ARCHIVES: November 7, 2007
FIRE DEPARTMENT STAFFING
How many firemen does it take to fight a house fire? If we are correct in our
memory the fire Chief in Port Orange said that you need about 16 firemen at the
scene and that a commercial fire required about 25. One or two trucks doesn't do
it and that is why when one of the few structural fires that occur in any
jurisdiction it commands trucks and equipment be brought in from almost all of
the neighbors. In addition to first response arrangements, such as the Silver
Sand's station on A1A responding to most of the south beach area of New
Smyrna proper, a call that there is a structural fire will have equipment flocking to
the scene from Edgewater, Port Orange, and probably South Daytona and the
County stations West of the City center. In reality, since most houses that catch
fire are not going to be saved from total destruction, it does not really matter how
many vehicles or fireman are on the scene other than to protect other nearby
structures from burning down. The recent commercial fire destroyed the
furniture store, but the fire departments saved the neighboring buildings. It
appears that all 18 house fires in New Smyrna Beach in 2006 also were total
losses.
This brings up the question of what staffing level is required to provide adequate
public protection and what is gained by adding additional personnel. First, we
have an interesting benchmark here because both of our neighboring cities
function with much smaller fire departments than we do---Edgewater with roughly
the same number of residents and territory has a little over half of our force and
Port Orange has only 40% or so more staff but the same territory and 2.7 times
the population. And many more residences. If you just use the comparison of
our neighbors we are overstaffed by almost 100%.
Now this is doubly brought home as not easily rationally understood, because
Edgewater has only two stations and we have four. But Port Orange also has
four and it still has only 64 personnel against our 49. Mathematically one could
argue that they need only 49, or one could suggest that on a basis of population
they should have 120—in that they have many more buildings at risk.
The usual argument for more personnel on a shift is that it is better service. The
holy grail of the fire departments is four per shift, but so far this has not been
implemented except possibly at some stations in large cities with older housing
stock and where there may be many structural fires on any given shift. Think of
New York Chicago, Boston, etc. But we had only eighteen calls all year in 2006,
and that works out to a little over one per station every 3 months. OK, you do not
need three firemen for a risk factor that low. The fire trucks sent from stations
other than the first responder add the additional manpower and they arrive within
minutes of the first responder in an urban area.
So we turn to the second argument. The fire departments operate on a “standard”
that unless a life is at issue, fireman can not enter a burning structure unless
there are four firemen present. This is called the two out, two in rule. We know of
no recent fires in South East Volusia County where this was at issue, and we
have heard of no recent case where firemen have been called to make such a
rescue. But that begs the question any way; because the second truck arrives
within minutes of a structural fire call and that would put four firefighters on the
scene whether there were two or three on a shift. Two trucks with two each
equals four and that is the “standard” if there is a fire where entering the building
is desirable if not necessary.
These logical arguments were presented to a former Mayor of Edgewater, and he
stated that it was the med/rescue issue which required the third fireman. We were
perplexed and the rationale turned out to be that in the case where the EVAC
ambulance had a severely injured patient, the protocol was that the EMT person
on the fire truck would join the EMT on the EVAC vehicle to care for the patient on
the dash to the hospital. Well this turns out to be about once a month for New
Smyrna. Same for Edgewater, once a month. Your car can get to Bert Fish in
less than 9 or maybe 10 minutes from anywhere in New Smyrna East of I-95, and
we bet you could get there sooner with a siren and flashing lights. EVAC provides
for a taxicab back to the station or to wherever the fire truck is sent if there were
an emergency call during that 20 to 30 minutes once a month. We think this is a
specious argument for adding one fireman a shift seven days a week, to four fire
stations.
Now practically, because of the alleged abuse of sick leave by the fire department
personnel (referred to by Chief Hawver in his July 14,2006, memo to the City
Manager), many of these stations in the City have been functioning with only two
per shift for the last six or eight months. There has been no loss of public
protection that we have heard about. There is no loss in public safety. The law of
possibility says that anything can happen. The law of probability says that what
the fire department cites as going to happen to scare you is not likely to happen
in a carload of lifetimes. Remember you are paying for 12 to 15 additional
personnel for no additional protection and no added public safety.
We asked for the specific reports as to last year's 18 fires and after a month were
given a piece of paper which showed that a lawyer or two had been advising the
Deputy Fire Chief to be obtuse in how it would be provided. We think that he did
not think up his response on his own because he must have recognized, even if
his handlers did not, that the reports could refute the notion shown in the
fire/loss ratios that his department could not put out a fire. That's right. Total
loss is shown as the same as value of property at risk. We chose not to play that
game, and we are only supposing it is a game. Again, if they, the department,
want to supply the reports which show that anything in this article is wrong or
unfair, we welcome it. We believe that the Deputy would like to, but we also know
he is not a free agent.
ALSO SEE THE ARTICLE IN THE SHADOW ARCHIVES ON MARCH 14, 2008.