Fire Critic An Unadulterated View of the Fire Service
This is in response to Dave Statters critique (here) of my previous post on the situation in South Fulton (here).
You know what people say when they don’t have anything else to gig me on? I’m short. That’s it, plain and simple.
What is truly amazing is that the ones who usually do it stand just a couple inches taller than me. You would think that they were towering men at 7′ tall. Nope. I think it is hilarious. I stand 5’7″. It has never bothered me.
Dave Statter is one of those guys. I think he got picked on as a kid.
Either way, he has called me out. He not only disagrees with my stance on the South Fulton fiasco, he actually said I was just plain wrong.
I just don’t think Dave understands a firefighters perspective.
Dave lambastes the Oak Brook’s Connie Xinos for wanting to fire firefighters (of which I agree with Dave on this). Yet local representatives (City,County,town Council members and mayors) get by unscathed by Dave in South Fulton and Obion County Tennessee.
Then in a move reminiscent of FirefighterHourly.com, he jumps on the bandwagon of the IAFF (of which I am a member). The IAFF’s stance is understandable and blames the FD for inaction while pointing to the issue of the pay for service policy. Read it here.
On to Dave’s critique of my stance he wrote:
Now back to our story. No, Rhett. Everything did not operate as it should. Firefighters put out fires and help people. They should not be put in the position where they can’t do that. And maybe it’s not the South Fulton Government that is necessarily the problem. Maybe Obion County should provide for its people by subsidizing the volunteer fire departments.
Blah, blah, blah…Actually Dave, everything did operate just as it was supposed to according to South Fulton City, The South Fulton FD, and Obion County.
- The County allows South Fulton to provide Fire protection through a Fire Protection District.
- South Fulton has a 5 mile radius Fire Protection District in Obion County.
- South Fulton offers Fire Protection to Obion County residents for an annual $75 fee.
- South Fulton does not allow payment on scene when residents of Obion County have a fire.
- Obion County residents understand this fee and pay it if they want fire protection.
Just like you said: They should not be put in the position where they can’t do that. These rules are created by people further up the chain than the firefighters.
If Obion County residents and Obion County legislators want their own fire protection they would have to create their own department(s). This is just as I said and then you said after me.
Fire Departments operate under local governments. They have policies to follow and regulations to abide by. Not all of them make sense. Not all of them are right. The beancounters (local officials) are the ones to blame plain and simple.
If you cannot trust your department heads to follow the rules they will be replaced. If there were such a problem with this, why in the hell has it been going on for 20 years?
Dave, you have no argument with me. You just wanted all of your readers (both of them) to look at my site, check out the sites, and hopefully boost your own stats.
I just don’t see how you can fault the Fire Department. The headline should have read “City Council makes Firefighters stand by and watch house burn down”. Get it…it isn’t as catchy as “firefighters stand by and watch house burn”…media at its best.
The truth is that Dave is a good friend. He is always asking if he can stop by my station to smell the smoke in my turnout gear. I just love how he clings to his couple of months as a volunteer firefighter in the 70’s like a small child clings to their teddy bear.
