If you spend much time around Syracuse University, you probably have seen the city’s busiest fire company. Thousands of times each year, Engine Company 7 climbs the Hill from its quarters at 1039 E. Fayette St., responding to everything from house fires to heart attacks. But soon, help might be coming from farther away. City officials are threatening to close Fire Station 7, citing a predicted budget shortfall.

IAFF Local 280, the labor union representing Syracuse’s firefighters, asks for your help in persuading city officials to find safer ways to close the budget gap. Seconds matter in many emergencies: fires grow rapidly and the odds of surviving a heart attack decline just as quickly. We don’t think your neighborhood, or any neighborhood in Syracuse, deserves a slower response.

Here are a few facts about the fire department and Engine Company 7. Engine Company 7 is one of 10 engine companies in Syracuse. These two-piece companies include a fire engine and a smaller rescue vehicle. In addition to fire calls, engine companies handle most of the city’s life-threatening medical emergencies. Syracuse also has a rescue company, a squad company, five truck companies, a hazardous materials response team and an airport rescue company. These companies are housed in 12 stations and together they responded to over 27,600 emergencies in 2012.

Engine 7 was the busiest engine, responding to 2,124 alarms. Mini 7 responded to 3,807 calls, making it the second-busiest Mini. Among Engine Company 7’s calls were 253 fires out of the city’s 1,127 total fires. In 2012, the number of alarms increased by 7.8 percent during 2011. In 2013, alarms are expected to top 30,000.

Closing stations in the face of increasing call volume puts lives in danger; yours and ours. Other companies, already busy, will be stretched even thinner as they leave their neighborhoods to protect the area currently protected by Station 7. Fires will get bigger and more dangerous before we can get to them.

Please, consider calling city hall or your city councilor to let them know you support maintaining current staffing levels. We also encourage you to contact our union office for more information about how cuts to the fire department could affect you. Our email address is [email protected] and our phone number is 475-0766.

Lonnie O. Johnson

President, Syracuse Fire Fighters Association Local 280

Published on February 4, 2013 at 1:25 am