Wilmington fire chief outlines concerns for agency’s future

WILMINGTON, NC (StarNews) Fire departments across the country are seeing a shift in services from firefighting to medical aid, a shift Wilmington is not immune from, according to a memo from the city’s fire chief to city management that raises a series of concerns that could impact the agency in future years.

“It is in the spirit of conversation that I bring these issues to you and in doing so hope to create a degree of understanding as to what it will be important the fire department work on should we want our services to continue being high performance,” WFD Chief Buddy Martinette wrote in the July 25 memo to Tony Caudle, one of Wilmington’s deputy city managers.

Ranging from the increase in medical calls to which the department is responding to additional equipment or procedures needed to ensure firefighters remain safe, the 22 points raised by Martinette’s memo come from a staff survey. While the document only includes one budget request — about $18,000 for 63 bulletproof vests — for the $18.7 million agency, it does raise the possibility of such requests in the near future.

Bill Saffo, Wilmington’s mayor, said, “There’s a lot of work to be done in the next couple of years, and these folks are always strategically planning and looking at things, so I’m sure they’ll be coming to us with some specific recommendations in this year’s budget.”

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