8.) Staff Report-FF Response Time
Staff Report
Date of Meeting: April 1, 2015
To: City Council
From: Kristina Handt, Administrator
Re: Firefighter Response Time
Background:
In 2012 the Council reduced the requirement for firefighters to be able to respond from home or work
to the Fire Hall from 15 to 8 minutes under normal driving conditions and when obeying all traffic
laws. At the time Chief Finnegan explained that this is a more realistic time for responders to arrive
at the station in time for the truck departure, and is a more common time requirement for area fire
departments. Response time for department members is also a factor in the ISO rating. As Chief Hinz
mentioned at the meeting in March, we have lost firefighters who were more than 8 minutes away
because they would rarely make it to the fire hall before the truck left and would get called off. This
can be frustrating if they don’t make calls and also do not get much experience.
Jason May, 9910 Julep Trail, attended the March Council meeting and asked the Council to
reconsider the 8 minute requirement. Mr. May lives 7.5 miles away from the fire hall. Both Google
and Bing maps report an 11 minute travel time when following the posted speed limits.
Issue:
Should the required response time for new firefighters of living or working within 8 minutes of the
fire station be changed?
Discussion:
While increasing the response time may open up the process to more people, the Council should
weigh this with the likelihood we’ll lose firefighters after investing significant amounts of training
into them because they are not able to respond to the fire hall before a truck leaves. This most
commonly happens with medical calls rather than fire calls.
Options:
1) Amend the required response time
2) Do not amend the required response time