Deidre Williams
The Buffalo News, N.Y.
(TNS)

Jan. 10—Firefighters, police officers and public workers employees showed up at Buffalo’s Common Council chambers Tuesday in a show of support for resolutions filed by lawmakers aimed at making sure front-line workers are properly equipped during snow emergencies like last month’s Christmas weekend blizzard.

“Even though you cannot directly relate the age of the fleet to anything that happened (during the blizzard), we had rigs that were absolutely broken down. We had a ladder truck that was stuck up in the air for five days,” said Vincent Ventresca, president of Buffalo Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 282.

He was among about 100 union members of the Buffalo fire, police and public works departments who attended the Council session during which South District Christopher Scanlon detailed his resolutions.

Scanlon asked for a full inventory of vehicles in the police, fire and public works fleets, which the council member described as “antiquated to say the least.”

“You have equipment that is nearing 20 years old in some of these departments,” Scanlon said.

In the Fire Department, there’s equipment with “cracked frames and again they’re old,” he said. “Same thing within the Department of Public Works, whether it is plows, packers and other equipment on both the streets and sanitations sides of the department. And we’ve all had these conversations for the last couple of years about the Police Department, as well.”

Scanlon has proposed using American Rescue Plan funds to purchase additional equipment for the fire, police and public works departments. He called for buying sidewalk snow removal equipment, fire trucks, SUVs with four-wheel drive for Buffalo police as well as snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and “other necessary equipment to right-size the departments.”

The city’s Finance Department should amend the plan and file purchase orders for the equipment no later than Feb. 2, he has said.

If not, he wants the Common Council to reject any further spending of American Rescue Plan funds.

Niagara Council Member David Rivera on Tuesday suggested looking into using FEMA money to purchase equipment.

Equipment problems have been brought up before with the administration, Scanlon said.

“These are conversations that I have been having for years,” Scanlon said. “It’s equipment that these unions and the people in this room have been asking for for years. This equipment is broken. A lot of it is so old that if parts do break, they don’t make the parts anymore. I fear that we are going to run into a situation where someone is horribly hurt or someone dies because of it.”

Ventresca said the older pieces of equipment pose risks.

“It’s about every day,” he said. “It’s about the equipment that we have that’s not capable of doing the job. We had multiple pumpers that couldn’t even pump. The equipment is timing out, and it’s ancient and we had a fire on Glenwood Avenue Sunday night that the apparatus in the front couldn’t operate.”

The city has already purchased a new piece of equipment, an ASAP MedStat Ambulance, for the Fire Department. The mini-ambulance has tracking capabilities and can navigate side streets and hard-to-reach areas if a regular ambulance can’t.

The city approved the $100,000 purchase last November as part of the city’s $26 million capital budget for 2023.

Scanlon’s resolutions, adopted by the Council on Tuesday, will be further discussed in the Coun

Baltimore’s Commission for Historical and Architectural Preservation unanimously voted Tuesday for Engine Company 14 to become a historical landmark for being the oldest operating fire station in the city, clearing the way for millions in state money to renovate the building, thebaltimorebanner.com reported.

The firehouse — which is more than 130 years old, and located at 1908 Hollins Street in the Boyd-Booth neighborhood — is the oldest continuously operating firehouse in Baltimore City, and it is also one of the most active firehouses in the city, according to an official with the historic preservation commission.

Originally built in 1888, the two-story brick building with rusticated brownstone windows received its first and only renovation in 1902 for “architectural rebranding” resulting in the building that stands today, according to the commission.

The firehouse is slated to receive capital funds from the city in the next two fiscal years for improvements and repairs, the report said. Additionally, there’s $5 million in state funding allocated for the renovation after Tuesday’s landmark decision.

By Alan M. Petrillo

Firefighters and incident commanders are using more rugged laptops, tablets, and hand-held devices both in the cabs of fire apparatus and on the scenes of fires and other emergencies.

Makers of those electronic devices are responding to fire service needs by producing an array of devices that are proving to be durable, easy to use, and full of pertinent data and information.

David Plourde, Dell product marketing rugged manager, points out that firefighters should look at four main attributes in their tablets/laptops for fire use: elements-proof units, readable screens, dedicated GPS, and expanded accessories. “Dell designed and engineered the Rugged Latitude line separate from our standard Latitude,” Plourde says. These include the Dell Latitude 5430 Rugged and the Latitude 7330 Rugged Extreme, which have 11^th-generation Intel® Core™ processors with optional vPro, Intel Wi-Fi 6E, and optional 5G capability and battery run time of nearly 25 hours with dual hot swappable batteries.

He notes the Rugged Latitude models are engineered to resist vibration, water, and dust ingress; enhance heat management; and protect from salt fog that can corrode sensitive parts. “We test the Rugged Latitude for operational thermal extremes from -20°F to +145°F and storage thermal extremes from -40°F to +165°F,” he says.

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