One week ago I picked up the Dutchess Beat only to see a picture of my home away from home for the last 22 years on the front page. The home I speak of is Station Two of the Poughkeepsie Fire Department. As a career firefighter for 23-plus years, I have spent 22 of them at that location. Very early in my career those quarters were shared with some volunteers but for the last 15 it has been strictly career firefighters. Since then, the O.H. Booth volunteer company has not had active firefighting members. Now, I am informed (by this article) that the Exempt Firemen want to acquire this property to preserve this piece of history and one other thing: To do the job the career firefighters in Poughkeepsie have done “minimal”(ly), “not comprehensive” (ly), and not the “aggressor.” Really!
The City of Poughkeepsie Fire Department is second to none when it comes to fire safety and fire suppression. What we do with manpower below the minimum standards set forth by the National Fire Protection Association is amazing. Fire safety? 1.11 percent of our calls resulted in a structure fire in 2007. In the last five years call volume is up and yet fires are down. Our fire safety program, which is composed of inspection, preventio, and investigation, is working. Can you ever have enough fire safety programs? Of course not, but all these things take money and keeping this building off the tax rolls is not a good way of paying those bills.
As Chief Boyd stated in the article, we do extensive work in our city schools, children come to visit our firehouses, and senior citizen complexes are toured. The city is also affiliated with the county’s juvenile fire setter program. Adult education is provided both on individual and group basis. For instance, on our last day shift a young woman came into the firehouse with questions and concerns; she was immediately counseled by an on-duty lieutenant. This could only be accomplished because the firehouse is professionally manned 24/7.
I am appalled at being criticized by an individual and/or an organization that seems to think a fire safety program should be judged by whether or not structure fires occur. First of all, you cannot teach compliance. Second, the city is old, wiring is getting old and heating systems are becoming outdated. Around Christmastime, we had an electrical fire in a wall of a building that was more than 50 years old. It seems a neutral wire went bad and there wasn’t a good ground with the old BX cable. All the fire safety in the world couldn’t have prevented that fire.
Mr. Petsas, the Exempt Firemen apparently run a good “social club and charitable organization.” We run a great professional fire department; let us do our job. Your facilities on Mansion Street have better parking facilities than you can ever establish on Main Street. Why have you never run fire safety programs there? The fires you cite, College Hill (1917) and the Windsor Hotel (1943), were long before a complete career firefighting department was established. So please do not use them to point out nonexistent problems in our department.
So I think all this information begs the question – what is your real agenda? Another social club? An upcoming convention? Re-establishment of a volunteer company in the city? This city has correctly moved forward with a professional fire department. I don’t believe in your altruistic reasons. I ask everyone looking to support this endeavor to heed some wisdom from an old proverb: The mocker seeks wisdom and finds none, but knowledge comes easily to the discerning.
(Sal Mauro is the president of the Poughkeepsie Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 596).