The Melrose Messenger

New Fire Chief Prepares for Changes Ahead

On Wednesday, October 23rd, John White was officially installed as the new chief of the Melrose Fire Department. This same ceremony recognized the promotions of several other officers in the department, and the hiring of a number of new recruits. Chief White’s appointment had been approved by the City Council on October 7th.

In March, the Melrose Fire Department was subject to a shake-up when former Fire Chief Ed Collina was placed on leave one month before his scheduled retirement. City Hall explained that this was because of an alleged violation of city policy, but they have not revealed which policy was violated, due to the situation being a confidential personnel matter. The law firm Clifford and Kenny was hired to perform an independent human resources investigation and recently, Thomas Dalton, the city’s Communications Manager, confirmed that the investigation had concluded, Collina was fully separated from the city, and his retirement had been processed.

Chief White, who took over as Acting Chief in April, was chosen through a statewide search process over the summer. He has been a firefighter in Melrose for almost 40 years, and his father and brother also served as firefighters in Melrose. “I still love coming to work every day,” Chief White said. “I grew up here, and people know who I am when I see them around town. We know these people, and they depend on us.”

Chief White will preside over what is likely to be the largest building project in the Melrose Fire Department’s history. All three fire stations in Melrose will be rebuilt or renovated, with groundbreaking on the first stage of the public safety buildings project scheduled to take place next fall.

“Headquarters has been here since 1895, day in and day out,” Chief White reflected. “From horses to diesel trucks, things have changed over time, but we’ve always been here. Every time I come to work and look at headquarters,” on Main Street, he went on, “I wonder if the people who designed this building knew it would still be in service now,” almost 130 years later. “It’s a testament to what they built.”

In addition to the historic Central Fire Station (headquarters) on Main Street, the West Side Fire Station (Engine 2) on Tremont Street was built in 1929, and the East Side Fire Station (Engine 3) on East Foster Street was built in 1964. “All of these buildings have lived their life,” said Chief White, “and they’ve done their job remarkably well, but it’s time to modernize. Our job has gotten much larger than just going to fires,” he continued, “and this project will give us the space we need to be able to operate.”

Engine 2 and Engine 3 will be demolished and completely rebuilt, while headquarters will be renovated, keeping the historic exterior and modernizing the interior. To allow for construction to take place without disrupting Fire Department operations, personnel and equipment will be moving from one location to another, with one station serving as a temporary base of operations while the next is being renovated. As of now, the entire project is forecasted to take at least 7-10 years from start to finish.

In addition to the challenges of shifting operations to allow for three different construction projects, the Melrose Fire Department, like many other fire departments across Massachusetts and around the country, is currently facing staffing shortages. In the past, jobs in emergency services were often very competitive, but now many departments find themselves searching for applicants to fill open positions. “The pandemic amplified the staffing issue,” Chief White said. “It’s a huge burden on the people that work here. We try to keep all the apparatus in service, and people are working overtime, they can’t go home. That’s our business, we stay on the line, but it’s putting a huge strain on the system.”

During the budget process this spring, Mayor Jen Grigoraitis noted that “our pay for our public safety employees has fallen below the market rate in recent years,” making it difficult for Melrose to compete with neighboring towns for public safety professionals. A new Memorandum of Agreement that was negotiated between the City and the International Association of Fire Fighters in June has raised salaries and “brought us back in the ballfield,” said Chief White. However, recruiting and retention both continue to pose challenges for the Melrose Fire Department, since people with paramedic skills often make more money and receive better benefits in the private sector.

The Melrose Fire Department is currently looking into strengthening partnerships with both Melrose High School and Northeast Vocational Technical School in order to recruit more young people into the field. “We’re trying to get young people to say, ‘hey, these are good jobs.’ You can get a lot of satisfaction from working in the city you live in,” Chief White said. He explained that someone who is interested in entering the emergency services field can take classes to get an EMT-Basic accreditation, which can take as little as a month. Later, they can return to school for more training after they are hired into a public safety role. Chief White pointed out that the hiring process is actually simpler for candidates in Massachusetts than in some other states, because here, once someone is hired, they are sent to the fire academy by the city that hired them, rather than having to pay for that training themselves.

Many departments, including Melrose, have had to make adjustments to the way they provide services in order to make up for the shortage of trained paramedics in the department. Instead of staffing ambulances with two paramedics, which Chief White described as “the gold standard,” the state’s Office of Emergency Medical Services has recently changed their requirements to allow ambulances to be run with one paramedic and one staff member with an EMT-Basic credential. “Ten years ago, they wouldn’t have even considered that, but what are we going to do?” Chief White said. “Everybody’s in the same boat, and we need to keep the ambulances up and running.”

While this change shouldn’t affect the level of care patients receive, it makes dispatching emergency vehicles more complicated, because an ambulance will be dispatched along with a fire engine in order to ensure that two paramedics arrive at an emergency call. “That way,” said Chief White, “the paramedic on the ambulance can pair up the paramedic on the engine and provide critical, life-saving care.”

“We’re in the process of a transition,” Chief White shared. “Transitioning to new buildings, transitioning to new ways of organizing our emergency medical services. As we make these transitions, we’re looking at how we can guarantee that we have our staffing and can provide the level of service that citizens are accustomed to.”

“It can be tough to quantify,” Chief White went on. “People see their trash gets picked up, their roads get fixed. It’s easy to see where your money goes. But the fire department is different: you don’t see that every day.” With three stations in the city, he pointed out, the Fire Department can provide “quick turnaround times” during medical emergencies, offering “a really phenomenal bang for your buck.” And although house fires are thankfully uncommon, Chief White pointed out that, “the sooner we get there, the sooner we can contain the fire,” which is why having working smoke alarms is so important.

“When people need help, we’re here for them,” Chief White concluded. “In this day and age, you call us and someone still picks up the phone.”

Posted October 30th, 2024