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Wanted: More professional firefighters
By WENDILYN GRASSESCHI, News-Record Writer wgrasseschi@gillettenewsrecord.net
The Campbell County Fire Department wants four more professional firefighters at a cost of $284,236 to bring its response time to fires closer to a national average.The department is unusual because it heavily uses volunteers and has 178 volunteers compared to 19 career firefighters. While that has created one of the lowest operating budgets in the state, getting all the volunteers in place for a fire can take longer than if the fire department was staffed with career firefighters, said Dale Izatt, chief of volunteers for the department.
“It takes us an average of about 12.12 minutes to get a water or ladder truck to the site of an emergency (within the city limits),” he told the Gillette City Council on Monday. “While this is good for a combined volunteer and career fire department, we think we can do better.”
Command vehicles carrying initial response crews do arrive faster ” in about five minutes, he said.
The national average for the equipment vehicles is about 5 minutes or less at least half of the time, he said.
Five minutes is the goal is because national studies show that a fire usually stays contained to one room for five minutes, Izatt said. In seven minutes, it moves to other rooms. In 12 to 15 minutes, it begins to spread to other buildings.
“At what point will this 12-minute response time become a liability, especially as the county continues to grow and the number of houses increases?” he asked.
Another four firefighters would allow the fire department to staff another shift, helping to drop response time, he said. Volunteers would get more training and other firefighters duties, such as community education, could continue without the constant interruptions that now occur.
The downside is it will cost the county and city $284,236 to fund the four positions. Because the county pays for 80 percent of the operating cost of the fire department and the City of Gillette pays for 20 percent, the bulk of that cost would be born by the county.
The City Council did not make any commitments to the fire department’s proposal, but indicated it would consider the request as it went through the budget process over the next few months.
The fire department also asked the City Council to agree to share the cost of doing a structural integrity study on the old Gillette College Diesel Tech building at Second Street and 4J Road that the department hopes to turn into a maintenance building.
The money would come from a pool of money ” about $259,000 ” left over from the construction of the new fire station. The money is expected to go toward buying land for more, smaller fire stations in the county ” a need that was identified last year.
The study is expected to cost no more than $10,000 and will ensure that the building, especially the floor, can withstand the heavy equipment that would be parked in it. The city/county cost-share agreement for all fire department building costs is about 50/50, with Wright paying 1 percent.
The council did agree to help pay its share of the structural integrity study.
The council also asked the fire department board of directors to place the remainder of the $259,000 into the city and county’s respective budgets so it will be available when the county identifies the properties it wants for the fire stations.
The city and county and Wright must then all agree on how and where to spend that money.
MORE WAYS TO CLIP FIRE RESPONSE TIME
- Change dispatch procedures so calls for aid go immediately to the fire department, not to the sheriff’s office, where the information is now taken and then relayed to the fire department. This could save one to two minutes a call, Chief Don Huber said.
- Install a high tech traffic light system that will change red lights to green when a fire truck needs to get through. This would prevent the fire trucks from needing to slow down at red lights.
INCREASE IN FIRE CALLS OVER TIME
- 2003: 1,877 calls
- 2005: 2,035 calls
- 2008: 2,228 calls
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