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A-2 Fire Department Response TimesBuilding Inspections The fire department was assigned a key financial strategy (KFS) in 2014 in Phone: 952.2271180 Fax: 952.227.1190 MEMORANDUM CITY OF determined that accurate response data was necessary to analyze the effectiveness CHANNSEN DATE: July 22, 2015 7700 Market Boulevard PCBox7 TO: Todd Gerhardt, City Manager Chanhassen. M MN 55317 FROM: Don Johnson, Fire Chief Finance SUBJ: Fire Department Response Times — Duty Crew Update Administration Key Financial Strategy -2015 Phone: 952.227.1100 Fax 952.227.1110 RESPONSE TIME BACKGROUND INFORMATION Building Inspections The fire department was assigned a key financial strategy (KFS) in 2014 in Phone: 952.2271180 Fax: 952.227.1190 relationship to analyzing the duty crew program. As part of that report, it was Fax: 952.227.1110 determined that accurate response data was necessary to analyze the effectiveness Engineering and impacts of fire department response to the community. The duty crew report Phone: 952.227.1160 Fax: 952.227.1170 was delivered to council in August of 2014. At that time, the fire department had just 7901 Park Place Phone: 952.227.1300 began collecting live response data from the sheriff's office. It was determined that Finance further review of this new data was necessary to baseline fire department response Phone: 952.227.1140 times. Fax: 952.227.1110 Park & Recreation The KFS assigned to the fire department in 2015 was to; Review Fire Department Phone: 952.2271120 Response Times and Determine Acceptable Fire Response to the Community based on Fax: 952.2271110 Current Duty Crew Program: Using /mageTrend software, determine if expansion Recreation Center and reduction of the city's current duty crew model is warranted. 2310 Coulter Boulevard Phone 952.2271400 This will be accomplished using data collected from August 1, 2014 through June 301H Fax: 952.227.1404 2015. The data sets are comprised of information from (mageTrend, a web based Planning & software system utilized by the fire department to record call response data, manage Natural Resources Phone: 952.227.1130 payroll, and comply with state mandated fire incident response reporting. Fax: 952.227.1110 ImageTrend receives call data directly from the sheriff's office Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) about truck enroute and arrival times and includes robust reporting Public works tools. The fire department has focused on improving reporting over the past year as 7901 Park Place Phone: 952.227.1300 this type of information is critical for understanding response capabilities and Fax: 952.227.1310 demographics within the city. Senior Center Phone: 952.227.1125 When determining appropriate response times the fire department refers to NFPA Fax: 952.227.1110 1720 to determine fire service benchmarks. The City of Chanhassen has all three designations within the city limits. Reviewing the attachment, City of Chanhassen Website www.ci.chanhassen.mn. us Calls for Service map will outline the districts more clearly. 11 Page Chanhassen is a Community for Life - Providing for Today and Planning for Tomorrow The three compliance mandates are; Urban — Requires 15 firefighters on scene within 9 minutes 90% of the time. An area is considered urban with >1000 people per sq. mile. The North District is considered Urban with the exception of some undeveloped property north of Highway 5 and East of Galpin. The north district will be measured against the urban time which requires 9 minutes 90% of the time. The average response time in the north district for Engine 11 is 8:31 but the 90% time is 12:12. Changing the filter to Building Fire Only response in the north district increases the average response time to 8:51 and the 90% time to 11:22. Suburban — Requires 10 firefighters on scene within 10 minutes 80% of the time. An area is considered suburban with 500-1000 people per square mile. The West district is primarily suburban but contains a pocket of Urban classification closer to Highway 5 where several townhome and residential developments currently exist. Station 2 is located within the West District to improve response times. Rural — Requires 6 firefighters on scene within 14 minutes 80% of the time. An area is considered rural with <500 people per square mile. Data for the south district reveals that from August 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015 there was one building fire response by Engine 11. The response time was 10:30 seconds, acceptable for a rural area. If the query is changed to all emergency responses by Engine 11 the time increases to 14:26 and includes 15 responses. The acceptable NFPA response time for the rural area would be 14 minutes 80% of the time in this area. The table on the following page shows calls for service by district. This information was not tracked previously with enough degree of accuracy to report on other years. With a majority of the calls in the north district, the response time averages will tend to reflect heavily on calls in that area. The location of Station 1 within the North district is advantageous to the call area. This is similar in the West District. The Other category is primarily mutual aid responses. See attachment, City of Chanhassen, CFD Calls For Service for a plotted view of calls for this year. 2 1 F � CALLS BY DISTRICT JAN -JUN 2015 z3North West .South Other Several factors can impact this data and averages carry a low reliability rate when data sets are relatively low with large variances in incident data. The following tables will expand the data sets to include all vehicles and emergency response calls only. This information should give a better baseline of the capabilities of the fire department as it will include larger data sets. The non -emergency and downgraded calls were filtered out as that would negatively increase average times. Command Vehicle Response Data January—June 2015 *Includes day response only. Responses from home increase average to 6:35 The table above displays command vehicle response data. Command vehicles are usually the first to respond to most calls within the city. In 2014, a full time fire chief was added which greatly decreased overall day response times for command staffing. The following table outlines the primary front line response apparatus and only depicts emergency calls. The rescue vehicle only includes responses to medicals. Rescue 11 and Engine 11 both respond from Station 1 and have similar enroute and arrival times. Engine 21 is the front line apparatus for Station 2 and only west district calls were considered for the table. The 3 F Average En Route Time Average Arrival Time Chief 1 1:40 5:22* Chief 2 2:41 7:41 Chief 3 2:48 7:10 Chief 4 3:03 7:55 *Includes day response only. Responses from home increase average to 6:35 The table above displays command vehicle response data. Command vehicles are usually the first to respond to most calls within the city. In 2014, a full time fire chief was added which greatly decreased overall day response times for command staffing. The following table outlines the primary front line response apparatus and only depicts emergency calls. The rescue vehicle only includes responses to medicals. Rescue 11 and Engine 11 both respond from Station 1 and have similar enroute and arrival times. Engine 21 is the front line apparatus for Station 2 and only west district calls were considered for the table. The 3 F west station consists of only 8 firefighters making it considerably more difficult to mirror the response capabilities of Station 1. Engine 11 is also the primary response vehicle for all duty crew shifts. Duty crew shift response added to general alarm calls will bring down both the response time and the arrival times for Engine 11. Front Line Response Vehicle Response Data January — June 2015 When determining overall travel time a database query included ALL emergency calls from August 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014 for ALL response units. The average response time from enroute to arrival was 4:43 seconds. Applying that average to the above enroute times is consistent with by unit arrival times reported by ImageTrend. Limiting the query to south district calls only shows an average response time of 6:10 in 25 responses. Average turn out per call for 2014 totals 14. Average turn out for YTD 2015 is 13. When limiting the query to Building Fires, the average call response rises to 15 for the period of August 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015. Lower call numbers during day incidents bring this average down considerably. There are a significant amount of factors that impact this data. In 2015, the fire department has been experiencing days where multiple calls for service are coming during "traditional" business hours. Many of the firefighters work traditional hours. Apparatus may go enroute more slowly depending firefighter availability and what time of the day it is. A key thing to remember is the fire department minimum qualifications allow for an eight minute travel time to the station. Fewer firefighters on more day calls will begin to impact the Average Turn Out data and overall response times. It is important to understand that the Chanhassen Fire Department is a paid on call fire department and is NOT required to comply with NFPA response standards. Overall averages are relatively close but the 80-90% times are significantly higher as many incidents exceed the benchmark times and reduce the actual number of times we meet the standard. Meeting these guidelines would be extremely difficult with a paid on call model and may not even be 41 Average En Route Time Average Arrival Time 80% Time 90% Time Engine 11 4:36 8:36 12:36 14:36 Rescue 11(medicals) 4:28 7:20 10:26 11:26 Engine 21 (west District Only) 5:36 9:56 13:41 15:02 When determining overall travel time a database query included ALL emergency calls from August 1, 2014 to June 30, 2014 for ALL response units. The average response time from enroute to arrival was 4:43 seconds. Applying that average to the above enroute times is consistent with by unit arrival times reported by ImageTrend. Limiting the query to south district calls only shows an average response time of 6:10 in 25 responses. Average turn out per call for 2014 totals 14. Average turn out for YTD 2015 is 13. When limiting the query to Building Fires, the average call response rises to 15 for the period of August 1, 2014 to June 30, 2015. Lower call numbers during day incidents bring this average down considerably. There are a significant amount of factors that impact this data. In 2015, the fire department has been experiencing days where multiple calls for service are coming during "traditional" business hours. Many of the firefighters work traditional hours. Apparatus may go enroute more slowly depending firefighter availability and what time of the day it is. A key thing to remember is the fire department minimum qualifications allow for an eight minute travel time to the station. Fewer firefighters on more day calls will begin to impact the Average Turn Out data and overall response times. It is important to understand that the Chanhassen Fire Department is a paid on call fire department and is NOT required to comply with NFPA response standards. Overall averages are relatively close but the 80-90% times are significantly higher as many incidents exceed the benchmark times and reduce the actual number of times we meet the standard. Meeting these guidelines would be extremely difficult with a paid on call model and may not even be 41 obtainable with a limited duty crew program. They are best practices for response times within the fire service and offered as an industry standard for comparison only. The table above depicts calls by day of week for the fire department. In 2015 Wednesday and Thursday are reflecting higher activity with Sunday being the least busy. 180 160 140 120 /100 80 / 60 40 20 0 12-4a 4-8a 8-12p 12-4p 4-8p 8-12a =FD 2014 =FD 2015 YfD 5 1 P a g e The table on the previous page reflects overall responses to incidents by time of day. The data does show small spikes in activity from Sam —1200 and again from 4pm — 8pm. Response to medicals continues to be the major incident responded to in Chanhassen and most fire departments nationally. In 2015, response to medicals is 45% of the call load compared to 46% in 2013 and 43% in 2014. In the table below data reflecting the Carver Sheriff's Office is added. The data sets are for 2014/2015 and include response to medicals only. The data shows that the Sam to 1200 hours demonstrate similar spikes in service concluding medicals are a driver for those hours. The Sheriff's Office shows consistent declines in response to medicals after 12:00 for the data sets. 250 200 150 100 50 0 12-4a 4-8a 8-12p 12-4p 4-8p 8-12a FD 2014 S02014 = FD 2015 YTD SO 2015 YTD In 2014, Ridgeview Ambulance responded to 768 "lights and sirens" emergencies within Chanhassen. The ambulance service also uses ImageTrend which makes the reporting data familiar. Of those responses, Ridgeview's average response time for the year is 8:46 seconds. Ridgeview's 90% time is 13 minutes. CONCLUSION FOR RESPONSE TIME INFORMATION Utilizing the table on apparatus response from Pages 3 & 4 should provide a baseline for response times for the Chanhassen Fire Department. It is helpful to be aware that average travel time for ALL calls in Chanhassen for 2014 was 4:43 from enroute to arrival. This travel time should be added to the average enroute time for a determination of capabilities. The only 611 factor that can be controlled would be enroute time. (i.e. A reasonable duty crew enroute time is 90 seconds) DUTY CREW BACKGROUND INFORMATION The Chanhassen Fire Department has utilized a duty crew program since 2002. The definition of duty crew is; a dedicated 3 -person crew assigned to the station for a specified timeframe. Prior to October of 2014, the duty crew in Chanhassen worked every Friday and Saturday evening from 6pm to midnight. Historically, the intended purpose of the duty crew in Chanhassen was to provide a dedicated resource to cover weekend evenings when firefighters were out of town or unavailable. A culture shift in the purpose of duty crews was necessary to align more with the duty crew's primary purpose; quick response. Chanhassen is consistent with other paid on call departments in the delay of enroute times based on firefighters traveling to the station. A duty crew is at the station, or in town, and responds directly to a call drastically reducing the enroute time to under 90 seconds. Thus the advantage to the Chanhassen community would be; 1:30(enroute) +4:43(travel) = 6:15 (arrival) Compared to the traditional Paid on Call Model when the crew is not working; 4:30 (enroute) + 4:43(travel) = 9:15 (arrival) For call responses in the south district, the average travel time should be adjusted to 6:10. In October of 2014, we changed our duty crew scheduling aligning with the new purpose of responding to calls. The data indicated that Wednesdays were the busiest days for calls. Thus, Saturdays were cancelled in lieu of a Wednesday evening shift. The firefighters, through a Survey Monkey, were polled when making this change. The workforce has responded quite positively and crews fill quickly when the electronic sign up boards are posted. The program has grown in popularity over the past 10 months requiring adjustments to the number of shifts a firefighter can initially sign up for to allow more opportunity for more firefighters to select a shift. This was not consistent with previous years as only a small percentages of firefighters were consistently working shifts. We have also incentivized working shifts by providing call percentage credits for working on a crew. A firefighter is given 1% towards the mandatory 25% of all calls. Call percentages are reviewed quarterly by department policy. This allows an individual struggling with call percentages to make up some time and avoid discipline. In the second quarter of 2015, four fighters avoided discipline because they worked crews and were given incentive points. 7I In July of this year, another significant change was made in the scheduling of shifts. In response to the popularity of the shifts a pilot program was initiated by moving some of the existing hours around. The existing shifts were shortened by 2 hours allowing for an additional 4 hour shift to be added to the schedule. Using the response data from the above tables, we began scheduling Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings from 6pm to 10pm. According the time of day data tables, the heaviest call volumes are coming on weekdays from 0800-1200. Some evening shifts have been canceled and day shifts added in July and August. The workforce again has responded positively and filled these shifts quickly. If decisions were purely data driven, the duty crew shifts would be all day hours. This is consistent with most metro fire departments. The major deterrent to that in Chanhassen would be the reasonable expectation of the availability of the workforce. An additional advantage to a duty crew is the ability of that crew to handle a specific type of call without paging the entire fire department. This saves on personnel costs and the demand on firefighter's time in a paid on call model. In February of this year, I requested a second tone package from the Sheriff's Office. That function is in testing and should be operational by August 1, 2015. This will allow only paging out the duty crew and not tripping the entire department's pagers for every call. With that change, we will be increasing the type of calls that the duty crew handles on their own. Currently the only calls a duty crew can work themselves would be; • Carbon Monoxide Alarm with no reported illness • Minor medical responses Under the new guidelines the crews will handle; • All medicals (excluding possible cardiac) • All Carbon Monoxide calls to include reported effects • Lift Assist Calls • Smell of Natural Gas and Gas Leaks • Electrical Lines Down • Residential Fire Alarms (unless smoke is reported) • Commercial Fire Alarms (unless smoke or water flow is reported) Most career and duty crew departments can accommodate 90% of the calls for service with a 3 person crew and only rely on call backs for the more serious types of emergencies. Moving to this model in Chanhassen should allow the crews to cover the window of "family time" during 8 1 P a g e the week as it is presently scheduled with the duty crew only. The general alarms would only be necessary for the more serious type calls. Additionally, the fire department is assigned medical calls based on a prioritized list developed by Ridgeview Ambulance, the Ridgeview Medical Director, and the Sheriff's Office. In an effort to enhance our service to the community, the duty crew will be sent on ALL medicals in Chanhassen after the tone packages are available. This will allow sheriff's deputies to focus on law enforcement duties versus minor medical calls during duty crew shifts. Crews are also assigned standby duties that involve station and vehicle maintenance. The duty crew is a paid shift and reasonable work should/can be assigned to fill that time. We are also looking at adding an hour of training to the shift to increase the overall training for the year. This work needs to be balanced against the primary focus for duty crew, quick response. The table below illustrates options and costs for the Chanhassen Duty Crew Program. The original program was two nights and six hour shifts. The Pilot Program involves (3) four hour shifts a week varying nights of the week and adding some day hours. The pilot program was budget neutral. Original Two Nights a week with a(3) person crewfor six hours 2002-Oct2014 Friday and Saturday 10/2014-06/2015 Wednesday and Friday Evenings Pilot 3Shifts a week with a(3) person crew for 4 hours. Shift days and times wilt vary with the intent of ensuring duty crews are scheduled during higher calls for service days/times. The costs associated to the different levels are based on the number of hours increased and the loaded wage which includes some city paid taxes. Firefighters are paid $10/hr. Option 1— Represents staying with a four hour shift and adding one additional shift to the work week. Adding a shift would likely result in a Tuesday evening shift however, the fire department should retain the flexibility in using data to determine optimal scheduling. 91 Crew Size Per Hr Ea (Loaded) Hrs Per shift Per Ni ht Nights Per Week Per Week Costs Weeks in a year Annual Total Difference % Increase To 2015 Personnel Svcs Budget ($166,000) Original 3 $12.32 6 $222 2 $444 52.177 $23141.54 Pilot 3 $12.32 4 $148 3 $446 52.177 $23,141.54 $0.00 Option 1 3 $12.32 4 $148 4 $591 52.177 $30,855.39 $7,713.85 4.65% Option 2 3 $12.32 6 $222 3 $665 52.177 $34,712.31 $11,570.77 6.97% Option 3 3 $12.32 6 $222 4 $887 52.177 $46,283.09 $23,141.54 13.94% Original Two Nights a week with a(3) person crewfor six hours 2002-Oct2014 Friday and Saturday 10/2014-06/2015 Wednesday and Friday Evenings Pilot 3Shifts a week with a(3) person crew for 4 hours. Shift days and times wilt vary with the intent of ensuring duty crews are scheduled during higher calls for service days/times. The costs associated to the different levels are based on the number of hours increased and the loaded wage which includes some city paid taxes. Firefighters are paid $10/hr. Option 1— Represents staying with a four hour shift and adding one additional shift to the work week. Adding a shift would likely result in a Tuesday evening shift however, the fire department should retain the flexibility in using data to determine optimal scheduling. 91 Option 2 — Represents returning the program back to the original scheduling and adding one six hour shift a week to the work schedule. Currently the fire department does not receive a high volume of calls between 10pm and midnight so this may not be a viable option. A six hour shift would be more beneficial if scheduled during the day as the call volume in midafternoon continues to be higher than later in the evenings. Option 3 — Represents an additional six hour shift to the work scheduling totaling 4 shifts a week for six hour shifts. To determine the impacts of duty crew on the community an examination of call volumes versus scheduled crews is necessary. Using complete data for 2014 and overlaying scheduled shifts demonstrates the enhancements to the community. The table below illustrates the potential call volumes for the time frames. Program Days Covered Length of Shift Potential Calls Original Fri/Sat Evening 6 43 Modified 10/2014 Wed/Fri Evening 6 57 Pilot 7/2015 Wed/Thu/Fri Evening 4 59 Pilot w/day shifts Day Wed & Wed/Fri Evening 4 67 Option 1 Day Wed & W,T,F Evening 4 83 Option 2 08:00-2:OOpm 3 days a week 6 102 SUMMARY Council should review the current baseline response capabilities of the Chanhassen Fire Department. I am confident in the data being accurate with the only concern being related to a small data set. Command vehicles are on the scene within about 6-7 minutes with major apparatus and firefighters arriving 4-6 minutes later. Chanhassen's average travel to calls takes approximately 4:43 seconds so decreasing the enroute time will undoubtedly effect the arrival time. Currently the north district is the primary response area due to the density of the population and the location of most of the commercial properties. As calls for service increase in the south and west districts, the fire department response times may increase given the distance to travel from Station 1. A duty crew places apparatus and firefighters on scene around the same time a command vehicle is arriving. The costs of enhancing the current program is outlined in the options and should be weighed against the baseline services provided under the current program. Any addition to hours would increase the benefits discussed in this report. 10 Recruitment and retention is a major factor for fire departments. This holds true for Chanhassen. As we move to the future we will continue to balance the needs of the community with the workforce. The paradigm for staffing is beginning to shift and prospective firefighters are drawn to the duty crew model. Today's workforce is becoming more attracted to scheduling themselves than committing to the unknown. Some of the current staff are also beginning to embrace the duty crew model and seem to be adjusting well to the changes and the varied days and times. We are experiencing a larger pool of people that work the duty crew and sharing ideas on ways to make it available to a larger pool within the department. In my opinion, we are growing at a tolerable pace. Recently we have experienced an emerging challenge for Chanhassen. With the most recent hiring process, a candidate was offered a position on the fire department. The day of hire, she contacted me and apologetically declined to start. Her reasoning was based on being offered a position with a neighboring department that offered a duty crew component 7 days a week. Her statement, "Its easier for me to schedule myself for shift work than to commit to the unknown. When Chanhassen gets paged I don't know how long 1 will be gone". She also discussed the financial benefits of working more hours. III Page ..._.,, Vii( i L2 I Duty Crew Response (Revised 01/01/15) Duty Crew Staffing: All duty crews will have the following minimum staffing. If a scheduled member is not present, the senior firefighter will notify a chief officer immediately. • One officer (or qualified firefighter to serve as an officer) • Qualified driver/operator • One to two firefighters Apparel: All duty crew members will wear an approved "uniform of the day" assigned by the Assistant Chief of Operations. Communication: At a minimum, the duty crew officer will be responsible to monitor the fire ground main for information and potential calls. This is especially important while conducting assigned work details during the work shift. The duty crew officer will notify Carver Dispatch that the crew is "in-service" at the start of each shift. The duty crew officer will notify Carver Dispatch that the duty crew is "out of service" at the end of each shift. Duty Crew Callouts: All calls for service during duty crew staffed hours will be handled without delay. The goal for responding during staffed duty crew is a unit in service time within 90 seconds of tones. Duty crews will respond to the following calls without a general alarm for the rest of the department: • Medical Assist Calls (Excluding Full Arrest) • All Carbon Monoxide Alarms (Includes w/illness) • Lift Assists • Smell of Natural Gas or Gas Leaks • Electrical Lines Down • Residential Fire Alarms • Commercial Fire Alarms (Excluding Water flow Alarms) If the duty crew is dispatched for a call that should have been an all call the officer will notify dispatch immediately to "Page the Chanhassen Fire Department". If the duty crew receives ANY information during the call out, or while en route, that additional resources are needed the duty crew officer will request dispatch to "Page the Chanhassen Fire Department".