The Other Side of Dissolution - May 2008 Edition

The Other Side of Dissolution May 2008 Edition

A monthly article written by Johnson City residents opposed to dissolving the Village of Johnson City. Our goal is to help Johnson City residents make a better informed choice, when this goes to vote.

Dissolution Study Committee Meetings: Article #3
Fire Departments: Career vs. Volunteer
Written by Julie Deemie

The April 21st Johnson City Dissolution Study Committee meeting focused around an enlightening presentation, given by the Johnson City Fire Department. Fire Chief Michalovic, Marshall Dempsey and Captain Meaney took the front of the room, dressed in full uniform. It was Marshall Dempsey who presented most of the evening’s facts and data. The committee had furnished the department with a list of questions, to be addressed. The fire department gave the committee members packets of information and data, as well as copies of state protocol, codes and procedures; which the department must adhere to. Marshall Dempsey was very well prepared and answered committee questions well, along with offering his availability to the members for future questions.

Dempsey shared many facts and figures with those attending. A study was conducted between the years of 1986 and 2002, regarding national fire department response times of both volunteer and career departments. This article appeared in the Boston Globe Newspaper. I also found this data at www.firehouse.com . The following local fire companies were rated on this list (download complete list in PDF format click here), for their percentage of responses in less than 6 minutes:
Johnson City Fire Dept. (career)-99.6%, Endwell Fire Dept. (volunteer)-50.3%,
West Corners Fire Dept. (volunteer)-56.8% , Union Center Fire Dept. (volunteer)-19.1%,
Binghamton Fire Bureau (career)-99.2%, Binghamton Volunteer Fire Company-43.8%, Endicott Fire Company (career)-100%, and Vestal Fire Dept. (volunteer)-27.7%.

Response time is critical in an urban area, such as Johnson City, with the close nature of our structures and the denseness of our population. This was dramatically proven to us with the recent news of the fast burning house fire, in Binghamton. If it were not for quick response, of the full time Binghamton Police and career Fire Department, this fire would have been a tragedy rather than a rescue. The Johnson City Fire department has a 3 minute response time, with full apparatus on at the scene, and ready to fight. This exceeds NFPA standard. Marshall Dempsey did not see this kind of response time feasible, with an all volunteer fire company. Volunteer response times are measured by first on scene, usually the volunteer chief or other officer. It can take many more minutes before the volunteer company arrives outfitted and ready to combat the fire and perform rescues.

Risk management plays a large part in keeping the number of fires in Johnson
City low. Fire prevention programs and education have brought the number of fires down in the village, since the 80’s. Most of the public safety education is done by off-duty firemen. They also run a one of a kind program for children with fire setting tendencies. These children are referred by local agencies, interviewed for risk, and if they will benefit from the program they receive on average 6 weeks of fire awareness and safety education. This has been a largely successful program.

The Johnson City Fire Department operates with 7 men per shift, split between 2 firehouses. This figure recently received village approval, down from 8 a short time ago. This is bare minimum for a career fire dept. to operate in a fire emergency. Volunteer companies must respond with whatever number of volunteers show up. These numbers vary greatly throughout any given day, and are determined by who is available, when the call comes in. Volunteers are not required to be at the stations waiting for calls, which leads to longer response times.

There was a committee member who turned a portion of the Johnson City Fire Department’s question and answer session into a debate. The committee’s role is that of collecting data, having questions answered, and hearing what is presented to them. The debate of how a particular department should or should not be run is inappropriate, at these meetings. This committee member should have been interrupted and reminded of their role in the dissolution study, so that these types of disruptions won’t continue to lengthen the meetings unnecessarily.

A previously unscheduled committee meeting was held April 28th. At this dissolution meeting, Endwell Fire Chief John Ruck led the Endwell Volunteer Fire Department presentation. Fran Pandich, chairman of the board of fire commissioners, assisted him. Chief Ruck was well prepared and delivered a fact filled talk and power point presentation. He verified that all Town of Union Volunteer Fire Districts are their own governing agents. They prepare their own budgets and tax rates. The Town of Union Volunteer Districts are: Endwell Fire, Union Center Fire, West Corners Fire, West Endicott Fire, Choconut Center Fire, East Maine Fire.

The Town of Union, Endwell Fire District has 74 active volunteer members and serves approximately 12,000 residents within 7 square miles. The average response time figures given were 5.9 minutes for 2005 and 6.5 minutes for 2004; data was unavailable for 2006 and 2007. Comparatively, The Johnson City Fire Department has 40 career firemen serving over 15,500 village residents within 4.44 square miles, with a current response time average of 3 minutes. The Johnson City Fire Dept. receives revenue, from the Town of Union, for its service to both Westover and Fairmont Park. This coverage adds population and square miles, to the Johnson City figures stated above. The Johnson City Fire Depatment provides service to a regional medical center (UHS), the largest indoor shopping mall in the region (Oakdale Mall), and BAE Systems in Westover. Because of the large influx of people to these services and businesses, the daytime population of Johnson City swells to between 40,000 and 50,000 people.

There are approximately 28,000 Town of Union residents, excluding both the Village of Johnson City and The Village of Endicott. The Endwell Fire Company serves approximately 12,000 of these 28,000 residents, from 3 separate fire houses. The remaining 16,000 Town of Union residents are served by 5 smaller volunteer fire districts, and The Johnson City Fire Department.

Chief Ruck had a difficult, if not impossible, time answering committee member questions about how long it might take to get a Village of Johnson City all volunteer fire company up and running. His responses were that “I couldn’t give you an answer.” and “Couldn’t even tell you.” He also stated that the nucleus of an effective fire department is its support and management and that this is hard to build in a short period of time. Experience has to be built for many years. It was pointed out that historically volunteer firehouses were built near where the volunteers lived and worked, for easy access. There is no guarantee that the locations of our Johnson City firehouses are even conducive to
accessibility for volunteers. The north side station has the Oakdale Mall traffic on one end of Harry L. Drive and the soon to be Wal-Mart at the other end, contributing to traffic congestion and obstructions.

Volunteer departments are allotted much longer response times than career departments. The main reason is because of typically longer travel distances. The NFPA 1720 standard states that for a volunteer fire department in an urban area, 1000 or more people per square mile, the department should dispatch 15 volunteers within 9 minutes, 90 percent of the time. The NFPA standard for suburban areas, consisting of 500-1000 people per square mile states that volunteer departments should respond to a fire in 10 minutes with 10 volunteer fire fighters, 80 percent of the time. Chief Ruck stated that the Endwell Fire Department exceeds the NFPA 1720 volunteer suburban standard with its current response rate of 10/10/87%. The population density for the Village of Johnson City is 3363 residents per square mile, therefore if we were to become all volunteer, the tighter 15/9/90% NFPA 1720 urban standard would apply to our village. This would mean that a Johnson City volunteer company would need many more volunteers than Endwell has; and respond more quickly, more of the time. Ruck stated that he could not argue the point that in-house firemen respond faster than volunteer firemen. He also stated the fact that it takes 3 volunteer firemen to equal 1 career firemen in availability and experience.

There was a story published by Bill Dedman, which appeared in the Boston Globe, in 2005. I would like to highlight pertinent portions of this news story:

Once a day on average in this country, someone dies when firefighters arrive too late, an investigation of fire response times by the Globe has found. America’s fire departments are giving fires a longer head start, arriving later each year. The national picture is somewhat brighter when only departments with full-time as opposed to volunteer firefighters are considered. ‘Every minute counts’ A swift response time may be more critical than ever for avoiding fire tragedy.

“If you get to a fire early, you get there before flashover,” said Dunn, the retired New York deputy fire chief, referring to the moment when a burning building gets so hot that walls and furniture spontaneously ignite. “And this saves lives of the occupants, and the firefighters’ own lives, and property.”

And although fires are getting rarer—thanks to stricter fire codes and safety education—the workload of fire departments has risen sharply, with medical calls and every sort of household emergency being addressed by fire departments. The number of calls at fire departments has doubled over the last two decades, according to the fire prevention association.

Volunteers can no longer fill the gap. There was an era when the self-employed grocer and the counterman at the hardware store were volunteer firefighters, available during the day to fight fires in small towns and suburbs. Now they may work at chain stores or commute to work three towns away. (Many also are working more than one job, due to our poor economy.)

“We struggle during the day to get people back to a fire,’ said Hamilton’s deputy fire chief, of his volunteer department, north of Boston. “We’ll get six to 10 people to a fire sometimes. At night we may get 20 or 25.” It shows in the response times.

Service has always been slower in areas with volunteer firefighters, but it has gotten worse more quickly than in career departments. The share of volunteer departments in the United States hitting the 6-minute mark has fallen from 23.1 percent in 1986 to 14.3 percent in 2002. Although the NFPA exempts volunteer fire
departments from its 6-minute standard, the Globe evaluated every fire response by the same benchmark, for two reasons: Communities choose what type of fire department to have, and a fire does not burn slower when volunteers are coming to put it out.

After the dissolution study committee completes its plan to dissolve the Village of Johnson City, it will be up to the voters to decide if they are willing to compromise their personal safety for a few dollars.

This month’s quote comes from the City of Oneonta’s web site: The fire department truly represents a service provided to our residents and visitors that; “people just can’t live without.”

Public attendance at the Dissolution Committee meetings is beginning to increase.
This is a public forum and I would encourage all interested taxpayers, regardless of your residency location, to attend. The next 2 meetings are planned for May 19th and June 2nd at 7pm in the Village of Johnson City Justice Bldg, 2nd floor. I hope you will join us.