The North Plainfield Fire Department consists of twenty-eight (28) career Firefighter/EMT members and a volunteer force of nine members. As with any other agency that depends on volunteer support, we continue to experience a fluctuation in the number of persons willing and capable of serving as volunteer firefighters. The EMS shift is partially staffed with two full time civilian EMTs and numerous part-time/per diem EMTs who supplement our career FF/EMTs. The chart below explains our department structure.

2011 Fire Department Organizational Chart

The Fire Chief, Deputy, Staff Captain, Staff Fire Inspector and Administrative Assistant work weekday hours, while the civilian EMTs work seven days a week from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm.   The remaining Fire Captains and Firefighters work a rotating schedule of day and night shifts.  All department members are listed below:

Staff
Fire Chief William F. Eaton
Deputy Chief Lane R. Solon
Captain Frank D’Amore, Jr.
Staff Fire Insp. Daniel Lawson
Administrative Asst. 

A-platoon
Captain Bernard Pongratz
FF/EMT Jeffrey Firling
FF/EMT James DiPaolo                                                                              
FF/EMT Joseph Kadel
FF/EMT Thomas McDonald

B-Platoon
Captain Allen Smith
FF/EMT Brian Martin
FF Kevin Miller
FF/EMT Steven Dill
FF/EMT Michael Kennedy
FF/EMT Phil Kika

C-Platoon
Captain Mark Ciarlariello
FF/EMT Robert Beattie
FF/EMT James Reedman
FF/EMT Jeffrey Meyer
FF/EMT Kristopher Piccola

D-Platoon
Captain Randy Sadlon
FF/EMT Richard Connolly
FF Jeffrey Holtz
FF/EMT Chuck Ferrante
FF/EMT Shane Bell

* Three new full time FF/EMT positions are pending due to federal FEMA SAFER grant.

Civilian EMT Cacheca Evans
Civilian EMT Ryan Valentino

Call force:  Richard Sloyan, Tyris McMillan, John Erber, Skip Bell, Mario Abbruzzese, Scott Otto, Patrick Lanzone, Allen-Michael Smith, Bredan Kinney, Robert Reed, Blas Peralta, Hector Acosta

Training
All members of the department are required to meet a minimum level of training standards annually. This includes topics such as Right to Know-Haz. Comm. Training, Blood borne pathogens, Hazardous Material refresher, SCBA refresher and many others.  In addition to those topics, which are required by law, all shifts also conduct company drills throughout the month. This works out to approximately 1 to 2 hours of training per tour of duty and includes topics such as ladders, hose, extinguishers, carbon monoxide emergencies, gas & electric emergencies, water rescue and many others.

Platoons also participate in the monthly callmen’s drill on the first Wednesday night of each month. More about this drill is discussed in the Callmen section.

Further, since most of the department’s members are also NJ certified emergency medical technicians, they are required to complete 48 hours worth of continuing education units over a three year period.

There are also about twelve NJ State certified fire inspectors and they too are mandated by law to take classes on a three year cycle. Those ceu classes are necessary to maintain their inspector’s license.

Lastly, there are many specialized classes that the department participates in regularly, either by ourselves, or jointly with our mutual aid fire departments. For example, we have attended the Somerset County Emergency Services Training Center to participate in their new flashover fire simulator.  At the end of this summer some members went to the Delaware River to train in water rescue operations. We have also sent a handful of our members to the National Fire Academy in Emmitsburg, Maryland.

Besides the minimal requirements listed above, all Captain are required to obtain and maintain the following certifications:  Incident Management-Level 1 (I-200), NJ Fire Inspector, EMT and Fire Instructor.