Union links firefighter's death to city's inaction on vehicles
The Boston Firefighters Union yesterday blamed the death of a veteran lieutenant Friday on the fire department's failure to replace aging vehicles and called on the state to inspect the city's fleet of ladder trucks and engines.
Local 718 president Edward Kelly said at an news conference that a ladder truck crashed into a parked car outside fire department headquarters yesterday morning, the third time a Boston firefighter has lost control of a vehicle and crashed in less than two weeks.
The accident followed Friday's fatal crash in which Ladder 26 hurtled down a steep hill into a Huntington Avenue apartment building, killing Lieutenant Kevin M. Kelley. And on Jan. 1, the driver of another ladder truck lost control of his vehicle and crashed into a fence in Dorchester. No one was injured in the other two accidents.
Kelly said he did not know the precise cause of the incidents but said he was concerned about the frequency of the recent crashes.
"We wanted to focus on Kevin Kelley's life and heroic death but unfortunately the danger to our firefighters is too grave," Kelly said in a news conference, held outside the union's Dor chester headquarters.
Fire Department spokesman Steve MacDonald said Commissioner Roderick Fraser had already ordered an outside inspection of the brakes on all of the department's firetrucks to begin today. Earlier, Fraser had said he would only ensure inspection of those firetrucks made by the same manufacturer as the one involved in Friday's crash. City officials rejected any connection between yesterday's crash and the fatal crash Friday, saying the more recent crash was unrelated to brakes.
"It's not a time to make charges; it's time to heal this tragedy," said Mayor Thomas M. Menino, speaking to reporters after attending a Martin Luther King Jr. remembrance at Twelfth Baptist Church in Roxbury.
The union has been pressing maintenance issues in ongoing contract negotiations with the city, but it was remarkable for the union president to interrupt mourning of a fallen comrade to assign blame. Firefighters from across the country are expected to attend the wake for Kelley from 4 to 8 tomorrow night at Keohane Funeral Home and a funeral Mass at 10 a.m. Wednesday at St. Anne Church, both in Quincy.
Kelly said he received the permission of Kelley's family to hold the press conference before the memorial.
"We can't wait any longer. We need action," Kelly said. "The Kelley family, and I thank them, had concern for the firefighters that are working, and that's where their concerns lie. They wanted us to try and get some intervention, get some safer working conditions for those firefighters."
At the church yesterday, Menino praised Fraser's record, saying a renewed commitment to vehicle maintenance was one of the commissioner's first accomplishments after taking over the helm of the department two years ago.
The Fire Department nearly doubled spending on maintenance from $700,000 in 2006 to $1.3 million in 2008.
But Kelly focused his comments on the city's older vehicles, pointing out that the truck that crashed Friday was manufactured in 1995, making it one of the city's older ladder trucks. The truck that crashed yesterday morning was a 19-year-old reserve ladder truck in service in place of a regular truck that was undergoing repairs.
"We have apparatus that's in service daily in this city that's older than some of our firefighters. That's a disgrace," Kelly said. "Under the Menino administration, changes were made to how we replace apparatus and quite frankly we feel that's a detriment to public safety that caused Lieutenant Kelley to lose his life."
Kelly said he would ask Governor Deval Patrick to step in and authorize the State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit to inspect the fire department's fleet as soon as possible.
Kelly said that the National Fire Protection Association recommends a 10-year replacement cycle for ladder trucks, but Lorraine Carli, a spokeswoman for the Quincy-based agency, said in a phone interview yesterday that she could not point to any such recommendation. The organization's codes do recommend the replacement of any truck older than 25 years old, and the replacement or complete overhaul of any truck manufactured before 1991, when more stringent safety codes were put in place, she said.
A Patrick administration spokesman said the Executive Office of Public Safety, which includes the State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement Unit, had not received a request to inspect the fire department's vehicles. The unit typically inspects commercial trucks.
"It is the city of Boston's investigation," said Terrel Harris, spokesman for the Executive Office of Public Safety. "As far as Mr. Kelly's request, we have not heard officially from either the city or the union."
He said he did not know whether the unit had received similar requests in the past.
The Boston Police Department is investigating the cause of Friday's fatal crash.
Fraser said Saturday that investigators were looking into brake failure as the likely cause of that crash, based on the lack of skid marks near the scene and the dry conditions.
He said the firetruck had passed a September inspection, but the president of the North Attleborough firetruck distributor that did that inspection said yesterday the check did not include the brake system.
Timothy O'Neill, president of Greenwood Emergency Vehicles, said mechanics at his shop heard air escaping from a hose that is part of the truck's air brake system and replaced the faulty hose at a cost of $224.54. But the ladder inspection was primarily a check of the firefighting apparatus of the truck, and inspectors did not test or inspect the brakes, he said.
"We service the firefighting components of the vehicle," O'Neill said in a telephone interview. "We don't do engines and transmissions and brakes and that kind of stuff."
Still, O'Neill said that when an inspector was underneath the 110-foot ladder truck, he heard an air leak. The faulty hose was one of more than two dozen problems identified in the inspection, which the city paid nearly $22,000 to have fixed.
Before the September ladder inspection, the truck had its annual state inspection completed by Vigor Diesel of Everett in March, according to inspection records and fire department officials.
Officials said that inspection would have included the vehicle's brakes. Vigor Diesel was closed yesterday and efforts to reach the shop's owners were unsuccessful.
Brake problems were faulted when Ladder 26 crashed into another building in October 2006.
Donovan Slack of the Globe staff and Globe correspondent Dan Peleschuk contributed to this report. John C. Drake can be reached at jdrake@globe.com. 