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By TOM EVANS

Times Staff Writer


STAMFORD -- Controversy is again swirling around the Long Ridge Fire Company, after a canceled fire call Saturday night left no apparatus responding to an alarm at 69 Middle Patent Road.

In an inter-office memo dated Monday, William J. Smith, deputy chief of Stamford Fire & Rescue, said that a chief from Banksville, N.Y. (just over the state line) was the only one on scene.

"A BVFD chief only responded to the alarm and reset the panel," Smith wrote. "There were no fire engines (or) trucks that actually made it to this alarm. I questioned dispatch to make sure that I understood (Long Ridge Fire Company Engine 71) canceling all units before any on-scene investigation had been conducted."

An alarm transmitted at 1:57 p.m. on Saturday from that address, which includes Lionshare Farm, with Engine 71, three units from Stamford Fire & Rescue, and Banksville, N.Y. signed on to respond, according to Smith.

Smith said in that memo that while en route, the alarm company called Stamford dispatch and attempted to cancel the alarm, stating "that it is probably from the heat."

Robert J. McGrath, chief of SF&R, said an alarm company does not have the authority to call off responders.

"Our (standard operating procedure) in, let's say, an office building, where we get an automatic alarm, again and again, is to have one engine respond," McGrath said. "We always send a unit and investigate. We don't cancel anything."

According to Smith, Engine 71 announced that BVFD was responding, and Engine 71 "directed that BVFD handle the alarm and call the signals."

Confusion then took hold, after Engine 71 told SF&R "that all units were being canceled if BVFD was taking the call." Banksville assumed that Engine 71 "canceling all calls" included BVFD Engine 158, Smith wrote.

Dispatch confirmed that Engine 71 was canceling all fire apparatus response.

"I was at the public hearings (July 1) and heard a statement/promise that no cancellations would occur in (LRFC) alarms without an on-scene size-up," Smith said. "This type of disservice to the public is negligent and will probably expose the City of Stamford to potential civil lawsuits."

Chief Robert Bennett from LRFC said he was investigating the incident but had "nothing to say, no comment" for this story.

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