Boro Report - Borough Of Chambersburg

Fire Service Veteran Heads Chambersburg Departments
William FitzGerald became chief of the
Fire, Ambulance and Fire Code Departments
in November 2009. Chief FitzGerald
came to the Borough following a 29-year
career with the Washington, D.C. Fire and
EMS Department. He retired from that department
as Assistant Chief in 2007. Chief
FitzGerald assessed the Chambersburg
firefighting and ambulance services and
talked about his plans for these departments
in a conversation with Bill Pukmel.
Chief FitzGerald – This is a great department.
The people here do more with
less. Each individual firefighter here has
his or her specialty, basically. So they are
doing a lot of work on their own along with
what I am asking them to do. People in the
town have been fantastic. The volunteers,
although they are limited in numbers, are
very good. I think we could do a few things
better and we’ll be heading in that direction.
I’m going to try to enhance a few
things. There have been really no standard
operating procedures or guidelines.
I’m getting ready to put them out.
Along the same line, the Borough is
one thing but you need to interact with the
county for so much from the utilization of
resources to personnel to automatic aid,
mutual aid. If you get to know your people
and work in the bigger scheme of things I
think would be good for the Borough from
an emergency standpoint.
Q. I understand a goal was set recently
to do 1,000 inspections a year
under the Fire Prevention Code focusing
on high hazard facilities. What puts
a building in a high hazard category?
Chief FitzGerald - High hazard is the
square footage and whether it is a hospital,
school, how many people were involved,
whether it was during the day or in the evening.
The potential for large money loss or
loss of life are considered. And all of personnel
are rated Firefighter 2 or Inspector
2 and they are qualified to inspect all
those buildings and that’s every one of our
personnel. All 21 firefighters here are inspector
2’s.
Q. What other issues are you looking
at?
Chief William FitzGerald
Chief FitzGerald - One of the concerns
I had initially was that we basically
had only one ambulance in service most of
the time and our EMS runs are up to
around 5,000 runs now. I think we’re missing
somewhere in the neighborhood of
1,000 runs while that ambulance is out. So
we’ve put a second ambulance at McKinley
Street. When personnel are available
that ambulance will go into service. So
we’ll be running two ambulances in the
Borough. And on the south side of the
Borough those people will be getting an
ambulance two-to-three minutes quicker
than they were. As long as we can keep
manning that ambulance and keep it in
service, whether it is volunteer or the career
staff, that’s a huge thing for our citizens.
Along with that, we have a brand
new ambulance. With three ambulances
we’ll be able to use one of them as a reserve
piece and if one the other two goes
down we can back it up with that ambulance.
Q. Is there anything else you want
folks to know about?
Chief FitzGerald - I want to say that
the Fire Service has changed drastically
since 9/11. In many areas prior to 9/11 the
Fire Service did not receive the funding it
might have gotten. Since 9/11 the federal
government has really stepped up to the
plate for the Fire Service. But with that
support came a lot more requirements.
With HazMat, Confined Space, EMS, High
Angle Rescue and so on, we do everything.
It used to be get on the fire truck
and go, if there’s a fire you put it out. Today,
it seems like the thing you do least is
put the fires out, although we’re still losing
a lot of firefighters in the line of duty. It’s
changed a lot and we’re expecting so
much more out of our personnel. A college
education for a firefighter today is
almost a must.
Let me mention some other things
we’re involved in. The Juvenile Firesetter
Prevention Program. Firefighter Jackie
Umberger is heavily engaged in that program.
She works with juveniles who have
demonstrated fire-setting tendencies, and
their families, to prevent future cases of
arson and accidental fires. She recently
was recognized for her work with the Partners
in Prevention Award from the Fire
Prevention Foundation. Chief Dubbs and I
are also involved in this Fire Prevention
Program.
And we are getting ready for promotions.
That’s going to be a big step forward.
We are looking at, certainly by the
end of the year, promoting three of our
people to Captain. There has been no
real chain of command on the Career side.
The chain of command has been firefighter,
assistant chief, chief. If we can get the
promotions, each shift will have its own
captain and we’ll have a true chain of
command. That will help to free up the
assistant chief and me to go in other directions
if we need to and allow us to focus
more on budgets and seeking grants and
being fiscally responsible for what we do.
We’re also getting ready to do some
facility upgrades at McKinley Street which
has been neglected somewhat over the
years.
So we have a busy year ahead of us.
But it has been fun so far and I continue
to want to make it fun.
2009 ANNUAL REPORT/2010 FORECAST - PAGE 5