Folks serviced by Contra Costa County Fire Protection District will see a new pilot program rolled out today which is being called a “medical squad” which will respond to low priority medical calls. The squad will include two firefighters, including one paramedic, will respond as a way to help with staffing and ensure fire engines will be available to fight fires and be on scene for hazards after several stations have closed in the past year.
This is considered to be a 90-day trial program meant to help the financially embattled fire district better distribute its trimmed-down staff,
Official Press Release
Martinez, CA – Starting Friday, September 6th at 0800, Firefighters from the United Professional Firefighters of Contra Costa County overwhelmingly agreed to support piloting a Medical Squad program which will begin running lower priority medical calls. The Squad can run lower priority medical calls which will help in keeping staffed fire engines available for higher priority calls such as rescues and fires.
One Squad will be strategically place at the centrally located Fire Station 1 at 1330 Civic Dr. in Walnut Creek. It will be dispatched to low priority EMS calls and will be capable of providing advanced life support (ALS) because it will be staffed with at least one Firefighter Paramedic. It will also respond with the closest Fire Engine to assist in fire and rescue operations when appropriate.
Contra Costa County Fire Protection District has seen unprecedented reductions in service the last two years going from 30 engine companies to 23 with a total of 5 stations closures. Firefighters from IAFF Local 1230 agree that holes in the system created by station closures must be filled and have worked collaboratively with the Fire District to develop a light weight vehicle staffed with two firefighters to help keep the District’s depleted firefighting force available for fires and other emergencies.
Fire Station 1 was chosen for the pilot program because it is centrally located and can respond quickly into vacant Fire Station 4’s area (700 Hawthorne Dr, Walnut Creek) and can also respond quickly into vacant Fire Station 16’s area (4007 Los Arabis Dr. Lafayette). An additional Firefighter will be added to Fire Station 6 (2210 Willow Pass Rd. Concord), which previously had 2 companies (one company at Station 6 was de-staffed last year). The addition of a Firefighter at Station 6 will help with the heavy workload placed on that crew since the second crew was removed. Station 6 is the busiest fire station in the District.
IAFF Local1230 President Vince Wells states, “Our Firefighters agree that due to the reduction in our daily firefighting force, the two person medical squad will help keep our fire engine companies available for fires and other hazards while maintaining a firefighter first response to medical calls. The use of firefighters to staff the squad will also put two additional firefighters on the streets to assist in fire and other emergencies when staffing is needed.”
Editorial Comment:
While I will support the Fire Boards decision to try out the pilot, I personally still prefer full staffed engines responding to all calls to ensure the public is kept safe during any emergency. Simply put, sometimes its the low-level priority calls that turn into high priority as dispatch can never truly know what is going on at the scene of phone call until emergency crews arrive.
In some situations, seconds count and this is a form of playing Russian Roulette with people who need service all to appease the phony bean counters of the Contra Cost Times Editorial Board and Contra Costa County Tax Payers Association.
Fire Photo of the Week:
By Michael Burkholder
[email protected]
11 comments
Come on Burk, we don’t need to waste gas sending an engine to low level calls.
How many low level calls turn in to high level calls?
Is there a database to give us facts on this?
Why is Walnut Creek and Lafayette get most of the help? Concord with it’s size should have a couple of units to help out other near by cities such as Martinez, Clayton and Clyde. Two in Walnut Creek? Really? Those other cities not as important?
They should try this 2-man crew with half there firefighters to prove a point. Doing one does nothing except highlight it will work.
We have this program with the fire department I work for. Of course it’s a little different because we respond to all medicals when the ambulance is not available because the next ambulance is at least 30+ miles out. It works for us only because we have a smaller population and our call volume is very small compared to what Con Fire does. I will be very interested to see how this works for them.
Lots of people who can’t think beyond step one are commenting here.
So what do these two man crews respond in? A lighter truck. The district doesn’t own but a few of those. They don’t REPLACE fire engines. They supplant them for certain calls. That means on wide rollout of this plan you now have a capital expenditure to buy a bunch of new vehicles.
As far as I know they haven’t invented maintenance free vehicles yet. So that gas savings you got just got soaked up by increased capital outlay for the small trucks and the maintenance of them.
The prudent questions here would look at the gas cost savings of not rolling an engine, then finding out how much the smaller vehicles cost in totality. Then you are giving it an honest appraisal.
You will invaribly now create situations where your 4 man stations are separated. 2 men on a medical leaves only 2 when the secondary fire call comes in. If it’s a real structure fire, now you have a 2 man engine on scene which cannot attack a fire due to the 2 in, 2 out rule.
BTW, if you’re going to go buy 25-30 of these new vehicles, are you sure you have facilities to house them? ConFire might in most stations. East Con definitely doesn’t in some of their older stations. Another factor that the rush to do something crowd probably hasn’t thought about.
The new program is interesting and definitely should be tried. But anyone thinking this is the be all, end all answer is kidding themselves. It could actually end up costing more than what we have now.
I’m also very curious what type of rig they will be using to respond to these medicals. I’m assuming that no patients will be transported by the fire department so I’m thinking maybe a SUV? The savings I would think at this point would really depend on what the crew will be using to respond in.
We will all have to wait and see what the experience with this arrangement turns out to be. There are a lot of moving parts to EMS response that aren’t obvious at first glance. One is that the need to maintain CPR enroute to hospital often requires two Fire personnel to ride in the amblance. With a three-person crew the Engineer can follow in the Fire unit and pick up the other two at the hospital immediately, returning the unit to service at the earliest possible moment. Things get more complicated with a two-person squad.
The press release does not make clear whether Quint/Engine 1 will keep its 3-person crew or not. I’m assuming it will, but am not sure.
It will still maintain 3 people on the Engine/Quint
Some of you have not figured it out yet, this is going to actually cost more money rather than save money while and this “test” peroid is only to prove it will not work. People have to learn the hard way.
Any update available on the 90 day trial program?
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