PROVIDENCE -- In the wake of the West Warwick nightclub catastrophe, fire chiefs from around the state yesterday called for bolstering the state fire marshal's office, which has seen its staff slashed in half over the past decade.
Each year, State Fire Marshal Irving J. Owens seems to lose more funding and more staffing, said Lime Rock Fire Chief Frank M. Sylvester, legislative chairman for the Rhode Island Association of Fire Chiefs.
"It's been like feeding a starving man with an empty spoon," Sylvester, one of five fire chiefs at the meeting, told the Senate Finance Committee as it reviewed the fire marshal's 2004 budget plan.
Governor Carcieri's current 2004 budget proposal would cut state spending for the fire marshal's office even further.
While a federal aid increase would boost the fire marshal's overall budget to $1.62 million, state spending for the office would be sliced to $1.34 million of that total, marking a reduction of $125,414.
But Carcieri spokesman Jeff Neal said that budget plan was prepared before The Station fire, and the administration is now working with Owens to develop a new budget proposal.
"Governor Carcieri made it extremely clear in his budget address that he plans to give the fire marshal's office whatever resources are necessary to ensure the West Warwick tragedy never happens again," Neal said yesterday.
"We are clearly reexamining that proposal in terms of fire safety from top to bottom," Neal said. "And the governor is coming forward with proposals to strengthen the department and put it on par with similar offices in similar states."
Owens told the committee he sees the need to add 20 to 25 full-time positions to the 21 jobs he is now authorized to fill. That is a preliminary estimate, and the final request might be higher, he said. Also, he said he would not ask to add all those positions at once, suggesting the state could add 10 jobs a year.
But Owens talked about making Rhode Island comparable to Vermont and Delaware -- similarly sized states where he said fire marshals have about 45 full-time staff members. "We definitely need more people based on what we have to do," Owens said, calling for additional fire inspectors, fire investigators and bomb technicians.
While the marshal's office is authorized to have 21 full-time positions, Owens told the committee that he now has just 14 people on the job. "Oh my gosh," Sen. M. Teresa Paiva Weed, D-Newport, said in response.
Owens said his ranks have been thinned by on-the-job injuries, serious illnesses, transfers and retirements, but he said the state recently began the process of filling those vacancies.
Sen. Frank A. Ciccone, D-Providence, said the marshal's office had 34 members in 1990.
"It's time that the state fire marshal's office be looked at in the same way as the state police and be given the appropriate funding, staffing and equipment to do the job," he said. "The tragedy has put the focus on the fire marshal's office, but it should have been done before this."
Ciccone said many local fire inspectors make twice as much money as the inspectors on the state fire marshal's staff, where new inspectors start at a salary of $27,879.
"The governor says he is going to make Rhode Island the safest state in the nation in fire prevention," Ciccone said. "Well, if he is going to do that, the money has to be there, and we need to start with the fire marshal's office."
Frederick A. Stanley, chief of the Hope Valley-Wyoming Fire District, emphasized the importance of better salaries, saying, "We are losing talented people coming out of college. They're going to Phoenix and other places. We can't live on salaries like this and expect to maintain quality people."
Paiva Weed noted that inspectors began blitzing nightclubs and restaurants after The Station fire, and she asked whether that has delayed inspections of other facilities such as nursing homes.
"Absolutely," Owens said. "I just don't have the people."
He said he plans to meet with the state Health Department director, Dr. Patricia A. Nolan, to discuss alternative ways of inspecting nursing homes. One idea is to have the Health Department conduct those inspections, he said.
Owens said The Station fire has commanded the attention of his office. "But when that tragic incident occurred, we still had the same number of inspections and investigations," he said. Likewise, after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "the New York City Fire Department had the same amount of calls as they did the day before," he said. "So it doesn't stop."
Owens said more communities are asking his office to conduct inspections because their local fire departments lack the necessary staffing or expertise.
As the meeting concluded, Paiva Weed told Owens, "We want to support whatever steps you feel are necessary to fulfill the governor's promise to make Rhode Island's facilities the safest. We recognize the long-term concerns that we can't continue to ignore."
Look back at Journal coverage of The Station fire, check for news updates and visit a memorial to those who died, at:
http://projo.com/extra/2003/stationfire/
