As anyone who has had a health emergency in recent years knows, you are very likely to have a fire truck arrive at your door, along with an ambulance and a police car. In many ways, the contemporary fire department has become something more like an all-purpose emergency response department. Indeed, in Amesbury, ambulance and fire functions are combined into a single personnel pool at a single facility (more or less).
One economist quoted at length in the article considers the modern American municipal fire department to be a relic of a bygone era, a hold-out of unionized employees whose mission has been rendered somewhat obsolete. Not surprisingly, spokesmen for the National Fire Protection Association begged to differ, arguing that fire departments are well suited to the delivery of emergency care and respond to complex emergency situations. An academic who specializes in the history of emergency response interviewed for the article argued that the model of 24 hour shifts traditional at fire houses is "ancient" and that staffing and equipment should be shifted towards emergency medicine. She concludes: "Your so-called fire department - they respond to unexpected events. That's actually what they do. You can't know in advance what the needs of an emergency are - that's why they are called emergencies."
I think that Amesbury has been creative in modernizing its fire department, including the integration of emergency medicine into its services and the use of a 'chase' vehicle other than a fire truck for responding to some emergencies. But this article raised interesting questions for me. As we continue to feel budget constraints and watch our bottom line, looking at the fire department beyond the fire should be something that the Mayor and the Council do, which means understanding the demands and needs of our community for these services and thinking about how we can provide emergency services as effectively - and cost-effectively - as possible.
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