New firefighters sworn in amid staffing level concerns

MACOMB TOWNSHIP — As concerns surrounding staffing levels in the Macomb Township Fire Department escalate, five new part-time firefighters were sworn in on the morning of Aug. 14.

Tyler Miller, Joshua Palmer, Derek Gapczynski, Joshua Morton and Trevor Lesnau were sworn in by Township Clerk Krisit Pozzi and given their helmets by Fire Chief Robert Phillips during a ceremony held in the Township Hall’s meeting room. Families and friends of the sworn-in firefighters attended the ceremony and were invited to a second ceremony and orientation at a fire station later that day.

The five part-time firefighters were sworn in less than a week after an Aug. 9 house fire left two Macomb Township firefighters with injuries requiring hospitalization, which has put a new focus on the staffing levels within the township’s Fire Department. Both injured firefighters were released later that day.

“If you look at our initial response, we only had two guys on the first engine,” said Andy Saucedo, a Macomb Township firefighter and the secretary for Macomb Township Professional Firefighters Local 5023. “If we would’ve had four, the search and rescue aspect of what was supposed to happen could’ve went better.” 

With the new part-time firefighters, Phillips says the township’s fire suppression division has 30 full-time members with 22 part-time members. As the part timers were being sworn in, Saucedo said there were only eight firefighters working with a part-time firefighter joining them overnight. The full-time staffing issue is at the point where all fire suppression calls are automatically designated as mutual aid calls, requiring neighboring communities to send their fire suppression teams and equipment to aid the Macomb Township Fire Department.

“If you look at (National Fire Protection Association code) 1710, it says that you need 15-17 firefighters on an initial response to a residential structure fire,” Saucedo said. “We’re only bringing eight, which is way below national standards. If you think about it, one firefighter has to do the job of what two or three people should be doing. That makes us have to rely on mutual aid from other cities and townships, which bring their staffing levels down because they have to send trucks to our community. Whereas you look at bigger cities — Sterling Heights, Shelby (Township) and (Clinton Township) — they don’t rely on mutual aid as much as we do. We’re keeping our staffing levels low right now and we’re taking from other communities, and that’s not right.”

Saucedo says an eight-person response is more akin to having a five-person response as one person works as the incident commander and at least one other person has to run pumps, reducing the number of firefighters that can attack the fire or handle search and rescue efforts.

“You’re putting guys in a dangerous position in the first couple minutes of the fire scene,” Saucedo said.

Phillips says he and Fire Department leadership are working on possible solutions to present to township officials to address the issue. The requirements needed to become a full-time firefighter are no different than the requirements for part-time firefighters in the township — completing state firefighter and national EMT certifications — though the difficulty of hiring full-time firefighters has led to the department shaping its part-time program to be as inviting as possible.

“Unfortunately, it’s a nationwide issue, this shortage not only we are facing. Most departments across the country are in the same position,” Phillips said. “As the demographics are changing, trying to get people who want to do something part time — have something full time and do this part time and commit to the training that’s necessary, the hours that are involved, time away from their family (and) sports with their kids — it’s becoming more difficult. We’re trying to do everything we can to make it as easy on them. They’re allowed to pick when they’re available to work and based on availability we assign the spots. We’ve tried everything possible to make it so we work around their work and life schedules.”

One possible solution to the issue, a direct-to-full-time program where the department would pay for recruits’ training, had been tried in the past to less-than-desired results.

“Probably 17, 18 years ago the township board decided to stop that,” Phillips said. “We would bring them on, we would train them and as soon as they received their training they would go to other full-time departments and full-time spots … We were essentially paying for other departments to have trained personnel.”

Saucedo believes the issue could be resolved by opening up hiring to full-time firefighter positions as well as “rearranging” budget items to allow for more full-time hires. But before any of that can happen, Saucedo believes township officials need to recognize the severe issue being faced.

“Right now, we’re trying to just get them to talk to us and get some ideas from us. We’ve been running short-staffed for so long,” Saucedo said. “Last weekend was kind of like the shot across the bow to the township. There’s a problem, this was your warning, now you guys need to fix it before it happens because next time it may be worse. We may be planning a funeral.”

While Phillips would not divulge the plans he and Fire Department leadership are working on, he said he planned to present them to the township’s elected officials within the following week.