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Vancouver Fire gets response-time goal

The department will shift to smaller vehicles for lower-priority responses to save money and free up larger vehicles

By Stephanie Rice
The Columbian

VANCOUVER, Wash. — The Vancouver City Council agreed Monday to set the Vancouver Fire Department’s current emergency response times, which they’d heard in January but had questions about, as standards to gauge future performance.

In 2005, the state legislature directed fire departments to specify targeted response times, and then report annually on how well those targets are met.

There’s no penalty for not specifying target times, and there are no minimum standards. This is the first time the city council wanted to set such standards, and City Manager Eric Holmes said the standards are just one tool to measure service levels.

Full story: Vancouve Fire Department gets goal for response time