NIOSH Report on Salisbury Millwork Fire in Salisbury, N.C. Claiming Two Firefighters Goes Unheeded by City Hall

RFP Staff

♦ On March 7th 2008 the Salisbury Millwork  fire in Salisbury, N.C. claimed the lives of two dedicated firefighters.  The NIOSH Report makes this very timely recommendation: “ensure that crew integrity is maintained during fire suppression operations”.

Due to the city’s cutbacks in funding to the Salisbury Fire Department and the lack of Captains on its trucks because of the city’s fiber optic network fiasco, firefighter crew integrity has not been maintained during fire suppression operations. This creates a dangerous situation for both firefighters and Salisbury residents.

NIOSH Report on the Salisbury Millwork fire in Salisbury, N.C.:

http://www.cdc.gov/niosh/fire/reports/face200807.html

Previous Rowan Free Press Letters-to-the-Editors from firefighters:

http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/06/03/letter-to-the-editor-fire-department-dangerously-understaffed-putting-salisburys-citizens-in-harms-way/

http://rowanfreepress.com/2014/06/11/warning-your-family-and-our-fire-fighters-are-endangered-by-the-city-managers-thoughtless-choices/

The Rowan Free Press, through a Freedom of Information Act inquiry requesting the emails of Karen Kirks Alexander, uncovered an email exchange between “mutually terminated” former city manager Doug Paris and city council woman Karen Alexander. In the email exchange Alexander asked Paris if there were captains’s vacancies. Paris true to form answered back that the vacancies were filled with “acting captains” a fanciful term with no grounding in terrestrial firefighter reality. If firefighters do take the lead as these alleged “acting captains” they do so with no captain’s training or certification. This is a dangerous situation for our understaffed firefighters.

At this time we are learning that 8 captains vacancies exist. Our firefighters and city residents deserve better–their lives are at risk due to this irresponsible shortage.