By FireRescue1 Staff
Full Report: 2008 Fire Chiefs Opinions survey report (PDF)
Food for Thought from The Kitchen Table: Alliance Reliance
 Photo Scott LaPrade/Smoke Showing Photography Mutual aid from numerous communities respond to a fast-moving fire that destroyed a 141-year-old church in January, 2008. Many of the hydrants in the area were dead, so companies had to relay water up to the fire from miles away from the scene. |
JERSEY CITY, NJ — More than 50 percent of fire departments in the United States rely on mutual aid to boost the number of responders at incidents, according to a new survey.
Staffing levels were among a range of challenges highlighted in the survey by ISO. Chiefs polled also outlined recruiting and training difficulties, as well as water service issues.
“We hope the results of the study will highlight the critical challenges facing fire chiefs as they manage their limited resources,” said Mike Waters, ISO’s vice president of risk decision services.
The survey included responses from a random sample of 500 chiefs and other ranking fire department officials representing jurisdictions of all sizes across the country.
Mutual Aid
Fifty-four percent of chiefs said their departments “always or almost
always” call on neighboring departments to respond to the initial alarm for a structure fire, while 28 percent reported that they sometimes request help.
Among the chiefs who call on neighboring departments on the first alarm, 74 percent said a very significant reason for doing so is the need for more responders; 29 percent said a need for specialized apparatus or equipment is very significant; and 25 percent cited as very significant the fact that a neighboring fire station is closer to the response area than any station in their own district.
Waters said the survey will help ISO — along with property/casualty insurance companies and the firefighting community — gain further insights into key issues facing fire departments.
Nearly all of the chiefs polled (98 percent) indicated that their departments have the capacity to communicate by radio directly with fire departments of neighboring communities. Ninety-five percent said they can also communicate directly with local emergency medical services, with 84 percent saying they can communicate directly with local police.
“This positive finding shows that local interoperability — the ability to connect emergency responders — is on the rise,” said Robert W. Cobb, ISO’s director of community hazard mitigation. “We’ll continue to track emergency communications as one of the key elements of an effective fire-suppression program.”
Recruitment and retention
The study also revealed that communities with volunteer fire departments — or combination volunteer and paid/career departments — are having difficulty attracting and training a sufficient number of firefighters. Among the chiefs of volunteer and combination departments polled, 93 percent said that the biggest challenge surrounding recruitment is the time commitment. A small volunteer pool (84 percent) and education and training requirements (83 percent) were also cited as obstacles.
More than one-third of the chiefs (36 percent) said their departments spend less than 10 hours per firefighter per month on training; 42 percent spend between 10 and 20 hours; and 22 percent spend more than 20 hours.
Food for thought from  | |
| “Notwithstanding the current economic conundrum Chiefs are unwillingly facing, there are some underlying plausible solutions to these perpetual problems. Historically, little has been done to progressively solve some of them other than to rely on shoring up gaps in staffing by buying bigger trucks.” — Erich Roden in Alliance Reliance | |
The average percentage of training hours spent on structure fires (42 percent) is double that spent on rescue incidents (21 percent) and also double that spent on EMS or other medical services (21 percent).
Water supply
The study also raised questions about the adequacy of the water supply in communities across the country. About 4 percent of the chiefs polled said that there is no water service for firefighting in their communities, and another 11 percent said they rely on sources of water other than hydrants — including lakes, ponds, rivers, creeks, wells, or tankers.
In communities that have water service for firefighting, only 52 percent of chiefs said that hydrants protect “all or almost all” of their primary response areas. In communities with water service, 23 percent of the chiefs said that the responsible agency or organization inspects and flow-tests the hydrants less than once a year.
Waters said the survey, conducted by Opinion Research Corporation on behalf of ISO, highlighted the need to understand the actual situation on the ground when evaluating fire protection at a particular location.
“It’s not enough to know there’s a fire station nearby,” he said. “You also have to know if the station will respond to a possible fire and if there will be enough trained personnel, adequate equipment, and sufficient water for firefighting, among other things.”