On Memorial Day weekend in 2018, the Atlantic City Fire Department “browned out” or closed at least two of its 10 companies.
“We were unbelievably busy that night with gunshot victims, medical accidents and a company broke down in the middle of the night,” said John Varallo Jr., president of Local 198 of the International Association of Fire Fighters.
This incident and a handful of others in 2018 were reported, but since then the department’s companies — units referred to as either engines or ladders that contain four to six firefighters each — have continued to face closures. In 2018, the department recorded 105 days when companies were either fully closed or closed for more than about six hours.
On three of those days, two companies were closed, according to information The Press obtained through an Open Public Records Act Request.