NEAFC 32nd Annual Conference.pdf - New England Association of ...

NEW ENGLAND ASSOCIATION OF FIVE CHIEFS
cars the minute they hear the apparatus, and either follow it or beat them
to the scene of the fire.
It does call for stringent measures.
Unfortunately, it ties in with the previous question of the lack of manpower.
For, in many parts of~ the ..country, the volunteer departments are
organizing Fire Police, with men who are no longer quite active enough for
duty as active firemen, but who are able to stand on a corner, properly
dressed in uniform and properly backed by law, in the State or local municipality,
and render this police service, in order to help out the regular police..
The Police Department has the same trouble with the man-power situation
they haven’t the men to ..spare.
If you have got to call on theState Police, by the time they get down on
the scene and are organized, well, now, what can one or two patrolmen do,
there, to help you? So that you have to figure communications, and radio and
other means of trying to improve the situation, to get help early, and to get
the covering that you need.
And furthermore, you have got to figure on getting backbone into your
magistrates so that they will discipline these people, who are frequent violators.
You have got to figure upon conditions such as. Chief Wells brought
out here, of a low hazard, perhaps at one time of the year, and a high
hazard in another time of the year. In short, the vacationers, will pile up
at one season of the year, and in another time of the year, there will be practically
no trouble. So that you cannot maintain a full scale of police and
fire men, because your seasons call out a different population, the larger one
being when the vacationers., are at hand.
I should like to divide the response on this question, if you will permit
me to do so.
First, I should like to have one or two municipal Chiefs, who have this
problem primarily from the big city viewpoint, speak on this matter. Then,_
I want ~wo or three others, and I may call upon the men from ° the forestry
service, or others who cover the area, fire-fighting.
Now, let us have one or two municipal Chiefs.. I don’t want to keep
calling on Brother Marshall. Is Chief Tom Collins here from New Haven?
And then we will have a lesser drink right after Tom Collins! (Laughter)
CHIEF COLLINS Of New Haven: We don’t have too much of a problem,
because we have a fairly large police force, and it is much easier, of course, to
control traffic than it is on the country~ roads.. But, I think that the problem
should be accepted as a State Motor Vehicle problem, and I believe that organizations
such as this one should evol,Ce a resolution and see if the different
states could have a law in their motor vehicle laws, prohibiting the people
from doing this., with a severe penalty attached to it.
MODERATOR WOOLLEY: And ~,ngw, John Collins. from Cambridge, let
us have your thoughts on this matter.
CHIEF COLLINS Of, Cambridge: The only problem that we have is the
lack of police force; there-isn’t much that we can do about it. We see the
cars parked in restricted areas, and we call on the police and have them towed
out of there. We can’t do any better than that.
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