Poor Fire Department Response

A neighboring full time city fire dept (public safety) had a single story single family dwelling fire last night at approx 4am. I spoke with the homeowners and they said it took the fire dept 25 minutes to get the first apparatus on scene. This home is in city limits about 1 mile from the departments sub station which houses 1 ladder and 2 pumpers. And the headquarters station is approx 2 miles away which houses 1 pumper 1 engine and 1 rescue. The homeowner said the smoke alarm woke them up and they exited the house quickly. The fire was in the incipent stage when they exited their home (approx 1650 sq ft) and called 911 to report the fire. Home was a total loss by time emergency crews arrived on scene. Anyways to get to the point this is unexceptable in my book. The fd was not on any other calls at the time. They have 4 stations all within 7 miles of this home. Each station is manned by one engineer and all public safety officers report to the scene with their bunker gear in their patrol cars. What is the problem here? Is it the 911 system or is it the lazy fd. I ran mutual aid with this dept before and it is a total cluster on scene no command presence, and everyone just pulls hose and freelances and pretty much do whatever they want to do. Just needed to vent ....puts a bad image for all firefighters because people talk about that type of stuff. Has anyone else seen a similar situation such as this and were any changes made within the department. Thanks

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Permalink Reply by John Crabbe on July 26, 2011 at 4:06pm

A fire department with one staffed driver, relying on on-duty cops to respond to the scene is not a full time fire department. It's a combi department, relying on what happens to be OTHER paid city employees to respond.

The concept of the Public Safety Dept is about the notion of saving money and getting the "most bang for the buck". While this may be a combi dept if there are volunteers supplementing, there are public saftey depts that this is considered the normal operation.

The problem with such a concept is that such depts become a "jack of all trades" system with the end of the saying known. Now I agree the OP is just going off of the homeowner's response, but the other issues go back to what I asked in my first post. While the "FD" may have not been out, it doesn't mean the other "responders" weren't tied up with police matters. After all with a public safety dept there really isn't a combination, the FT employees do both the police and fire side and sometimes EMS.

The is the problem with such a concept and also goes towards the taxpayer also getting what they pay for. While the employees may be full time, when you are splitting your duties amongst differing areas, then the idea that the dept will be dedicated to your emergency is a misnomer. It is simple numbers, if there is more police matters to attend to, then there is less available for a fire response.....the inverse works as well.....afterall, what would stop someone intent on committing a crime by setting a fire, thus reducing or eliminating the LE aspect because they are now busy with fire duties.

In the end such concepts should really be looked into and people should know full and well what kind of service they are paying for. While some may argue that PS works here or there, the concept isn't always the smartest, safest, nor even most cost effective way to go.

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Permalink Reply by Russ on July 27, 2011 at 11:17pm

i think of PSD's as paid volunteer departments. i know of communities that have great results with the setup and some that have the problem you described. in my own expierence, it seems that there is more of a call load on the PD and EMS (in that order) and fire is the odd service out and what you describe is what happens.

i have allways wondered what would happen in the reverse? would law enforcement suffer if there were more fire calls?

it seems that your fire department became a third tier response

Poor Fire Department Response

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