The eighth annual index report from ESO Solutions provides information from 10.2 million fire company responses from their clients that use the electronic data entry from both the computer aided dispatch system and the last year of National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS) incident run reports in 2025.

The call volume breaks down to:

• 66% are EMS related
• 12% are Good Intent
• 8% are Service Calls
• 7% are False Alarm or False Call
• 3% are Hazardous Condition (No Fire)
• 3% are Fire (Series 100 coded incidents)

Breaking down the 341,381 Series 100 incidents:

• 37% are structure fires
• 23% are natural vegetation fires
• 19% are rubbish fires
• 13% are mobile property, i.e. vehicle fires

ESO Solutions identifies that 61% of the 12,721 structure fires in 2025 were classified as Working Fires. Most of those 7,760 Working Fires were in residences.

Among residential structure fires, one- or two-family dwellings account for 77%, followed by multifamily dwellings at 16%. … single-family homes remain the primary concern. (Crowe et al., 2026, p. 8).”

A Structure Fire Requiring Rescue Every 4 hours

Midwest City (OK) Training Chief Brian Brush repeated the 2021 research he did while working on a master’s degree at Oklahoma State University. His original study was profound, showing that, on average, firefighters in the United States rescued 9.8 civilians from fires every day. This placed Chief Brush as a keynote speaker at the Fire Department Instructors Conference. Chief Brush revisited this issue in 2026 and shared his results in a Fire Engineering article.

Residential structure fires are where the rescues occur. In 2026, only 10 of the 1,033 victims were rescued from commercial structures.

A working apartment fire with exposures has a significant resource demand on its own. If you are dispatched to one with reports of trapped occupants, ensure you are also starting the units and staff to also potentially establish a medical group ready for triage treatment and transport of multiple victims. (Brush, 2026)

Chief Brush points out that the average number of civilians rescued from a single-family dwelling was more than one, and from a multi-family dwelling was 3.2. For January to March of 2026, an average of 11.5 civilians were rescued every day. While fire departments are responding to fewer structure fires in 2026 compared to 2021, we are encountering more fires requiring civilian rescues.

Imperatives for the Fire Officer

This means firefighters need to be competent and confident in their search, victim removal, and interior fire suppression skills. Fire officers need to be effective as fire company unit supervisors and initial incident commanders to supervise time-critical structure fires with trapped civilians. The fire department should have a deployment plan that includes paramedic or EMT caregivers focused on prompt civilian care and ambulances that arrive quickly as part of a working fire incident.

War Story: I could use some help here!

A firefighter who works in a department that operates four-firefighter engine companies that include one paramedic/firefighter, and ambulances staffed with one paramedic/firefighter and one EMT/firefighter, shared this experience:

We were the first arriving engine company at a working fire in an end-of-row townhouse. Fire was showing from Side C; we entered through the front door. We found an unconscious man while advancing the attack line. The paramedic/firefighter and I removed him to the sidewalk. I thought the medic was going to get the ALS gear from the engine, but the medic went back inside to operate the attack line. I grabbed the oxygen kit and ambulance aide bag from the engine.

The second and third arriving engine company crews passed by me before getting into the townhouse; no one stopped to help. Finally, the paramedic ambulance that was dispatched on the second alarm showed up to help. I was alone with an unconscious patient for 16 minutes.

Each edition of Fire Officer: Principles and Practice includes a section describing the current challenges facing the fire officer. This article on structure fires is a work in progress as part of my preparation for the 6th edition, which will be released after NFPA Standard 1020 is updated in 2030.

___________________________

References

Brush, B. (2026, September 7) Counting Rescues: The Mission Metric, Five Years Later. Fire Engineering. https://www.fireengineering.com/firefighter-training/search-operations/counting-rescues-the-missing-metric-five-years-later

Crowe, R. P., Fernandez, A. R., Treichel, A., Gardner, B., & Myers, B. (2026) 2026 Fire Service Index: Incidents and Best Practices For Fire Departments. ESO Solutions.

Featured photo: Brady, M. (2013, April 26) Townhouse Fire in Largo – Harry S. Truman Drive. Prince George’s County Fire/EMS. https://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2013/04/townhouse-fire-in-largo-harry-s-truman.html [The feature image is not related to the war story.]

I noticed the same behavior in some of the small-room presentations at the Fire Department Instructor’s Conference. Instructors use images or video snippets from fire departments hundreds of miles away to show what not to do. The presenter has no information on the image’s background, or doesn’t care.

A few of these instructors criticize or belittle the department shown in the image. Poor form! I interrupted the EMS instructor to say the story was inaccurate and later emailed her to express my disappointment in the fabrication of a line-of-duty-death ambulance crash. I provided a news article about the crash and asked if there were fabrications in the clinical portion of the refresher.

Ambulance 826 – The real story as shared by the PGFD Public Information Officer

Just after midnight on Thursday [September 16, 2010], a Prince George’s County ambulance and a civilian vehicle were involved in a crash in the 5600 block of Marlboro Pike in District Heights. The crash resulted in 3 civilian fatalities and two Firefighter/Medics being transported to a Trauma Center.

Ambulance 826 had just departed the Fire/EMS Station and was traveling west on Marlboro Pike en route to a overdose call on Tanow Place. Initial reports indicate that a GMC Suburban SUV was travelling east-bound in the west-bound lanes at a high rate of speed. The ambulance, with emergency lights on and siren sounding, had to swerve to avoid a head-on collision. The SUV side-swiped the ambulance and then hit a brick wall and utlity pole before coming to rest on it’s roof about 120 feet from where it first struck the ambulance.

The three occupants of the SUV, adult males, were pronounced deceased on the scene. Two Firefighter/Medics were transported to a Trauma Center for evaluation but did not appear to have suffered any injuries.

The ambulance sustained major damage from the crash in which the entire right side of the patient compartment was torn off.

The Prince George’s County Police Department Accident Reconstruction Team are conducting the investigation.

Public Discourse In The Age of Show Business

Professor Neil Postman’s book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In The Age of Show Business pointed out that visual communications, inspired by television, has made our world more like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World – a population too amused by distractions like entertainment, leisure, and laughter to realize they have been made powerless – rather than George Orwell’s 1984 – a tyrannical state that bans information to keep the public powerless.

The larger point that Postman made was that societies are molded by technologies atop which they communicate:

• Oral cultures teach us to be conversational.
• Typographic cultures teach us to be logical. Fire departments operate as a typographical culture – paper empires of logic and procedures.
• Televised cultures teach us that everything is entertainment and emotional.

I wonder how Postman¹ would evaluate social media memes, videos, and algorithms designed to maximize the time users spend in the application (Derakhshan 2016).

Artificial Images

Derek O. Hanley is a combat medic, EMS educator, photographer, editor, and founder of DOHP, which specializes in real-world product capture for EMS, public safety, and operational environments.² In this August 2026 LinkedIn post, he contrasts the differences between an actual image and a staged or AI-generated one:

Can you spot the difference? (Frontline professionals can.)
Spend thousands of hours working in an operational environment and you develop an enormous mental library of what real looks like.

The obvious details matter: uniforms, equipment, vehicles, clinical technique.
But so do the subtle ones.

Posture. Where people position themselves. How equipment is staged. What’s been moved out of the way. The clutter created by actual work. A cabinet secured because the ambulance is moving. The natural division of attention between multiple clinicians.

Even something as mundane as lockout/tagout can tell an insider: people were actually working here.

Most viewers won’t consciously inventory those details.
Experienced frontline personnel don’t have to.

Pattern recognition does much of the work automatically.

That’s why the difference between these two images matters.
The top image illustrates what someone thinks an ambulance call looks like.

The bottom image is visual evidence of one.

And when knowledgeable viewers encounter the first, something else can happen:
Instead of processing your message, they start finding what’s wrong.

Why is she positioned like that?
Why is everything spotless?
That doesn’t make sense.
I’ve seen this stock photo EVERYWHERE.

The image gets categorized as synthetic, staged or disconnected from their world.
Now your beautifully written copy and great product have to overcome a credibility problem the photograph created before the viewer even considered them.

The real image works differently.
Those tiny details create recognition.
I’ve been there. I know this. This is us.

That’s emotional resonance—and it gives the message attached to the photograph a better opportunity to land.

This is why I distinguish between illustrative imagery and visual evidence.

One depicts an idea of the work.
The other proves the work happened.

It is tough to find real-life photographs or videos to illustrate your learning point. One challenge in writing the Company Officer: Principles and Practice book was getting fireground pictures approved by the NFPA representative.

Jones and Bartlett Learning used multiple experienced fire service photographers who provided great images. Few fireground photos showed complete NFPA-compliant behavior. Please use your SCBA waist straps, gloves, and eye protection.

While We Are Talking About Artificial Intelligence

Firefighter Nation Editor-in-Chief Stephanie White weighed in:

I thought spending 60 hours on engine 9 was the pinnacle of exhaustion.
Nope.

It’s reading AI submissions.

Why? Thanks for asking – articles, posts, books – whatever it is you write it’s just a continuation of the sofa in the bay, the kitchen table while the chauffeur is cooking dinner, or the coffee on the front bumper with a buddy or two. It’s the conversations and stories we tell each other, and when you write with AI you completely sanitize that tone and warmth.

It’s the reading equivalent of listening to another teleconference meeting where the absent FC explains that they don’t know where all the money went or doing your HR training online. Again.

_______________________

¹Neil Postman (1931–2003) was chairman of the Department of Communication Arts at New York University and founder of its Media Ecology program. He wrote more than twenty books.

²I have licensed pictures and used an on-line DOHP Signal interview by Derek O. Hanley in my Idaho State University courses.

References

Derakhshan, H. (2016, Nov 29). Social Media is Killing Discourse Because It’s Too Much Like TV: We need more text and fewer videos and memes in the age of Trump. MIT Technology Review. https://www.technologyreview.com/2016/11/29/155271/social-media-is-killing-discourse-because-its-too-much-like-tv/

Hanley, D. O. (2026, August 27). Can you spot the difference? (Frontline professionals can.) Spend thousands of hours working in an operational environment and you develop an enormous mental library of what real looks like. The obvious details matter: uniforms, equipment, vehicles, clinical technique. But so do the subtle ones. [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/derekohanley_can-you-spot-the-difference-frontline-professionals-activity-7499125697441980416-05TO

PGFD Public Information Office. (2010 September 16) Departmental Crash Involving Ambulance and Civilian Vehicle. Prince George’s County Fire/EMS Department. https://pgfdpio.blogspot.com/2010/09/departmental-crash-involving-ambulance.html

Postman, Neil (1985/2005) Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse In The Age of Show Business. 20th-anniversary edition. New York, NY: Penguin Books.

Ward, M. J. (2020 February 17) Outrage, Optics, and Overreacting to Emergency Service Issues. CompanyCommander.com. https://companycommander.com/2020/02/17/outrage-optics-and-over-reacting-to-emergency-service-issues/

White. Stephanie. (2026 July). I thought spending 60 hours on engine 9 was the pinnacle of exhaustion. Nope. It’s reading AI submissions. [Post]. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/posts/stephanie-white-754b0b26_fireservice-firedepartment-firefighters-activity-7470473592653361152-P71s

Original Brickers

I was a fire cadet¹ when the community college celebrated its 10th anniversary. Staff, administrators, and faculty who opened the college – using industrial park warehouses for classrooms and construction trailers for administration offices – were recognized as “Original Brickers.”

Some of the most dedicated and enthusiastic teachers I met at the college were Original Brickers. They were happy to focus on teaching five classes each semester, the focus of a community college, instead of the research, publishing, and service work expected at a university.

Community college faculty land in the sweet spot where the focus is on teaching and assistance to students, and have the responsibility to develop and propose solutions for curriculum, degree requirements, and other aspects of student learning rather than have those solutions come down from top administrators. 

Smith, B. (2013 September) In the Beginning: The Role of Community College Faculty. Academic Senate for California Community Colleges

An Unexpected Assignment

Around the 20th anniversary, I started as an adjunct (part-time) faculty member with a freshly earned Bachelor’s degree. The full-time Fire Science faculty had shrunk from two to one. Just before the semester began, the Fire Science program director unexpectedly left for an industrial loss management job in a different time zone.

I was a shift-work Fire Lieutenant. The assistant dean asked the fire chief to let me cover the program director position until the college could hire a replacement.

I sought advice from Original Brickers. Like senior firefighters, they had institutional knowledge that mattered but was never written down. They shared their frustrations and disappointments as they watched resources shrink while enrollment skyrocketed.

Almost all of them complained about the new health sciences building. It took “forever” for the committee to complete the specifications. Then it took two years for the state to authorize funding. A recession after construction started required the building to shrink by 20%. This disappointed the paramedic program, which had advocated so hard for their new space.

I met my first wife while teaching a summer EMT refresher course in the construction trailer that was used as the paramedic classroom during the Fall and Spring semesters. Dating started after the last night of the course.

A Planned But Chilly Assignment

When the 40th anniversary came around, I was retired from the fire department, divorced, had a master’s degree, and was completing a four year run as the full-time Fire Science program head. One of my office mates was an Original Bricker. Professor H (Social Sciences) and I taught one online class and four face-to-face classes, including Tuesday and Thursday nights, so we could take Fridays off.

We worked in one of the original campus buildings. It was a 1965 two-story, unsprinklered cinder block building with an overloaded electrical system and worn-out HVAC. In the first year using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone service, our phones stopped working during registration week. We didn’t have enough bandwidth to support both activities.

I bought a personal Blackboard learning management system license because the community college learning management system could not handle the audiovisual and document-heavy online courses I developed for a fire officer career development initiative.

Late 1960s construction view (NVCC archives)

We worked in a cluster of five faculty offices that opened into the program administrative assistant’s workspace, across the hallway from the classrooms. Professor H’s approach to work reminded me of firefighters who have “retired on duty.” His online introduction/overview class met the college requirements but was poorly constructed and glitchy. Professor H was “one-and-done” and did not address any issues with the online course, stating, “the Information Technology staff should handle these issues.” Smoking was prohibited in the building, but after the assistant dean left for the day, the Marlboros came out.

Power To The … Administrators

I could see my breath in the faculty office in the mornings and late evenings when the outside temperature was below 40 degrees. Portable space heaters overloaded the already strained electrical service and tripped the breaker immediately.

Only the maintenance crew had the key to the electrical room. Much shame followed if you plugged in a portable heater and shut the office down. It could be a while before the electricity returned, since the short-handed maintenance crew covered seven buildings on campus. Shutting down our offices also shut off power to the buildings’ only industrial-grade copier. I learned that during my rookie semester as full-time faculty … shame on me.

Every year I submitted a budget item for a temporary heating solution. Every year I was denied. I was told that the building had been identified for renovation. My research found that while state inmates must be in buildings within a specified temperature range, state employees are not.

A Sad Original Bricker Retirement

Professor H, who was in his 70’s, took an old school approach to staying warm on winter nights. He went over to the steak restaurant and drank enough alcohol to get a warm buzz before his 7 pm lecture. It was 9:55 pm, and I was getting the end-of-week paperwork done after a Thursday night lecture. I noticed the distinct odor of Class A smoke.

It was coming from Professor H’s office. I opened his office door and encountered a cloud of smoke. Professor H was slumped in his chair, and flames were coming from the trash can. I wheeled him out to the hallway, dumped my Diet Coke into the burning trash can, closed his office door, and called 9-1-1.

It was a small fire contained to the trash can. Some smoke damage in the office. Professor H was now wide awake and refusing to let the firefighter/paramedics touch him.

The next Tuesday night, I could hear the assistant dean shouting at Professor H through my closed office door. Professor H retired at the end of the Spring semester.

Original Building Scheduled for Replacement By 2032

This spring, the state announced federal funding to replace the existing underground utility and HVAC system on campus. The new utility/HVAC system will be in the basement of the building that will replace the two story 1965 classroom and science labs facility I spent so much time in. The assistant dean was right in 2004, the building was scheduled for renovation.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

¹Fire cadets were part-time student firefighters who worked 21 hours a week on day work, rotating through fire stations and the 911 dispatch center. The rest of the time we took fire science classes at the community college. I worked at Dunn Loring 13, Great Falls 12, the 911 center, and Fairfax City 3. Because I already had an EMT card, I almost always rode the ambulance.

Elements, identifiers, and sequence of events may be altered in “war stories” to protect the innocent or work better as an example.

Featured image: Students on campus in 1978; the building I worked in is at the top of the picture. NVCC archives.

By 2010, Tysons Corner had 46 million square feet of office and retail space, including two regional shopping malls. Weekday population was 105,000 office and retail workers, 55,000 shoppers, and about 17,000 residents (Fairfax County, 2014). The Emerald City uses 1% of the county land and generates 7% of tax revenue. In 2024 that resulted in a net tax surplus of $154M to the county (Woolsey, 2024). The Tysons business district houses 25% of available county office space and 12.5% of county retail space.

Protecting the Emerald City

These war stories look at Tysons Corner Fire Station 29, which anchors the west end of the Emerald City. Prior to late 2021, Dunn Lorning 13 covered the east end, Vienna 2 covered the south end, and McLean 1 covered the north end. Four engine companies, a truck company, a tower company, and a heavy rescue company. As a teenaged McLean volunteer firefighter, I was hanging on to the backstep of Engine 1’s 1970 Pirsch as we raced down Chain Bridge Road to an overnight alarm activation at Tysons Corner Mall.

Scotts Run 44 opened in September 2021, staffing a paramedic engine company, paramedic ambulance, and the reassigned heavy rescue company from the McLean fire station. McLean Rescue Squad 1 eventually became Rescue Company 2 and operates out of 44 as part of the reorganized special operations division.

Modified from 2024 map of the Tysons Corner planning district. The author added the fire stations.

Fire Station 29 opened in December 1978 as one of seven new county fire stations built to support the county’s rapid growth from a rural and agricultural community to an urban one. Back-to-back recruit schools trained firefighters to staff the new fire stations. Tysons Corner 29 opened with an engine company, 100′ tiller ladder truck, EMT ambulance, and a battalion chief’s office.

When the station opened, I was working on Vienna Medic 2 as an EMS Firefighter II (paramedic). About 40% of Medic 2’s responses were in Tysons Corner. McLean Medic 1 covered the other side of the Emerald City. Dunn Loring Ambulance 13, one of the county’s busiest EMT ambulances, and Tysons Ambulance 29 completed primary EMS transport coverage in Tysons.

Picture from Tysons Reporter (2020) https://www.tysonsreporter.com/2020/12/02/fairfax-county-moves-forward-with-planned-tysons-fire-station-upgrade/

New Tysons Fire Station Runs 14 to 20 Activated Fire Alarm Calls Every Day

The original dispatch for an activated fire alarm in a commercial or multi-family occupancy with no report of smoke or fire was two engines and a truck company. Some new commercial occupancies in Tysons Corner announced themselves by having two to three activated fire alarms every 24 hours during their first weeks of operation. At some point, the department reduced alarm-activation response to one fire company.

Looking From The Code Enforcement Office

It took years for the county to pass a faulty fire alarm ordinance. This ordinance reduced, but did not eliminate, the Emerald City’s faulty fire alarm activations. If the fire official determines that faulty equipment caused the alarm activation and it was the third faulty activation in 90 days:

• The owner or occupant is required to run a witnessed test of the faulty fire alarm system
• Follow-up inspections from non compliance or reinspection:
  • $216 per hour per inspector
  • $432 per hour per inspector for after hours or overtime inspections (Fairfax County, 2026)

Risk Management Near Miss and an “Adaptive” Rescue Squad 1 Response.

Within 29’s response area is a high-rise retirement home for residents aged 62 and older, with 274 apartments. It opened in 1976 and generates one or more activated alarm calls a day for shower steam, burnt toast, and other cooking misadventures. Under the single-company dispatch protocol to an activated fire alarm with no report of smoke or fire, Engine 29 arrived solo and reported smoke showing and a resident needing an aerial rescue from a balcony … during a heavy snowstorm.

The after-action analysis of this multiple-alarm incident reclassified this high-rise retirement home as a high life-safety hazard. This required a commercial box alarm assignment for every activated alarm report: 3 engines, 1 truck, 1 heavy rescue, and a battalion chief. In the mid-1980s, I was a career Fire Sergeant with HazMat Rescue Squad 1 in McLean.

Photo from the McLean Volunteer Fire Department. 1980 GMC Brigadier/Salisbury 250/200.

I was troubled by the leisurely response when Squad 1 was dispatched to the high-rise retirement home for alarm bells. The chauffeur explained that he would not start hauling ass until Engine 29 marked on scene or there was a report of a working incident. When Engine 29 marked on scene, the officer would immediately cancel the rest of the box alarm response, “… holding Engine and Truck 29.”

The chauffeur pointed out that if Squad 1 hauled ass immediately, Engine 29 would cancel the response after the squad passed the McLean business district and went into the suburbs. That would require a long drive back to the station. By driving slower, the squad could turn right at the end of the shopping center and return to quarters easily. With the Squad getting immediately canceled on almost every run to the high-rise retirement home, the station commander was fine with this adaptive response.

Commanding Engine 29: The Alarm Activations Never Stop

After three great years as the boss of Engine 9 on “The Highway,” I was encouraged to accept a transfer to Tysons to prepare for my next promotional exam. It worked, but that’s another story. When I arrived in the 1990s, Tysons 29 had a paramedic engine, a 135′ rear-mount aerial, a paramedic ambulance, and Battalion 2’s office.

1984 E-One Hurricane 135′ rearmount. Picture from Sanders Apparatus Photography. https://sandersap.smugmug.com/

While Engine 9 and Engine 29 had a similar number of runs each day, the work differed significantly. Engine 9, C-shift, operated at a room-and-contents or larger structure fire about every three weeks, including a couple of fires a year that escalated to greater alarms. I was four months into my assignment at Engine 29 when we handled a well-involved auto fire in a parking lot. It was the first fire we used a 1.75″ attack line since my arrival.

Engine 29 did go to a couple of structure fires in a year. It was the only time I was first arriving and laid dual supply lines into a well-involved two-story vacant commercial building that required an elevated master stream. Another shift caught a greater alarm fire in the service bay of a luxury car dealership.

Engine 29 (1986 E-One Hurricane 1250/500) at a Battalion 2 multiple-company drill. The officer’s west coast style door mirror is different because the original one was pulverized while responding through a Dulles Toll Road toll booth. The officer’s window was down. It took a while to get the mirror shards out of the cab, gear, and my hair.

Checking the Mobile Data Terminal At 2:30 AM

Before the department decided to send a fire company to every EMS call, few suppression rigs were on the air in the middle of the night. It was the second week at Engine 29 when I checked who else was up as we cleared another faulty commercial fire alarm. It was my buddy JC, commanding Engine 11, “The Pride of the Highway.” JC was responding as an EMS first responder because the three normally nearest EMT or paramedic ambulances were on other calls.

Engine 29 was still handling 6 to 10 activated fire alarms every 24 hours. Most were from faulty systems, a few were accidental, and rare cases involved a sprinkler head ripped out by a mechanical mishap. In the winter, Fire Prevention mobilized the Tysons “frozen pipes” task force. They handled hundreds of frozen/broken fire protection system incidents every winter. An older, sprawling 1988-era garden apartment community experienced broken pipes in almost every building every winter. Cheap construction with inadequate insulation. The rental apartments were converted to condominiums in the 2000s.

A Thanksgiving Surprise

Hilton Hotels gifted us a fantastic Thanksgiving Day buffet. In the months before, they struggled with a malfunctioning fire alarm system at their flagship hotel next to their headquarters building. We responded to the hotel about a dozen times while the system was being repaired. Then the hotel had a major middle-of-the-night water leak, which I may have documented as 30 minutes of salvage (squeegee) skill training on the monthly report.

Evacuating the original America Online (AOL) headquarters

America Online’s original headquarters and operational center was at the end of Westwood Center Drive, 0.7 miles from the fire station. One Sunday morning, we stood by as a locomotive-sized back-up electric generator was helicoptered behind the building. A few months later, we started responding almost every week for an activated fire alarm in the middle of the night. The building was staffed 24 hours a day, and the overnight security staff wouldn’t let us in to locate the alarm. They waited for us to arrive, reported they found nothing, then reset the alarm panel, and told us to scram.

I spent two years as a supervising assistant fire marshal in code enforcement. Under the statewide fire prevention code, the fire marshal can order an emergency evacuation or fire watch when buildings face severe hazards, active fires, or compromised fire protection systems. Each shift had a duty assistant fire marshal to perform initial fire investigations and handle significant life safety code problems on evenings and weekends.

The AOL alarms were irritating but hadn’t become a significant problem. The building was sprinklered and the faulty alarm pattern pointed to dirty detectors. We submitted the faulty alarm paperwork to Code Enforcement. A couple of weeks later, the duty assistant fire marshal showed up at the fire station Saturday with the signed paperwork. The fire marshal was to hand-deliver it on Monday. Later that night, when we got an activated fire alarm call to AOL, the duty fire marshal added to the response.

It was epic. The security force tried to tell us to scram. The assistant fire marshal pointed out that the building clearly had a compromised fire protection system and ordered a complete evacuation. There was pushback until the fire marshal pointed out that he would arrest them if they obstructed the evacuation or interfered with the firefighters.

We located the defective detector – it was filthy. The workspace smelled like a guy’s college dorm room. The AOL manager on duty received the fire marshal’s order to correct the faulty alarm and perform a witnessed system test. Within a couple of weeks, the faulty alarm calls stopped.

Months later, Engine 29 responded to a 1 am EMS call at AOL. I noticed that a different security force was working in the building.

Scotts Run Fire Station 44

The county’s comprehensive plan for the Tysons Corner urban center creates eight neighborhoods. Four of the neighborhoods center on the Silver Line Metro Transit stations, creating intense, mixed-use (about 65% office and 20% residential), walkable downtowns. The Tysons Tracker reports 59.8 million square feet of developed space within 328 buildings in 2024. Almost all the spaces have central station monitored smoke detectors, and about 85% have automatic fire sprinklers.

Scotts Run, opened in September 2021, is in the neighborhood around the McLean Metro station, Tysons East. The current Tysons Corner fire station is within the neighborhood around the Spring Hill Metro station, the Tysons West neighborhood.

Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department picture

Recessionary Budget Revision Eliminates 24 hour service in Tysons East, July 11, 2025

A reduction in tax revenues led the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors to require all agencies to reduce their Fiscal Year 2026 expenditures. The Fire and Rescue Department had to cut $2.9 million dollars. While there were no layoffs, two rescue companies were permanently closed, and an engine company, tower company, and rescue company shifted from 24/7 staffing to 14-hour staffing, Monday through Saturday, from 5 am to 7 pm.

Franconia Tower Ladder 5, Scotts Run Engine 44, and Scotts Run Rescue 2 are now called Peak Time units. In a Fiscal Year 2024 EMS reorganization, Scotts Run Medic 44 became EMT staffed Ambulance 44. Ambulance 44 remains staffed 24/7.

A New Tysons Corner Fire Station in 2029

The Tysons Corner fire station is three minute walk to the Spring Hill Silver Line Metro station, making this parcel highly desirable for developers. By Summer 2029, a new five-bay fire station will be co-located with a five-bay bus transit facility at the intersection of the Dulles Toll Road, Jones Branch Road, and Spring Hill Road. This moves the fire station into the North Central neighborhood.

Fairfax County. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/publicworks/capital-projects/tysons-fire-station-29-and-bus-transit-facility

Grimm + Parker Architects. https://www.grimmandparker.com/projects/tysons-fire-station-bus-transit

_____________________________________________

Elements, identifiers, and sequence of events may be altered in “war stories” to protect the innocent or work better as an example.

Fairfax County (2014, April 29) Fairfax County Comprehensive Plan, 2013 Edition: Tysons Corner Urban Center. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/planning-development/sites/planning-development/files/assets/documents/comprehensiveplan/planhistoric/2013/area2/tysons/4-29-2014%20areawide%20recommendations.pdf

Fairfax County (2024, October 22) Tysons Tracker: Monitoring Comprehensive Plan Implementation. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/tysons/sites/tysons/files/Assets/Documents/pdf/annual_reports/2024-Tysons-Tracker.pdf

Garreau, J. (1992). Edge City: Life on the New Frontier. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group.

Office of the Fire Marshal. (2026). Billable Services & Fees. Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Department. https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/fire-ems/fire-marshal/billable-services-fees

Woolsey, A. (2024, December 13). Tysons makes more tax revenue for Fairfax County than it receives, study finds. FFX Now. https://www.ffxnow.com/2024/12/13/tysons-makes-more-tax-revenue-for-fairfax-county-than-it-receives-study-finds/

Featured photo. The McLean Metro station and part of the Tysons East neighborhood. 2020, Duane Lempke Photography, CC BY-SA 4.0.

Plano, Texas, alternative response vehicle

What 10.2 Million 2025 Fire Company Run Reports Tell Us

This is the eight annual index report from ESO Solutions, sharing the information from their clients that use the electronic data entry from both the computer aided dispatch system and the last year of NFIRS incident run reports.

Call Volume

• 66% are EMS related
• 12% are Good Intent
• 8% are Service Calls
• 7% are False Alarm or False Call
• 3% are Hazardous Condition (No Fire)
• 3% are Fire (Series 100)

Breaking Down the 341,000 “Series 100” Fire calls

• 37% structure fires
• 23% natural vegetation fires
• 19% rubbish fires
• 13% mobile property (vehicle)

61% of the 34,381 structure fires were classified as Working Fires

Among residential structure fires, one- or two-family dwellings account for 77%, followed by multifamily dwellings at 16%. While two-family and multifamily dwellings make up a substantial percentage of residential fires, single-family homes remain the primary concern for community fire safety and prevention efforts (Crowe et al., 2026, p. 8).

Residential Fires and Civilian Rescues

Midwest City (OK) Training Chief Brian Brush repeated the 2021 research he did while working on a master’s degree at Oklahoma State University. His original study was profound, showing that, on average, firefighters in the United States rescued 9.8 civilians from fires every day. This placed Chief Brush as a “big room” keynote speaker at the Fire Department Instructors Conference. Chief Brush revisited this issue in 2026 and shared his results in this Fire Engineering article.

Residential structure fires are where the rescues occur. In 2026, only 10 of the 1,033 victims were rescued from commercial structures. The data for the single-family dwelling once again supports the idea that we need to prepare for rescues in the plural term as average number of victims per incident with a rescue is once again greater than one.

For the higher density multifamily dwellings, we see that the number of victims per incident with rescues was 2.6 in 2021 and 3.2 in 2026. While several incidents with more than a dozen rescues at a single apartment fire incident does influence this, there is still a significant strategic take away for incident commanders.

A working apartment fire with exposures has a significant resource demand on its own. If you are dispatched to one with reports of trapped occupants, ensure you are also starting the units and staff to also potentially establish a medical group ready for triage treatment and transport of multiple victims (Brush, 2026).

Three Examples of First/Fast or 2-piece Companies

Let’s look at Syracuse, New York; Phoenix, Arizona; and Los Angeles City, California, which use non-traditional approaches to meet community needs. Firefighter staffing is different. Syracuse splits the four person engine company crew with two on the mini and two on the maxi, Phoenix has all four firefighters staff the ladder tender or the aerial truck, and Los Angeles adds additional firefighter/paramedics to staff the fast response vehicles.

Syracuse NY Mini-Maxi Deployment

Most of this section is from Chief David Reeves’ extensive history of the Syracuse mini-pumpers and Tom Shand’s pictures. In 1970, Mayor Lee Alexander approved a reorganization plan for the Syracuse Fire Department. This was driven, in part, by New York State legislation requiring career firefighters to work a 40-hour week by January 1, 1974. In Syracuse, this led to the closure of 3 engine companies and 2 truck companies. That meant the fire department had to hire 62 new firefighters instead of the 125 new firefighters to meet the 40 hour workweek requirement (Reeves, 2017).

This image shows the Syracuse (NY) crews along with Chief Thomas Hanlon on the ramp of former Station 17 on South Midler Avenue.

The reorganized fire department staffed 13 two-piece engine companies and 6 ladder companies. A full alarm assignment for a known or possible working fire was 2 engines, 1 ladder, and a 7-firefighter squad company. Four firefighters will staff a two-piece Mini-Maxi engine company (Loeb, 1974).

The engines were built by Ward Lafrance. Ambassador 4×4 models were equipped with a Hale single-stage 1500 GPM pump, 55′ HiStream boom, 500 gallon water tank, and 20 gallon Rapid Water system. The mini-pumpers were equipped with a 300 GPM pump, 200 gallon water tank. and a remote controlled deck gun.

Tom Shand photo: Engine Company 12 is seen here flowing three streams using the Hi Stream boom along with the Monex remote controlled monitor on each vehicle.

The original role of the minipumpers, beyond responding with the Maxi engine, was to respond alone to car fires, outdoor fires, lock-outs, downed power lines, and nuisance calls from the hundreds of street alarm boxes throughout the city. In the 1980s Syracuse expanded its role in Emergency Medical Services beyond the Rescue Company by training all firefighters as certified first responders and sending the mini-pumpers to EMS calls.

No Longer A Mini Pumper

By 2000, the minis had no pump or water and served as EMS first-responder vehicles, carrying a load of supply hose to complete a fireground layout.

In 2022 the Minis were SUVs

Phoenix Ladder Tenders

Former Phoenix Fire Chief Allen Brunacini compared a truck company responding to an EMS call to “Using a cement truck to deliver pizzas.” A Ladder Tender (LT) is a smaller, medium-duty second piece assigned to a Phoenix Fire Department (PFD) truck company. Per SOP 205.10, its purpose is “to provide a full level of truck capabilities, while extending the service life of the larger, more costly apparatus”. Tenders are bought “at a fraction of the cost of full-sized truck companies” and are used “wherever they are deemed adequate (i.e., EMS calls, special duties, extrications, etc.)”. The city’s impact-fee cost table reflects that difference: a Ladder is listed at $2,204,100 and a Ladder Tender at $732,100 — roughly one-third the price (Phoenix 2021).

Ladder Tender 26: 2024 Freightliner M2-106/Rosenbauer. tollesonfirebuff picture

Functionally, “each of our ladders is married with a ladder tender, a Freightliner chassis with a box on the back that carries extraction tools and other rescue equipment, a three-section 28-foot ladder, and the same set of saws and rescue tools as the aerials”. PFD’s own city legislative record notes the department “owns and utilizes [Holmatro extrication] equipment on every ladder truck and ladder tender in the City”.

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) 205.10: Ladder Tender Response

Under SOP 205.10, a ladder company forms a “two-piece truck company” (Ladder + LT). Dispatch rules:

• Structural alarms of 3-1 or greater from quarters: the complete crew responds on the Ladder Truck; the officer may bring the Tender for flexibility.
• If the crew is already out of quarters in the LT when a structural is dispatched, they respond in the LT and Dispatch/TRO advises all units that a Ladder Tender is coming; hand ladders and equipment from engine companies may be needed on scene.
• BLS dispatches: the officer of a two-piece truck company may respond with a minimum four-member crew on the LT.
• Tenders may run as BLS (“LT”) or ALS (“LPT”) when paired with a paramedic team.
• Governing rule: “a pessimistic approach is required … when in doubt, request a Ladder company backup” (Phoenix, 2003).

In everyday practice PFD uses LTs to “chase” EMS calls, motor-vehicle accidents (962s), mountain rescues, and other non-truck calls to reduce wear on the aerial, keeping the aerial available for confirmed structural or elevated-rescue work. Practitioner accounts note that actual daily use varies by crew — “I only know of one crew around the city on all three shifts that actually uses theirs daily” — with many companies keeping the LT primarily for EMS/MVA runs while the aerial stays committed to structural response (Reddit, 2023).

Ladder Tender Specifications

Equipment loadout on each LT includes a full complement of extrication tools (Holmatro on every ladder and ladder tender citywide), a three-section 28-foot ground ladder, and the same set of saws/rescue tools carried on the paired aerial. All 14 Phoenix truck companies have a ladder tender.

Los Angeles City Fast Response Vehicles

LAFD repurposed two brush fire trucks into a paramedic/fire fast response (FRV) units in 2015. One was assigned to Fire Station 9 in Skid Row and the other in to Fire Station 20 in the north San Fernando Valley area. By 2020, four FRVs were staffed in the city. Their value today is is handing the increase in EMS and rubbish fires in the city.

The firefighter/paramedics assigned to the four Fast Response Vehicles (FRV) [deployed throughout the city] have a unique authorization from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to medically clear certain patients experiencing acute behavioral crises or chronic public inebriation for transport to either a Mental Health Urgent Care Center or Sobering Center, rather than to a traditional hospital emergency room. In addition, all LAFD FRV personnel certified Tactical EMS (TEMS) units and are available to support LAPD SWAT Team efforts. (LAFD, 2020)

This 2:19 minute video shows Fast Response 9 handling a homeless encampment fire in 2025. https://youtu.be/kLgR2QPGFH0

The newest Fast Response Vehicles are 2023 Ram 3500s with a QTAC slip-in skid with a 100 gpm pump and 150 gallons of water. Full complement of paramedic equipment (monitor/defibrillator, medications, advanced airways, and trauma kit).

What Would Work In Your Community?

Based on the ESO Solutions data, it seems the first/fast vehicle will be your primary EMS first responder. Your community needs and local ambulance provider’s performance will determine if the unit will be an AED/Emergency Medical Responder, Emergency Medical Technician, or Paramedic. Syracuse’s mini-pumpers evolved into an EMT-level SUV. Some IAFF locals have balked at splitting a fire company crew to staff an EMS first responder rig.

“Good Intent” and “False Alarm or False Call” represent 19% of the responses. We cannot predict at dispatch whether a 9-1-1 call will be good intent or a false alarm. Phoenix allows the ladder company officer in charge to decide which rig to staff at dispatch. Under Phoenix’s labor-management plan, the four-firefighter crew remains intact.

Phoenix Medical Response Unit Assigned to City of Glendale Fire Station 154

Screenshot of Medical Response 70 (2023) by arizonafirebuff1

Phoenix placed Medical Response 154 at a Glendale fire station in 2018 because Engine 154 responded to more than 3,000 EMS first-responder calls in Phoenix annually. Phoenix staffed the medical response unit with a captain, engineer, and two firefighter/paramedics. Renumbered Medical Response 70 in 2023 to reflect a planned new Phoenix fire station, the unit continues to respond from Glendale Fire Station 154.

Los Angeles added employees to staff the Fast Response Vehicles. They are especially helpful with the increase in EMS calls and cooking/rubbish fires generated by “persons experiencing homelessness.” We did a deep dive into “Skid Row” in an earlier post https://companycommander.com/2026/09/13/the-fire-ems-challenge-in-high-poverty-neighborhoods-sept-13/

Do you think your department would benefit from a fast or two-piece fire company? Or is it best practice for a $2 million tiller truck to accrue most of its road miles and engine idle time running EMS first-responder calls?

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References

Brush, B. (2026, September 7) Counting Rescues: The Mission Metric, Five Years Later. Fire Engineering. https://www.fireengineering.com/firefighter-training/search-operations/counting-rescues-the-missing-metric-five-years-later

Cali Fire Photo. (2025, December 16) (Small Explosion) LAFD FR9 Handles Rubbish Fire. [YouTube Video]: https://youtu.be/kLgR2QPGFH0

Crowe, R. P., Fernandez, A. R., Treichel, A., Gardner, B., & Myers, B. (2026) 2026 Fire Service Index: Incidents and Best Practices For Fire Departments. ESO Solutions.

LAFD. (2020, February 11) With the addition of FRV 82 in Hollywood, the LAFD now has FRVs assigned within all four of the department’s geographic bureaus. Los Angeles Fire Department. https://lafd.org/news/lafd-augments-fast-response-vehicle-deployment

Loeb, D. (1974, October). Syracuse Updated – a look at the Mini-Maxi Pumper Concept in Action. Fire Chief Magazine. https://www.gotbigwater.com/files/doc/288/Syracuse%20Updates%20-%20Leob%20-%20Fire%20Chief%20%20(1974).pdf

Phoenix. (2021, May 19) City Council Formal Meeting: Additional Expenditures for Equipment, Parts and Services – Requirements Contract – RFA 18-315A (Ordinance S-47582) [Minutes]. https://phoenix.legistar.com/LegislationDetail.aspx?From=RSS&ID=4954691&GUID=24B3D53F-21C8-48E9-9706-798E6C615B93&utm

Phoenix Regional Standard Operating Procedures. (2003, March) Ladder Tender Response (M.P. 205.10). Phoenix, Arizona, Fire Department. https://www.phoenix.gov/content/dam/phoenix/firesite/documents/074793.pdf

Reeves, D. (2017, February 12). Syracuse Mini-Pumper History. [Online forum post] FirePics Online Group, https://www.firepics.net/MyBB/printthread.php?tid=139

TakashumiHoldings. (2023) Why is Phoenix FD’s ladder tender concept not used out of Arizona? [Online forum post] Reddit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Firefighting/comments/138sksa/why_is_phoenix_fds_ladder_tender_concept_not_used/

Featured photo: Plano, Texas, alternative response vehicle. https://www.fireapparatusmagazine.com/fire-apparatus/departments-cite-effectiveness-of-alternative-response-vehicle-and-rapid-response-vehicle-programs/

Dan Munsey’s Executive Fire Officer applied research project on firefighter workload efficiency included an extensive literature review of how UHU is determined and which thresholds are used. The literature showed wide variation in definitions and in how UHU is calculated and applied (2018). Stout’s framing was managerial rather than mathematical. He defined the unit hour and argued that dispatchers must “utilize the available ‘unit hours’ in the best way…to squeeze the highest response time performance possible.” He did not publish a UHU percentage formula in the 1983 article; consulting firms and industry bodies later codified UHU ratio conventions and thresholds.

Fuzzy UHU Conventions, Thresholds, and Two Examples

No national consensus standard or benchmark exists for unit hour utilization. The measurement started with the Public Utility Model, which featured high-volume, dynamically deployed paramedic ambulances in cities. Recent examples use unit time-on-task to expand the UHU analysis to include emergency responses without transport and the cost of readiness. Cost of readiness includes the on-duty training, call documentation, post-call recovery, and return-from-hospital time.

Baltimore

FACETS performed an operational and management assessment of the Baltimore City Fire Department. At that time, Baltimore had the second busiest fire-based ambulances in the United States.¹

The workload among BCFD unit types is highest for the ALS and BLS ambulances (ranging from 39.27% [9.4 hrs] to 71.07% [17.1 hrs]). These numbers are exceptionally high, especially for employees working a 24-hour shift.

Even the least busy ambulance exceeds the workload percentage recognized by many agencies for 24-hour shift durations (30% or 7.2 hrs UHU 0.3) 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. (FACETS, 2021, pp. 48-49)

Photo from amott919 (2025, October 1)

FACETS used workload data from 2018-2019. The busiest EMS unit was on task – that is, responding to, at scene, transporting to the hospital, and waiting to clear the hospital – for 17.1 hours in a 24-hour workday. That is a UHU of 0.71.

FACETS, Citygate, Fitch, and other consulting groups are using a UHU of 0.3 as the upper workload limit for 24 hour 9-1-1 units. That is 7.2 hours time-on-task in a 24 hour workday,

Los Angeles City

Citygate Associates 2023 Standards of Cover analysis of the Los Angeles Fire Department observed:

Citygate recommends the LAFD add at least 14 additional rescue ambulances (both ALS And BLS to relieve the busiest types), … Further, there are currently at least 25 rescue ambulances on 24-hour shift staffing that are overworked for excessively long periods of a 24-hour day. Citygate does not believe that critical patient care, much less safe firefighting, is always possible when a crew has gone from call to call for 12 or more hours. (Citygate Associates, 2023, p. 7)

In a 2020 hour-by-hour analysis, LAFD rescue ambulances peaked at 0.62 UHU and experienced up to 15 consecutive hours above 0.40. Citygate recommended changing staffing for the 25 busiest rescue ambulances from 24-hour to 12-hour shifts.

Screenshot from 90210firebuff (2025, January 24)

Here is a summary of their recommendations:

Battalions 1 and 11

• Station 3: 12 hour shifts for both rescue ambulances
• Station 4: Add fourth rescue ambulance
• Station 6: 12 hour shifts for both rescue ambulances
• Station 10: 12 hour shifts for both rescue ambulances
• Station 11: Add third rescue ambulance
• Station 13: 12 hour shifts Rescue Ambulance 13

Battalion 13

• Station 33: Add third ambulance
• Station 46: Add third ambulance
• Station 57: Add fourth ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the three existing rescue ambulances
• Station 64: Add fourth ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the three existing rescue ambulances
• Station 66: Add fourth rescue ambulance

Battalions 5 and 18

• Station 27: Add third ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the two existing rescue ambulances
• Station 58: Add fourth ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the three existing rescue ambulances
• Station 61: Add third ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the two existing rescue ambulances

Northern Areas

• Station 39: 12 hour shifts Rescue Ambulance 39
• Station 60: 12 hour shifts for both rescue ambulances
• Station 89: Add third ambulance and go to 12 hour shifts for the two existing rescue ambulances

Northern Area: Battalion 12

• Station 7: Add second rescue ambulance
• Station 98: 12 hour shifts for both rescue ambulances

UHU was invented to optimize a dynamically deployed, transport-focused, revenue-sensitive ambulance service and was later imported into fire-based EMS, where units are fixed-post, cross-staffed, and expected to carry a substantial non-emergency workload.

Better Defining Real Work in a UHU Calculation

Wendy Korotkin and Alex Stephenson point out that the UHU metric used to calculate ambulance economics was not designed to measure workload, but no better option exists. Their study identified four operational factors that contribute to cumulative fatigue:

• Night wake-up
• Burst
• Volume
• Call severity

Night Wake-up

Calls from 10pm to 6am trigger a coefficient that grows with each successive interruption: 1.25 for the first wake-up, 1.50 for the second, 1.75 for the third, plus 0.25 for every additional disturbance. Sleep debt is not a step function. Each interruption costs more than the last, and recovery within a single shift does not occur.

Burst

When a unit leaves one call and is dispatched to another within 15 minutes, the second call is flagged as a “burst.” Daytime bursts carry a coefficient of 1.25, and overnight bursts, 1.50. The factor accounts for rehydration, decontamination, report writing, and rest time lost due to back-to-back assignments.

Volume (per 24-hour shift):

Volume is binned by the cumulative call count: no adjustment up to five calls, 1.05 above five, 1.25 above ten, 1.50 above 15, and 1.75 above 20 calls. Volume also serves as a proxy for the volume of administrative work (report writing, equipment checks, restocking) that scales with call count and is invisible to UHU.

Severity

Two incident types were used: structure fires with more than 90 minutes of on-scene time and cardiac arrests with documented compressions. The severity of structure fires increases with time on scene, from 1.50 at 90 minutes to 2.50 after 3 hours. For cardiac arrests, severity is set at 1.50 for adults and 3.00 for children. These values account for both bodily stress and the mental impact of resuscitation, which is significant with pediatric patients. When none of these four conditions are met, the coefficient defaults to 1.0, making the weighted measure standard. Differences between the two occur only when the operating environment includes conditions UHU was never built to register.

The compounding effect of the work becomes clearer through an example. Consider Engine 23, dispatched to a structure fire at 2:30 am for an incident lasting 140 minutes. Three factors influence the timing: it’s the twelfth call of the shift, the crew’s second wake-up, and eight minutes after the last call.

Standard UHU says the crew spent 140 minutes on the call. The weighted measure tells a different story: the call was equivalent to 689 minutes. In this example, the multiplier is 4.92, the product of severity (1.75 for a structure fire above the two-hour threshold), burst (1.50 for an overnight burst), volume (1.25 for the 10-call threshold), and night wake-up (1.50 for the second wake-up). No single factor drives the gap. The compounding does.

What Does This Mean For You?

The weighted measure does not replace UHU. Ambulance economics still needs a denominator built from staffed unit hours, and the budget office still needs a productivity ratio it can defend. The Korotkin and Stephenson framework asks a different question. It asks what the shift cost the crew.

Engine 23’s 140 minutes on scene will show up on the run sheet, in the CAD extract, and in next quarter’s utilization report as 140 minutes. The crew that cleared at 4:50 am, restocked the rig, decontaminated turnout gear, finished the report, and tried to sleep before the 6 am tones will tell you something closer to 689. Both numbers are true. Only one of them predicts whether that paramedic is still riding the seat in five years.

Three Points To Explore

Run the numbers on your own houses. Pull ninety days of National Emergency Response Information System (NERIS) and electronic Patient Care (ePCR) data, apply the four coefficients, and rank your companies by weighted load rather than raw call count. Those are the crews to watch for sick-leave clustering, off-duty injury, disciplinary spikes, and voluntary transfer requests.

Identify the compounding shifts before they happen. Night wake-up and burst are knowable in near real time. A Computer Aided Dispatch (CAD) rule that flags any unit hitting a second overnight run within fifteen minutes, or a tenth call before 4 am, gives the on-duty chief a decision point: hold the unit down for the next low-acuity call, cross-staff from a slower house, or bring in an off-duty crew on overtime. You will need to add the trigger logic within the CAD system.

Build recovery into the deployment plan. After a structure fire past the two-hour mark or a worked pediatric arrest, the crew comes out of service for a defined interval. Not at the officer’s discretion, not contingent on call volume, not subject to backfill availability. Peak-demand units, jump companies, and mutual-aid agreements are the mechanisms. The weighted measure is the justification.

UHU was built to price an ambulance. It was never built to measure what the work does to the people doing it. Until something better arrives, a measure that accounts for when the call happened, what came before it, how many preceded it, and what it demanded is the closest the fire service has to an honest number.

Try this for a month. Pick one battalion, one pay period, and the four coefficients above. Run standard UHU and weighted UHU side by side. If the two numbers agree, your deployment model is absorbing the load. If they diverge, you have found a more informed way to describe the emergency response workload.

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¹Philadelphia, Los Angeles City, Baltimore, and Chicago are the four busiest fire-based ambulance services in 2026.

References

Citygate Associates. (2023) Los Angeles Fire Department Standards of Cover Analysis. Volume 1 of 3: Technical Report. Citygate Associates LLC. https://ens.lacity.org/lafd/lafdreportarchv/lafdlafdreport1864172030_06012023.pdf

FACETS (2021) Operational & Management Assessment: Baltimore City Fire Department – Final Report. FACETS Consulting LLC. 

Korotkin, W., & Stephenson, A. (2026). Not All Time Is Created Equal: In Firefighting, Time-Based Metrics Can Miss the Real Work. ORMS Today. https://doi.org/10.1287/orms.2026.03.03. https://pubsonline.informs.org/do/10.1287/orms.2026.03.03/full/

Munsey, D. (2018). Determining Workload Efficiency for San Bernardino County Fire Protection District Suppression Crews. [Executive Fire Officer Program applied research project, National Fire Academy]. U.S. Fire Administration. https://apps.usfa.fema.gov/pdf/efop/efo247258.pdf

Patterson, P., Martin, S., MacAllister, S., Weaver, M., & Patterson, C. (2025). Variations in Sleep, Fatigue, and Difficulty with Concentration Among Emergency Medical Services Clinicians During Shifts of Different Durations. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 22. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph22040573.

Stout, J. (1983, May) System Status Management: The Strategy of Ambulance Placement. Journal of Emergency Medical Services. https://emsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/System-Status-Mangement-The-Strategy-of-Ambulance-Placement-22-32-1983-05-JEMS.pdf

Feature picture from Emergency Monologues. https://x.com/emergemonos

Los Angeles Skid Row

Skid Row covers about 50 city blocks (0.4 square miles) in Los Angeles and has 12,000 to 14,000 residents. Approximately one-third are persons experiencing homelessness (PEH). The rest live in single-room occupancy (SRO) hotels, residential hotels, or apartments. 68.9% of Skid Row residents live below the poverty line (Ward et al., 2024). This may be the most extreme example of Fire-EMS challenges in high-poverty neighborhoods.

Graphic from: Collins, B., & Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2016, July-August). Skid row, gallery row and the space in between: cultural revitalisation and its impacts on two Los Angeles neighbourhoods. Town Planning Review, 87(4)

A 1971 UCLA study of the Los Angeles City emergency ambulance system found that 13 of the 632 census tracts, small permanently established geographic areas, generated 10% of the total public emergency ambulance demand. (Aldrich et al. 1971). John Hisserich’s public health dissertation used the same 1964 to 1967 data to analyze the determinants of service in detail.

“Sick Calls” were highly correlated with variables describing census tracts with socioeconomically depressed populations. The 13 busiest census tracts included the city’s three Skid Row areas. Census tracts within the minority ghetto area south of the central city were the next highest-demand areas (1970).

In 1976, Los Angeles city planners created a ‘Containment Plan’, which relocated affordable housing and social services from elsewhere in the region to Skid Row, effectively concentrating the homeless population in one limited downtown area (Haas and Heskin, 1981; Goetz, 1992).

These socioeconomically depressed census tracts are persistent, defined as tracts with 20% or more of residents living below the poverty line for about 30 years (Benzow et al., 2023). The 13 Skid Row census tracts identified by Hisserich show that 79% of residents have lived below the poverty line for 38 years (Benzow & Fikri, 2020).

These tracts have experienced a major change in ethnicity while continuing to have high poverty. Benzow and Fikri (2020) describe what changed:

Hispanics now make up 73 percent of the population of Los Angeles’ high-poverty neighborhoods, even though they represent a little less than half of the city’s total population. Blacks saw their share of the city’s high-poverty neighborhood population fall from 43 percent in 1980 to just 12 percent in 2018, largely driven by their exodus from the city over that time. Los Angeles’ Black population declined by one-third from 1980 to 2018, while its Hispanic population increased by 139 percent. (p 20).

Fires in High-Poverty Neighborhoods

High-poverty census tracts face nearly six times the odds of experiencing multiple serious residential fires compared to the least deprived quartile (Wibbermeyer, 2025; Pae et al., 2025). Family poverty, unemployment, low education, and low household income are all independently associated with higher frequencies of residential fires (Wibbermeyer, 2025; Shai, 2026). In Philadelphia, low income and older housing interact to produce fire injury rates exceeding the combined effects of either factor alone (Shai, 2026).

Outside Fires

The Los Angeles Fire Department responded to 24 homeless encampment fires daily in 2020 (Smith et al., 2020). Most of these fires were within the same 13 census tracts that were the busiest for emergency ambulance calls between 1964 – 1967.

From 2018 to 2024, the unhoused population in Los Angeles grew by 44.6%, from 31,285 to 45,252 individuals, according to the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority. Rubbish fires increased 475% from 5,541 to 31,964 between 2014 and 2024. “While not all of those have been documented as directly associated with a person experiencing homelessness (PEH), many have,“ the report states.

In 2024, rubbish fires involving PEH totaled nearly half of LAFD’s Rubbish Fire call volume at 46.84%. Meanwhile, fire calls involving homeless persons during that same period accounted for 32.91%, or nearly one-third, of all LAFD fire activity, the report states (Kurzwell, 2025).

Systemic Impact on Fire and EMS Operations

Citygate Associates LLC performed a Standards of Cover analysis for the Los Angeles Fire Department. In this Battalion 1/Battalion 11 cluster image, stations 4, 9, and 11 are among the 10 busiest, while stations 3, 10, 13, and 6 are among the 28 busiest in a department with 106 fire stations.

The top ten busiest engine, truck, and rescue ambulance companies are adjacent to each other, predominantly in two clusters. The individual unit-hour utilization (UHU) measures for these units significantly exceed 30 percent for long, consecutive hours at a time.

Based on this measure alone, the busiest unit crews are overworked and in need of relief units and/or strategies to decrease the quantity of non-urgent EMS incidents. The volume and simultaneous demand on the top 10 to top 28 LAFD stations is the highest Citygate has ever measured in a metro client. (Citygate, 2023, pp. 6-7)

The Battalion 1/Battalion 11 cluster falls within the same census tracts that were the busiest for emergency ambulance calls between 1964 – 1967.

LAFD Fire Station 9

“Skid Road” Fire Station 9 has the smallest first due area in the city, about 1.5 square miles. The station staffs two paramedic-staffed engine companies (Engine 9 & Engine 209), the city’s only stand-alone “paramedic assessment” truck company (Truck 9)¹, two paramedic rescue ambulances (Rescue 9 & Rescue 209), one 24-hour and one variable-hour EMT rescue ambulance (Rescue 809 & Rescue 900), and a paramedic/firefighter fast response vehicle (FR 9).

In the Citygate study, Rescue 809 (EMT) was the busiest LAFD ambulance, with 6,522 annual responses. Paramedic Rescue 9 and Rescue 209 responded to 5,221 and 5,090 calls, respectively. In the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation 2022 video about the Boyd Street Fire, the 19 on-duty members working a 24-hour shift at Station 9 averaged 100 responses every day; 90 percent were EMS calls.

SoCal Connected (2020) Fire Station 9. [Video] Season 10, Episode 1107. Public Broadcasting Service

Fast Response 9

The firefighter/paramedics assigned to the four Fast Response Vehicles (FRV) [deployed throughout the city] have a unique authorization from the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services to medically clear certain patients experiencing acute behavioral crises or chronic public inebriation for transport to either a Mental Health Urgent Care Center or Sobering Center, rather than to a traditional hospital emergency room. In addition, all LAFD FRV personnel certified Tactical EMS (TEMS) units and are available to support LAPD SWAT Team efforts. (LAFD, 2020)

This 2:19 minute video shows Fast Response 9 handling a homeless encampment fire in 2025. https://youtu.be/kLgR2QPGFH0

The 2020 Boyd Street Fire – Narrative from the LAFD “Green Sheet”

On Saturday, May 16, 2020, at approximately 18:27:00 hours, the Los Angeles City Fire Department (LAFD) responded to a structure fire at 327 East Boyd Street in the Skid Row [Toy District] area of downtown Los Angeles. The first arriving resources found a one-­story commercial occupancy with light, intermittent brown smoke showing from the top of two closed rolling steel doors. The subject occupancy was doing business as a wholesale distributor to dispensaries and smoke shops, and it had closed for the day prior to the time of alarm.

Conditions noticeably worsened over the next several minutes. Initially, members described a notable change in smoke emitting from the front of the occupancy, and then a rapidly increasing “freight train” or “jet-­like” sound, accompanied by rapid and escalating “popping-­like” noises. Subsequently, companies initiated a rapid retreat – both off the roof and out of the building. As firefighters began initiating their escape, a large volume of smoke ignited, and then immediately following, fire “blowtorched” out of the front of the occupancy, across the street, and out of the rear portion of the roof.

As a result of the catastrophic fire event, just eleven (11) minutes into the incident, twelve (12) firefighters were injured. The injuries were sustained when the firefighters were engulfed by a large volume of fire, some while retreating from interior firefighting positions, and others as they were descending the aerial ladder. All told, eleven (11) firefighters sustained minor to critical burns, and one (1) additional firefighter suffered a lower extremity injury.

The cab of the first-arriving Truck 9, with its deployed aerial ladder, sustained significant damage because both were in the immediate path of the flames. (LAFD, 2020)

This link takes you to the Green Sheet, an Informational Summary Report that is issued by LAFD as a safety/training tool: https://lafd.org/sites/default/files/Boyd_Green_Sheet.pdf

Captain II Victor Aguirre (Truck 9), the last remaining LAFD member to be hospitalized from the Boyd Street Fire, was released following 65 days of care in the burn unit of the Los Angeles County + USC Medical Center.

The National Fallen Firefighters Foundation produced a video about the Boyd Street incident. It includes a description of Station 9’s first due district. https://www.firehero.org/2022/11/18/boyd-street/

24 Hours at LAFD Station 9 (2019)

In December 2019, SoCal Connected, from the local Public Broadcasting System station, spent 24 hours responding to calls from Fire Station 9.

One of my students called the SoCal Connected video “apocalyptic.” https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/socal-connected/episodes/fire-station-9

The Invisible U.S. Fire Problem

A 2025 white paper from Kindling, Inc., sponsored by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), examined how human and shelter vulnerabilities intersect to shape fire risk in U.S. communities.

This scoping paper has shown that the US fire problem is not solved. Certain groups of people suffer disproportionately from fire and evidence indicates people experiencing homeless are particularly vulnerable to fire, as are those living in insecure and vulnerable shelter more generally.

These fire problems seem ‘invisible’ at the national level, but they are plaguing American cities, undermining the lives and livelihoods of affected populations, and having negative impacts beyond those directly affected (such as the fire services and neighbouring communities). (Antonellis et al., 2025, p. 44)

The paper identifies the gaps and challenges when looking at the fire safety of insecurely and vulnerably sheltered populations in the US.

(Antonellis et al., 2025, p. 39)

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¹Los Angeles Fire Department “Light Force”

All but Truck 9 are “Light Forces” – a 100′ tiller aerial truck married to a 200 or 300 series engine (pumper) as a single six-person crew. 27 of the 42 light forces are “Paramedic Assessment”; the crew includes one paramedic/firefighter.

Light Force 73 operating in the San Fernando Valley (2015). Photo by Mike Peters. https://www.lafra.org/swift-water-rescue-results-in-medals-of-valor/

90210FireBuff (2025, June 1) catches Light Force 61 arriving at a recreational vehicle fire. 9:42 minute video. https://youtu.be/opMG_PUVZZo

References

Aldrich, C. A., Hisserich, J. C., & Lave, L. B. (1971). An Analysis of the Demand for Emergency Ambulance Service in an Urban Area. American Journal of Public Health, 61(11), 1156-2160.

Antonellis, D., Vaiciulyte, S., Meacham, B., & Jennings, C. (2025, November). The Invisible US Fire Problem. Kindling, Inc. https://kindlingsafety.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/11/The-Invisible-US-Fire-Problem.pdf

Benzow, A., and Fikri, K. (2020). The Persistence of Neighborhood Poverty: Examining the power of inertia and the rarity of neighborhood turnaround across U.S. cities. Economic Development Group. https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Persistence-of-Neighborhood-Poverty.pdf

Benzow, A., Fikri, K., Kim, J. & Newman, Daniel. (2023). Advancing Economic Development in Persistent-Poverty Communities. Economic Development Group. https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/EIG-Persistent-Poverty-Report.pdf

Cali Fire Photo. (2025, December 16) (Small Explosion) LAFD FR9 Handles Rubbish Fire. [YouTube Video]: https://youtu.be/kLgR2QPGFH0

Citygate Associates LLC. (2023) Los Angeles Fire Department Standards of Cover Analysis. Volume 1 of 3: Technical Report. Citygate Associates LLC. https://ens.lacity.org/lafd/lafdreportarchv/lafdlafdreport1864172030_06012023.pdf

Collins, B., & Loukaitou-Sideris, A. (2016, July-August). Skid row, gallery row and the space in between: cultural revitalisation and its impacts on two Los Angeles neighbourhoods. Town Planning Review, 87(4), 401+. http://dx.doi.org.proxy-bc.researchport.umd.edu/10.3828/tpr.2016.27

Goetz, E. G. (1992), Land use and homeless policy in Los Angeles. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 16, 540-54. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.1992.tb00195.x

Haas, G. & Heskin, A. (1981), Community struggles in Los Angeles. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 5, 546-64.

Hisserich, J. C. (1970). Public Emergency Ambulance Service: Determinants of Demand. (Publication Number 7100637) [UCLA]. Public Health Doctoral Dissertation, Los Angeles. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2427.1981.tb00567.x

Kurzwell, T. (2025, April 16). Unhoused account for nearly one-third of fire calls: Los Angeles Fire Dept. KTLA5. https://ktla.com/news/unhoused-population-accounts-for-nearly-one-third-of-fire-calls-los-angeles-fire-dept/

LAFD. (2020) Informational Summary Report: Injuries/Commercial Structure Fire, May 16, 2020, Boyd Incident. CA-LFD-001073. https://lafd.org/sites/default/files/Boyd_Green_Sheet.pdf

LAFD. (2020, February 11) With the addition of FRV 82 in Hollywood, the LAFD now has FRVs assigned within all four of the department’s geographic bureaus. Los Angeles Fire Department. https://lafd.org/news/lafd-augments-fast-response-vehicle-deployment

NFFF. (2022, November 18) Boyd Street [Vimeo video: 1:08 hours] National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. https://www.firehero.org/2022/11/18/boyd-street/

Pae, G., Paulsen, A., Pothula, S., Galet, C., & Wibbenmeyer, L. (2025). Integrating spatial analysis with census data to unravel the complex interaction between socioeconomic variables, the built environment, and multiple house fires in a predominately rural state. Injury prevention : journal of the International Society for Child and Adolescent Injury Prevention, 31, 327 – 332. https://doi.org/10.1136/ip-2025-045691

Phillips, D. (2020, May 6). 11 Firefighters Escape Through Ball of Fire in Explosion at Downtown LA Building: Some of the LAFD firefighters injured in Saturday’s fire and explosion suffered critical injuries, but all are expected to survive. NBC4 Los Angeles. https://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/local/10-firefighters-injured-in-downtown-la-fire/2363892/

Shai, D. (2006). Income, Housing, and Fire Injuries: A Census Tract Analysis. Public Health Reports, 121, 149 – 154. https://doi.org/10.1177/003335490612100208

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

SoCal Connected (2020) Fire Station 9. Season 10, Episode 1107 [Video 27:57 minutes]. Public Broadcasting Service. https://www.pbssocal.org/shows/socal-connected/episodes/fire-station-9

Ward, J. M., Garvey, R., & Hunter, S. B. (2024) Annual Trends Among the Unsheltered in Three Los Angeles Neighborhoods: The Los Angeles Longitudinal Unumeration and Demographic Survey (LA LEADS) 2023 Annual Report. RAND. https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RRA1800/RRA1890-4/RAND_RRA1890-4.pdf?utm_source=perplexity

Wibbenmeyer, L., Paulsen, A., Pothula, S., Galet, C., & Pae, G. (2025). 608 Geomapping and Spatial Analysis to Examine Socioeconomics, the Built Environment, and House Fires. Journal of Burn Care & Research: Official Publication of the American Burn Association, 46, S183 – S183. https://doi.org/10.1093/jbcr/iraf019.237

Featured Image is from Lopez, S. (2021, April 21) Ending homelessness on skid row won’t happen just because a judge orders it. The Los Angeles Times. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-21/column-a-federal-judge-ordered-a-skid-row-cleanup-but-is-this-progress-or-posturing

At that moment, no formal mobilization orders had been issued. Every metropolitan Washington, D.C., fire department had plans in place to respond to a major emergency. The second plane crash mobilized hundreds of responders before orders were issued. Members of Fairfax County’s Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) Team began mobilizing in anticipation of deployment to New York City.

I was about a mile away from the airport when I heard WTOP News Radio reporting smoke coming from the Pentagon. I have posted a link to Dave Statter’s (STATter911) description of reporting on the Pentagon attack. https://statter911.com/2025/09/11/september-11-2001-7/

Setting Up The Fire and Rescue Academy for a USAR Deployment

For an 80-person Heavy USAR team deployment, Virginia Task Force 1 needed to head to Andrews Air Force Base in Prince George’s County, Maryland, within four hours of a State Department notification. That required an equal number of folks to support USAR team deployments for both international and national missions. In 2001, the Fire and Rescue Academy served as the team’s staging area and assembly point.

This picture shows a recent USAR deployment from the facility that replaced the academy as a staging and assembly point.

When I was assigned to the academy as a uniformed officer, my “… and related duties” included setting the facility up for USAR deployments on evenings, holidays, or weekends. That meant driving the academy rigs out of the high-bay building, converting the four multi-purpose classrooms into a single room, and opening the USAR communications cache. I retired 14 months before 9/11 and, for the only time, regretted that decision.

I still worked at the academy as a part-time civilian instructor. I listened to the chaos on news radio while driving to the academy. Responding to a major USAR event in our front yard disrupted normal protocols, as some of the on-duty USAR team leaders were heading to the Pentagon or into Arlington County as first responders.

When I got to the academy, the uniformed staff was deployed. The recently hired civilian specialist who remained at the academy had not been trained to set up the facility for USAR staging. While explaining what I was going to do, we watched the first tower collapse on live television. I set the academy up for USAR staging and assembly. It was neither heroic nor lifesaving, but it left me with a small feeling of accomplishment on a terrible day.

Telling The First Responder’s Story

Picture of Fort Myers Fire and Rescue Foam 161 at the heliport fire station.

Northern Virginia uses a multiple-jurisdiction automatic aid system using a single radio system. The initial response to the Pentagon included Fort Myers Fire and Rescue, the Metropolitan Washington Airports Authority at Reagan National Airport, and the Arlington County Fire Department. Technically, Fort Myers Foam 161 was the first unit on the scene, but the rig, the heliport fire station, and the three civilian firefighters were impacted by the crash.

For the tenth anniversary of the attack, Journal of Emergency Medical Services editor A. J. Heightman interviewed the fire-rescue leaders who responded to the Pentagon and described the planning Arlington County Fire Chief Ed Plaugher did before the attack. Part III of Out Of Darkness covers the Pentagon. https://www.jems.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/911-0911.pdf

A Six-Part Video Record of Pentagon Operations

A three-person team from the Fire Emergency Training Network (FETN)¹ was filming at the Baltimore Fire Department. They got to the Pentagon around noon. This 25th anniversary remembrance includes their recordings.

https://youtu.be/1JiJg06Yh6k

The Family Left Behind

Sally Jenkins wrote a moving feature article about Rescue 4 Lieutenant Kevin Dowdell, what happened on 9/11, and what has happened to his wife and two sons since 2001. It is worth your time to read the Atlantic article. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/fallen-september-11-firefighter-family/687964/

James holds his father’s Halligan bar. Haruka Sakaguchi for The Atlantic.

John Feal (2026) I Will Follow You Anywhere: The True Story of the 9/11 Responders Who Took On Congress

Published this month, it describes the 15-year effort by 9/11 responders to fully fund the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act of 2010, a federal 9/11 victim compensation fund. It provides a rogue approach to the ground game of representative government, empowering readers in all walks of life to take on the system and win.

I hope this book gives the reader some insight and nuance into the man who has taken me on an invaluable fifteen-year odyssey of frustration, tenacity, resilience, camaraderie, and into the lessons in selflessness and compassion he has graciously bestowed. I would follow him anywhere … although as I mentioned earlier, it is sometimes not easy given how short he is. (Forward by Jon Stewart, 2025.)

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¹Fire Emergency Training Network (FETN) closed in 2008.

Feal, J., & Daly, C. (2026). I Will Follow You Anywhere. BenBella Books, Inc. ISBN 9781637748756. https://benbellabooks.com/shop/i-will-follow-you-anywhere/

Heightman, A. J. (2011, September). Out of Darkness, Volume III: Strike on the Pentagon. Journal of Emergency Medical Services. https://www.jems.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/911-0911.pdf

Jenkins, S. (2026, September). The Man Who Refused To Sit On The Sidelines: Kevin Dowdell, a lieutenant in an elite FDNY rescue unit, taught his sons to take action. When he disappeared on 9/11, they went to Ground Zero to search for him. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/fallen-september-11-firefighter-family/687964/

Statter, D. (2025, September 11). September 11, 2001: The Attack at the Pentagon, STATer911. https://statter911.com/2025/09/11/september-11-2001-7/

The 9/11 Legacy Foundation (2001/2026) The Pentagon Response: A Series of Rememberance [YouTube] https://youtu.be/1JiJg06Yh6k

Ward. M. J. (2002, April). Attack on the Pentagon: the initial fire & EMS response. Journal of Emergency Medical Services 27(4). 22-30,

Featured Image: Gralund, D. (2016, September 7). 9/11 Fading. Portsmouth Herald. https://www.seacoastonline.com/story/opinion/cartoons/2016/09/07/granlund-cartoon-9-11-fading/25498344007/

For this article, we will divide United States Emergency Medical Services into three universes.

• Private services include national commercial agencies like Falck and American Medical Response, regional agencies like Acadian, hospital-based services, local “Mom and Pop” services, and community volunteer rescue squads
• Non-fire municipal services like Boston, Cleveland, Wake County (North Carolina), Indianapolis, Pittsburgh, as well as the High-Performance Public Utility Models
• Fire-based EMS represents the largest universe and employs both firefighters and single-role employees as EMS caregivers.

Updating a Legacy EHS Master’s Degree

I submitted a proposal to the Emergency Health Services (EHS) department chair at the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) in 2019 to increase industry awareness of UMBC EHS’s role in EMS leadership development. The legacy master’s degree in Emergency Health Services needed an update for the 2020s. This was part of my public policy doctoral adventure as an adjunct EHS faculty member – following a tradition of adjunct faculty updating the EHS curriculum while working on their Ph.D.

Creating and maintaining EHS 640: High Performance EMS

EHS 640: High-Performance EMS was a core course in the brand-new 1999 EHS master’s degree. Stephen Dean developed and delivered the original course while working on his Ph.D. at UMBC. In 2010, Kurt Kruperman, while a visiting EHS professor and Ph.D. student, significantly updated 640, adding a digital version of the American Ambulance Association’s EMS Structured for Quality: Best Practices in Designing, Managing and Contracting for Emergency Ambulance Service reference. Jon Washko assisted with providing deployment and revenue exercises. In 2022, I revised and updated 640, covering the same knowledge areas but in a format more accessible to the international, preventative medicine/epidemiology, physician, and cybersecurity students enrolling in the program.

“Who Will Pay For It?”

One question was, “Who would pay for it?” in terms of employers. Would they preferentially hire a candidate with this EHS degree over another candidate? Would they send their rising leaders to get this degree or credential?

Most EMS employers surveyed in 2019 that responded to the survey wanted leadership candidates with a pre-existing master’s in Health Administration, Quality Management, or Business Administration. Private and non-fire employers would not send their rising leaders to get a master’s degree on the agency’s time or dime. Some fire-based employers used undergraduate formal education as part of a career-development promotional path, but not at the graduate-school level. In some fire departments, a master’s degree would be a preferred requirement for a fire chief candidate.

This was one factor that led UMBC to replace the EHS master’s degree with an Emergency and Disaster Health Systems master’s degree in 2026. There was a disconnect between who EHS thought would enroll and who actually enrolled. Most of the students enrolling in the EHS master’s program in the 2020s were not paramedics seeking upward mobility.

Graduate programs are subsidized by funded research. Pre-DOGE, there was scant research or grants for non-clinical EMS research. Available research grant money goes to disaster research and emergency management. Other universities with similar graduate disaster/emergency management programs had higher enrollments than UMBC EHS.

Let’s see what is available for the upwardly bound EMS caregiver.

Portfolio-based Professional Development

There are two portfolio-based assessments. Candidates provide information on formal education, clinical credentials, work experience, community involvement, and professional development.

Center for Public Safety Excellence

The Commission on Professional Credentialing recognizes 4,542 professional designations held by fire and emergency service leaders committed to continuous improvement, professional development, and excellence in service. This includes 310 Chief EMS Officers as of July 2026.

Candidates must have at least 10 years of EMS experience as an EMT, Paramedic, RN, Advanced Registered Nurse Practitioner, or Physician. The evaluation process is based on a points system:

• Education points range from 25 to 150 points and can include an academic certificate
• Experience points range from 5 to 60 and may be influenced by the length of time in the position

Once submitted, there is a peer review process that evaluates the candidate’s resume, professional development, employment information, professional contributions/recognition, community involvement, and professional memberships/affiliations. The credential needs to be renewed every three years.

The American College of Paramedic Executives

The American College of Paramedic Executives was developed by the National EMS Management Association (NEMSMA) and follows the process used to credential health care executives. Candidates present a portfolio of education, letters of recommendation, and a description of professional and community service.

There is a written exam based on the NEMSMA National EMS Officer Competencies. For the managing and executive (fellow) levels, an interview. The fellow level (FACPE) requires a presentation, publication, or research paper. The credential must be renewed every five years. I was in the first cohort to be credentialed as Fellows, and I renewed the credential in 2023.

As of August 2026, there are 309 credentialed officers:

• 113 Fellows of the American College of Paramedic Executives (FACPE)
• 100 Managing Paramedic Officers (MPO)
• 96 Supervising Paramedic Officers (SPO)

Potential ProBoard or State Credential: NPFA 1020 EMS Officer I, II, III

After 15 years of requests to the committee, the 2025 edition of NFPA 1020 Standard for Fire and Emergency Instructor, Fire Officer, and Emergency Medical Services Officer Professional Qualifications includes Job Performance Requirements (JPR) for EMS Officer I, EMS Officer II, and EMS Officer III. Most of the JPRs are similar or identical to the Fire Officer JPRs.

What is different includes:

EMS Officer I

• Deliver an educational topic that specifically covers EMS continuing education clinical and skill training
• Evaluate unmet requirements in a member’s continuing education training, given a training record, so that education gaps are identified and a plan is created to fufill the unmet requirements
• Deliver clinical or procedural training, given data from a quality review or direct observation, so that identified deficiencies are addressed
• Manage unit staffing assignments, given scheduled deployment, special conditions, and emerging situations, so that operational needs are met
• Respond to a public inquiry, given policies and procedures, so that the inquiry is answered accurately, courteously, and in accordance with applicable policies and procedures
• Collect patient care data, given the goals and mission of the organization, so that patient care data is complete, accurate, protected, and available for interpretation.
• Verify patient triage categories, given multiple triaged patients, an agency triage system and protocols, so that the patient priority is correctly determined.

EMS Officer II

• Conduct a climate survey, given a climate survey instrument, so that the survey reaches the intended audience and the privacy of the respondents is maintained.
• Evaluate clinical or procedural training needs, given data from a quality review report or direct observation that indicates a need for training, so that a training plan is developed and delivered, and the training need is addressed.
• Manage staffing assignments across multiple units or areas, given the need to adjust staffing and a list of personnel and their capabilities, so that the staffing needs of the organization are met
• Evaluate the community demographics, given community demographic data, so that the ability of the organization to provide EMS outreach programs to at-risk populations is determined and recommendations are made.
• Design an evaluation instrument, given EMS risk reduction program goals and objectives and an evaluation strategy, so that the evaluation instrument measures the program outcomes and program goals and objectives are demonstrated
• Recommend a change to a records management program, given EMS run reports, patient care records, report storage and retrieval methods, access to records, and a need for change, so that the change is assessed for compliance with all federal, tribal, territorial, state, provincial, or local laws
• Recommend changes to a risk management plan, given a specific risk to the organization, an EMS related risk, and a risk management plan, so that the risk is evaluated, risk management options are identified, and the recommended changes are presented to a supervisor.
• Recommend changes to an accident investigation program, given federal, tribal, territorial, state, provincial, or local laws and regulations, an accident investigation program, and a work-related accident, so that the recommended changes are presented to a supervisor
• Recommend changes to an injury prevention program, given relevant local and national data, an injury prevention program, and an EMS related injury, so that the recommendations are evaluated and the recommended changes are presented to a supervisor
• Recommend a change to a post-incident analysis policy, given a multi-unit EMS incident and the need for a change, so that all required critical elements for the change are identified, the change is communicated

EMS Officer III is a combination of Fire Officer III and IV and may be discussed in a later article.

Fire service credentialing is a state, professional group, or industry process. The National Board on Fire Service Professional Qualifications (“Pro Board“) has been the original fire service system for the accreditation of agencies that certify candidates to the various disciplines and levels identified in the NFPA Professional Qualification series of standards. The Pro Board did not include the NFPA 1020 (2025) chapters covering EMS Officer I, II, III in the January 7. 2025 “Agency Compliance Dates to NFPA Standards.” The Fire Instructor and Fire Officer chapters have an agency completion date of December 31, 2026.

EMS Officer Responsibilities Pushed Down the Fire Service Career Ladder

Some of the NFPA Job Performance Requirements (JPRs) for EMS Officers show significant differences in roles. The Fire Officer I is supervising a single fire company; the EMS Officer I is expected to “Manage unit staffing assignments, given scheduled deployment, special conditions, and emerging situations, so that operational needs are met.” That is a task performed by a manager (Captain or Battalion Chief) on the fire suppression side.

The EMS Officer II is expected to “Manage staffing assignments across multiple units or areas, given the need to adjust staffing and a list of personnel and their capabilities, so that the staffing needs of the organization are met.” That implies an agency-wide resource allocation, usually done by a manager/administrator (Battalion Chief or higher) on the suppression side.

Will Interest in NFPA 1020 EMS Officer Translate to State or Pro Board Credentialing?

At this date, no states have a stand-alone NFPA 1020 EMS Officer I or EMS Officer II credential. Maine, Alabama, Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, Montana, Kentucky, Wisconsin, and North Carolina provide EMS leadership training, some based on the Fire Officer I and II professional qualifications, but there is no ProBoard-accredited or state NFPA 1020 credentialing exam.

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References

American College of Paramedic Executives (2020, August). Paramedic Certification Officer Handbook and Policy Manual. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nemsma.org/resource/resmgr/acpe/certification_manual_-_v4_fi.pdf

NEMSMA (2014). Seven Pillars of National EMS Officer Competencies. National EMS Management Association. https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nemsma.org/resource/resmgr/pdfs/credentialing/nemsma_seven_pillars_of_nati.pdf

NFPA (2025). NFPA 1020 Standard for Fire and Emergency Instructor, Fire Officer, and Emergency Medical Services Officer Professional Qualifications. https://www.nfpa.org/codes-and-standards/nfpa-1020-standard-development/1020

Ward, M. J. (2019, April 8). Are you really a “pro”? A look at the growth of professions and what it means for firefighters and paramedics today. CompanyCommander.com. https://companycommander.com/2019/04/08/are-you-really-a-pro-a-historical-look-at-the-growth-of-professions-and-what-it-means-for-firefighters-and-paramedics-today/

Consultants are used to provide experienced analysis using specialized skills. We are also hired to do the unpleasant and difficult tasks when implementing change. The ambulance agency covered a portion of a county and had 9-1-1 ambulance contracts with seven towns. Another private ambulance service covered the rest of the county. Our client’s ambulance agency was in a financial crisis.

Unsustainable Town “Exclusive Ambulance” Contracts

In this state, the towns function as EMS gatekeepers. They can designate the town’s permitted EMT-level ambulance provider. The previous owner signed “exclusive ambulance” contracts with seven towns in the county that were covered by the other ambulance service. These contracts were restrictive. The exclusive ambulance could respond only to emergencies within town borders. The exclusive ambulance had to respond to every fire department call within the town.

The process to pull town ambulances for a mass casualty incident, or to help with the Friday afternoon surge of interfacility transports from the hospital, was difficult – we would not get a timely response from the town. The rent we paid to house the town’s exclusive ambulance in some volunteer fire department buildings was above the fair market rate I could get for space in an industrial park.

About half of the exclusive-town ambulances had a transport Unit Hour Utilization of 0.08, responding to 1 or 2 calls a day.¹ The combined UHU for the town ambulances was 0.125. The only revenue was from billing for transports. Servicing the seven exclusive town 9-1-1 contracts was creating a multi-million-dollar loss for the ambulance agency. Towns refused to amend the contracts, so the client authorized us to give notice that the contracts would be terminated in 120 days.

Working The Change Process

The first step was to meet with leadership in each town, explain the situation, and propose a solution. For the town described in the opening paragraph, we offered to continue using the town fire station as a post for the rudimentary system status management we were implementing for ambulance deployment.

For all seven towns, there would be no exclusive town ambulance contract. If they stayed with us, they could not select which crew would respond to their town. The towns have three choices: they could continue to allow our ambulance agency to respond to 9-1-1 calls; they could select the ambulance service covering their side of the county; or they could do something else.

Ambulances would no longer respond to every fire company dispatch, including activated fire alarms with no report of smoke or fire. An ambulance would respond to:

• Possible working fires with trapped occupants
• Confirmed working structure fires
• Transportation accidents with injuries
• Greater alarm events
• Any situation where the on-scene fire or police incident commander requested an ambulance.

The ambulance agency will track all EMS calls into the town and provide town leadership with a monthly report on ambulance response times. The ambulance agency will identify responses that exceeded the agreed-upon response time requirement and notify town leadership the next business day. We offered to provide town hall meetings to explain the changes.

A Very Angry Fire Chief

The chief who responded to that activated fire alarm at the start of this article was the angriest. He used reverse 9-1-1 to gather a town hall meeting in the high school basketball court. That town has a few assisted living and over-55 facilities. Those residents were in the front row. Behind them were the volunteer firefighters. John Smith and Mary Doe, senior ambulance agency employees who worked the day shift on the town’s dedicated ambulance, sat behind the firefighters.

I could not understand why the fire chief was so angry. The fire department is not the town’s EMS first responder. The fire company does not have an AED. The town police respond with lights and siren to every EMS 9-1-1 call. Patrol vehicles have an AED. They arrive within two to three minutes. In the past five years, all but one of the cardiac arrest resuscitations in the seven towns included a police-operated AED.

Diving Deeper

I later learned that the angry volunteer fire chief documented fire company/fire chief response to fire incidents using the town ambulance response time. The two- to 10-minute fire company/fire chief response times reported to the mayor and town council were based on ambulance response times; the actual fire company/fire chief response time was much longer. This had been going on for a while.

The most senior ambulance agency employee, Joe Smith, retired when the exclusive ambulance contract ended. Smith started a dozen years ago with the ambulance agency assigned to this town. He did not work at any other ambulance assignment. A few years into this assignment, Smith joined the volunteer fire department. The fire chief justified using the ambulance response time to the mayor because Smith was a VFD member.

Mary Doe, his partner, started on the town ambulance seven years ago. She moved to a weekday surge unit but left the agency within three months. The surge ambulance did 4 to 8 transports in 12 hours, while the town ambulance averaged 0.7 transports in 24 hours.

Six towns stayed with our ambulance agency. Moving from many slow, exclusive town ambulances to regional coverage for the towns with a basic system status management deployment raised Unit Hour Utilization from 0.125 to 0.30. The ambulance response times to the towns increased by an average of 2.2 minutes. The previous owner was “planting his flag” with these ambulance contracts in towns on the other side of the county, hoping to push out the other ambulance service. The town contract with the angry fire chief was losing almost half a million dollars a year.

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¹ Unit Hour Utilization is a High-Performance EMS metric calculating the time-on-task workload of a staffed ambulance per hour.

Elements, identifiers, and sequence of events may be altered in “war stories” to protect the innocent or work better as an example.

Featured picture: Action Ambulance. (2026, February 10). Our Ossipee Valley crew has been busy at work. Thank you to everyone who has helped out! [Instagram] https://www.instagram.com/p/DUmw9cFjqUt/

P.S.: Here is a different view on the issue of EMS-only staff doing firefighting tasks

Davis, J. (2026, August 21). Somerset EMS, fire chiefs revive plan to cooperate on fire calls: ‘We don’t want to start nothing else,’ commission president says. The Baltimore Sun. https://www.baltimoresun.com/2026/08/21/somerset-county-ems-volunteer-fire-calls-policy/

Fire officials say the county’s volunteer firefighters are aging, and new members have been harder to find. County EMS crews are often first to fire scenes, yet current policy can leave them standing by while shorthanded fire companies get to work.

Somerset took over county EMS late last year, while volunteer fire companies remained independent. Some fear the county eventually wants to absorb them, despite repeated denials by commissioners.

County officials said no one is asking an ambulance crew to put on a mask and charge into a burning building. The request is simpler: If a hose needs pulling, a hydrant needs connecting or tools need carrying, don’t make trained hands stand by and watch.

With that, Somerset County officials and volunteer fire chiefs are developing a policy allowing county EMS crews to provide that kind of assistance, reviving a plan that collapsed amid fears of a county-run fire department.