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November 17, 2007
Talk Of The Town
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| Image: A comparison of fire department statistics
showing Chico vs. Redding and Chico vs. Yuba City. The percentage column
shows the difference from Chico. Ex. Reddings population is 29% greater
than Chico's, Yuba City's is 28% lower than Chico's. *Fires of all types, Chico had 54 building fires, but 439 fire responses in 2006. There has been a lot of discussion on this blog about firefighters and their pay which is a natural response to the release of City employee salary data. With the really excessive overtime pay going to Fire Captains in particular I don't see how the public couldn't ask questions about the department. But I wanted to look into details beyond pay to try to get a better picture of what our fire department does. In particular a question was asked "how busy is our department". I also wanted to avoid comparisons with cities like San Rafael whose structures, terrain, and economic base differ greatly from Chico's. So I compared Yuba City and Redding. Redding is larger than Chico, and also maintains an airport. Yuba City is smaller than Chico, but pays about the same as we do. I think they are good comparison cities. Here is where my data came from... Yuba City [budget data, fire department web site] Redding [fire department web site] Chico [2006 Fire Department Annual Report, Fire Department Strategic Plan] Salary Data [City to ER, posted on my last blog post] As a general overview the Chico fire department put in more than 22,000 hours of training last year. They answered 8854 calls, 54 were structure fires (buildings) and 439 were fires or explosions, which includes the structure fires. They responded to 356 false alarms and 406 hazardous conditions (gas leak?). There were 6100 emergency medical calls and 720 "good intent" calls. The fire department made an average of 31.8 "runs" per day, or 5.3 per station, or one run every 4.5 hours per station on average. If you add in the administrative runs (Fire Chief, Fire Inspector) the daily average increases to 34.7. The number of calls is broken down by both month and station, a question asked yesterday by a reader. Stations 1 and 2 get the majority of calls and both are located in the urban core. Fire and emergency calls are highest May through September which would indicate workload is seasonal, and not dictated by the student population. Since 2000 there have been 12 injuries and 6 deaths due to fires in Chico. In 2006 there were 2 injuries and 1 death caused by fire. The Chico firefighter staffing requirements are spelled out in the strategic plan as 1 fire station per 10,000 people. We have 6 stations, with a 7th in the works. A city population of 84,000 is listed in the report. It also states 4 active duty people per 10,000 is required staffing. That includes Chief Officers for command. The strategic plan , a 10 year planning document, recommends an increase in staffing of 25% (from 4 to 5 per 10,000 people). One reader also posted this, which I believe to be accurate... "Fire stations 1 through 6 all have corresponding fire engines that are staffed with a captain, engineer, and firefighter. Stations 1 and 5 also have ladder trucks that are staffed by an engineer and a firefighter (or another engineer . . I'm not certain as this was a recent staffing addition). What apparatus rolls on any given call is dictated by preset policy. For example, for medical calls, the closest engine rolls (along with an ambulance). For fires and rescues, a lot more apparatus rolls. As it stands right now, the city relies on the fire department to roll on all medical calls due to station placement in order to guarantee a minimum response time. There are only two ambulance companies (Enloe and First Responder). They deploy from three locations throughout the city. There are also fire dept staff that work M-F,9-5 type shifts (eg the Chiefs, Fire Marshall, Inspectors, etc)." The reports and documentation related to the fire department are incredibly detailed. Maybe this is what the Fire Captains do during overtime? For example, the fire department responded to... 341 vehicle accident with injury 3 overheated car motors 60 passenger vehicle fires 13 police matters 4 ring / jewelry removal 13 vapor, dust, or fog thought to be smoke 1 threat to burn 4 remove victims from a stalled elevator 1 refrigeration leak 40 water or steam leak 35 water problem, other After reading the report, I've got to figure that the firefighters think us civilians are all a bunch of morons. I can imagine running around with my hands flailing in the air screaming "call 911, call 911, get the fire department here quick, my basement is flooding". I can also imagine the fire department using the jaws-of-life to remove a wedding ring from some chubby finger. This reminds me of a relative who asked if they should call a plumber to fix an electrical outlet for their washer. Now you know why corporate America moved their technical support to India and forces everyone to go through an unending sequence of button pushes before a human being is reached. As far as my research into Yuba City and Redding go, it looks like our fire department answers significantly fewer per capita calls(see update below). A reader had questioned me, "do they work harder than other fire departments, do we have more fires, and therefore deserve greater pay?". I can't speak to work or training ethic, but our department seems to have a lower workload than the two cities I looked at. But you can summarize that data yourself. Update: I was checking my work on this and the number of Chico firefighters I used looked too high. The previous number of 111 came from the 2006 fire department report, but included volunteers and civilian staff. The numbers I used for Yuba City and Redding are uniformed personnel only. After changing the Chico numbers to uniformed only (from 111 to 72) it looks like the workload at Chico is basically the same as those other communities from a "calls per employee", and also similar with respect to firefighter per capita. That is a significant change from my earlier results. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Greggifer, see comments below for the answer. |
Posted by Lon at November 17, 2007 08:34 AM
Comments
Fire Down Below poster with Steven Segal
Jennifer got this one right off.
Posted by: Gregg Payne at November 17, 2007 09:27 AM
Greggifer,
Jennifer always struck me as a Segal fan. She's into that tall guy / pony tail thing. This makes me wonder if your peaceful demeanor might cover a volatile and violent core. What's going to set you off and make you go around kickin' butt and breakin' arms like Segal? I hope Wal-Mart never tears down one of your murals!
Lon
Posted by: Lon at November 17, 2007 09:39 AM
Jennifer is the one you have to watch out for.
Posted by: Gregg at November 17, 2007 05:03 PM