By Jim Balow
The Charleston Gazette
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Slow response times, too many stations and trucks, overworked paramedics, excessive overtime, bad recordkeeping, a perception of aloofness and self-protection.
Consultants who studied the Charleston Fire Department this spring found lots of room for improvement.
The long-awaited written report of Patrick Simpson, senior program manager with the TriData Division of System Planning Corp., finally arrived Monday — just in time to back up Mayor Danny Jones’ plan to turn over operation of the little-used Fire Station 9 on Corridor G to South Charleston.
Simpson’s report calls the transfer of Station 9 a logical first step in improving the layout of the city’s nine fire stations. After analyzing four years of data on fire and ambulance calls from the Metro 911 center and Fire Department, Simpson concluded the department could cover the city just as well with just six more centrally located stations.
“I think it’s a great starting point,” City Manager David Molgaard said Tuesday. “It obviously points out areas we can make improvement, and that’s why we commissioned it in the first place.”
He said the consultant will be in town on July 26 to talk about the report in front of City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
The city hired TriData to study deployment and efficiency within the Fire Department, and to compare it to cities of similar size.
“Any organization can benefit from a good hard look at itself,” Molgaard said. “I think this is the first time we’ve studied the Fire Department like this. It’s such a big piece of what we do, we wanted to bring in professionals.”
TriData said it had problems getting good data from the Kanawha County Metro 911 dispatch center and the city fire department. Metro, it said, uses an antiquated computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system — “the oldest system observed nationally by TriData” — that doesn’t capture GPS coordinates for incidents.
Metro 911 Director Carolyn Charnock said a new system is on the way, now that the county has mapped addresses throughout the county.
Analysis was further complicated by data gaps in fire department records and because the department uses different systems for fire and ambulance calls, TriData said.
Despite the problems, TriData found some clear trends:
- Most fires and ambulance calls cluster in the East End and West Side neighborhoods.
- High-risk fire areas (where fires are likely to spread beyond their origin) cluster on the West Side flats and hill, and north of Washington Street in the East End.
- Total response times — from receiving a dispatch call to arriving on the scene — “are very slow and need to be addressed.”
- None of the city’s fire engines is particular busy, although the workload varies greatly from station to station.
- All four ambulance units stay very busy, and the city should consider adding a fifth ambulance unit.
- Each fire station covers 3.5 square miles and 5,585 people, compared with an average of 4.9 square miles and 9,469 people in similar-sized cities.
- Charlestonians pay $313 each for fire and ambulance service, versus $175 in comparable cities.
- “Charleston far exceeds the average for the amount of money spent on overtime” — 7.4 percent of the department’s budget versus 3 percent in comparable cities.
- The fire department has been outside of central city operations, lending a perception of “isolation, aloofness and self-protection ... that is largely incorrect.”
The transfer of the Corridor G station is just the first step in redeploying fire stations, Molgaard said.
“We’ll be turning our attention to the relocation and building of a new Fire Station No. 3 [on Oakwood Road]. We have set aside some money to do that. The building has structural deficiencies. It makes sense to locate it along Corridor G, a little farther south.”
The city may also move its training facility, now located at 115 Lee St. W., into the new Station 3, he said. “What makes sense is to move the Cora Street Station No. 7 to the Lee Street facility, which could be done easily.” Alternatively the city might move training to the old Chandler Elementary.
“We also look at moving Kanawha City closer to 35th Street. That is something I didn’t anticipate,” Molgaard said. “After we make those moves we look at the data and think about closing Number 5 [Bridge Road].”
The report also suggests closing Station 2 on the West Side by consolidating it with a new Number 8 (now in North Charleston) but says that’s impractical because Number 8 is relatively new.
“The other thing the report points out are data collection and reports, and leave policies. The mayor has already talked about that.
“Overtime, it’s more than double the average. If you look at cost per capita, it’s more than double. There’s going to be scratching of heads, why that is. But it does seem we’re an outlier — something needs to be done.
“The reports lays the foundation for discussion and strategic planning over time, maybe several administrations,” he said. “It may take years to move Number 3. We’ve got a lot to consider, to digest. I hate to get ahead of ourselves on Day Two.”
Jones said he wants to wait for the presentation next week.
“There are some things that look good, like moving the [Cora Street] station closer into the city. It makes more sense,” he said.
City leaders knew the report would recommend another ambulance, the mayor said.
The perception of self-protection has been around for years, Jones said. “I believe that’s a culture.” That’s why dozens of firefighters showed up Monday when City Council discussed the transfer of Station 9 to South Charleston, he said.
He said a firefighter “was distributing leaflets saying Danny Jones is going to close a fire station and raise insurance rates ... it’s just not true.”
Given the city’s long-term budget problems, change is inevitable, Molgaard said. “There’s no silver bullet.
“That said, we’ve got a good department. We’re doing things right. That needs to be mentioned. We’re the go-to department in the state. Our goal is to get even better.”
Copyright 2011 Charleston Newspapers