Tony Reid
Herald & Review, Decatur, Ill.
(TNS)
Sep. 6—DECATUR — Any boss running a business with roaring customer demand and dwindling staff could be forgiven for feeling a little hot under the collar.
Jeff Abbott, Decatur’s fire chief, is a chief executive dealing with all that and a whole lot of other burning issues smoldering in his in-tray.
He spelled some of them out in his monthly report to his Decatur City Council employers, part of the regular updates turned in by other city executives like the police chief. But Abbott’s report made for blistering reading:
“The fire department responded to 1,349 alarms in July. That was 200 more alarms than July of last year,” Abbott told council members. “And there were 13 more fires in July compared to July of 2023.”
Abbott blamed the rise in actual fire calls on problems caused by fireworks in the nation’s birth month. But he said call volume of all kinds — anything from blazes to car wrecks, injuries, and all kinds of emergency and nonemergency medical calls — is surging.
“To date, the department has responded to 8,238 alarms in 2024,” he said in his July report.
“The number of alarms at the same point in 2023 was 8,039. Just for reference, in 2013 there were 8,260 alarms for the entire year, and we had one more fire company in service to respond to alarms.”
If all that wasn’t bad enough, the ranks of his firefighters have also been draining away as the calls for their services continue heating up. The department’s duty roster right now shows seven vacancies and both deputy chiefs are due to retire in September.
And it gets worse: three firefighters have turned in their retirement letters for October and five firefighters are off the job with injuries. There is also an average of two firemen off on sick leave on any given day, a level Abbott described as on the high side.
“What’s driving that? Honestly, I don’t know,” he told the Herald & Review in a discussion about his monthly report. “But it’s something we’re definitely going to look at.”
That leaves the city with around 100 firefighters when the duty roster said it should have 107 to provide 24 hour, seven-day-a-week coverage. Perhaps not surprisingly, overtime pay is smokin’ hot.
“Our overtime costs in July of last year were $48,000,” Abbott said. “For the two pay periods in July this year our overtime expenses were $75,000. And it looks like already for the two pay periods in August we are at $86,000 to $87,000.
“And you have to remember, firefighters work 24-hour shifts. So, compared to a regular job with somebody working an eight-hour day, it’s like hiring that person for three working days on overtime.”
The good news is that help is coming down the hose, so to speak. Eleven new recruits are due to start in September and three of them have had fire academy training previously and should be able to serve after a one-week refresher course.
“For the others, it will be November before they go on shift,” said Abbott, referring to their training schedule. “But it will definitely help us and, due to the fact summer is winding down, there won’t be as high a demand for people wanting vacation time off.”
Tough decisions
Longer term, however, the fire chief said the city he serves is going to have to make some tough decisions about the job it wants its fire department to do as call volumes and costs continue to blaze away.
A look at numbers so far this year show firefighters responding to a low of 1,076 calls (February) to that high of 1,349 in July. Of those July calls, 52 were to actual fires but 952 were medical calls involving anything from major emergencies to assisting ambulance crews to lift a patient.
Changes in procedure brought in recently means the fire department now charges for patient lift-assists at commercial facilities like nursing homes. But it still responds, free of charge, to many similar calls at patients’ own homes. Abbott said some hard conversations may be needed with the citizens of Decatur about how they want their fire department to serve them and best use its hard-pressed resources.
“It’s the citizens of Decatur’s fire department,” the chief said. “And if you don’t want the Decatur Fire Department to run lift assists, then tell us not to run lift assists. Right now, we know that patients are being told at the hospital and by doctor’s offices that, when they are discharged, ‘If you need help getting up or anything, call the fire department.'”
Abbott said the bottom line is that those in genuine need of help must always receive it, but there is a price to be paid if the scope of calls firefighters are expected to answer is spread too wide.
“The root of why we are here is to respond to emergencies,” he added.
“And every time we get tied up doing a non-emergency call, that takes us away from that primary issue. People need to think about that.”
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Contact Tony Reid at (217) 421-7977. Follow him on Twitter: @TonyJReid
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