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A former Seattle firefighter issued a stark public safety warning over the department’s massive staffing shortage as it allegedly refuses to rehire those fired over the COVID vaccine mandate.
Andy Pittman worked for the city of Seattle for more than six years before he was fired for refusing to take the vaccine. He joined “Fox & Friends First” to discuss how the shortage is impacting public safety in the Emerald City.
“The city administration and Chief Scoggins are definitely gambling with the city’s lives,” Pittman told Ashley Strohmier on Tuesday. “It’s been shown before that one to two units out of service can have a pretty significant impact in the growth of the fire.”
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“Fires are growing at a much more rapid rate, so we have an even smaller amount of time to make a rapid response and get the fire out and rescue victims,” he continued. “So it’s very imperative that they start to play by the rules and act with integrity, which they haven’t up to this point.”
The city reportedly refused to rehire individuals fired over the vaccine, but is willing to entertain employing those who “resigned, retired, or was separated for medical or disability reasons but not granted disability retirement may request return of their name to a supplemental register to be considered with the open graded eligible register for the classification or rank,” The Post Millennial reported.
© Seattle Fire Department Firefighters work to put out Seattle marina fire.
The staffing crisis has been so severe that certain fire units have allegedly been “browned out,” a term Pittman described as an effort to redistribute firefighters to mitigate the significant staffing deficiencies across the city.
“Browning out units is a term used when there’s not enough units to cover the city, and so when there’s not enough units, they have to shut some units down and start shuffling people to other units in the city to make sure that other areas are covered,” he said. “So rather than dealing with the staffing shortages, Chief Scoggins is focused on terms like brownout.”
As of July 2022, there were more than 100 staff vacancies, which could take several months and even up to one year to fill, according to Seattle radio host Ari Hoffman.
But Pittman argued he believes the department is even further behind from mitigating the crisis than that.
“Right now, they’re bringing members into the department, and they’re not able to pass all of the training, so they’re having to let those members go because they can’t meet the minimum qualifications and standards,” Pittman said. “So they’re actually falling much behind their projected staffing.”
“They only have 39 members actively through recruit school. They started with 53 that a target of 80. Currently, there’s about 40 vacancies as of March into April, and that’s not looking any better,” he continued.
But even despite the challenges surrounding his termination, Pittman, who owns a construction company, said he would “absolutely” return to work at the department, citing his willingness to serve his community.
“I love that job,” Pittman said. “A lot of my family still works there. Most firefighters do it because their duty to serve… It’s not about the job. It’s about the love of the job.”