After a deadly 24 hours involving a serious vehicle crash and a raging fire in Youngstown, the union representing the city's firefighters is calling the situation "unacceptable." 

In a statement issued Friday, International Association of Firefighters Local 312 President Jon Racco said there were not enough safety services available to effectively respond to a particularly dangerous series of incidents. 

First was a car crash on Mahoning Avenue in which a car hit a pole and split in half, sending part of the vehicle into West Side Merchants and damaging a sign and a window.  The other half of the car flew more than 300 feet down the road. Both people in the car were taken to the hospital, where one later died. 

The second was a fire on Oklahoma Avenue in which one person was found dead inside. 

Racco said in the crash on Mahoning Avenue, AMR, the city's ambulance provider, only had one ambulance available to respond.

In the case of the fire, Racco said no ambulance was available. 

"Despite initial reports of an occupied house fire with occupants unaccounted for, AMR did not provide an ambulance for the victim or to standby for our members, who were working under incredibly dangerous conditions to locate him. This situation is unacceptable and the city deserves better," Racco said in the statement. 

Fire Chief Barry Finley agrees and says that starts with the firefighters taking more responsibility. 

Finley said the only reason any fire station is ever closed is due to calloffs, which he says was the case on Thursday, when not enough firefighters showed up to work to keep Engine number 2 manned. 

Finley said for every firefighter who calls off, not only do they still get paid, but whoever gets called in gets paid time and a half to come in and cover them. In effect, this means that if two firefighters call off, they get paid, plus two more get paid time and a half, meaning the equivalent of five firefighters are paid to cover two shifts. 

Last year, Finley said he unilaterally approved going significantly over budget on overtime in order to reduce station closures. 

However, this year, city council approved funding for him to hire 10 new firefighters, seven of whom are now currently on the job, which he said is enough to keep all stations manned as long as everyone shows up to work. 

Finley said when that funding came through, he made it clear to the union that he would not be able to continue approving as much overtime, so the calloffs needed to stop unless they are "legitimately sick." 

"You only work 10 days a month. How do you not come to work? " Finley said, referring to the way firefighters are scheduled in which they work the equivalent of either 40 or 52 hours per week, depending on their specific function, but in a smaller number of long shifts on duty. 

Finley estimated that roughly 93 percent of the current staff has called off at least once in the past year. 

"If this were any other business, most of these firefighters would be terminated by now," he said. 

With regard to the union's concern about there not being enough ambulances, Finley said he also agrees this is an issue that needs to be resolved, but he says his department is in a position to help. 

Finley said there are 17 paramedics and 24 EMTs in the department right now and the city pays them bonuses in order to provide those services on an as-needed basis. He said the city has paid out $182,000 in bonuses since 2010 for this purpose to assist when ambulances aren't available. 

Now, Finley says the union is no longer willing to do this, saying this needs to be negotiated and that contract negotiations are not for another six months. 

Finley said this amounts to "using the citizens as bargaining chips." 

He said he agrees this would amount to a change in working conditions that would need to be negotiated in order to provide these services on a regular basis, which he said he's willing to do, but that in the meantime there is no reason the department can't continue to provide paramedic and EMT services on an as-needed basis. 

"The sole reason we're here is to help people," Finley said. "We're supposed to be public servants." 

The fire union responded to Chief Finley's comments with the statement below:

Chief Finley continues to put his own failures on the members of Local 312 and is now questioning our commitment to public service and threatening our member’s jobs. It’s offensive. His own contributions to public service since his appointment consist of closing fire stations, staffing reductions, the deterioration of apparatus, equipment and stations and now the complete elimination of any labor-management relationship.

On 12/1, the day Chief Finley referenced, there weren’t enough firefighters available to open all YFD’s apparatus, even before 1 firefighter required sick leave. Chief Finley has failed to secure enough staffing for his department and the result has been apparatus closures almost daily.

As for EMS, Local 312 requested to bargain for and provide a first responder service in September. We are still waiting for Chief Finley and the Administration to acknowledge the request.

This attack on our members is a deflection of Chief Finley’s own shortcomings mixed with bold faced lies. No one cares about Youngstown’s citizens more than Local 312’s members, including the ones who spent yesterday resuscitating them in the street and searching for them in a fully involved house fire.