

The fire department also is part of an automatic mutual-aid system with surrounding towns and is the only department that runs extrication rescues in the rural area.

“That’s because some of the surrounding fire departments don’t even get a budget from their city,” Bollinger said. “It’s like in some of these areas the fire departments are treated like the bastard child and that’s not right.”

Bollinger admits he doesn’t have an answer, only worries on how departments will stay operational while modernizing to meet current safety standards. He points to the NFPA standards for SCBA devices that pushed the price up significantly. Marble Hill is ready for an upgrade, but Bollinger is shocked by the sticker price.

“We are ready for an upgrade, and when we bought the units six years ago they cost around $1,600,” he said. “Now, I hear they may be around $7,000. It is virtually impossible at my department’s size to afford the units… and some other departments depended on fundraisers. What are they going to do?”

Bollinger believes in safety standards and has no complaint there. He just can’t see in today’s economic climate that volunteer departments are going to be able to comply — although he says they must to protect the lives of firefighters. However, the departments just don’t have the funding support from cities and counties — and can’t operate if they don’t meet the standards, he said.

“The fire service really needs support from local government,” he said. “Remember, a fire doesn’t know the difference between a volunteer and career firefighter.”

It’s not like Bollinger is saying anything new. So what’s next? Will more governments add volunteer departments into their fiscal budgets or will services be slashed across the country? I am unsure as of now, but would hate to see volunteer fire departments across the nation slowly shut down, leaving pockets of our rural communities vulnerable to fires.

Wildfires are dangerous beasts that consume acreage at massive speeds. They not only threaten citizens and their property, but also those firefighters tasked with getting the fire under control before anyone is hurt. Southern California has been battling multiple wildfires this year that have threatened lives and property. Firefighters throughout the state have done their best to protect people and property. And I was saddened to learn that on Sunday, two firefighters gave the ultimate sacrifice. They lost their lives near Acton, Calif., when their vehicle rolled down a mountain side.

Fire Capt. Tedmund Hall, 47, of San Bernardino County, and firefighter Specialist Arnaldo “Arnie” Quinones, 35, of Palmdale, were killed in the crash, the department said in a statement. Authorities did not give a cause for the crash. Hall was a 26-year veteran, and Quinones had been a county firefighter for eight years.

I just returned from Fire-Rescue International, where many sessions focused on supporting and raising money for fallen firefighters. It’s what makes the fire service a community, not a job. So let’s do our best as a community to support these family members who lost their loved ones in the California wildfires and remember them in our prayers.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate just announced the 14 lead organizations that will participate in the testing and evaluation phase of the multiband radio project. It’s the final step before manufacturers start inundating the marketplace with their own version of the radio. The eventual widespread availability of the radios makes me wonder: If multiband radios hit the market next year and public-safety agencies nationwide adopt them, why do we need to build out a broadband, public-safety network?

I’ve seen an early version of the multiband radio from Thales Communications, which was demonstrated nearly at the 2008 International Wireless Communications Expo. The Thales radio has been used throughout the pilot because the company landed a hefty $6.275 million DHS contract to develop it. The radio operates in the 136–174 MHz, 360–400 MHz, 402–420 MHz, 450–512 MHz, 700 MHz and 800 MHz frequencies — letting command-and-control personnel communicate across bands during a large-scale, cross-jurisdictional incident. The radio also is capable of tapping into to other channels, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s weather channel. As a result, it has the capability to be the crucial technology to solve the nation’s communication interoperability issues.

The radios seem to solve the issue of interoperability.  They work across frequencies and agencies. It’s a technology that can be used now for cross-agency communications without public-safety folks waiting and waiting for D.C. insiders and the FCC to work out the details of a nationwide, broadband public-safety network. But Dr. David Boyd — director of command, control and interoperability for the directorate — disagreed with me, saying he doesn’t believe multiband radios will make the buildout of the network obsolete. Instead, it helps with the migration from one type of network to another.

"This becomes the bridge device [to interoperability]. So if you are going to build out a public safety network you would expect commanders and so on to want a multiband radio for the build-out so they can communicate with the new network as they build it out," Boyd said. "And, interesting enough, it would let users work between the new and the old network as it is happening."

Boyd said the final pilot will test how the radio can be used in day-to-day operations. After the pilot program, the DHS expects the data to be used in two ways: Industry will use it to determine areas of improvement on their version of the multiband radio and users will be able to look at the key lessons learned from the pilot program. Results will be documented at the conclusion of the test, and all findings and lessons learned will be published in a report that is expected to be posted on the SAFECOM program Web site in early 2010, Boyd said.

But I still wonder: Once public-safety agencies get their hands on a multiband radio, will they still clamor for a public-safety network or will they let it go as yet another bureaucratic debacle that’s years from fruition? Only time will tell.

What do you think? Tell us in the comment box below.

I’d love to live on an island. And when I recently spoke to the Honolulu Fire Department about its varied rescue operations, it just reinforced what I already knew: Living and working on an island is just plain cool.

The island environment means each rescue is different. In fact, firefighters may retrieve victims using high-angle rescues in an urban area on one shift, and fly helicopters, jet-ski in high surf or repel into mountain canyons to find the lost during the next, said Chief Ken Silva.

The all-hazard department serves the entire island of Oahu, about 600 square miles. That includes responding to incidents in the Pacific Ocean or along the island’s 227 miles of shoreline. At the same time, the department served both urban and rural, mountainous areas that house a population of about 900,000. “Honolulu has several high rises in the urban core, including transit populations staying in hotels,” he said. “The island also has wildland areas and our summer months are exceptionally busy for us in battling fire in the wildland-urban interface.”

The department also responds to incidents on the island’s military bases. Silva said the department has mutual-aid agreements with the Federal Fire Department that protects military bases, such as the Pearl Harbor Naval Station, and works alongside the Hickam Air Force Base and state of Hawaii’s Air Rescue Fire departments. HFD’s two, five-person technical search-and-rescue teams also respond to any mountain, ocean or other rescues on the military bases since Federal Fire and ARF do not have a rescue companies.

As a result, the department’s 1,200 firefighters must be able to handle myriad types of fire calls and search-and-rescue operations, Silva said. They also must meet several qualifications that mainland firefighters may not. First, firefighters must be what Silva dubbed “excellent waterman.” He said that many of the department’s firefighters were born on Oahu or other Hawaiian islands, spending their youth surfing or kayaking, even SCUBA diving off the shores of Honolulu. Still, all firefighters must pass a swimming competency skill-set test and be trained on rescues in an ocean environment.

“Shoreline companies also are trained in watercraft operation,” Silva said.

Indeed, HFD firefighters must wear a lot of hats. That’s where training becomes essential, noted Bttn. Chief Jeff Farris, a 27-year fire service veteran and chief of special operations. Farris oversees the hazmat and fire-boat programs, as well as department’s aircraft section. He also plans training for the search-and-rescue squad, which includes high-angle rescues, working on the aircraft and the watercraft, SCUBA diving or using thermal imagers or the hydraulic extraction equipment.

Farris said firefighters also need basic firefighting training on apparatus and equipment. They also must be proficient in basic life support skills because a rescue squad has to package the patient, do initial triage and then bring the patient out to the ambulance, he said.

Training is especially important with special operation companies, including technical rescue. While Farris may advise HFD firefighters on how to attack an incident, he also spends time listening to his field personnel. In fact, he depends on his team’s local knowledge of the island to determine appropriate search-and-rescue strategies. Most firefighters are local, born and raised on the island. So it’s important to tap into that local knowledge, he said.

“Our firefighters are watermen, comfy on mountain trails and chiefs need to solicit their advice during training and at incidents,” Farris said.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how FDNY Chief Salvatore Cassano’s life has changed since the establishment of a state-of-the-art fire department operations center in its headquarters in Brooklyn. The new center means Cassano no longer goes to an incident. Instead, he leads his teams remotely using a cadre of wireless technology to support his decision-making.

Some readers said the chief now sits in “an ivory tower” while firefighters hit the ground running. First of all, the chief is a 40-year veteran of the department. He’s been on the job fighting fires — and putting his life on the line — long before the security of modern technologies, including two-way radio and communications systems.

In fact, firefighters didn’t always have access to such technologies. Old-school techniques were used instead. It reminds me of stories told to me by my father, a retired Chicago Fire Department lieutenant, about the communication systems he used when he was first on the job.

“We just yelled out to each other,” he told me. “It was a very reliable system.”

FDNY’s move to have its chief run incidents remotely isn’t about hierarchy. It is about using technology to fill in operational gaps. The whole point of the FDOC is to increase the amount of voice and data communications throughout the fire department. It acts as the communications nerve center that lets the FDNY monitor operations at its 198 engine and 143 ladder companies. Cassano said it is used for both day-to-day and command-and-control operations for large-scale emergency incidents. Data transmitted over secure phone lines and computers are viewed on a wall-mounted, curved-screen panel where commanders review video and other data. Such data helps them make high-level decisions that keep citizens and firefighters safe, he said.

In addition, the FDNY recently armed its fleet of vehicles with an automatic vehicle location system. Cassano said the system tracks every apparatus. Moreover, the department now has the ability — through an agreement with the New York Police Department — to place fire officers aboard police helicopters so an aerial command view is available.

Cassano stands by the system and his new role. He said all of the aforementioned upgrades at the FDOC were crucial in handling the US Airways flight 1549 crash in the Hudson River in January. When the plane crashed, Washington officials called New York command and control to determine whether the wreck was terrorist-related. Officers on the city’s Joint Terrorism Task Force dispelled the notion. The chief was working out of the FCOC that day and had a visual of the plane floating on the river from the media, as well as a helicopter view. He also was in contact with the FAA and area hospitals. At the same time, he communicated all data via radio to his operations chief 10 miles away.

“I had a handle on what was going on much sooner, much more accurately, than anyone on the scene,” he said. “It was the vast amount of information received and managed at the center that helped me and my team seamlessly manage the incident.”

So it’s essential that fire chiefs tap into technology — and yes, this has changed the nature of their jobs. But to say for ego sake that a chief is better suited to be on the ground rather than armed with all the appropriate information is silly. To lead, a chief must have reliable information. And a leader must protect his people. Armed with technology and information, that’s exactly what the chief is doing.

It’s been nearly eight years since 9/11, and I wondered if New York was prepared for another large-scale incident. So I called New York City Fire Department Chief Salvatore Cassano and asked him point blank: Can the city respond to another terrorist attack?

Cassano said the FDNY will operate at full capacity if the city again is the target of a terrorist attack. He said a lot has changed since 2001. Overseeing all incidents in the city wasn’t an option pre-9/11 because technology was not in place to support large-scale emergency operations. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, the FDNY command center consisted of only a couple of phones and a couple of screens, he said. Response efforts also were hampered by a general inability to share information across local, state and federal agencies.

“It just was totally inefficient to handle any type of large-scale event. It was basically a notification center, so if something happened they would notify people but that was it. There was no major system,” he said. “We had very little information to send to the site at the World Trade Center, and I was getting very little information from the site to us to see what we could do for them. So we realized that it was totally inefficient — we knew that we needed a much better, improved state-of-the-art operations center for future events.”

Even if such technologies had been in place, it was the on-the-fly decisions that had to be made that was the most challenging aspect of that day, Cassano said. The city’s public-safety officials had only 102 minutes to make decisions. In that time, two planes crashed into two 100-story buildings, causing their collapse. Just think of the myriad decisions that had to be made during such a short period of time.

So the department made changes over the last eight years. Two way radios often fail because in-building coverage is insufficient. Now teams carry 25-pound, 45 W radios into high-rise buildings that officers use to communicate with command. In addition, the city has invested $18 million to build a new emergency operations center, where the chief can oversee operations within the five city boroughs and monitor each incident from a centralized location. The operations center connects all of the stations, as well as the FDNY to local, state and federal agencies. It also controls an advanced vehicle location system that tracks all fire department apparatus and stores that information at headquarters. The chief now can tell where all of his units are deployed and the type of incident — across the entire city — from one location. The EOC lets the chief get the most accurate, real-time information out to his field officers and firefighters at incidents, Cassano said.

The department also holds joint drills and table-top exercises.

“We have learned a tremendous lesson in interagency cooperation, sharing of information, being able to talk to each other,” he said. “We’ve been doing it for seven years so if an event happens the response will be automatic.”

Cassano hopes New York City won’t suffer another terrorist attack, but if it does, “we will be ready,” he said.