Technology, new codes have changed role of firefighters
It was a shocking tragedy for Paul J. Cahill and Warren J. Payne to perish battling the blaze at a West Roxbury restaurant on Aug. 29, but by recent trends it was remarkable they had to go charging into harm's way in the first place.
Thanks to changes from improvements in building codes and smoke detector requirements to upgrades in firefighting equipment, putting out major fires has become a steadily smaller part of the job description for firefighters in Boston and other cities. More and more, firefighters' work revolves around responding to medical emergencies, false alarms, hazardous materials spills, car wrecks requiring special tools to free pinned drivers and passengers, and other incidents, along with conducting a growing number of building inspections.
"We have become an all-hazard department, not a fire department," said Steven Westermann, president of the International Association of Fire Chiefs and top commander of a suburban Kansas City, Mo., department. In many metropolitan areas, Westermann said, "probably only 10 to 15 percent of your calls are fires."
In 2006, according to city financial and budget reports, the Boston Fire Department responded to just 41 fires that went beyond one alarm, meaning that chiefs had to summon additional engine and ladder companies beyond the first fire personnel responding. That compared with 78 in 1995, 84 in 1984, and 275 during a rash of arsons in 1980, according to department responses.
Staff at the department's 34 firehouses and specialized rescue units were called out 71,365 times in 2006, records show, but just 4,157 of those were to respond to fires of any kind, 2,249 for building fires.
With steadily toughened fire codes requiring sprinklers in commercial and apartment buildings and smoke detectors hard-wired to electric service instead of dependent on batteries, far more fires are being detected before they escalate into the kind of inferno that sent a fireball through the ceiling of the Tai Ho restaurant on Centre Street, killing Cahill and Payne.
The drop in big fires in Boston mirrors a national trend. From 1977 through 2006, according to a study by Marty Ahrens of the National Fire Protection Association, a Quincy nonprofit organization, reported fires dropped by half, from 3,264,000 to 1,642,500. Measured by fires per capita, the drop is closer to two-thirds, with 5.5 fires per 1,000 Americans.
While major blazes have become increasingly rare, records do not indicate that has translated to firefighters having much more time to relax at their firehouse.
Overall, the department reports its members are responding to many more calls than they did two decades ago. Between 1983 and 1992, the total number of annual fire department calls typically ranged between 40,000 and 50,000. Between 1997 and 2006, however, the department handled anywhere from 62,115 to 78,826 calls. About 40 percent were for medical assistance, and thousands turn out to be false alarms.
Last year, department staffing was at a 10-year low. Boston had 1,467 firefighters, officers, and other personnel in 2006, according to the city financial report, compared to 1,705 in 1997 and a peak during the decade of 1,733 in 2000. Measured in calls per staff member, the department handled 48.8 calls per staffer in 2006, up from 45.3 in 2001 and 36.4 in 1997.
Stressing that he was speaking in general terms, not about the fire that killed Cahill and Payne, Carl Peterson, director of the public fire protection division of the National Fire Protection Association, said successful nationwide efforts to improve fire prevention and suppression mean many firefighters have much less experience battling real-life blazes than they would have a generation ago.
"The number of fires is going down and, as a result, the field experience is just not there," he said.
Better detection systems and fire codes mean as a rule firefighters get to blazes when they are smaller and more manageable than predecessors faced.
"A certain amount of complacency builds up" about how dangerous fires can be, Peterson said: "It's not perceived to be as dangerous as when you pull up and fire's billowing out of the third-floor window, and this other stuff, the hazmat, the medical, the technical rescue, that starts to become 60, 70, 80 percent of their workload."
Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com. 