(The following letter was written in response to a series of articles published by Newsday and was sent to Newsday's letters to the editor section. It is being printed here at the author's request.)

Well "the article" is finally done and over, and surprising inaccurate. I found Liz Moores' position on unnecessary spending by fire districts and department to be most ironic, since it was she who personally complained to me as the then chairman of the board of directors of my department when I would not use taxpayer money to comply with any of the Freedom of Information requests she made. I can only hope that all departments were as diligent in charging Newsday the legal cost of producing the documents they requested at taxpayer request. If the amount charged by my department was representative of the total we charged Newsday for the cost of duplication of the thousands of records requested, this article must have cost over $100,000 not including salaries to produce. A good investment? Not by the reaction I have seen. Has it actually increased circulation? Probably not. So why did Liz and team write the article? It must have been with the good intentions of getting the facts out to the public.

Now I will admit that certainly not everything in the article was incorrect. Sure they had a Tiki bar. I found the same structure for sale at an online website for $269 (plus $40 shipping). A small ready to assemble table would cost just as much. So lets go through some of the facts.

On day one Newsday highlighted the average expense (Cost of Fires Down) of the fire service on Long Island. Sure costs are increasing compared to the number of fires. Better enforcement of local fire prevention codes, by fire inspectors often paid for by the departments will reduce the number of fires. But what about the increased cost of fuel, electricity, and the significant increases in the number of emergency medical responses nearly every volunteer fire department is requested to respond to each year? Don't those count? According to Newsday "between 1980 and 2000, the costs to taxpayers of supporting fire districts more than doubled after adjusting for inflation, growing almost three times as fast as spending by other local governments" and yes, if measured strictly by fire calls, our cost per call would be increasing. Long Island's total expenditures in the past 25 years have increased as a direct result of mandated requirements for trucks with enclosed cabs, new ambulance designs, and greater number of and more frequent ambulance replacement. Additional costs of securing the equipment necessary to provide advanced life support and so many other federally required safety mandates to which all fire departments have come to find required. So at the end of day one, I wondered what would it be if we measured it by response? Or by number of lives saved maybe not from fire, but from auto accidents, cardiac and other emergencies. Certainly the graph would look different.

In addition, day one "analyzed" response times. This portion of the article is probably one of the most self-serving of all 8 days, and one, which most people clearly identified as the most prejudicial. The motoring public is always of utmost concern when I as the current chief of department receive a call. When I, or one of my deputies, respond to a call and arrive in generally less than three minutes we perform a size up of the situation. If it is not deemed to be a "true emergency" as defined by New York State Law, we slow the speed of the responding vehicles in accordance with that state law, and good common sense. Newsday's response time graph did not consider the arrival time of any vehicle other than the first "fire truck" or ambulance. So the better we do our job, and protect the general public by responding appropriately to the condition found, the worse we look. Remember my chiefs car and our medical response vehicles have all the equipment necessary to stabilize the condition of all but the most critically of injured patients at the scene. Response time of the ambulance is by no means an indicator of the quality of care we provide. We no longer "scoop and run" in our 1959 Cadillac ambulances. Emergency Medicine has changed and for most departments, and citizens who call upon us, the care we provide is obvious.

Day three's "Trucks, trucks everywhere" produced another creative and attractive graphic with data that was obviously erroneous to the point that it was deceptive. At very quick glance it was obvious that Long Island seems to have "trucks, trucks everywhere" but by doing very little research, I was able to find the latest edition of FDNY fire trucks chronicled by type. Accordingly the graphic showing 347 fire trucks in New York City would only be correct if it displayed the actual number, 1612 including 12 fireboats, which protect how many square miles of waterfront compared to Long Island's 200+? And by the way FDNY who is without a doubt among the best has a few more than 7 or 8 Rescue vehicles described in the article. 108 to be exact. Take a look for yourself; my source "A Guide to NY City Fire Apparatus" 2005 edition was edited by John A. Calderone and is available in local libraries. Furthermore LA County incorrectly listed as having 309 trucks, has according to their fire department website 1435 vehicles, and covers a population of just under 4 million residents, slightly greater than half the population density of Long Island. The numbers Liz Moore and Newsday presented were just plain wrong, and research or proofreading was obviously lacking.

Is an analysis and a truly open and honest discussion needed with regard to how we will protect ourselves, and provide the services, which we have come to rely upon going forward, needed. Absolutely. Every leader and member of the Long Island emergency service knows that. In order to do so however we need an honest set of facts. Something Newsday has failed to provide its readers.

Larry Baron

Chief of the Plainview Fire Department