Austin City Council members on Thursday will consider an ordinance that would require most of the city’s fire vehicles to be staffed with a minimum of four people, a move decades in the making that supporters say will improve safety and efficiency at the Fire Department.
The ordinance would essentially bring into law a policy that the Fire Department has already been implementing to make sure that first responders are able to act immediately during a critical fire incident.
The city began working toward four-person crews in the early 1990s.
Austin fire union President Bob Nicks said council members passed an aspirational resolution roughly 10 years ago that called for making four-person staffing the standard by 2019.
With the help of a grant in 2012, the department reached the goal earlier than expected.
“The ordinance kind of ensures that we stay there,” Nicks said. “We discussed the importance of it with council, and they decided that it is important enough to make it a law.”