A2Politico: The Debate Rages: Who Needs More Firefighters? Can You Feel The Heat?
by P.D. Lesko
THE ANN ARBOR OBSERVER, recently published a piece about staffing and standards within Ann Arbor’s fire department. Council members and former Council candidates have alleged that The Observer takes pains to support the status quo. To whit, quotes from Council members recently elected to office who support rebuilding the city’s emergency services did not appear in the piece. Mayor John Hieftje and the Ward 5 Council candidate whom he endorsed in 2012 (Chuck Warpehoski) were, however, quoted at length. Both repeatedly attacked the idea that Ann Arbor needs more firefighters, as well as the need to adhere to national response times.
A 2011 study commissioned from the International City/County Management Association by then City Administrator Roger Fraser concluded that AAFD response times do not meet national standards recommended by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA). The reported “90th percentile response time”—the time it takes 90 percent of the time—was 10.4 minutes for medical calls and 12.3 minutes for fires. The average dispatch time was 1.7 minutes for medical calls and 1.8 minutes for fires. The average turnout time was 2.1 minutes for medical calls and 2.3 minutes for fires. And the average travel time was 3.4 minutes for medical calls and 4.3 minutes for fires. NFPA recommends a turnout time of 80 seconds or less for fires and 1 minute for emergency medical calls. NFPA standards say the first fire truck should arrive on the scene of a fire within 4 minutes.
Why are average response times measured? In 2010, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a fire staffing study. That study concludes: “Time savings becomes critical when we think about flashover. Fire doubles in size every minute.”
An official from NIST explains: “If we can cut two minutes off of our time to get water on the fire we have kept the fire from quadrupling in size. A two minute difference in fire development is the difference between a 25 square foot fire (the corner of a bedroom) and a fully-involved floor.”
The Ann Arbor Observer article relied primarily on interviews with a former Ann Arbor firefighter, Council member Warpehoski and Hieftje. Warpehoski and Hieftje hold undergraduate degrees in the humanities from Grinnell and EMU, respectively. Yet, they opined at length about fire safety and fire standards. Council member Warpehoski dismissed as unreliable the 2011 study that cited fire response standards set by NFPA. Warpehoski suggested NFPA, founded in 1896, is little more than a front for firefighters out to set unreasonable response time standards so that oodles of unneeded firefighters must be hired.
Warpehoski’s attacks on the reliability of NFPA guidelines—based on the fact that fire professionals drew them up—is akin to attacking the American Academy of Pediatric’s recent guidelines on the diagnosis of ADHD as “unreliable” because the APA membership is comprised of pediatricians. Perhaps the Center for Disease Control guidelines on the spread of infections are unreliable because of all the public health Ph.Ds involved in crafting them?
Recently, on Twitter, Council member Warpehoski linked to what he wrote was an “interesting” article on the subject of proactive policing and police staffing. He does not favor proactive policing, despite the fact that the Chief of Police has said he does. The “interesting” article turned out to be a research paper for a graduate school course written by a wedding/event photographer with a “degree in behavioral sciences” who lives in Alabama.
Council member Warpehoski is not an expert in fire safety, fire response times or fire standards, neither is John Hieftje, James Leonard and neither am I. Two people perfectly situated to comment on both subjects were not interviewed by The Observer’s reporter: former Fire Chief Hopkins, who retired “quietly” in 2009 and former Fire Chief Lanza, who quit in 2011 after a single year.
Fortunately, both Chiefs left behind written records of their respective opinions.
In September 2009, Fire Chief Hopkins retired “quietly,” rather than impose more cuts on his department. Five months earlier, Chief Hopkins wrote this in his Department’s monthly newsletter: “I…am concerned about keeping our staffing levels where they are….I do not believe that we can continue to make staffing cuts and still provide the protection to life and property as we are committed to perform.”
Chief Lanza, one month after he left, sent a letter to the then City Council members in which Lanza writes, “Current staffing levels are below nationally recognized standards and make the Ann Arbor Fire Department a ‘one-fire incident department.’ I urge you to move forward cautiously, pursue regional fire protection as a way to save and be more effective. Paid on-call and volunteer are not the answer. Your jobs are difficult but I implore you, be strong, make the right decisions, do not further undermine the effectiveness of your fire department.”
Warpehoski missed that memo, literally and figuratively.
So in your opinion NFPA standards are not suspect?
Thank you for your question. I do believe that standards developed and written by trained experienced professionals are superior to opinions from novices. There are cases in which the “experts” exhibit conflict of interests, which biases their recommendations. However in the case of fire safety, we should always be a bit more conservative in our recommendations, due to the consequences resulting from potential hazards of fire. Given the choice, I would rather have one too many trained fire responders, than one less. In a perfect world, the trained experts, the NPFA in this case, would recommend the optimal number of adequately trained fire responders, and we would accept their recommendations.
It is unfortunate that the fundamental infrastructure of our city services are being compromised. I would really like to know why certain people on city council believe that “gutting” our infrastructure is better for the residents? I wonder who benefits from a poorer infrastructure and reduced basic city services? I certainly realize that we must balance priorities, however, we should always focus on the basics….The primary job of our city leaders is to insure and protect our basic city services. The services that ordinary citizens cannot do for themselves. I believe our Fire Department should be trained and staffed in a manner that meets the NFPA standards. I will do whatever is necessary to make sure Ann Arbor meets the National Standards. Our citizens deserve better.