Woodbury challenge

Star Tribune Sun, 27 Jan 2008 05:57:22 GMT
Woodbury police officers jump into firefighter role

The east-metro suburb now has 10 officers who double as firefighters, keeping their fire gear in the back of their squad cars. ... What started as an experiment in Woodbury to improve response times at big fires has grown into a full-scale effort to break with tradition. Washington County's largest city is Minnesota's only public-safety department where on-duty police officers double as firefighters, changing into fire clothes stowed in the trunks of their squad cars. "Honestly, when I first heard about this plan I thought it was kind of crazy," said Lee Vague, Woodbury's public safety director. "I thought, 'What's next, plow drivers?'" But Woodbury officials -- unconcerned that Burnsville abandoned a similar program years ago -- think the plan makes good economic sense in a city that had only about 60 serious fire calls last year. Police calls, meanwhile, topped 26,000 in the city of about 60,000 residents. Woodbury has nine full-time firefighters and three full-time fire chiefs, but supplements that crew with 68 on-call firefighters -- and now with 10 police officers who qualify as firefighters. Those cops play prominently in a new city policy that requires five trained firefighters to respond to fires in fewer than 9 minutes, 90 percent of the time. ... Of all metro cities, New Brighton appears to have the closest arrangement to what Woodbury is doing. Seven police officers work as New Brighton firefighters, but only when they're off duty. ... St. Martin, who volunteered 16 months ago to become one of Woodbury's first five cops to train as firefighters, offered his evaluation: "Overall, in a word, positive. I'm excited about its potential and where it's going."

[[keywords: PublicSafety;Metro;]]