Fire Staffing Research Paper

Staffing levels in a fire department can determine the successful or unsuccessful outcome of an incident. As per Fire Engineering, “Over the past three decades, fire department response has expanded to include emergency medical services, terrorism response, hazardous materials response and mitigation, natural disaster response, specialized rescue, and responses to other community needs” (Wilson 89-90). In addition, “Minimum staffing has become one of the most controversial subjects in the history of the fire service" (Vatter 1). To handle all of these different rescues and responses, there are three scenarios for staffing a fire department; the career departments, the totally volunteer departments, and the combination of career and volunteer
According to Kevin Wilson, the unofficial motto of the fire service has been, “Do more with less” (85). Paid fire departments are the best staffed scenarios for fire departments; however, because there are standards set forth through NFPA 1500, NFPA 1710 and NFPA 1722 in the NFPA Fire Protection Handbook (Wilson 89), meeting the minimum required staffing is a challenge due to budget restrictions. The community benefits of having a 24/7 staffed fire department at their disposal is a great sense of peace for all members of the community. They know that if an emergency occurs, someone will be there to help them very quickly. However, as budgets and state laws limit funding, staffing is cut to stay within the budget. Staffing decreases due to budget cuts greatly reduces the number of calls a fire company can respond to and how effective they will be when they arrive. For instance, “The Newburgh (NY) Fire Department has experienced its share of force reductions, dropping from a 21-person shift prior to 1965 to as low as an eight-person shift from the mid-1980s until 1994” (Vatter 1). This is a career fire department and is funded through New York State
The goal of this system is to protect and save more property and lives. In this scenario, there is a combination of career firefighters and volunteer firefighters. More and more municipalities are turning to this scenario due to the challenges of staffing. The municipalities using this option gain the advantage of guaranteed shift staffing during key, low volunteer response, hours, and still maintain a relatively small budget to provide the necessary emergency services. Some variations include a full time combination with a 24 hour Fire and EMS arrangement, there is a full time, cross staffed version that is 24 hour Fire/EMS trained person, there is a day time only Fire/EMS type, and finally a driver only combination. With these versions, there is a pre-determined number of personnel assigned to separately staff apparatus and ambulances 24 hours a day (Karlunas). However, some of the disadvantages of having only a couple of career firefighters is that if they are in the house, they will be deployed first no matter what the call is. For instance, if an EMS trained firefighter is on duty and a call comes in for a structure fire, he will be dispatched to that because he is there; however, if a call comes in a few minutes later requiring