PITTSBURGH -- The city firefighters' union is clashing with Public Safety Director Michael Huss over fire safety.

The union claims that a new policy to keep firefighters at some fire scenes for up to four hours after fires are put out will keep them away from protecting other city neighborhoods.

Joe King, president of International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1, said the new policy to keep a team of firefighters out of service, guarding against fires rekindling would actually deprive other city neighborhoods of the protection they deserve.

Huss, the city's former fire chief, said that's not true.

"Obviously, any policy that we draft here in the Public Safety Department, first and foremost, is the public safety and the safety of our employees," Huss said. "That's foremost in our mind. So, we're not going to draft a policy that's going to jeopardize someone's safety."

Huss said firefighters would only be put on watch against rekindling in cases of fires in vacant buildings, where it's not safe to send firefighters inside unstable structures to put out hot spots.

"More situations where they are not entering the building to do the overhaul," said Huss. "It's a conscious decision to keep our firefighters out of risk. As a result, that resulted in the need to develop this type of policy."

Huss said the firefighters put on fire watch for four hours in the cold will not be the ones exhausted from first fighting the fire.

"We're going to rotate a fresh crew in there," he said. "Someone who's not soaking wet and needs to go back and be rehabbed. But rather, fresh firefighters in the case, in the event that something happens."

Huss emphasizes the four-hour vigils against restarting fires would not be used in every case.

"Fires where we've been unable to go in there due to the condition of the structure to fully extinguish the fire, so we're not talking every fire," he said.

King responded by saying that firefighters shouldn't be kept out of service more than necessary, and that they need to be put back in their communities for emergency response. He said he might try a legal challenge to the new policy.

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