With the prolonged downturn in the economy, the issue of fire department staffing has been front and center in many communities. We have all experienced or read about fire station closings, revolving brown-outs and firefighter layoffs.
The fire service has fought these battles, with minimal success, by use of emotional arguments such as, “Babies are going to die” or “Old people are going to die” or “The town will be destroyed in a conflagration!” Emotional arguments are no longer cutting it with the bean counters and politicians.
Last month I referenced an article in Governing magazine about the fire service becoming “budget bait” for local governments. The article makes a big deal about the issue of data. It states: “One of the big questions right now is whether the fire service is actually learning anything amidst the constant threat of cuts, especially about the smarter ways to deploy resources in an era of shrinking budgets and departments. While police departments, especially in larger cities, have embraced a more sophisticated and data-driven approach to the work they do – allowing them to maintain relatively high performance levels – there’s been less willingness on the fire service’s part to embrace data as a way to revamp how fire suppression, EMS and other calls are handled.”
The article goes on to recommend that government officials not go “toe to toe” with the community’s best and bravest, but rather ask for “solid, up-to-date data on demand, along with what measurable results a city is getting for its fire service dollars.” Tom Wieczorek, Director of the ICMA’s Center of Public Safety Management, is quoted as follows: “We are routinely called into communities to look at manpower and deployment. We find across the board in small and large jurisdictions that data is either nonexistent or totally wrong.” If Mr. Wieczorek is correct in his statement, the fire service is shamed.
I recommended that the fire service become familiar and use a recent study released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) titled Report on Residential Fireground Field Experiments. The report finally provides quantitative documentation about staffing. It is information that puts the body politic in a position of making an “informed” rather than “emotional” decision about the safety of its constituents.
It is the kind of information that politicians and policy makers have a very difficult time ignoring, and they have no grounds to dispute the evidence or its source.
Keep in mind the report is about low-hazard residential structures only. Hopefully, additional reports for higher hazard structures will be forthcoming. There were also staffing demands that were not covered in the study. For rural communities, the study did not consider the staffing required for a water shuttle. For all communities, the report does not include staffing for traffic control, or treating occupants, pets or firefighters in need of medical attention.
Finally, the studies were conducted during one of the coldest winters on record in the Washington, D.C. area. If they had been conducted in the heat and humidity of August the results would have probably demonstrated a more remarkable need for higher staffing levels.
Other truths that the fire service must stress include: fire won’t burn any slower; traffic won’t get lighter; patients who have medical emergencies can’t push the “PAUSE” button; service delivery will remain labor-intensive; and screwy budget processes (such as earmarks) will hamper public safety funding.
To further substantiate adequate staffing, NIST issued a similar 72-page report in September 2010 about EMS service delivery. The findings reflected the effectiveness of crew size in much the same manner as the fire service delivery study.
Fire departments should have the documentation to defend or seek staffing ready for release at a moment’s notice. To help accomplish this, the NIST report has a toolkit available to fire departments. The educational toolkit was developed to provide policymakers with a quantitative and qualitative understanding of the research.
As I was writing this column, I received a notice of a major metropolitan fire chief under the gun from his council because he was unable to defend his staffing of four-person crews. He should have had the NIST study and toolkit by his side.
On the opposite side of the equation, San Diego Fire Chief Javiar Mainar, speaking at a conference, said the NIST report was very timely and instrumental in helping him hold off a local initiative to reduce staffing from 4 to 3 in his department.
Every chief should have “talking points” for adequate staffing in his or her hip pocket at all times. The toolkit was funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Assistance to Firefighters (FIRE Act) grant program. It contains a bound copy of the report, a brochure of the executive summary for use in public meetings, a DVD with side-by-side video comparing the timing of various tasks for different crew sizes, fact sheets on key findings, time-to-task results, and results on the effect of crew size the time to apply water on a fire, the fire growth rate and occupant exposure to toxins. A press release describing the study, stakeholder quotes, and public statements by principal investigators are also included in the toolkit. It is free from NIST, the IAFF, CFAI or Worcester Polytechnic Institute.
The Fire Service must stress that it is now the “all-hazards” response group. Though “fire” is our middle name, we also provide EMS, hazmat and search and rescue responses, and are the first on the scene of natural and man-made disasters. In addition, it appears we are becoming a “bridge” to social services in many communities.
Finally, we must remember that we have a customer base that deserves good service. I am reminded of a discussion with Chief Alan Brunacini when he started talking about fire service customer service.
An officer of a large metro department said to me that he didn’t understand why we needed to call them customers – they were victims! I mentioned this to Chief Brunacini, who responded that the customer probably was a victim after that department finished a call. Our customers are the ones who hire and fire the policy makers. We must continue to exceed expectations when it comes to customer service. As Chief Brunacini often simply states, be nice!
Editor’s Note: Robert Tutterow is safety coordinator for the Charlotte (N.C.) Fire Department. His 34-year career includes 10 as a volunteer. He has been very active with the National Fire Protection Association through service on the Fire Service Section Executive Board and technical committees involved with safety, apparatus and personal protective equipment. He is a founding member and president of the Fire Industry Equipment Research Organization (F.I.E.R.O.).
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