The fire next time

SLO County’s fire departments are straining to protect an ever-increasing population. Are they prepared for a dry, hot summer?

BY ANNE QUINN

Being a hero isn’t easy–especially for local firefighters. This isn’t due to a lack of courage; it’s due to a lack of proper funding. And this, of course, effects us all.

Today, local municipal fire departments are straining to meet the growing needs for fire protection caused by increased population, extended geographical boundaries, tougher safety regulations, increased governmental oversight, and rigorous training requirements.

Fire season has begun. For the seven months out of the year that fire season lasts, residents on the county’s urban wild land borders live in fear of fire. Dread is triggered by such simple things as a car backfiring or the sound of a striking match.

This fire season, local fire departments are mobilizing–not only to fight fires in Northern California that started early this year, but to reorganize themselves and become more efficient.

Firefighters are expected to arrive properly equipped at the scene of a fire within five minutes of a call. Five minutes is less time than it takes to soft boil an egg.

A study conducted for the City of Paso Robles by Hunt Research revealed that response times for its fire department had slipped to as long as 22 minutes.

Equipment in the Pismo Beach fire department is aging, and the buildings they use are inadequate and can’t accommodate additional personnel in the future.

That’s why Paso Robles and Pismo Beach are reviewing options that will enable them to shorten response times and serve their cities more efficiently.

Three factors make it hard to keep response times down to the ideal limit of five minutes: efficiency of dispatch communication, the time and distance that must be traveled, and staffing resources.

Writes Pismo Beach interim fire chief Vern Hamilton in a report on Pismo’s fire preparedness at the start of fire season: "[a fire] doubles in magnitude and intensity every minute, until reaching the point of flashover, [defined as] the point at which all of the combustible material in the fire area is heated to ignition temperature and bursts into flame. Once this point is reached, there is no hope of saving any lives or property contained in the fire area,"

To be effective, medical response must be within five minutes because if the supply of oxygen to the brain is lost for four to six minutes, the brain ceases functioning.

Statistics show that 60 percent of the calls to fire departments nationwide are now medical aid calls. In cities with large retirement populations like Morro Bay, the statistic rises to 71 percent.

Firefighters also provide medical care for the homeless and county residents who have no where else to go.

"Where do you think poor people go when they need medical care?" asks San Luis Obispo City Fire Chief Bob Neumann. "They don’t go to clinics. They don’t go anywhere. They wait until an emergency and then they call their fire department."

Departments in Pismo Beach and Paso Robles are falling behind in meeting the five-minute response times and are reacting by asking their city council’s to find solutions.

Some of the problems of getting firefighters to the scene on time originate in dispatch were operators have to decipher a frantic call.

"Working in dispatch is like trying to drive a submarine through high rise buildings," said Arroyo Grande Fire Chief Terry Fibich. "You can’t always understand the scope of a situation merely by radio and telephone."

Creating a regional, computerized dispatch center is currently under consideration in the South County.

Increases in population is one reason it’s getting difficult to reach people quickly. So does the natural topography of the region. Both add to the strain on local fire departments.

Three alternatives are being proposed in both Pismo Beach and Paso Robles: Local governments will either have to come up with more funding if they want their departments to stay autonomous, or they can contract their fire services out to the California Department of Forestry or CDF. Another option is consolidating some services with neighboring communities.

Consolidation has been talked about for decades, but recently it’s become more practical because there’s less friction between the various parties involved. SLO City Fire Chief Neumann said that wasn’t always the case.

A lot of people think that if consolidation is the preferred alternative, the time to do it is now. Both the cities of Arroyo Grande and Pismo Beach lack a fire chief and are considering combining their resources. In the North County, Atascadero is considering joining up with Paso Robles.

Fire departments have a history of cooperating through agreements called "mutual" and "automatic" aid.

Mutual aid agreements dictate that another fire department must be prepared to assist when someone of authority in the lead agency is on the scene and issues a command requesting assistance.

An automatic aid agreement means that whenever a call comes into a fire department, all agencies that have an automatic aid agreement with it will respond simultaneously.

As they consider the benefits of sharing resources and equipment, city boundaries may disappear from a fire fighting perspective. As Morro Bay Fire Chief Jeff Jones said, "I’ve never had a person in a car accident yet who cared what color uniform the rescue worker wore or what the patch on his shoulder said.

"In order to stay effective, we don’t need to consolidate politically, but functionally," said Jones. "If there are 17 fire agencies, it doesn’t make sense to have 17 different training schedules."

In addition to intensive training schedules, departments must have enough manpower to comply with an OSHA requirement that no fire fighter can enter a building alone and that two other firefighters must be outside, prepared to assist.

But things can get even more complicated. Just ask Santa Barbara’s Fire Chief Warner McGrew.

Two years ago when McGrew was on vacation, the Camuesa Fire broke out. Tragically, a young medical technician named Steven Joseph Matso died of heat stroke at the scene.

Six months later McGrew was contacted by Cal OSHA and informed that he was being held criminally and financially responsible for Matso’s death. McGrew faced four counts of criminal liability and fines of $80,000.

"Whoa! I thought. That wasn’t part of my job description. That’s how dramatically things have changed in government," McGrew said.

Eventually two of the counts were dropped and McGrew pleaded no fault, meaning he was not admitting guilt but recognized that he could be found guilty by the courts.

The City of Santa Barbara is considering purchasing insurance to cover its department heads, who are as liable for accidents in the workplace as supervisors of private companies are. This increased liability is another reason fire departments are considering operating under larger umbrella organizations like the CDF.

CDF Fire Chief Dan Turner said his agency is preparing proposals for both Paso Robles and Pismo Beach. Cities that contract with CDF can receive state-of-the-art dispatch services, training facilities, and staffing and administrative resources.

"Contracting is like a marriage, it needs to benefit both parties," said Turner.

CDF is scheduled to break ground this year for its new SLO County headquarters behind their present headquarters on Hwy. 1.

Turner says CDF currently has contracts with 30 cities throughout California; cities as small as 4,000 and as large as 142,000.

But even though CDF has a lot to offer, Paso Robles firefighters have resisted the move. Many firefighters live in Paso Robles and are proud to wear the uniform of their city.

"There’s a lot to be said for consolidation," said Franklin F. Frank, a retired CDF unit chief. "On the other hand, you do lose some autonomy. In the case of volunteer departments there’s a lot of tradition involved, and merging into one large organization is seen as a threat." Back in the 1960s, the all-volunteer Paso Robles Fire Department answered 800 calls each year. Up to 1,000 calls, they still worked efficiently. But by 1990 when the city hired Frank, calls had increased to 1,700 a year. That’s when volunteers worried that they might not be able to respond to calls swiftly enough.

"When a city reaches a certain size, the call load reaches a point that you can’t staff it with volunteers," said SLO City Fire Chief Neumann, head of the only municipal fire department that has a fully paid fire fighting force.

In the 1990s, there was a building boom in Paso Robles and the population grew 30 percent from 18,000 to 24,000. More people began living in outlying areas. By the mid-90s, the city’s fire department had grown to seven paid firefighters. Now it could staff each of its three stations with two full-time firefighters.

Paso Robles now averages 2,125 calls a year and has 12 full-time firefighters and 40 volunteers. But it’s not enough. Residents were furious when the Hunt Research report revealed its fire department had a response time as long as 22 minutes.

Options now being explored include increasing sales tax or creating a special property tax assessment, or looking outside the city for additional resources, such as contracting with CDF or joining forces with Atascadero.

The latter is being seriously considered. The fire departments in Atascadero and Paso Robles have different attributes that could be complementary.

Paso Robles has a much higher density of buildings and many of those downtown have shared attics, which increase the likelihood that a structural fire would spread quickly.

Atascadero is much more spread out with rugged wooded slopes, so it has two brush trucks. Each city has specialized equipment specifically designed for their respective characteristics. The cities could combine these resources.

Critics of a cooperative agreement between the cities say that Paso and Atascadero are too far apart. But others counter that many firefighters from the two departments live in each other’s community.

According to SLO City Chief Neumann, it all comes down to local control.

"Traditionally, local government officials like to have a relationship with their fire departments," said Neumann. "It’s a point of pride to have a local fire department, to be able to walk in and shake the hand of a fire fighter."

Pismo Beach has traditionally operated a "very lean fire and life safety program," according to interim Chief Hamilton. Now it finds itself in a similar situation to Paso Robles. Like its neighbor to the north, Pismo Beach is considering three options: staying autonomous and increasing its service, contracting with CDF, or creating an enhanced cooperative agreement with its neighbor, Arroyo Grande.

The Pismo Beach Fire Department operates one staffed station near the city center. This makes traveling to the northern and southern neighborhoods more time consuming.

The station is staffed 24 hours a day with a paid fire captain, a paid or reserve fire engineer, and a reserve fire fighter. A second fire station on Shell Beach is not staffed, but relies on the response of reserve and off-duty personnel when needed. According to Hamilton, the station could be staffed, but more funds are needed.

The city also owns a site for the future development of a fire station on Ventana Street, strategically located to serve the southern portion of the city.

Whether Pismo builds a new fire station depends on the options it chooses. Pismo’s city’s manager, Mike Fuscon said the city will be making a decision later this summer when all proposals are in.

Both Pismo Beach and Paso Robles are considering ways to reorganize their fire departments–right in the heart of fire season when its forces are most needed and under the most strain.

It’s a dry and dangerous time of year, and we’ll be needing all the heroes we can get. Æ

Staff reporter Anne Quinn gets fired up each week.