WESTFIELD – During the Westfield Fire Commission’s first meeting since November, on Feb. 11, the commission named a new chair, discussed staffing updates for fiscal year 2022 (FY22), and discussed two new ambulances set to hit the road the week of Feb. 15.

To start the meeting, the commission unanimously named C. Lee Bennett the commission chair for 2021.

During the meeting, Fire Chief Patrick Egloff announced that the department received two grants from the state, one for $6,380 for their Student Awareness of Fire Education and the second for $2,880 for their Senior Save programs.

“With this letter I want to recognize Ben Warren who is the Fire Prevention Deputy, Tina Gorman, who is the director of the Council on Aging, and I also want to recognize the men and women of the Westfield Fire Department that go into the school every year and educate our children,” he said.

Egloff added that because of this program, 2020 was the first year in recent memory there were no child fatalities due to fire related causes in Massachusetts.

As part of the FY22 budget process, Egloff said the department is looking to hire five new firefighters and paramedics.

“I talked to somebody in auditing and unofficially it looks like we are going to be able to hire five. I did five requisitions which are over at city hall right now. The fire fighters and paramedics were given their civil service scores on Feb. 9 and the new list will be available March 15 and the plan is to hire five paramedics,” he said.

Fire Commissioner Albert Masciadrelli recommended requesting for additional staffing above the five paramedics and just hiring what gets approved once the interviews begin.

“We have four or five vacancies; I would recommend adding two more vacancies to that to get a big, expanded list. That way we have the list here, we can start interviewing, and by that time we just put in for the auditor’s report. We’ll have the candidates already started and can hire as many as we are allowed,” he said.

The commission ultimately agreed to putting in a request for extra vacancies.

After discussing staffing, the commission also agreed to surplus the department’s Sackett Street Facility.

"We’re not completely cleaned out of Sackett Street yet and the Police Department still has stuff there too. I still would like the commission to vote to surplus that today, there is a process, and it takes a bit of time,” Egloff said.

During the meeting, Egloff also discussed the purchase of two new ambulances and a delay to them hitting the road.

“The ambulances will be delivered next week, and we were able to pay cash for them out of the enterprise account, which was a little over $700,000. There was a little bit of a delay because there is a tire pressure sensor on the front of the tires and there is a recall on the sensor from Dodge and that’s our only hold up right now,” he said.

Egloff said these new ambulances will take over as the department’s two lead vehicles.

“These two ambulances will be the two front vehicles for Med 30 and Med 40, which get most of the calls. The number of calls is approaching 8,000 per year for all the ambulances. Our current Med 40 which is three years old hit 80,000 miles and part of that is we have to go to Baystate more than we used to,” he said.

After the ambulance update, the commission also approved two education incentive pay adjustments for two firefighters.