{"id":256251,"date":"2017-07-13T06:06:42","date_gmt":"2017-07-12T20:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=256251"},"modified":"2017-07-13T06:06:42","modified_gmt":"2017-07-12T20:06:42","slug":"dfems-wants-2-fire-trucks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/dfems-wants-2-fire-trucks\/","title":{"rendered":"DFEMS wants 2 fire trucks"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_256254\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-256254\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Fire-pix-1.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-256254\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Fire-pix-1-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Commissioner Clyde Norita and other department officials face the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this week. (Erwin Encinares)\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-256254\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-256254\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services Commissioner Clyde Norita and other department officials face the House Ways and Means Committee earlier this week. (Erwin Encinares)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services asked both the House of Representatives and the Senate for more money so it could buy two fire trucks.<\/p>\n<p>DFEMS chief Clyde Norita said that Gov. Ralph DLG Torres\u2019 proposed budget of $3.9 million for the department is sufficient but he wants $800,000 more to secure two more fire trucks in order to shorten response time.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur biggest priorities are the purchase of two new [fire trucks], which are $400,000 apiece,\u201d he said, adding that the $400,000 already includes each truck\u2019s delivery to Saipan. <\/p>\n<p>According to Norita, DFEMS currently has two trucks on Saipan, one of them being inoperable since a forest fire on Capital Hill. \u201cWe only have one fire truck that\u2019s working right now,\u201d he said. It is at the Garapan Fire Station. <\/p>\n<p>Norita said the stations\u2019 locations were designed to lessen the response time to between six and nine minutes. <\/p>\n<p>When asked if an additional fire truck would improve DFEMS\u2019 response time, he said, \u201cIf there is no engine in the station, it\u2019s still not going to solve the problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite this handicap, Norita noted that DFEMS still responds within four to five minutes of a call. The only problem is that ambulances are usually the vehicles used to respond to emergencies and, in the event of a fire, nothing could be done but wait.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe pumper is critical\u2014every station should have a [fire truck],\u201d said Norita, adding that this was the second consecutive year that DFEMS has been asking for fire trucks.<\/p>\n<p>DFEMS is asking the Legislature for $4.7 million for fiscal year 2018, about $800,000 more than the Torres\u2019 proposed budget due to the requisition of two fire trucks.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike other government agencies, Norita said the department does not lack personnel since the previous class graduated about 38 cadets.<\/p>\n<p>There are six fire stations on Saipan and one each on Rota and Tinian. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Department of Fire and Emergency Medical Services asked both the House of Representatives and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":256254,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[20,4234,14954,6285],"class_list":["post-256251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-budget","tag-dfems","tag-emergency-medical-services","tag-garapan-fire-station"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/256254"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}