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Virgina Department Questioned Over Half-Mile, 10 Minute Response
AMANDA CODISPOTI
The Roanoke Times
Reprinted with Permission
Robert Mullins watched flames shoot out of his Vinton home for seven minutes Monday night before a Roanoke fire truck rolled up.
It was followed by a Vinton fire truck, which took 10 minutes to arrive from the station that was less than a half-mile from the fire.
"Certainly we'd like for that to be better, being so close to the station," said Roanoke County Fire & Rescue Chief Rick Burch.
After 6 p.m., the Vinton fire station relies on 22 volunteers, many of whom respond to fire calls from home. The fire truck can't leave the station until at least three firefighters are on board, and that's what caused the 10-minute response time Monday night, Burch said.
There are no countywide response time goals, Burch said, adding that the response time for Catawba would be very different for Vinton.
"We just monitor it, and if we see something that we think took too long, we'll look at it and see what the issues are," he said.
The National Fire Protection Association recommends that an urban, volunteer fire station such as Vinton's get 15 firefighters at the scene of a fire within nine minutes 90 percent of the time.
Slow response times in Vinton prompted Burch two years ago to seek funding for career positions to staff the station 24 hours a day, he said. He couldn't get the funding because of budget cuts.
"We've known for a while that there's issues, but we don't have the resources available to resolve the problem," the chief said.
The fire at the duplex in the 200 block of West Cleveland Avenue displaced three residents, killed three pets, including Mullins' cat, and caused $150,000 in damage. No one was hurt.
Mullins didn't want to be interviewed, said his nephew, Tommy Mullins. Tommy Mullins is a former volunteer firefighter and said he and his parents, who own the duplex, understand why it took Vinton firefighters 10 minutes to get to the house.
"We're not upset," he said. "We're wishing Vinton would utilize our tax money" for career firefighters.
Firefighters from Read Mountain, Mount Pleasant and the North County station were also called to the blaze, which took about 40 minutes to quell.
Roanoke fire trucks from stations No. 6 on Jamison Avenue Southeast and No. 1 on Franklin Road Southwest were called to the fire as part of a mutual aid agreement between the city and county.
Related
Vinton fire crew needed 10 minutes to go half-mile
The Roanoke Times
Reprinted with Permission
Robert Mullins watched flames shoot out of his Vinton home for seven minutes Monday night before a Roanoke fire truck rolled up.
It was followed by a Vinton fire truck, which took 10 minutes to arrive from the station that was less than a half-mile from the fire.
"Certainly we'd like for that to be better, being so close to the station," said Roanoke County Fire & Rescue Chief Rick Burch.
After 6 p.m., the Vinton fire station relies on 22 volunteers, many of whom respond to fire calls from home. The fire truck can't leave the station until at least three firefighters are on board, and that's what caused the 10-minute response time Monday night, Burch said.
There are no countywide response time goals, Burch said, adding that the response time for Catawba would be very different for Vinton.
"We just monitor it, and if we see something that we think took too long, we'll look at it and see what the issues are," he said.
The National Fire Protection Association recommends that an urban, volunteer fire station such as Vinton's get 15 firefighters at the scene of a fire within nine minutes 90 percent of the time.
Slow response times in Vinton prompted Burch two years ago to seek funding for career positions to staff the station 24 hours a day, he said. He couldn't get the funding because of budget cuts.
"We've known for a while that there's issues, but we don't have the resources available to resolve the problem," the chief said.
The fire at the duplex in the 200 block of West Cleveland Avenue displaced three residents, killed three pets, including Mullins' cat, and caused $150,000 in damage. No one was hurt.
Mullins didn't want to be interviewed, said his nephew, Tommy Mullins. Tommy Mullins is a former volunteer firefighter and said he and his parents, who own the duplex, understand why it took Vinton firefighters 10 minutes to get to the house.
"We're not upset," he said. "We're wishing Vinton would utilize our tax money" for career firefighters.
Firefighters from Read Mountain, Mount Pleasant and the North County station were also called to the blaze, which took about 40 minutes to quell.
Roanoke fire trucks from stations No. 6 on Jamison Avenue Southeast and No. 1 on Franklin Road Southwest were called to the fire as part of a mutual aid agreement between the city and county.
Related
Vinton fire crew needed 10 minutes to go half-mile
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on
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So I guess no one can drive like a moron to the station just to the scene?
Not at all John. I am mearly pointing out some reasonings as to why some depts have such a policy in place against responding directly to the scene. I will not sit here and say which way is a better approach because it boils down to the individual dept and where they place the emphasis.
I will say with all honesty I know of several departments that do not have the capabilities that you do. Many I know of have a pager only and only a select few have radios to notify who is enroute and so forth. I will also say that sometimes things come up where one has to leave and really doesn't have time or just forgets to notify the dept they will be gone. This happens. Again, there are reasons a dept prefers a direct response to the scene and others prefer a response to the station. There really is no "best" way because there are pros and cons to both.
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Permalink Reply by FETC on
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In our area, having every member sign on with a personal radio is a burden on the radio system, add that with apparatus signing on, mutual aid signing on, dispatch adding additional information and the channel is overloaded.
Here only chief officers from volunteer departments are allowed to sign on.
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Permalink Reply by John Dobson on
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My secondary department has just pagers and it is a mess the whole county has one all fire channel. So if there is three fires they are all being heard at each scene. So if a mayday is called where is it?
There is something wrong when a radio is a big deal. Or volunteers marking in route burdens the system. To me it should be as basic as an a firetruck having a pump.
Man some of you guys are career firefighters with tons of runs I hope you have better than that. WOW
Are packs are even radio interfaced so we can talk to the outside. I admit I don't know it all. I would have thought most would have a decent radio system. We have a home talk group, five TAC channels and OMA, SWMA (statewide) channels.
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Man some of you guys are career firefighters with tons of runs I hope you have better than that. WOW
There really is a difference between career and volunteer. Number one there is no reason to answer up as to who is going enroute to the scene or who is getting the rig etc...we are already at the station or with the rig.
We also have MDT's where we hit a button to show when we are enroute, on scene, etc. Prior to the MDT's each rig would give their status of enroute etc, but wasn't really tying up radio traffic. It was simple as "Engine 5 enroute....Ladder 2 enroute" etc....not this is Lt Jim Bob enroute to the station and FF Mack Daddy going to the scene, etc. We do have different channels we can go to if there are multiple incidents. Every riding position has a radio.
The issue at hand here John is where you started talking about volunteers going to the scene, etc. I answered that with it depends upon the individual dept etc. The bottom line is that many depts can't afford to issue a radio to every volly to acknowledge they got the call and if others responding know the rig is coming etc. Radio systems, like depts do vary, most career depts I know of do have a decent system, with multiple channels, but even those aren't foolproof.
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Permalink Reply by Russ Marks on
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We are a small Fire protection district with Paid call personal, daytime if availbe, we average 3-5 mins to the station, 1st operator starts the engine and once in ppe responds, the goal is to get the equipment on the road and assemble personal at the incident., all operators respond to the station until the engine is on the road then respond to the incident. Daytime of 3-5 min to the station, 1 min to dress and 3-5 to the incident, 10 is not bad.
Night time the time to the station is up to 8-12 mins. We have looking into paid staffing, but at the cost of $500k /yr with a current total budget of $125k not likely to happen, the public has been very clear they will not pay add'l taxes
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We have looking into paid staffing, but at the cost of $500k /yr with a current total budget of $125k not likely to happen, the public has been very clear they will not pay add'l taxes
And there in goes directly back to square one. It is easy to gripe and complain that it took too long to get there when it is YOUR emergency.....something else to gripe and complain when it isn't.
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Permalink Reply by James Burton (Jamie) on
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I really do not think 10 mins is bad at all, I have stood by the Fire Truck on my own before now waiting and it sucks, we do what we can with what we have.
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