Councilman Greig Smith won’t admit his decision  will lead to loss of life.

So officially it’s called a brownout, What exactly does that mean?

Here is the translation the LA City Council deny.

A Brownout amounts to the temporary closing of a Fire Station, It directly translates into an increase in response time, in an emergency be it a Fire or a Medical Emergency seconds are critical.

In Los Angeles we have tactically located fire stations around the city in order to have firemen and paramedics on duty 24/7 to respond to calls for service.

The LA City Council has slashed the budget, plain and simple, it told the Fire Department they needed to cut millions from the budget this after voter approved bonds to build new stations in order to ensure public safety and reduce response time that directly amounts to saving lives.

When a child drowned in Bel Air, the fire Department wouldn’t directly blame brownouts on the loss of life, now after two teens perished and the LAFD still attempts to keep political dialogue with our leaders they  can’t point the blame on the Council or the Mayor, But It Is Obvious!

Drowning victims increase the chances of survival every second is vital, stroke and heart attack victims could suffer severe brain damage, drowning victims could die and children could perish in fires, and fire fighters are put into harms way, this is a reality we can not let our City Council pass off as a PR stunt the Threat is Real.

Grieg Smith claims to represent the Valley, but when all the cards are on the table the fact remains he voted for the budget that closed fire stations, laid off workers, and furloughed 911 operators, this is something he proudly demanded that had to be done, yet when people die and his constituents demand answers he is in full denial, Public Safety advocate ? Please.

I ask, if you were the one trapped in a burning building would you want your fire department nearby to save you or would you not mind the extended response time? Here are some facts!

• FACT: Irreversible brain damage can occur within four to six minutes of submersion. (1)
• FACT: Reducing response times from 15 to five minutes or less could almost double the survival rate for cardiac arrest not witnessed by the responding crew. (2)
• FACT: Early bystander rescue breathing or CPR intervention and fast emergency medical services response are therefore essential in improving survival rates (3)
• FACT: Rochester, Minn knows, for example, that the people who are saved are shocked on average within 5 minutes 30 seconds. It also knows that those victims who were not saved were not shocked until, on average, 6 minutes 42 seconds after the 911 call was received. (4)

LA City Firefighters will respond to calls for service, they won’t back down in harms way, and this is where the problems arise, short staffed firefighters risking their own lives could find themselves overwhelmed quickly at the scene of a Fire, they put lives on the line and they should have all of the support they require when they are doing so.

It is undeniable that our Fire Department has no problem putting out any fire, rescuing people from burning buildings, or answering calls for help when the bell rings, if you have any doubt follow them on Twitter @lafd See for yourself the response just because it doesn’t make the 6 o’clock news doesn’t mean that on a Daily basis they aren’t fighting fires and effecting rescues don’t let our city council hamper the bravest public servants of this city.

Pat McOsker, president of United Firefighters of Los Angeles City, has warned for months that the budget cuts are needlessly putting the public at risk and other then a few words of concern or sending items to committee the LA City Council has directly reduced the funding that  the Fire Chief has to work with.

Reducing the number of firefighters to respond by almost a hundred is the only option left to them.

Although I have been somewhat critical in the past of the LAFD not having a small force of reserve firefighters to assist in emergencies the simple fact remains we need our brave Firemen on duty to save lives and fight fires we deserve nothing less then a fully staffed department.

Although a budget dollar may be saved, it could be your life or that of a loved one that is the true cost.

City of LA Reserve Fire Fighters program needs to be implemented to save lives, Union needs to accept reality. Allow Reserve firefighters !

Station File Time Lapse #4 from Dan Finnerty on Vimeo.

Shared Sacrifice, Allow the Los Angeles Fire Department to recruit and train volunteer firefighters for implementing an extensive network of high quality candidates to fill positions which otherwise would have remained vacant.

After the 1994 Northridge earthquake Los Angeles became very aware we were woefully under prepared for a major catastrophe, now in these very lean budget years we are forced to brownout stations and risk lives in order to meet budgetary constraints while at the same time earning ten’s or hundreds of thousands of dollars in Overtime.

Clearly we do not have enough firefighters, and we can’t afford to pay for more with the very lucrative compensation packages offered to Sworn members of the city.

Solution: Reserve Firefighters.

They would be trained at the Los Angeles Fire Academy, they would be required to pass the same background investigation, and they would be part time volunteer fire fighters required to perform a minimum amount of service per month to the city for the first several years after training in order to recoup the investment the city makes.

Only one obstacle remains the Union. Whose old arguments fly in the face of logic because we have qualified Reserve Police Officers, who by all accounts can take or save human life.

If the Los Angeles Police Academy can Train and recruit high quality Reserve Police Officers It would be very difficult to argue that the Los Angeles Fire Academy could not perform to the same standards.

It’s time Los Angeles sees through the smoke screen of the union and allows the City of Los Angeles to bring up the numbers of Fire Fighters to the same levels of staffing as the Los Angeles Police Department and to afford the citizens of this city the same protection the County of Los Angeles and most every other city allow, Volunteer Firefighters.

As the fires continue to grow,  and lives are lost by our brave firefighters it is now more urgent then ever to explore the possibility of this solution to allow those willing to sacrifice the opportunity to do so.