page_title: North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Looking west across River Road at North Hudson Fire and Rescue station on a sunny late morning.
context_page_description: North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue provides fire protection and first responder emergency medical services to portions of Hudson County, New Jersey. Included in their protection area are the communities of North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken, West New York, and Guttenberg.
  The department is part of the Metro USAR Strike Team, which consists of nine North Jersey fire departments and other emergency services divisions working to address major emergency rescue situations.
context_section_description: Discussions to consolidate the North Hudson fire departments began in the early 1980s.
  The North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue (NHRFR) was established on January 11, 1999. The former fire departments of North Bergen, Union City, Weehawken, West New York, and Guttenberg were merged to provide a safer, more efficient fire department. A buyout was offered by the State giving any members with at least 20 years of service up to an additional five years towards their 25-year required time for retirement. Through this attrition the department was able to pare down the number of personnel in the newly formed department. Most firefighters who had the time took advantage of it, and retired under their own prior department's retirement contract and benefits. The last member to retire from the NHRFR under a former FD city contract was Battalion Chief James McMains on December 31, 1999, from the Township of North Bergen, under the NBFD Officers contract. From that point a new contract was negotiated for the NHRFR, and former city contracts no longer existed. 
  The department is divided into three battalions, which comprise a fire apparatus fleet of six engines, four squads(rescue-pumpers), four ladders, one rescue, a metro usar collapse rescue strike team unit (Rescue 2), a metro usar collapse rescue shoring unit, an air cascade unit, a mobile command unit, and two fire boats, that operate out of 13 fire stations located throughout the five communities. 
  The agency created a new headquarters on Port Imperial Boulevard in West New York in 2007 to serve the waterfront area.
  North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue was among the many Hudson County agencies that responded to the January 2009 crash of Flight 1549, for which they received accolades from the survivors.
  In July 2009, North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue began closing their Rescue Company and the rotational closings of three engine companies. The following January, two buildings adjacent to Engine Company 9 burned down while the company was closed.
  The organization opened a two-story firehouse in June 2010 at 4300 Kennedy Boulevard, purchased for $1.2 million, and renovated for $1.5 million, in part with a $500,000 federal grant. The building will house Engine Company 5, formerly housed in a building a block away that Union City Mayor Brian P. Stack described as "antiquated", as well as Rescue Company 1. Stack further stated that the Kennedy Boulevard location, which is actually located off Kennedy Boulevard, would give the firefighters easier access to the area, as Kennedy Boulevard is a four-lane road that runs through the entire county, whereas the previous location was situated in the middle of a block. The agency's dispatch center, which was formed 30 years prior, also moved to a new state-of-the-art facility at the new location, as the equipment at its former, less spacious location at 50th Street and Broadway was deemed outdated.
  The agency rotated the closing of various firehouses for certain hours in order to save money until July 2010, when it closed two of its firehouses, according to NHRFR chairperson and Weehawken Mayor Richard F. Turner, in order to allow the remaining 13 to stay open 24 hours, and save $500,000 in overtime costs from July 1 until the end of 2010. Turner further disclosed that the newly implemented Strategic Reorganization Plan, which took two years to create, would also save additional funds. Though Turner insisted that this would not affect performance, Dominick Marino, the head of the North Hudson Firefighters Association, reacted to the closings by stating that this would sacrifice response time from certain locations, and that with the closing of Ladder 2, the agency would not have enough firefighters. According to Marino, "Evidence shows that [a ladder and engine] responding at the same time eliminates the circumstances a lot quicker than having to wait." Marino further asserted that the closing of Engine 6 would mean that the entire west area of North Bergen would lose coverage, and that the promotion of 22 people to higher ranks in the la
caption: North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue's Fire Headquarters, located in West New York
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