News

New Canaan Firefighter Harry Russell Sworn In at Town Hall Ceremony

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Harry Russell had been working in his family’s construction firm in England for five years when, in 2019, he immigrated to the United States. 

One year later, in September 2020, he joined the volunteer New Canaan Fire Company No. 1—an experience that would change his life. It was seeing what the job demands and what’s involved that made the Wilton resident want to become a career firefighter in New Canaan. “I realized that some of my previous skills in construction would apply very well to it,” Russell told NewCanaanite.com Tuesday evening from the main lobby at Town Hall, moments after being sworn in as a firefighter by Town Clerk Claudia Weber. “Not only that but also getting to know the town and the people really created that drive where I want to help as much as I can and contribute to the town in any way possible,” Russell said.

Albe Bassett

‘This Is Not a Best Practice’: Fire Commission Pushes Back on Removal of Funding for Assistant Chief

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Saying it’s a matter of public safety, members of the municipal body that oversees the New Canaan Fire Department are calling for the town to re-add funding for an assistant chief position in the agency. The Board of Selectmen following a back-and-forth with Fire Chief Albe Bassett removed a request for $121,000 in salary for the full-time assistant chief position in January, during the first major phase of the fiscal year 2025 budget process. (The job would also come with a benefits package that town Human Resources officials put at about 40% of the salary.)

After Bassett submitted a memo to the Board of Selectmen saying he could try to make do with $71,000 in overtime that would go to line officers in lieu of the full-time assistant chief, the selectmen did add a $50,000 overtime line item to the Fire Department’s budget (which still must be approved by the Board of Finance and Town Council). In the memo, obtained by NewCanaanite.com through a public records request, Bassett listed five duties that cannot be filled by line officers “on a 24/7 basis.” They include representing the chief as needed, supervising the other line officers, HR functions such as negotiations, budget-related work and fire marshal duties. Members of the Fire Commission during a special meeting held Feb.

Albe Bassett

Fire Department Eyes Improved Rescue Capabilities After Contractor’s Death on Valley Road

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New Canaan’s fire chief said last week that the recent death of a contractor doing excavation work on Valley Road has the department looking again at its rescue capabilities. 

Though the department was at the job site at Silver Hill Hospital on Friday, Dec. 22 and pulled the man out in 15 minutes following a trench collapse, he perished from internal wounds sustained at the time of the accident, according to Fire Chief Albe Bassett. The man “happened to be working on a fire protection line for one of their [the hospital’s] buildings which they—unfortunately—they can’t shut it off, so they were doing an emergency repair and the worker was struck and trapped by dirt inside the hole, about 12 feet down,” Bassett said during a special budget-related meeting of the Fire Commission, held Feb. 8 via videoconference. That’s “a very challenging rescue for any fire service, but for us with lack of equipment and staffing it was much more difficult,” the fire chief said.

Albe Bassett

NCHS Sophomore Earns Fire Department’s ‘Community Hero Award’

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Marlena Ericsson, 15, was walking home from Youth Group at the Congregational Church of New Canaan on a Tuesday afternoon in late October when she spotted an elderly woman on Heritage Hill Road. It had started to rain and “you could tell she wasn’t able to walk,” Ericsson, a New Canaan High School sophomore, recalled during a Fire Commission meeting held Tuesday night at the firehouse. 

“She reminded me of my grandma, who is 101,” Ericsson told NewCanaanite.com. “So I kind of wanted to help more than anything else.”

She did. The teen brought the woman into the nearby firehouse and waited for the Police Department to come and bring her back home safely, according to Fire Chief Albe Bassett. “Marlena was able to bring her to the firehouse and get her help,” Bassett said while presenting Ericsson with the department’s Community Hero Award.

News

New Canaan Fire Department Pursues ‘Automatic Mutual Aid’ with Neighboring Towns

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New Canaan fire officials are drafting agreements with bordering municipalities in order to ensure that trained firefighters are getting to more potentially serious scenes even faster. As it is, the New Canaan Fire Department has automatic mutual aid with agencies in towns such as Wilton and Vista, N.Y. when it comes to structure fires. Yet in responding to other calls—such as residential fire alarms or reports of a possible carbon monoxide illness, the town’s response time to far-reaching corners of the town often exceeds the National Fire Prevention Association’s requirements, according to New Canaan Fire Chief Albe Bassett. 

“The travel distances are too far,” Bassett told members of the Fire Commission during their regular meeting, held Tuesday night at the firehouse on Main Street. With an automatic mutual aid agreement in place, trained firefighters from neighboring departments such as Stamford and Pound Ridge, N.Y. could get eyes on scene several minutes faster—an often critical window. Bassett said he studied NCFD’s response times and identified four “quadrants” of the town where help is needed, and that he’s “actively looking to get agreements with Pound Ridge, Vista, and Stamford to provide an automatic mutual aid engine for any emergency response.”

He provided the example of West Cross Road in New Canaan, which is located below the Merritt Parkway at the town’s southwestern border with Stamford.