05/20/2026
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Laurel Hill, Occum, Taftville, and Yantic Volunteer Fire Departments Set the Record Straight
Volunteer Departments Outline City of Norwich Misrepresentations & Failures To-Date
NORWICH, Conn. (May 20, 2026) – The recent public statements issued by the City of Norwich, City administration, including City Manager Salomone and Fire Chief Wilson, Norwich Firefighters Local 892 leadership, and certain elected officials continue to present an incomplete, misleading, and operationally inaccurate narrative regarding the volunteer fire service system in Norwich.
The volunteer fire departments of Laurel Hill, Occum, Taftville, and Yantic remain committed to protecting the residents of Norwich and continue to support coordinated emergency response operations, mutual aid interoperability, and compliance with established National Incident Management System (NIMS) and Incident Command System (ICS) principles.
The central legal issue currently before the court is not whether emergency services should cooperate. The issue is whether the City can unilaterally restructure the governance, operational authority, and long-standing autonomy of independent volunteer fire departments outside the process required by the Norwich City Charter and without lawful approval through the legislative and judicial processes established for those changes.
The City continues to publicly characterize this dispute as simple “Unified Command” compliance while omitting the broader structural and governance changes being imposed through executive action rather than through ordinance, charter revision, or voter approval. What the City wants by definition is “Consolidated Command,” not “Unified Command.”
The volunteer departments strongly dispute the City’s characterization of recent incidents as evidence of systemic failure in the volunteer fire service.
The City’s public statements repeatedly omit critical operational facts, including:
• longstanding CAD and MDT deficiencies,
• dispatch limitations,
• communications infrastructure problems,
• alerting failures,
• unilateral run card modifications,
• mutual aid restructuring,
• and operational changes implemented without meaningful coordination with volunteer leadership.
These issues have been repeatedly raised with City leadership for months, and in some cases, years.
Recent public claims regarding the April 12 fatal accident in the Occum district are one example.
The City publicly claimed that only one volunteer responded in a personal vehicle, delaying the staffed apparatus. The actual incident documentation reflects multiple responding Occum units and personnel, establishment of incident command within minutes, CPR initiation, mutual aid coordination, EMS operations, and patient care activities throughout the incident.
The City’s public narrative does not accurately reflect the documented operational response.
The City also continues to assert that its restructuring efforts are intended to ensure that “the closest and most capable resources are dispatched automatically.” However, operational realities increasingly demonstrate the opposite.
Run cards within the CCD system have already been modified to reduce or delay volunteer company participation in portions of structure fire responses, while increasing reliance on paid city staffing and outside mutual aid agencies.
In some instances, outside departments such as the Submarine Base Fire Department and the Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department are being dispatched toward Norwich incidents before volunteer companies located within Norwich itself are dispatched.
Approximate travel times from those agencies to portions of Norwich are approximately:
• 23 minutes from Submarine Base Fire Department
• 25 minutes from Poquonnock Bridge Fire Department
At the same time, neighborhood-based Norwich volunteers, who can respond much faster locally, are being moved deeper into alarm assignments or bypassed entirely.
Additional operational examples continue to raise concern.
On a recent medical call:
• At 1731, Engine 3 was released from Beechwood Drive and dispatched to Laurel Hill Avenue.
• At 1731, Squad 66 advised dispatch they had a staffed crew available.
• Dispatch advised that Engine 3 was already responding.
• At 1732, Engine 2 requested Engine 3’s location and was advised they were still on Otrobando Avenue.
• Engine 2 then advised they would handle the call and requested Squad 66 be added.
If the City’s actions were truly driven solely by public safety interests, the available neighborhood-based volunteer resource would have been assigned immediately. Instead, the available volunteer unit was bypassed while a more distant city apparatus continued responding across town.
These operational changes themselves create increased public safety risk.
Neighborhood-based volunteer stations place apparatus and personnel directly within the districts they protect. Suspending volunteer companies, removing apparatus from service, redistributing apparatus, centralizing staffing, and increasing reliance on cross-city responses and outside mutual aid agencies will inevitably increase travel times and delay emergency intervention.
Those delays directly affect:
• fire attack,
• rescue operations,
• EMS intervention,
• civilian survivability,
• firefighter safety,
• and property conservation.
The City has also failed to publicly acknowledge operational incidents involving the modified response model itself, including incidents such as Otis Street, while simultaneously highlighting isolated volunteer incidents to support a narrative of systemic volunteer failure.
The volunteer departments also reject repeated attempts to characterize volunteers as unqualified or incapable of emergency response.
Volunteer firefighters throughout Norwich include experienced Firefighter I personnel, EMTs, officers, instructors, and responders with decades of operational experience. Like volunteer systems nationwide, staffing challenges exist. However, staffing challenges do not justify bypassing the City Charter, dismantling long-standing neighborhood-based emergency response systems, or centralizing operational control through executive action.
Additionally, it is deeply concerning that many members of the Norwich City Council majority have publicly adopted and repeated the City administration’s narrative regarding the volunteer fire departments without first conducting balanced, independent fact-finding with all parties involved.
To date, volunteer fire chiefs have repeatedly raised concerns about operational changes, dispatch modifications, CAD deficiencies, infrastructure problems, alerting failures, mutual aid restructuring, and impacts on the response model. Despite the seriousness of those concerns and the significant consequences these proposed actions may have on public safety, many elected officials have failed to personally meet with volunteer fire chiefs to fully understand the operational realities occurring within the system.
Instead, public comments and published opinions have largely reflected information provided by City administration, union leadership, and City public relations releases while minimizing or disregarding the operational concerns raised by the volunteer departments themselves.
The residents of Norwich deserve elected officials who objectively evaluate all sides of an issue, particularly when the issue involves emergency response, public safety infrastructure, taxpayer impact, and potential restructuring of a fire service system that has protected Norwich neighborhoods for generations.
This is not simply a political disagreement. The decisions being discussed will directly impact emergency response times, fire suppression capability, EMS delivery, rescue operations, staffing deployment, and the overall safety of Norwich residents and firefighters.
The volunteer departments believe that meaningful public discussion requires:
• direct engagement with all fire chiefs,
• transparent operational data review,
• open evaluation of response model changes,
• analysis of dispatch and CAD issues,
• examination of mutual aid restructuring impacts,
• and honest discussion regarding the long-term financial and operational consequences of replacing neighborhood-based volunteer coverage with expanded paid staffing models.
The volunteer departments remain committed to:
• continued lawful emergency operations,
• continued mutual aid cooperation,
• continued NIMS and ICS compliance,
• continued protection of Norwich residents,
• preservation of public safety,
• and resolution of the underlying governance dispute through the judicial process currently underway.
The residents of Norwich deserve a transparent discussion focused on facts, operational realities, response outcomes, fiscal impact, and adherence to the City Charter, rather than on selective public narratives centered on isolated incidents and political rhetoric.
