Bruce Philpott, New Fire Models, Segment 6: Core Evidence of Delayed Emergency Responses (continued)

We have decided to continue to address the issue of delayed emergency response times because the public deserves a more thorough hearing. We will stay with this issue until we have received assurances that an investigation and report by the fire department is forthcoming.

The fire department is universally unique in local government because 99% of its calls for service are classified as emergencies and they respond with red lights and sirens. Because many of these emergency calls have life-threatening outcomes, the time it takes to arrive at the scene of these emergencies is critical. All other activities that fire emergency personnel perform is secondary and must take a back seat to the primary function of managing emergency medical and fire incidents with the utmost efficiency and effectiveness.

The universally accepted Best Practice for emergency medical responses is when the responding firefighters and equipment are in their centrally located fire stations ready to respond. This is also known as Geographic Integrity. Any differing practice or activity will increase response times.

There are legitimate reasons why delays in response times occur. The in-district engine company may already be on a call when another comes in, although it is statistically rare because, on average, an engine company is handling calls for only 4% of its shift. Another legitimate reason is that they may be involved in off-site training. When this occurs, an out-of-district engine or truck company has to respond in its place, causing a delay of several minutes.

A review, however, of the department’s activity logs show engine and truck companies leaving their fire districts for reasons that do not appear to be justified, especially when weighed against the potential adverse consequences. These are elective activities that do not benefit the public, but the data shows they occur daily. They result in the same delayed responses as those that are legitimate. And, by shear volume, they appear to contribute significantly to the number of “failed incidents” that were identified by a contract consultant of the fire department. But the difference is that these elective activities can be prevented by a change in policy.

The following slides are copies of randomly selected records of engine and truck companies that have been taken out of service or placed in a position that compromises their ability to respond to emergency calls. By either being out-of-service and/or out-of-district, these emergency response personnel and apparatus are being hampered in their ability to get to the next emergency call as fast as possible.

Slides

1.    Engine company leaves city at 9:15AM to LA County Camp to demonstrate equipment. Arrives back in fire district four hours later. During this same shift, they respond to a heart attack call.

2.    Engine company is out of service for 4 hours on three separate functions. These non-essential activities could be accomplished without taking this primary emergency response unit out of service. Also note that at 5:08 PM, they responded on a call of a “full arrest” as in heart attack.

3. Engine company visiting another fire station out of its district. At 3:41 PM they responded on a heart attack call. Second entry shows the engine company out of district to Station 21 for blood work for one of the four-person crew. The company could have remained in it own district while the one fighter drove to Station 21 to draw blood.

4. Engine company out of service for several hours to conduct public education at a church. The GFD has non-operational firefighters and civilian staff that can conduct these educational sessions. There is no need to take an engine company out of service for this purpose.

5. Engine 22 Company Record Log showing it out of service to shop for Christmas gifts and then delivering them to families. This can be accomplished with off-duty volunteer firefighters on reserve equipment, thereby keeping the emergency response capability at maximum readiness. This is also the time of year that posts the highest number of residential fires due to dried Christmas trees and candles.

6. Engine company out of service to drive to Station 26 so a firefighter could get fitted for a new pair of turnouts. The firefighter requiring the fitting could have driven alone to get the measurements and left the remaining three firefighters and engine in their fire district.

7. Another example of taking a complete engine company out of service for a turnout fitting. If all of the firefighters were to get fittings, then the vendor could drive to the fire station and take the measurements, leaving the engine company in full readiness to respond to emergency calls.

8. At 12:19 PM, Engine Company 25 drives to city hall, located out of its fire district to attend an employee Pot Luck luncheon. They remain there for several hours. They failed to record this activity in their Daily Activity Log.

9. Engine Company 22 drove to Fire District 23 from south Glendale that is having the largest number of failed incidents, to a fire station located in Chevy Chase Canyon to say goodbye to a firefighter working his last shift.

10. Depicts an entry where Engine Company 22 drives out of its fire district to attend a retirement luncheon at Station 21. It is out of its district for 3.5 hours.

11. Same as # 10 but for Truck Company 29, which is the only truck company in all of north Glendale. They were out of their fire district for 3.5 hours.

12.Another Engine company leaving its fire district to attend the same retirement luncheon. At one retirement luncheon several years ago, over the course of five hours, 6 engine companies, all four rescue ambulances and a truck company left their fire districts to attend a retirement party at Station 21.

13. Company Record for Engine 27 showing four entries where the only paramedic on the engine conducted station visits on behalf of the union. It is not clear if the entire engine company conducted these station visits or just the paramedic firefighter.

14. Depicts Engine Company 23 driving to fire station 25 to conduct fire union business.

15. Depicts an unidentified Engine Company driving to Fire Station 25 for a “union visit”. This is a different engine company and a different day than what is presented in # 14.

16. Depicts Engine Company 26, above the 134 Freeway, driving across several fire districts to pay a visit to Fire Station 22, located at the extreme south end of the city. No reason is given but the captain on Engine 26 is the union president.

17. Slides 17 through 19 show engine companies out of service for four to seven hours to attend funerals that occurred on 11-7-06, 11-29-06, and 12-20-06.

The public appears to be placed at greater risk under these current practices that allow a wide range of activities that are not pertinent to emergency responses but actually cause delays in response times. According to city records obtained yesterday, the GFD has not conducted an investigation of these “failed incidents”, so the reasons are still unknown. How can the correct policy be put in place if the fundamental knowledge of the causes is not known? The GFD is capable of conducting this investigation through data research that would take hours and not weeks or months. This inquiry should have been launched in 2004 when the fire department was first made aware of these “failed incidents”. The city paid the consultant $68,000, in part, to learn about these delayed responses, but has apparently done nothing to investigate their causes and make the necessary changes to see that they are not repeated. How many are preventable is still unknown, but the elective policy of engine and truck companies leaving their geographic areas of responsibility, based upon the data presented this evening, strongly suggest that they contribute significantly to these failed responses. It is of interest to note that most of these activities occur during peak call demand periods.

Which is more important to the citizens of Glendale, having primary emergency response personnel leave their fire districts to engage in public displays of fire equipment, boot and uniform fittings, apparatus demonstrations, retirement parties, out of district food shopping, jogging and social and union visits at other fire stations, or being in the state of Best Practice and Geographic Integrity to respond on emergency calls as soon as possible. The community has not had a chance to weigh in on this issue. Their perspective, based upon numerous discussions, clearly differs from that of the fire department. To avoid the appearance of bias, an audit of these practices should be conducted by the city’s internal audit team and not by the fire department. These are policy decisions that if not corrected by fire or city management, need to be resolved by the city council.

I have been trained during my professional life to never identify a problem unless I can also offer a solution. The good news is that all of these elective reasons that cause delayed responses can easily be remedied by policy. Next week we will begin to address the solutions. A set of new models will give true meaning to the Best Practice of Geographic Integrity and at the same time allow for all of the elective activities that are being conducted now. The public can be protected with maximum emergency response resources and firefighters can have flexibility of movement in and out of their primary fire districts to conduct non-emergency business.