My sources tell me that a compromise is in the works for Fire Station 11. You may remember that a previous council cut an engine company from the station as a cost-savings move three years ago. Ever since then, every election has included the question of how/when the council will fully staff Fire Station 11.
Well, the fire department has recently been utilizing the city’s GIS system to plot response times from each of the fire stations. Basically, they map out where each fire station is and then draw a circle around it representing a four-minute response time for water coverage. When they analyzed the results of that exercise and looked at where the circles overlapped and intersected, they determined that Fire Station 11’s area of service was adequately covered by the other fire stations.
Although water coverage is good, there is another issue, and that’s Basic Life Support (BLS) calls. In that area, Fire Station 11’s coverage is not so good. Since they don’t have an engine, they have to run a ladder truck for BLS calls. Well, there are many problems with that, not the least of which is speed. People in need of basic life support need help fast, and ladder trucks are not the speediest vehicles.
But another problem is wear and tear on the vehicle. Ladder trucks cost about three quarters of a million dollars and should last 15 to 20 years, according to Fire Prevention Chief Greg Walters (I found this out while researching another story; Walters is not the source for this post). However, by sending the ladder truck out on BLS calls, that’s beating the heck out of the truck and if something doesn’t change they’ll probably have to replace that truck sooner. That kind of blows the cost savings the council was hoping to get by removing the engine company.
So, the compromise that’s being talked about is this: Instead of putting an engine company back in at Fire Station 11 (which is, I believe, 11 firefighters), they would put in, for lack of a better term, a BLS company (which would only be 5 firefighters, if I understand correctly). The BLS company would have their own vehicle, but it wouldn’t be a fire engine or the ladder truck. That would be cheaper than reinstating an engine company (5 more firefighters instead of 11), would save wear and tear on an expensive ladder truck allowing it to stay in service longer, and would adequately serve the Fire Station 11 area.
That’s all the information I have. I couldn’t find anyone willing to talk on the record about it. And I still have some questions, like why couldn’t they just add a vehicle instead of a vehicle and five more guys. If I had to speculate, I’d guess that it has something to do with the firefighters union. But I imagine those details will come out eventually. In fact, I understand it will be coming before the council sometime relatively soon. Said one person I asked for comment, “I don’t want to jinx it.”
Monday, while waiting at the corner of War Memorial Drive and Willow Knolls Road, a fire call went by and the ladder truck (I think T-14)was barreling down War and belching out clouds of dark grey exhaust it was hard to see.
Wait, I’m confused. Haven’t you “Essential Services” types been saying for years that closing Fire Station 11 was seriously jeapordizing the city? “When they analyzed the results of that exercise and looked at where the circles overlapped and intersected, they determined that Fire Station 11’s area of service was adequately covered by the other fire stations.” The life safety calls seem less adequately covered, but does the lack of an engine at #11 equate a serious risk to life. I understand the “wear and tear” issue, and it might likely be valid, but that doesn’t seem to be the same argument that has been bandied about the blogosphere for the past few years.
Progressive, I think slow response times to BLS calls are a serious risk to life, yes.
I’m not saying it isn’t. And you haven’t elaborated (and likely don’t know) how “slow” the response time to BLS calls in this area are. Your post dwelled on the cost of running a ladder truck to these calls.
I’m all for a modification to Station 11 staffing to make the city safer. I’m just pointing out that a lot of what y’all have been basing your arguments/fears on is obviously not true (look at your own post entitled “Better to Let the City Burn…). A fire house on every corner makes everything better, but there needs to be an appropriate deployment of resources based on budget.
“And I still have some questions, like why couldn’t they just add a vehicle instead of a vehicle and five more guys.”
As I understand it, there are two reasons that would be tough.(Man, I hope I have my info right, but I think I do. Others correct me if I’m wrong.)
1. It would require Station 11 to have a “jump crew” able to man either a ladder truck or a rescue vehicle. That requires union approval and special training for the people that work at that station. There are jump crews in place right now (one or two, not sure) but they aren’t popular with the union or the administration. Rescue 1 out of Central House is the only unit that has a dedicated crew for BLS only.
2. If you have a jump crew, that really ties your hands in some cases. An active fire with injuries, for example. One crew and two pieces of equipment solves some problems, creates others, adds flexibility, but also creates some less than desirable scenarios.
Progressive — What’s your point? That the fire department’s willingness to compromise somehow vindicates the previous council’s arbitrary staff cutback? Or that this somehow proves the Journal Star’s contention that we should cut fire fighters so we can hire more police officers? The fire department didn’t say that this solution was optimal, just adequate. Would a two-minute or three-minute response time be better in the older part of the city where a fire threatens not only one house, but the houses on either side? You bet it would. What the fire department is suggesting is a compromise. They’re saying they’ll settle for a four-minute response time. But they won’t settle for the BLS response time, which, as you say, I don’t know what that is. But the fire department apparently feels it’s not good enough.
My point in the post you referenced was this: “police and fire protection should not be pitted against each other for funding. Something is wrong in a city that can’t fully staff their fire stations and provide adequate police protection at the same time.” I still hold that position unapologetically.
As for your statement “there needs to be an appropriate deployment of resources based on budget,” I agree. Just like there needs to be an appropriate buying of food and paying for shelter out of a household budget. You don’t stop paying your mortgage or stop eating so you can spend more money on movies and golfing. There are certain expenses that are basic household needs and are taken out of the budget first. When we talk about a city, fire, police, and public works should be first on the list. You don’t cut fire department staff and lower response times while at the same time subsidizing completely unnecessary things like parking decks and Gateway buildings. That’s irresponsible.
CJ – My point is that for the past few years, many folks in the blogs have demanded no less than full staffing of station 11. They made these claims thinking that we were less safe as a city, less safe to a point of being in danger of disaster. That has been the level of rhetoric. I was pointing to your previous post only to show your participation in the rhetoric: “Better to burn to death…” In rereading your post, I agree with the points you were making about pitting fire and against police and see how you were using that sentence. Had Thetford et al propsed however many years ago to halve #11 instead of closing it, even with the information we have today, people would likely be up in arms.
You post indicates that “fire” protection is adequate. I believe 4 minutes in response is a pretty widely held standard. Is 3 minutes better? Or 2? Sure. Isn’t 1 minute, or 30 seconds better? We need a standard and stick to it. You say this new idea is a compromise. It sounds like a solution. The fire protection is good (or adequate); the BLS response will seemingly improve. It sounds like this might be a compromise between what the Fire union wants and what the budget will allow.
You bring up the “water” issue ( peoria fire machines (pumpers) carry 500 gallons of water and a rated pump , most of the ladder trucks are just ladders and equipment no water or pump) What about the 2nd machine in? where will the ladder machine come from? RIT team? Water is not the only issue. BLS calls are a basic service the PFD provide throught the city. The usage of a ladder truck is a waist of assets as a BLS machine, at least a pumper is a more versatal and flexable equiped machine. I feel that a Pumper is the best and most flexable use of the departments assets. A pumper and crew can do almost anything , Basic Rescue, BLS, Fight Fire,Extracation, and back up another fire engine. A BLS machine is just that a BLS machine.
If they return the ladder truck to Station 3 (which is closer to the Uplands, Moss/Bradley, the university and other areas with $$$ and political clout, and leave the center bluff (not much $$$ and little to no political clout) and sacrifice the more vulnerable areas where lots are smaller and houses nearly touch then the budget saves a significant amount of money, which can put more roads and projects into the 5th district. The arguement with the GIS has been made and most surely they will go for it. The 4 minute response time for the area assumes that the other 2nd district station is not busy. We will lose out on this one too, but with the uncontrollable slum lords pumping in more thugs by the day maybe it is more cost effective to burn them out anyway.
I think this is a good solution if implemented to address the only area where a potential lack of service exists – BLS calls. A jump crew makes perfect sense, but as J. Ahl points out, it’s not possible without the fire union’s approval.
The interesting this is that this isn’t a NEW proposal and in fact was one that was considered as part of the original cuts made many years ago. As I understand it, it was rejected by the Fire Department because they couldn’t look at anything or agree to anything other than the status quo. The data available at the time of the closure of the one piece of equipment clearly showed that there was adequate coverage from the surrounding stations — that’s the factual basis that was used in selecting that option.
I give big kudos to whomever is behind this more rationale approach to addressing the situation and the cooler heads that appear to be prevailing at the present time!
Progressive writes:
“CJ – My point is that for the past few years, many folks in the blogs have demanded no less than full staffing of station 11. They made these claims thinking that we were less safe as a city, less safe to a point of being in danger of disaster. That has been the level of rhetoric.”
Not knowing where you reside or what your knowledge is about older neighborhoods and response times for police and fire — just framing for context …. in the case of police vehicles on patrol at one time — it is a limited number — CJ or pdw or Martin or someone else — please provide the exact number (or an approximation) — take that number and take one incident that happened in my neighborhood within the last thirty days and compute the level of rhetoric.
One incident involving four (4) people resulted in ten (10) patrol cars and one (1) police SUV type vehicle for more than one (1) hour and the incident occurred on a Monday night.
Now, take the total patrol cars (x),and subtract ten patrol cars = ___________ left to patrol our city which over the last several years has annexed hundreds of acres. (x – 10 = _____)
“In danger of disaster,” you decide!
Thank you Karrie, for contributing nothing. First, we are talking about the fire department. How many fire stations would you like to see? Sticking with your police problem, how many cars should be available at any one moment? We can have all sorts of things, but there are constraints. Some are realistic, some are budgetary, and some we impose on ourselves (for good or bad reasons).
“Monday, while waiting at the corner of War Memorial Drive and Willow Knolls Road, a fire call went by and the ladder truck (I think T-14)was barreling down War and belching out clouds of dark grey exhaust it was hard to see.”
Left by Karrie E. Alms
Karrie, the truck has what is called a diesel engine. When cold and trying to produce power, this is what they do. It is a normal characteristic of a large diesel engine. It isn’t a sign of impending doom or lack of maintenance. Once warmed up, it will send out lessor amounts of smoke. Grey vs black, sooty smoke signifies it is probably in great shape, btw.
mdd: Thanks for the mentoring! 🙂
Progressive: IF decisions are made based on the facts — then we need enough to provide BLS and other fire services for all citizens. Adequate is what we seem to use as the standard in Peoria instead of superior. That is why we employ professionals — as in the fire officials — however, because our city council continues to spend money on bread and circus/build it they will come to Peoria projects that do not pain out — then money to be used for essential services —- fire, police, public works would be available. Think better equipment for public works during the snow storms…. So many situations are based on connections, perks, clout, what’s in it for me et al that the future of our city stalls or goes backwards because we are not united in purpose nor direction. You choose to be rude in your comments, rather than trying to see another’s point of view.
Please review pdw’s comments and you might understand. We need to be proactive, not just bare minimum — now that would be progressive thinking for Peoria.
Karrie,
Sorry if that came out rude. I was just trying to point out that your example of 10 police cars responding to a crime scene, leaving less to patrol the streets, didn’t do anything to further the discussion on fire departments.
All — I’m not defending the decision to close Fire Station 11. Just pointing out that most of you have been clamoring for its full re-opening, in the absence of any facts. I decided to look up the national standard for response times, set by the National Fire Protection Agency. They say that you should be able to get 1 unit to a fire within 4 minutes 90% of the time (and a “full alarm deployment” within 8 minutes). Is meeting the standard simply being adequate? Or is it being superior. I don’t know what the national average for response times is, so I don’t know how to rank Peoria’s performance.
I’m advocating that we adopt a standard and allocate our resources appropriately. That same website said that BLS response times should also be 4 minutes. (Does this proposal for #11 fit that model?)
You all seem to act as though the Fire Department might not have other motives at play. Guess what, its a bureaucracy!! No bureaucracy willing give up money, and all fight to get it back. Look at J. Ahl’s post — the Union is preventing some of the options that might be better for Peoria. I just think we need to have a rationale policy with reasonable goals and not go off half-cocked if we perceive we aren’t getting our fair share of some pie. We have a world-class Fire Department, and this “compromise” sounds like a pretty good solution.
I think Karrie’s point stems from the two stations in the 2nd distric, neither being fully equipped. The example of the numerous police cars at an incident and there not being coverage is likened to the fire department in the following manner; Say we take the ladder truck and put in in station 3, we have no fire protection at station 11 at all. Station three responds to a call, it is one of the busiest stations. As station 11 has no fire fighting capacity, there is no coverage in the 2nd district under these circumstances and we have to pull from 13 perhaps being the next closest, increasing response time. Problem is a fire in my neighborhood, with 33′ ave lots means one fire is most likely going to spread to at least one other house. The houses are wood framed, older, close together, some with the eaves nearly touching. While fire proction is not as visibly needed as police (as there are many more crimes than fires), it is none the less important. Whose area are we willing to sacrifice? The arguements now are we have adequate coverage based on GIS mapping technology. This is a political question, I would strongly guess there are not enough votes to fund station 11, hence a scramble to try to fullfill election promises.
I would guess that a new firestation will need to be funded out north. Clearly the appearance is that one more thing is pulled from the older neighborhoods to go out north and it will be, but in order to put the necessary spin on this topic, we substitute one thing for another a violia we shift to a new topic. This changed a bit ago. The cry was we must fully staff station 11 to we will rely on the professional opinion of the fire chief. I am not sure folks caught that shift.
What BLS machinery are we going to put in? It would seem that AMT has that covered already and I believe that there have been multiple discussions about the types of services the fire department provides vs. AMT. There was an agreement to this effect when the city balanced last year’s budget by taxing the non profit, AMT. So what else is in play here?
Progressive: regarding the piece of pie and fighting over it. Where is the bulk of the city’s investment? It is in the growth cells as noted by the capital budget expenditures, staff time, the lure of developers, the deals being made, etc. that leaves little after paying off the increased bond debt to try to make capital improvements in areas of the city at or near pr even over 100 years old. Since that investment strategy has allowed and fostered further decay in the south end, near north side and the East Bluff and other areas, the required capital has increased exponentially to the point it simply is no longer feasible in this budget. This could have been prevented in a balanced approach allowing for capital improvements, aka sidewalks, curbs, etc in a structured and planfull manner, designed to keep up with need via sections of town or some other cohesive system, rather than fixing up a little here and there. The question is regarding the capital budget: are we going to continue to current trend or are we going to begin some serious reinvestment in other areas?
It’s time to think outside of the box (Station 11). If residents of the center bluff can convince the politicians that they need better emergency medical services than are currently provided, then the question is not where is the fire truck, but where is the ambulance? The paramedics on the ambulance bring the highest level of training and equipment to the patient in need. The response time of AMT is truly the question if emergency medical services is the issue.
Is AMT being dispatched with the same urgency as the Peoria Fire Department? In other words, are there calls where the fire department is sent with lights and sirens, while the ambulance is told to just drive to the scene? If so, that does make the response time issue a bit cloudy.
Paul: Thank you for your help in putting my comments and the issue before in clearer context.
It is indeed sad that residents are continually pitted against each other to obtain services and allocate resources vs. having a united purpose and plan that we would all be safe and secure. We live in one city that is us vs. them in too many arenas.
JFD,
I don’t believe the quality of medical services is in question. the fire dept. is always dispatched regardless. AMT is being charged a dispatch fee this is because when we dial 911 and have a medical emergency the dispatcher sends a fire truck and pushes a button to shift the call information to AMT who dispatches their own ambulances. they have a tracking system for ambulances and their own command center. the 911 system only gives the information from the caller to AMT nothing more. Tothe rest of your question I don’t know. I would not imagine that the fire department is scrambling while AMT paramendics are told to finish their sandwhich first then head on over, that is silly.
Karrie, that is why this comprehensive plan is important. All of the city’s needs must be placed in the plan as it is supposed to determine resource planning (including funding) of needs and wants. it is supposed to be a vision for the city for the next 15+ years. It should be a balanced approach to both development and restoration/maintainance. Right now it is very lopsided and we are reaping the problems associated with that along with the benefits of the same strategy. Again a political decision: does the benefit of the increased tax dollars from north weigh in against the increase in violence and the decay in the core. It shouldn’t be a wait and see decision, each decision made either adds to or detracts from that strategy.
With that being said, the next comprehensive planning session is on June 11th, twin towers room 420 at 5:30-roughly 7:30pm. I believe the topic is infastructure. This would be streets, sidewalks, curbs, etc. Narrow Main St. and Sheridan Rd as some neighborhoods want or increase Alta rd, etc. as some other neighborhoods want. Good place to put in HOP values for those areas.
Progressive:
http://www.pjstar.com/stories/061407/TRI_BDGE5597.013.php
If accurate, this is an example of our lack of preparedness.
Karrie – I did see that article, and it is disturbing. Does it sound to you to be a case of underfunding or mismanagement? Other than staffing #11, I’m not sure the Fire Department has been denied an appropriate budget for their needs. It all leads to unpreparedness, but you need to figure out the source of the situation and correct that.