What Do Retired Firefighters Dream About?

A recently retired firefighter posted that question on a private social media account comprised of other retired members from the same department. Those who responded mentioned dreaming of being back in the fire station, interacting with the crew, and recalling the mundane non-emergency aspects of the job.

In my back-on-the-job dreams, a feeling returned that I was an integral part of something bigger, something important in a group that makes a difference in the community. I felt calm, competent, and connected. A feeling that has not shown up in any of my endeavors after retiring from the fire department.

Robert McCarl spent 18 months embedded with the Washington, District of Columbia, Fire Department (1978-1979) to conduct an ethnographic study of urban firefighters. An ethnographic study is an immersive, qualitative research method where a researcher embeds themselves into a specific community or social group to understand their culture, behaviors, and everyday practices from the participants’ own perspectives. McCarl explained his presence to firefighters this way, “I was hired by the union to document how information is passed from one guy to the next, say from an experienced man to a rookie” (McCarl, 1985, p. 21).

McCarl’s interviews with firefighters reinforce the concept of the fire department as a second family:

It’s hard to describe the closeness you felt with the guys in the fire house. I don’t think my wife has ever really understood it. I just used to love coming to work – especially on those long Saturdays when we’d have a big roast or ham or something and sit around and talk or play cards. … It’s a group of men with unique brotherhood feeling – they’ll never let you down (McCarl, 1985, p. 97)

A theme that will be repeated in the EMS section, “After the first few months in the house and on the fireground, however, this formal education (recruit school) has been shaped by the informal culture of the company and the officer, and the rookie has begun to reflect the attitude and techniques of those he has chosen as a model” (McCarl, 1985, p. 39).

Where’s My Gear?

I was surprised to find I was not the only retiree searching for my gear (fire coat, bunker pants/boots, helmet, portable radio) while dreaming of firehouse life. Probably something hard-wired from the recruit school/rookie year.

Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Is Different

Ethnographic studies of U.S. 9-1-1 ambulance service focused on private providers (Prener, 2022; Seim, 2020; Mannon, 1992; Metz, 1982). In these organizations, EMS caregivers arrive already credentialed as EMTs or paramedics. New employees receive orientation and, usually, a skills checkoff. Then they are sent out to work as part of a two-caregiver team.

Supervision may be remote and infrequent. They may spend a lot of their time between responses parked at an intersection or parking lot. This is a very different team environment from that of a fire station, with a larger fire suppression crew that includes a supervisor and a home base with a kitchen, bathrooms, bunkrooms, and dayroom to relax and recover. Caregiver annual turnover for United States EMS staff in 2022 is 25-30% (Zarei et al., 2026).

In The Ordinary Hours, James Weber uses the business fable storytelling technique to illustrate the EMS caregiver retention problem at a fictional four-station EMS 9-1-1 agency. The descriptions are vivid and valid. Following the retention improvement journey from Station 4 to the challenging Station 7 – with a 71% turnover in one year – is engaging.

Weber shows that EMS has 90 days to develop a new hire. It is a three-phase process.

• Month 1 is stabilization: provide psychological safety and agency orientation, using one consistent person as a mentor.
• Month 2 is to deepen agency integration and skill building,
• Month 3 is caregiver autonomy and organizational commitment, where the new hire’s mentor evolves into one of many resources the new hire has within the agency.

If the new hire is not anchored to the EMS agency by the 90th day, they will decide to leave.

References

Country Callbacks. (2026, June) Country Roads Went Viral at the FIFA World Cup – Here’s Why Soccer Fans are Obsessed! [YouTube] https://youtu.be/1-vSER43-GY

Mannon, J. M. (1992). Emergency encounters: EMTs and their work. Jones and Bartlett Publishers.

Metz, D. L. (1982). Running Hot: Structure and Stress in Ambulance Work. Cambridge, MA: Abt Books. https://doi.org/10.1525/maq.1983.14.3.02a00210

McCarl, R. (1985) The District of Columbia Fire Fighters’ Project: A Case Study in Occupational Folklife: Smithsonian Folklife Studies, Number 4. Smithsonian Institution Press.

Prener, C. (2022). Medicine at the margins: EMS workers in urban America. Fordham University Press. https://doi.org/10.5422/fordham/9781531501075.001.0001

Reliable Source (2013, October 4) Bill Danoff on how ‘Country Roads’ became a German Oktoberfest hit. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/reliable-source/wp/2013/10/04/bill-danoff-on-how-country-roads-became-a-german-oktoberfest-hit/

Seim, J. (2020). Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Human Suffering. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Weber, J. (2026) The Ordinary Hours: Why Your Best People Leave – And The Small Things That Make Them Stay. Oak Street Press. https://www.amazon.com/Ordinary-Hours-People-Leave-Things-ebook/dp/B0FQTNKY2Y/ref=sr_1_2

Zarei, E., Safari, M., Zamani, Z., & Kakemam, E. (2026). Turnover intention and its predictors among Emergency Medical Services (EMS) professionals: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 34. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13049-026-01567-8

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, more fire departments have added 9-1-1 emergency ambulance services. Some have been successful bidders on ambulance service contracts, replacing commercial ambulance providers like AMR and Falck. Others have resulted from a political decision by the authority having jurisdiction. Finally, some are functioning as the municipal safety net after a private or community volunteer ambulance service ceases to provide service.

Many of these transitions promise lower costs to the municipality. Once the ambulance service starts, the reality is that the fire department or municipality used unrealistic or naive financial analysis. This article provides a background and recommendations for chief fire executives.

A $3.65B Bolus of Federal and Robert Wood Johnson Funding to Start EMS

The current United States EMS system started in 1966, with Congress reacting to the National Academy of Sciences white paper on Accidental Death and Disability: The Neglected Disease of Modern Society. Congress included Emergency Medical Services (EMS) as a component of the National Highway Safety Act of 1966. The Federal Department of Health Education and Welfare’s (DHEW) five demonstration projects, the 1973 EMS Systems Act, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation poured $3.65 billion (in 2026 dollars) into 349 EMS systems (Shah, 2006; Bass, 2015; Sadler & Sadler, 2022).

DHEW funded demonstration projects in Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, and Ohio. The University of Oklahoma’s Center for Economic and Management Research (CEMR – economists and behavioral scientists) got the assignment in 1975 to study the performance of the DHEW EMS demonstration projects. 

The Jacksonville (Florida) Fire Department got the highest assessment. They took over the emergency ambulance service from funeral homes in 1967 and used DHEW money to train and equip firefighters to better handle cardiac-related calls. Jack Stout, director for the Arkansas EMS demonstration project, recalled:

AIl five of the demonstration project directors were to speak, and I was scheduled (set up) to follow Jacksonville, Florida’s Captain John Waters. When Captain Waters finished, the audience of about 800 folks was rolling in the aisles from his truly professional comic delivery. Waters’ famous dual slide show presentation had convinced even me that death was a thing of the past in ]acksonville. Watching Captain Waters, I felt sorry for other department heads who had to compete with him for a share of the ]acksonville city budget (Stout, 1985, p. 55).

Birth of High-Performance EMS and the Public Utility Model

Jack Stout moved from the Arkansas EMS project to be a researcher at CEMR. An economist, Stout believed that under the right conditions private sector ambulance services could provide better services than the Jacksonville Fire Department’s “socialized medicine” (Stout, 1985, p. 55).  This evolved into the High-Performance EMS (HPEMS) concept where the ambulance service was self-sustaining based on revenues and effective use of resources. There were nine “Public Utility Model” (PUM) high-performance EMS agencies in the 1980s. Many of the metrics we use today, like Unit Hour Utilization, came from HPEMS.

A key aspect of HPEMS is that every ambulance transport – 9-1-1, critical care, interfacility, and facility-to-home is provided by the HPEMS ambulance service (Overton & Stout, 2002). When I attended meetings of the Virginia State EMS Advisory Board, I heard complaints from volunteer rescue squads outside the City of Richmond that were not allowed to transport patients from city hospitals to their homes. The ordinance that established the Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA), a public utility model, required that all patients transported on an ambulance stretcher in the city be moved by RAA.

When the Kansas City Fire Department took over ambulance duties from the Municipal Ambulance Services Trust (MAST) in 2010 (Mansur et al., 2009), and the Fort Worth, Texas, Fire Department replaced MedStar Mobile Health in 2025 (Wolf, 2024), the fire departments did not continue to provide interfacility transports. This dismantling of the Public Utility Model range of services affects the fire department EMS budget, as revenues from interfacility transports subsidized the cost of 9-1-1 responses in the PUM system.

A Look At Billing Revenues

The FY 2027 EMSA Strategy & Budget Book from the Emergency Medical Services Authority – a public utility model serving Tulsa and Oklahoma City – includes an EMSA Reimbursement Reality section. “The chart below underscores the vast difference between projected FY2027 billed charges and net revenue expected to be collected from the federal government Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) – two payors that account for nearly 70% of EMSA’s payor mix.” (EMSA, 2026, p. 4)

Breaking The Reimbursement Information Silo

While working as an assistant professor at The George Washington University, I did a deep dive into non-fire EMS. I remained active as an IAFC EMS Section member and engaged in committee work. Our tribal roots were clear, as it seemed that if the American Ambulance Association (AAA) advocated for a federal policy change, the fire service organizations would oppose it. I felt a bit like a stranger in a strange land when attending the AAA conference as an academic. Information was rarely shared between these tribes.

The first Fitch & Associates Pinnacle Conference in 2005 was an eye-opener. Dr. Jay Fitch exclaimed, “It reminds me of the Fourth Party!” The Fourth Party was an organization created by Jack Stout to provide training and advocacy for HPEMS. As with the AAA conference, some of the keynote speakers and many of the topics found at Pinnacle were not covered in fire conferences, including IAFC’s Fire-Rescue Med (FRM).

A lot has happened since 2005 …

Inadequate Ambulance Service Reimbursement

Until the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 directed CMS to build the Ground Ambulance Data Collection System (GADCS), the 2002 Medicare national ambulance fee schedule was established without actual cost data. Since 2004, Congress has added temporary add-ons to the fee schedule that have to be repeatedly reauthorized.

The Finance Committee of the National EMS Advisory Council, a nationally recognized council of EMS representatives and consumers to provide advice and recommendations regarding EMS to the federal government, issued a report on EMS Funding and Reimbursement in 2016. Their first conclusion:

The systematic cost of providing emergency ambulance services in the US exceeds currently available revenue. This mismatch can be resolved with one of two actions: 1) increase reimbursement or subsidies or 2) decrease costs. With fixed costs required to provide a clinically acceptable level of service, decreasing dollars spent on will result in a direct negative impact on the quality of care provided. The NEMSAC has previously recommended to FICEMS that it increase reimbursement for ambulance services utilizing the existing payment structure (NEMSAC Finance Committee Final Report, 2009). In the current economic climate, that recommendation is unlikely to be realized. (NEMSAC, 2016, p. 15)

Analyzing the Ground Ambulance Data Collection System (GADCS) Results

The first results of the GADCS surveys were published last year. Matt Zavadsky and the team from Page Wolfberg & Wirth LLC Advisory Group (PWW|AG) have been analyzing the data and interacting with the RAND Health Care’s lead author. The 2025 article Quantifying the gap between expenses and revenue for EMS services, posted on ems1.com, is the start of a continuing series analyzing the data, how the RAND author interprets it, and the implications for EMS operations. In PWW|AG’s January 21, 2025 webinar, “What We Learned From the First CMS Ambulance Cost Report,” they used CMS data to create Table X, which shows the stunning average revenue shortfall for all ambulance suppliers.

You can view this webinar and additional information on EMS reimbursement by enrolling in the PWW|AG Resource Hub, which includes a monthly EMS Financial Index. For policy issues, they have PWW|AG Industry Updates.

The post-pandemic 21% Solution that Unraveled Public Utility Models

Private-sector ambulance services poorly paid EMS caregivers before the pandemic. California is the only state to create an industry profile of the EMS caregiver workforce. The UCLA Labor Center identified “Private-sector EMTs and paramedics earned 39 percent less than their public-sector counterparts. Even when controlling for age, gender, geography, education, and race and ethnicity, public-sector wages were still much higher than private-sector wages” (Jacobs et al., 2017, p. 4). California public sector EMS employers are fire departments.

Non-fire municipal and commercial 9-1-1 paramedic ambulance services significantly raised salaries to fill EMS caregiver positions left vacant after the COVID-19 pandemic. Wake County EMS in North Carolina, a non-fire municipality, increased caregiver pay by 21% for existing and future caregivers to fill open paramedic positions and slow attrition. The 70-some open paramedic positions represent an 18% vacancy rate (Melmed, 2022). The Richmond Ambulance Authority increased caregiver salaries by 23%, raising the hourly rate by $4. Its employee turnover rate decreased from 43% to 17% (RAA, 2025, p. 13).

Similar pay raises were implemented at MedStar Mobile Health in Fort Worth, Texas; the Emergency Medical Services Authority in Tulsa and Oklahoma City; and the Three Rivers Ambulance Authority in Fort Wayne, Indiana. The increased salaries and the post-pandemic exponential jump in ambulance, medical equipment, and supplies costs placed all of these systems into financial peril. Stout’s High-Performance EMS process is financially unsustainable in the current healthcare environment.

Recommendations for the Chief Fire Executive

1) Identify and utilize a EMS reimbursement expert on your state’s regulations and practice

Medicine is a state-regulated activity. CMS regulations for reimbursement are complex. Especially now, with the dramatic DOGE initiatives and a chaotic federal government change process, you could benefit from having access to an insurance reimbursement expert in ambulance billing for your state.

2) Establish an effective audit process for submitting reimbursement claims

Some metro-sized fire departments have encountered significant potential federal fraud penalties for inaccurate or improper claim submissions. The municipal liability does not go away if you employ a vendor or subcontractor to process the claims.

3) Clearly show the expenses in adding an ambulance service

Some fire departments lump all of the operational expenses into a single budget category – if it has a siren and emergency lights, it goes in this bucket. Either internally or publicly, the municipality should be able to identify the direct expenses and the increase in existing services (911 center, apparatus shop, warehouse, training, etc.) associated with implementing a new ambulance service.

4) Consider EMS Services Going Beyond a Lights-and-Siren Rush to a Critical Patient

We will explore this in a later article, but only about six to seven percent of the patients treated and transported are clinically improved through paramedic street medicine. For those in cardiac arrest, stroke, sepsis, cardiovascular failure, allergic reaction, multi-system trauma, asthma attack, or acute metabolic crisis, we are lifesavers.

A recent study using 9.5 million EMS encounters in the 2024 ESO data revealed that:

Three percent of patients accounted for 16% of all encounters. Patients with very-high utilization were disproportionately covered by Medicaid, resided in socioeconomically vulnerable communities, and more commonly presented with chronic conditions. Despite higher transport rates, they were 40% less likely to be admitted than single encounter patients. The median time between encounters was 10 days for very-high utilizers (Fernandez et al., 2026).

Many of our 9-1-1 EMS calls are for situations never imagined in 1966. An ESO Solutions review of a little over ten million fire company responses (pumpers, ladder trucks, and heavy rescues) in 2025 shows that 66% are to EMS calls. Is this the best use of this resource?

References

Bass, R. (2015). History of EMS. In D. C. Cone (Ed.), Emergency Medical Services: Clinical Practice and System Oversight (2nd ed., Vol. 1, pp. 1-16). John Wiley and Sons, Ltd. 

Crowe, R. P., Fernandez, A. R., Treichel, A., Gardner, B., & Myers, B. (2026). Fire Service Index: Insights and Best Practices for Fire Departments (8^th edition) [White Paper]. ESO Solutions. https://www.eso.com/fire-service-index/

EMSA (2026) FY 2027 EMSA Strategy & Budget Book. Emergency Medical Services Authority. https://emsaok.gov/fiscal-strategy-and-budget/

Espinoza, M. (2026, July 26). Sonoma County Fire District, the regions largest ambulance service provider, seeks 16.36% rate increase. The Press Democrat. https://www.pressdemocrat.com/2026/07/18/sonoma-county-fire-district-regions-largest-ambulance-service-provider-seeks-16-36-rate-increase/

Finance Committee. (2016 ). EMS Funding and Reimbursement: FINAL. National EMS Advisory Council. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation.

Fernandez, A. R., Myers, J., Bourn, S. S., Crowe, R. P., Preusser, E. C., Muisyo, J., Treichel, A., Green, A. M., Onaeko, K., & Beck, E. (2026). A national description of emergency medical services patient utilization patterns. Health Affairs Scholar, 4. https://doi.org/10.1093/haschl/qxag144

Jacobs, K., Heller, N., Waheed, S., & Appel, S. (2017, February 7). Emergency Medical Services in California: Wages, Working Conditions, and Industry Profile. UC Berkeley Labor Center. http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/emergency-medical-services-in-california-wages-working-conditions-and-industry-profile/

Mansur, M., Horsley, L., & Ochsner, C. (2009 Sep 28). MAST Takeover Won’t Change Service, Officials Say. The Kansas City Star.

Melmed, G. (2022, Mar 23). Wake County increases pay for EMS employees in effort to fill jobs and retain workers. CBS 17 https://www.cbs17.com/news/local-news/wake-county-news/wake-county-increases-pay-for-ems-employees-in-effort-to-fill-jobs-and-retain-workers/

Overton, J., & Stout, J. (2002). System Design. In Kuehi, A. E. (Ed.) Prehospital Systems and Medical Oversight. (3rd ed. pp. 114-131) Kendall Hunt Publishing.

Richmond Ambulance Authority (RAA). (2025). Presentation to City Council’s Public Safety Standing Committee. https://www.rva.gov/sites/default/files/2025-02/Richmond%20Ambulance%20Authority.pdf

Sadler, A. & Sadler, B. (2022). (P)LUCK: Lessons We Learned for Improving Healthcare and the World. Silicon Valley Press. ISBN 9781735873183

Shah M. N. (2006). The formation of the emergency medical services system. American Journal of Public Health, 96(3), 414–423. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2004.048793

Stout, J. (1985). Public Utility Model Revisited: Part 1: Origins. Journal of Emergency Medical Services (February), 55-58, 62-63. http://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Public-Utility-Model-Revisited-Part-1-_-Origins-55-58-62-63-1985-02-JEMS.pdf

Wolf, E. (2024 May 21). Fort Worth council approves switch from MedStar to fire-based EMS system. Fort Worth Report. https://fortworthreport.org/2024/05/21/fort-worth-council-approves-switch-from-medstar-to-fire-based-ems-system/

Zavadsky, M., & Wolfberg, D. (2025, February 17). Quantifying the gap between expenses and revenue for EMS services, ems1.com. https://www.ems1.com/ems-trend-report/quantifying-the-gap-between-expenses-and-revenue-for-ems-services

I collect items that may show up in the sixth edition of Fire Officer: Principles and Practice, which comes out after NFPA Standard 1020 is updated around 2030. The St. Lucie County Fire District in Florida has provided a climate survey example. The fire district employs 523 firefighters operating out of 19 fire stations. Three Battalion Chiefs and a Deputy Chief on duty for each shift. 2025 Annual Report.

Fire Station 1 at Fort Pierce is the busiest station, with the 8 employees responding to 11,044 incidents in 2025 while staffing an engine and two rescue (ALS ambulance) trucks. The department responded to 71,203 incidents.

Severe Hazing Results in 3 Terminated and 2 Suspended

Senior firefighters, including acting supervisors, severely hazed rookie firefighter/paramedics at Station 1A, including using a modified bug zapper to administer shocks in 2024. The fire district obtained the videos in March 2026. The 17-page media advisory released by the fire district on July 18th provides extensive details and can be accessed through this link.

In-Station Behavior

The law firm that conducted the investigation included the July 2025 Susan Gainey Workplace Culture Analysis. Those findings include:

• Overly aggressive banter, mockery, sarcasm, and personal questioning unrelated to job performance, including 1A firefighters asking recruits in front of a group about drug usage.
• Mocking or public correction of apprentices, which some described as humiliating or going “overboard.”
• “Light hazing,” “playing jokes,” or “horseplay” that blurs the line between camaraderie and misconduct. One employee noted that such behavior would not be accepted at other stations.
• A sentiment among multiple firefighters that certain individuals were “not welcome” unless conforming to unspoken social norms.
• An environment that is “cliquish” such that new employees or employees on short-term assignments do not feel part of the team and may feel isolated.
• More than one employee stated that 1A is composed of “cowboys” who “do their own thing.” One employee stated that he was told by someone from 1A that they “did things their way, not the department way,” suggesting that they do not follow District policies and procedures.
• Multiple employees stated that the workplace culture at 1A was not inclusive.
• Firefighters had requested transfers or expressed discomfort due to the 1A environment.
• One firefighter stated that the environment at 1A “made it tough to come to work.”
• Loyalty among existing crew members can result in the informal exclusion of newcomers.
• One firefighter reported there appeared to be favoritism or bias in advancement at 1A.

My experience on the job and as a consultant is that while the formal fire department may have a specific way or philosophy of doing things, each fire station creates its own version of “the fire department way.” Station 1A behaving like cowboys is an observation I have heard in earlier bad-outcome investigations at other jurisdictions.

The decentralized nature of fire departments makes effective emergency response, but diffuses fire headquarters directives. I spent a year as a relief Fire Lieutenant, filling C-shift vacancies in all six battalions in a department with 36 fire stations. Every station was different. The fire company commander and the battalion chief have a profound impact on crew behaviors and task competencies.

If you are a supervisor, manager, or administrator, you should read the St. Lucie County Fire District media advisory. The culture described in this report is troubling, but not unique. How would you handle it in your department?

This concept is used when discussing risk management, healthcare, and engineering. It is also a component in designing better systems under the Just Culture model. Reason points out that failure is an inevitable result of human systems—we are all fallible. Countermeasures are based on the idea that “we cannot change the human condition, but we can change the conditions under which humans work.” So, failure is seen as a system issue, not a person issue.

High-reliability organizations take this approach to failure awareness:

• Analyze every event, no matter how small, to implement system-wide changes
• Encourage and reward error reporting
• View near-misses as opportunities for improvement rather than proof of success
• Continuously learn from defects and develop failure-free processes

Two years before wildfires incineratedswaths of Los Angeles, the city’s fire chief, Kristin M. Crowley, identified “one significant area of weakness” in her department’s ability to contain wildfires. L.A. had no specialized wildland unit to respond to daily brush fires and scrape vegetation, dig ditches and do the other labor to ensure blazes did not spread or rekindle, she wrote on Jan. 5, 2023, asking for $7 million to assemble its own squad.

In a memo that has not been previously reported, she told city fire commissioners that L.A. relied almost entirely on overburdened “hand crews” from other jurisdictions to bring such muscle to its brush fire emergencies. Hand crews, the most elite of which are sometimes called “hotshots,” fight wildfires with chain saws, axes and shovels, setting containment lines and then sticking around to meticulously monitor smoldering fires, feeling by hand for heat and digging out live spots to make sure fires don’t relight.

High-reliability organizations resist oversimplification of explanations for successes and failures:

• Constantly question “why” and invite diverse opinions
• Avoid simplistic explanations for failures
• Recognize the complexity of their work and its potential to fail in unexpected ways

Forget “wildland-urban interface”

When catastrophic fires occur, experts often blame the so-called wildland-urban interface, the vulnerable region on the perimeter of cities and suburbs where an abundance of vegetation in rugged terrain is susceptible to burning.

Yet the fire disasters that we’re seeing today are less wildland fires than urban fires, wildfire expert Jack Cohen said. Shifting this understanding could lead to more effective prevention strategies.

“The assumption is continually made that it’s the big flames” that cause widespread community destruction, he said, “and yet the wildfire actually only initiates community ignitions largely with lofted burning embers.”

The belief was that urban fires no longer exist, but they’ve come back. “It’s like watching polio return,” he said. “It’s happening repeatedly.”

While the Bel-Air fire in 1961, which destroyed 484 homes, and the Mandeville Canyon fire in 1978, which destroyed 230 homes, are often cited for the scale of their destruction, the 1991 Tunnel fire in the Oakland and Berkeley Hills marked the start of the modern era of urban fires, destroying 2,843 homes.

More recently, fires devastated Gatlinburg, Tenn., in 2016, the towns of Superior and Louisville in Colorado in 2021 and Lahaina, Hawaii, two years ago.(Curwen)

High-reliability organizations maintain high awareness of the state of their systems and processes:

• Focus on preserving constant awareness by leaders and staff of factors affecting the mission
• Proactively identify and prevent defects and harm
• Use real-time data and insights to prompt action, learning, and outcomes

Officials said that the Santa Ynez Reservoir had been closed since about February for repairs to its cover, leaving a 117-million-gallon water storage complex empty in the heart of the Palisades for nearly a year. (Hamilton)

High-reliability organizations cultivate resilience by:

• Prioritizing safety over other performance pressures
• Developing the ability to assess and respond to unexpected situations quickly
• Continuously learning from both successes and failures
• Investing in emergency training for unlikely but possible system failures

Thirteen years ago, Los Angeles Fire Department officials were bracing for the kind of dangerous winds that could drive flames across hillsides and canyons and tear through neighborhoods from Malibu to the Pacific Palisades to the San Fernando Valley.

The National Weather Service had issued red flag warnings of doomsday gusts as fierce as 90 mph.  LAFD commanders ordered up at least 40 extra fire engines for stations closest to the areas where the fire hazards were greatest, including the Palisades, The Times has learned through interviews and internal department records.

Among the additional rigs were more than 20 that were pre-deployed to those stations and 18 “ready reserve” engines that supplement the regular firefighting force in such emergencies, the records and interviews show.

“We could not take any chances on this, because the risk was too great,” said former LAFD Assistant Chief Patrick Butler, now chief of the Redondo Beach Fire Department, who led the agency’s preparations in 2011. (Tchekemedyian & Pringle) (Image is from staging for a 2010 brush fire – Mike Meadows)

High-reliability organizations value insights from those with the most pertinent knowledge, regardless of hierarchy:

• Empower frontline staff to make critical decisions
• Recognize that those closest to the work often have the greatest situational knowledge
• Ensure leaders know who possesses specialized expertise within the organization

Davis, Aaron C.; Boburg, Shawn; Sacks, Brianna; Hennessey-Fiske, Molly: & Lee, Joyce Sohyun. (2025 January 18) A key ‘weakness’ in L.A.’s wildfire strategy went unaddressed for years, Post probe shows. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2025/01/18/2023-memo-la-fire-chief-warned-significant-gap-wildfire-defense/

Curwen, Thomas (2025 Jan 11) Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times

Hamilton, Mark. (2025 January 10) State to probe why Pacific Palisades reservoir was offline, empty when firestorm exploded. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-10/as-flames-raged-in-palisades-a-key-reservoir-nearby-was-offline

Tchekemedyian, Alene & Pringle, Paul. (2025 January 18) Amid dangerous winds in 2011, LAFD engines stood ready. That didn’t happen this time. Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-18/amid-dangerous-winds-in-2011-lafd-engines-stood-ready-in-the-palisades-that-didnt-happen-this-time

Catastrophic reform drive changes to the fire prevention code: public assembly exits and interior finishes after the 1942 Cocoanut Grove nightclub fire in Boston, smoke/heat control through compartmentalization/fire doors and automatic detection in schools after the 1958 Our Lady of the Angels school fire in Chicago, sprinklers required in highrise buildings after the 1980 MGM Grand fire in Las Vegas, and pyrotechnics restrictions, interior finishes and exit signage after the 2003 Station Nightclub fire in Providence, Rhode Island.

The window of opportunity for reform is influenced by:

• Discrediting existing institutions and elites
• Weakening opposition to change
• Creating urgent pressure for solutions
• Shifting public expectations and demands
• Making previously “impossible” options seem necessary

Los Angeles fire operations are no strangers to catastrophic reform. Fire Chief Keith Klinger went to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors to report during the 1961 Bel Air-Brentwood wildfire. When the supervisors asked what should be done in the future, Chief Klinger immediately provided a comprehensive plan. Most plan elements had been proposed before and rejected by the board. Approvals were made at the height of the Bel Air incident.

In the early 2000s, residents and business owners in the San Fernando Valley felt that their city taxes were going downtown and not providing service to the valley. ValleyVOTE was an effort to secede from Los Angeles City. Inadequate rescue ambulance service was one of the issues, and some high-profile bad outcomes occurred.

Mayor James Hahn directed Fire Chief William Bamattre to “fix it.” This multi-year response increased the rescue ambulance fleet by 40% and put a paramedic asset (single-role paramedic or paramedic/firefighter) in every fire station.

… MAY BE A FIRE EQUIVALENT TO A CATEGORY 5 HURRICANE

That’s Stephen Pyne’s assessment. In 2019, fire historian Stephen Pyne and wildfire expert Jack Cohen spent three days touring Pacific Palisades and participating in the NFPA’s “Assessing Structure Ignition Potential from Wildfire” training with LAFD’s Defensible Space Program members and homeowners.  

Cohen makes these observations of the 2025 fire:

When you study the destruction in Pacific Palisades and Altadena, note what didn’t burn — unconsumed tree canopies adjacent to totally destroyed homes. The sequence of destruction is commonly assumed to occur in some kind of organized spreading flame front — a tsunami of super-heated gases — but it doesn’t happen that way.

In high-density development, scattered burning homes spread to their neighbors and so on. Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.

This fundamental misunderstanding has likewise led to a misunderstanding of prevention. No longer is it a matter of preventing wildfires but instead preventing points of ignition within communities by employing “home-hardening” strategies — proper landscaping, fire-resistant siding — and enjoining neighbors in collective efforts such as brush clearing. (Curwen 2025)

Will the replacement homes look like this house that used wildfire home hardening techniques and survived the Palisades fire?

HOW LARGE OF A FIREFIGHTER STANDING ARMY CAN THE COMMUNITY AFFORD?

When the National Weather Service issued its “Life-Threatening & Destructive Windstorm” alert on Monday, LAFD called in 90 additional firefighters to staff units and predeployed nine fire companies to vulnerable areas. Los Angeles County moved 30 extra engine companies into the area with 100 overtime firefighters. The U.S. Forest Service moved resources closer. It is the pre-planned response for a “Red Flag” alert. (Fuller, et al. 2025)

The Tuesday Santa Ana wind gusts of 85 to 100 miles an hour grounded firefighting airplanes and helicopters. The Palisades fire started at 10:35 am. Strike teams from Ventura and Orange Counties were mobilized. The high winds accelerated the fire spread in the high-density community described by Cohen as “… scattered burning homes spread to their neighbors and so on. Ignitions downwind and across streets are typically from showers of burning embers from burning structures.”

Many residents were forced to flee their homes. The fire was spreading faster than the traffic, resulting in cars abandoned on gridlocked roads – most without keys. The fire department used a dozer to clear the road for responding fire companies.

While all hands were engaged at the Palisades fire, a second major fire started in Eaton Canyon in the Altadena community at 6:18 pm.

Around 9 pm Los Angeles County Fire Chief Anthony Marrone called the California Office of Emergency Services and requested 50 strike teams: 250 engine companies staffed with 1,000 firefighters

At 9:26 pm. LAFD was calling back all available staff to fire stations and the maintenance shop.

By midnight, crews were losing water pressure from the hydrants. The water system was not designed to deliver 400% of its rated capacity. The power shutdown also affected the water pumps supplying Altadena.

By Sunday night, there were over 15,000 personnel, 2.500 California National Guard troops, 1,390 fire engines, 80 aircraft, 160 water tenders, and 170 dozers.

THE COST OF PREPARATiON

Redondo Beach Fire Chief Patrick Butler, a retired LAFD assistant chief, explained the issue of red-flag alert predeployments. It is expensive to call back staff and put additional units in service. Chief Butler points out that he was in 30 large-scale predeployments, with just three of those deployments handling significant work. From Chief Butler’s perspective, it is worth the cost.

What levels of firefighter staffing does the community want to pay for?

In July 2023, the National Institute of Standards and Technology released a case study of the 2018 Camp Fire in Butte County. At that time, the Camp Fire was the most deadly and destructive California wildland fire, killing 85, destroying 18,00 structures, and triggering the evacuation of 40,000 people.

As Los Angeles rebuilds, what type of community engineering (roads, building codes, landscaping, and fire breaks) and brush fire abatement will they implement to reduce the fire spread risk and the cost of fire department preparation?

_____________________________________________________

Curwen, Thomas (2025 January 11) Inconvenient truths about the fires burning in Los Angeles from two fire experts. Los Angeles Times. Accessed Jan 12, 2025 https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2025-01-11/fire-experts-asses-los-angeles-blazes-amid-changing-times

Fuller, Thomas; Berzon, Alexandra; Browning, Kellen; and Hubler, Shawn (2025 Jan 11) L.A. Was Prepared for Serious Fires. But It Wasn’t Ready for Four. The New York Times. Accessed Jan 12, 2025. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/us/los-angeles-calfire-firefighters.html

Maranghides, Alexander; Link, Eric D.; Mell. William “Ruddy,”; Hawks, Steven, Brown, Chrisopher; and Walton, William D, (2023 July) NIST Technical Note 2252: A Case Study of the Camp Fire: Notification, Evacuation, Traffic, and Temporary Refuge Areas. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institutes of Standards and Technology. https://doi.org/10.6028/NIST.TN.2252

Rodney Dyche noted that the EMS Media Log documented 26 ambulance thefts in 18 states in 2024. Six of those thefts resulted in significant crashes. Matt Zavadsky observed that: “For patient safety, community safety, this is something that is a zero-failure option, and if you fail to secure your vehicle, you can go work somewhere else. Period.” Rob Lawrence said: “We need to work hard to ensure that we don’t have that statistic in 2025, an ambulance stolen every 2 weeks.”

I reviewed the stolen ambulance articles posted on Company Commander.com and the Company Commander Facebook page since 2018.

Crimes of opportunity

The most frequent theft comes from an unattended ambulance parked at the emergency department or medical clinic. Some were idling, and all were unlocked. Nashville Fire had two idling ambulances stolen on the same day in October 2023.

Less frequent is the ambulance stolen from an incident scene, either by the patient or a third party. Sometimes, the caregivers and patient are still in the ambulance. That happened in Charlotte, NC, in April 2019, Phoenix in November 2023, New Orleans in October 2023, and in Atlanta in April 2024.

In a rare event, an ambulance is stolen from a station. In April 2022, Chicago Ambulance 66 was stolen from the Chinatown fire station and chased nearly 80 miles. In October 2022 Chicago Ambulance 71 was stolen from the fire station. In June 13, 2021, an ambulance was stolen from the Kunkel Ambulance garage in Utica, New York, and driven into Irondequoit Bay

Our featured image is the aftermath of a person entering the Detroit Fire Department’s Medic 8-HazMat 1-Chief 1/Fleet Maintenance facility in November 2019. The interloper drove Medic 8 through a bay door and later crashed exiting Interstate 75, during a police pursuit.

Here is a two-step approach to thwarting crimes of opportunity:

1. Establish and enforce a policy of taking the keys and locking up the ambulance when it is unattended. The Commission on Accreditation of Ambulance Services (CAAS) mandates a standard for accredited agencies to have a written policy/procedure to prevent vehicle theft. These agencies must provide copies of the policy/procedure detailing how vehicles are secured when unattended.

• Install an anti-theft device that auto-locks the transmission when the vehicle is placed in park. Tremco (https://tremcoemergencyproducts.com/ ) and Intermotive (https://intermotive.net/autogard/) offer CAAS-compliant anti-theft devices.

Violence Against Caregivers

EMS caregivers are attacked, and the assailant steals the ambulance. The most tragic example is the murder of FDNY EMT Yadira Arryo on March 16, 2017, when Jose Gonzalez drove over Arryo with the ambulance.

It happened in Prince George’s County, Maryland in January 2014 (killing a bystander when the ambulance crashed in a restaurant parking lot), Kanawha County, West Virginia, in November 2017, Detroit in April 2019, Washington County, Georgia, in January 2022; Houston, Texas in July 2021, Bronx, New York in August 2021, Montgomery County, Maryland in February 2022, Greer, South Carolina, in May 2022, Macon, Georgia in January, 2024, and Schenectady, New York in September 2024.

Since the pandemic, the number of reported attacks on EMS caregivers has increased. This will require a more comprehensive and expensive effort to prevent, react, and obtain justice when our caregivers are attacked and vehicles stolen.

Preventing the attack involves caregiver training and practice in:

• Situation Awareness
• De-escalation
• Operational and tactical protocols when encountering high-hazard situations

React to an attack using:

• Self-defense training
• Wearing appropriate personal protective gear
• Effective emergency communication (panic button)
• Use an automatic vehicle locator or global positioning service to track ambulances
• Robust public safety response when an attack is announced

Provide consequences for attacks to obtain justice

• Complete reporting of incidents
• Caregiver body cameras
• Effective legal prosecution of assailants
• Employee assistance services for attacked caregivers

Since 2016 the Seattle Fire Department has experienced increased attacks on caregivers when responding to medical calls, especially in the homeless encampments. Because of the high frequency of these calls, police are not always available. In June 2018 the department added a fire company to respond with an aid car (EMT ambulance) to every EMS call in Pioneer Square (1,200 EMS runs a year) and homeless encampments. The frequency of attacks against fire department members continued to increase. Between January and April 2023, there were more than 50 attacks.

There was a need to close a legal loophole to protect Seattle firefighters from interference the same way police officers are covered when performing their work activities. Under the legislation passed in May 2023, people can be arrested and charged if they intentionally physically interfere with firefighters, EMTs, and other fire responders who are actively responding to an emergency. It would also prevent people from intentionally refusing to leave the scene of an investigation of a crime while an investigation is in progress after being requested to do so.  

What is a “Wicked Problem”?

The term “Wicked Problem” was introduced in 1973 by Horst Ritter and Melvin Webber in describing the challenge of addressing planning and social policy problems. Wicked problems of planning lack clarity in both their aims and solutions. Unlike the “clean sheet of paper” approach, wicked problems are subject to real-world constraints that prevent multiple risk-free attempts at solving them.

Rittel, H. W., & Webber, M. M. (1973). “Dilemmas in a General Theory of Planning.” Policy Sciences, 4(2), 155-169.

A Tale of Two Fire Department Ambulance Services

While an Assistant Professor of Emergency Medicine, I did a deep dive into Baltimore and Los Angeles City as they took different approaches to resolve the problems of staffing, ambulance workload and response time in 1999. Both departments use the same time-on-task measurements, and I had access to their data.

Baltimore: Underutilized Fire Companies and Overworked Ambulances

In 1999 Baltimore Mayor O’Malley asked the Greater Baltimore Committee and The President’s Roundtable to examine fire department operations. Using time-on-task analysis:

Baltimore engine companies averaged 1 hour 47 minutes in 24 hours working on incidents, while paramedic ambulances averaged 14 hours and 25 minutes in 24 hours on incidents. Over the past five years, structural fires declined 58% to 2,367 working fires in 1999. Half of the engine company responses (49,000) were to EMS calls. (1)

Baltimore staffed 40 engine companies, 21 truck companies, one rescue company, and 18 paramedic ambulances. Engine company average response time was 4:16 minutes, and paramedic ambulance response time was 8:44 minutes.

On May 10, 2000, the city started the process to close seven fire companies. Of the 140 firefighter positions affected, 100 will be moved to other fire companies to save $4 to $5 million in overtime, and 40 will staff 4 to 6 additional ambulances. After lengthy labor and legal negotiations – interrupted by a July 2001 chemical train fire in a tunnel that closed downtown for three days – the 2005 Baltimore Fire Department was comprised of:

• 32 Engine Companies – closed 4 companies and upgraded 4 companies
• 4 Squad Companies – engine companies upgraded to “rescue engines”
• 19 Truck Companies – closed 2 companies
• 22 Paramedic Ambulances – added 4 ambulances
• 1 Rescue Company
• 6 Battalion Chiefs – lost 1 battalion

The average time-on-task for all 22 Baltimore paramedic ambulances in 2005 was 14:40 hours:minutes in 24 hours, a system-wide Unit Hour Utilization of 0.61.

2021: Operational & Management Assessment by FACETS Consulting

Baltimore City engaged FACETS Consulting to perform a detailed fire department operations and management analysis. Their assessment showed an average ambulance response time of 8 minutes 31 seconds, with a 90th percentile of 13 minutes 56 seconds using 21 paramedic ambulances staffed 24/7. Paramedic ambulances are spending 14 hours and 54 minutes every 24 hours responding to, on-scene, transporting, and awaiting patient transfer to the emergency department. Engine company workload has increased to 3 hours and 36 minutes every 24 hours. Truck company workload has slightly decreased.

The workload among BCFD unit types is highest for the ALS and BLS ambulances (ranging from 39.27 percent to 71.07 percent). These numbers are exceptionally high, especially for caregivers working a 24-hour shift. 

Even the least busy ambulance exceeds the workload percentage recognized by many agencies for 24-hour shift durations by almost 10 percent. 

This level of workload can result in substantial employee wellness issues, does not provide on-duty time for essential training, and also leads to extended response times at the current level of resource deployment. Moreover, fatigue can negatively affect patient care and decision-making at incidents. (2)

Time-on-task for individual Baltimore paramedic and EMT ambulances in 2018-2019 ranged from 9:26 hours: a UHU of 0.39 to 17:03 hours:minutes – a UHU of 0.71. The caregiver on Ambulance 24 provided an over-the-radio perspective last September.

Los Angeles: Losing Paramedics Faster Than They Could Train New Ones

There needed to be more single-role Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics in 1999. Fourteen percent of the 435 authorized positions were vacant. A single-role paramedic made significantly more money than the fire chief, working five or more consecutive 24-hour shifts weekly. At that time, Los Angeles City lost paramedics quicker than they could hire replacements. (3)

One reason was the “force hire” that ordered paramedics back to work during their scheduled time off. In 1999 there were 60 unfilled LAFD single-role paramedic positions. If you wanted to make sure that you could get off to take a vacation, celebrate a holiday, or attend a family event, you needed to work 96 hours of voluntary “assigned hire” overtime in the previous month. (4)

Bad-outcome EMS calls highlighted in San Fernando Valley Secession Effort

LAFD established six rescue ambulances in the San Fernando Valley in 1957 to replace a private ambulance service in the 210-square-mile district. By 1968 eight LAFD rescue ambulances were handling 14,000 responses a year. (5 and 5a)

One of the 1957 GMC Suburban rescue ambulances assigned by LAFD to the San Fernando Valley. Restored by Lou Farah.

San Fernando Valley homeowners and businesses tried to secede from Los Angeles in the late 1990s. This effort by Valley VOTE was driven, in part, by a perception that San Fernando Valley tax payments were not used to provide city services in the valley. (6) Rescue ambulance average response time had increased to ten minutes, with over one-third of the rescue ambulances exceeding the department guideline of 350 responses a month. (7)  

The Valley VOTE campaign used high-profile, bad-outcome EMS incidents as examples of inadequate city services. While the secession vote was defeated, it was a driver of a significant five-year expansion of the Los Angeles Fire Department rescue ambulance and paramedic services.

EMS Resource Deployment Plan 2001-2006

By 2005 LAFD added 210 single-role paramedic positions, placed a paramedic in every fire station (on a rescue ambulance or a suppression company), and put a rescue ambulance in every fire station. The rescue ambulance fleet increased by 39% – 88 paramedic and 40 EMT ambulances.

Rescue ambulance workload is under 6 hours (responding to, at the scene, transporting, and delivering a patient to the hospital) in 24 hours. Paramedic Rescue Ambulance average response time is reduced to 6.5 minutes. The average Unit Hour Utilization for all 128 LAFD rescue ambulances in 2006 was 0.25.

2023: 15-Minute Wait for LAFD Rescue Ambulance to Arrive at a Cardiac Arrest

Michael Davis’s wife called 9-1-1 after he collapsed. It took about 15 minutes for an LAFD rescue ambulance to arrive. It is unclear in the Fox 11 news article if there was a fire company first responder. The three-month Fox 11 investigation uses anonymous paramedic sources that paint a picture of 10 to 20-minute rescue ambulance response times. (9)

The Ten Characteristics of a Wicked Problem

Rittel and Webber describe 10 important characteristics of a wicked problem:

1. They do not have a definitive formulation
2. They do not have a “stopping rule.” In other words, these problems lack an inherent logic that signals when they are solved.
3. Their solutions are not true or false, only good or bad
4. There is no way to test the solution to a wicked problem
5. The cannot be studied through trial and error. The solutions are irreversible so, “every trial counts.”
6. There is no end to the number of solutions or approaches to a wicked problem
7. All wicked problems are essentially unique
8. Wicked problems can always be described as a symptom of other problems
9. The way a wicked problem is described determines its possible solutions
10. Planners, that is those who present solutions to these problems, have no right to be wrong. Unlike mathematicians, “planners are liable for the consequences of the solutions they generate; the effects can matter a great deal to the people who are touched by those actions.”(10)

Fire-based EMS issues are challenging to solve because they involve complex, interconnected situations involving healthcare organizations and community populations. The environment of out-of-hospital unscheduled emergency medicine is constantly changing:

• New clinical best practices – including transport of 9-1-1 patients to specialty care centers (trauma, stroke, STEMI)
• Revenue or compensation opportunities
• Documentation requirements
• Emerging health issues
• Deteriorating hospital capabilities – increased “wall time” at emergency departments when delivering a patient
• Shrinking healthcare staff at nursing homes and assisted living facilities that generate more 9-1-1 calls
• Community population demographics

These problems often require creative solutions involving multiple stakeholders. Identifying the root causes and developing effective strategies to address them is difficult. Local government often lacks the resources or capacity to address these issues quickly or adequately.

Baltimore and Los Angeles invested financial and political capital in resolving the 1999 EMS crisis based on their resources, history, communities, and traditions. By 2005, they felt they had resolved the problems identified in 1999. Eighteen years later both cities are back in the news with staffing, workload, and response time issues.

Baltimore: Four Decades of Incremental Fire Suppression Reductions

Baltimore mayors have incrementally reduced fire suppression resources since 1984. Five quints were established in 1986 by combining an engine company crew and truck company crew of eight firefighters into a six-firefighter Aerial Tower company. Quint staffing was reduced until the unit was a 4-person truck company or eliminated. Fire stations have closed, and fire companies disbanded. (11)

Mayor Schmoke’s 1991 closing of three fire stations is a Harvard case study at the Kennedy School of Government. Case #1130.0 How to Bite the Bullet: Baltimore Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke and Fire Station Closings.

The 2005 final product from the Greater Baltimore Committee/The President’s Roundtable recommendations reduced fire suppression overtime costs. The four additional paramedic ambulances did not reduce the systemwide transport workload or improve ambulance response times as the EMS workload continued to increase yearly.

In 2012 Truck 15, Squad 11, and Truck 10 were shut down. In 2020 an effort was made to close Engine 4 (northeast Baltimore) and Engine 55 (Pigtown) to reduce the fire department Fiscal Year 2021 budget by $3.6M. Organized community effort delayed the closures pending the result of the FACETS report.

Los Angeles: Well-Funded EMS Expansion until the 2008 Recession

Los Angeles enjoyed political support and budget resources to expand the city’s emergency ambulance and paramedic services. A second five-year plan was issued covering activities through 2012. (12) The 2008 Recession halted the second five-year plan.

After three years of rotating closures of 15 engine companies and six ambulances, the 2012 Fiscal Year budget permanently closed 11 engine companies, seven light forces (a truck company with a pumper), and four EMT ambulances. Thirty command staff positions were eliminated. The 17 variably-staffed ambulances were closed.

Between Fiscal Year 2006 and Fiscal Year 2012, there was a net reduction of 228 firefighters and paramedics on duty each day. This is about a 17% reduction in the LAFD workforce.

A $15.4M Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grant in 2018 allowed the reopening of four engine companies.

March 9, 2023: Los Angeles Fire Chief asks for 300 additional positions (13)

On April 21, 2023, Engine 8, with a paramedic/firefighter, responded to a drowning call where they encountered twin 4-year olds in cardiac arrest. They arrived within four minutes of the 9-1-1 call. Fire Station 8 is one of the eight LAFD fire stations without a staffed ambulance. Rescue Ambulance 107 is the closest ambulance with a six minute response time, but it was handling another emergency. The firefighters were doing CPR for 14-15 minutes before the nearest available ambulances arrived. (13a)

Evaluating Issues Impacting the Wicked Problem of Fire-Based EMS Staffing, Ambulance Workload and Response Times

Dover Professional Firefighters Local 1312 (2023 Feb 12) “Ambulances 1, 2, and 3 stacked up at Wentworth-Douglass Hospital. Just another Sunday evening.” New Hampshire. Ambulance 3 was added on September 18, 2022.

In considering this wicked problem, lets look at three areas impacting any solution today: best clinical outcome for patient, best situation for the EMS caregivers, and best result for the fire department.

What Provides the Best Clinical Outcome for the Patient?

This question is more focused and nuanced than the old-school “What is Best For the Patient?” In the first 18 months of the Seattle Medic One program (March 1970 – August 1971) firefighter/paramedics resuscitated 111 clinically dead patients. (14) Today, success is measured by the number of resuscitated out-of-hospital cardiac arrests (OOHCA) discharged from the hospital without neurological deficiencies.

Establishing an 7 minute, 59 second response time for paramedic ambulances

Preliminary results from “Project Restart,” a three-year Robert Wood Johnson funded study looking at community cardiac mortality identified two OOHCA survival metrics and established the 7:59 minute paramedic response time.

Mickey Eisenberg’s group analyzed 604 CPR incidents in Seattle and King County from April 1976 to August 1977. At that time, there were four paramedic ambulances in the community. Two Seattle Fire Department ambulances at Harborview Medical Center, one at Bellview Fire Headquarters, and one at Evergreen Fire Department. In 1976 only paramedics could use defibrillators, administer IV medications, record a heart rhythm, and use an advanced airway.

Eisenberg’s group identified two OOHCA survival metrics: If CPR was initiated within four minutes and if definitive care was provided within ten minutes, 43% of patients survived. If either time was exceeded, the changes of survival fell dramatically. (15)

Refining the Clinical Outcome Question

As research continued into out-of-hospital cardiac arrest survival, a subset of patients were identified as most impacted by these efforts. Focus was on patients who suffered a cardiac arrest that was witnessed by someone else and showed ventricular fibrillation as the cardiac rhythm. Adoption of the 1991 Utstein Style guidelines on uniform reporting of cardiac arrest, updated in 2004, 2015, and 2019 are an effort to provide “apples to apples” comparison for out-of-hospital and in-hospital cardiac arrest final outcomes.

The Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium is a massive research effort started in 2004 that conducted experimental and observational studies of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and trauma treatments at eleven regional centers. (16) The most significant clinical change is the impact of two minutes of continuous closed chest compression (CCCC) applied at 100-120 compressions a minute to a witnessed cardiac arrest patient in ventricular fibrillation. The number of patients experiencing a restoration of spontaneous circulation (ROSC) almost doubled when first responders provided CCCC as the first treatment, followed by defibrillation as the second treatment. (17 & 18)

In 2007 the U.S. Metropolitan Municipalities EMS Medical Directors, known as the “Eagles,” developed evidence-based performance measures to benchmark urban EMS systems. They used the Number Needed to Treat (NNT) metric. NNT is the number of patients you must treat to prevent another bad outcome (death, stroke, etc.).

The clinical situations benchmarked included:

• ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI)
• Pulmonary edema
• Asthma
• Seizure
• Trauma
• Cardiac arrest

Four of the situations required out-of-hospital paramedic-level medical intervention. Trauma situations focused on minimal on-scene time with transport to a trauma center. Cardiac arrest focused on the arrival of CPR-trained providers and a defibrillator within five minutes. (19)

For cardiac arrest the Eagles proposed that EMS systems not focus response time measurement on ALS ambulances, but rather pay greater attention to first response/BLS response time to measure what it called the “… most important predictive elements for optimal outcome: time elapsed until initiation of basic chest compressions and time elapsed until defibrillation attempts.”

At the same time, I analyzed the out-of-hospital clinical tasks delivered by firefighter/paramedics in a large urban county. Using a year of patient care reports, I counted the number of times caregivers documented:

• Inserting an advanced airway, like an endotracheal tube or King LT
• Performing a chest decompression
• Administering a medication though an intravenous line, intermuscular injection, nebulized breathing treatment, or by mouth
• Infusing 500 or more milliliters of Lactated Ringer’s (the protocol for fluid resuscitation)
• Delivering a defibrillation or cardioversion

Six percent of the patients transported to an emergency department received one of those treatments. Within this group, one-fourth of the patients received two to more treatments, representing 1.5 percent of the patients transported. (20)

The majority of the patients transported did not receive paramedic-level care to improve clinical outcomes of serious medical conditions.

An updated survey of delivered out-of-hospital tasks will probably show a higher percentage of patients receiving paramedic-level care due to COVID complications, opioid overdoses, an aging population, and increased focus on stroke/ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) care. Using the percentage of transported patients getting paramedic-level care is a difficult metric to use when considering paramedic staffing, dispatch, and deployment.

Many fire departments identify critical EMS calls based on how the telecommunicator coded the incoming 9-1-1 call. Critical EMS calls are the “Echo” and “Delta” responses under the Medical Priority Dispatch System (MPDS). (21) This Pitt County video provides a reenactment of a “Delta” call,

The number of EMS calls coded as Echo or Delta is significantly higher than that of transported patients receiving paramedic-level care. The MPDS dispatches documents the fire department resource commitment to the incident before the first patient contact.

What care does the other 94% of transported patients receive?

Within the reports I reviewed, almost all patients had documented vital signs; some were splinted, some received wound care, some received a 12-lead EKG, and others had an intravenous line started without medication or fluid resuscitation. Many of the 94% transported needed to go to an emergency department, clinic, or physician’s office for further treatment.

What is the Best Situation for the EMS Caregivers?

Let’s look at three factors impacting EMS caregivers.

Excessive and exhausting work hours

Just before 5:20 a.m. Sunday, April 2, as BLS 16 responded to a call, it slammed into a power pole, a crosswalk sign, and a wall. The crew suffered minor injuries.

“Right now, we still have employees who are still dealing with sleep deprivation and knowing that this has been going on for over a year and didn’t come up with concrete solutions to solve it,” said Pritchard.

President Rex Pritchard, Long Beach Firefighters Association Local 372, said he and leaders of the International Association of Machinists Local 1930 have been urging the department to address what they say are extreme call volume and fatigue issues for over a year but haven’t seen any changes.

“What is very common in this department is to work 72-hour shifts,” said Pritchard. “You’re lucky if you get, in that 72 hours, four to six hours of rest. (22)

Phoenix firefighters interviewed by AZ Family discussed working “Stand Up 24’s” – a 24 hour shift with no rest periods. An increase in mandatory overtime means many firefighters and firefighter/paramedics are working “Stand Up 48’s”. (23)

Single-role paramedics treated like second-class fire department members

There is not much peer-review research on how fire service leaders influence the attitudes of firefighters as motivational predeterminate of performance and organizational outcomes. Perceived Organizational Support (POS) is a social exchange variable in which justice perceptions affect organizational commitment and job satisfaction. Huntsman’s group surveyed two metro-sized Western fire departments. The fire department members perceive justice in both procedures – such as promotions – and outcomes – such as pay rates. (24) I often hear EMS single-role caregivers complain that they are treated as second-class members within their fire department.

The pandemic identified unequal pay and working conditions for the single role EMS providers employed by the Fire Department of New York when compared to firefighters. Mayor De Blasio’s response “… EMS work is different.” was not well received.

Twenty five single role EMS caregivers filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the city and FDNY. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission determined that:

… any difference in duties between the EMS first responders and firefighters fails to explain the pronounced gap in wages and benefits, and [the city has] failed to adjust the pay scales of EMS first responders to keep pace with the changes to their duties since the City merged EMS with the Fire Department in 1996. (25) We may learn a lot about “occupational separation.”

Moral injury and compassion fatigue

Moral injury was first used in 2009 to describe soldiers’ response to their actions in war. It represents “perpetrating, failing to prevent, bearing witness to, or learning about acts that transgress deeply held moral beliefs and expectations” (26) Physicians adopted the concept when describing the frustration of being unable to provide high-quality care and healing in the context of front-line health care. (27)

Moral injury occurs for paramedics and firefighters when there is a gap between what they want to do and the conditions they are confronting. An example is the opioid epidemic, where caregivers resuscitate the same person a couple of times a year with no change in addictive behavior. Or the person with a behavioral health situation who will not benefit from transport to an emergency department but that is your only option.

In some communities, the number of on-duty firefighters has shrunk while the workload has increased. There are incidents where paramedics and firefighters face devastating human conditions that they cannot reverse or mitigate, creating a situation described by Litz as “a deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality, and relationship to society.”

Compassion fatigue (CF) is a secondary traumatic stress syndrome defined as a sudden or gradual loss of compassion from exposure to stress or stressful events. Colloquially, CF is referred to as the “cost of caring,” which describes the process by which compassion and empathy felt by a caregiver for their patient can devolve into a lack of compassion by the continuous exposure to traumatic situations that is both unhealthy for the caregiver and distorts reality, despite its protective notion. (28)

Examples of compassion fatigue include:

• Lack of compassion
• Frustration with the patient
• Rage response
• Gallows humor
• Somatization: “suppression of emotions and distancing strategies after exposure to intense emotional material, which can ultimately lower empathy and result in additional traumatization”

These are some factors that contribute to the suicide rate of caregivers (29) and the 26% voluntary turnover of active paramedics in 2022. (30)

What is Best Result For the Fire Department?

Fire departments have significant economies of scale when establishing a new emergency ambulance service. Existing fire stations, a two-way communication system that includes dispatch/deployment, vehicle maintenance capability, tiered command structure, and logistics. With all of those advantages, adding an emergency ambulance service is not revenue neutral. The insurance reimbursement system does not cover the actual cost of services. (31)

Changing community needs

Modern United States Emergency Medical Services started in 1966 with a combination of federal funding that was focused on reducing highway accident deaths and disabilities, medical research to improve the survival rate of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest, and President Johnson’s “Great Society” initiative that included the creation of the Freedom House Ambulance paramedics in Pittsburgh. (32 & 33)

Up to 80% of fire company responses are for EMS incidents. The opioid overdose crisis was overshadowed by the pandemic, but continues to outpace other accident-related morbidity and mortality situations, with more than 107,000 deaths in calendar year 2021. (34)

There has been a continuing increase in lift-assist calls from individuals and assisted living/nursing homes. It appears that some healthcare facilities are cost-shifting lift assistance from facility staff to EMS caregivers. They are calling 9-1-1 because the labor organizations representing security and maintenance workers removed patient handling as one of their job-related responsibilities. This was due to worker compensation claim denials and liability concerns. (35 & 36)

Advanced Practice Provider (APP)

The COVID 19 pandemic accelerated the expansion of emergency ambulance into other services. Los Angeles has added Advanced Provider Response Units (ARPU), staffed with a nurse practitioner or physician assistant teamed with a firefighter paramedic. The ARPU is capable of treating patients in place or navigating them to select alternate destinations, such as a mental health urgent care or a sobering center.

The initial APRU was deployed in South Los Angeles in 2016. It was able to safely treat or navigate 50% of patients away from the ED by performing on-scene, simple procedures that lie just beyond the traditional paramedic’s scope of practice, including applying clinical decision rules, performing uncomplicated laceration repair, providing culturally sensitive health teaching and promotion, connecting patients with social workers, and helping patients and their families navigate to ongoing in-network care. (37)

Street Crisis Response Team

An alternative to police or EMS response to behavioral health issues is the San Francisco Street Crisis Response Team (SCRT). SCRT is staffed with a fire department community paramedic, a behavioral health clinician from HealthRIGHT360, and a peer specialist with lived experience from RAMS, Inc. (Richmond Area Multi-Services) who have a range of specialist skills to engage on the scene with a person in crisis.

The first six months of the program showed that 9% of the SCRT encounters have ended in a 5150, an involuntary mental health hold for those who are a danger to themselves or others. 18% were transported to a hospital and 18% to a program such as residential care or drug treatment. (38)

With six teams launched, SCRT is now diverting over half (58%) of calls monthly for “mentally disturbed persons” from law enforcement. In the first year the SCRT responded to over 5,000 calls related to people suffering mental health and substance abuse issues on city streets. (39)

Los Angeles Skid Row – a Challenging Community of Addiction and Unsheltered Homeless

The out-of-hospital emergency medical services environment in 2023 is tremendously more complex than Baltimore and Los Angeles handled in 1999. A dramatic example is what LAFD encounters in the Skid Row community. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) spent a day with the firefighters at Los Angeles Fire Station 9 in 2019. This 27-minute documentary was shown on SoCal Connected on February 18, 2020. https://www.pbs.org/video/fire-station-9-9syxup/

Footnotes

(1) staff (2000 May 24) The debate: city fire coverage. The Baltimore Sun. Accessed March 5, 2023 https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-2000-05-24-0005240127-story.html

(2) Operational & Management Assessment: Baltimore City Fire Department – Final Report. (2021 November). FACETS Consulting LLP. https://fire.baltimorecity.gov/baltimore-city-fire-department-facets-report

(3) Fox, S. (1999 Dec 26). Proposal Targets Paramedic Shortage. Los Angeles Times. Los Angeles, CA. Accessed March 5, 2023 https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1999-dec-26-me-47674-story.html

(4) Williams, E. (2007 Aug 29) Paramedic Coded Assign Hire to End Sept 9. Battalion 14 News & Information (dormant rss feed).

(5) Ditzel, P. (1965) Dial 0 for Rescue. The Firemen’s Grapevine.

(5a) Hisserich, J. C. (2020 July 1) How the Los Angeles Fire Department Became the City’s Ambulance Provider. Los Angeles Fire Department Historical Society

(6) Faught, J. (2006). “Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Explaining the 2002 San Fernando Secession Vote.” Journal of Urban Affairs 28(4): 375 – 398.

(7) Wells, W (2004 February 1) “Los Angeles Fire Department Implements EMS Resource Plan.” Firehouse.com Accessed Mar 5, 2023 https://www.firehouse.com/home/news/10526932/los-angeles-fire-department-implements-ems-resource-plan

(8) Bamattre, W. R. (2006 June 12). EMS Resource Deployment Plan Update, Los Angeles Fire Department.

(9) Silva, G. (2023 February 12) ” ‘It happens every day’: LAFD paramedics say 911 response times continue to rise. Fox 11 News, Accessed March 5, 2023 https://www.foxla.com/news/lafd-paramedics-say-911-response-times-continue-to-rise.

(10) “What’s a Wicked Problem?” Stony Brook University. accessed February 25, 2023 https://www.stonybrook.edu/commcms/wicked-problem/about/What-is-a-wicked-problem

(11) Baltimore Fire Officers IAFF Local 964 (2023 April 19) “On this date in 1986, Aerial Tower 111 was placed in service. Engine Co No 1 and Truck Co No 11 were disbanded and combined to place the tower in service, at their station at 401 W. North Avenue. The unit ran as both an engine and a truck company on fire boxes, and was staffed with 6 personnel. The tower lasted a little over 10 years, being disbanded on 4/9/1997, and the firehouse closed.” FaceBook https://www.facebook.com/BFO964/posts/693953376068826

(12) LAFD (2008). Five-Year Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Plan 2007-2012, Los Angeles Fire Department.

(13) ABC 7 (2023 March 7) Fire Chief Crowley and Mayor Bass Discuss State of the LAFD. https://youtu.be/NOvvSgigols

(13a) Silva, G. (2023 May 1) LA’s ambulance shortage impacting city’s public safety, paramedic says. Fox 11 News. Accessed May 6, 2023 https://www.foxla.com/news/las-ambulance-shortage-impacting-citys-public-safety-paramedic-says

(14) “50th Anniversary” in Seattle Fire Department 2020 Annual Report. City of Seattle. p. 26.

(15) Eisenberg, M., Bergner, L., & Hallstrom, A. (1979). Paramedic Programs and Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest: I. Factors Associated with Successful Resuscitation. American Journal of Public Health, 69(1), 30 – 38. 

(16) Zive, D.M.; Schmicker, R.; et al. (2018) Survival and variability over time from out of hospital cardiac arrest across large geographically diverse communities participating in the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, Resuscitation. 131:74-82

(17) Brown SP, Wang H, et al. (2015) A randomized trial of continuous versus interrupted chest compressions in out-of-hospital cardiac arrest: rationale for and design of the Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium Continuous Chest Compressions Trial. Am Heart J;169:334-341.e5

(18) Nichol, G., Leroux, B., et al. (2015) Trial of continuous or interrupted chest compressions during CPR N Engl J Med, 373 (23), pp. 2203-2214

(19) Myers, J. B., Eckstein, M. et al. (2008). “Evidence-Based Performance Measures for Emergency Medical Services Systems: A Model for Expanded EMS Benchmarking.” Prehospital Emergency Care 12(2): 141-151.

(20) Unpublished 2006 data from an internal study.

(21) Pennino, J. A., III. (2021). The expanded implementation of the medical priority dispatch system (MPDS) in Pinellas County: A public value perspective [Doctoral dissertation, Valdosta State University]. In Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The Sciences and Engineering (Vol. 82, Issue 1–B).

(22) staff (4 April 2023) Long Beach unions say ambulance crash highlights staffing shortage. KCAL CBS. Accessed April 6, 2023 https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/long-beach-unions-say-ambulance-crash-highlights-staffing-shortage/

(23) staff (31 January 2023) Phoenix Fire Department in Staffing Crisis. AZ Family. Accessed 8 April 2023 https://youtu.be/qulxrnOtNO8

(24) Huntsman, D., Greer, A., & Murphy, H. (2020) Leveraging Justice: How Leaders Influence Performance Determinants in the Fire Service. Risk, Hazards & Crisis in Public Policy. 11(3) 270 – 295. doi: 10.1002/rhc3.12188

(25) Freeman, D. (2023 January 10) EMS unions sue city, FDNY alleging pay discrimination: Suit concerns effects of ‘occupational separation’. The Chief Leader. Accessed January 22, 2023 https://www.thechiefleader.com/stories/ems-unions-sue-city-fdny-alleging-pay-discrimination,49591

(26) Litz, B. T., Stein, N. et. al (2009). “Moral injury and moral repair in war veterans: A preliminary model and intervention strategy.” Clinical Psychology Review 29(8): 695-706.

(27) Talbot, S. G. and Dean,W. (2018) “Physicians aren’t ‘burning out.’ They’re suffering from moral injury.” STAT.

(28) Renkiewicz, G. K., & Hubble, M. W. (2021). Secondary Traumatic Stress in Emergency Services Systems (STRESS) Project: Quantifying and Predicting Compassion Fatigue in Emergency Medical Services Personnel. Prehospital Emergency Care. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2021.1943578 

(29) Vigil, N. H., Grant, A. R., et. al (2018). Death by Suicide—The EMS Profession Compared to the General Public. PreHospital Emergency Care, 23(3), 340-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/10903127.2018.1514090 

(30) Doverspike, D. (2023) 2022 EMS Employee Turnover Study. American Ambulance Association and OnShift Inc-Avesta Systems Inc.

(31) Finance Committee. (2016 ). EMS Funding and Reimbursement: FINAL. National EMS Advisory Council. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Transportation 

(32) Shah M. N. (2006). The formation of the emergency medical services system. American Journal of Public Health, 96(3), 414-23

(33) Edwards, M.L. (2019) Pittsburgh’s Freedom House Ambulance Service: The Origins of Emergency Medical Services and the Politics of Race and Health. Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 74 (4) 440-466. dot: 10.1093/jhas/jrz041

(34) Advocacy Resource Center (2022 December 22) Issue Brief: Nation’s drug-related overdose and death epidemic continues to worsen. American Medical Association

(35) Thomas, L. & Biantoro, C. (2021 March) A Review of Fire First Responder Responses to Lift Assist and Traumatic Fall Incidents: Analysis on City of Surrey Medical Incident Response. Surrey, British Columbia: City of Surrey Fire Services

(36) Ward, M. (2020 January 20) Looking at Fire-EMS Lift-Assists: Aging Community, Troubling Health Trends and Healthcare Cost Shifting. Reston, VA: CompanyCommander.com Accessed April 11, 2023 https://companycommander.com/2020/01/20/looking-at-fire-ems-lift-assists-aging-community-troubling-health-trends-and-healthcare-cost-shifting/

(37) Sanko, S., & Eckstein, M. (2021). Mobile Integrated Health Care in Los Angeles: Upstream Solutions to Mitigate the Covid-19Pandemic. NEJM Catalyst: Innovations in Care Delivery 2021, 2(2). https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1056/CAT.20.0383 

(38) Thadani, T., & Cassidy, M (21 May 2022) S.F. finally has a new mental health team to respond to homeless people in distress. Is it helping? San Francisco Chronicle. Accessed 10 April 2023 https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/s-f-s-new-street-crisis-team-is-helping-people-16180437.php

(39) Office of the Mayor (2021 November 30) San Francisco Celebrates One-Year Anniversary of Street Crisis Response Team. Accessed April 10, 2023 https://sfmayor.org/article/san-francisco-celebrates-one-year-anniversary-street-crisis-response-team

“IT IS CHEAPER TO PAY OVERTIME THAN CREATE MORE POSITIONS”

There has been a long dance over what staffing a fire department needs to meet its operational requirements. Jurisdictions are resistant to creating new full-time positions, as they require 137% funding to cover salary, worker compensation, annual/sick leave, training, personal protective gear, and other human resource expenditures.

From my professional experience, the jurisdictional administrators and elected leaders struggle with the concept of having a workforce where there are more full-time equivalents (FTEs) on duty than the minimum required seats to fill.

As Steven Knight points out:

Using my old department as an example, the staffing was determined on a legacy basis and that legacy pre-dated most, if not all, of the institutional knowledge. For example, the department staffed five personnel for every seat on an engine, four for every seat on a truck company, and two for every seat on a rescue. While the daily minimum staffing was consistently applied, it had to overcome the inconsistency in staffing for each position. In fairness, these legacy-staffing strategies may have been compromises over the years and budget cycles, but to clearly articulate the strategy at a future moment in time proves difficult.

Knight, S. (2019 March 12) Full time, part time, overtime: How to fill fire department vacancies. firerescue1.com

LOOKING AT LOS ANGELES

In 1987 a Los Angeles County firefighter/paramedic made more money than the fire chief. That firefighter/paramedic got $59,673 in overtime pay along with his $38,811 annual salary. Firefighter/paramedic Wilson worked five consecutive 24-hour shifts a week, every week. That made the Los Angeles Times.

In the late 1990s, a single-role Los Angeles City Fire Department paramedic made significantly more money than the fire chief, working five to seven consecutive 24-hour shifts a week. At that time, Los Angeles City was losing paramedics quicker than they could hire them.

One reason was the “force hire” that ordered paramedics back to work during their scheduled time off. In 1999 there were 60 unfilled LAFD single-role paramedic positions, representing a 14% vacancy rate in the paramedic workforce. If you wanted to make sure that you could get off to take a vacation, enjoy a holiday, or attend a family event, you needed to work 96 hours of voluntary “assigned hire” overtime the previous month.

When I was looking at other fire departments pre-pandemic, the number of firefighters and paramedics willing to work overtime decreases when the number of authorized but unfilled positions exceeds 12%. This is usually when forced, or mandatory, overtime starts in earnest. After a few months of forced overtime, some departments see an increase in injuries, sick leave, retirements/resignations, and a decrease in the number of employees voluntarily signing up for overtime.

A 2015 audit of overtime resulted in the Los Angeles City Council approving the hiring of 48 additional firefighters. At that time, “420 LAFD employees earned more than $100,000 in overtime, and 19 earned more than $200,000. One Fire Captain made $311,316 in overtime on top of a $120,829 salary, for a staggering total of $448,594 in overtime pay. … a Commander at the LAFD informed the Controller’s office that the employee with $311,316 in overtime did obey all policies and procedures regarding overtime.”

Those 48 additional firefighter positions in 2015 did not end the overtime issue.

An audit of the Fiscal Year 2019 expenditures (July 2018 – June 2019) showed that “Eighteen employees of the Los Angeles Fire Department earned more than $200,000 in overtime pay last fiscal year, with one firefighter making $360,010 in overtime.”

The 2019 audit also observed that “More than 90% of sworn police and fire employees last fiscal year received overtime, earning an average of $27,737, while 40% of the city’s general employees, defined as other sworn and civilian workers, received such pay. That group earned an average of $7,528.”

Last week Company Commander posted an article that reported “A captain in the department made $434,394 in overtime in 2021, pushing their gross pay to $598,532 to become the highest-paid employee in the city that year. Another fire captain made $420,055 in overtime, pushing that person’s gross pay to $593,314 in 2021. That person was the second-highest paid employee in the city, according to city payroll records. A firefighter with a base salary of $129,638 made $411,606 in overtime, making that firefighter’s total compensation $554,056.

There were 86 employees in the fire department who made $400,000 or more in 2021. However, the highest ranking employee was not among those. The fire chief made $338,624, or nearly $250,000 less than the fire captain.”

AN ANNUAL DANCE OF MEDIA FUELED OUTRAGE

In many jurisdictions, this dance of overtime outrage occurs every year. Most of the media articles blame or shame the individuals that worked overtime, ignoring the elected officials and public safety leadership that developed and implemented policies that generate overtime. 

Company Commander posts these articles not to pile on blame or shame, but to share examples of the staffing and budgeting issues that every jurisdiction faces. The ICMA and Center for Public Safety Excellence white paper on 21st Century Fire and Emergency Services identified two themes:

• First, the past strategies of deferring conclusive action on critical issues with short-term solutions and leaving them for the next set of leadership is not a sustainable strategy for the future. To continue to do so will worsen the eventual correction(s) that will have to be made.
• Second, we must begin recruiting talent with the mindset, skill sets, and resolve to help build a core organizational culture that can adapt and respond to rapid changes and that are not vested in a 20th century fire service paradigm or antiquated local government bureaucracy.

This white paper may serve as a starting point to change the conversation with jurisdictional leaders and elected officials. We need to develop a new narrative promoting appropriate organizational staffing to meet the expanded and complex role that a fire/rescue department performs in 2022.

AN OBSERVATION ABOUT THE FREQUENCY OF OVERTIME POSTS

Company Commander also posts articles that describe closed fire companies and reduced staffing that some jurisdictions are forced to do to stay within their authorized overtime budget. In terms of number of posts, there are about four times as many posts about closed fire companies, reduced staffing, or “browned-out” fire companies as there are about overtime earnings.

Featured picture: “Firefighters Defend Neighborhood Structures as Hollywood Theater Goes Up in Flames.” LAFD.org. 7/13/2022

These situations provide opportunities and challenges for the front-line emergency service officer.

FIRE DEPARTMENT AS A SOCIAL SERVICES PARTNER

The San Francisco Fire Department Street Crisis Response Team (SCRT) is staffed with a community paramedic from SFFD, a behavioral health clinician from HealthRIGHT360, and a peer specialist with lived experience from RAMS, Inc. (Richmond Area Multi-Services) who together have a range of specialty skills to engage on the scene with a person in crisis.

In the first year of operation, November 2020 – November 2021, SCRT took more than 5,000 calls and engaged with nearly 3,000 people in crisis. In early 2022, the seventh team with six additional staff will launch.

The first six months of the program showed that 9% of the SCRT encounters have ended in a 5150, an involuntary mental health hold for those who are a danger to themselves or others. 18% were transported to a hospital and 18% to a program such as residential care or drug treatment. (source)

Demonstrating the program’s success as an alternative to law enforcement, SCRT diverted more than one-third of all 911 calls (38%) for “mentally disturbed persons” from law enforcement cumulatively during its first year of operation. With six teams launched, SCRT is now diverting over half (58%) of calls monthly for “mentally disturbed persons” from law enforcement. Once fully operational, SCRT seeks to divert 100% of calls.

City of San Francisco (2021 November 30) San Francisco Celebrates One-Year Anniversary of Street Crisis Response Team Press Release

RISING PROBLEM OF HOMELESS ENCAMPMENTS: FIRES, INFECTIOUS DISEASE, VIOLENCE AGAINST CAREGIVERS, AND EMS WORKLOAD

Lexipol provided a 2019 webinar on “Crisis in the Streets: Fire Department Response to Homeless Individuals” that was eye-opening. Click on this link to see the on-demand webinar.

Homeless encampments experienced a 1,000% increase from 2007 to 2017 and are occurring throughout the United States. Half of the encampments have 11-50 residents, 17% of the encampments have more than 100 residences. (NLCHP 2017) Fire departments are responding to calls for violence, fires and infectious diseases like typhus and tuberculosis (Gorman 2018)

Due to violence against first responders, some fire departments are sending two crews to any EMS event at an encampment, to have one company commander function as the scene safety officer while the others work at the task-level. (Goldfeder, Long & Schaeffer 2019)

Seattle Fire Chief Harold Scoggins reports that from Jan. 1 to April 10 of 2022 the department responded to 478 encampment fires – three to five encampment fires a day. In 2021 during the same time period, it was 327. The year before that, they responded to 168 encampment fires. They are also responding to 30 to 35 medical calls to homeless encampments every day. (source)

Los Angeles Fire Department, a city 6 times larger than Seattle, responded to 24 encampment fires a day in May 2021, many spreading to adjacent businesses and residences creating millions of dollars of property damage. (source) In downtown Los Angeles, fires from homeless encampments account for 80% of the blazes in the summer of 2021. (source)

WE ARE NOT TELLING OUR STORY: FIREFIGHTERS RESCUE A LOT OF CIVILIANS

Stunning results from the Firefighter Rescue Survey. They have been collecting information on rescues made by firefighters as reported in the media or by fire departments. In 2021 they found that 2,173 civilians were rescued by firefighters. They received 757 completed rescue surveys. 

As of April 5, 2022, Firefighter Rescue Survey has received reports of 300 incidents where civilians have been rescued by firefighters in 2022. Statistically, that equates to nearly 3.3 incidents per day where firefighters are making grabs. (source) You can get Chief Brian Brush’s “2021 Rescue Survey & The Culture Shift for 2022: People Before Water“ through this (source).

The goal of the Firefighter Rescue Survey initiative is to reduce civilian home fire deaths to under 2,000 per year. U.S. news media reported 2,264 civilian home fire fatalities for the calendar year 2021. Please visit their website http://www.firefighterrescuesurvey.com/

REFERENCES

Thadani, T. & Cassidy, M. (2021 May 17) S.F. finally has a new mental health team to respond to homeless people in distress. Is it helping. San Francisco Chronicle. accessed April 14, 2022. https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/S-F-s-new-street-crisis-team-is-helping-people-16180437.php

NLCHP (2017). Tent City, USA: The Growth of America’s Homeless Encampments and How Communities are Responding. Washington, DC, National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. http://nlchp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/Tent_City_USA_2017.pdf

Gorman, A. and Kaiser Health News (2019 March 8). Medieval Diseases Are Infecting California’s Homeless: Typhus, tuberculosis, and other illnesses are spreading quickly through camps and shelters. The Atlantic. New York, Atlantic Media, Inc.  https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/03/typhus-tuberculosis-medieval-diseases-spreading-homeless/584380/

Goldfeder, B., A. Long and B. Schaeffer (2019 July 9). Crisis In The Streets: Fire Department Response to Homeless Individuals. Webinar. Irvine, CA, Lexipol.  https://info.lexipol.com/webinar-fire-department-response-to-homeless

Markovich, M. (2020 April 15) Seattle Fire Chief: Responses to daily encampment fires taxing already short staffed fire dept. Fox 13 Seattle. Accessed April 15, 2022. https://www.q13fox.com/news/seattle-fire-chief-reponses-to-daily-encampment-fires-taxing-already-short-staffed-fire-dept

Smith, D., Queally, J., & Molina, G. (2021 May 12) 24 fires a day: Surge in flames at L.A. homeless encampments a growing crisis. Los Angeles Times Accessed April 17, 2022. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-05-12/surge-in-fires-at-la-homeless-encampments-growing-crisis

(2021 June 14) Homeless Encampment Fires Account For 80% Of Blazes Plaguing DTLA In Recent Weeks: ‘It’s So Sad.’ CBS Los Angeles. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/rash-of-homeless-encampment-fires-continues-across-southland/

Feature image: Winthrop, C. (05 March 2021) One Dead Following Palms Homeless Encampment Fire in Possible Homicide. westsidetoday.com Accessed April 17, 2022 https://westsidetoday.com/2021/03/05/one-dead-after-palms-homeless-encampment-fire/

(2022 April 6) Year of the Rescue, FIREFIGHTER GRAB VIDEO, Reducing Civilian Fatalities Below 2000. County Fire Tactics. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://countyfiretactics.com/2022/04/06/year-of-the-rescue-firefighter-grab-video-reducing-civilian-fatalities-below-2000/

Brush, B. (2022 February) “2021 Rescue Survey & The Cultural Shift for 2022: People Before Water.” CountyFireTactics.com. Accessed April 17, 2022. https://countyfiretactics.com/2022/02/06/2021-rescue-survey-chief-brush-the-cultural-shift-for-2022-chief-isakson/

Like many, my plans and expectations continue to be rocked by the pandemic and the associated economic disruption. So, what will 2021 bring?

Research: Pandemic Impact on EMS Caregivers and Firefighters

One of the reasons to get a Ph.D. is to think about the “big questions.” That starts while honing skills and performing research as a student. I am part of a group looking at the pandemic’s impact on EMS caregivers in terms of PPE and worker compensation.

The first wave of the pandemic was an unscheduled major event that overwhelmed first responders. Like the 9/11 attack in New York City, there were assumptions and promises that crumbled months later as the magnitude of the World Trade Center illnesses were determined by state and federal authorities.

Worker compensation for COVID-19 is inconsistent. We are seeing the same pushback for COVID-19 infected EMS caregivers similar to last year’s Company Commander documentation of the Texas approach to firefighter occupational cancer claims.

There is a tremendous disparity in the protection of EMS caregivers based on their job classification and type of employer. Within the Fire Department of New York, firefighters get unlimited sick leave while single role EMS providers get 12 days a year.

Paul Cary, a retired Aurora, Colorado firefighter/paramedic, was working on a FEMA-deployed commercial ambulance in New York City. He gets infected on-the-job and dies of the coronavirus. Since he is not an employee of a jurisdictional emergency service organization when he was infected, his family will not get the same line-of-duty death benefits that a family of a volunteer rescue squad caregiver receives after a LODD coronavirus death.

Follow: Delivering Emergency Service During Austere Times

Last May the International Association of Fire Chiefs warned that the impact of the pandemic shutdown and quarantines could result in the loss of 30,000 fire department jobs because lost tax revenues will significantly reduce local government budgets.

These job losses come at a time when emergency service workload has increased, from both the pandemic as well as the increased number of residential cooking fires and fires in unoccupied businesses and office buildings.

EMS workload has skyrocketed, with many systems recording their “busiest days ever” that includes day-to-day workloads 50% higher than normal. This is driven by more patients and the fallout of overwhelmed hospitals during a COVID surge generating more interfaculty transports.

Some emergency service agencies have stepped up to help overloaded health care and public health colleagues by assuming additional roles and responsibilities.

Develop: Company Commander Supervision and Management During Times of High-Stress, Hyper-Partisanship, and Poor Quality Information

We are working in extraordinary times where we often encounter tsunamis of conflicting or confusing information that call for a response by a supervisor or manager. Beyond the arena of national politics, this affects our ability to command, supervise and train our team as these controversies can “… suck all of the oxygen (and energy) out of a room” and skew our decision-making process.

How can you maintain a non-hostile work environment when television, print and social media work every day to increase readership by promoting conflict, anger and angst?

Share: New and Recurring Voices

Opinion leaders, innovators and recognized experts drive emergency service practices. I continue to seek out the next opinion leader or subject matter expert that is working to make us better, safer and righteous. If there is someone or a team I need to know about, please send me an email.

This Week’s Take Home: Vincent Dunn’s Fire Battlespace Trilogy

On January 7, Chief Dunn posted an essay on his FaceBook page “Why I Wrote 7 Books.” https://www.facebook.com/VincentDunnFireBattlespace

I recall being a rookie engine company commander and reading the first edition of Collapse of Burning Buildings. It remains one of the most impactful experiences in my professional development.