Smoke screen? Lincoln mayor wants to boost fire budget despite fewer blazes - Watchdog.org

Lincoln’s mayor wants to upgrade the city’s fire truck fleet and hire more firefighters, but the city’s fire department is fighting fewer fires every year. While the number of fires in Lincoln has hovered around 2,200 annually since 2001, only about 500 of those are actual structure fires, according to the fire department statistics. Mayor Chris Beutler has taken fire for saying the city needs more firefighters and upgrades to fire trucks, with his critics accusing him of appeasing the fire union to get its last-minute endorsement three days before he was re-elected. Beutler said the firefighters aren’t needed because four more fire stations will be built, but because the fire department had a 22 percent increase in calls in the past decade. In fact, the fire department had more calls for service in 2001 than last year, according to Lincoln Fire & Rescue’s annual reports , although Public Safety Director Tom Casady said he doesn’t believe the early 2000s reports reflect incidents as... As is the case nationwide, Lincoln’s fire department acts more like an ambulance service with each passing year. Source: watchdog.org