Firefighters can’t sleep tight at station
Bedbugs at North Main Street firehouse send firefighters to temporary quarters
WOONSOCKET – A company of city firefighters are working out of an auxiliary station house in Fairmount and headquarters on Cumberland Hill Road following the discovery of bed bugs in the living quarters of Station 3 on North Main Street on Wednesday.
Fire Chief Paul Shatraw said the relocations were made after a pest control company confirmed the presence of the small and flat, six-legged, wingless insects in the station’s living quarters.
The company began an immediate remediation process for the pests that included the removal and bagging of all of the firefighters’ inhouse clothing and possessions for professional cleaning, and also the administration of the first treatment of insecticide throughout the building.
A check will be made next week by the contractor to determine the
need for further treatment in the building. Shatraw added that the station will not be reoccupied until it is determined to be free of bed bugs.
“Obviously we are not going to put these firefighters back into that building until we make sure there is no activity in that building,” Shatraw said. The chief gave no forecast of how long the process of making that assurance might take.
Shatraw also explained that it would be very difficult to determine just how the insects made their way into the station house given the 10,000 emergency runs city firefighters make during the course of the year and the related visits to just about any type of habitation in the city – residences, nursing homes, hospitals, high-rise apartment buildings and multiunit apartment buildings and rooming houses.
“There is a potential for it whenever you go on a call,” he noted. “When you go into a place to help someone you are focusing on the individual you are there to pick up,” Shatraw said.
The problem at Fire Station 6 came to light when one member of the station’s crew came down with a rash on his arms and went to the hospital to have it checked out, Shatraw said. “It was determined that it was possibly from bed bugs,” Shatraw said.
The station’s members then did a check of the bunk area and found some evidence of the bugs, the chief said. A pest control contractor was called and confirmed bed bugs to be in that area of the station, he said.
As part of the remediation, all of the station’s personnel lockers were emptied of their contents and packed up for treatment, and all of the bedding removed. The firefighters’ heavy duty turn-out gear was also treated to the specifications for killing bed bugs, he said. All of the station’s vehicles were also treated, although nothing was found in them during the checks that were conducted, Shatraw said.
Station 3 on North Main Street is staffed by four shifts of male and female city firefighters working on-duty crews of two members run- ning Rescue 2, three members running Engine 3, and one deputy chief per shift.
As part of the temporary housing plan, the deputy chiefs and Rescue 2 crews were moved to Station 6 on Fairmount Street, and Engine 3 crews to Fire Department Headquarters on Cumberland Hill Road.
Station 6 was closed as a residential station house a number of years ago but has been retained as a home for the department’s hazmat response equipment and storage. The hazmat equipment was also shifted to other locations to allow for the reacti- vation of Station 6, the chief noted.
Bed bugs belong to the cimicid family of insects that feed only on the blood of humans or animals and can take up residence in just about any place that people occupy. The federal Centers for Disease Control reports that bed bugs are found across the globe from North and South America, to Africa, Asia and Europe.
Bed bugs have been found in five-star hotels and resorts, according to the CDC, and their presence is not determined by the cleanliness of the living conditions where they are found.
Bed bug infestations usually occur around or near the areas where people sleep. These areas, according to the federal agency, include apartments, shelters, rooming houses, hotels, cruise ships, buses, trains, and dorm rooms. The insects can hide in places such as the seams of mattresses, box springs, bed frames, headboards, dresser tables, or inside cracks or crevices and even behind wallpaper, and can live for several months without consuming a meal, according to the CDC.
Shatraw said he was surprised to find just how prevalent bed bugs are while researching outbreaks following the local department discovery. “First responders are being exposed to this all across the country, all the time,” he said. The chief said he also found reports online of other station houses being evacuated and firefighters relocated so that the problem could be treated.
“This is something that we are facing here, now, but it is also everywhere and anywhere that people are facing this problem,” he said.
Woonsocket High School reported a case of bed bugs at the school last month and school officials had the building treated while students were out over a weekend.
Shatraw said he has no intention of moving firefighters back into Station 3 until it has been determined that the problem of bed bugs had been fully addressed.
That may require another application of the treatment chemicals in two weeks and even a further check by the pest control contractor before the station is ready.
“We are not going to put people back into that building until we are sure that everything is 100 percent eradicated in that building,” Shatraw said.
A station house is a special place for firefighters given the need for emergency responders to rely on each other and Shatraw said many times the station becomes a second home for those who work the job. That makes it all the more important to address the problem that was found on North Main Street, he said.
“We are taking it very seriously and making sure that we are doing our due diligence to be certain that we do everything we can to make sure it is eradicated,” Shatraw said.