React Native Android Firebase Crashlytics: Must Initialize Fabric before Using singleton()

I have a react native app that already has Firebase installed on it. I am attempting to get the Crashlytics firebase module installed on it now.

I have gotten iOS to build and seems to be doing some sort of reporting to the firebase Dashboard as the dashboard no longer is prompting to install crashlytics. For Android I have followed these instructions: https://rnfirebase.io/docs/v5.x.x/crashlytics/android and have gotten the app to build but within the react-native code when I try to use the API (something like firebase.crashlytics().log('hi there') on app initialization) iOS proceeds as expected but Android throws

"Must Initialize Fabric before Using singleton()".

I have tried getting around this with the method here: https://github.com/corymsmith/react-native-fabric/issues/82 by adding

  @Override
  public void onCreate() {
    super.onCreate();
    Fabric.with(this, new Crashlytics());
  }

/android/app/src/main/java/host/exp/exponent/MainApplication.java file

When I try to do this the app then does not build and gives me the error:

error: cannot find symbol class Crashlytics

at the line (Fabric.with(this, new Crashlytics());). I'm not really sure where to proceed from here so some help would be appreciated.