A Case Study on the San Diego Fire Department
Allen Chan
USP 186 Section 781156
Kathryn Dove/Michael Rivera
November 19 th
, 13
(Abstract): The San Diego Fire Department (SDFD) consistently receives a large amount of criticism as being one of the worst departments in the nation. They lack sufficient response times due to underfunding and a shortage of firefighters. Studies have been conducted to meet the demand for efficient response times. However, because San Diego is growing in population and becoming an environmental fire hazard, the demand for efficient, emergency response times will be even greater in the future. Hence the central question and theme of this proposal will be: How can the SDFD create more efficient response times given future alterations in the environment? To solve this question, this project will investigate future response problems the SDFD might encounter, analyze the causations behind them, and find potential solutions based off data collecting and GIS mapping. This research will contribute to literature on public safety. The results of this project will hopefully offer feasible solutions for the SDFD or, at the least, create an awareness of the issue to inspire change.
Keywords: Fire Safety, Public Sector, San Diego Fire Department, Emergency Response, Wildland Fires,
Efficiency, Population Growth, WUI
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The San Diego Fire Department is currently not meeting the high demand for faster fire and medical emergency response. For example, San Diego emergency response times are below recommended national standards and personnel levels are low relative to other cities. This presents a significant problem because if San Diego cannot sufficiently provide fire and medical services now, then they will not be able to provide them in the future. In the future, problems will only exacerbate since alterations in the environment, such as climate change and population growth will make the San Diego a higher risk for fires and medical emergencies. Thus, the demand for efficient response time will only increase in years to come.
The objective of this research will be to investigate the future demand for emergency response times. This research will attempt to answer research questions such as: What are the current emergency response time problems of the SDFD? How will these problems grow in the future? What is needed to mitigate these problems? To answer these questions, statistics from literary studies on current response times of the SDFD will be used as a benchmark for current conditions. These studies include annual fire reports, literature on fire service effectiveness, and strategic planning documents. Once the current conditions have been established, this project will use future growth projections from regional agencies, such as San Diego Association of
Governments (SANDAG), to locate additional emergency response demand in the future. From this information, this research project will be able to offer realistic solutions to reduce emergency response time in future high demand areas.
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Because of the short time frame of this project, the area of focus will be limited to San
Diego City. Despite fire response problems occurring regionally, San Diego City will serve as a relatable case study for other cities in the San Diego region. Hopefully the recommendations made in this research can serve the SDFD and be emulated by other departments in the region.
Regional department problems will be referenced in this proposal, but the majority of in depth discussion will be on the San Diego Fire Department.
The central problem with the San Diego Fire Department is two front. It includes an inability to constrain wild land fires and provide timely service for medical emergencies. These two focal problems hinder SDFD’s ability to provide a safe environment.
Wild Land Fires
Wild land fires are a common phenomenon in the San Diego Region. Within the past decade, two wild land fires have occurred destroying “a total of 8,877 structures, resulted in 29 deaths, and over 783,000 acres burned. The 2003 Cedar fire and the 2007 California Firestorm are among the top four fire incidents for the number of structures destroyed and acres burned”
(Maranghides 380). These fires have put a toll on the San Diego region through the homes and businesses destroyed. Rebuilding efforts also have put a toll on the local economy. For example, although “Suppression costs [only reached to] $18 million, the property damages for the 2007
California Fire Storm [alone] are estimated at $1.8 billion (Maranghides 380). Despite fires being infrequent and composing of a small percentage of total calls, they have the potential to occur high cost and create a fiscal crisis on the local economy.
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Furthermore, Wild land fires not only damage the economy, but they can have a huge impact on health. A study on global mortality from landscape fires claim that “Fire emissions are an important contributor to global mortality. Urban Particle Matter (PM) has been associated with neonatal and cardio respiratory mortality, exacerbations of respiratory and cardiovascular conditions, and pathophysiological changes such as inflammation, oxidative stress, and procoagulation” (Johnston 695). PM is an important risk related measure of smoke and causes health complications. According to the same study long term PM exposure from Wild land and
Forest Fires cause 339,000 deaths annually. This leads to the belief that San Diego Wild land fires that are increasing in frequency by the decade can lead to negative health outcomes.
Because of the dangerous effects of Wild land fires, containing and suppressing them before they grow drastically becomes essential. However, the SDFD, as well as other departments within San Diego County, cannot effectively diminish flames before they create high impact damage. Fire departments do not have the personnel or resources to fully cover an enormous Wild Land terrain. By the time firefighters can get to the initial scene, other fires have spread to other parts of the region. Elements of the environment such as wind can cause “Fire augmented clouds to transport fire emissions [multiplying] distant fires” (Dempsey 160). Thus, the lack of coverage creates longer response times, which leads to rapidly growing fires.
Emergency Medical Services
The second main problem with the SDFD’s efficiency is its ability to respond to medical emergencies. According to the National Fire Protection Association, departments should aim to respond 90% of the time within 5 minutes (NFPA). Many departments in California meet or come close to meeting that standard However, unlike other departments, the SDFD responds to medical emergencies only 50% of the time within 5 minutes. In fact the standard for the SDFD is
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to respond to emergencies 90% of the time within 8 minutes (SDFD). Although a 3-minute difference does not seem too bad, it becomes significant since minutes are detrimental in emergency situations. One might conclude that the problem is with the SDFD’s standards of response, but the problem extends even further than changing a few codes.
The problem lies in the existing conditions of the SDFDs fire stations and personnel.
SDFD’s Standards of Response Report brings to light the difference between the Personnel conditions in different municipalities. For instance, it shows that and urban Houston has 3,875 firefighters to a 1,900,000 city population (SDFD). Translated into a ratio, it is 490 people per firefighter. San Francisco has an even lower ratio at 421 people per firefighter. In San Diego’s case, the SDFD employs 801 firefighters that serve a total population of 1,337,000. The ratio comes out to 1,669 people per firefighter. From this we can distinguish that the SDFD does not have the resources to cover land and respond to emergencies relative to other cities. Thus when making their standard of response 8 minutes 90% of the time, they were being more realistic with their current conditions.
As a response to the demand for faster emergency response times, due to wildfires and medical emergencies, many studies have been conducted. One significant study was conducted by Citygate Associates, LLC in 2011. Citygate Associates, a Limited Liability Company that provides consulting for fire protection agencies via strategic planning, created several recommendations to improve fire response efficiency. For instance, they recommended the amount of additional stations needed to meet the NFPA’s standard of “5 minutes of travel time coverage”. Their estimate was “19 additional stations [which] would extend coverage to 90 percent of the public road network” (Citygate 12). This estimate is very accurate because they
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used Geographical Informational System (GIS) maps to determine areas with a high demand for efficient response time. GIS maps with high population density and high traffic areas are used in this study. By using GIS, Citygate Associates were able to strategically plan and propose fire stations and personnel in areas that needed efficient response time.
Additionally the study proposed deployment measures for San Diego City growth. These growth measures attempt to set emergency response time standards so that the response times are consistent with changes in population. For example, with areas with more than a 1000 people per square mile, Citygate recommends a 5-minute travel time and a 7.5-mintue first alarm time
(Citygate 15). A travel time relates to the first response of the first engine, while the first alarm time relates to multiple engines arriving. This proposed development measure would allow the creation of new stations when areas reach over 1000 people per square mile. That way stations will not become overwhelmed in the future when the city’s population increases.
Despite proposed growth measures, the Citygate study primarily focuses on changes to meet the current response problems of the SDFD. It lacks specific recommendations to meet future response problems the SDFD might encounter. Two future response problems that are not covered extensively in the Citygate study are the increase in fire prone areas and human growth patterns in San Diego. Proposals to develop new fire stations and add fire fighters will need to consider these problems since these problems will alter the environment and increase demand for emergency response.
Increasing Fire Prone Areas
The demand for efficient emergency response will only grow in the future because of climate change. Due to an increase in CO2 emissions in the past century from urbanization and
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petroleum use, San Diego has become a fire prone region. Many Professors from different universities have used the past several Wildfires as fuel for global warming’s existence. Walter
Oechel, “a biology professor at San Diego State University [,] believe such blazes will become a regular part of life in Southern California because global warming is intensifying nature's cycles by lengthening fire seasons and prolonging droughts in parts of the West” (Lee 10). Walter
Oechels words confirm other researchers that have also reached the same conclusion. They claim
“emissions contribute to radiative forcing, which creates a potential for the development of a positive feedback between a warming climate and increasingly severe fire events in several biomes” (Johnston 695). The San Diego Region is a biome that will see a higher frequency in
Wildfires as the climate begins to get warmer and dryer. Therefore it will be prudent for the
SDFD to expand its stations in future high-risk fire areas due to climate change.
Human Growth Patterns
Another problem that will increase the future demand for efficient response coverage will be human growth patterns. The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has an interesting take on the SDFD’s difficulty suppressing fires. Their article on Human Influence on California Regimes provides a theory that humans are the igniting source behind an era of Wildfires. It claims that
“California shrub lands have experienced such substantial human population growth and urban expansion that the increase in ignitions […] have acted to offset the effects of suppression to the point that fire frequency exceeds the historic range of variability” (Syphard 1389). Rather than putting the blame on the inadequacy of the SDFD, the ESA puts more blame on people saying the problem is an increase in anthropogenic ignitions and not a lack of fire suppression. They create an investigative report that searched for the areas prone to human fire ignition and found that they are on the urban outskirts. These areas are know as Wildland-Urban Interfaces (WUI)
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and can be described as areas less dense than cities. They therefore have fewer fire fighters servicing their area due to the lack of a large population to service. This leads to a future hazard since these areas, despite being less populated, are higher risk when it comes to fire control since they are in the eastern part of San Diego with flammable vegetation. As development into WUI zones continues in San Diego, the demand for response coverage will only increase.
This research’s specific objective is to plan and develop new fire stations in areas that are expected to have an increase in demand for efficient fire and medical response. This involves looking for areas that are increasing in population density and areas that are becoming a fire hazard. Current plans and literature sufficiently address the current need for efficient fire response time and offer feasible solutions. However, their plans need to be based off future conditions since alterations in the environment can skew projected demand. For instance, building an additional fire station in downtown may not be optimal if population in La Jolla is seen to increase more dramatically in the next 20 years. Thus, the objective is to locate these high-risk areas so that fire stations can better serve the city in the future.
The main strategy to conduct this research will be to collect data and use GIS to spatially analyze future conditions with current fire stations and propose new ones. Additionally it will focus on current fire personnel in each station and propose employing more in strategic areas.
In order to find areas with a high demand for efficient emergency response time, data must be collected on current conditions, proposed legislation, and future conditions. The first
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data set on current conditions will locate each fire station under the SDFD, a total of 47 stations.
Once each station is located, emergency response times and the ratio of fire personnel to population will be measured. These response times are expected to vary since each fire district, an area a fire station serves, varies in square mileage, population density, and personnel.
Additionally, it is expected that only 50% of the stations will meet NFPA standards of first response in 5 minutes or less. Information on each fire station will be obtained through current fire reports.
The second data set will include the proposed recommendations by Citygate
Associations. With this second data set, it is predicted that response times for fire districts will improve dramatically. NFPA standards are expected to be met by the proposed recommendations since a total of 19 fire stations would be added to the current 47. This will reduce response times because the size of the area and population in each district would be smaller. The distribution of fire fighters and stations would be distributed in a way that gives the optimal response time and coverage. Data for the proposed fire stations will directly come from the Citygate study.
Furthermore, the last dataset would include future population projections and future projections on fire prone areas. Majority of this data would be collected from SANDAG’s
Regional Database Warehouse. The Warehouse has forecasting functions that show projected growth in the region. This includes growth in denser areas of the city as well as the growth of
WUI zones, fire prone areas. With this data, it is expected that some fire districts will have a higher, future demand for efficient fire response times relative to other areas in San Diego City.
Forecasting data will vary by decade. The time frame for future forecasting is expected to be between 2013 and 2050. This time frame will be spilt into several maps to visually demonstrate alterations in the environment and how they relate to the current SDFD conditions.
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After data is collected on emergency response times, each station and their district will be mapped on GIS. In order to properly spatially analyze each station, the NFPA’s 90% 5-minute first response standard will be used. This will allow this research to identify struggling fire stations that are not meeting the NFPA’s standard. Maps constructed first will show the current conditions and proposed legislation. This includes response time and ratios of firefighters to civilians. The purpose of this is to show where fire stations are currently located, which stations are currently struggling to meet efficiency, and where the current proposed stations are being placed. These first initial maps will support the next series of maps, which involve taking the
SANDAG growth projections and overlaying them with these initial maps to create new maps.
From these new maps, gaps in fire and medical emergency can be identified and corrected with a new set of future proposed fire stations. Gaps can also be corrected through strategically employing more firefighters in stations with a high demand for efficient response.
By creating a variety of maps that show current demand and future demand for faster response times, this research will be able to make several recommendations for the future growth of the SDFD. The recommendations will focus on the placement of future fire stations and how they can create optimal response times. They will also predict the amount of additional fire fighters needed in already built stations that cannot meet NFPA standards. New recommended fire stations should coincide with population growth and WUI zones. The recommendations constructed in this research will contribute to the Citygate study, the SDFD, and the people of
San Diego. They will serve as a reference and/or standard of improvement for the city to adopt.
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The time frame for the majority of this research will be from January 9 th
, 2014 to
February 27 th , 2014, a total span of 7 weeks. The first step will be to collect data on the SDFD and SANDAG projections, which will occur between weeks 1 and 2. The next step will be to map the data in the following weeks, approximately week 3 and 4. The final three weeks will be used to construct the final research project.
I hypothesize that the results of this project will show gaps in San Diego’s future fire and medical response coverage. These gaps could be between fire stations to square mileage covered. However, I predict that the major gap will be between firefighters and the people they serve. There is already a large gap between San Diegans to firefighters. Future growth in population and the increase intensity of fire prone areas will only make this gap larger. The need to increase personnel in each station will be greater in the future.
In order to truly solve the response problems of the SDFD, San Diego City will have to emulate other cities that successfully fund their pubic services. With funding, the recommendations in the
Citygate plan and this research could be implemented. However, according to University of
California Professor Steve Erie, San Diego will continue to “underfund vital public services such as fire protection” due to the cities culture (Davis 24).
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