I was blown away by Michael N. Ciampo’s “Who had the Nozzle?” (On Fire, May 2009). In his column, he stepped outside of the stereotype many have of him as a “truck” guy and wrote about engine work. He made the “back page” not just about the Fire Department of New York (FDNY) but about something every firefighter across the nation could relate to.
Ciampo made us think about the big picture of teamwork in placing the nozzle into operation. He helped us understand this important tactic from both the engine and truck points of view. And the small points he interjected (i.e., “reminding the chauffeur to pull past” and “stretching up to the next landing or into an adjacent apartment”) may help someone make his job a little better, a little easier, and a little safer. Ciampo was able to accomplish this because he doesn’t have the ego that so many that reach his level in the fire service seem to have. He is the guy who will talk with the same respect to the guy in the middle of nowhere who does 100 runs a year as he does to the guy working in the ghettos of the big city. He maintains an open mind regardless of what region of the United States you come from when it comes to strategy and tactics.
He’s one of the most well-rounded firefighters I know because of his career path and from the experiences he has gained teaching and talking with firefighters from around the country. It is a pleasure to see an article that teaches the nuts-and-bolts firefighting we so desperately need to learn in the fire service today.
Jamie Morelock
Firefighter
Toledo (OH) Department of Fire and Rescue
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Job losses
Paul Combs’ illustration “This will stop the budget’s bleeding” (Letters to the Editor, June 2009) is a very accurate depiction of what is happening all over the country. Perhaps we are fortunate here in Spain, where fire and local police are public service employees who have their positions guaranteed by law. About the only way anyone can be fired is by having committed some very serious offense. One way Spanish municipalities have found to “reduce” staffing is by not replacing retired or disabled personnel. This happened several years ago in the country’s second municipal fire brigade when a “creative thinking head” consultant convinced the city authorities that by eliminating a couple of stations and cutting back on staffing by not replacing retiring firefighters, the city could save millions. In eight years, staffing dropped from 1,010 to just over 700. However, the average age of first response engine company personnel rose from 35 to 52. The retirement age for Spanish firefighters at that time was 65 (now it’s 62 and dropping to 59). We oldies apparently can do the same as you youngsters.
Public service employees are supposed to be exactly that, personnel involved in activities that serve their fellow citizens. In the United States, the public servant who does not comply with that objective, or whose position is found to be redundant, or for whatever other reason can be subject to “removal from the payroll” can likely expect to be removed from the payroll. Here in Spain, however, vast numbers of young people, whether they be high school graduates or have a university-level education, strive to meet the rather stringent requirements for participation in the frequent municipal, regional, or national examination processes to become public service employees, which give them literally guaranteed lifetime employment. Although starting salaries may be lower than in similar positions in the private sector, perks and benefits abound: accumulation of seniority (three-year periods) with salary bonus, approximately 30 days of vacation annually, “bridges” when public holidays fall on Tuesdays or Thursdays (Monday or Friday off with no discounts), public health care, and a host of other benefitsthe most important being the near impossibility of losing their jobs.
The vast majority of Spanish firefighters are public employees, with the curious situation that their annual hourly work schedules are the same as office personnel, some 1,700 hours. Some allotments for overtime are tolerated, but so as not to exceed those 1,700 hours, the Spanish fire departments must sustain five or six shifts that make 24 hours on duty 96 hours (four days) common scheduling. This makes the fire service an extremely attractive careerworking one out of five days, especially in departments with few responses.
George Potter
Fire Safety Instructor
Madrid, Spain
