Published: 12/29/2007 Volunteers pitch in, but costs add up in search for fire victim By Richard Gaines Staff writer
GLOUCESTER - On the site of the former Lorraine Apartments, firefighters were working unpaid, volunteer shifts yesterday, together with a platoon of public safety personnel and dogs, continuing a search, of unprecedented length and expense, for the disaster's sole fatality. In addition to taking the life of tenant Robert Taylor, 70, destroying the homes of two dozen residents of the 98-year-old wood-frame building and setting off a destructive blaze in the synagogue to its east, the Lorraine fire two weeks ago also ate deeply into the already depleted Fire Department overtime account.
Chief Barry McKay said he had not yet broken out the cost of the Lorraine fire from routine and extraordinary charges in December - these included three other fires - but he said the running tally showed roughly $25,000 remaining in the overtime budget. For the fiscal year, now half over, the department was given a $400,000 overtime appropriation last June. Another $57,000 was approved by the City Council in October. Asked how long the $25,000 might last, McKay would only say, "It isn't very far." He declined to speculate on how he would manage the little overtime left or what steps the city might take to replenish the account. "It's far too sensitive an issue," said McKay, who noted the firefighting funding crisis, building for months but made acute by the Lorraine fire, drops onto a city government in full transition for the first time in six years. Mayor John Bell said the imminent end of firefighting overtime should come as no surprise. McKay warned last June that by keeping all stations opened constantly, the $400,000 appropriation would not last through the winter. Along with the central station, the city has substations in West Gloucester, Magnolia and Bay View. McKay shortened the projection in September after seeing the impact of full openings and summer vacations on the overtime budget. McKay also said he would begin closing one or two outlying stations in shifts to stretch the remaining overtime. Overtime costs vary with the number of firefighters who must be called in to fill vacancies caused by vacation, illness or other absences. The union contract requires the scheduling of 18 firefighters for each shift, but the union agreed last summer to allow the scheduling of 17 to help the cash-strapped city.
Under the rationed overtime plan in use since September, all stations have been opened 45 percent of the time. About 44 percent of the time, all stations but Magnolia have been opened. Magnolia and Bay View have been closed about 13 percent of the time. At no time in recent years have all three substations been closed at the same time, but McKay has warned that the possibility exists should overtime be exhausted and no more than 13 firefighters from a scheduled shift of 17 are on duty. Mayor-elect Carolyn Kirk said she would not be able to comment on the firefighting overtime question until she takes office and is able to say with confidence what the city's fiscal status is. "We don't know what we can afford," she said. "We can't be flying blind." But Kirk also said she was prepared to impose severe emergency austerity measures to stem spending if needed to keep the Fire Department running. Councilor Bruce Tobey, who is expected to be elected council president, said the new government would need to decide what its essential missions are and "do them well." Other things, he said, could be foregone. It was Tobey who led the demand for biweekly spending reports from McKay once he announced in September that his overtime had been used more rapidly than he had expected. At the scene of the Lorraine fire yesterday, McKay said three firefighters had responded to a call for volunteers to join the search for Taylor's remains. As the effort entered its 14th day, McKay and state Fire Marshall Stephen Coan have said they could not remember a longer fruitless search for the body of a person killed in a fire. Coan's experience includes the 1999 Worcester warehouse fire that killed six firefighters. Their bodies were recovered in less time, from a much larger fire scene, than has already been expended looking for Taylor's remains. "In my 10-plus years as fire marshal," Coan said less than a week into the search on Middle Street, "we have never left the scene of a tragedy without the remains of the victims." The Federal Emergency Management Agency's Urban Search and Rescue Team and its dogs were on the scene from Beverly, also working as volunteers, McKay said. State police, crews from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the state Hazardous Material Response Team joined local police and firefighters in the digging and sifting for any evidence of Taylor.
"There are 35 to 40 people on the site including the excavating operators," McKay said. Firefighters' union president Barry Aptt said the request for volunteers was made in part due to the cost of the Lorraine fire and its recovery phase. "We know the overtime constraints," he said. McKay said the need for the search personnel on the site to wear special uniforms and go through decontamination for asbestos precludes using on-duty firefighters in the recovery effort. "I want to thank the union for being there and helping," Bell said.
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