Do bad response times hurt the community we protect

[Guest ffjay376]

This topic isn't meant to pick on any dept. but do bad response times possibly put the community we are sworn to protect in danger?

[flyboy14295 4]

We're in a business where seconds and minutes count, so yes.

If response times didn't matter, we wouldn't have lights and sirens.

[x129K 1,393]

Abso****inglutely!

Edited January 6, 2010 by x129K

[Guest ffjay376]

We're in a business where seconds and minutes count, so yes.

If response times didn't matter, we wouldn't have lights and sirens.

you are absolutly right but what about the time it takes for people to get to the fire house to responed with the fire apparatus. What do you think is the problem with some dept. not getting out.

[flyboy14295 4]

you are absolutly right but what about the time it takes for people to get to the fire house to responed with the fire apparatus. What do you think is the problem with some dept. not getting out.

I'm holding back what I want to say as it would cause a flame war.

Have a duty crew that rosters at the firehouse. That's a solution for many volunteer departments. In terms of not getting out the door, a lack of membership can be to blame, especially during the daytime hours.

[antiquefirelt 994]

Response times are often an accurate barometer of what the community has collectively decided to pay for. It doesn't take knowing this job to understand that it will take volunteers longer to respond when they have to come from home. Now that that is understood, it's no stretch to understand that the longer the emergency goes without intervention, the greater the chance of serious injury, deaths and greater property loss. The problem is when "we" confuse what we are capable of with the resources we've been given. Not all of us can fulfill every aspect of emergency work 100%, yet we seem to falsely act as if we can, giving a flase sense of security to the citizens.

[flyboy14295 4]

Response times are often an accurate barometer of what the community has collectively decided to pay for. It doesn't take knowing this job to understand that it will take volunteers longer to respond when they have to come from home. Now that that is understood, it's no stretch to understand that the longer the emergency goes without intervention, the greater the chance of serious injury, deaths and greater property loss. The problem is when "we" confuse what we are capable of with the resources we've been given. Not all of us can fulfill every aspect of emergency work 100%, yet we seem to falsely act as if we can, giving a flase sense of security to the citizens.

Very true, and the first step to a solution to the ongoing staffing issue is admitting you have a problem, not just going along with it as if everything is alright.

[gamewell45 258]

I'm holding back what I want to say as it would cause a flame war.

Have a duty crew that rosters at the firehouse. That's a solution for many volunteer departments. In terms of not getting out the door, a lack of membership can be to blame, especially during the daytime hours.

Having duty crews roster at the firehouse is a very sound idea. Some volunteer departments are shifting over to this system; the big question is how long will it take for a majority of the departments to make the switch?

[Bnechis 3,961]

How do you document respone times?

Does the clock stop when the 1st rig get thee or the chief? If the 1st rig, does it need to be manned to stop the clock, or is a driver by himself stop the clock?

[fireguy43 35]

How do you document respone times?

Does the clock stop when the 1st rig get thee or the chief? If the 1st rig, does it need to be manned to stop the clock, or is a driver by himself stop the clock?

Exactly.... response time in and of itself as a measure is not good enough. Dispatch time to on scene time doesn't account for who is on the first due engine and what their qualifications are. Three minute response time is nothing to pat yourself on the back for if the response is a driver and two exterior FF who can't start an interior attack. Conversely, I am sure that there are situations where the first due takes longer to respond awaiting a crew and there are qualified people on scene who arrived via POV. Not often, I'm sure, but it can happen.

[antiquefirelt 994]

How do you document respone times?

Does the clock stop when the 1st rig get thee or the chief? If the 1st rig, does it need to be manned to stop the clock, or is a driver by himself stop the clock?

This is the very starting point of truth in public service. Our department measures response time from the time the 911 center receives the call until the first unit arrives onscene. Very infrequently the first arriving unit could be other than a staffed fire apparatus (ambulance, Chief's SUV, Chief Officer's POV). We are somewhat hampered by the reporting software as in it's basic format it measures the first time entered until the first unit is documented on scene, so more accurate reporting is not as easily attained.

Many FD's and EMS agencies around us measure the time from when they're paged out, still others mark themselves "enroute" when they're actually standing by at the station (they say, "enroute awaiting crew" on the radio!). Some arrive to fire calls in street clothes and gear up "as needed" which means never for MVA's or alarm investigations.

Of course the only time that matters to the person experiencing the emergency is from the time they called until the time someone arrives and starts to mitigate the incident.

[Guest]

This discussion can beg the question,why are volunteers only issued blue lights in depts without duty crews. Many people in my department work out of district but will respond from their job. With only blue lights we are forced to sit behind slow moving vehicles while the scene we were originally dispatched to gets increasingly worse. I don't understand why the state thinks that a member should not be given priority over another vehicle. Without firefighters, the red lights on the apparatus are useless. At least enable volunteers to move limited traffic for serious calls rather than sit in traffic for twenty minutes or more. This is constantly happening and causes residents of our community to become weary of the service our dept's are providing. To pull up on a scene and have a resident curse you out for not being there sooner is a huge slap in the face to us. I just don't think as volunteers we are given the proper tools and are asked way to much of considering the equipment and resources we are issued.

[spin_the_wheel 460]

I have thought about this in the past and always bring this up...the real measure here is how fast you can get water on the fire. I am lucky to have a very active large volunteer fire Dept. at a working fire we have far more class A firefighters on scene working then if we would all of a sudden turn career. ASSUMING the paid average scale of F/F's at being 3 on an Engine and 2 on a Ladder. I am not having our ladder arrive with 9 and an Engine with 6. Using this scale what we may lack in arrival time... we may very well pick up on the firefighting side of things. We have more people to do the needed tasks and hopefully get water on the fire faster then some career Depts. with smaller crews, who get out the door faster. NOT ALL but probably some. Every situation is different but at least for the time in my world this is the case.

Edited January 6, 2010 by spin_the_wheel

[antiquefirelt 994]

This discussion can beg the question,why are volunteers only issued blue lights in depts without duty crews. Many people in my department work out of district but will respond from their job. With only blue lights we are forced to sit behind slow moving vehicles while the scene we were originally dispatched to gets increasingly worse. I don't understand why the state thinks that a member should not be given priority over another vehicle. Without firefighters, the red lights on the apparatus are useless. At least enable volunteers to move limited traffic for serious calls rather than sit in traffic for twenty minutes or more. This is constantly happening and causes residents of our community to become weary of the service our dept's are providing. To pull up on a scene and have a resident curse you out for not being there sooner is a huge slap in the face to us. I just don't think as volunteers we are given the proper tools and are asked way to much of considering the equipment and resources we are issued.

The risks of having members using their POV's for official business (responding with lights and/or sirens) is not worth the time gained in many cases. Here is the crux of the issue. If traffic is so bad that your caught in traffic for 20 minutes, maybe you need a paid staffed FD? The community is getting what they want, lower taxes and higher personal risk. At some point that balance will shift (usually after a tragedy or two) and changes to reduce response times will be enacted, either by building more stations, correcting traffic flow or hiring staff to respond in a timely manner.

[RSM2063 2]

Fire Departments and there response times do not "hurt the community we protect". More often than not, our communities are served be either paid emergency services or volunteer services or some combination of the two. Most communities outside of the larger cities utilize volunteer services because the call volume, and type of response required by the emergency has not waranted the incremental spending that would be required by a paid organization. Financially, a volunteer organization operates at a fraction of the cost of a paid organization and the majority of calls that most volunteer organizations respond to, do not include a life hazard or significant property dammage threat. Therefore if a politician were to employ a risk/benefit assesment to the situation, they would not find much documentation that an a quicker response time would have altered the outcome of the situation. There are, however, some exceptions and should a situation arise that response time significantly altered the outcome of the situation, the community and the politicians would have to re-evaluate the existing services. The key question to ask is would a homeowner in a bedroom community be willing to have their fire tax increase from a few hundred dollars a year to a few thousand dollars a year? Right or wrong, I don't see it happening. We all serve at the pleaseure of our communities.

Just my two cents!!

[Guest]

Bad response times are without a doubt detrimental to the emergencies we respond to. If traffic is an issue, and we are so dedicated as we say we are and say we can provide the same service as a paid service, why not have have crews in the station? This solves the blue light/pov response/accountability/response times issues.

[spin_the_wheel 460]

Having crews in station does not even have to be an official Dept. policy for volunteers. Get together with some other guys and pick a few nights or days to have an unofficial standby. Put a notice up that on such and such a night/day between the hours of.......we are going to meet up. Check to see your busiest times during the day/week, in most cases stats don't lie, and have a standby during those hours. Buy an x-box for the firehouse, have wireless for guys/gals to use their laptops in station, come up with a drill schedule for off hours and give guys credits for extra drill time, have lunch or dinner together, in this endless video age their are infinite training videos, buff fire videos and the like to keep the younger buffs occupied in the firehouse.

In most volunteer Depts. you get credit for the alarms you make and have to make a % of the years totals. Change it a bit to give credit for standby hours. At least for the younger guys if they are going to get home and sit in their rooms on the computer or play video games make it so they can do it at the firehouse. Plus you will always find that senior guy looking for an excuse to get out of the house

[damian848 0]

I've seen this topic come up in the past and i'm not sure why it's always an issue.

NFPA 1710 sets the standard for this. Directly quoted from the NFPA website:

"...The majority of questions focus on two issues. One is staffing. How many firefighters should there be on a piece of fire apparatus? That question is easy to answer: For an engine company or ladder company, a minimum of four firefighters. For special service vehicles, the standard states the apparatus must be staffed with the appropriate personnel to accomplish the tasks that the company will be expected to perform in a safe manner.

The second issue is response time. How quickly should the apparatus and firefighters get to the incident? NFPA 1710 says that the first company apparatus with appropriate staffing needs to arrive within a travel time of four minutes and that all companies assigned on the first alarm must arrive within an eight-minute travel time. The standard gives companies another minute for turnout time, which is the time to receive the alarm at the station, identify where they are going, get their protective clothing on, get on the apparatus, and start moving."

It seems pretty clear that your response time should be as indicated above for 90% of the calls.

Now i'm aware that NFPA 1710, Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments, is just that, "for career fire departments" but volunteers should be held to similar standards. Response times should be taken until a full compliment of four (4) firefighters on an engine or truck arrive at the scene.

[Bnechis 3,961]

Most communities outside of the larger cities utilize volunteer services because the call volume, and type of response required by the emergency has not waranted the incremental spending that would be required by a paid organization.

This is true in the northeast, but in many portions of the country county or regional depts. are career or combination. Often because it is cheaper when it is done on a regional bases. While the volume may be lower in bedroom communities, the type of response is based on the emergency, not the type of community (if the house is burning, the fire des not care if its in a city or out in the country). The spending difference that you speak of would be based on trying to fully staff a volunteer dept in Westchester with career personnel. When you look at the southern regional models (GA, SC & FLA, etc.) most stations with the call volumes seen in many Westchester depts. would only require an engine (and a tanker if no muni water system). Its amazing that they send less for career depts then we spend and meet national standards for response.

Financially, a volunteer organization operates at a fraction of the cost of a paid organization and the majority of calls that most volunteer organizations respond to, do not include a life hazard or significant property dammage threat.

Clearly the overall budget is less in a volunteer dept., career depts. are established with larger populations than those found in most bedroom communities. Either a city or county/region. When covering a larger population the costs per family (or per tax payer). As an example I compared the per capita cost of my city FD with that of a number of VFD's in notrthern westchester and we average about $100 less per capita. The key is regionialization.

Even more amazing would be the amount of money that could be saved in the volunteer communities in Westchester if they would become a regional dept. The only one who would not save money is the apparatus dealers.

If life hazard or significant property dammage threat is not an issue then why does every dept in westchester need all the apparatus it has? Based on that statement alone, do we need all of the FD's (and stations and rigs) we have?

Therefore if a politician were to employ a risk/benefit assesment to the situation, they would not find much documentation that an a quicker response time would have altered the outcome of the situation.

If politician did a risk/benefit assesment they would figure we would be better in some communities with no FD and pay the next dept over to come to the 1 call every few days. Politicians do risk/benefit assesments for there career, not for the safety of the community. If they think funding a new tower ladder in a VFD that does not need one will get them reelected then they will get a new TL.

The key question to ask is would a homeowner in a bedroom community be willing to have their fire tax increase from a few hundred dollars a year to a few thousand dollars a year? Right or wrong, I don't see it happening. We all serve at the pleaseure of our communities.

If you ask that way, of course they will never go for it. One County in S.C. showed that going county wide and career dropped the ISO rating from a 9 to a 5, saving each property about $800/yr in fire insurance while increasing the fire tax by $300, they put it to a vote and everyone is saving money today.

You are right it wont happen here, because we will fight to keep our depts. seperate, even if we can not meet the needs, because we are way to proud of the "great" job we are doing.

The reason taxes are #1 in Westchester is because the pleasure of our communities is to do it this way, because they do not understand that the rest of the country does it for a fraction of the cost (this is mostly school tax, but every tax contributes).