SHREWSBURY, Mass. — In the town of Shrewsbury, there are deep concerns about who is answering calls for help.
They center around the fire department, where many agree there's simply not enough firefighters.
The guys are really trying to do more with less and we're taking increased risk to provide services to the town," Shrewsbury Firefighter Aaron Roy told Boston 25 News.
It's so serious that on some calls, just two firefighters are riding on a fire truck with no supervisor.
"Guys will show up to a fire and run two-man engine companies and there's no one at the pump. So if they're the first one there, there's no one to back them up until a second crew arrives," Roy explained.
In the late 1980s, the town's population was 22,000. Now, it has nearly doubled, and the call volume has ballooned. Yet the number of firefighters hasn't changed since the 80s.
Just 36 firefighters work at the department.
Fire Chief James Vuona says they've tried to get grants but have had no success.
"We'd like to create some supervisor positions and add eight firefighters, which would be adding two per shift," he said.
Town Manager Kevin Mizikar told Boston 25 News he would like to add firefighters, but the cost all at once would be significant -- hundreds of thousands of dollars.
"We have to start to put our own local resources in place and find ways to do that based on making this a higher priority," Mizikar explained.
If not, the concerns inside the fire stations will just get deeper and they hope it doesn't take a tragedy to force changes.
The chief plans to go after more grant money, both on the state and federal level. He hopes for eight more firefighters.
The town manager plans to help with the grants as well.
Cox Media Group
/cloudfront-us-east-1.images.arcpublishing.com/cmg/7QOJU3BNCJERBNKJC5LWTBYFLU.png)
