Another Fire Department Facing 50% Staffing Cuts

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Permalink Reply by Joe Stoltz on November 11, 2009 at 8:05pm

Sounds like you did your homework on this and yes, they do run a lot of first responder calls. Their fire coverage area is larger than the city itself but they have scaled back EMS operations to within city limits. They also have limited their EMS responses to life threatening emergencies WHEN there is a EMT or CFR on duty.

There is a combination ambulance service in town that does all of the transporting so buying an ambulance isn't an option.

Relying on surrounding departments for automatic mutual aid isn't really an option either. The average distance from city center to the outlying volunteer departments is about 6 miles. Under the best of conditions that equates to a 10 to 15 minute response time. Add ice or snow to the response routes and... you get the idea.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on November 11, 2009 at 8:24pm

Nice homework FETC. I will admit I did no such homework and I do tend to react as you say when it comes to cuts. In this case though, my biggest issue isn't about the cuts, but how the council here states they "hope" volunteers step up. To me, that is not putting much thought into the issue of fire protection and as Art mentions, mutual aid is supposed to be mutual. I do agree with the EMS of which could be the difference in justifying FT FF's.

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Permalink Reply by FETC on November 11, 2009 at 8:53pm

Thanks guys. I had a little time today to surf the net. I have been involved and done operational studies and have experienced the same consultant as they did.

Another thing I had to question was the city FD had paid members, but they provided auto aid to the town? Auto aid for every call? Therefore as a chief who was facing these drastic 50% cuts, I would be asking the city to tap the town for a per capita standby fee (per tax capita x # runs) for the potential auto aid protection provided or otherwise we wouldn't be responding unless it was a mutual aid building fire.

Increase all fire department related permitting fee's: plans review, life safety or occupancy inspections. If not done already, charge for heating: boiler, furnace, wood or pellet stove installation permits and final inspections. I have seen this as another positive revenue generator often overlooked.

Too bad about the other combo department running the bus though.... there goes the largest revenue generator the FD could have tapped, seeing they are probably offsetting the limited manpower provided by the ambulance. 1000 calls would generate approx 60-80,000 dollars per year.

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on November 11, 2009 at 9:09pm

Another thing I had to question was the city FD had paid members, but they provided auto aid to the town? Auto aid for every call? Therefore as a chief who was facing these drastic 50% cuts, I would be asking the city to tap the town for a per capita standby fee

That I would agree with also, if a dept is ruuning often because of automatic aid, it makes sense they get some funding for doing so. It was either here or somewhere else that a dept was looking at doing such a thing because the neighboring community annexed a portion of the area where dept "A" ran automatic aid. The annexing community was getting away with "free" fire protection because of the agreement.

Recently a neighboring community to our city ran for years using the sheriff for law enforcement so they didn't have to pay for a night time officer. That community had plenty of money to fund its own police force, but just used the county services. About a year ago or so the sheriff put the foot down and either the community had to fund their own police protection or pay more for the sheriff to do so.

It is one thing of neighbor helping neighbor and so forth, but when it becomes a dependancy, then things should be looked into.

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Permalink Reply by Capt 723 on November 12, 2009 at 9:57am

Thou shall not covet thy neighbors fire department/police department.

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Permalink Reply by Jeff Cole on November 12, 2009 at 8:04pm

I understand where you are coning from FETC. And I agree that providing full EMS capabilities, including transport would be a much better cost-effective service. However, the problem get's into the staffing levels at 3, which, if an EMS assignment requires two of the three on the rig, that leaves one person left alone to cover, provide initial response or additional, second- request EMS calls.

Numbers are just that. Many times the combination departments that work with a small on-duty crew handle the majority of the incidents for a variety of reasons. What is the average age of the volunteers? Are they mandated to meet certification requirements, or is the group dwindling, with little chance of future recruitment potential? Do they show up? Are the response times prolonged becouse the few volunteers who are actually SCBA certified and physically capable to fight fires are unavailable due to work requirements? That's NOT to be critical to volunteers, but in many communities, it IS the reality.

So then it may become a bigger issue, as oppossed to just financial.

Perhaps the volunteer companies are showing a disproportinate number of members on the rolls, as oppossed to actual firefighters. However it may well benifit them to get into total EMS involvement. The other issue is hospital turn around time for EMS runs.

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