‘Sad day for Raleigh?’ Fire chief says all calls answered despite staff shortage

No calls went unanswered when staffing shortages sidelined two Raleigh Fire Department units this past weekend, said Fire Chief Herbert Griffin.

Despite a social media post from the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association calling the two down units Saturday “a sad day for Raleigh,” the fire chief said its a routine occurrence that shouldn’t cause residents concern.

“This is not uncommon,” Griffin said. “Some of our units go out of service every day for mandatory training or for physicals at the facility. So we have to do the same procedure when they go out of service for training and physicals. This is not a new occurrence.”

On Saturday, 24 people called out on unscheduled leave, Griffin said.

“Until leaders admit massive issues and come to the table to work on real solutions to retain current employees and ones they continue to hire, this will be the new norm,” according to the Facebook post by the firefighters association.

“We’ve been warning of this for months. We’ve provided countless solutions to combat this for months but have been continually discredited by city staff,” the post continued. “It appears we are not fully staffed as was reported [during] the entire budget talks by the City Manager’s Office.”

But, while the city is facing staffing challenges, Griffin said it’s not unusual to have units out of service.

Saturday wasn’t the first time units have been out of service due to staffing, Griffin said.

The department modifies dispatch to maximize its resources, the chief said.

“On Saturday there was 150 plus calls for service in the city of Raleigh,” he said. “No call went unanswered, and all were responded to in a timely manner.”

Both of the stations that had units out of service had other units still available for service, Griffin said.

The Raleigh Fire Department has 65 vacancies and a current academy class with 55 graduates expected this fall. And, for the first time ever, the city is opening up applications to firefighters from other departments as lateral transfers.

“We’ve taken proactive measures do a lateral transfer of 25 people to help mitigate the 65 vacancies,” Griffin said.

Applications are being accepted until midnight Aug. 12, and more information can be found www.raleighnc.gov/fire.

The firefighters association organized protests outside of the Raleigh Municipal Building this spring to advocate for higher pay. During those protests, firefighters said they weren’t able to send as many crews as they would like to emergencies.

The association also criticized the city manager for saying the department didn’t have a recruitment problem.

“This is a critical public safety issue,” said Andrew Davis, president of the Raleigh Professional Fire Fighters Association, during an April protest. “Our communities are facing relaxed fire service this summer, relaxed service for wrecks, (for) emergency medical calls because the city manager has not attended to these issues.”