BIDDEFORD — On April 2, Biddeford had a five-alarm fire on 45 Hill St., during which one person died. When the call came in just before 9 a.m., and most of Biddeford Fire Department’s eight-member shift were on other calls, leaving only three firefighters at the station to respond to the call and to start to fight the fire, until nearby departments and crew members could arrive.

While this was one of the most recent devastating examples of what the Biddeford Fire Department handles on a daily basis, it’s not unusual for the BFD, one of the busiest fire departments in the state, to respond to multiple calls at the same time, Biddeford Fire Chief Scott Gagne said in a recent interview in his office at the Central Fire Station on Alfred Street.

Because of the high call volume and the need to respond to calls quickly, Gagne said he feels its imperative to hire more personnel, something he recommended to the city’s Budget Committee, made up of the members of the Biddeford City Council.

There is a cost to hiring additional staff and whether to do so is prerogative of the City Council, Gagne said, but added “I can no longer sit back and not give the information.”

He said he would like a 10-member crew on at all times, and would like to add preferably eight additional personnel to his staff, but could make do with half that number — the cost for four firefighters would be about $338,000 and about $673,000 for eight. Additional personnel could be partially paid for with the over $300,000 in new property taxes resulting from the $15 million in new value in the city, said Biddeford City Manager James Bennett.

Currently, there are 40 full-time firefighters to fill four shifts. But because of time off and other types of absences, only eight people were on duty per shift for 78 percent of the year in 2017.

According to statistics supplied by the fire chief, the last time staff members were added to the department was in 2005; four people were hired when a second ambulance was added. That year the BFD handled 2,062 calls. Last year, the number of calls more than doubled to 5,368, but there has been no increase in staff.

In comparison to other similar communities, Biddeford deals with more calls with fewer people per shift.

In 2017, Gagne said, while Biddeford responded to 5,368 calls with eight members per shift, Auburn responded to 4,698 calls with 14 per shift, South Portland responded to 4,654 calls with 12.5, Saco to 3,769 with seven and Sanford to 3,593 with 10.

According to Gagne of those communities, at 671 Biddeford had the highest number of calls per daily staffing position, Auburn had 336, South Portland had 359, Saco had 538 and Sanford had 359. Gagne said both Sanford and Auburn plan to add more personnel to their staff.

“We’ve tried many options to fix things,” Gagne said. Like calling in off-duty firefighters when they are needed. However, he said, they aren’t always available. Last year, call backs were requested 208 times. Only 85 of those were filled.

Volunteer, or call, firefighters are not the answer either, Gagne said. “Years ago when I started, we had a call force of 35 and they could leave (their job) when they needed to. Today we have a call force of 16 and they can’t leave.” Gagne said the department is looking for more volunteer firefighters, those interested can get applications at the city website, www.biddefordmaine.org, or at the Human Resources Department at City Hall.

The lack of firefighters can also effect response times, Gagne said, both for EMS emergencies and fires.

Slow response times can mean death and destruction.

Because of the amount of material in homes that are made of plastic and petroleum, buildings today burn faster and hotter than in the past, Gagne said, with the flashover stage occuring within six to eight minutes.

For heart attacks and other health emergencies, slow response times can be fatal. With a a cardiac arrest, “brain damage begins at six minutes,” Gagne said. After 10 minutes without advanced life support, death is the likely outcome. In the city’s coastal and outlying areas there are numerous responses that are over eight and 12 minutes. 

Having additional personnel would allow the department to staff two ambulances, a fire engine and cross staff a third ambulance and a ladder truck, Gagne said.

Although additional staff wouldn’t solve the slow response to EMS emergencies at the coast, (the solution is a new fire station on Route 9 near the University of New England) it could improve the odds of survival as an ambulance could be stationed at the Biddeford Pool station, he said.

“Based on what the future will hold for our department and on what policy decisions are made, the command staff of the FD feels that if minimum staffing remains at 8 personnel that we will need to take our second engine out of service to allow us to assign an operator to our aerial (ladder) truck,” Gagne stated in an April 11 email to the City Council.

“Our department is going through very challenging times,” he said, but despite that “we will get someone there to answer the call and do the very best that we can.”

A decision on whether to hire additional fire personnel will likely be made with the setting of the fiscal year 2019 budget. The budget committee is in the process of creating the city budget. A public hearing on both the city and school budget is scheduled for May 9 at 7 p.m. The City Council will hold a first vote on both budgets on that date and a final vote on May 15 at 6 p.m. Residents must pass the school budget and will vote on that on June 12 at Biddeford High School.

— Associate Editor Dina Mendros can be contacted at 282-1535, ext. 324, or dmendros@journaltribune.com.

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