WPCNR NEIGHBORHOOD NEWS. June 14, 2007: At Tuesday evening's Council of Neighborhood Associations, the heads of the White Plains Professional Firefighters Union, Joe Courier and and Kevin Heffernan addressed 30 CNA members, Councilman Benjamin Boykin and Councilman Dennis Power and Democrat Party "kingpin" and Dennis Power Campaign Manager Paul Schwarz on firefighter issues. Though WPCNR arrived as Mr. Courier and Mr. Heffernan were wrapping up their "give and take" with the CNA, the major issue appeared to be that White Plains did not have sufficient fire bureau staffing to handle major high rise fires, and to staff available "rigs." WPCNR asked the Department of Public Safety whether in a major fire "engulfed" high rise how the Department would handle it.

The White Plains Skyline June, 2007.

Kevin Heffernan, left, and Joe Courier, of the White Plains Professional Firefighters discussing manpower issues with the Council of Neighborhood Associations Tuesday evening.

The new Big Three: Dr. Frank Straub, Commissioner of Public Safety flanked by First Deputy Commissioner Dr. Charles Jennings, left, and Deputy Commissioner Daniel Jackson, right.  April, 2006 Photo by WPCNR News.

Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety, Dr. Charles Jennings released a statement to WPCNR acknowledging that White Plains is not staffed for a major "engulfed high rise floor," however, he said, mutual aid from neighboring fire departments would be called upon in case of such an event. He said most fire departments in the county face the same problem. Daniel Jackson, Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety said there are no plans for increasing the 169-member Fire Bureau in 2008-2009.

From: First Deputy Commissioner Charles Jennings, Ph.D.

John,

The White Plains Fire Bureau does not maintain an on-duty force sufficient to fight a major high-rise fire.  As your scenario suggests, these events are very rare. We have a force sufficient to mount an aggressive and appropriate initial attack, and our on-duty personnel would be supplemented with a both mutual aid from surrounding Departments within the County and a recall of our own off-duty firefighters. The needs to fight such a fire are well beyond the staffing of all but the largest urban Departments. 

We train with our regular mutual aid partners, and have established fireground radio communications with these partners in the last few years precisely to improve our posture with regard to such events. Additionally, the County is in final stages of implementing a County-wide mutual aid radio system that will allow us to communicate with any fire or EMS unit within the County.

With regard to the likelihood of such fires, we have an aggressive code enforcement and construction inspection program supported by the Building Department and our fire prevention inspectors. This program assures that fire protection features of new high-rise construction including sprinklers (over 96 percent effective at controlling or extinguishing fires in office buildings),  smoke removal systems (to keep hallways and common areas free of smoke during a fire) and fire alarms with public address capability. We also enforce fire and exit drills in office occupancies.

In short, we have confidence in our ability to prevent, mitigate, and respond to fires in the high-rise buildings in our City. We continue to train and plan for major events, and work to enhance our capability to respond in the event of major fire in an unsprinklered building or in the event of failure of any of the built-in systems.

We have indicated in the past that the City needs to carefully consider the limited addition of on-duty positions as a consequence of ongoing development and increased workload on existing fire companies in the city. Limited additional staffing would be sought because of the greater likelihood simultaneous or overlapping alarms -- not because we think that we can ever have enough people on duty for very rare major events.

Thank You.

Charles R. Jennings, Ph.D.

WPCNR in light of Mr. Jennings final comments, asked Deputy Commissioner of Public Safety Daniel Jackson if the Department was going to request a staffing increase up from the 169 current firefighter ranks in budget year 2008-2009, and Commissioner Jackson said the Department  was not considering an increase.