folsom (sacramento), ca management consultants

Deployment Study

for the

April 28, 2011

Management Consultants Folsom (Sacramento), CA

Volume 1 of 3 – Main Report

2250 East Bidwell St., Ste #100 Folsom, CA 95630

(916) 458-5100 Fax: (916) 983-2090

Station designed by RRM Design GroupSource: http://fire.georgetown.org/

Georgetown, TX

and Williamson County

ESD #8 Fire Department

Table of Contents page i

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Section Page

VOLUME 1 of 3 – (this volume)

Executive Summary ...................................................................................................................... 1

Policy Choices Framework ......................................................................................... 1

Overall Citygate Perspective on the State of Georgetown’s Fire Services ................. 2

Main Challenges .......................................................................................................... 2

Phasing and Costs ........................................................................................................ 7

Phase One ........................................................................................................... 7

Phase Two .......................................................................................................... 7

Phase Three ........................................................................................................ 7

Phase Four .......................................................................................................... 7

Section 1—Introduction and Background .................................................................................. 9

1.1 Report Organization ........................................................................................... 9

1.1.1 Goals of Report ...................................................................................... 9

1.1.2 Limitations of Report ........................................................................... 10

1.2 Background ...................................................................................................... 10

1.3 Georgetown Project Approach and Research Methods .................................... 11

1.4 Georgetown Fire Department Background Information .................................. 11

1.5 Regulations Affecting the Fire Service ............................................................ 13

1.6 Negative Pressures on Volunteer-based Fire Services ..................................... 14

Section 2—Standards of Response Cover (Station/Staffing) Analysis ................................... 16

2.1 General Fire Deployment Background Information ........................................ 16

2.2 Georgetown Community Outcome Expectations – What is Expected of the

Fire Department? .............................................................................................. 18

2.2.1 Georgetown Existing Policy ................................................................. 20

2.3 Georgetown Fire Risk Assessment ................................................................... 21

Table of Contents page ii

2.3.1 Building Fire Risk ................................................................................ 23

2.3.2 Special Hazard Risks ............................................................................ 24

2.3.3 Wildland Fire Risk ............................................................................... 24

2.3.4 Desired Outcomes ................................................................................ 25

2.4 Staffing – What Must Be Done Over What Timeframe to Achieve the

Stated Outcome Expectation? .......................................................................... 25

2.4.1 Offensive vs. Defensive Strategies in Structure Fires Based on Risk

Presented .............................................................................................. 26

2.4.2 Daily Unit Staffing in the City ............................................................. 28

2.4.3 Staffing Discussion ............................................................................... 28

2.4.4 Company Critical Task Time Measures ............................................... 29

2.4.5 Critical Task Measures Evaluation ....................................................... 32

2.5 Current Station Location Configurations ......................................................... 34

2.5.1 Possible Future Deployment Scenarios ................................................ 39

2.6 Mapping Measures Evaluation ......................................................................... 42

2.7 Current Workload Statistics Summary ............................................................. 42

2.7.1 Incident Types ...................................................................................... 44

2.7.2 Demand by Station Area ...................................................................... 48

2.7.3 Georgetown Response Times ............................................................... 48

2.7.4 Response Time Component Measurements ......................................... 50

2.7.5 Simultaneous Call Measurements ........................................................ 52

2.7.6 Interdepartmental Aid – Automatic and Mutual .................................. 53

2.7.7 First Alarm Fractile Compliance .......................................................... 54

2.7.8 Response Time Statistics Discussion ................................................... 54

2.7.9 Integrated Fire Station Deployment Recommendations ...................... 56

Section 3—Fiscal Impacts .......................................................................................................... 60

3.1 Component Costs ............................................................................................. 60

Section 4—Recommended Solutions and Phasing Plan .......................................................... 61

4.1 Deployment Plan Findings and Recommendations .......................................... 61

Table of Contents page iii

4.2 Priorities and Timing ........................................................................................ 65

4.2.1 Phase One ............................................................................................. 65

4.2.2 Phase Two ............................................................................................ 65

4.2.3 Phase Three .......................................................................................... 65

4.2.4 Phase Four ............................................................................................ 66

Table of Tables

Table 1—Units and Daily Staffing Plan ....................................................................................... 28

Table 2—Critical Tasks – Structure Fires .................................................................................... 30

Table 3—Critical Tasks – Auto Incident – 2 Vehicle, 2 Patients – Ambulance Transport .......... 31

Table 4—Added Main Roads Versus No New Main Road Measures .......................................... 41

Table 5—Incidents: Annual Count by Incident Type ................................................................... 45

Table 6—Property Use: Annual Count by Property Classification .............................................. 46

Table 7—Total Response Time Fractile Measures ....................................................................... 49

Table 8—Total Response Times by Service Area ........................................................................ 49

Table 9—Travel Time by Service Area ........................................................................................ 50

Table 10—Georgetown Call-Handling Time Performance (09/10) ............................................. 51

Table 11—Georgetown Company Turnout Time Performance (09/10) ....................................... 51

Table 12—Georgetown Travel Time Performance (09/10).......................................................... 51

Table 13—Simultaneous Incidents Frequency ............................................................................. 53

Table 14—Mutual/Auto Aid Report for All Incidents ................................................................. 54

Table 15—Fractile Performance of First Alarm Units ................................................................. 54

Table 16—Proposed Deployment Measures for Georgetown Growth ......................................... 58

Table 17—Response Time Measures by Population .................................................................... 59

Table 18—Component Costs of Adding a Single Fire Company Fire Station ............................. 60

VOLUME 2 of 3 – Map Atlas (separately bound)

VOLUME 3 of 3 – Statistical Appendix (separately bound)

Executive Summary page 1

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The City of Georgetown retained Citygate Associates, LLC to conduct a fire department

planning study to include:

A Standard of Response Cover planning analysis (fire station and crew

deployment) to examine the levels of fire department service by occupancy type

and land use classification;

Fire station and staffing infrastructure triggers for additional resources, if needed;

Order of magnitude costs and possible financing strategies for changes to the Fire

Department.

This comprehensive study is presented in several sections including: this Executive Summary

summarizing the most important findings and recommendations; the fire station/crew

deployment analysis supported by maps and response statistics; and the fiscal costs associated

with the proposed recommendations. The final section integrates all of the findings and a

recommendation presented throughout the report and concludes with suggested priorities.

It needs to be stated at the front of this study that Citygate Associates team members who spent

time in the City of Georgetown found the fire staff at all levels very cooperative and helpful.

They are committed to their city, agency, and mission. Given the struggle to keep service levels

strong while coping with tight revenues, there is pride and on-going effort to deliver the best

customer service with the currently available resources. Fires are being suppressed and medical

calls are being answered with excellent patient care. This study should be taken in the context of

a best practices ―tune-up‖ to provide strategies for growing fire services over time as the City

and Williamson County Emergency Services District #8 (ESD) grow.

POLICY CHOICES FRAMEWORK

As a starting point, Georgetown leadership needs to remember that there are no mandatory

federal or state regulations directing the level of fire service staffing, response times and

outcomes. Thus, communities have the level of fire services that they can afford, which is not

always what they would desire. However, the body of regulations on the fire service provides

that if fire services are provided at all, they must be done so with the safety of the firefighters and

citizens in mind (see regulatory discussion on page 13). Given this situation, the overall

challenge for the City and ESD #8 is to design fire services within the fiscal constraints that limit

their ability to staff, train and equip a safe and effective fire/medical response force.


OVERALL CITYGATE PERSPECTIVE ON THE STATE OF GEORGETOWN’S FIRE SERVICES

In brief, Citygate finds that the challenge of providing fire services in Georgetown is similar to

that found in many Texas communities: providing an adequate level of fire services within the

context of limited fiscal resources, competing needs, growing populations and the uncertainty

that surrounds the exact timing and location of future development.

The City of Georgetown has adequate fire station coverage in the core of the City and ESD #8

areas, partially because of its automatic aid relationship with its neighboring fire department on

its southern border.

Citygate’s deployment study findings recommend that Georgetown needs additional fire stations

to be added over time as growth and fiscal conditions allow.

Citygate evaluated all aspects of the Fire Department deployment system during the preparation

of this study and several challenges for the Department emerged. To address each of these

challenges, Citygate makes observations, key findings and, where appropriate, specific action

item recommendations that deserve specific and particular consideration. Starting in Section 4

on page 61, all the findings and recommendations are presented together, in order. Overall, there

are 13 key findings and 6 specific action item recommendations.

MAIN CHALLENGES

One can summarize the fire service challenges that face the City and ESD #8 in two themes:

(1) insufficient quantity of fire stations; and (2) the need for adopted policy goal statements to

drive the timing of future fire station and the addition of specialty equipment.

Fire department deployment, simply stated, is about the speed and weight of the attack. Speed

calls for first-due, all-risk intervention units (engines, ladder trucks and specialty companies)

strategically located across a department. These units are tasked with controlling everyday,

average emergencies without the incident escalating to second alarm or greater size, which then

unnecessarily depletes the department’s resources as multiple requests for service occur. Weight

is about multiple-unit response for significant emergencies like a ―room and contents structure

fire,‖ a multiple-patient incident, a vehicle accident with extrication required, or a complex

rescue or wildland fire incident. In these situations, departments must assemble enough

firefighters in a reasonable period in order to control the emergency safely without it escalating

to greater alarms.

In Section 2 of this study, Standards of Response Cover (Station/Staffing) Analysis, Citygate’s

analysis of prior response statistics and use of geographic mapping tools reveals that the City has

a fire station location issue to rectify as fiscal resources allow.


While no one city (even a metropolitan one) can stand by itself and handle everything and any

possibility without help, a desirable goal is to field enough of a response force to handle a

community’s day-to-day responses for primary single-unit response needs equitably to all

neighborhoods, as well as be able to provide an effective initial response force (first alarm) to

moderately serious building fires.

Thus, Citygate’s key deployment findings and recommendations are summarized below. For

reference purposes, the findings and recommendation numbers refer to the sequential numbers in

the main body of the report. Note that not all findings and recommendations that appear in the

full report are listed in this Executive Summary; only the most significant are.

Finding #1: Georgetown does not have a complete fire deployment measure adopted by the

City Council and the ESD #8 Board that meets current best practices

recommendations to include a beginning time measure starting from the point of

dispatch receiving the 911-phone call, and a goal statement tied to risks and

outcome expectations. The deployment measure should have a second

measurement statement to define multiple-unit response coverage for serious

emergencies. Making these deployment goal changes will meet the best practice

recommendations of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.

Finding #2: ESD #8 is not substantially developed enough in terms of population density and

building development to desire an urban level of first-due fire unit coverage,

which is 4 minutes of travel time for the best possible outcomes.

Finding #3: The City and ESD are very difficult to cover efficiently with a cost-effective

number of fire stations due to the amount of areas without cross-connect roads

and a curvilinear street design system.

Finding #4: Given the expected growth, to increase best practice travel time coverage in the

urban to suburban areas, at least four more fire stations are necessary.

Finding #7: With a department-wide EMS incident first-due unit performance of 10:10

minutes/seconds at 90.0 percent, the four-station system in this study’s data did

not come close to delivering at a Citygate recommended best practice goal point

of 7 minutes, 90 percent of the time for the first-due unit. Due to longer turnout

times to building fires, the 90 percent measure was even longer at 11:10

minutes/seconds.

Finding #8: Both the dispatch and crew turnout times are over a Citygate recommended goal

point by a combined time of 1:40 minutes/seconds. Focus on procedures and

training on both these steps can easily reduce dispatch to 1 minute and turnout to

2 minutes maximum at the 90 percent point for EMS calls department-wide.


Doing so would save a combined 1:40 minutes/seconds and bring the department-

wide 90 percent performance measure to 8:30 minutes/seconds without adding

more field resources.

Finding #11: For multiple-unit coverage to serious incidents (first alarm), the current

Georgetown system delivers weak performance by delivering four stations by

16:20 minutes/seconds 90 percent of the time. Improving this measure will

require additional fire stations.

Finding #12: Given the diversity of population densities in the City and ESD #8, the agencies

should adopt response time measures specific to urban/suburban and rural

population densities. Doing to will allow accurate Department performance

measures and guide the timing of fire stations with residents and new

development applicants.

Citygate sees five issues in Georgetown’s fire services deployment plan that can be improved as

fiscal resources allow over time as the City and ESD #8 grow to build-out zoning:

1. The lack of adopted deployment policy statements that are measurable, outcome-

driven, and sensitive to different population densities;

2. An acknowledgement that widely spaced development using curvilinear street

design means that without additional and closely spaced fire stations, improving

travel times to meet best practice recommendations for positive outcomes in

urban/suburban areas will not be possible;

3. The need to have a policy for the timing of additional fire stations and types of

specialty units such as ladder trucks and chief officers;

4. The need to focus on improving dispatch and turnout times;

5. Adding fire stations and crews as needed if funding allows.

Citygate’s integrated deployment recommendations are designed to address our findings and the

above five issues:

Recommendation #1: Adopt Revised Deployment Measures: The City and ESD #8 should

adopt revised performance measures to direct fire crew planning and

to monitor the operation of the Department. The measures should

take into account a realistic company turnout time of 2 minutes and be

designed to deliver outcomes that will save patients medically

salvageable upon arrival; and to keep small, but serious fires from

becoming greater alarm fires. Citygate recommends these measures

be:


1.1 Distribution of Fire Stations: To treat medical patients and

control small fires, the first-due unit should arrive within 7

minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 911 call.

This equates to 1-minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company

turnout time and 4 minutes drive time in the most populated

areas.

1.2 Multiple-Unit Effective Response Force for Serious

Emergencies: To confine fires near the room of origin, to stop

wildland fires to under 3 acres when noticed promptly and to

treat up to 5 medical patients at once, a multiple-unit response

of at least 13 personnel should arrive within 11 minutes from

the time of 911 call receipt, 90 percent of the time. This

equates to 1-minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company turnout

time and 8 minutes drive time spacing for multiple units in the

most populated areas.

Recommendation #2: Adopt Fire Station Location Measures: To direct fire station

location timing and crew size planning as the community grows,

adopt fire unit deployment performance measures based on

population density zones in the table below. The more specific,

measurable and consistent the policy is, the more it can be applied

fairly to all uses and easily understood by a non-fire service user.

Proposed Deployment Measures for Georgetown Growth

By Population Density Per Square Mile

Structure Fire

Urban Area

Structure Fire

Suburban Area

Structure Fire Rural

Area**

Structure Fire

Remote Area

>1,000 people/sq.

mi.

500 -1,000 people/sq.

mi.

< 500 people/sq.

mi. **

<100 people/sq.

mi. *

1st Due Travel Time 4 8 12 20

Total Reflex Time 7 11 15 23

1st Alarm Travel Time 8 16 20 24

1st Alarm Total Reflex 11 19 23 27

* Less than 50 people per square mile there is acknowledgment that fire and EMS

services are going to be substandard.

** Consistent with NFPA 1720 for combination fire departments (career and

volunteer) in rural areas.


Recommendation #3: Aggregate Population Definitions: Where more than one square

mile is not populated at similar densities, and/or a contiguous area

with different zoning types, aggregates into a population ―cluster,‖

these aggregate population definition measures below from the

Commission on Fire Accreditation International can be combined

with tiered travel time measures to match the need for fire stations to

risks and desired outcomes:

Response Time Measures by Population

Area Aggregate Population

Georgetown First-Due unit

Travel Time Goal

Metropolitan > 200,000 people 4 minutes

Urban > 30,000 people 4 minutes

Suburban >10,000 to 30,000 people 5 minutes

Rural 1,000 to 10,000 people 12 minutes

Remote 500 -1,000 people 20 minutes

Extreme Remote <500 > 20 minutes

Recommendation #4: Annual Deployment Measures Reporting: The Department

should report its annual performance against the adopted

measures. This reporting, at a minimum, should separately

report response time performance for the City, ESD #8, and

each fire station area.

Recommendation #5: Dispatch and Turnout time Improvements: The Department

and dispatch center need to focus on procedures, technical

issues and feedback measures to their staffs to lower dispatch

and turnout times to national best practice recommendations.

Recommendation #6: Specialty Response Units: The Department should plan on

adding a third ladder or quint unit if there is substantial

commercial growth outside of the current two-truck coverage

area. A second battalion chief is necessary when the

Department grows past seven fire stations.


PHASING AND COSTS

The following costs are estimated in current dollars to show the order of magnitude of what is

ahead for fire services in the mid-term to build-out.

Each additional fully staffed fire station costs $627,503 in personnel expenses

annually plus utility and supply costs.

To build one fire station (without land cost) plus one structure fire engine costs

$1.425 million.

Thus it will cost upwards of $1.25 million per year to staff two more fire stations

in the near term years.

Two more stations and apparatus will require a capital cost of $2.8 million.

Some of the recommendations are policy-planning efforts requiring minimal additional resources

can be worked on in parallel. Adding fire stations and crews will take several fiscal years;

dependent on growth driving increased funding. Given these two realities, Citygate recommends

the following phasing to implement the findings and recommendations of this study:

Phase One

Absorb the policy recommendations of this fire services study and adopt revised

Fire Department performance measures to drive the deployment of firefighting

and emergency medical resources.

Phase Two

Focus on improvements to lower dispatch and crew turnout times.

Develop reporting for annual response time measures, specific to the City and

ESD #8.

Phase Three

Focus on fire station design that allows for good crew turnout time.

Focus on selecting future fire station sites that cover the most road miles in the

fewest minutes. Attention to best-fit fire station location is essential given

Georgetown’s road network and topography. Choosing which station comes first

will depend on growth patterns and final adopted response time policy measures.

Phase Four

Design and add Fire Station #6 on the eastside based on incremental growth.


Design and add Fire Station #7 in the northwest area based on incremental

growth.

Plan two more stations in the outer most growth areas based on demonstrated

growth needs.

Section 1—Introduction and Background page 9

SECTION 1—INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

1.1 REPORT ORGANIZATION

This report and future planning document is structured into the following sections that group

appropriate information together for the reader.

This Volume (Volume 1) includes:

Section 1 Introduction and Background: Background facts about Georgetown’s

current Fire Services.

Section 2 Standards of Response Cover (Staffing/Station) Analysis: An in-

depth examination of the Fire Department’s deployment ability to

meet the community’s risks, expectations and emergency needs.

Section 3 Fiscal Analysis: An outline of the costs to implement this plan’s

recommendations.

Section 4 Recommended Solutions and Phasing Strategies: An integrated

recommendations and conclusions section.

Separately attached:

Volume 2 Response Coverage Geographic Maps

Volume 3 In-depth Response Statistics Appendix

1.1.1 Goals of Report

As each of the sections mentioned above imparts information, this report will cite findings and

make recommendations, if appropriate, that relate to each finding. There is a sequential

numbering of all of the findings and recommendations throughout the first three sections of this

report. To provide a comprehensive summary, a complete listing of all these same findings and

recommendations in order is found in Section 4. Finally, the report brings attention to the

highest priority needs and possible timing.

Georgetown Fire Department shares a relationship with Williamson County Emergency Services

District Number 8 (ESD #8). This arrangement allows for funding the response area outside of

the current City limits. The combined City/ESD #8 service delivery area will be treated as one

for the purpose of this Standard of Response Cover analysis.

This document provides technical information about how fire services are provided, legally

regulated, and how the Georgetown Fire Department currently operates. This information is


presented in the form of recommendations and policy choices for the Georgetown leadership and

community to discuss.

The result is a solid technical foundation upon which to understand the advantages and

disadvantages of the choices facing the Georgetown leadership, ESD #8, and community on how

best to provide fire services, and more specifically, at what level of desired outcome and

expense.

1.1.2 Limitations of Report

In the United States, there are no federal or state regulations on what a minimum level of fire

services has to be. Each community, through the public policy process, is expected to

understand the local fire risks, their ability to pay, and then to choose their level of fire services.

If fire services are provided at all, the federal and state regulations specify how to do it safely for

the personnel providing the service and the public.

While this report and technical explanation can provide a framework for the discussion of fire

services for Georgetown, neither this report nor the Citygate consulting team can make the final

decisions or cost out in detail every possible alternative. Once final deployment policy choices

are given the appropriate approvals, staff can conduct any final costing and fiscal analysis as

normally done in the operating and capital budget preparation cycle.

1.2 BACKGROUND

This project involved the development of a fire services deployment study. This effort involved

the study of the fire services risk within the City of Georgetown and ESD #8. In this report, the

term ―Department‖ will be used when referring to the fire agency itself; the term ―City‖ will be

used when referring to the City of Georgetown; and the term ―ESD #8‖ will be used when

referring to the Board of Fire Commissioners of Williamson County Emergency Services

District #8.

The City and ESD #8 commissioned this study and resultant planning recommendations to

evaluate the current capacity of the Department to respond to emergency fire, rescue, and

medical incidents within its area, and review other related operational issues. In its entirety, this

analysis and corresponding findings and recommendations will allow the City Council and ESD

#8 Board to make informed policy decisions about the level of fire, rescue, and emergency

medical services desired and the best method to deliver and fund them.

The fiscal challenges facing the City are not unique to Texas or the United States. At the start of

this project in the winter of 2010, Georgetown faced the same challenges that most Texas

communities had with reduced income based on decreased ad-valorem (property taxes). The

difference reported by Williamson County Appraiser illustrates a total taxable property value of

4.02 billion dollars in 2009 and an increase to 4.05 billion in 2010. The areas assessed by ESD


#8 also dropped from 1.6 billion to 1.5 billion in the same time frames. This was exacerbated by

the decrease in new project growth which most Texas cities were counting on to grow annually

at a robust pace, providing for annual increases in revenue.

This fire service deployment plan has to acknowledge that the City and ESD #8 may desire

improved fire services, but in the near term cannot afford any improvements. Thus, the plan will

have to suggest how to prioritize adding services to align with revenue growth.

1.3 GEORGETOWN PROJECT APPROACH AND RESEARCH METHODS

Citygate used several tools to gather, understand, and model information about the City, ESD #8,

and Fire Department for this study. We started by making a large document request to the

Department to gain background information on costs, current and prior service levels, the history

of service level decisions and what other prior studies, if any, had to say. We asked the

Department to have each of the members responsible for a program or segment provide

information to the Citygate team for analysis.

In subsequent site visits, Citygate team members followed up on this information by conducting

focused interviews with fire management team members. We reviewed demographic

information about the City and ESD, proposed developments, and managed growth projections.

As we collected and understood information about the City and ESD, Citygate obtained

electronic map and response data from which to model current and projected fire services

deployment. The goal was to identify the location(s) of stations and crew quantities required to

serve the combined City and ESD areas as they develop.

Once Citygate gained an understanding of the Department service area with its fire, rescue, and

EMS risks, the Citygate team developed a model of fire services that was tested against the

mapping and prior response data to ensure an appropriate fit. This resulted in Citygate being

able to propose an approach to improving fire services in the Department that would also meet

reasonable expectations and fiscal abilities in areas of the Department service area where future

growth is likely to occur.

1.4 GEORGETOWN FIRE DEPARTMENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Georgetown is a historical city and is a major part of the Interstate 35 Corridor growth area that

benefits the entire state of Texas. Bisected by the Interstate, Georgetown is located in

Williamson County which geographically is the farthest north of six counties that comprise the I-

35 Corridor that includes San Antonio and Austin to the south. This area provides economic,

recreational, and educational leadership to the region.

Georgetown has a growing community that serves a diverse group of residents. It does have a

large group of residents over 65 and, according to the Fire Chief, 25 percent of the population is


over 65. The tax rate for the City is ―frozen‖ at 35 cents per one hundred dollars and the City has

other revenue streams (such as City utilities) that help to offset the low tax rate. The

Georgetown Fire Department responds to over 138 square miles of City and ESD #8 area with

the current 5 fire stations.

The Capital Area Metro Planning Organization (CAMPO) states that the population will most

likely double by 2035 and that Georgetown will be impacted by the Interstate 35 and Toll Road

130 growth patterns. All of these elements add up to the general attitude that Georgetown and

the surrounding area of Williamson County will exceed 100,000 population by around 2035.

Of interest to the elements of fire risk, Southwestern University has approximately 2,000

students and an older campus with great historical buildings. Biotechnology and industrial uses

are growing and include Manatex, Xycarb (high tech glassware) and a Citicorp data center. Sun

City (Dell Web) has a large development in the north part of the City, which encompasses much

of the senior citizen population.

As of 2010 the Georgetown area has:

A City population of 47,400 in 50.25 square miles

A growing high-tech daily workforce population

A City assessed value of $4,180,224,985

In the City, 21,662 water and utility connections representing the quantity of

dwelling units and buildings to be protected

A lake that is a regional recreation area

Large numbers of ―mobile‖ populations on I-35

Cargo rail traffic

A large municipal airport that serves the region

2,000 students at Southwestern University

A build-out population of approximately 100,000 by 2030

High-tech growth along the I-35 Corridor

Open space areas containing vegetation prone to wildfires.


1.5 REGULATIONS AFFECTING THE FIRE SERVICE

In addition to restrictions on local government finance, there have been a number of new state

and federal laws, regulations, and court cases over the last decade that limit the flexibility of

cities in determining their staffing levels, training, and methods of operation. These are given an

abbreviated overview below:

1. 1999 OSHA Staffing Policies – Federal OSHA applied the confined space safety

regulations for work inside tanks and underground spaces to America’s

firefighters. This requires in atmospheres that are ―IDLH‖ (Immediately

Dangerous to Life and Health) that there be teams of two inside and two outside

in constant communication, and with the outside pair equipped and ready to

rescue the inside pair. This situation occurs in building fires where the fire and

smoke conditions are serious enough to require the wearing of self-contained

breathing apparatus (SCBA). This is commonly called the ―2-in/2-out‖ policy.

This policy requires that firefighters enter serious building fires in teams of two,

while two more firefighters are outside and immediately ready to rescue them

should trouble arise.

While under OSHA policy one of the outside ―two-out‖ personnel can also be the

incident commander (typically a chief officer) or fire apparatus operator, this

person must be fully suited-up in protective clothing, have a breathing apparatus

donned except for the face piece, meet all physical requirements to enter IDLH

atmospheres and thus be ready to immediately help with the rescue of interior

firefighters in trouble. This is amplified by the Texas Administrative Code Title

37, Part 13 Chapter 435, Rule 435.17 that defines the ―2-in /2-out‖ law for Texas

Firefighters. The Texas Commission on Fire Protection oversees these laws and

cites reference to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards.

2. May 2001 National Staffing Guidelines – The National Fire Protection

Association (NFPA) Standard on Career Fire Service Deployment was issued ten

years ago. While advisory to local governments, as it starts to become locally

adopted and used, it develops momentum, forcing adoption by neighboring

communities. NFPA 1710 calls for four-person fire crew staffing, arriving on one

or two apparatus as a ―company.‖ The initial attack crew should arrive at the

emergency within four minutes travel time, 90 percent of the time, and the total

effective response force (first alarm assignment) shall arrive within eight minutes

travel time, 90 percent of the time. These guidelines will be explained and

compared to Georgetown in the deployment measures section of this document.

3. Command at Hazardous Materials Incidents – The on-scene Incident

Commanders (Battalion Chiefs) at Hazardous Materials Incidents must have


certification compliant with NFPA 472, Standard for Emergency Response to

Hazardous Materials Incidents. This is also now an OSHA requirement.

4. Texas Commission on Fire Protection (TCFP) regulates the Texas fire service.

Most regulations define the minimum training levels for all aspects of fire

suppression, prevention and training. A few key standards can have an impact on

fire service agencies. Self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), protective

clothing, and other key elements of fire safety are outlined under these laws. Of

interest to this study, Chapter 435.11 defines the mandate of compulsory use of an

Incident Management System on all incidents and states NFPA 1561 will be

followed by ―applicable sections.‖ Also, the TCFP recommends the use of NFPA

1403 (Live Fire Training Evolutions) and NFPA 1500 (Fire Protection

Occupational Safety and Health Program). All career fire agencies are audited

every two years by the TCFP, and compliance with their requirements is

compulsory.

1.6 NEGATIVE PRESSURES ON VOLUNTEER-BASED FIRE SERVICES

While Georgetown does not operate a volunteer firefighter system, wholly or in part, a common

question is why not solve some of a City’s fire staffing problems with volunteers? To pre-

address this question, here is a brief overview of the state of depending on volunteer firefighters:

All volunteer-based fire departments are under great pressure today to maintain an adequate

roster. The reasons for this are not unique to any one type of community and are placing

pressure on small community volunteer systems across the state and nation:

Economic pressures result in more two-income families and less time to

volunteer.

In a commuter economy, more jobs are clustered in metropolitan and dense

suburban areas. Communities like Georgetown, that formerly were small towns,

increasingly have residents who work elsewhere, and many of the younger age

people who would consider volunteering are just too busy.

Due to the growth in society of complex systems and technology, the fire service

was given more missions, like emergency medical services, hazardous materials

response, and technical rescue. This dramatically increased the legally mandated

training hours for volunteers, causing many to drop out as the time commitments

became unbearable.

These changes, coupled with all the other factors, means that volunteer firefighter programs dry

up due to lack of members. Additional training and additional responses mean a significant time

commitment for ―true‖ volunteers, who are serving for love of the community and to give


something back. Most departments feel that it takes 100-120 hours of training per year to meet

safety minimums, and this time is expended before a volunteer goes on a single incident.

Even if a small volunteer cadre could be found to assist with non-emergency work, volunteer

programs take design, supervision, and some fiscal support. In Citygate’s opinion, the needs of

the Georgetown Fire Department far outweigh what a small volunteer or per diem apprentice

firefighter program could solve. More importantly, just creating and operating such a program

would strain the modest headquarters staffing from managing critical day-to-day operations.

Additionally, Georgetown Fire Department is under the Chapter 143 State Civil Service system

and this creates difficulties with operating volunteers as well.

Section 2—Standards of Response Cover (Station/Staffing) Analysis page 16

SECTION 2—STANDARDS OF RESPONSE COVER (STATION/STAFFING)

ANALYSIS

Section Intent: This section serves as an in-depth analysis of the Department’s current ability to

deploy and meet the emergency risks presented in the Department’s total service area. The

response analysis will use prior response statistics and geographic mapping to help the City and

ESD #8 visualize what the current response system can and cannot deliver.

2.1 GENERAL FIRE DEPLOYMENT BACKGROUND INFORMATION

The Commission on Fire Accreditation International recommends a systems approach known as

―Standards of Response Coverage‖ to evaluate deployment as part of the self-assessment process

of a fire agency. This approach uses risk and community expectations on outcomes to assist

elected officials in making informed decisions on fire and EMS deployment levels. Citygate has

adopted this methodology as a comprehensive tool to evaluate fire station location. Depending

on the needs of the study, the depth of the components can vary.

Such a systems approach to deployment, rather than a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula,

allows for local determination of the level of deployment to meet the risks presented in each

community. In this comprehensive approach, each agency can match local need (risks and

expectations) with the costs of various levels of service. In an informed public policy debate, a

City Council or ESD Board of Directors ―purchases‖ the fire, rescue, and EMS service levels

(insurance) the community needs and can afford.

While working with multiple components to conduct a deployment analysis is admittedly more

work, it yields a much better result than any singular component can. If we only look to travel

time, for instance, and do not look at the frequency of multiple and overlapping calls, the

analysis could miss over-worked companies. If we do not use risk assessment for deployment,

and merely base deployment on travel time, a community could under-deploy to incidents.

The Standard of Response Cover process consists of eight parts:

1. Existing Deployment – each agency has something in place today.

2. Community Outcome Expectations – what does the community expect out of the

response agency?

3. Community Risk Assessment – what assets are at risk in the community?

4. Critical Task Time Study – how long does it take firefighters to complete tasks to

achieve the expected outcomes?

5. Distribution Study – the locating of first-due resources (typically engines).


6. Concentration Study – first alarm assignment or the effective response force.

7. Reliability and Historical Response Effectiveness Studies – using prior response

statistics to determine what percent of compliance the existing system delivers.

8. Overall Evaluation – proposed standard of cover statements by risk type.

Fire department deployment, simply stated, is about the speed and weight of the attack. Speed

calls for first-due, all risk intervention units (engines and trucks) strategically located across a

department. These units are tasked with controlling everyday, average emergencies without the

incident escalating to second alarm or greater size, which then unnecessarily depletes the

department resources as multiple requests for service occur. Weight is about multiple-unit

response for significant emergencies like a room and contents structure fire, a multiple-patient

incident, a vehicle accident with extrication required, or a heavy rescue incident. In these

situations, departments must assemble enough firefighters in a reasonable period in order to

control the emergency safely without it escalating to greater alarms.

Thus, small fires and medical emergencies require a single- or two-unit response (engine and

ambulance) with a quick response time. Larger incidents require more companies. In either

case, if the companies arrive too late or the total personnel sent to the emergency are too few for

the emergency type, they are drawn into a losing and more dangerous battle. The art of fire

company deployment is to spread companies out across a community for quick response to keep

emergencies small with positive outcomes, without spreading the stations so far apart that they

cannot quickly amass enough companies to be effective in major emergencies.

Given the need for companies to be stationed throughout a community for prompt response

instead of all companies responding from a central fire station, communities such as Georgetown

are faced with neighborhood equity of response issues. When one or more areas grow beyond

the reasonable travel distance of the nearest fire station, the choices available to the elected

officials are limited: add more neighborhood fire stations, or tell certain segments of the

community that they have longer response times, even if the type of fire risk found is the same as

other areas.

For the purposes of this fire services study, Citygate used all eight components of the Standards

of Response Cover process (at varying levels of detail) to understand the risks in the City and

ESD #8, how the Department is staffed and deployed today, and then modeled those parameters

using geographic mapping and response statistical analysis tools. The models were then

compared to the proposed growth in the service area so that the study can recommend changes, if

any, in fire services to the Department’s service area.

Thus, Citygate tailored the deployment recommendations in this report to the Department’s

unique needs, and did not use one-size-fits-all national recommendations.


The next few subsections in this section will cover the Department’s service area factors and

make findings about each component of the deployment system. From these findings of fact

about the Department’s fire deployment system, the study is then able to make deployment

change recommendations.

2.2 GEORGETOWN COMMUNITY OUTCOME EXPECTATIONS – WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THE

FIRE DEPARTMENT?

The next step in the Standards of Response Cover process is to review existing fire and

emergency medical outcome expectations. This can be restated as follows: for what purpose

does the current response system exist? Has the governing body adopted any response time

performance measures? If so, the time measures used by the Department need to be understood

and good data collected.

The community, if asked, would probably expect that fires be confined to the room or nearby

area of fire origin, and that medical patients have their injuries stabilized and be transported to

the appropriate care location. Thus, the challenge faced by the City and ESD #8 is to maintain

an equitable level of fire service deployment across the entire Department service area without

adding significantly more resources as demand for services grows and traffic congestion

increases, slowing response times.

The Insurance Services Office (ISO) Fire Department Grading Schedule would like to see first-

due fire engines stations spaced 1.5 miles apart and ladder trucks spaced 2.5 miles apart, which,

given travel speeds on surface streets, is a 3- to 4-minute travel time for first-due engines and a

7- to 8-minute travel time for first-due ladder trucks. The National Fire Protection Association

(NFPA) guideline 1710 on fire services deployment suggests a 4-minute travel time for the initial

fire apparatus response and 8 minutes travel time maximum for the follow-on units. This

recommendation is for departments that are substantially staffed by career firefighters, as the

Department is.

The ISO grades community fire defenses on a 10-point scale, with Class 1 being the best.

Historically, the Department has been evaluated as a Class 2/8B department, meaning the fire

engine and ladder truck coverage is similar to many suburban fire departments in the City area.

In the ESD #8 areas, the rating of 8B is common for less populated rural areas. There are

currently a few communities in the state of Texas with an ISO rating of 1, including the City of

Plano, Cedar Park and Frisco. A few other communities have an ISO rating of 2, including the

City of Austin.

With a split Class 2/8B, all class-rated properties located within 1,000 feet of a

fire hydrant and within 5 miles of a fire station will use Class 2.

All class-rated properties located farther than 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant and

within 5 miles of a fire station will use Class 8B.


All property located farther than 5 miles of a fire station regardless of a water

supply, will be a Class 10.

For many reasons, it is not necessary for an agency to only deploy to meet the ISO measures.

The ISO criteria are designed for underwriting purposes to evaluate the fire protection system’s

ability to stop a building fire conflagration. The ISO system does not address small fires, auto

fires, outdoor fires and emergency medical incidents. In addition, underwriters today can issue

fire premiums in Grading Schedule ―bands‖ such as 3-5 and give safer buildings a single rating

of Class 1 for example.

Thus, if an agency only tries to meet the ISO or NFPA station placement criteria, it does not

necessarily deliver better outcomes, given the diversity of risk across American communities.

Importantly within the Standards of Response Coverage process, positive outcomes are the goal,

and from that company size and response time can be calculated to allow efficient fire station

spacing. Emergency medical incidents have situations with the most severe time constraints. In

a heart attack that stops the heart, a trauma that causes severe blood loss, or in a respiratory

emergency, the brain can only live 8 to 10 minutes maximum without oxygen. Not only heart

attacks, but also other emergencies can cause oxygen deprivation to the brain. Heart attacks

make up a small percentage; drowning, choking, trauma, constrictions, or other similar events

have the same effect on the brain and the same time constraints. In a building fire, a small

incipient fire can grow to involve the entire room in a 4- to 5-minute time frame. The point in

time where the entire room becomes involved in fire is called ―flashover,‖ when everything is

burning, life is no longer possible, and the fire will shortly spread beyond the room of origin.

If fire service response is to achieve positive outcomes in severe EMS situations and incipient

fire situations, all the companies must arrive, size up the situation and deploy effective measures

before brain damage or death occurs or the fire spreads beyond the room of origin.

Given that the emergency started before or as it was noticed and continues to escalate through

the steps of calling 911, dispatch notification of the companies, their response, and equipment

set-up once on scene, there are three ―clocks‖ that fire and emergency medical companies must

work against to achieve successful outcomes:

The time it takes an incipient room fire to fully engulf a room in 4 to 5 minutes,

thus substantially damaging the building and likely injuring or killing occupants.

When the heart stops in a heart attack, the brain starts to die from lack of oxygen

in 4 to 6 minutes and brain damage becomes irreversible at about the 10-minute

point.

In a trauma patient, severe blood loss and organ damage becomes so great after

the first hour that survival is difficult if not impossible. The goal of trauma

medicine is to stabilize the patient in the field as soon as possible after the injury,


and to transport them to a trauma center were appropriate medical intervention

can be initiated within one hour of the injury.

Somewhat coincidently, in all three situations above, the first responder emergency company

must arrive on-scene within 5 to 7 minutes of the 911-phone call to have a chance at a successful

resolution. Further, the follow-on (additional) companies for serious emergencies must arrive

within the 8- to 11-minute point. These response times need to include the time steps for the

dispatcher to process the caller’s information, alert the stations needed, and the companies to

then don OSHA/Texas mandated safety clothing and drive safely to the emergency. The sum of

these three time steps – dispatch, company turnout and drive time – comprises ―total reflex,‖ or

total response time. Thus, to get the first firefighters on-scene within only 5 to 7 minutes of the

911 call being answered is very challenging to all parts of the system, as this study will describe

later in detail.

The three event timelines above start with the emergency happening. It is important to note the

fire or medical emergency continues to deteriorate from the time of inception, not the time the

fire engine actually starts to drive the response route. It is hoped that the emergency is noticed

immediately and the 911 system is activated. This step of awareness – calling 911 and giving the

dispatcher accurate information – takes, in the best of circumstances, 1 minute. Then company

notification and travel take additional minutes. Once arrived, the company must walk to the

patient or emergency, size up the problem and deploy their skills and tools. Even in easy-to-

access situations, this step can take 2 or more minutes. It is considerably longer up long

driveways, apartment buildings with limited access, multi-storied office buildings or shopping

center buildings such as those found in parts of Georgetown.

2.2.1 Georgetown Existing Policy

Citygate staff is unaware of any current policy that would define performance of the current

system. Most Texas fire agencies measure performance by station locations only and do not

probe deeper into defining policy for how fast, how many, and to what types of emergencies a

department responds to.

In the most recent City budget, the Fire Department lists a performance measure to track the

percent of fire and emergency medical incidents (ESM) incidents within a 5-minute ―response

time.‖ The begin and end points of response time are not defined, as both the Commission on

Fire Accreditation and NFPA 1720 both recommend.

Current best practice nationally is to measure percent completion of a goal (i.e., 90 percent of

responses) instead of an average measure, as many fire departments did in the past. Response

goal measures should start with the time of fire dispatch receiving the 911 call to the arrival of

the first unit at the emergency, and the measure should state what is delivered and what the

expected outcome is desired to be.


Percent of completed goal measures are better than the measure of average, because average just

identifies the central or middle point of response time performance for all calls for service in the

data set. From an average statement, it is impossible to know how many incidents had response

times that were considerably over the average or just over. For example, if a department had an

average response time of 5 minutes for 5,000 calls for service, it cannot be determined how many

calls past the average point of 5 minutes were answered slightly past the 5th

minute, in the 6th

minute or way beyond at 10 minutes. This is a significant issue if hundreds or thousands of calls

are answered much beyond the average point.

Finding #1: Georgetown does not have a complete fire deployment measure

adopted by the City Council and the ESD #8 Board that meets

current best practices recommendations to include a beginning

time measure starting from the point of dispatch receiving the 911-

phone call, and a goal statement tied to risks and outcome

expectations. The deployment measure should have a second

measurement statement to define multiple-unit response coverage

for serious emergencies. Making these deployment goal changes

will meet the best practice recommendations of the Commission on

Fire Accreditation International.

In national recommendations years ago, it was thought to take 1 minute for the company to

receive the dispatch and get the apparatus moving. However, as will be discussed later, even 1

minute for company turnout is unrealistic, given the need to don mandated protective safety

clothing and to be seated and belted in before the apparatus begins to move.

Thus, from the time of 911 receiving the call, an effective deployment system is beginning to

manage the problem within 7 minutes total reflex time. This is right at the point that brain death

is becoming irreversible and the fire has grown to the point to leave the room of origin and

become very serious. Yes, sometimes the emergency is too severe even before the fire

department is called in for the responding company to reverse the outcome; however, given an

appropriate response time policy and a well-designed system, then only issues like bad weather,

poor traffic conditions or a significant number of multiple emergencies will slow the response

system. Consequently, a properly designed system will give the citizens hope of a positive

outcome for their tax dollar expenditure.

2.3 GEORGETOWN FIRE RISK ASSESSMENT

Both newcomers to the community, as well as long-term residents, may not realize the

community assets that are at risk today in such a vibrant and diverse community. The


Georgetown Fire Department is charged with responding to a variety of emergencies, from fires

to medical calls to special hazards and cargo transportation emergencies on the highway.

Georgetown is no longer just a small ―quaint Texas town.‖ It has grown beautifully into one of

the premier I-35 Corridor communities with a City and ESD #8 combined population of

approximately 81,000 in a land area of 138 total square miles with many undeveloped land areas.

This is coupled with a low tax rate that will encourage growth in the area. With key developers

looking at developing the large tracts available, Georgetown will continue to grow with space

zoned for both jobs and dwelling units.

Currently, the Department service area mostly contains a mix of single- and multi-family

dwellings, small and larger businesses, and light or ―high-tech‖ industrial park businesses. In

addition, there are smaller warehouse and light manufacturing facilities, a university, a regional

airport, a medium sized lake, and miles of toll roads and freeways.

According to the City, Georgetown Fire Department with the ESD #8 areas could reach a

population of 100,000 prior to 2030. Resident population numbers and employment only tell a

partial story as to the population the Georgetown Fire Department must protect. Additionally,

there are the students and a ―mobile‖ population on two very busy toll roads/freeways.

In the Southwestern University area, protection of historical buildings creates a special interest

for having fire safe student buildings, and there is still redevelopment activity downtown with

projects underway, mostly small office commercial buildings.

Here is a partial inventory of the types of risk demographics in addition to the visible homes and

business buildings:

Some hazardous materials storage and use including industrial and transportation

on highways, the railroad and underground pipelines

Local businesses use hazardous materials and are regulated by the City and State

Georgetown Lake with water supply and recreation concerns

Wildland fires

Weather and flooding history

High-tech business establishments

Regional airport

Residential care facilities, many of them for the elderly.

The significance of the above information is that the Georgetown Fire Department must be

staffed, equipped and trained to deal with (at least through the first alarm level prior to automatic

or mutual aid) most any type of emergency faced by a United States fire department. True, the


Department does not serve an international airport, an oil refinery, or a port, but that is about all

the Fire Department does not serve in its calls for service.

In order to understand the importance of response time in achieving satisfactory outcomes, the

deployment of resources must be based upon assessment of the values at risk. There are actually

many different types of values at risk depending upon the nature of the emergency. At a very

basic level, a fire in a structure is among the most frequent events with a measurable outcome. A

single-patient medical emergency is a different event, and while it is the most frequent, it is

normally not as threatening to life and property as the structure fire since the structure fire can

spread from building to building and eventually become a conflagration.

The fire incident reporting system indicates a wide variety of events that can result in a call for

service, but it is a reported fire in a building that is the essence of a fire department’s deployment

plan.

2.3.1 Building Fire Risk

In addition to the building and community demographics cited above, in a Standards of Response

Coverage study, building fire risk can also be understood by looking at larger classes of

buildings as well as the wildfire potential that surrounds the service area during drought

conditions.

In Map #2 in the mapping appendix to this study (found in Volume 2, separately bound), are

displayed the locations of the commercial buildings that the Insurance Service Office (ISO) has

sent an evaluation engineer into for underwriting purposes.

The Insurance Service Office (ISO) sends underwriters into commercial buildings to evaluate

and collect demographic data for fire insurance underwriting purposes. This study obtained the

current ISO data set for Georgetown, and it contains approximately 403 businesses and

institutions (such as churches) that range in size from a few hundred square feet up to 200,000

square feet under one roof.

One of the measures the ISO collects is called fire flow, or the amount of water that would need

to be applied if the building were seriously involved in fire. The measure of fire flow is

expressed in gallons per minute (gpm). In the Department service area, the ISO has data on 403

commercial buildings. Of these, 104 buildings have required fire flows of 2,000 gpm or higher.

There are a total of 8 buildings with fire flows in excess of 4,000 gpm. Of these 8 larger

buildings, there are 2 with required fire flows in excess of 6,000 gpm. Having 104 buildings

with larger fire flows in a suburban city typifies how Georgetown is becoming more diverse in

the types of buildings and much more than just a residential suburb. It is becoming a full city

with substantial commercial building properties.

Fire flows above 2,000 gpm are a significant amount of firefighting water to deploy, and a major

fire at any one of these buildings would outstrip the on-duty fire staffing in the Department.


Using the generally accepted figure of fifty gallons per minute per firefighter on large building

fires, a fire in a building requiring 2,000 gallons per minute would require 40 firefighters, or

twice the on-duty minimum staffing of twenty one (21) firefighters in the Department.

An effective response force is the deployment of multiple units (pumpers, ladder trucks and

incident commander) so they can arrive close enough together to combat serious fires and keep

them to less than greater alarm size. This refers back to the earlier points in this report on speed

and weight of attack. The massing of units in a timely manner (weight) must be such that serious

fires do not typically become larger. Since City zoning has placed these buildings throughout the

City, this places additional pressure to have a multiple-unit effective response force of pumpers,

and, also importantly, ladder trucks throughout the more built-up areas of the City.

2.3.2 Special Hazard Risks

The Department service area has several hundred businesses that use or resell hazardous

materials. Examples are gasoline stations and dry cleaners. These businesses are highly

regulated by the building, fire and environmental codes. Other businesses in the industrial parks

use chemicals and large manufacturers like Xycarb make quartz, graphite and ceramic products

and related services for the semiconductor, LED and solar industry. There are businesses that

use larger quantities of hazardous materials and as such are called ―target hazards‖ in that they

receive a higher level of inspection activities and the responding firefighters should have plans

for their business and technical inventories. Another example is Manitex manufacturing, which

makes high manufacturing lifting products, and is part of the Georgetown community. Any fire

in these establishments will create a negative economic impact on the community in loss or tax

revenues and jobs.

The City of Georgetown Community Development Department handles the inspection and

enforcement of the City’s adopted International Fire Code (2003) and sections on the storage and

use of hazardous materials. For most outdoor hazardous materials, Williamson County

Environmental Law Enforcement and Texas Commission on Environmental Quality handles the

regulations for the State’s environmental programs.

The City participates in a countywide shared, regional fire department Hazardous Materials

Response Team for serious incidents. Locally, Georgetown firefighters are trained to the level of

―first responder‖ for hazardous materials emergencies.

2.3.3 Wildland Fire Risk

The wildfire threat in Georgetown is moderate, as many of the City’s edge neighborhoods are

exposed to grass lands and pasture areas that are prone to drought. During drought conditions

these light flashy fuels can be a real hazard burning quickly into the wildland urban interface

areas.


Of special interest is the possibility of the US Army Corps of Engineers making major

operational ownership changes to Georgetown Lake, which may impact emergency services by

increasing activity and therefore response issues. The wildland areas around the lake contain

significant brush and grass fuels creating a larger threat to the environment and the community.

Increased human use of the lake and surrounding lands may increase the need for specialized

apparatus (brush units and fire boats) to respond to this new enhanced threat.

Other communities in Williamson County have suffered from large wildfires, so during drought

conditions Georgetown must be prepared to handle a wildfire extending beyond the initial attack

timeframe. To combat this risk, the Department works closely with its mutual aid partner Texas

Forest Service (TFS). The Department has received grants from Texas Forest Service for training

and equipping its firefighters. This year they received a grant and TFS delivered a type 6

wildland engine to respond locally and statewide as part of the Texas Intrastate Fire and Mutual

Aid System (TIFMAS).

2.3.4 Desired Outcomes

A response system can be designed with staffing and station locations to accomplish desired

outcomes. An outcome example is, ―confine a residential fire to the room of origin.‖ That

outcome requires a more aggressive response time and staffing plan than ―confine the fire to the

building of origin, to keep it from spreading to adjoining structures.‖ As such, fire deployment

planning takes direction from policy makers as to the outcomes desired by the community.

Given the Fire Department’s current response time goal and its Class 2 fire insurance

classification rating, the City has, in effect, adopted a structure fire goal of deploying a

significant force to building fires to contain the fire near the room, or compartment, of origin, if

the fire is small to modest when first reported. By delivering emergency medical technicians via

fire engines, the Department assures a standard of medical care where neighborhood-based first

responder firefighters normally respond well before an ambulance can arrive.

2.4 STAFFING – WHAT MUST BE DONE OVER WHAT TIMEFRAME TO ACHIEVE THE STATED

OUTCOME EXPECTATION?

The next step in the Standards of Response Cover process is to take the risk information above

and review what the firefighting staffing is, and what it is capable of, over what timeframe.

Fires and complex medical emergencies require a timely, coordinated effort in order to stop the

escalation of the emergency. Once the tasks and time to accomplish them to deliver a desired

outcome are set, travel time, and thus station spacing, can be calculated to deliver the requisite

number of firefighters over an appropriate timeframe.


2.4.1 Offensive vs. Defensive Strategies in Structure Fires Based on Risk

Presented

Most fire departments use a strategy that places emphasis upon the distinction between offensive

or defensive methods. These strategies can be summarized:

It is important to have an understanding of the duties and tasks required at a

structural fire to meet the strategic goals and tactical objectives of the Fire

Department response. Firefighting operations fall in one of two strategies –

offensive or defensive.

Offensive strategy is characterized primarily by firefighters working inside the

structure on fire. This strategy is riskier to firefighters but much more effective

for performing rescues and attacking the fire at its seat.

Defensive strategy is characterized by firefighters working outside the structure

on fire. This strategy is generally safer for firefighters; however, it also means no

rescues can be performed and the building on fire is a total loss.

We may risk our lives a lot to protect savable lives.

We may risk our lives a little to protect savable property.

We will not risk our lives at all to save what is already lost.

Considering the level of risk, the Incident Commander will choose the proper

strategy to be used at the fire scene. The Incident Commander must take into

consideration the available resources (including firefighters) when determining

the appropriate strategy to address any incident. The strategy can also change

with conditions or because certain benchmarks are achieved or not achieved. For

example, an important benchmark is ―all clear,‖ which means that all persons who

can be saved have been removed from danger or placed in a safe refuge area.

Once it has been determined that the structure is safe to enter, an offensive fire

attack is centered on life safety of the occupants. When it is safe to do so,

departments will initiate offensive operations at the scene of a structure fire.

Initial attack efforts will be directed at supporting a primary search – the first

attack line will go between the victims and the fire to protect avenues of rescue

and escape.

The decision to operate in a defensive strategy indicates that the offensive attack

strategy, or the potential for one, has been abandoned for reasons of personnel

safety, and the involved structure has been conceded as lost (the Incident

Commander makes a conscious decision to write the structure off). The

announcement of a change to a defensive strategy means all personnel will


withdraw from the structure and maintain a safe distance from the building.

Officers will account for their crews. Interior lines will be withdrawn and

repositioned. Exposed properties will be identified and protected.

For safety, Federal and State Occupational Health and Safety Regulations (OSHA) mandate that

firefighters cannot enter a burning structure past the incipient or small fire stage without doing so

in teams of 2, one team inside and one team outside, ready to rescue them. This totals a

minimum of 4 firefighters on the fireground to initiate an interior attack. The only exception is

when there is a known life inside to be rescued. This reason, along with the fact that a four-

person company can perform more tasks simultaneously than a three-person company, is why

NFPA Deployment Standard 1710 for career fire departments recommends four-person company

staffing on engines (pumpers) as well as on ladder trucks.

Many fire department deployment studies using the Standards of Response Coverage process, as

well as NFPA guidelines, arrive at the same fact – that an average (typically defined by the

NFPA as a modest single-family dwelling) risk structure fire needs a minimum of 14 to 15

firefighters, plus one on-scene incident commander. The NFPA 1710 recommendation is that

the first unit should arrive on-scene within 6 minutes of call receipt (1-minute dispatch, 1-minute

company turnout, and 4-minute travel), 90 percent of the time. The balance of the units should

arrive within 10 minutes of call receipt (8-minute travel), 90 percent of the time, if they hope to

keep the fire from substantially destroying the building. (The NFPA recommendation of 1-

minute dispatch time is generally attainable; the 1-minute company turnout time is generally

unattainable considering the time it takes firefighters to don the required full personal protective

equipment.)

For an extreme example, to confine a fire to one room in a multi-story building requires many

more firefighters than in a single-story family home in a suburban zone. The amount of staffing

needed can be derived from the desired outcome and risk class. If the community desires to

confine a one-room fire in a residence to the room or area of origin, that effort will require a

minimum of 14 personnel plus incident commander. This number of firefighters is the minimum

needed to safely conduct the simultaneous operational tasks of rescue, fire attack, and ventilation

plus providing for firefighter accountability and incident command in a modest, one fire hose

line house fire.

A significant fire in a two-story residential building or a one-story commercial or multi-story

building would require, at a minimum, an additional two to three engines and an additional truck

and chief officer, for upwards of 12 plus additional personnel. As the required fire flow water

gallonage increases, concurrently the required number of firefighters increases. Simultaneously,

the travel distance for additional personnel increases creating an exponential impact on the fire

problem. A typical auto accident requiring multiple-patient extrication or other specialty rescue

incidents will require a minimum of 10 firefighters plus the incident commander for

accountability and control.


2.4.2 Daily Unit Staffing in the City

Below is the typical minimum daily unit staffing assignment in the Department currently:

Table 1—Units and Daily Staffing Plan

Minimum Per Unit Extended

5 Engines @ 3 Firefighters/day 15

2 Ladder Trucks @ 3 Firefighters/day 6

1 Battalion Chief @ 1 Per day for command 1

Total 24/hr Personnel: 22

In addition to the Department daily staffing listed above, Georgetown and the surrounding fire

departments operate under an automatic aid and boundary drop ―closest unit‖ agreement

managed by one common fire dispatch center. There is a strong relationship with Round Rock

Fire Department, the other larger fire agency in Williamson County. This policy means that

some Georgetown building fires may receive a mix of City and automatic aid partner agencies.

For fires outside the City to the north, east and west of the City, these agencies consist of small

volunteer fire departments whose response to City and ESD #8 incidents will be longer given the

time needed to gather a volunteer response.

2.4.3 Staffing Discussion

If an agency provides fire services at all, safety of the public and firefighters must be the first

consideration. Additionally, the chief officers, as on-scene incident commanders, must be well

trained and competent, since they are liable for mistakes that violate the law. An under-staffed

and poorly led token force will not only be unable to stop a fire, it also opens the City and the

ESD up for real liability should the Fire Department fail.

As stated earlier in this section, national norms indicate that 14 or so firefighters, including an

incident commander, are needed at significant building fires if the expected outcome is to

contain the fire to the room of origin and to be able to simultaneously and safely perform all the

critical tasks needed. The reason for this is that the clock is still running on the problem after

arrival, and too few firefighters on-scene will mean the fire can still grow faster than the efforts

to contain it. Chief officers also need to arrive at the scene in a timely manner in order to

intervene and provide the necessary incident command leadership and critical decision making to

the organization.

If the City and ESD #8 set a goal of sending 3 engines, 1 ladder truck, and a battalion chief to

serious building fires, the Department has to send 12 firefighter and the single command chief or


59 percent of its on-duty force. Then, to augment its staffing above 13, it has to send additional

units or request automatic aid. Given the occurrence of building fires in the Department service

area at approximately 30 per year, or about 2 per month, the Department can typically field

enough firefighters at a modest building fire. Remaining Georgetown units and/or automatic aid

units would cover any such simultaneous calls. If the fire or rescue incident required more

forces, then the remaining Georgetown units would be sent along with more units from

automatic and mutual aid partners.

2.4.4 Company Critical Task Time Measures

In order to understand the time it takes to complete all the needed tasks on a moderate residential

fire and a modest emergency medical rescue, the Department staff provided information using

their standard operating procedures to demonstrate how much time the entire operations take.

The following tables start with the time of fire dispatch notification and finish with the outcome

achieved. There are several important themes contained in these tables:

These results were obtained under best conditions, in that the day was sunny and

moderate in temperature. The structure fire response times are from actual events,

showing how units arrive at staggered intervals.

It is noticeable how much time it takes after arrival or after the event is ordered by

command to actually accomplish key tasks to arrive at the actual outcome. This is

because it requires firefighters to carry out the ordered tasks. The fewer the

firefighters, the longer some task completion times will be. Critical steps are

highlighted in grey in the table.

The time for task completion is usually a function of how many personnel are

simultaneously available so that firefighters can complete some tasks

simultaneously.

Some tasks have to be assigned to a minimum of two firefighters to comply with

safety regulations. An example is that two firefighters would be required for

searching a smoke filled room for a victim.

The following tables of unit and individual duties are required at a first alarm fire scene at a

typical single-family dwelling fire. This set of duties is taken from Department operational

procedures. This set of needed duties is entirely consistent with the usual and customary

findings of other agencies using the Standards of Response Cover process and that found in

NFPA 1710 or in OSHA regulations on firefighter safety. No conditions existed to override the

OSHA 2-in/2-out safety policy.

Shown below are the critical tasks for a typical single-family house fire with approximately

1,000 square feet of involvement. The response force is three engines, one ladder truck, and one

battalion chief responding for a total of thirteen 13 personnel:


Table 2—Critical Tasks – Structure Fires

Structure Fire Incident Tasks

Time From

Arrival 1st

Engine

Total Reflex

Time

Pre-arrival time of dispatch, turnout and travel to 90% of structure

fire calls

11:10

1st engine on-scene 00:00

Conditions report to dispatch and establish command 00:12

1st engine performs 360 walk around 01:26 12:36

2nd

due engine on-scene 01:30

1st due truck on-scene 01:40

3rd

due engine on-scene 02:00

Truck crew to initiate ventilation 02:26

First hose line charged at front door 03:03

Entry - fire attack team 03:40 14:50

Full Rapid Intervention Crew established 04:10

First water on the fire 04:50

Utilities secured 05:00 16:10

Truck crew finishes ventilation (roof open) 05:41

Primary search for victims complete 09:21 20:31

Start secondary search for victims 10:27

Finish secondary search / fire under control 11:45 22:55

Fire out / incident under control 14:15 25:15

The above duties grouped together to form an effective response force or first alarm assignment.

Remember that the above discrete tasks must be performed simultaneously and effectively to

achieve the desired outcome. Just arriving on-scene does not stop the escalation of the

emergency. Firefighters accomplishing the above tasks do, but as they are being performed, the

clock is still running, and it has been since the emergency first started.

Fire spread in a structure can double in size during its free burn period. Many studies have

shown that a small fire can spread to engulf the entire room in less than 4 to 5 minutes after open

burning has started. Once the room is completely superheated and involved in fire (known as

flashover), the fire will spread quickly throughout the structure and into the attic and walls. For

this reason, it is imperative that fire attack and search commence before the flashover point

occurs, if the outcome goal is to keep the fire damage in or near the room of origin. In addition,

flashover presents a serious danger to both firefighters and any occupants of the building.


Once on-scene the task times above are indicative of 3-firefighter career staffed units. The only

way to significantly lower the task times would be to deliver more firefighters, earlier in the

incident.

For comparison purposes, the critical task table below reviews the tasks needed on a typical auto

accident rescue. The situation modeled was a two-car collision with two patients. Both drivers

required moderate extrication with power tools and the vehicles were upright with no fuel

hazards. One engine, one truck, one rescue unit, and one battalion chief responded with a total

of eleven (11 personnel).

Table 3—Critical Tasks – Auto Incident – 2 Vehicle, 2 Patients – Ambulance Transport

Vehicle Extrication Critical Tasks

Time From

Arrival 1st

Engine

Total Reflex

Time

Pre-arrival time of dispatch, turnout and travel to 90% of

emergency medical calls

10:10

1st engine on scene 00:00

Size up/command established 00:18

1st truck/rescue unit on scene 01:15

1 FF in car #1 for patient assessment 01:30 11:40

Battalion chief arrived 01:30

1 FF in car #2 for patient assessment 01:30

Rescue tools and patient care equipment moved to vehicles 03:15

Rescue tools started and cutting 03:25

Cervical collar applied to patient in car #1 03:30 13:40

Cervical collar applied to patient in car #2 03:35 13:45

Car #1 cribbed and secured 04:20

1st rescue unit arrived 05:00

Car #1 door removed 05:40

Patient #2 in car #1 removed by backboard 05:40 15:50

Patient #2 packaged ready for transport 07:10 17:20

Patient #1 in car #2 removed by backboard 09:00 19:10

Patient #1 packaged ready for transport 09:40 19:50

The table above shows typical task times for good patient care outcomes. These patient care

times and steps are consistent with Williamson County patient care protocols and would provide


positive outcomes where medically possible. In trauma cases, the patients could be delivered to a

trauma center in less than 1 hour, which is the standard of care goal.

2.4.5 Critical Task Measures Evaluation

What does a deployment study derive from a response time and company task time analysis?

The total completion times above to stop the escalation of the emergency have to be compared to

outcomes. We know from nationally published fire service ―time vs. temperature‖ tables that

after about 4 to 5 minutes of free burning a room fire will grow to the point of flashover where

the entire room is engulfed, the structure becomes threatened and human survival near or in the

fire room becomes impossible. We know that brain death begins to occur within 4 to 6 minutes

of the heart having stopped. Thus, the effective response force must arrive in time to stop these

catastrophic events from occurring.

The response and task completion times discussed above show that the residents served by the

Department are able to expect positive outcomes and have a better than not chance of survival in

a modest fire or medical emergency, when the first responding units are available in 7 minutes or

less total response time. However, as the statistical analysis portion of this study will explain,

arrival by the 7th

minute for the first unit only occurs 53 percent of the time, due to slower than

desired dispatch, turnout and travel times.

The point of the tables above is that mitigating an emergency event is a team effort once the units

have arrived. This refers back to the ―weight‖ of response analogy. If too few personnel arrive

too slowly, then the emergency will get worse, not better. Control of the structure fire incident

still took 14:15 minutes/seconds after the time of the first unit’s arrival, or 25:15

minutes/seconds from dispatch notification. The outcome times, of course, will be longer, with

less desirable results, if the arriving force is later or smaller.

The quantity of staffing and the time frame it arrives in can be critical in a serious fire. As the

risk assessment portion of this study identified, the building stock in the Department service area

is diverse and includes large and multi-story buildings, any of which can slow the firefighting

times as personnel and tools have to be walked to upper floors. Fires in these buildings could

well require the initial firefighters needing to rescue trapped, or immobile (the very young or

elderly) occupants. If a lightly staffed force arrives, they cannot simultaneously conduct rescue

and firefighting operations.

In EMS trauma incidents, the patient is initially being assessed within 11:40 minutes/seconds

total reflex time and is able to be transported within 20 minutes. These times are good for

trauma patients, when all the needed units can arrive by minute 7, which is not always possible at

the outer perimeter areas of the Department, or when multiple calls for service occur. In fact

arrival by the 7th

minute to EMS incidents only occurs 60 percent of the time.


The auto accident, while only being moderate in size, required 11 personnel. If a building fire

occurred at the same time, then over 100 percent of the entire on-duty force of 22 would be

committed to two incidents. Response needs greater than this always will require

automatic/mutual aid assistance from adjoining departments.

Fires and complex medical incidents require that the other needed units arrive in time to

complete an effective intervention. Time is one factor that comes from proper station placement.

Good performance also comes from adequate staffing. On the fire and rescue time measures

above, the Department can do a good job, in terms of time, on one moderate building fire and

one routine medical call at once. This is typical of departments that staff fewer 3-person

companies for average, routine emergencies. However, major fires and medical emergencies

where the closest unit is not available to respond will challenge the Department response system

to deliver good outcomes, so the City and ESD #8 are co-dependent for severe emergency

coverage with their neighbors. This factor must be taken into account when assessing fire

station locations.

For example, on a recent grass fire in March 2011, the Department was committed to two

incidents underway and then had a 14-minute response to a grass fire. At the time of the initial

911 report, the grass fire consumed only a 10’ x 10’ area, but by the time the Department arrived

it had spread to over 3 acres with one house threatened.

Previous critical task studies conducted by Citygate, the Standard of Response Cover documents

reviewed from accredited fire departments, and NFPA recommendations all arrive at the need for

14+ firefighters plus a command chief arriving within 11 minutes (from the time of call) at a

room and contents structure fire to be able to simultaneously and effectively perform the tasks of

rescue, fire attack and ventilation.

If fewer firefighters arrive, what from the list of tasks mentioned would not be done? Most

likely, the search team will be delayed, as will ventilation. The attack lines only have two

firefighters, which does not allow for rapid movement above the first floor deployment. Rescue

is done with only two-person teams; thus, when rescue is essential, other tasks are not done in a

simultaneous, timely manner. Remember what this report stated in the beginning: effective

deployment is about the speed (travel time) and the weight (firefighters) of the attack.

Yes, 13 initial firefighters (3 engines, 1 ladder truck, 1 battalion chief) can handle a moderate

risk house fire (especially on the first floor). An effective response force of 13 will be seriously

slowed if the fire is above the first floor in a low-rise apartment building or commercial /

industrial building.

In Georgetown, when the Department responds to building fires, the 4th

crew does not arrive to

90 percent of the serious incidents until minute 16:10, well past a desirable goal point of 11

minutes. Only 30 percent of the building fire incidents receive four units by the 11th

minute from

the time of 911 call.


Thus, due to slower than desirable dispatch, crew turnout and travel times (limited stations with

large service areas) the Department does not get enough personnel to the scene to prevent an

initially fast moving fire from substantially destroying the building. The current response force

times are capable of keeping the fire from spreading to adjoining buildings.

When the on-duty staffing is stretched thin, the Department can bring in automatic or mutual aid

equipment, but from a distance and under the assumption that the aiding department is not

already busy.

2.5 CURRENT STATION LOCATION CONFIGURATIONS

The City and the ESD #8 will be served by five fire stations later in 2011 when the 5th

station is

opened. As part of this fire services study, it is appropriate to understand what the existing

stations do and do not cover, if there are any coverage gaps needing one or more stations, and

what, if anything, to do about them as the City and ESD #8 area continues to evolve. In brief,

there are two geographic perspectives to fire station deployment:

Distribution – the spreading out or spacing of first-due fire units to stop routine

emergencies.

Concentration – the clustering of fire stations close enough together so that

building fires can receive enough resources from multiple fire stations quickly

enough. This is known as the Effective Response Force or commonly the ―first

alarm assignment‖ – the collection of a sufficient number of firefighters on-scene,

delivered within the concentration time goal to stop the escalation of the problem.

To analyze first-due and first alarm fire unit travel time coverage for this study, Citygate used a

geographic mapping tool called FireView that can measure travel distance over the street

network. Citygate ran several deployment map studies and measured their impact on various

parts of the community.

The maps (found in Volume 2 of this study) display travel time using prior Department incident

data to adjust the normal posted speed limits per type of street to those more reflective of slower

fire truck travel times. Since the Department does not currently have a City Council or ESD #8

adopted travel time measure, the initial map measures in this study are 4 minutes travel time for

first-due units for good suburban outcomes as suggested by NFPA 1710. For a first alarm,

multiple-unit coverage, the ―concentration‖ of units measure in this mapping study is based on

an 8-minute travel time as suggested in NFPA 1710. When one minute is added for dispatch

reflex time and two minutes for company notification times, the maps then effectively show the

area covered within 7 minutes for first-due units and 11 minutes for a first alarm assignment

from the time the 911 call is made.


An additional measure used was the Insurance Service Office 1.5-mile recommendation for first-

due fire companies and 2.5-mile service for second-due companies and ladder trucks. A driving

distance of 1.5 miles equates to 3.5 to 4 minutes travel time over the road network.

The map set in this study does not show coverage from nearby fire stations with career-staffed

departments around Georgetown. The first goal of this study is to determine if the City and ESD

#8 can substantially cover themselves from their fire stations with appropriate response times. If

so, then the automatic aid coverage is useful to fill in edge area gaps and be able to provide back-

up unit response when Department units are on other incidents.

All street data in this study was obtained with the assistance of the Georgetown Geographic

Mapping Division. The maps reflect the major, future streets that the City of Georgetown has

master planned for in its circulation element, unless otherwise noted on specific maps at the end

of this section.

Map #1 – Existing Fire Station Locations

This first map shows the City and the ESD #8 and the system’s current fire stations. This map

view will be used in all further map measures.

Map #2 – Risk Assessment

Displayed here are the locations of the higher fire flow buildings as calculated by the Insurance

Service Office (ISO). Most of these buildings are along the major road corridors in commercial

and industrial areas in the City due to zoning. These are the buildings that must receive the most

timely effective first alarm force to serious fires.

Map #3 – First-Due Unit Distribution – Existing Stations (4-Minute Travel)

This map shows in green colored street segments the distribution or first-due response time for

each current fire station per a desirable suburban response goal of 4 minutes travel time. Thus,

the computer shows how far each company can reach within 7 minutes Fire Department total

response time from the time of the fire communications center receiving the call.

Therefore, the limit of color per station area is the time an engine could reach the 4-minute travel

time limit, assuming they are in-station and encounter no unusual traffic delays. In addition, the

computer uses speed limits per roadway type that are slowed by actual fire unit travel times.

Thus, the projection is a very close modeling of the real world.

A desirable goal for a city as developed as Georgetown could be to cover 90 percent of the

geography containing the highest population densities with a first-due unit coverage plan based

on a goal measure statement to deliver acceptable outcomes. This would only leave the very

hard-to-serve outer edge areas with longer coverage times, and depending on the emergency,

with less effective outcomes. There should be some overlap between station areas so that a


second-due unit can have a chance of an adequate response time when it covers a call for another

station. The outer perimeter areas will always be hard to serve, and in many cases, cost-

prohibitive to serve for a small number of calls for service.

As can be seen in this measure, the shape of the City is not easy to efficiently serve with a small

number of fire stations. There is not much of a grid type road network outside of the City core

near Station One. The existing five stations are all appropriately located in higher development

density areas, and most of the ISO higher fire flow buildings are covered by a first-due unit

within 7 minutes.

However, given a non-grid or curvilinear street network, the outer areas of the City and the

majority of ESD #8 are beyond 4-minute travel time coverage even once new Station Five is on-

line.

The message to be taken from this map is that it would be very challenging for the City and ESD

#8 to improve travel time coverage without adding fire stations. The size of the northwest

quadrant is just too large for either of the two existing City stations to cover in a desirable travel

time of 4 minutes.

With the growth expected along the new Toll Road area on the east side, combined with an

absence of mutual aid from the east, illustrates another under-covered part of the Department’s

service area. This area will likely develop more commercial buildings than the northwest housing

areas and thus require a more timely weight of response.

Map #4 – ISO Engine Coverage Areas – Existing City Stations

This map exhibit displays the Insurance Service Office (ISO) requirement that stations cover a

1.5-mile distance response area. Depending on the road network in a department, the 1.5-mile

measure usually equates to a 3- to 4-minute travel time. However, a 1.5-mile measure is a

reasonable indicator of station spacing and overlap. As with the 4-minute drive time map, much

of the populated areas of the City are served within 1.5-mile distance from the existing fire

stations. As the 4-minute map projected, the areas in the difficult to serve street

network/topography areas are not. There is also very little overlap between station areas, so if the

primary unit is busy with an incident, and a second incident occurs, the cover unit has to traverse

a full station area.

Stated this way, the two models of 4-minute and 1.5-mile travel represent the best and least

coverages likely and both state that some of the developed areas are beyond these measures.

Map #5 – Concentration (First Alarm)

This map shows the concentration or massing of fire companies for serious fire or rescue calls.

Building fires, in particular, require 14+ firefighters arriving within a reasonable time frame to

work together and effectively to stop the escalation of the emergency. Otherwise, if too few


firefighters arrive, or arrive too late in the fire’s progress, the result is a greater alarm fire, which

is more dangerous to the public and the firefighters.

The concentration map exhibit looks at the Department’s ability to deploy three of its engines,

one ladder truck, and one battalion chief to building fires within 8 minutes travel time (11

minutes total Fire Department response time from the 911 call receipt). This measure ensures

that a minimum of 12 firefighters and one battalion chief can be deployed at the incident to work

simultaneously and effectively to stop the spread of a modest fire.

The green color in the map shows the area where the Department’s current fire deployment

system should deliver the initial effective response force. Streets without the green highlights do

not have three engines, one ladder truck and the battalion chief in 8 minutes travel time.

As can be seen, due to the spacing of the fire stations, an effective response force can be gathered

in the core of the populated City areas. However, north and southeast areas do not receive the

necessary concentration of units for effective firefighting.

The effect of automatic aid from Round Rock Fire Department is not considered due to their

station’s distance from the southern areas of the City.

Map #6 – Multiple Engine Coverage

The next few maps will ―take apart‖ the full first alarm Map #5 and show the coverages of the

different types of units. In Map #6, the coverage for the three needed engines is displayed at 8

minutes travel. As can be seen, it is hard to deliver three engines to outer areas of the City and

the more populated ESD #8 areas. The areas beyond the green shading are still the areas of

concern from Map #3 and the situation in the north is exacerbated due to only two northern

stations and a lack of cross-connect streets. Much of the northern city area is, in effect, a

collection of cul-de-sac or dead-end neighborhoods with only one or two primary access points.

However, as can be seen in Map #6, the 3-engine coverage is strong in the core of the City by the

8th

minute; however, like stretching a rubber band, the coverage becomes light as it is stretched

south, north or east.

Map #7a - #7b – Ladder Truck Coverage

Measured on Map #7a is the ladder truck coverage from Georgetown Station #5 and Station #1.

This demonstrates a strong distribution of ladder companies due to a recent re-distribution of a

ladder unit to Station Five by the Fire Chief.

The only area for improvement would be to the north and the east of Station #3 especially if

these areas contain significant commercial properties in the future.

Map #7b is a more conservative model as the 2.5-mile distance measure does not take into

account the higher speed main arterials that allow the ladder truck very effective ―reach‖ in 8


minutes to more distant neighborhoods. The area in the northeast, if developed with a significant

number of commercial buildings, could create the need for a future, third ladder truck or quint

(pumper/ladder) unit.

Map #8a - #8b – Battalion Chief Coverage

Map #8a measures the battalion chief coverage for the first alarm at 8 minutes travel from

Georgetown Station One. As can be seen, this location by any measure is too far south.

Map #8b shows the coverage from Fire Station Two, where the Fire Chief wants to re-locate the

battalion chief. This map shows the clear need to do so.

However, even with this move, the northern areas do not receive the battalion chief within best

practice recommendations. In the future, as incident volumes grow, more stations are added and

fires increase with more development, the Department will have to consider a second battalion

chief.

Map #9 – All Incident Locations

This map is an overlay of the exact location for all Fire Department incident types for three years

from October 2007 through September 2010. It is apparent that there is a need for Fire

Department services in all of the station areas of the Department. It also should be noted that

call for service volumes are higher where the population densities and human activity are the

highest. This is normal, as people drive calls for service more than do open space areas.

Map #10 – EMS Incident Locations

This map further breaks out only the emergency medical and rescue call locations. Again, with

the majority of the calls for service being emergency medical, almost all streets need Fire

Department services.

Map #11 – All Fire Type Locations

This map identifies the location of all fires in the Department’s service area. All fires include

any type of fire call from auto to dumpster to building. There are obviously fewer fires than

medical or rescue calls. As the map shows, the areas with the greatest population density and the

oldest building stock have the most fires.

Map #12 – Structure Fire Locations

This map is similar to the previous map, but only displays structure fires for three years. While

the structure fire count is a smaller subset of the total fire count, there are two meaningful

findings to this map. First, there are still structure fires in every first-due fire company area.

Second, the location of many of the building fires parallels the higher risk and older building


type commercial areas in the more built-up areas of the City. Fires in the more complicated

building types must be controlled quickly or the losses will be very large. The areas served

outside the City in ESD #8 have a lower incidence of structure fires. However, when they do

occur in the outer areas of the ESD, the outcome will not be as good given the lengthy travel

times.

Map #13 – All Incident Location Hot Spots

This map examines, by mathematical density, where clusters of incident activity occurred. In

this set, all incidents are plotted by high-density workload. For each density measure, the darker

the color, the greater the quantity of incidents in a small area. This type of map makes the

location of frequent workload more meaningful than just mapping the dots of all locations as

done in Map #9.

Why is this perspective important? Overlap of units and ensuring the delivery of a good

concentration for the effective response force. When this type of map is compared with the

concentration map, the goal is for the best concentration of unit coverage (first alarm) to be

where the greatest density of calls for service occurs. For the City, the best concentration of

companies primarily occurs in Station One and Station Two’s area, which also receives timely

back-up support from both Stations Four and future Station Five.

Map #14 – EMS Incident Location Densities

This map is similar to Map #11, but only the medical and rescue hot spots of activity are plotted.

The clusters of activity look very similar to the all-incident set in Map #13 because medical calls

are such a large part of the total.

Map #15 – All Fire Location Densities

This map shows the hot spot activity for all fires. Again, the call-for-service density is highest in

the most developed core of the City.

Map #16 – Structure Fire Densities

This map only shows the structure fire workload by density. Here, the activity clusters are

spread across more areas of the City and ESD #8, due to the actual lower quantity of structure

fires. Given the older building stock and population densities, the most building fires are in the

core of the City.

2.5.1 Possible Future Deployment Scenarios

As these baseline coverage maps were understood, Citygate worked with the Department staff to

identify and test the impacts of possible additional deployment scenarios. The next series of

maps will explain the best-fit choices identified. The first set of future coverage maps will


continue to use the ―added future streets‖ road network. Then another set of maps will be used to

describe the differences, if the future streets links are not built due to other circumstances.

The service area of Georgetown and the surrounding areas are growing. There is strong support

to consider addition of fire stations as the community grows. The true art of fire station timing is

to meet the needs of the community at the same time of opening the station, not too early or not

too late. An old adage in the fire service is ―you can’t open a residential fire station and you

can’t close a residential fire station.‖ With this in mind most of these additional stations will be

serving residential areas and timing and communicating the stations is equally important to

assure safety for the community. Adding a second battalion chief will assure an 8-minute

supervisory distribution for the community.

Department staff identified possible station sites for future use. These sites have both advantages

and disadvantages.

Map #18a - #18b – Four Additional Stations

A series of test models was conducted by Citygate adding one fire station at a time and in some

cases, moving the location to a best-fit site. These incremental models were reviewed with the

Fire Chief and command staff.

Map #18a shows that to cover the bulk of the road network, at least four more fire stations will

be needed. This map view then is the best possible, near-term 4-minute coverage distribution.

With the current ladder truck distribution, the Department could staff engine companies in the

new stations and save on adding any future truck companies, until a station in the far northeast is

needed, if that ever occurs.

With four additional stations, coverage will be much more complete. Service to the more

populated ESD #8 areas is improved to more of a suburban than rural response time with the

addition of the Farm to Market (FM) Road 3405 and University Plaza station sites.

Map #18b shows the 4-minute coverage with 6 additional stations, located at the outer edges of

ESD #8 in the Water Oaks and Terra Vista areas. The cost-effectiveness of both these sites is

questionable.

Both stations are in less populated areas, at the edge of the current ESD #8 service area. Ideally,

fire stations should serve a 360-degree response area and cover the most populated road miles, in

the fewest minutes of travel. Locating a station in the Water Oaks area will only make sense with

high enough populations to pay the annual cost of staffing the station and/or an annexation

increasing the area of ESD #8.

The Terra Vista site overlaps south of the ESD #8 boundary with Round Rock. If ESD #8 and

Round Rock need an additional station in this area, they should agree to share the staffing cost

for the combined first-due service area given the jurisdictional overlap.


Map #19 – 8-Minute First Alarm Coverage Improvement with 4 Additional Stations

This map shows a strong distribution for 8-minute travel time. This includes a second battalion

chief at Station Five and Battalion #1 returned to Station One. Multiple-unit coverage is

increased to the bulk of the City and the more developed ESD #8 areas. Sun City is too difficult

to serve given the road network limitations and the travel distance for the ladder truck from

Station Five. However, given the mostly residential zoning in this area, the 3-engine coverage

from the three most northern stations is acceptable.

Possible Future Deployment Scenarios – No New Main Arterials Added

This set of maps (Map #3-8 and 18-19) displays the coverage without added new main roads.

When each of these maps is visually compared to the maps with the new streets, the eye cannot

really perceive a difference. This is due to the new streets being added at the outer areas, past the

majority of the fire station coverage. As such, they do not affect the core of the model. The

following GIS data table compares the two models:

Table 4—Added Main Roads Versus No New Main Road Measures

Current Streets Added Streets

Miles Percent Miles Percent

4 Minute Travel Road Miles

Total Road Miles 639.4 100.00% 735.4 115.01%

Existing Engines 241.7 37.81% 261.1 35.51%

Existing & 4 Future Engines 356.4 55.74% 396.9 53.97%

Existing & 6 Future Engines 377.4 59.03% 437.3 59.47%

8 Minute Travel Road Miles

Total Road Miles 639.4 100.00% 735.4 115.01%

1 Battalion Chief - Station 2 321.1 50.22% 349.7 47.56%

2 Battalion Chiefs 423.6 66.25% 485.5 66.02%

3 Engines, 1 Ladder, 1 BC Existing Stations 191.2 29.90% 233.8 31.80%

3 Engines, 1 Ladder, 1 BC w/4 future stations & 2 BC's 322.8 50.48% 400.5 54.47%

As the data table demonstrates there is a very little increase in miles covered between the two

models. The largest positive impact with the new interconnect streets is with the first alarm

coverage by .5 percent.

It can also be seen that, even with an additional six fire stations, the percent of coverage

department-wide only grows to 60 percent. This is due to so much of the future street length


being added toward the periphery of the combined City/ESD #8 area. Many of the ESD #8 road

segments are still outside the 4- or 8-minute coverage footprint. That said, the coverage footprint

and the ability to cover populated areas (the qualitative factor) is improved, but that is not

evident in quantitative analysis.

2.6 MAPPING MEASURES EVALUATION

Based on the above mapping evaluation, Citygate offers the following findings:

Finding #2: ESD #8 is not substantially developed enough in terms of

population density and building development to desire an urban

level of first-due fire unit coverage, which is 4 minutes of travel

time for the best possible outcomes.

Finding #3: The City and ESD are very difficult to cover efficiently with a

cost-effective number of fire stations due to the amount of areas

without cross-connect roads and a curvilinear street design system.

Finding #4: Given the expected growth, to increase best practice travel time

coverage in the urban to suburban areas, at least four more fire

stations are necessary.

Finding #5: The addition of a second battalion chief after adding two more

stations, one north and one south, would be highly desirable.

Finding #6: Two ladder trucks or quints (pumper/ladder) units are effective

unless there is substantial growth in the northeast City/ESD #8 area

driving the need for a third ladder or quint unit.

After the historical response statistics are analyzed in the next subsection of this report, then an

integrated set of deployment recommendations will be made.

2.7 CURRENT WORKLOAD STATISTICS SUMMARY

In this section of the Standards of Response Cover process, prior response statistics are used to

determine what percent of compliance the existing system delivers. In other words, if the

geographic map measures indicate the system will respond with a given travel time, does it

actually deliver up to expectations? A detailed analysis of in-depth statistics is provided in

Volume 3 of this report. What follows is a summary of those comprehensive measures and

findings.


The portions of this report that concentrated on mapping the distribution and concentration of

fire stations used geographic mapping tools to estimate travel time over the street network.

Thus, the maps show what should occur from the station placements. However, in the real

world, traffic, weather, and units being out of quarters on other business such as training or fire

prevention duties affect response times. Further, if a station area has simultaneous calls for

service, referred to as ―call-stacking,‖ the cover engine must travel much farther. Thus, a

complete Standards of Response Coverage study looks at the actual response time performance

of the system from incident records. Only when combined with map measures can the system

fully be understood and configured.

As a review of actual performance occurs, there are two perspectives to keep in mind. First, the

recommendations of NFPA 1710 only require that a department-wide performance measure of

90 percent of the historical incidents (not geography) be maintained. This allows the possibility

that a few stations with great response time performance can ―mask‖ the performance of stations

with poorer travel times.

In the accreditation philosophy for the Standards of Response Coverage approach, it is

recommended that the performance of each station area also be determined to ensure equity of

coverage. However, even this approach is not perfect – a station area may well have less than 90

percent performance, but serves lower-risk open space areas with limited buildings thereby not

having an economic justification for better performance. In addition, the study must discuss just

what is measured within the under-performing statistic. For example, a station area with a first-

due performance of 88 percent with only 50 calls in the 88th

to 90th

percentile is far different

from an area with 500 calls for service in the 88th

to 90th

percentile.

All measures, then, must be understood in the complete context of geography, risk, and actual

numbers of calls for service that exceed the community’s performance measure. The

Department’s response time performance must be compared to outcomes such as fire loss or

medical cases and be contrasted to the community’s outcome expectations. A community could

be well deployed and have poor outcomes, or the reverse. A balanced system will avoid such

extremes and strive for equity of service within each category of risk.

Fire departments are required to report response statistics in a format published by the U.S. Fire

Administration called the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). The private sector

develops software to do this reporting according to state and federal specifications.

Data sets for this section of the study were extracted from the City Communications Center that

provides 911 dispatching and NFIRS incident records from the Georgetown Fire Department.

Total response time in this study is measured from the time of receiving the call at the City

Communications Center to the unit being on-scene.

For suburban and urban population density areas, NFPA 1710 recommends a 4-minute fire unit

travel time, which when a more realistic 2 minutes is added for turnout time and 1 minute for


dispatch processing, aggregates to a 7-minute total reflex (customer) measure. For multiple-unit

calls, the outer NFPA 1710 recommended measurement is 8 travel minutes, plus two for turnout

and 1 minute for dispatch, which is an 11-minute total reflex measure. These measures are also

consistent with good outcomes for urban/suburban risks as identified in the Standards of

Response Cover process.

Data sets were ―cleaned‖ to eliminate records without enough time stamps or records with

impossible times, such as a 23-hour response. The data sets were modeled in the NFIRS 5 Alive

fire service analysis tool for fire service deployment statistics.

For this statistics review, Citygate is modeling the Department’s prior performance and

comparing the data results to the ―recommendation‖ per NFPA 1710 for fire service deployment,

since the City and ESD #8 do not have an adopted measure. The current fire department budget

performance measure does not begin with the time of fire dispatch receiving the call, or include

what outcome is desired, all of which are considered a best practice by the Commission on Fire

Accreditation. Later, this study will integrate all the SOC study elements to propose refined

deployment measures that best meet the risk and expectations found in the City and ESD #8.

The Georgetown Fire Department furnished NFIRS 5 transaction files for incidents occurring

from 10/1/2007 to 9/30/10. A separate set of MS-Excel dispatch computer event transactions was

received for the same date range. The dataset used for this analysis consists of 16,248 incidents

and 22,868 apparatus responses.

2.7.1 Incident Types

Below is a list of Georgetown ―Nature of Call‖ counts for three years. These counts are based on

first apparatus arrivals so they represent incidents as opposed to apparatus responses. Only

major categories are included.


Table 5—Incidents: Annual Count by Incident Type

Code/Incident Type FY 07/08 FY 08/09 FY 09/10

311 Medical assist, assist EMS crew 2,117 2,250 2,371

300 Rescue, emergency medical call (EMS) call, other 582 648 708

611 Dispatched & canceled en route 459 363 365

554 Assist invalid 236 204 320

600 Good intent call, other 217 206 220

460 Accident, potential accident, other 158 171 163

322 Vehicle accident with injuries 138 142 169

500 Service call, other 88 82 130

745 Alarm system sounded, no fire - unintentional 74 97 104

321 EMS call, excluding vehicle accident with injury 80 114 73

463 Vehicle accident, general cleanup 84 101 72

743 Smoke detector activation, no fire - unintentional 80 75 85

561 Unauthorized burning 76 67 33

571 Cover assignment, standby, move up 64 54 56

735 Alarm system sounded due to malfunction 68 55 41

733 Smoke detector activation due to malfunction 44 47 66

143 Grass fire 67 62 26

651 Smoke scare, odor of smoke 47 60 35

551 Assist police or other governmental agency 41 36 29

111 Building fire 26 33 33

The next table shows the top types of property receiving services from the Georgetown Fire

Department during the 3-year data set. Only the most significant property types are listed.


Table 6—Property Use: Annual Count by Property Classification

Code/Property Use FY 07/08 FY 08/09 FY 09/10

419 1 or 2 family dwelling 2,235 2,353 2,539

429 Multifamily dwellings 444 533 559

961 Highway or divided highway 422 429 386

311 24-hour care nursing homes, 4 or more persons 261 220 235

960 Street, other 156 144 205

962 Residential street, road or residential driveway 92 107 110

None 116 86 82

965 Vehicle parking area 90 97 86

963 Street or road in commercial area 96 87 90

931 Open land or field 93 88 48

888 Fire station 71 69 66

340 Clinics, doctor’s offices, hemodialysis centers 80 56 62

131 Church, mosque, synagogue, temple, chapel 43 46 55

161 Restaurant or cafeteria 40 59 44

361 Jail, prison (not juvenile) 52 52 32

215 High school/junior high school/middle school 47 36 44

581 Department or discount store 35 52 33

519 Food and beverage sales, grocery store 47 31 41

599 Business office 33 33 37


Here is the breakdown by incident type. Notice the EMS incidents drive activity, which is

typical for most fire departments.

This graph compares incident activity by hour of day by year. Notice a measurable increase in

the number of incidents occurring between 08:00 and 12:00 in the last year.


2.7.2 Demand by Station Area

Here is an incident count by station by year. Notice the slight increase in activity in station areas

1 and 2.

2.7.3 Georgetown Response Times

While many fire departments track average response time, it is not highly regarded as a

performance measurement. One of the most commonly used criteria to measure response

effectiveness is fractile analysis of response time. A fractile analysis splits responses into time

segments and provides a count and percentage for each progressive time segment.

Here is a fractile response time breakdown for Georgetown Fire Department responses for 12

months in 09/10, including City, ESD #8 and highways.

For fire and EMS incidents, the following fractile results for total response time:


Table 7—Total Response Time Fractile Measures

Department-Wide Total Response Time

Bldg Fires

EMS Target Time Goals

Call to 1st Arrival at 5 Minutes 20.7% 22.5%


Call to 1st Arrival at 7 Minutes 53.3% 60.1% Recommended Citygate goal




Call to 1st Arrival at 10:10 min/secs 88.0% 90.0% Actual Performance


Call to 1st Arrival at 11:10 min/secs 90.2% 93.9% Actual Performance

The data measures do not change very much for the four current station areas. The 7-minute

performance range is:

Station One 54.6%

Station Two 61.4%

Station Three 55.4%

Station Four 33.6%

The above department-wide total response times need to be broken down into City, ESD #8 and

highway/toll road given the very different population densities:

Table 8—Total Response Times by Service Area

Total Response Time % @ 7:00 Minutes

90% Time Point Min/Sec

City

EMS 66.1% 9:20

Building Fires 73.1% 8:50

ESD #8

EMS 24.7% 12:40


Highway/Toll Road

EMS 43.6% 12:40


To further understand the effect of road network design and length of response time, here is the

data for only travel time for the three types of population density:

Table 9—Travel Time by Service Area

Travel Time % @ 4:00 Minutes

90% Time Point Min/Sec

City

EMS 66.3% 6:10


ESD #8

EMS 17.2% 9:30


Highway/Toll Road

EMS 42.5% 9:10

Once on-scene, the crew must identify the emergency, in a medical call gain access to the patient

and then begin emergency intervention procedures. In the best of situations, this takes 2-3 more

minutes after arrival. Therefore, for better outcomes in urban/suburban areas, Citygate typically

recommends to our clients that they plan for a 90 percent arrival by the 7th

minute of total

response, to allow for some set-up time prior to actual intervention.

As can be seen from the total response time and travel time performance tables above, the four

station system in this data set cannot deliver urban response times in the City and the more light

suburban and rural areas in ESD #8 receive longer response times typical of sparsely populated

areas. This breakdown data shows that longer travel times are the cause for slower than desired

total response time performance. There are only two solutions for this – more stations and/or new

areas with an all grid type street design.

2.7.4 Response Time Component Measurements

The next step is to evaluate all response time components by breaking down ―Total Reflex

Time‖ into its three component parts of:

Call-handling time – time of call until time of dispatch. Only dispatch records

showing a call-handling time greater than 0 seconds and less than 3 minutes were

used in this analysis.

Turnout time – time of dispatch until time unit is responding. Only dispatch

records showing a turnout time greater than 0 seconds and less than 4 minutes

were used in this analysis.


Travel time – time unit is responding until time the unit arrives on the scene.

Only dispatch records showing a travel time greater than 0 seconds and less than

10 minutes were used in this analysis.

For fire and EMS incident types in 2009-10, the response time component measurements are

shown below:

Table 10—Georgetown Call-Handling Time Performance (09/10)

Measure 90% Minute Goal Goal Source

Actual

Performance

Call Processing <= 01:00 Desired NFPA Goal Point 47.3%

Call Processing <= 02:20 Georgetown Actual Compliance 89.0%

Table 11—Georgetown Company Turnout Time Performance (09/10)


Actual

Performance

Turnout <= 02:00 Citygate Recommended 90%

Goal Point

79.9%

Turnout <= 02:20 Georgetown Actual Compliance 89.1%

Older national recommendations were for turnout time to take 1 minute. Over the last five years

of increasing protective clothing regulations by OSHA and the NFPA, complete data studies

have shown this to be a near impossible goal to accomplish safely. Citygate finds a more

realistic goal is to complete the company notification and turnout process in 2 minutes or less, 90

percent of the time. Attention to this critical time element can help reduce the time.

Travel time – here are the department-wide travel time measures for the three years of data to

fire and EMS incidents:

Table 12—Georgetown Travel Time Performance (09/10)


Actual

Performance

Travel <= 04:00 Desired Goal Point in NFPA 1710 55.6%

Travel <= 07:00 Georgetown Actual Compliance 89.5%


Here fire and EMS incidents exceeding a travel time of 4 minutes (240 seconds) are displayed by

station area:

Station One’s area has the most calls for service, which also means the highest number of

simultaneous call for service requests in the same area. When this fact is combined with the large

size of Station One’s area for the entire southern and southeast areas, faster travel times are not

possible without another station in the university area.

The travel time measures correlate to the map measures at 4 minutes of travel. The total

department service area is too large, with a non-grid street network in some areas, to cover in 4

minutes travel from the current four fire stations. Non-grid street networks, sometimes referred

to as curvilinear networks, actually slow emergency travel times. The new 5th

fire station will

help, but not completely improve, travel times to 4 or even 5 minutes to 90 percent of the calls.

The station areas are too large and the road network is too difficult.

2.7.5 Simultaneous Call Measurements

Obviously, incidents that occur at the same time tax fire department resources more than those

occurring when there is no other fire department response activity. Examining incident data for

3 years shows that 27.33 percent of incidents occurred when Georgetown was already engaged in

other response activity. For a four- or five-station department, a rate of 27 percent is not highly

problematic in Citygate’s experience. Response times will be slowed when simultaneous

incidents occur, but the rate is not frequent enough to warrant an additional unit in any one

station area.


Here is the breakdown by number of incidents:

Table 13—Simultaneous Incidents Frequency

Number of Simultaneous Incidents Percentage

At least 2 incidents occurring at the same time 27.33%



At least 5 incidents occurring at the same time .28%

Another way to measure simultaneous responses is when simultaneous incidents occur within the

same station area. Georgetown experiences same-station simultaneous incidents 7.74 percent of

the time. Notice Station One has the greatest simultaneous activity and it is growing year-by-

year.

2.7.6 Interdepartmental Aid – Automatic and Mutual

Interdepartmental aid quantifies the number of incidents in which the Fire Department received

tactical assistance from other fire departments or provided assistance to other fire departments.

Georgetown is a participant in interdepartmental aid. During the 3-year data set, aid types

breakdown as follows. The quantity of aid is very low and is not a detractor to Georgetown

response times.


Table 14—Mutual/Auto Aid Report for All Incidents

Incident Type Count Percentage

Total Incidents 16,148

Aid Received 60 .37%

Aid Given 39 .24%

2.7.7 First Alarm Fractile Compliance

This report section focuses on concentration for the first alarm arrival units. Georgetown does

not have an adopted performance measure for multiple units to serious fires or other

emergencies.

Most Standards of Response Cover studies along with NFPA 1710 recommend for

urban/suburban areas that all of the necessary fire units for an effective response force (first

alarm) arrive on-scene within 8 minutes travel time, and when 3 minutes are added for dispatch

and turnout time, this equals 11 minutes, 90 percent of the time.

In the 3-year dataset, the fractile performance of the first alarm units for Georgetown for four fire

stations was:

Table 15—Fractile Performance of First Alarm Units

Unit Due Quantity Time at 90%

3rd 22 15:30

4th 15 16:20

We can see from this table, given the difficult to serve road network in Georgetown, three or four

fire units cannot reach critical emergencies by the 11th

minute from the 911 call, 90 percent of

the time. Lowering this measure would require two to four more fire stations.

2.7.8 Response Time Statistics Discussion

Given the above summary of Citygate’s response statistics analysis, the detailed data in the

comprehensive statistics analysis, and the findings based on the geographic mapping section, we

offer the following findings:


Finding #7: With a department-wide EMS incident first-due unit performance

of 10:10 minutes/seconds at 90.0 percent, the four-station system

in this study’s data did not come close to delivering at a Citygate

recommended best practice goal point of 7 minutes, 90 percent of

the time for the first-due unit. Due to longer turnout times to

building fires, the 90 percent measure was even longer at 11:10

minutes/seconds.

Finding #8: Both the dispatch and crew turnout times are over a Citygate

recommended goal point by a combined time of 1:40

minutes/seconds. Focus on procedures and training on both these

steps can easily reduce dispatch to 1 minute and turnout to 2

minutes maximum at the 90 percent point for EMS calls

department-wide. Doing so would save a combined 1:40

minutes/seconds and bring the department-wide 90 percent

performance measure to 8:30 minutes/seconds without adding


Finding #9: With a department-wide fire/EMS incident travel time

performance of 06:10 @ 90.5 percent, the current urban/suburban

area deployment system cannot meet a best practice

urban/suburban area recommendation of 4 minutes travel, 90

percent of the time department-wide.

However, this is due to a very hard to serve non-grid street system

and topography. The current fire station areas are too large;

however, each population cluster does have a primary fire station.

Georgetown has large open space areas that separate major

neighborhoods and the Department serves light suburban to rural

population densities in the ESD #8 areas.

Finding #10: The simultaneous emergency call for service rate of 27 percent for

two incidents at once is not a significant issue in the near term,

given mutual aid support from the south.

Finding #11: For multiple-unit coverage to serious incidents (first alarm), the

current Georgetown system delivers weak performance by

delivering four stations by 16:20 minutes/seconds 90 percent of the

time. Improving this measure will require additional fire stations.


Finding #12: Given the diversity of population densities in the City and ESD #8,

the agencies should adopt response time measures specific to

urban/suburban and rural population densities. Doing to will allow

accurate Department performance measures and guide the timing

of fire stations with residents and new development applicants.

Finding #13: The Department benefits from the mutual aid regional response

system. While this system cannot replace existing City/ESD

stations or units, the Department should continue to participate in

this valuable support system for simultaneous calls for service and

multiple-unit serious emergencies.

2.7.9 Integrated Fire Station Deployment Recommendations

The Department commissioned this study to better understand the deployment needs in its shared

service area and to provide a roadmap for future growth as the City and ESD #8 evolve. There is

a shared understanding that more fire stations will be needed to maintain and improve response

times in growing areas. This is evident by the City funding and opening the 5th

Fire Station in

2011.

Citygate sees five issues in Georgetown’s fire services deployment plan that can be improved as

fiscal resources allow over time as the City and ESD #8 grow to build-out zoning:

1. The lack of adopted deployment policy statements that are measurable, outcome-

driven, and sensitive to different population densities;

2. An acknowledgement that widely spaced development using curvilinear street

design means that without additional and closely spaced fire stations, improving

travel times to meet best practice recommendations for positive outcomes in

urban/suburban areas will not be possible;

3. The need to have a policy for the timing of additional fire stations and types of

specialty units such as ladder trucks and chief officers;

4. The need to focus on improving dispatch and turnout times;

5. Adding fire stations and crews as needed if funding allows.

Citygate’s integrated deployment recommendations are designed to address our findings and the

above five issues:


Recommendation #1: Adopt Revised Deployment Measures: The City and

ESD #8 should adopt revised performance measures to

direct fire crew planning and to monitor the operation of

the Department. The measures should take into account

a realistic company turnout time of 2 minutes and be

designed to deliver outcomes that will save patients

medically salvageable upon arrival; and to keep small,

but serious fires from becoming greater alarm fires.

Citygate recommends these measures be:

1.1 Distribution of Fire Stations: To treat medical patients

and control small fires, the first-due unit should arrive

within 7 minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt

of the 911 call. This equates to 1-minute dispatch time,

2 minutes company turnout time and 4 minutes drive

time in the most populated areas.


Emergencies: To confine fires near the room of origin,

to stop wildland fires to under 3 acres when noticed

promptly and to treat up to 5 medical patients at once, a

multiple-unit response of at least 13 personnel should

arrive within 11 minutes from the time of 911 call

receipt, 90 percent of the time. This equates to 1-minute

dispatch time, 2 minutes company turnout time and 8

minutes drive time spacing for multiple units in the most

populated areas.

Recommendation #2: Adopt Fire Station Location Measures: To direct fire

station location timing and crew size planning as the

community grows, adopt fire unit deployment

performance measures based on population density

zones in the table below. The more specific, measurable

and consistent the policy is, the more it can be applied

fairly to all uses and easily understood by a non-fire

service user.


Table 16—Proposed Deployment Measures for Georgetown Growth


Structure

Fire

Urban

Area

Structure

Fire

Suburban

Area

Structure

Fire Rural

Area**

Structure

Fire

Remote

Area

>1,000

people/sq.

mi.

500 -1,000

people/sq.

mi.

< 500

people/sq.

mi. **

<100

people/sq.

mi. *









Recommendation #3: Aggregate Population Definitions: Where more than

one square mile is not populated at similar densities,

and/or a contiguous area with different zoning types,

aggregates into a population ―cluster,‖ these aggregate

population definition measures below from the

Commission on Fire Accreditation International can be

combined with tiered travel time measures to match the

need for fire stations to risks and desired outcomes:


Table 17—Response Time Measures by Population



Travel Time Goal







Recommendation #4: Annual Deployment Measures Reporting: The

Department should report its annual performance against

the adopted measures. This reporting, at a minimum,

should separately report response time performance for

the City, ESD #8, and each fire station area.

Recommendation #5: Dispatch and Turnout time Improvements: The

Department and dispatch center need to focus on

procedures, technical issues and feedback measures to

their staffs to lower dispatch and turnout times to

national best practice recommendations.

Recommendation #6: Specialty Response Units: The Department should plan

on adding a third ladder or quint unit if there is

substantial commercial growth outside of the current

two-truck coverage area. A second battalion chief is

necessary when the Department grows past seven fire

stations.

Section 3—Fiscal Impacts page 60

SECTION 3—FISCAL IMPACTS

Section Intent: This chapter first presents order-of-magnitude costs identified for the

recommendations contained in this study. These are sufficient to permit the understanding of

costs in current dollars so future long-range fiscal planning for Fire Department needs can occur

when the economy recovers.

Detailed costing is not possible until City and ESD #8 leadership approves fire service

deployment measures and the Georgetown area experiences enough of an economic recovery to

plan for fire service growth.

3.1 COMPONENT COSTS

Listed here are the costs of adding a single fire company fire station:

Table 18—Component Costs of Adding a Single Fire Company Fire Station

Components Cost

Staffing for a 3-firefighter crew per day for salaries with benefits. Total cost to staff three platoons 24/7/365

$627,503

Cost for one fire pumper with tools and equipment $425,000

Cost for one quint (pumper/ladder) with tools and equipment $675,000

Cost for standard one-fire crew station without land, with furnishings $1,000,100

Total personnel costs for two more fire stations $1,255,006

Apparatus costs for two more fire stations $850,000

Cost to construct and furnish two more fire stations $2,000,200

Section 4—Recommended Solutions and Phasing Plan page 61

SECTION 4—RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS AND PHASING PLAN

4.1 DEPLOYMENT PLAN FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS

The Georgetown community has given attention to increasing fire services as the area grew. The

Fire Department coverage, while not yet complete to all outer and growing areas, does provide a

fire station in the highest population density and call for service areas.

Citygate’s findings recommend that Georgetown needs additional fire stations, and should adopt

policies to drive the growth of fire services as well as to measure at least annually how the

current deployment system performs.

Citygate’s deployment findings for Georgetown as noted in Section 2 are:

Finding #1: Georgetown does not have a complete fire deployment measure adopted by the

City Council and the ESD #8 Board that meets current best practices

recommendations to include a beginning time measure starting from the point of

dispatch receiving the 911-phone call, and a goal statement tied to risks and

outcome expectations. The deployment measure should have a second

measurement statement to define multiple-unit response coverage for serious

emergencies. Making these deployment goal changes will meet the best practice

recommendations of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.

Finding #2: ESD #8 is not substantially developed enough in terms of population density and

building development to desire an urban level of first-due fire unit coverage,

which is 4 minutes of travel time for the best possible outcomes.

Finding #3: The City and ESD are very difficult to cover efficiently with a cost-effective

number of fire stations due to the amount of areas without cross-connect roads

and a curvilinear street design system.

Finding #4: Given the expected growth, to increase best practice travel time coverage in the

urban to suburban areas, at least four more fire stations are necessary.

Finding #5: The addition of a second battalion chief after adding two more stations, one north

and one south, would be highly desirable.

Finding #6: Two ladder trucks or quints (pumper/ladder) units are effective unless there is

substantial growth in the northeast City/ESD #8 area driving the need for a third

ladder or quint unit.


Finding #7: With a department-wide EMS incident first-due unit performance of 10:10

minutes/seconds at 90.0 percent, the four-station system in this study’s data did

not come close to delivering at a Citygate recommended best practice goal point

of 7 minutes, 90 percent of the time for the first-due unit. Due to longer turnout

times to building fires, the 90 percent measure was even longer at 11:10

minutes/seconds.

Finding #8: Both the dispatch and crew turnout times are over a Citygate recommended goal

point by a combined time of 1:40 minutes/seconds. Focus on procedures and

training on both these steps can easily reduce dispatch to 1 minute and turnout to

2 minutes maximum at the 90 percent point for EMS calls department-wide.

Doing so would save a combined 1:40 minutes/seconds and bring the department-

wide 90 percent performance measure to 8:30 minutes/seconds without adding


Finding #9: With a department-wide fire/EMS incident travel time performance of 06:10 @

90.5 percent, the current urban/suburban area deployment system cannot meet a

best practice urban/suburban area recommendation of 4 minutes travel, 90 percent

of the time department-wide.

However, this is due to a very hard to serve non-grid street system and

topography. The current fire station areas are too large; however, each population

cluster does have a primary fire station. Georgetown has large open space areas

that separate major neighborhoods and the Department serves light suburban to

rural population densities in the ESD #8 areas.

Finding #10: The simultaneous emergency call for service rate of 27 percent for two incidents

at once is not a significant issue in the near term, given mutual aid support from

the south.

Finding #11: For multiple-unit coverage to serious incidents (first alarm), the current

Georgetown system delivers weak performance by delivering four stations by

16:20 minutes/seconds 90 percent of the time. Improving this measure will

require additional fire stations.

Finding #12: Given the diversity of population densities in the City and ESD #8, the agencies

should adopt response time measures specific to urban/suburban and rural

population densities. Doing to will allow accurate Department performance

measures and guide the timing of fire stations with residents and new

development applicants.


Finding #13: The Department benefits from the mutual aid regional response system. While

this system cannot replace existing City/ESD stations or units, the Department

should continue to participate in this valuable support system for simultaneous

calls for service and multiple-unit serious emergencies.

Citygate’s recommendations are designed to improve these issues as fiscal resources allow.

Based on Citygate’s above findings and the national best practices outlined in this study,

Citygate makes the following recommendations regarding fire station and crew deployment:

Recommendation #1: Adopt Revised Deployment Measures: The City and ESD #8 should

adopt revised performance measures to direct fire crew planning and

to monitor the operation of the Department. The measures should

take into account a realistic company turnout time of 2 minutes and be

designed to deliver outcomes that will save patients medically

salvageable upon arrival; and to keep small, but serious fires from

becoming greater alarm fires. Citygate recommends these measures

be:

1.1 Distribution of Fire Stations: To treat medical patients and

control small fires, the first-due unit should arrive within 7

minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 911 call.

This equates to 1-minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company

turnout time and 4 minutes drive time in the most populated

areas.


Emergencies: To confine fires near the room of origin, to stop

wildland fires to under 3 acres when noticed promptly and to

treat up to 5 medical patients at once, a multiple-unit response

of at least 13 personnel should arrive within 11 minutes from

the time of 911 call receipt, 90 percent of the time. This

equates to 1-minute dispatch time, 2 minutes company turnout

time and 8 minutes drive time spacing for multiple units in the

most populated areas.

Recommendation #2: Adopt Fire Station Location Measures: To direct fire station

location timing and crew size planning as the community grows,

adopt fire unit deployment performance measures based on

population density zones in the table below. The more specific,

measurable and consistent the policy is, the more it can be applied

fairly to all uses and easily understood by a non-fire service user.


Proposed Deployment Measures for Georgetown Growth


Structure

Fire

Urban

Area

Structure

Fire

Suburban

Area

Structure

Fire Rural

Area

Structure

Fire

Remote

Area

>1,000

people/sq.

mi.

500 -1,000

people/sq.

mi.

< 500

people/sq.

mi. **

<100

people/sq.

mi. *









Recommendation #3: Aggregate Population Definitions: Where more than one square

mile is not populated at similar densities, and/or a contiguous area

with different zoning types, aggregates into a population ―cluster,‖

these aggregate population definition measures below from the

Commission on Fire Accreditation International can be combined

with tiered travel time measures to match the need for fire stations to

risks and desired outcomes:

Response Time Measures by Population



Travel Time Goal








Recommendation #4: Annual Deployment Measures Reporting: The Department

should report its annual performance against the adopted

measures. This reporting, at a minimum, should separately

report response time performance for the City, ESD #8, and

each fire station area.

Recommendation #5: Dispatch and Turnout time Improvements: The Department

and dispatch center need to focus on procedures, technical

issues and feedback measures to their staffs to lower dispatch

and turnout times to national best practice recommendations.

Recommendation #6: Specialty Response Units: The Department should plan on

adding a third ladder or quint unit if there is substantial

commercial growth outside of the current two-truck coverage

area. A second battalion chief is necessary when the

Department grows past seven fire stations.

4.2 PRIORITIES AND TIMING

Some of the recommendations are policy-planning efforts requiring minimal additional resources

can be worked on in parallel. Adding fire stations and crews will take several fiscal years;

dependent on growth driving increased funding. Given these two realities, Citygate recommends

the following phasing to implement the findings and recommendations of this study:

4.2.1 Phase One

Absorb the policy recommendations of this fire services study and adopt revised

Fire Department performance measures to drive the deployment of firefighting

and emergency medical resources.

4.2.2 Phase Two

Focus on improvements to lower dispatch and crew turnout times.

Develop reporting for annual response time measures, specific to the City and

ESD #8.

4.2.3 Phase Three

Focus on fire station design that allows for good crew turnout time.


Focus on selecting future fire station sites that cover the most road miles in the

fewest minutes. Attention to best-fit fire station location is essential given

Georgetown’s road network and topography. Choosing which station comes first

will depend on growth patterns and final adopted response time policy measures.

4.2.4 Phase Four

Design and add Fire Station #6 on the eastside based on incremental growth.

Design and add Fire Station #7 in the northwest area based on incremental

growth.

Plan two more stations in the outer most growth areas based on demonstrated

growth needs.

folsom (sacramento), ca management consultants

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