I came across two very different statements about the situation with Bryan Fire/EMS and wanted to better understand what's actually happening.

I'm not trying to take a side here... it just seems like two very different perspectives on the same issue.
Can anyone clarify what the facts are?


City of Bryan issued this statement:
https://www.bryantx.gov/news/posts/city-of-bryans-statement-on-fire-emergency-services/

The Firefighters statement:
"WHEN WILL IT BE ENOUGH, CITY OF BRYAN?
When will our Fire Administration finally acknowledge its failures to maintain basic apparatus readiness and public safety?

Currently, East Bryan was stripped of its only apparatus and forced to respond in a borrowed training enginean engine never intended for real-world emergencies. A training engine that jeopardizes the firefighters riding on it and creates a false sense of security for citizens waiting for help that may never arrive.

An engine that may not even make it to your emergency because its sole purpose is training, not protecting lives. And yetrather than fix the crisisour Administration is more concerned with creating policies to restrict media access to fire stations, attempting to hide just one of the many sources of smoke we've been warning about.

Because where there's smoke… there's fire.

If it wasn't for College Station's bravest, East Bryan would have endured depleted coverage and extended response times during multiple emergenciesbecause our frontline engine was out of service again due to mechanical failure.

This is not normal.
This is not acceptable.
And this is NOT what the citizens of Bryan deserve.
Enough is enough.
Your firefighters are crying out for help
not for politics, not for spin,
but for basic safety and functional emergency equipment.
Listen to your firefighters.
Demand answers.
Demand accountability.
Demand better for East Bryan.

Bryan Fire Fighters Association"

I am making the assumption that this situation is worse behind the scenes than people are letting on. If a fire department makes the news for things other than responding to an emergency, its not good. When firefighter march on city hall and city officials have closed door executive sessions to discuss legal options its extremely bad.

This is not a time for a hot dog measuring contest. At this moment, who cares who is actually to blame and who cares who actually gets blamed for the problem. Get this resolved ASAP and then tackle the source of the problem while all the equipment is serviceable.

I don't know if the city started the problem; but they are not helping themselves. Just get the equipment fixed or replaced and show the firefighters you care about them and will take care of them. If the city is not communicating with all members of the department; they can be certain the firefighter union and all those angry with the city are. Who wants firefighters in their city that are angry at their leadership and do not feel valued. You may end up with a department of people updating their resumes and doing the bare minimum in the meantime.

I remember being in the Air Force working on aircraft and having an absolutely terrible commander. Typically, in aircraft maintenance you only saw the commander at commanders call and the Christmas party. I remember being ordered to immediately fix an airplane. The write up was "Autopilot intermittently disconnects after being engage for extended durations over 2 hours." they are called Gremlins for a reason. If I could fix it in an instant it would have been done already. (E-4 Autopilot for those that know this king of Gremlins)

His solution for everything was work 12 hour shifts and weekends. We did our job, but for that duration of his command everyone only did the bare minimum. He eventually got 'fired' after about 6 months. That was a horrible situation to be in, and we do not need out firefighters to go there either.
I hope this gets resolved quickly.

Bryan FD does need to switch 48-96 schedule. It's the desired schedule for Firefighters and BCS has been behind in implementing this when surrounding areas have had it for several years. CS went to it last year around Thanksgiving or the year before, I cannot remember.

Bryan FD is losing firefighters because of the schedule not being 48-96.

Knocking it out of the park.