Last month a father and son died during a house fire on Boxelder Drive in Loveland. While some residents began calling 911 between 11:10 to 11:15 pm, the emergency response team wasn’t dispatched until 11:27 and nobody arrived on scene until 6 minutes later at 11:33 pm. It was too late.
The fire on Boxelder Drive has reignited a debate within Loveland’s city hall as to whether the city’s 5 minute emergency response requirement anywhere in the city is feasible given the dramatic growth Loveland has experienced during the past decade and the failure of the former city council to properly invest in the fire services commensurate with that growth in population. While the Boxelder fire was only 3 minutes from a fire station, the “Incident Investigation Report” failed to flag it as a concern.
City Manager Don Williams has long been an advocate of lowering resident expectations for emergency services by promoting the removal of the 5 minute rule, advocating greater spacing between fire stations and by postponing building another fire station in Centerra. The Boxelder fire is a reminder that such actions can cost lives in an emergency (crews cannot cover larger areas without reducing their response time to residences closer to their station at the same time).
In November of 2007, Williams talked a lame duck council into spending $6 million on land speculation to buy 97 acres along the I-25 next to Johnstown while paying for half of it with funds he took from the money collected through Fire CEF’s (Capital Expansion Fees) to help our fire services keep pace with population growth.
In one breath Williams says no money is available for new stations or equipment replacement (June 2009) while in the other he supports a council waiver of McWhinney’s obligation to pay CEF’s.
Investing nearly $3 million in Fire CEF’s into property along I-25 near Johnstown was a terrible mistake as the property has plummeted in value and the city’s emergency services capital expansion money is stranded in the bad investment. Whether that money can be recouped as commercial land values recover still remains to be seen.
In the meantime, the tragic deaths of two residents from smoke inhalation should not be ignored and residents need to respond. Local government’s primary function is to protect the Health, Welfare and Safety of its citizens. Until Loveland’s Fire Department can promise every resident a response within 5 minutes to a house fire, the CEF’s were collected in vein and Lovelanders’ quality of life has suffered.
The city council needs to replace the $3 million stranded in the failed property speculation (97 acres near Johnstown) plus the funds which McWhinney didn’t pay due to their special tax holiday waiver last year.
Read our story about the fire and diversion of critical resources needed to expand the fire services.
Why don’t you also cover the furloughs in our police department? They have been short staffed because of the mandatory furlough Fridays Don Williams put into place last winter. We agree that budget issues should not impact public safety.
On the marijuana, why doesn’t the council limit the zone for medical marijuana dispensaries anywhere in Centerra?
The nationwide requirement is 8 minutes so loveland hasn’t fallen behind the national minimum standard even if we can no longer meet the 5 minute response time rule.
It doesn’t matter what the city council says because there is no way we can respond in 5 minutes with the size of loveland today unless they increase our current staffing levels and authorize overtime. The Chief cares if we get there after 8 minutes but as long as we make it in 8 minutes there is no problem.
It doesn’t matter where the station is since most guys train on duty so the distance from the training area or another call is what counts on the clock.
yeah….they need to build more stations and train more crews because sometimes it can get a little hairy especially when going to support Station 5 and getting back in 10 minutes for an AFA.
I am interested to know who changed the response time requirement and whether insurance companies covering houses in Loveland were notified? If we can’t get service faster than people in the county why are we paying more taxes and higher prices for our homes to live in Loveland?
Actually, FirstResponder, the national recommended standard for TOTAL response time (including from the time the call is logged, not from time of dispatch) is 6 minutes. i.e. 1 minute for dispatch, 1 min. for response, 4 minutes drive time.
(See: http://www.boston.com/news/special/fires/about.html)
The 8-minute goal is one for deployment of “full alarm assignment”. Most of the dispatched units didn’t arrive until 10 minutes or more after the initial alarm.
Again, this is not primarily the Chief’s responsibility…it is City Hall’s responsibility to make sure there are adequate resources deployed. The direct attempt by Williams to reduce the standard, and the de facto weakening of the Fire Dep’t’s ability to respond to the stated and long-standing 5 min. response time, which is the result of inadequate moneys in CEFs, is laid squarely at the feet of City Staff and Council which rubber stamped their requests.
I said if we make it under 8 minutes in loveland there is not problem. The “average” response time in the US is 8 minutes. The goal is 6 minutes but i don’t know anyone say in Chicago land who makes it in under 6 minutes.
The Boxelder fire probably looked like BBQ smoke so dispatch wanted to wait until the rp could confirm there was really a fire there. We don’t roll when people can’t confirm it is an emergency because we don’t have enough guys to cover every lead in town. We don’t really disagree but you can’t complain because we are doing a lot more now with less.
FR:
I’m not sure I agree that if you make it in under 8 minutes there’s no problem… obviously in some cases there certainly is, and there’s clear correspondence in studies between mortality, property damage and response times.
But you’re right, you’re doing more with less. That (and the fact that there aren’t enough resources to provide fuller coverage/response) was the point of the article. No one can blame the FD. But someone else DOES make the decisions to cut or not allocate the needed resources. needed. And the reasons for that have to do with putting resources into other politically favored things, like rewarding land speculation and the development industry.
This is exactly the same attitude the city manager takes with public funding he allegedly planned to use for public safety. I’m speaking specifically about the $19 million + Tabor dollars the city manager got for “public safety”. Why don’t you ask Don Williams how much of that he allocated for public safety and how much he designated to pave Taft Avenue for the third time in as many years and on other useless projects. Our police and fire departments are hugely understaffed and under-funded but that’s fine with Don Williams. Don’t take my word for it. Look into it for yourself – PLEASE!