City Threatens To Leave Fire Engines Shorthanded, FDNY Union Says

NEW YORK — They need five to stay alive. Union leaders and lawmakers railed Monday against Mayor Bill de Blasio's threat to leave nearly two dozen FDNY fire engines shorthanded.

Twenty crucial fire engines around the city normally have five firefighters on board to get hoses in place. They could be left with only four starting Tuesday under a provision in the city's contract with the Uniformed Firefighters Assocation, said union President Gerard Fitzgerald.

The pact allows the city to take the so-called fifth man off the trucks if the union uses more than its alloted sick time, the union says. But doing so would only put New Yorkers in danger by hampering firefighters' ability to battle blazes, officials argued.

"I know it's April Fool's Day, but you got to be frickin' kidding me if they think this is OK," Councilman Justin Brannan (D-Brooklyn) said Monday outside City Hall. "... New Yorkers are being punished and put in danger because of the way that this is set up."

But de Blasio spokeswoman Jaclyn Rothenberg said the city hasn't made a final decision.

"While we continually evaluate staffing needs, no decisions on any changes have been made," Rothenberg said in a statement.

Most of the 20 beefed-up fire engines are in parts of the city that see the most fires, Fitzgerald said. The fifth men have proven critical, he said — FDNY studies have shown a team of five firefighters can put a hose line in place almost twice as fast as a team of four.

The extra firefighters also fill in for others who get hurt on duty, meaning the department would lose flexibility of they were pulled off the trucks, according to Fitzgerald.

"Each one of us has a job to do, and if one job doesn’t get done then others might feel that they have to make up for that loss, which puts us in peril," he said.

The city's contract with the firefighters evaluates the use of sick leave on a monthly basis, the union says. The sick time that's counted includes leave used by 9/11 first-responders and firefighters who get hurt on the job, according to the union.

There used to be five firefighters on as many as 140 engines, but the fifth man has been used as a "political football" to punish the union, Fitzgerald said.

Fitzgerald acknowledged that his union agreed to the contract arrangement that has put the fifth men at risk. But he said it was a matter of getting 20 engines covered with strings attached or none at all.

City Council members called it "boneheaded" and "insane" that the city would take away such critical firefighters — especially since the $90 billion city budget has room for them. All of the city's 198 fire engines should have fifth men, lawmakers argued.

"This is not as simple as letting the grass grow a little higher in the parks, or cutting library hours by 15 minutes," said Councilman Joe Borelli (R-Staten Island), who chairs the Fire and Emergency Management Committee. "This is going to result in the public being placed at a greater danger than they were before."

But Rothenberg said most engine companies have been staffed with four firefighters for decades, giving them the highest staffing level in the nation.

"Today, that’s how 90 percent of our companies are staffed," Rothenberg said. "The FDNY will have the staff and equipment needed to keep all New Yorkers safe and respond rapidly to emergencies."