Fire Department Duty Crew Update

Since 1988, Ramsey Fire has been a paid-on-call (POC) fire department, which means firefighters are paged out for every call, day or night, hoping that some of them are available to respond. Unfortunately, this model is not very consistent or predictable. In 2020, Ramsey Fire responded to 1133 calls for service. This is a 16% increase from the year before, and a three-year average 17.4% per year increase in calls. This level of call volume can lead to burnout and challenges.

POC firefighters are challenged with the balance between a desire to give back to the community, and enjoying a balanced familiy life. For example, there are days when firefighters can be called away up to six times in a day. This disruptive demand on our existing paid-on-call fire firefighters prompted staff to look at different ways to improve emergency response and provide better coverage to meet service demands.

For the last year, Ramsey Fire took the opportunity to test a duty crew model. The early days of the pandemic meant that more POC firefighters were at home and available to respond to calls.  A duty crew uses the existing POC staffing to work predetermined shifts at the fire station. The crew consists of two firefighters that are paid by the hour to staff the station seven days a week during the specified times of 2:00pm to 10:00pm Monday -Friday, and 10:00am to 10:00 pm Saturday-Sunday. Data shows these times are when our highest call volume occurs.

By staffing the station during these specified times, it eliminates the need for a full department response, thus saving payroll costs by paying 2 firefighters rather than the average response number of 10.3 firefighters per call. Not every emergency requires all our fire staff to respond. This assures there will be firefighters on duty to respond to an emergency call in the City. Typically most calls for medical aid emergencies or smoke detector and carbon monoxide alarms can be managed with one staffed fire engine. An “all call” is only paged out when additional firefighters are needed for multiple or large scale emergencies. When the crew is not on a call during their shift, they have other responsibilities.

Even in this short time, we have seen several benefits to the duty crew station staffing model. The biggest impact  is reducing our average enroute time by 5 minutes and 26 seconds, thus reducing average total response time to the scene . Having firefighters already at the station when a call comes in has made a significant difference. With a staffed station, our duty crew and a truck can be out of the station in seconds rather than minutes. It can take the on-call firefighters up to 6 minutes to get from their front door to the fire station. Then, add to that several more minutes to gear up and dispatch to a call. The fire department does not necessarily know where an ambulance is, or where it is coming from, because the city is served by a third- party ambulance service (Allina). Firefighters can have an impact on every call they respond to with the duty crew response model.

Additional benefit include the ability for firefighters to schedule their time.  Mandated training is now incorporated into firefighter's shift work when not responding to calls, thus eliminating two training sessions per month. When the entire department is at the weekly training night, there just isn’t as much time for individual training.  This has allowed opportunities for firefighters to learn from the more experienced firefighters. Consequently, firefighters have become more proficient and have increased their confidence level with all the various pieces of equipment and apparatus. Duty crew staff also complete truck checks, inventory equipment and ensure all tools and equipment is in proper working order, repairing any that are in need. 

Perhaps the most visible benefit has been seeing the fire department out-and-about the community more often. With firefighters at the station every day, they have gotten creative, and participate in more community outreach efforts. 

The goal of the Ramsey Fire Department continues to be providing the highest quality of customer service we can achieve. The data and experiences from this pilot program has given the city information that will help make future staffing, and allow us to continue to do better for our residents. Having firefighters staffing our station makes us a better fire department. Firefighters are better trained, have quicker response times, and firefighters can better know and plan their schedules, providing the opportunity for a better work-life balance.


 

20 minutes

Fire Chief Matt Kohner

For discussion only.