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by MICHELLE O'DONNELL
The Fire Department reduced the number of firefighters on 49 of the city's engine crews yesterday from five to four, a cost-saving move that was expected but still angered fire union officials.
With the move, 186 of the city's 197 engine companies now have four-person crews. That leaves only 11 engine companies in the city that are staffed with crews of five firefighters.
Yesterday's change was expected under a provision of a 1996 contract between the union and the city specifying that when more than 7.5 percent of the city's firefighters are on medical leave, the city can remove the fifth firefighter from engines. Medical leave recently edged over 7.5 percent.
With the smaller engine crews of four members, the department now has the flexibility to reassign the fifth firefighter to other companies where a member has reported sick. This saves the city from having to call in other firefighters on overtime.
Last year, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg allowed 40 companies to retain their fifth member because much of the medical leave at the time was attributed to the attack on the World Trade Center.
In another move that angered the firefighters union yesterday, the Fire Department ordered understaffed companies - those engines with fewer than four people on a crew, and ladder companies with fewer than five, not including officers - to respond to emergencies.
The union said the move was a brazen attempt to improve response times, even if the first crews at the scene lacked the manpower needed to perform basic operations, such as stretching a fire hose or entering a burning building to search for victims.
Response times, or how long it takes the first rescuers to arrive, have increased in neighborhoods where six fire companies were closed in May 2003.
"You can have an officer and a firefighter that have to respond alone," said James Slevin, the vice president of the union. "Yes, there's an engine there, but you might as well have a dump truck."
But Francis X. Gribbon, a department spokesman, said that the new procedure would allow firefighters who were nearby but lacking a full team to respond to an emergency until additional crews arrived. Department guidelines state an understaffed crew is allowed to work outside a burning building, but a full crew is needed to enter inside.
Currently, there are about 600 firefighters on medical leave, and about 700 firefighters assigned to nonfirefighting jobs under doctor's orders - about 15 percent of the workforce - who are not available to fight fires, Mr. Gribbon said.
Most of the current illnesses and injuries are not related to the World Trade Center, he said, but are work-related strains and sprains. "I don't see the relevance of who's out for a strain or sprain," Mr. Slevin said. "A strain and sprain is a real injury. More firefighter injuries are due to the strenuous nature of the job."
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