In the nearly three months since a Concord Fire Department engine was taken out of service at nights, other parts of the department are feeling the loss.
The number of times that Concord's ladder company has been called out at night for emergency medical calls has increased sixfold. And the number of times firefighters from the Heights station have needed to leave their district at night to help another station nearly tripled, according to a report released Friday by Fire Chief Dan Andrus.
The report is the first in a series of quarterly reports that Andrus will provide to the city council monitoring the effects of this year's budget cuts.
"The purpose of evaluating changes made last year is so we can make better, more well-informed decisions in the next year," Concord Mayor Jim Bouley said. "We'll continue to monitor it and make sure we meet the standards the city wants us to adhere to."
During discussions of the city budget in June, the city council eliminated funding for three vacant positions in the fire department and lowered the amount of money budgeted for overtime. The department said it would save the money by taking Engine One out of service at nights, which would reduce the nightly minimum staffing level by three people. The engine, which is based in the Central Fire Station, is one of four in the city.
The engine went out of service Aug. 2 and was not used for 64 nights between then and Oct. 20. In his report, Andrus looked at three measures to determine the effects of losing Engine One: the number of emergency medical calls handled by the city's ladder company, the impact on the city's three other fire stations and the impact on the four major fires that occurred in Concord during that time.
If an emergency medical call comes in, Andrus said it is common practice to send the closest vehicle. Three ambulances are stationed at the city's three other fire stations. But if a medical call comes into the central station, the engine company, whose staff included a firefighter/EMT and firefighter/medic, used to get called out. Now, the station's ladder company is sent instead.
Between August and October, the ladder company was sent out on 68 night medical calls, compared with an average of 11 night medical calls during the same time period between 2005 and 2007. The number of medical calls it responded to during the day, when the engine is in service, increased by less than four calls.
Andrus said the ladder company is the only vehicle in the city that has a ladder and is therefore able to reach heights, set up ventilation in a search-and-rescue operation or help with forcible entry. It also gives support for hose line operations. "It's the toolbox of the fire scene," Andrus said.
Because the ladder truck is large, it also has a higher rate of fuel consumption than the engine.
"Taking it on more calls exposes it to accidents, to being taken out of service. It's quite an investment in terms of fire resources," Andrus said.
The loss of Engine One also placed a larger burden on the three other fire stations - the Broadway, Heights and Manor stations - to respond to calls outside of their district. Stations typically respond to other districts either when there are multiple calls in one district at the same time or when an incident requires more people or equipment than a single station can handle.
The biggest increase was felt at the Heights station, where out- of-district responses at night were up from an average of about 23 responses from August through October 2005-07 to 64 responses in 2008. The Broadway station also showed a large increase, from 29 responses on average during the past three years to 51 responses this year. The Manor station showed the least impact, going from 12 to 16 responses.
During the day, the number of out-of-district responses actually decreased at two of three stations, largely because of an experimental policy that reduces the number of vehicles sent to automatic fire alarms during the day.
Andrus said the number of out-of-district responses is significant because when firefighters are covering another district, they are no longer available for an incoming call in their own district. "When any of the stations are out, in a city of 64 square miles, that leaves a lot of area uncovered," Andrus said.
So far, there is no statistical evidence as to how much of an impact there has been on actual service to residents. Andrus said future reports will look at response times to determine how much longer it has actually taken residents to see a fire service vehicle during emergencies.
Andrus said that in the four major fires the city has had since the change went into effect, the second engine arrived about two minutes later than it would have had Engine One been in service. This resulted in delays in obtaining water supplies and putting additional lines in service and left the first crew to operate on its own for a longer time. But Andrus said there is "no definitive link between this delay and the outcome of the fire." None of the crews actually ran out of water, and there is no evidence that the level of damage increased because of the delay.
Andrus said the city was also lucky because in each of these cases all of the city's units were available and not out on other calls.
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