Detroit Fire official bounced from post.

[Buy American]

I agree, the department has been plagued by lack of money and apparatus issues. Which is probably a good reason to keep working equipment in the places that will be the most useful. I'm also aware that you can only do so much without the support of upper management. However, Mr. Growchoski made some poor decisions in a very short period of time.

Chief of Fire Operations Growchowski, [[which incidentally, you don't get promoted to on a whim), has been on the job from July to September...hardly enough time to get things up and running the way a real fire department should run. With the outdated, unrepaired, half ass equipment that the City of Detroit supplies its' firefighters, it's any wonder that a garbage fire gets put out.

To answer your question "how can a firefighter not know how to operate a hose?", the firefighter was driving a small pumper truck that was out of commission for pumping water and was only being used to transport firefighters to that scene. Chief Growchowski is a scapegoat for this entire matter. Don't blame the firefighters for the mistakes of Bing and his administration. From thug KK on down, the City has been robbed of funds from the taxpayers and the Feds that would get both Police and Fire up and running like the departments they were meant to be. Police running around using their own cell phones to call in license plates because the communications in the scout car won't work, a fleet of cars sitting in some yard waiting repairs, fire rigs out of service....Detroiters need to pray that there will never be a catastrophic incident in Detroit because there isn't enough equipment cover it.

[kraig]

Chief of Fire Operations Growchowski, [[which incidentally, you don't get promoted to on a whim), has been on the job from July to September...hardly enough time to get things up and running the way a real fire department should run. With the outdated, unrepaired, half ass equipment that the City of Detroit supplies its' firefighters, it's any wonder that a garbage fire gets put out.

To answer your question "how can a firefighter not know how to operate a hose?", the firefighter was driving a small pumper truck that was out of commission for pumping water and was only being used to transport firefighters to that scene. Chief Growchowski is a scapegoat for this entire matter. Don't blame the firefighters for the mistakes of Bing and his administration. From thug KK on down, the City has been robbed of funds from the taxpayers and the Feds that would get both Police and Fire up and running like the departments they were meant to be. Police running around using their own cell phones to call in license plates because the communications in the scout car won't work, a fleet of cars sitting in some yard waiting repairs, fire rigs out of service....Detroiters need to pray that there will never be a catastrophic incident in Detroit because there isn't enough equipment cover it.

Here's the quote from the Fire Commissioner.

"The trucks had the proper equipment, but the problem is the type of truck that showed up first was a tactical truck. It’s a smaller rig used to fight parking structure fires, not house fires, so it doesn’t have a ladder. It has a 300 gallon tank, but the driver was not certified to use it."

I do agree with almost everything you're saying though. But like I said, any answer you look at will tell what the department needs to work on.