Fire Department Regionalization Talks Come Up Empty

by Alan Pollock

            BREWSTER — Harwich town officials went to Brewster last week to discuss ways the two towns’ fire departments could share more resources, but came home empty-handed.

            On Oct. 29, a contingent of Harwich’s fire chief and deputy chief, the town administrator and the chairman of the board of selectmen visited Brewster to pitch a plan for sharing resources at the East Harwich Fire Station.  They met with the Brewster chief and town administrator and two members of the board of selectmen.

            Harwich Fire Chief William Flynn said the delegations talked about ways Brewster could supplement the staffing at the East Harwich station, but could not reach agreement on any plan to do so.  While the town administrators of both towns have pledged to keep an open dialogue, there are no fire department regionalization plans currently on the table, officials say.

            Flynn said that while no firm proposal was put on the table, he suggested that Brewster hire two additional people per shift to be stationed in East Harwich, available to handle rescue calls and other emergencies in either town.  Flynn said that Brewster Chief Roy Jones, III, detailed his department’s response statistics for a particular district of Brewster close to East Harwich, and noted that there are only about 200 responses in that area each year.

            “For the call volume for that particular area, they felt it would not be beneficial, given the costs,” Flynn said.

            Chief Jones declined to discuss the specifics of the plan, but said it appeared that each town would not be receiving the same degree of benefit from the arrangement.

            “It’s not a practical situation at this point in time,” Jones said.

            Having initially closed the East Harwich station following the failed Proposition 2½ override in 2005, the Harwich Fire Department now staffs the station with three firefighters most of the time.  When two of those personnel are committed to an ambulance run, the department hires back one person, keeping two people at the station for the next call.  But if all three people at the station are committed to a serious medical emergency, the station is left unstaffed until they return from the hospital, Flynn said.  The town has been looking for creative ways to restore the staffing at that station since that time.

            When Chatham was debating whether to build and staff a new fire substation in South Chatham, Harwich fire officials approached their Chatham counterparts to discuss a similar staffing plan at the East Harwich station as an alternative to the building project.  Chatham officials rejected the offer, saying the benefit to their town was not enough to justify the additional cost.

            Chatham voters approved buying a parcel of land seen as ideal for construction of a new South Chatham fire station, but stopped short of immediately moving forward with the new station itself.  Last week, Chatham Fire Chief Michael Ambriscoe said his top priority now is to oversee the construction of a new headquarters fire station, not a South Chatham substation.

11/6/08