'Potentially life-saving': Arnold, Lower Burrell, New Kensington move to form daytime fire crew

Your eyes won’t be fooling you if you see an Arnold firefighter in a Lower Burrell fire truck en route to an emergency scene.

Or a Lower Burrell firefighter in a New Kensington truck.

The cities are working together to establish a Tri-City duty crew to effectively staff the cities’ fire and rescue events during dayside hours.

It’s a response to a dwindling number of firefighter.

“Everyone’s aware of what’s going on,” said Ted Hereda, chief of Lower Burrell’s Kinloch department. “This is the best option everyone can come up with.”

Hereda, New Kensington Chief Ed Saliba Jr., Arnold Chief Eric Gartley and Lower Burrell No. 3 Chief Brennan Sites have been collaborating since September to come up with the plan that aims to pool resources and personnel across city lines to ensure adequate staffing during the daytime, Sites said.

A fire last August in New Kensington alerted officials to the need for more volunteers working dayside, Sites said, and a fire in Lower Burrell weeks later made it more clear.

“Most of our members across all of our departments work 9 to 5, so staffing is very limited,” Sites said. “We know that seconds matter when it comes to life and safety, so showing up with one or two people on a rig really doesn’t do us a lot of good.”

The departments want to establish what they’re calling the “Tri-City Firefighters Association” within the next few months. The chiefs presented the plan to Arnold, New Kensington and Lower Burrell city councils over the past week.

“The sole purpose of that is to enable firefighters from all three cities to man an engine crew or rescue crew (during) daylight hours,” Sites said.

Daylight hours would be 6 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Lower Burrell City Manager Greg Primm will take the lead in drafting a joint resolution for the three cities to pass, signaling their support for the plan. The process between departments and municipalities protects first responders and covers everyone legally, Gartley said.

City officials voiced support of the plan. New Kensington Mayor Tom Guzzo said the Tri-City duty crew “would be beneficial for all of our communities.”

“In a fire or emergency situation, it goes without saying that every second is critical,” he said. “If we can help develop this system, where we can provide coverage during the daylight hours for our three communities, it would be potentially life-saving.”

Lower Burrell Mayor Chris Fabry agrees.

“This isn’t something that’s just a good idea,” he said, “this is something that’s a necessity at this point.”

The chiefs will work out standard operating guidelines for volunteers. Sites said they will open the program to “operational members,” meaning volunteer firefighters who meet the qualifications, but don’t live in the Tri-Cities.

“Unfortunately for the Tri-Cities, we see a lot more calls than other people do in the county,” Sites said. “We see a lot more dangerous calls. Lower Burrell, Arnold and New Kensington are constantly in the news, unfortunately, for fires and rescues and other things of that nature.”

The majority of calls in the Tri-City area occur during those daylight hours, Hereda said.

Sites is asking the cities to, in the future, seek grant funding to start stipends. All three cities are classified as Third Class cities, meaning state law prohibits them from just giving money to fire departments to entice people to join, he said.

Hereda said the duty crew is cheaper than having a paid department, which he said would cost the cities millions of dollars. It also avoids a very lengthy process of merging, Gartley said.

The four departments cooperate well, Sites said. Next month, they will meet with Westmoreland 911 to update their run cards — information that tells county dispatchers which fire companies to dispatch to emergencies based on the location of the incident — and activate a new Tri-City alert tone to notify each department of potential structure fires in any of the three cities.

“We have a level of cooperation between the four fire departments that has, in my opinion, never been seen before,” Sites said. “We are here for the community.”