Fuel Costs & Your Agency

[x635 4,066]

I'm just curious, with the rising fuel prices, how has this affected your agencies budget?

If the high costs of fuel have taken a toll on your departments budget, are you taking any iniatatives to reduce the use of fuel?

[nycemt728 49]

Yes, our budget creeps closer and closer to red every time this happens. Totally bad! We do have contingencies. Typically, when the price of fuel goes up, my volunteer agency (we pay for our own diesel) suspends or limits non-emergent operations. When the price is really high the crew can not take the ambulances out to drive in the community. One limited meal period is allowed. When the prices are low, we are allowed to drive around and get the corps name out there and bascially show the community we exist and are still around and in service. After the the price really started jumping bout 1.5-2 years ago, a 15 mile limit was placed on the tours. They are allowed to patrol the community as mentioned above, but only put a total of 15 miles on the vehicle. When a full restriction is is place, with permission the crew is allowed to take the ambulance to a central location or community event such as a ball game and post.

Bottom line high prices of gas suck for business, b/c it kills our exposure. Some volunteer squads need community exposure for both calls and donations. Every time fuel restricts us to base, usually after the restriction is lifted, we get long time commnunity residents saying " Gee I've lived her XX number of years (usually more than the 27 we've been around) and I never knew you guys were here" Now I know thats also advertising, but part of that is getting out there; we can't do that if the fuel tanks and coffers are empty!

[Guest BFD196]

Fuel prices have strained the budget, especially since our newest engine seems to burn ridiculous amounts. We always used to get fuel delivered by Petro to our own tank behind the firehouse. As prices rose, we discovered that we could get fuel much cheaper through the city. Now we take the rigs up to the town yard which is in our district, and the city bills us for what we use. So far its worked out well, and we still have our own supply in case we need to fuel up in the middle of the night, or some other strange time when the yard is closed.