November, 2006

Station Staffing

Station staffing is quite a hot topic in the area right now.  The Grand Rapids Fire Department has had several opportunities to be criticized in the press for longer-than-typical response times, and, just as the dust settled from that incident, Wyoming Fire Department and Dispatch was the target of criticism for an extended response to one of their stations that wasn’t staffed.   In both incidents the response was to a person in need of medical care who ultimately died. 

I am not going to comment specifically on either incident, as I am not privy to all of the details and am certainly not in a position to judge the response or outcome in these two cases.  What I do want to do is to explain fire station staffing methods and the potential for this type of situation happening in Plainfield Township.

Let’s deal with the potential first.  Could this type of incident occur in Plainfield Township?  The answer is yes.  It is nearly impossible and certainly fiscally imprudent to make sure that there are emergency personnel ready to respond from both of Plainfield’s fire stations at all times.  We can staff the stations 24/7 with paid personnel, but there will be times when the station is empty of personnel waiting to respond.   We are not a site-based service where people requiring service come to us; we typically respond to the location of an “incident.”  As a result, we are frequently out of the station on calls [“incidents”].   Additionally, we may be out of the station for other reasons including: training, meetings, inspections, complaint investigation, apparatus maintenance, equipment procurement, public education and meals. 

Many of our people work twenty-four hour shifts.  They are encouraged to bring in food for the meals they eat during that shift.  Occasionally they are asked to work beyond that shift’s ending time, and when that occurs, they may need to get additional food for the next 12 or 24-hour period that they will be working.  Fire personnel may make this “food run” in fire apparatus, so that they are ready to respond in a moment’s notice. 

Many ambulance companies move their ambulances throughout the response district based on the odds of there being a call in a certain area at a certain time. This is called system status.  The Plainfield Fire Department frequently has apparatus out of the stations, performing part of the daily activities of operating a fire department.

Next is the staffing issue.  There are many ways to staff fire departments; from full time people 24 hours a day, seven days a week (24/7), which is the most effective, to a fully volunteer department, which is the least expensive.  To staff a fire station with four (4) firefighters 24/7 costs somewhere between $750,000 and $1,000,000 per year in compensation related costs To operate from a station staffed by volunteers is considerably less– as much as 1/10 the cost of the scheduled and fully paid staff.  To respond to a house fire with one room burning, we will need a minimum of 12 people.  So, in a system of all full-time, employees you need at least three stations – or three “companies” of four firefighters each.  If you are covering a large geographic area, like Plainfield Township, one may prefer more stations to more people at the existing stations.  The more full-time people you have, the more your department costs to operate.  The more stations you have, the more non-personnel costs increase, too.

There are several reasons to have full-time firefighters; they are easier to schedule for training, they are instantly available to respond when they are in training at work, we can pretty much guarantee a certain minimum response, and the time from notification to the apparatus responding is normally less than a minute.  While we are very proud of our Paid-on-Call firefighters,  there are limitations to what they are able to accomplish.  Because of those limitations, we have five full-time employees on duty 24/7.  Those employees are supplemented by our Paid–on-Call employees who respond from home, work or wherever they are when paged by dispatch.

Station distribution is somewhat of an art.  In cities during the 1800’s, stations were distributed based on how far a horse pulling a wagon could run in four minutes.  In rural areas, there may not have been a township department, or county government may have provided a station or two.  Today, station location is based on computer modeling and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to build. We are still trying to get to the scene of an incident in four minutes or less. 

For an area the size of Plainfield Township, we can function with our current two-station distribution.  As we become more populated, two stations may be inadequate.  So when you see these stories about “who’s at fault,” or “what constitutes an adequate response” to calls for fire department assistance, please remember that things are a bit more complicated than they appear to be.   The ultimate decision for station density and staffing is made by the Township Board, which is ultimately responsible to the voters.  If tax increases are required to increase coverage and numbers of available responders, the voters will decide. The fire chief can only work with the money that is provided in the fire department budget.