Fire Patrol fights to keep from being snuffed out

Volume Number 1 Issue Number 2| October 6 - 12, 2006

At press conference in support of the Fire Patrol, from left: Herschel Jacobowitz, chief information officer and director of operations for B & H Photo; Joseph DeGeorge, retired chief New York Fire Department Bureau of Fire Investigation; Councilmember Tony Avella; and Jim Nunez, president of the International Association of Firefighters Local 26 outside B & H Photo on W. 23rd St.

By Lori Haught

Community leaders and friends of the New York Fire Patrol are increasing efforts to save the country’s last surviving Fire Patrol Unit.

Slated to lose its funding Oct. 15, the Fire Patrol, a division of the New York Board of Fire Underwriters, has firehouses in the Village, at 84 W. Third St., Chelsea, at 240 W. 30th St., and Brooklyn.

The primary function of the patrol is to protect property from damage by water from firefighters. They keep water from soaking through the floor into other spaces and cover property inside the affected space with tarps to protect it from sprinklers.

They work with the Fire Department, entering the building at about the same time, concerning themselves with smaller things that are often discarded by firefighters.

“They [the Fire Department] put out the fire, we put out the water,” Eric Shultz, a member of the Village Fire Patrol, told The Villager in said in an Aug. 9 article. “We assist them if they need it, and they assist us if we need it.”

The Fire Patrol saves insurance companies millions of dollars in the long run, given how concentrated New York City is and how much damage could befall an entire building should a fire break out on one of the upper floors.

The Fire Patrol helped save much of B & H’s expensive equipment when a fire broke out in 2003 at their W. 23rd St. store.

“The patrol saved us millions of dollars by covering everything with tarps and we were able to open for business the next day,” Jacobowitz said during a press conference this week in support of the patrol outside the store.

Originally, there was hope that insurance companies might fund the Fire Patrol, which was allocated $8.5 million in the Board of Fire Underwriters budget before the cut.

Councilmember Tony Avella, a member of the Council’s Fire and Criminal Justice Committee, has called for an immediate reinstatement of the patrol’s funding. Avella fears a move to disband the patrol will result in taxpayers footing the bill for a similar damage-control unit that will have to be created.

“The brave men and women of the Fire Patrol provide an excellent and vital service to residents and businesses, saving the insurance industry millions of dollars each year,” Avella said in a press release. “The termination of the Fire Patrol will result in over 100 Fire Patrol members losing their jobs, not to mention the colossal disaster this will have on small business owners throughout the city.”

The Fire and Criminal Justice Committee held a public hearing Wed. Oct. 4 on the fate of the Fire Patrol. Testifying at the hearing, the Board of Fire Underwriters, citing a 2005 report that found deficiencies with the Fire Patrol, said they took away its funding because it’s no longer a useful service in the city. Business owners who had been helped by the Fire Patrol as well as Fire Department brass were there to testify on behalf of the Fire Patrol.

“They [members of the Fire Patrol] put their lives on the line,” Avella told Chelsea Now. “It’s a disgrace the way they’re being treated.”

According to Avella, the insurance companies have admitted that there is a fee built into every policy to pay for this service but would not commit when asked if dissolving the Fire Patrol would reduce insurance.

Currently the Council is discussing passing an official resolution to advise a postponement of the Oct. 15 deadline.