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BOCC Approves Daytime Paid Crew For Beulah Fire Station
March 26, 2021
The Escambia County Commission on Thursday approved a plan to add paid firefighters in Beulah to supplement the volunteer firehouse.
An Escambia Fire Rescue analysis, completed at District 1 Commissioner Jeff Bergosh’s request, estimates the bottom line cost at about $220,000 per year for a three-person fire company in Beulah for nine hours a day, Monday through Friday. The crew would consist of one lieutenant and two firefighters, one of which would be a paramedic to provide Advanced Life Support on medical emergencies.
He said that even with the paid daytime crew, volunteer firefighters would reman a crucial part of the fire service in Beulah. He said that he expects the volunteers ranks to grow at Station 2.
“I look forward to that station being the model of a volunteer firehouse working together, integrated with the support of some paid firefighters to provide the citizens everything that they need,” Bergosh said.
The Century Station of Escambia Fire Rescue is staffed much like the new plan for Beulah. Century has a paid firefighter crew on duty from 7 a.m. until 4 p.m., Monday-Friday. Volunteers provide coverage nights and weekends.
Comments
5 Responses to “BOCC Approves Daytime Paid Crew For Beulah Fire Station”
Here we are in a County with NO Fire Chief for almost 2 years and Firefighters leaving the ECFD to procure better pay to support their families. After they got their Training and Experienced here. I or no one should blame them for that as we all have done to live give a better life to our families..
With 11+ vacancies in the Department, that seem to be not being filled. With that many vacancies is almost one entire Engine or Ladder Company staffing for 24 hour on 3 shifts of Career Firefighters not on the job. Now they are creating more new Career positions. Now with the talk of Brown Out of Stations due to lack of manpower, Where does this all end?
I do feel that supplementing Volunteers during the Daytime is a good thing. Maybe this is what should of been done instead of going to fully Career Stations in the first place. But if going to do this why are we not putting 4 firefighters on duty. As the Florida Statue states You need 2 Firefighters outside for every 2 Firefighters that go inside. Now that only set up for 3 FF’s that makes no sense as every Career Station is setup for 4 FF’s on each shift..
As the BOCC is implementing building 2 New Fire Stations at the cost of 4 Million Dollars a piece, Is this the proper use of Taxpayer Funding? Especially with all the other issues plaquing the ECFD at this time.
Career Firefighters Union been complaining of an Insufficient Budget to Operate the Older Apparatus or replace them. Low Salaries to maintain or attract new Personal. But they found 8 million Dollars to replace 2 Fire Stations instead of fixing the issues the Fire Department is having NOW!
Want to learn of how bad things are in the Escambia County Fire Department, just put in your Web Browser: “Escambia County Fire Rescue” and look/read all the articles about how things are in it. It is not looking to bright to me at this time.
And we all wonder why they are having a hard time to find a new Fire Chief to come into this mess. I would be willing to bet that the last Fire Chiefs all left due to the same issues of NO proper budgets, As well as more than likely had their hands tied to make the required changes to fix things to work as a proper Fire Department should be operated. I do hope the New Fire Chief once gets hired, is not a “Yes” man and realizes how big of a mess they are going to be coming into before they accepts the challenge. Or they as the past few Chiefs, they too will be gone in a few months/years like all the rest have been..
I do hope that the BOCC understands that it is their position duty to provide proper Public Safety for all that live, work and travel thru the County 24/7.
I have much respect for the volunteer firefighters, but people are not volunteering like they did years ago. You just don’t have the volunteers to properly staff these stations. Bergosh is offensive in the way that he looks at the paid firefighters in Escambia County. This is nothing more than a political stunt for a Commissioner who is on his way out, next election. Putting a crew at the Beulah station will have no bearing on fixing the problem of low salaries and no support from the BOC.
This is great but where are they going to find the personal to staff this station, where are they gonna pull the personal from. There is already 11+ vacancies within ECFR currently that are not being filled, with many more vacancies coming soon. We can’t even retain the current experienced firefighters we have now, cause they’re seeking employment opportunities else where in the panhandle. ECFR is the lowest paid fire department in the state of Florida. For covering 875 sq miles, working more for less/ with less. In 2019 alone ECFR responded to 270 working structure fires and 166 working vehicle fires combined that’s a fire everyday of the year in Escambia county. ECFR is one of the busiest fire departments in the state of Florida. Yet the lowest paid in the state of Florida. This honestly just looks like a political stunt to just cover administration and commissioners incase a catastrophic incident eventually happens in Beulah. They can cover they’re hands by saying they asked for personal but now it’s up to fire department to find these personal or short staff another station to back fill a day time station. ECFR currently can’t even find enough people that are willing to be firefighters for $10 hr.
And what about the Warrington Fire Station? Where is our Commissioner and why is he not doing something to help our community??? Great news for Beulah.
More firefighters. I thought the County was having a hard time keeping employees.. Need to make those volunteers paid on call since their always willing to take so much time away from their own to give back. Its quiet greedy how the commissioner continue to rely on these men and women without even considering them to help Escambia in these hard times they always seem to be facing.