That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

(I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

(I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

(I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)

That said, many of us also will whine and moan about the needs to regionalize and why do some places have a fire station every mile. North Providence has four fire stations in 5 square miles mainly due to the stations having been located when they were volunteer stations and home response dictated a lot of stations.

We have various national standards — some older like ISO that look at mileage, and some newer like NFPA 1710 that look at time. Under both those models, North Providence can be served adequately to our national standards by only two of their existing four stations. Live by the standard, die by the standard.

I understand in an adversial situation why NP's firefighters would fight such a move. It makes more sense to have fewer stations and re-allocate their firefighters to have better staffed companies — better 3 — 4 man companies then 4 — 3 man companies. The Union, no doubt, sees it as removing a few promotional opportunities for a Captain and 3 Lieutenants that would be on an Engine Company, but more importantly a fear once a company is eliminated, in the future the town will go “Well, you used to run three man engines, so we're going to layoff the fourth man and go back to three.” Worcester, just an hour north, in fact did that over the last few years as they closed a couple three man engines in FY2007(?) and used the personnel to boost their outlying six engine companies to four men — and then in FY2009 the next budget year cut those fourth man positions by attrition.

The challenge becomes rather then have some irrational battle over 15 seconds and preserving four career fire stations in 5-1/2 square mile area, is how do we rationally and with mutual trust deploy the resources most effectively?

(I lost the link, but google North Providence and the city's home page has a link to the study with the station location data)