Flint is Burning

[macrr]

50 fires in the past week have been reported in Flint, but according to blogger Dean Paxton, news coverage is lacking. (Warning, some graphic photos from Haiti lower down the page) Fire map on Google Flint Fire and Police stream at RadioReference Flintmi.us scanner streams

(via MetaFilter)

 

[pjbracing]

I have heard an awful lot of mutual aid calls to Flint over the past week but haven't paid attention to who has been responding or not. I think it is deplorable for fire departments to abruptly op out of mutual aid agreements because of Flint politics. It seems that everytime one of the surrounding fire departments has a large fire, they rely on other departments to respond.

Someone is going to be seriously hurt or worse because of these chiefs ignorance and arrogence!

Someone suggested a Metro Safety set up. That makes a lot of sense. Less chiefs and more firefighters spread where they are needed.

 

[SCPD]

They think its a serial arsonist, most likely a disgruntled laid off firefighter.

 

[rdale]

"Most likely"?

 

[Jay911]

Word on the fire blogs is that there are many jurisdictions that are now refusing to provide mutual aid to Flint.

 

[fnnm1062]

The reason why most departments are opting out of this mutual aid pact is because an effective mutual aid pact is give and take. Well Flint has been taking mutual aid for years and very rarely ever gives mutual aid. The surrounding departments are getting upset with the fact that they are spending alot of time in Flint at their tax payers expense leaving their citys/townships un/less protected. It is alot of politics and I can understand both sides of the arguments, so I am in the middle. It is a shame though that at one time the Flint used to have such a huge department with 8 stations and now dwindled down to 3.

 

[SCPD]

Word on the fire blogs is that there are many jurisdictions that are now refusing to provide mutual aid to Flint.

So far only Burton has made it official but others are considering it.

Some Genesee County fire departments decide to stop responding to Flint fires | - MLive.com

 

[SCPD]

"Most likely"?

Well one suspected arsonist was arrested Friday, but they think it was an isolated incident and unrelated to the others.

More fires break out in Flint Friday night - 4/02/10 - Flint News and Saginaw News - abc12.com

 

[kc2rgw]

If it's volunteer departments out there...I don't know, but mutual aid becomes a problem when a town decides to see volunteers as being foolish enough to help and abuses the 'free' services without spending the effort or money to ensure that it has what it needs to manage its own issues.

We've had various bouts of it here over the years too. With the influx of city people here over the last 20yrs, there is a ton of abuse of ambulance calls as well. What is happening is, people simply won't respond to the nonsensical "upset stomach" calls anymore and an hour later the call goes out to contracted paid EMS via the county system. It's incredible the abuse that people place on Police/FD/EMS here now. All that comes with a cost unfortunately.

This is quite a lot worse and with Flint having so many abandoned properties, that town needs to step up and have the proper services ready to deal with the risks associated with that.

 

[garryd451]

It's a bad situation, Flint doesn't have enough fire protection, because Flint has no money.

This isn't a new problem, both Michigan & Flint has been going broke for years. Why hasn't Flint made plans ahead for Fire Protection. In other areas of the State, Cities had combine Police and Fire into a one Saftey Department, or they added Volunteer back-fireman or they have combine their department with other departments.

What has Flint done in preparing for this situation? I really don't know because I am not from this area but I would like to know.