DETROIT – A controversial new policy is coming under fire by members of the Detroit City Council.
When there's an emergency every second counts, but leaders at Detroit Fire believe that when a call is not life-threatening, fire trucks don't need to leave the station and others across the city with their lights and sirens on.
When sirens are blaring it indicates fire crews are responding to an emergency. In Detroit those flashing lights and loud sirens will only go off when the fire department knows for sure that someone's life is in danger.
Code 1 is immediate danger and code 2 is a non-life-threatening call. Under a new response policy anything classified as a code 2 won't send firefighters racing down the street.
The Detroit Fire Department averages between 400 to 500 calls weekly. About half of those calls turn out to be non-life-threatening.
The city made a point of a crash in 2017. A driver rammed into a fire truck, slightly injuring a firefighter onboard on the east side. Lights and sirens were on and the crew was only responding to a small garbage fire.
The Firefighter's Union president, Mike Nevin, doesn't believe the decision is beneficial to those in the union.
He released the following statement:
"The DFFA is proud of Detroit City Council and State Legislators concern/action as it relates to Fire Administrations invented and mentally unbalanced Fire/EMS response policy. Fire Administrations appearance today before the City Council proves their fabricated manipulation and true understand of proper Fire/EMS response to the public's 911 emergency's will create deadly results.
It is unfortunate that Mayor Duggan continues to rubber stamp his fraudulent appointed leadership after numerous personal/professional attempts have been made to resolve critical interdepartmental concerns is a shameful disgrace of willful neglect alarming enough to wonder if his administration is out of touch or not concerned for Detroit Public Safety."
Councilman Scott Benson said he plans to give the department a few months to see if it's helpful or harmful.
"On Jan. 7 we made sure that the fire department is coming back to the table with metrics about how this went," said Benson.