During this severe and sustained recession, many fire departments are under pressure to reduce company staffing. To make matters worse, many fire departments already operate with staffing levels that are unsafe-career AND volunteer. Here is a piece sent to us with a fresh perspective on the issue from Eric Lamar, a long time Secret List member. Eric has been involved in the fire service for 30 years, including serving on the NFPA 1500 committee and the NIOSH Board of Scientific Counselors.
We are in a period of what could easily be called sustained economic mayhem. In many localities there are, and will continue to be, massive budget deficits. As a result, fire departments are actively cutting overtime expenditures and will begin to decrease staffing in stations and on individual fire companies. It is an unprecedented economic environment where safe staffing is concerned. Radical action is required to protect fire fighters. But this environment, as tough as it is, actually provides some unique opportunities to improve staffing at the company level because it can force fire departments to re-deploy in a way they may not have previously considered. This is the time to correct dangerous staffing models so that they both reflect reality and are safe for fire fighters and the public.
The cardinal principle must be the safe staffing of existing or remaining units if downsizing occurs, rather than the current over-reliance on the importance of response times. (It may take us eight minutes to get there, but when we do we will have the right number of staff to operate safely.) Relying chiefly on response times works when there is money to pay for staffing. Inevitably, when financial resources become scarce there is pressure to reduce staffing. Many small- to medium-size departments are likely to see staffing decreases, and the objective should be to ensure that manpower on remaining companies is sufficient from a safety point of view through a number of strategies. It’s time to protect fire fighters.
Regarding response times, when they lengthen it is unfortunately the public that suffers because it takes longer for resources to arrive at the scene of an emergency. But we must remember that the public also suffers, in a less visible way, when they are serviced by fire companies that are blatantly understaffed because they cannot complete tasks effectively or in a timely manner. Emergency responders only suffer if they fail to alter their tactics and operations to reflect the new reality. It’s tough medicine, but these are tough times.
Safe Staffing in a Crisis
Some fire chiefs and elected officials will attempt to keep fire stations open with inadequate crew strength. In these situations, rather than focus on the staffing assigned to a single fire company, or to an individual station, leaders concerned about public and fire fighter safety should instead look first at a bigger picture―the total number of personnel available for field deployment. Then they should work to assign this total number in a fashion that is the safest for responders and, by extension, the citizens they serve. They should refer to this model of crew deployment, at all times, as proper staffing. This is nothing more than casting a cold professional eye on the reality that currently exists. Less people should result in fewer fire stations and fewer companies with those that are remaining staffed at safe and appropriate levels to achieve tactical objectives.
It is the time-honored military approach of re-organizing for the next offensive by consolidating under-strength platoons to form companies of adequate strength, and by not leaving your flanks hanging in the air.
As we know, a crew of four fire fighters (consistent with NFPA 1710) has been proven to be the safest minimum number required to conduct an interior fire attack. Resources should be re-deployed to achieve companies of at least four.
This may necessitate closing fire stations or altering other procedures. For example, a chief officer may currently assign four fire fighters to a station with an engine and a ladder and expect them to staff both companies, each with two fire fighters. Instead, these four fire fighters should respond as a team on either the engine or the ladder, placing the other unit out-of-service. Similarly, if the crew size is four and the station includes an engine and an EMS unit and two of the fire fighters are expected to respond to an EMS call, then the remaining two should also respond in the engine to the call, to the hospital if they transport, and then back to the station. They must remain as a unit for safety and effectiveness.
City A
In some cases, especially in a smaller service area with three to five stations, it may be appropriate to close one station, and to concentrate staffing for safety and efficiency. It may be viewed as a radical move, but it is the one that will ultimately protect both fire fighters and the public most effectively.
City A was using a minimum of 21 on-duty personnel to staff the following:
Station One
Engine One- crew of three
EMS unit- crew of two
Station Two
Engine Two- crew of three
Squad Two- crew of two
Station Three
Engine Three- crew of three
Ladder Three- crew of two
Station Four
Engine Four- crew of three
EMS unit- crew of two
Shift Chief- one
Total- 21
The fire department undergoes cuts in the overall fire department budget or the overtime budget that causes the loss of two positions per shift, leaving 19. They should consider re-deploying as follows:
Station One
An engine and an EMS unit with a minimum of four. They respond with four on a fire run and with two and two on an EMS call.
Station Two
An engine, ladder and EMS unit. They can respond either the engine or ladder with a crew of four and the EMS unit is full time.
Station Three
An engine and a squad, both full time and both with four per company. The squad responds to all calls of significance.
Station Four
Closed
Shift chief: one
Total- 19
The principles are:
-Create and implement a safe and effective crew size
-Maintain that safe crew size by placing units out-of-service as necessary
-Counteract the effects of lengthened response time by creating a strategic reserve. (Squad with four fire fighters.)
The squad also ensures that the incident commander has the capability to:
-Rapidly place a second line in service
-Perform basic truck functions such as a primary search or top-side ventilation
-Provide rapid intervention services
This re-distributed workforce ensures the highest safety level for responders. This is also the safest arrangement for the public.
In no case should a fire station be operating with a single person or a two-person crew. Personnel should be combined into teams of a minimum of four and assigned to stations on that basis.
Of course, tactics must be altered to reflect a possibly lengthened response time as well as the changed staffing levels on-scene, though this arrangement is actually safer than the prior one where crew size is concerned.
Mutual Aid—Time for a Reality Check
Let’s be honest, in a flush economy fire service leaders have been known to actively fight against, or at least passively resist, comprehensive mutual aid agreements. After all, relying on neighboring communities can appear to reduce the need for resources within a jurisdiction. If we are truly committed to the safety of fire fighters during this unprecedented economic downturn, we cannot at the same time be opposed to utilizing mutual aid agreements which will allow us to boost company staffing even as our budgets are decimated.
Leaders, especially in smaller jurisdictions, need to study what neighboring resources are geographically available as part of their crisis staffing plan. For example, if a neighboring city has a fire station which can be factored into a first alarm response, then they should strongly consider working to achieve an effective mutual aid agreement. Such stations would undoubtedly figure prominently in a decision to close an existing fire house to redistribute existing personnel resources.
The use of these agreements reflects the sequence of events that has occurred:
-The economic downturn has created a precipitous falloff in municipal revenue
-Fire chiefs and agency heads are told to provide the same services with less
-Staffing levels begin to erode as budgets are reduced
-We realize that this erosion compromises fire fighter safety
-We take actions that ensure adequate crew size for fire and emergency response
In addition to redeploying as discussed above, this will inevitably include looking regionally to locate resources that will assist us in achieving safe staffing levels since responder safety must be the bottom line.
A Silk Purse
This may be one of the rarest of moments- the opportunity to, as they say, turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse. Hundreds of small and medium fire departments across North America have sloppy, ineffective and unsafe staffing models that are frequently responsible for fire fighter injuries and deaths. These departments constantly deliver poorly staffed companies to fires and other emergencies where responders become instantly over-extended and catastrophes inevitably result.
Let’s take this opportunity, and the financial pressure we are under, as an impetus to clean up our collective staffing mess and re-create these departments into units that are consistently staffed with an adequate number of responders, including a strategic reserve.
Who knows—we might look back at this time and actually be glad we went through it, especially if it makes us safer.
Eric Lamar can be contacted at:
ericslamar@gmail.com 
