Running low on supplies Detroit firefighters ask for donations - KMSP-TV

Dan McNamara, the President of the Detroit Fire Fighter Association was fired up on Friday, blasting Detroit officials including the city's fire commissioner over the state of the city's fire houses.

"Why are you ignoring the basic needs of your firefighters. You can't give us toilet paper? The city is not that broke," McNamara said. The Association President says his men, Detroit's finest, are living like animals. The city's fire houses are embarrassingly under stocked, without cooking utensils, light bulbs, soap and even toilet paper. McNamara says firefighters are using their own money, buying basics, to survive a 24 hour shift.

Its not the first time Detroit's fire houses have been in the spotlight. This summer FOX 2's Charlie LeDuff investigated sickening conditions at fire houses. Raw sewage and faulty plumbing leaving fire fighters to live in their own filth.

McNamara said "when we come back from what we do we are pretty dirty and nasty even if the plumbing does work we don't have the basic necessities. I don't know anyone that has to go to their boss to negotiate for toilet paper."

McNamara says firefighters have raised the issue in arbitration but for the last few months things have only gotten worse. In some cases firefighters are  using their cooking pans to catch oil dripping from fire trucks and that's the tip of the iceberg. "Soap, hand soap and soap to clean our fire trucks, toilet paper, light bulbs, everything you need we need here at the fire department," he said.  

The union president says its embarrassing to ask but desperate times call for desperate measures. So firefighters are asking for toilet paper, pots and pans soap and even light bulbs to be donated to the fire department and dropped off at the commissioners office in downtown Detroit.

FOX 2 reached out to the fire commissioner's office and the mayor's office for comment but so far there has been no response.

UPDATE 11/27: The Detroit fire commissioner tells Fox 2 News that stations will get all the supplies they need by Wednesday afternoon.  We're told the shortage was caused, in part, by a city vendor that had not been paid and wanted his money.  The issue involving the vendor has been resolved.