DES MOINES, Iowa — It’s a battle that has been going on for over 10 years: whether to keep Des Moines Fire Engine 8 in service or not. The tension continues this week, now with focus on Station 9 as well. 

This friction over the last decade has been between the Des Moines Fire Chief John TeKippe and the Des Moines Firefighters Union. Tekippe said he has been trying to manage a budget, but the union disagrees with some of his decisions.

The union posted on Facebook saying they were blindsided to find out five people had been moved out of Station 9. It reads in part: “A little disappointed to wake up this morning and see that the Chief has moved 5 people out of Station 9 on the NW side of Des Moines. Essentially taking Engine 9 out of service full time. We’ve been fighting so hard to keep the SW fire apparatus in-service that we didn’t expect the Chief to gut another station.”

TeKippe said he has no plans to take out Engine 9. He said he promoted 26 people on Monday, and the transfer sheet reflecting that moved around 44 people. This means there are now a few vacancies at Station 9 that they’re working to fill.

President of the Des Moines Firefighters IAFF Local 4, Joe Van Haalen, said this has happened many times before, leaving the station, firefighters and the community in a tough spot. 

“It doesn’t signal that he’s necessarily doing anything with Engine 9 other than if the staffing is not there. And that’s the whole thing, is the staffing is short across the city. And part of the problem that the city’s faced with this is they’ve been covering that staffing with overtime, which obviously increases their budget. And so that’s the problem,” Van Haalen said. “As he moves people out of there, and they’re not there to fill the spots, the only way to fill them, if they do fill them, is with overtime.”

So was Station 9 a concern before?

“Absolutely. It’s been on our radar. I just think that it’s got a little bit better backup protection than 8 does,” he said. “And the fact of the matter is, he was fully saying he was going to take 8 out of service, meaning it would go away, that it would not be there, would never be staffed.”

Part of the problem, he said, is that the fire department is adding more resources behind-the-scenes, like admin jobs. Van Haalen said that is good, but then that also takes away from boots on the ground. 

“That’s really frustrating. I think we see the value in those jobs, but yet they’re not being sold to the city council and the manager as additions to the department. We’re taking away frontline people,” he said. “We’ve had ten years of increasing call volume at a rate of about an average of 4 to 5%. We’re out there on the streets. We’re seeing what’s going on. We can see how busy that is. You’re pushing a workload off on other units that are already extremely busy in the city. There just aren’t any stations that aren’t really busy anymore.”

Station 8 has been a hot topic. According to Chief TeKippe, it’s always had three vehicles, two fire and one EMS. He said the engine has been in and out of service over the years, not full time.

Eighteen months ago, he started a trial for Station 8 by having three full-time vehicles. They wanted to see if it would increase efficiency and response times. TeKippe said it has not, it’s about the same. That’s why he’s proposing to get rid of it and use the resources elsewhere. 

There is no final decision yet if he will remove Engine 8.

He said that Zone 8 is tough because of it’s large geography so it just simply takes time to get to places. It’s also the closest station to the airport. 

One thing both sides can agree on is wanting to add another station to the south side of town. However, there are no plans in the works yet.

Metro News: