Response to the Glendale Fire Department’s Report to the City Council During a Special Study Session on 3-25-08.

Week # 1, April 22, 2008

I have had an opportunity to review the fire department’s Power Point Presentation to the city council during an afternoon special study session on March 25 of this year. My associate, Ms. Lloyd Jones, and I have prepared a response. It will take about six weeks to complete this set of presentations. We will be offering additional information that will support our recommendation to cut emergency response times, save up to $15 million per year, and double our capability to respond to the next major earthquake or other natural or man made disaster. This information will affirm the value and credibility of the new models that were developed in collaboration with the ‘career firefighter study group’. It bears repeating that the study group consisted of fire chiefs and rank and file firefighters who have a cumulative experience in the fire service of over 300 years.

One clear message from the GFD’s presentation was that the speed to which first responders get to medical and fire emergencies is a critical measurement of their overall performance. But when they described their organizational approach to emergency calls, there was no reference or mention of the phrase “Geographic Integrity”. Instead the term, “Risk Management”, was used as the underlying principle for determining emergency response preparedness. Risk Management, as it is being used in this case, is a way for the fire department to disregard Geographic Integrity and adopt a less rigorous principle that allows them to continue practices that degrade critical response times. Geographic Integrity used to be a hallmark of the fire service and it means that first responders are in their centrally located neighborhood fire stations ready to respond with maximum effectiveness and speed to emergency calls. This is one of the cornerstones of Best Practices in the fire service. Geographic integrity is the most important axiom in the fire service because it defines the best method for the quickest emergency response possible. We plan on mentioning it often because it is the single most valued policy of any fire department, but in Glendale, this policy has been severely shaken and compromised.

The GFD recently decided to rescind its policy that allowed firefighters to jog in remote parks and at other locations that were out of their fire districts entirely. According to Deputy Fire Chief Howard, the fire department became aware of the policy that was causing these response delays when my associate and I presented the data to the city council and public late last calendar year. Chief Howard said that prior to our presenting the data that showed a pattern of slow responses over many years, the fire department did not know of their existence, even though all of our data came from the fire department’s own records. During discussions over several months, Deputy Fire Chiefs Scoggins and Howard both told me that they had assessed the off-site jogging policy and found it acceptable within their definition of “Risk Management”. It wasn’t until the fire department was forced to view these response delays against the principle of Geographic Integrity that the need was identified and remedied. In his presentation, Chief Howard did not acknowledge that their own consultant admonished them about these delays in a formal report that was submitted in 2004. He also did not acknowledge that this off-site jogging policy has been in effect since 1995, impacting hundreds, if not thousands of calls over that thirteen-year period. Also not mentioned was that I met with several chief officers in the fire department three years ago and advised them of my tentative findings and how it was causing hundreds of excessive delays.

The sad and disturbing truth is that it was only after the data was presented to the public, community groups and the city council that the fire department decided to rescind this flawed policy. In this case, after thirteen years, geographic integrity finally trumped risk management and the practice that benefited the firefighters at the expense of the public was reversed. Now hundreds of emergency and potentially life-threatening calls a year will have their response times cut in half. That should be reassuring to the public.

It is very important to note, however, that the GFD, in canceling its policy regarding off-site jogging, has remedied only a portion of the preventable emergency response delays. The rest adversely affects thousands of additional calls each year in the same way that the off-site jogging policy did. This data was included in our original set of presentations, but the GFD, in its report to the city council, did not acknowledge or address it. These additional delays occur because first responders are needlessly taken out of service (OOS) or are out of their assigned fire districts (OOD) for extended periods of time. This is a major problem because these activities have become routine practices, just as the off-site jogging practice became routine for 13 years. These elective activities are preventable. By a slight policy change, the fire department can further restore the best practice of geographic integrity. When first responders are either OOS or OOD, additional time will be added to emergency response calls because another out of district unit will have to respond over a greater distance. Chief Howard, Interim Chief Biggs and fire union president, Captain Stavros say that it may take up to 6 to 10 additional minutes for a response by an out of district first response team. This is why it is so critical for first responders to be in their fire districts and preferably in their centrally located fire stations as much as is possible.

In this state, the emergency responders are in their best position for maximum response effectiveness. This represents the essence of geographic integrity. We will end this week’s presentation by showing a couple of examples where first responders have taken themselves out of service or out of district needlessly.

The three slides represent daily activity logs for engine companies 27, 28 and 29. These daily activity logs were selected because they record both issues on one activity log: routine staffing with three and avoidable examples of being taken out of district or out of service.

Slide #1:

Slide # 1 shows engine 27 operating without its captain for several hours in the middle of the day. It also shows it out of service to steam clean a water tender that took several hours.

Slide #2:

Slide # 2 shows one firefighter from Engine Company 28 out to background investigations for eleven hours, while the crew ran all day staffed with three. It also shows them driving half way across the city and out of district to get the results of a TB test. It then records them driving to Fire Station 22 to pick up another vehicle and drive it back to their own district fire station.

Slide #3:

Slide # 3 depicts the fire captain of engine 29 out for over eight hours to attend a funeral. While staffed with three, they drove to the training center for a fire engineer’s certification. As you can note, staffing with three is common and routine and does not degrade from the quality of service. However, taking themselves out of service or being out of district for preventable reasons causes excessive delays. This can be corrected by some minor adjustments to existing policy.

We will be back next week to show ample illustrations of these preventable activities and how they can be remedied.

Prepared by:

Bruce Philpott

1418 Western Ave

Glendale, CA 91201

818.240.8949

Email: logicpoint@aol.com/