Tacoma is proposing drastic cuts to the fire department. It would be a bad mistake | Opinion

For decades, the Tacoma Fire Department (TFD) has been doing more with less, but stretching to meet the needs of a growing population. As a result, firefighters and paramedics, as well as our fire rigs, equipment and even stations, are stretched thin and facing a breaking point.

Just one example: the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), who set the industry standards for fire and workplace safety, recommend a 4 minute window for 90% of the first rigs to respond to any call. No Tacoma Fire Department apparatus meets that standard. Because of funding shortages, the best performing equipment reaches the scene within 8 minutes, 34 seconds, 90% of the time, and the average response is over 10 minutes.

Tacoma’s own 2023 Standards of Cover reported that the exceptionally high EMS call volume causes engines to be on-call, or just getting back from incidents, far too often. That creates a cascading failure – delayed TFD response times and decreased level of service.

When residents and local businesses call for fire or EMS emergencies, every second counts. But, every Tacoma firefighter can share countless examples of having to respond too late.

For example, firefighter Ryan Pregent shared, “When working on Engine 9, my crew and I were dispatched to a car fire that was 5.2 miles away, or roughly 10 to 12 minutes. The incident would have typically been assigned to Engine 7, which is only 1.6 miles away – or 3 to 5 minutes. Due to call volume, the next four closest fire engines were already tied up with calls.

“When my crew finally arrived on scene, we showed up to not one, but two cars on fire, because the fire had spread in the critical minutes it took us to get there. Normally, that would be the end of the story, but when we showed up, the fire pump on our engine wouldn’t work, leaving us unable to put the growing fire out. Knowing I needed to solve this problem fast, I crawled inside the pump and manually engaged it, finally allowing us to get water on the fire.

“The citizens of Tacoma should be outraged to have to wait over 10 minutes for help when calling 911, and then only to see that the fire engine that did show up broke down in the moment they needed it the most. I am proud to serve the citizens of Tacoma and do so to the best of my ability. If you were to ask anyone of the 450+ Tacoma firefighters, I am certain that they would say the same, but all we want is to do so with dignity.”

There are too many stories like Ryan’s. As the TFD has continued to make due with less, the true burden has fallen to our overworked firefighters — and the numbers reflect it. TFD has averaged 85 on-the-job injury claims over the last four years, resulting in 2,515 days of time loss.

In spite of this, the Tacoma City Council is proposing drastic cuts that will result in service reductions and greater delayed response times across our community. Specifically, the City Council has proposed to cut 16 TFD positions, thus risking lives, property, and aggravating the response times of our overworked crews.

The positions slated for cuts are part of the Rover program, enacted this year in response to an increase in leave — such as sick or paid family and medical leave — among firefighters. Rovers fills in shifts of colleagues unavailable for work, due to unplanned leave and other reasons. Last year, the department was between $8 million and $9 million over budget, but that figure shrunk to $3.5 million following the inception of the Rover program.

While the City Council has difficult budget decisions to make, the health and safety of our neighbors and local businesses must be a top priority. Please contact your councilmembers before they vote on these devastating cuts at (253) 591-5100.

Urge them to protect funding for our Tacoma Fire Department and prevent any cuts to the Rover program.

This story was originally published December 2, 2024 at 5:00 AM.