Atlanta Fire Department Dismantles Elite Squad

By Odette Yousef

Atlanta, GA – Budget and personnel cuts have forced Atlanta's Fire Department to dismantle its most elite squad of firefighters. Squad Four, which responded to the city's most high-profile and difficult incidents, has been split between the department's regular units.

Jim Daws, President of the Atlanta Professional Firefighters Association, says the change is serious:

DAWS: It just wrecks the whole hazardous material, technical rescue response scheme that we had. It puts nothing else adequate in its place.

Daws worries about what will happen when one of the ladder trucks that several Squad 4 members have been reassigned to is out on a call, and then something in another part of the city happens that requires their skills.

Atlanta Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran says the department has worked out an alternative plan to adequately cover the whole city:

COCHRAN: We still have the same number of special operations trained personnel, still have the Squad 4 truck and the equipment is up and ready to go at any time, we'll just have to deploy it differently since all those personnel are not on one specially-designed apparatus.

The fire department has had 13 million dollars cut from its budget as the city tries to close a 140 million dollar budget gap.