Study shows when it comes to firefighters, the more the better

By Cindy Landrum  

JUNE 4, 2010 11:59 a.m. (0)

When an emergency call comes in to the Greenville Fire Department on the fast-growing far eastside of Greenville near Woodruff Road, there’s a greater chance than anywhere else in the city the station assigned to cover the area won’t be available to answer the call.

And if the Pleasantburg station isn’t on another call, there’s a greater chance than anywhere else in the city it will take more than four minutes for firefighters to arrive on the scene.

Fire department staffing around the country is getting a closer look after a study by the National Institute for Safety and Technology for the first time quantified the difference more firefighters on the scene makes in extinguishing residential blazes and rescuing occupants.

The National Institute for Safety and Technology study showed four-person crews delivered water to a similar-sized residential fire 15 percent faster than a two-person crew and 6 percent faster than three-person crews, and were able to complete search and rescue operations 30 percent faster than two-person crews and 5 percent faster than three-person crews, according to the study.

“Fire risks grow exponentially,” said Jason Averill, one of the researchers who conducted the study. “Each minute of delay is critical to the safety of the occupants and firefighters, and is directly related to property damage.”

In the study, 10 percent equaled about one minute.

The Greenville Fire Department assigns four firefighters to each engine at each of its six stations, but that does not  mean that’s how many will be available to answer calls, said Fire Chief Tommy McDowell. Vacation, sick days, training and comp time all take firefighters off-duty.

“We never have all fire trucks with four people,” McDowell said. “They usually have three.”

And when absences make less than three firefighters available, stations are required to call in another to work overtime.

“There’s not much you can do with a two-person crew,” he said. “A two-person engine is really not very effective.”

McDowell said the study showed the difference between a two-person crew and a three-person crew is much greater than the difference between a three-person crew and a four-person crew.

“That’s pretty much out of reach for us. It’s out of reach for most departments,” he said. McDowell said adding the extra firefighters would cost the city between $500,000 and $600,000 per year.

With six stations, the city has the capacity to call additional crews to the scene, McDowell said.

“Our rule is if a battalion chief thinks he may need additional firefighters, they call for them,” he said. “They can always turn them back around.”

The Pleasantburg station’s problem isn’t staffing, it’s the size of its service area, McDowell said. The department has the biggest area to serve and includes some of Greenville’s most congested streets and the interstate.

Plans call for a new fire station to serve the far east side area, but the station is not expected to be staffed and running until 2013, McDowell said. The city is looking for land on which to build the new station, which is expected to carry a $2.7 million price tag, he said.

“Until that station is built, there’s not much we can do, unfortunately,” McDowell said. “It comes down to physics and mathematics. It comes down to time, speed and distance.”

McDowell said station reliability – how many times there’s a call for service in a station’s primary area the station is able to respond – is adequate for every city station except Pleasantburg. The Pleasantburg station is able to answer about 88 percent of calls for service.

When another station must be called, it adds to response time, giving the fire more time to spread, McDowell said.

In addition, the department’s goal is to have each station respond to 90 percent of its calls for emergency service in four minutes or less.

All of the station’s hit that goal except Pleasantburg, he said.

In 2009, Pleasantburg answered 63 percent of its calls in four minutes or less. That’s compared to 93.5 percent of calls answered by the West End station.

Some calls took 12 minutes to answer, one took 22 minutes.

McDowell said most of the calls that took long to answer were on the interstate when firefighters didn’t have a good location or had to fight heavy traffic to get to the scene, or both.

“We’re holding our own,” McDowell said.

Contact Cindy Landrum at 679-1237 or This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Comments

Add New

Leave a Comment
Comments are moderated and may not be posted immediately.
Name:
Email:	do not notifynotify
Title:
	Please input the anti-spam code that you can read in the image.

3.26 Copyright (C) 2008 Compojoom.com / Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."