ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, February 2, 1997 TAG: 9702030117
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DAN CASEY STAFF WRITER
THE "QUINT" FIRE TRUCK: Is it an expensive fire department job-killer fraught with mechanical problems? Or an extra-efficient apparatus that will increase fire safety and save taxpayers' money?
In December, a group of residents gathered in Northwest Roanoke to gawk at a $440,000 truck that Fire Chief James Grigsby wants to put in a city fire house soon.
But it could be a hard sell: When some firefighters and a manufacturer's representative went for a test drive in the hybrid pumper-ladder truck, it broke down - right in front of Ridgewood Baptist Church, where City Councilman Nelson Harris is pastor.
A loose engine hose was fixed, and the truck - which is called a "quint" - was soon under way. But firefighters say the incident underscores one of their arguments against the costly vehicles: they are unreliable.
Grigsby says the same thing could have happened with any fire truck because they all have the same engine.
"That quint, which was new, hadn't had a factory shakedown yet," the chief says.
You might think firefighters would welcome a shiny new engine to replace some of the department's aging equipment. But the city's possible purchase of a quint is causing controversy within city government, and it's about to spill into the neighborhoods.
The reasons: jobs, and questions about the quint's effectiveness.
The quint
As a firefighting tool, the truck is a quintuple threat; hence its name. It carries aerial ladders, a water tank, a water pump, hose and additional ground ladders.
A fire engine typically performs four of those functions, but has no aerial ladder. That is the job of ladder trucks, which also carry ground ladders.
The hybrid vehicles have been manufactured for decades, mostly for rural communities that depend on volunteers. But they're beginning to enter the Virginia urban firefighting scene.
The city of Newport News has a handful, as does Salem, which bought a new one just last year. Next year, Richmond will become a total quint fire department, a move the city expects will allow it to reduce manpower by 50 firefighters, or 10 percent, and save $13 million over the next 15 years. Arlington County also is considering buying quints.
Where there are quints, there sometimes is a pro-quint vs. anti-quint debate. It usually pits administrators counting dollars against rank-and-file firefighters counting jobs.
Somewhere between those poles are issues of quints' reliability, maneuverability and firefighting effectiveness. Each side has its arguments, and each is trying to convince Roanoke City Council it is right.
One thing there is little question about is the need for additional equipment. Just recently, two of the city's six ladder trucks were taken out of service after tests revealed their aerial ladders were unsafe.
Grigsby maintains this has not compromised fire protection in the city. At the same time, he admits it's a less-than-ideal situation.
The cost of the quint is not really a factor. A traditional truck with a 75-foot ladder costs about $415,000; a quint of similar size costs about $24,000 more.
The question is, should the city buy quints or ladders? It's a question that conceivably affects every city resident who values his home and tax dollars.
The debate
Here's what firefighters say: Quints are bulky and hard to maneuver on narrow streets. They have brake problems. They break down more frequently than fire engines or ladder trucks, and they lead to reduced manpower. All of that translates into your house burning longer before a full complement of firefighters arrive.
Leaflets the Roanoke Professional Firefighters Association has begun distributing describe a quint as "an expensive, ungainly machine that just plain doesn't work."
This is what Grigsby says: Quints are more maneuverable than the ladder trucks they would replace - but less maneuverable than standard fire engines - and manufacturers have worked out the kinks in the brakes.
The chief says he's unaware that quints break down any more frequently than other pieces of equipment. And he maintains that the quint will not cause longer response times.
Instead, the chief says, buying a quint is almost like getting two pieces of apparatus for little more than the price of one, because it can be used as either engine or ladder truck, depending on the situation.
That additional flexibility is needed because fire engines make thousands of emergency medical runs each year, he says. A medical run may leave only a ladder truck in the station to respond to fires. Ladder trucks don't carry water, but a quint does.
"That flexibility equates to an increase in service," the chief says. Grigsby says he hasn't decided whether to recommend the purchase of two quints or one plus a traditional ladder truck.
But firefighters say buying a quint is like trying to reduce the amount of silverware in a place setting by combining a knife and fork into one piece with a blade on one end and tines on the other.
"We're not opposed to new equipment," says John Willdigg, who heads the association's legislative committee. "We're not opposed to new stations. We are opposed to trading two pieces of equipment for one quint."
Firefighters believe that buying quints will ultimately lead to reductions in fire manning.
"This is normally the pattern that municipalities take to get to the stage where they can close firehouses," says Capt. Ed Crawford of Roanoke, who is a vice president of the statewide Virginia Professional Firefighters Association.
That notion was raised by a 1994 study of the Fire Department by an outside consultant, CenPenn Systems. According to CenPenn's report, "the conversion to a new truck configuration might dramatically change truck deployment and manpower strategies." A quint "reduces the number of trucks which need to be dispatched to any fire," the report stated.
Grigsby says reductions in manpower will happen only if some of Roanoke's 14 fire stations can be consolidated. That's an idea that he and the firefighters have tangled over but not resolved.
"If I were keeping the same number of people I have now, I would still recommend that we buy quints," the chief says.
Richmond's plan for buying quints suggests that, without manpower reductions, the apparatus may be more expensive than ladder trucks or engines.
Capt. John Hinant, resource operations officer for the Richmond Fire Department, says its 20 quints will cost $18 million more in maintenance and equipment replacement expenses over the next 15 years than engine or ladder trucks would.
Because the quints will allow Richmond to cut 50 firefighting positions, payroll savings over the same period will be $31 million, for a net savings of $13 million.
"It's just a management tool to reduce your manpower," says Hinant, who says he doesn't believe properly deployed quints affect firefighting capacity one way or another. "City managers and mayors and the powers that be see it as a tool to reduce manpower and combine services."
Other cities
If the history of the quint is any indication, there may be a reason for the firefighters' concern over the machine's effectiveness.
The St. Louis Fire Department went to an all-quint system in 1987, when lean budgets forced it to cut personnel by 20 percent. Because of subsequent problems with brakes on the quint, the department ordered its drivers to drive no faster than the speed limit on emergency calls.
"If you drive them at excessive speeds, the brakes do burn up," says Firefighter Gregg Gerner, coordinator of research and development for the department.
Nevertheless, Gerner is an outspoken proponent of the quint. Its increased flexibility has allowed the St.Louis department to lower its fire response times, he says. That is a key measure used to gauge a fire department's effectiveness.
Grigsby says the quints he wants to buy will have a transmission brake that reduces wear on the wheel brakes.
Another problem with some quints is durability. The fire department in Madison, Wis., a city of 200,000 people, bought a quint in 1989. After seven years of continuous problems, the department essentially tossed it on the junk heap.
"It's to the point now where we can't drive it down the road, even at normal speeds, without it shaking your guts out," Assistant Fire Chief William Spohn says.
But manufacturers equipped newer models with vastly heavier frames, Spohn says, and when the Madison Fire Department decided to buy two new trucks, it chose quints. The decision was supported by the firefighters' union.
Other departments have reported problems with quints' maneuverability in narrow streets and alleys. Three of the five quints Baltimore purchased in 1988 and 1989 have been replaced with old-style pumpers, Battalion Chief Hector Torres says.
"The original intent was that this was going to be able to be utilized in all situations," Torres says. "They were not the all-encompassing tool that [the department] thought that they were."
Another reason the quints were retired, says Assistant Fire Chief Michael Dalton, is that they needed more manpower than a traditional fire engine or ladder truck - six firefighters per quint vs. four on a ladder or engine. That's because Baltimore wanted to use the machines as ladder truck and fire engine at the same time.
The politics
Roanoke City Council ultimately will decide whether to buy quints. The issue likely will come before council this month. On most questions of this type, council prefers to vote unanimously, one way or the other.
As of now, nobody on council is an outspoken quint proponent. Mayor David Bowers and Councilmen Carroll Swain and Jack Parrott are undecided. Perhaps the most pro-quint member is William White, who says he heard a glowing report about them from the city manager of Richmond two months ago. But even White hedges.
"If the history shows we can be more effective and efficient in delivering service, I'm going to go with quints, or some kind of trial," White says. "I wouldn't rule it out at all."
But the firefighters' association, more than 200 strong, is a potent political force in Roanoke. Over the years, its members and their families and friends have worked their way into the city's social and political fabric.
The union appears to have convinced at least three council members that there are too many unanswered questions about quints to risk purchasing them.
"When I was on the School Board, if there were ever any questions about anything to be used in the classroom, the people I always listened to were the classroom teachers," Harris says. "That's the kind of philosophy I bring to this question. Firefighters' opinions on firefighting equipment matter. ... If they're uncomfortable with it and have significant questions about it, then I'm uncomfortable and have significant questions about it."
Vice Mayor Linda Wyatt says she did her own research on quints - in cyberspace. She logged onto America Online's Firehouse chat room and asked, "What can you tell me about quints?"
The answer was a torrent of negative responses, she says. All of them fell into general categories: too big and bulky, too expensive, too many breakdowns.
"I did not get one positive word from anybody," Wyatt says.
Councilman Jim Trout says he believes the move to quints is a preface to reducing the number of firehouses and firefighters in the city. Neighborhood groups are concerned about that, he says.
"Another of the big concerns that I would have is if we would support this, then what happens down the road if the department would decide to reduce the manpower below the necessary levels?" Trout asks. "If they promise seven or eight men on a quint in order to get council to support it, we don't have any guarantees that they would keep that number on permanently."
"Unless I'm convinced otherwise, I think we should perhaps stand back and spend a year watching the results with the city of Richmond," Trout adds. "Let them experiment and we can be observers, then go from that."
LENGTH: Long : 213 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: STEPHANIE KLEIN-DAVIS STAFF. Salem bought this aerialby CNBplatform fire truck, a type of quint, last year. color. Graphic:
Illustration by staff. color.