Stretched too thin

The story regarding firefighters being maxed out brings up a few questions. The first obvious one is why are the firefighters responding to each and every call that goes to 911 whether it is a serious emergency or not?

They not only respond but they are there with full trucks, manpower and equipment. There is a nursing home below where we live and we hear the sirens and see the firetrucks and ambulances roll into that facility with some frequency and usually see the firefighters all together with the ambulances leave in a very casual manner indicating to me the emergency might not have been an emergency at all.

I have also seen the identical response to many very minor car crashes throughout the city and in my humble opinion all these extra extra people responding create an additional hazard for traffic as they are or were not needed in the first place. We could also be exposing our citizens to an even greater exposure by burning these people out if and when a serious event occurred and we needed all hands on deck to deal with the event.

To say this is putting a strain on resources and for sure costs to the city would be an understatement. I am not criticizing the first responder's as they are doing what they are told but can we keep doing this and be fiscally responsible? Our budgets are already stretched to the max with police and fire costs as nobody seems to step up and say enough is enough! There will come a time when we as taxpayers will be forced to deal with these important issues as our finances will dictate the appropriate measures. This is a difficult issue and I think it requires some study and some public input to come up with a better plan.

Patrick Boyle