In Tough Times, Fire Department Untouched

During the year that Robert Hoff became a Chicago firefighter, in 1976, 156 people died in fires in the city. By 2010, when Hoff became the department’s commissioner, that figure had plummeted to 27.

The number of fires that the department was called to put out also dropped dramatically in recent decades. What has hardly changed is the staffing level of the Chicago Fire Department, even as mayors from New York to Los Angeles are trying to combat the recession with reductions in fire protection spending.

The Chicago News Cooperative’s survey of the country’s 10 largest cities found that Chicago ranks near the top in the resources devoted to its fire department. With one firefighter for every 637 residents, Chicago has more firefighters per capita than every large United States city except for Houston, the CNC’s analysis found. And, taking into account its coverage area of about 230 square miles and more than 90 firehouses, Chicago’s department ranked third among the 10 largest cities in the density of firehouses, behind only New York and Philadelphia. (See the complete rankings)

Rahm Emanuel has quietly visited many of Chicago’s firehouses since winning the February election to succeed Mayor Richard M. Daley. But Emanuel’s campaign platform for dealing with the city’s perennial budget deficits made no mention of any proposals that would affect staffing in the fire department.

Asked this week to specify Emanuel’s position on fire department staff levels, spokeswoman Chris Mather, issued a one-sentence statement: “We have serious fiscal issues ahead of us, but we also understand how critical the dedicated firefighters in Chicago are to ensuring the safety of our city.”

Daley administration officials have rebutted suggestions from the city’s inspector general that the department reduce staffing from five firefighters to four in each crew, as is the norm in most other cities.

“The decline in fire deaths and fires over the years is not reason to think about cutting back the number of firefighters or firehouses,” the fire department spokesman, Larry Langford, said in a statement this week.

Still, with the city’s budget deficits exceeding $500 million every year, some fiscal experts questioned whether Emanuel could afford to avert the politically touchy issue of fire department staffing.

Police and fire costs are to the city budget as defense spending is to the federal government, not only in the sense that police and fire forces provide core public safety functions, but also because they make up a huge chunk of the payroll. Of the city’s almost 33,000 full-time workers, roughly two-thirds are police or fire department employees. The city allocated almost $2 billion in its $6.15 billion spending plan for 2011 to public safety.

“Firefighters and other public safety personnel will have to be included in the efficiencies and possible reductions,” said Laurence Msall, president of the Civic Federation, a local budget watchdog group that is funded largely by business interests.

“We recognize the political sensitivity, but staffing for public safety must match the actual needs rather than relying on traditional levels of staffing,” Msall added.

Financial pressures have led to a decrease in the number of police officers (a trend that Emanuel has vowed to reverse), but the fire department has the same number of budgeted positions in Daley’s 2011 budget than it did last year.

There are almost 5,200 employees in the fire department, including about 4,300 firefighters, according to city budget documents. In the last five years, the budget of the fire department has grown more than 12 percent, to $509.4 million this year.

Officials of Chicago’s firefighters’ union did not return calls for this article. The union, which led a 23-day strike in 1980, had endorsed Gery Chico to succeed Daley as mayor.

Hoff, who was will remain as fire commissioner after Emanuel’s inauguration on Monday, declined an interview request. Langford, the department spokesman, said the lower fire death rate is due in part to the department having “enough manpower to conduct searches while simultaneously” fighting fires and keeping flames from spreading to other buildings.

The decline in the number of fire deaths in Chicago was part of a national trend attributed to a variety of factors, including sprinkler systems, fire alarms and smoke detectors. City statistics for structure fires show a drop from almost 5,700 in 1996 to less than 2,500 in 2008.

But the number of medical calls to the fire department increased at the same time that the number of fires dropped, Langford noted.

Nicholas Sposato, a 17-year fire department veteran who was elected to the City Council in April’s election, said he favored maintaining fire staffing levels. After winning the aldermanic race in the 36th Ward, Sposato gave up his job at the firehouse on Cumberland Avenue, on the far Northwest Side.

“We would get a lot of runs they call ‘assist the invalid,’ ” Sposato said. “I’m all for doing stuff like that for the citizens. Some people may think it’s silly, but you have seniors with one kid in Naperville and the other in Lake Zurich. When something happens, we need to be there, even if you just pick them up and sit them in a chair, or get them in their bed.”

Proving that level of service is particularly expensive because the city’s contract with the firefighters union requires five firefighters on every apparatus. In a report issued in October, Inspector General Joseph Ferguson estimated that shifting to four firefighters per piece of equipment could save the city more than $63 million a year. Personnel costs, including benefits, for every firefighter are more than $100,000 a year, according to the report.

The inspector general noted that the National Fire Protection Association recommends a minimum of four fighters in each crew. Of the 10 largest cities, only New York and Los Angeles regularly staff both engines and trucks with at least five firefighters, the CNC’s survey found. (See how fire department cuts affected other cities)

But other factors, such as density of development, could require greater staffing levels than the four-firefighter minimum, said Ken Willette, the public fire protection division manager for the national association, which is based in Quincy, Mass. “We would defer to the commissioner to apply our standard” to Chicago, Willette said.

Langford said Chicago needs larger crews because it has many apartment buildings as well as multi-story public schools and nursing homes. Even in largely residential areas of the city’s bungalow belt, Langford said, homes “are often very close together,” requiring more firefighters than the minimum standard.

He pointed to studies showing that four-person crews were only 65 percent as efficient as having five firefighters in a team. “That translates into minutes saved, which is lives and property saved,” Langford said.

By the Numbers

Fire Deaths

Fire deaths have dropped dramatically in Chicago in recent years, part of a national trend that experts attribute to safety measures such as smoke detectors, fire alarms and sprinkler systems.

Source: Chicago Fire Department

Fire Department Funding

The Daley administration’s spending of taxpayer dollars for the fire department rose more than 12 percent in the last five years.


Source: City of Chicago Office of Budget and Management

Around the Country

The Chicago News Cooperative’s survey of the fire departments in the 10 largest U.S. cities found that Chicago had more firefighters per capita than all but one city (Houston) and ranked No. 3 in the density of firehouses.

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