A glimpse of proposed state-mandated standards of coverage for the Vancouver Fire Department was presented to the city council Monday night — and Fire Chief Don Bivins was careful to note they’re already being missed by a mile.
In his last presentation to the council, the retiring chief outlined a set of standards the council could adopt early next year that sets benchmarks for response times, staffing and other objectives.
The benchmarks call for urban response times for fire and medical emergencies within 5 minutes 90 percent of the time; 6 minutes to suburban areas 90 percent of the time; and 8 minutes to rural areas 90 percent of the time. About 87 percent of the department’s coverage area counts as urban.
And Vancouver will have a lot of work on its hands to meet those response times, Bivins said. Right now, the overall response time is 8.5 minutes. With the loss of two medical rescue units in 2010 and the closure of Fire Station 6 in central Vancouver set for Dec. 31, they will likely get longer. A response map, for example, showed a “doughnut hole” of much longer response times in the area around the soon-to-be-shuttered Fire Station 6 on Burton Road.
“I’ve said before that we’re a good rural fire department for an urban department, because those are the times we meet,” Bivins said after Monday’s workshop.
Other goals would be to have firefighters out the door within 90 seconds of receiving a call, and having specialized teams, including Hazmat, marine and technical response technicians on scene within 10 minutes of being called by first responders. The state law, passed in 2005, does not require that the city meet its standards of coverage; instead, they’re intended to provide accountability and to provide something to work toward.
Bivins also listed off a few other grim stats to the council: Between 2006 and 2011, the total number of firefighters per 1,000 residents is down 10 percent, while emergency calls per 1,000 are up by 8 percent. Minimum staffing will drop from 39 people across the city this year to 37 next year. The city has also stopped responding to certain low-risk medical calls.
“By any measure, we’re really, really thin,” Bivins said. “Which is not unusual for any of the other departments in the city, too.”
The full standards of coverage document, which is more than 50 pages, is not yet complete, the chief said. As part of the state law, his department will make an annual report about how performance is stacking up against the standards, where there are particular problems and what steps may be taken to address the issues. Restoring Fire Station 6, for example, would cost $1.3 million.
That solution may come in the form of a voter-approved levy — one of many things the council is set to discuss in February budget meetings about service delivery across city departments, City Manager Eric Holmes said.
Sitting in on the meeting, Friends of Fire Station 6 founder Mary Elkin — an Image neighborhood resident who started an advocacy group shortly after the station’s closure was announced in the summer — was visibly upset. Her home and family is one in the “doughnut hole” in the middle of the city.
“The horse is already out of the barn, and that’s why I wanted to see (the standards of coverage presentation) before they approved the budget (in September),” she said, noting that would have given them an idea of just how lacking the services are. “I hope (the city council) wakes up and sees that this is a total liability.”
