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New York cut the fifth firefighter off its engines in 2011 to save money. Fire deaths nearly doubled, and the Council wants it back

New York cut the fifth firefighter from most engines in 2011. With fire deaths nearly doubled, the Council wants $92 million to bring it back.

New York cut the fifth firefighter off its engines in 2011 to save money. Fire deaths nearly doubled, and the Council wants it back
An FDNY fire engine.
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Fifteen years ago, to trim the budget, New York pulled one firefighter off most of its fire engines. This spring, with fire deaths in the city running at nearly double last year’s pace, the City Council is trying to put that firefighter back, and the history of the cut is hard to read as anything but a warning.

The idea is simple. A fifth firefighter means staffing an engine company with five instead of four, which supporters say lets a crew get water on a fire faster and keeps a small fire from becoming a deadly one. The Uniformed Firefighters Association backs it, and the position has a pointed history: it was cut under Mayor Michael Bloomberg in 2011, dropping most engines from five firefighters to four.

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Featured image: Oleg Yunakov / CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

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