Firefighters Go to Public in Case to Save Vans

Unable to negotiate a resolution to a dispute over plans by the Orange County Fire Authority to remove from service 10 paramedic vans, the county’s largest firefighters union has launched a public campaign to thwart the reorganization.

Using what fire officials are calling “fear tactics,” the approximately 700-member Orange County Professional Firefighters Assn. has warned that mothballing the vans “may be hazardous to your family’s health” in advertisements placed in local newspapers throughout the county.

“People should have the fear of God put into them,” said association Vice President Rick Van Auken, who is a fire captain. “There will be a reduction in services because of this, and that is real.”

Facing a shortage of funds, department officials in June passed a budget that called for garaging the vans countywide and reassigning paramedics to fire engines--a procedure called “front-loading.”

It will save about $800,000 annually by having many of the department’s 24 paramedics fill vacant positions formerly held by firefighters. The emergency personnel still would be available for paramedic calls.

Stations with a paramedic van typically have five on-duty personnel: three firefighters staffing an engine or truck and two paramedics staffing a medical emergency van.

The department plans to put the vans out of commission, holding them in reserve for major emergencies. One paramedic would join the engine crew while the other would join a team at another station, reducing the number of personnel at the station to four.

The reorganization will result in better service, officials promise, pointing to an ongoing pilot program used by the department that lowered response times to medical emergencies by more than a minute.

“By doing this, we’ll be able to get to you one minute quicker,” authority spokesman Capt. Scott Brown said. “What that translates to is that front-loading is going to improve our ability to save lives.”

But the firefighters have objected fiercely, saying that losing the vans means fewer personnel to deal with emergencies. The association is making its pitch through the ads and by appearing before local homeowners groups in a last-ditch effort to persuade the Fire Authority board of directors to change its mind.

“We favor front-loading,” said association President Joe Kerr. “What we oppose is the elimination of 10 paramedic vans.”

The department is run by 19 cities and provides fire protection for 1.1 million people, including people in unincorporated areas in the county. The organization controls 61 fire stations and about 1,500 firefighters, about half of them paid, on-call personnel.

Most of the 24 paramedics in the department will be filling jobs that are currently vacant, in large part creating the $800,000 annual savings, which reduces the deficit to $3 million. That shortfall would be made up from a $44-million reserve fund.

“A large percentage of our paramedic calls is for medical aid to one person,” Fire Authority Vice Chairwoman Sherri Butterfield said. “What we have to look at is the best way to present medical help to the public and still be prepared for major emergencies.”

Butterfield takes exception to the association’s public information campaign, particularly the advertisements, which ran last month.

“I don’t think frightening people is the best way to resolve the issue,” she said. “The truth is, we’re actually cutting response time. To tell people that help will not be there when you need it is not the way to deal with this.”

But firefighters say they’ve negotiated for months with the Fire Authority without success.

“This is a very important decision and the citizenry has been left out of the decision-making process,” Kerr said. “We want to put this issue into the hands of the public.”

In stations with paramedic vans, reassigning a paramedic will mean one less firefighter in the building, he said, and not having the vans immediately available as backup will dangerously stretch already thin firefighting resources, particularly during a major emergency.

In a large fire that draws most of the area’s fire teams, the paramedic vans handle the vital job of dealing with other medical emergencies such as heart attacks or injury accidents, he said.

“Depth of services is what we’re fighting for,” he said. “With paramedic vans, we don’t have such a huge gap in coverage.”

However, Brown said that reassigning paramedics to fire engines spreads the medical technicians to the greatest number of fire units possible, actually providing more coverage than before.

During major fires, calls for other emergencies would be handled by the closest response unit, such as private ambulance companies, he said.

Both the department and the union explained their sides last week before a group composed largely of senior residents at Prothero Mobile Estates in Lake Forest.

Nate Weinberg, a board member of the mobile home park’s homeowners association, said he’d rather the department keep the vans.

“I don’t like it one iota,” Weinberg said. “Let [the department] take the $800,000 they’re thinking of saving and get it out of their reserves.”

Brown said about 200 calls over the paramedic issue have come into department offices.

“Most people are very, very upset,” he said. “But without fail we’ve talked to every one of them and when they know what the facts are, they feel much better.”