Two fire companies disbanded; city says it won't affect safety

BALTIMORE - The truck is still in the fire house on Eastern Avenue.

But as of seven this morning, Baltimore City Fire Squad 11 is no more.

The crew is going to be reassigned to other houses.

And some of the folks in the area think that's just a shame.

"They saved my life I passed out here in the middle of the woods and they straight came and saved my life."

Janeka Wellons says the crew of Squad 11 has helped her many times.

Other folks in the area say the same thing.

“I say the government should look somewhere else to cut the budget than to mess with the fire department." John Forbes says.

But by disbanding Squad 11 along with Ladder Truck 15 today the city says it is making better use of its resources.

They'll be able to stop the rotating fire house closures that they've been doing since 2009 and re-distribute four other companies around the city to provide even better coverage.

Chief Kevin Cartwright says the city fire's response time is still quicker than the national average and these changes won't jeopardize citizen safety.

"It helps us with operational stability and what that simply means is that every single day 24 hours a day we know where each and everyone of our fire companies are in the station and out of the station." Cartwright says.

"Right now the chief has chosen money over safety."

City fire fighters union president Rick Hoffman says that changes being made in the fire department right now put lives in danger.

He says by taking these truck 15 and squad 11 out of service, and the scheduled October demise of Truck 10 Hoffman says they're losing added protection of having ladder trucks covering the crews on the ground.

“I'm not giving up I'm hoping to meet with the mayor to go over some things I'm not giving up if councilman Welch's proposal to put ads on fire trucks comes to fruition I want them back if she's saying we're gong to give truck 10 a chance to see if it works I'm like let's go." Hoffman says.

Hoffman says they'll monitor what's going on to see if service suffers.