Outside fire departments to cover Worcester stations during firefighter's funeral T

Twenty-two communities from around the region, as well as more than a dozen retired firefighters, will pitch in as part of a mutual aid agreement that will keep Worcester’s fire stations covered for 24 hours from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Sunday.

Participating departments in Worcester coverage Saturday and Sunday include Auburn, Leicester, West Boylston, Holden, Boylston, Dudley, Spencer, Douglas, Sterling, Northbridge, Upton, Fitchburg, Shrewsbury, Charlton, Dudley, Paxton, Webster, Southbridge, Sutton, Grafton, Millbury and Natick.

The coverage at the city’s 10 fire stations will allow Worcester firefighters to attend the funeral for their fallen colleague, Firefighter Christopher Roy, who died Sunday morning, Dec. 9 while battling a five-alarm blaze at 7 Lowell St.

It will not be the first time the city has used retired firefighters to help man stations—the practice was also used following the Dec. 8, 2011 death of Firefighter Jon Davies, according to a city spokesperson—but it will mark a return to the Webster Square Fire Station for retired Firefighter John Griffin, who served as an officer at the station where Roy was serving at the time of his death. Griffin, who retired as as a lieutenant in 2014 after 31 years on the job, did not work with Roy, but he knows what it means to have other fire departments come to the city’s aid.

“It’s a huge help. Huge,” said Griffin, who was with the Fire Department for the Dec. 3, 1999 Cold Storage fire that claimed the lives of six firefighters and for Davies; death in 2011. Roy’s death marked the eighth line-of-duty loss of a firefighter for Worcester since 1999. All took place in December, within the same week.

“We knew the city was protected, and it gave us the ability to grieve with all our fellow firefighters and honor those that were killed in those fires,” Griffin said of previous mutual aid deployments to Worcester.

There will be about 18 retirees working Saturday, he said, adding they will serve as "pilots" for the visiting fire crews. They won’t drive trucks, if responses are needed, but they will ride on them and provide directions as well as familiarize the mutual aid crews with the fire stations and surrounding area.

Griffin, whose father Dan was also a Worcester firefighter, had a humorous recounting of mutual aid in the aftermath of the Cold Storage fire, when he said other city employees stepped up as pilots to help the visiting fire departments.

“I knew a chief of a department from another city that worked as a district chief here during coverage,” Griffin said. “He got in the car and he asked the driver, ‘What do I have for a company? What does the building look like? The driver said, ‘I don’t know.’ [The chief says], ‘You’re on the Fire Department, aren’t you?’ [The driver says]. ‘No, I drive a trash truck. I’m just filling in here.”

Residents, city officials say, can rest easy knowing there will be full fire coverage all day Saturday and Sunday morning.

“They’ll mobilize early in the morning,” Griffin said. “Some may relieve and bring in a different company at night so they can return to their own communities, but every station will be manned. The city will not go uncovered. You’ve gotta do the job. Those crews will just need a little bit of guidance to get there, that’s all.”