We are not surprised to hear a local fire chief has asked his town to consider budgeting for a full-time fire department position. If anything, we are only surprised many other towns haven’t considered it before now.
If Edgecomb follows Chief Roy Potter’s suggestion, it wouldn’t be the first town to have a full-time firefighter. Wiscasset had a full-time position back in the Maine Yankee days and Newcastle has had a full-time chief since 2009.
Ahead of the annual town meeting that year, the members of Newcastle’s Taniscot Engine Co. recommended a full-time fire chief due in part to the need to effectively manage the ever-growing level of obligations, regulations, and requirements of the profession.
Potter made the case this week that his issue is less paperwork and more a matter of getting bodies to the scene. That is not a new or particularly unique complaint. In rural areas, where many people travel out of town for work, having enough people to respond during standard working hours is a time-honored problem.
Resolving that issue was one of the driving forces behind Lincoln County fire departments’ adoption and subsequent perfection of mutual aid procedures.
However, it is true that firefighters get called out for many things that are not actually fires and, you can often make the case, sometimes not even emergencies. Flooded basement? Check, call the fire department. Parking lot fender bender? Check, call the fire department. Cows escaped from the pen … oh yeah, we need firefighters for that.
Listening to the scanner as we do, we sometimes feel bad for the guys.
Nonetheless, when there is a call, you have to go, and these days the people who do go need to be trained and documented. It’s a lot of work and we take our hats off to the men and women who do it.
All that said, we must admit, while the state’s school consolidation effort left us with a bitter taste, we still feel that when and where it makes sense to come together and share services and expenses, we think it’s an appropriate thing to do.
We are confident Chief Potter would not have made his case if he did not recognize the need, and we urge Edgecomb residents to give his request due consideration.
At the same time, if the trend in fire safety departments is moving toward full-time positions, is this a case where some consolidation would be appropriate?
Gov. Paul LePage has encouraged municipalities to look hard at consolidation as a savings measure while he makes the case for his biennial budget, which would eliminate the state revenue municipalities currently receive.
Regardless of one’s thoughts about revenue sharing, it makes sense to save money if towns can do so and still provide the services residents depend on.
If the time has come for full-time fire chiefs, we would encourage municipal leaders to give regional solutions a try. Otherwise, municipalities will have yet another growing expense at a time when taxpayers can least afford it.
