Fire station optimization: Part 3

Using GIS and five years' historical data, the workgroup studying how to optimize fire station locations produced three options, that call for building either three or four new fire stations. These new fire stations would be staffed using one of two ways: either moving an existing company from its current station to a new location, or;  breaking apart double companies from a station that currently houses both an engine and a truck.  In essence, these plans spread out LF&R's current resources to cover a larger geographic area, but without adding personnel and in a way designed to preserve unit reliability and effective response force to the greatest extent possible.

To be sure, Lincoln will need to add entirely new resources at some point in time (particularly medical resources.) But any of the three options presented by the workgroup provide a significant increment of improvement in our current configuration until that future tipping point.  The most aggressive capital construction plan, "Option A," builds four new stations, which we have labelled as C, K, M, and N--just to avoid confusion with the numbers used to designate the current fire stations.  Option A closes current stations 10, at 1440 Adams St., and Station 12 at 84th and South Street.

This final map shows the much larger area that falls into the pink polygon that represents four minutes travel time from fire stations in this new configuration.  The 4,182 yellow dots that were outside four minutes in 2010-2011, are now mostly covered.  Compare this map with the previous post, and note how much better we would now be positioned to cover some of those dark gray areas where Lincoln will be growing in the next 25 years.

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Overall, building these four fire stations and redeploying existing staff and equipment would result in a 60% reduction in the number of addresses inside the city limits but currently more than four minutes travel time from a fire station.  That's a pretty nice increase in coverage.  The other two options are smaller capital improvement plans that build three new stations instead of four, but they both still represent a significant improvement in coverage. In today's dollars, it would cost about $2 million (plus the cost of land acquisition, if necessary) to build each fire station.

Fire station optimization: Part 1
Fire station optimization: Part 2
Fire station optimization: Part 3

Fire station optimization: Part 1

Over the past several months, a workgroup at Lincoln Fire & Rescue has been studying potential changes in how and where the department deploys its resources. The study was publicly unveiled this week, and although it has been covered in the local press, I'm going to write a few posts summarizing the 78 page report in a little more detail than the news stories.

Since Lincoln last added a fire station (Station 14 in the Highlands, in 1996-97), Lincoln's population has increased by about 50,000 and its geographic area has grown by just over 20 square miles.  The past three fire chiefs have advocated adding new fire stations to deal with this growth.  New fire stations require buildings, apparatus, and staff. The real cost, however, is not so much in the capital outlay, but rather the ongoing cost of personnel.  It takes 12 firefighters to staff a new engine company, and that's about a million dollars in salaries and benefits. You build the building once, but if you add personnel the payroll is in perpetuity.

Chief Huff and I just don't think it is likely, given the fiscal realities of local government both nationwide and here in Lincoln, that the City will be willing to take on an additional two million dollars in annual personnel expenses needed to staff two new fire stations anytime soon.  So we asked a different question: if we re-position our current personnel and equipment by moving some fire stations, what increment of improvement could we achieve in our ability to respond effectively to the needs of a growing community?

When you think about it, this is an approach that the school system has used quite effectively.  There are many building in Lincoln that used to be schools: Willard Community Center, Hayward Park Condominiums, Whittier, the Cotner Center, come immediately to mind. To be sure, Lincoln Public Schools increased the number of schools as Lincoln's population grew, but they also dealt with changing population demographics by moving to where the customers were.  The fire department used to do the same thing, but hasn't relocated in the past half-century.  Nonetheless, there are several buildings around Lincoln that used to be fire stations, but were sold or re-purposed as the City grew and the fire department spread out decades ago.  Here's a great example: check out how the old fire station lives on, it's architectural detail quite identifiable in the facade of today's F Street Community Center at 13th & F Streets:

Fire station optimization: Part 1

Fire station optimization: Part 2

Fire station optimization: Part 3

Fire station optimization: Part 2

We asked a workgroup to take an analytical approach to study the location of fire stations. In the past, the selection of station locations was basically an educated guess, but in the last decade, LF&R has developed some excellent capacity to apply data and analysis to such decisions.  Captain Julio Talero, Batallion Chief Eric Jones, and EMS Supervisor Scott Wiebe used historical data from the depaprtment's database, demographic information, and the City's enterprise geographic information system (GIS) to produce recommendations on how improvements can be made by re-positioning a few fire companies, without adding more personnel.  I am incredibly impressed by the quality of their analysis. We also asked for options, and they produced three, all of which provide a significant increment of improvement to LF&R's capability.

The workgroup's recommendations considered three factors: geographic coverage, unit reliability, and effective response force.  The first is pretty obvious: how well does the plan do in putting resources within timely reach of the locations in the City where critical incidents such as fires and medical emergencies are likely to occur? The second, unit reliability, acknowledges that at any given time a given fire company may not be available: the crew could already be out on another incident, or in training, for instance. Finally, effective response force refers to the ability to assemble enough people and equipment to do the job. You cannot fight a structure fire with three firefighters, and two paramedics are not going to be able to deal with trauma patients at a traffic crash for very long before they need a lot more personnel to do the job properly.

Maximizing coverage, unit reliability, and effective response force is a matter of finding the right mix of both spreading out and concentrating resources.  Finding that mix involved the application of demography, geography, and mathematics, informed by historical data about the fire and EMS workload, census data, and projections for Lincoln's future growth contained in the City's Comprehensive Plan. Focusing on geographic coverage, the pink area on the map below is the area that LF&R can travel to on the street network today within four minutes from Lincoln's current 14 fire stations.  The dark gray area is the 25-year growth area of Lincoln, and there is a faint white border overlay that depicts the current city limits.

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There are 8,469 actual addresses inside Lincoln's city limits that are outside the pink area: more than four minutes from a fire station.  That number will grow dramatically as Lincoln expands into the dark gray area representing the 25 year projected growth.  The 4,182 yellow dots on this next map represent the actual dispatches of fire and medical units in 2010 and 2011 that were inside the city limits, but more than 4 minutes from a fire station.

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Fire station optimization: Part 1
Fire station optimization: Part 2
Fire station optimization: Part 3

Good bang for the buck

Shortly before our budget hearing with the city council last Friday, the Mayor was briefed by the Finance Department about their discovery of a $275, 000 swing in the City's available annual revenue (it's actually $48,000 in the first year, and $275,000 thereafter). The Mayor's Chief of Staff contacted me, and said the Mayor wanted to use this for public safety. The Mayor wanted my advice on what the best application of these funds would be.

I suggested that we use this to get cracking on the fire station optimization plan, and specifically on jump-starting one of the four stations: a joint police/fire facility in southeast Lincoln. I think this kills two birds with one stone. It provides a fire and EMS footprint into the rapidly-growing area where we are well-beyond four minutes drive time from the closest fire station. It also provides a police facility for officers who are assigned to the southern tier of the city and currently deploy at shift change from downtown police headquarters.

A couple of years ago, I described the fire station optimization plan in detail in a three part series. I followed that series up with a description of my vision for a joint facility. Given Lincoln's geographic growth, a police station in southeast Lincoln is inevitable, and I think we now have an opportunity to set the wheels in motion. This would be a good thing, and would provide a good bang for the buck.

Our experience with the Northeast Team police station at 49th and Huntington Ave. has demonstrated some of the benefits that arise from decentralizing deployment. Less time is spent commuting to and from downtown, saving both personnel hours and fuel. One of the potential locations for the proposed joint facility is 2.6 miles closer to the center point of the Southeast Team area than headquarters, from which officers presently deploy. That's 5.2 miles and 12 minutes per officer daily, minimum. In reality, there are additional trips to and from downtown that will also be avoided, such as supply runs, evidence, and interview room access.

Moreover, the City's comprehensive plan shows significant growth south and east, which will enlarge the area considerably, and push the center-of-mass for the Southeast Team even further away from downtown. Based on that future growth area, we would eventually be saving 9.6 miles and 21:20 per officer each day.

When you do the math, here's what such a move would deliver every year, just on the police side: a savings of 1,825 officer-hours, and 62,050 miles. With our current fleet average of 13.5 MPG, that amounts 4,596 of unleaded. Looking at the future service area from the comprehensive plan, this grows to 3,244 officer-hours, 87,600 miles, and 6,489 gallons of fuel annually.

We'll keep looking around

A bit of a kerfuffle occurred last week, revolving around our attempts to find suitable land for the four fire stations which will be built with funding from the voter-approved sales tax increase in Lincoln. Although it will be quite awhile before we turn a shovel, we need to find sites, and either purchase land or acquire a first-right-of-refusal. Otherwise, when the time comes to build, we may find that all the suitable parcels have evaporated. We are not the only ones looking for reasonably-priced building sites with good access to arterial streets in rapidly-developing areas. Go figure.

One of the more problematic locations identified in our optimization study is the S. 84th Street and Pioneers Boulevard area. We really need to be within a half mile radius of the intersection, and the pickings are getting slimmer as time passes. So earlier this year, when we were contacted by an owner of two parcels that abut 84th Street about a quarter mile south of Pioneers, we expressed an interest. Before we signed an agreement, however, we thought it wise to meet with the neighbors, and sent a letter to all the property owners within 500 ft. of this potential site.

Last Wednesday night, Assistant Chief Pat Borer and Battalion Chief Eric Jones heard an earful--so much so that we have put negotiations on hold for the time being, and are studiously looking at every other potential site within that half-mile radius. We're checking to see if any other suitable sites are for sale, large enough, have access to the streets, and would meet our needs. We are happy to do so, and my fingers are crossed.

We want to be good neighbors. Right now, 11 of our 14 fire stations are right next to residences, directly across the street, or both. While you might have your conversation interrupted by a siren from time to time, for the most part I think a fire station can be a very good neighbor, and far better than some other land uses that you tend to see along busy five lane arterial streets.

This new station near 84th and Pioneers replaces the extant Station 12, which is about a mile and a half further north. That station is woefully inadequate, and falling into disrepair. Our optimization study found that if it was relocated we could dramatically improve our coverage and response times to areas of Lincoln that have developed since it's original construction in the 1970's.

A lot of the concerns our staff heard last week dealt with lights and sirens. Station 12 is not among our busiest, nor our least busy fire stations. So far this year, Engine 12 has made 232 emergency runs between the hours of 10:30 PM and 6:30 AM--less than one per day during those hours. This time period is the slowest portion of the day for emergency calls, so it's not as if the din is constant late at night and in the wee hours of the morning. About a third of those emergency runs went south of Pioneers, so Engine 12 was driving right by those same residences.

I think our other three optimal locations will be somewhat less problematic. In the meantime, we will keep looking for the best place to relocate Station 12, with an eye on the cost of land acquisition, suitability of the building site, impact on response time and coverage, and concerns of neighbors. Lots of things have to be considered and balanced.

Let the voters decide

Mayor Beutler has decided to ask the City Council to place a $29.5 million dollar bond issue before the voters this fall, to fund replacement/modernization of our public safety 911 radio system, and the first phase of the fire station optimization plan.

I've described the fire station plan, and the joint police /fire station in previous posts, and next week, I will explain the radio system issue we need to deal with.

The dollar amount of this proposed bond issue is nothing to snarf at, but to put this in perspective, it falls somewhere between the cost of an elementary school and a middle school, and Lincoln has one of each in the pipeline.

A public safety bond issue will let the voters decide whether they believe these projects are a worthwhile investment for Lincoln's future.

Roomies?

The fire station optimization study outlined in my last three posts contemplates building either three or four fire stations, but using existing staff and apparatus--not additional personnel. It provides a nice increment of improvement in LF&R's coverage, and I believe it represents an exceptional return on investment.  In actuality, the City's Capital Improvement Program has included new fire stations for several years, but has been stalled, in part because of the City's inability to fund the large ongoing cost of new firefighters for new companies.

Cities all over the United States have been laying off police officers and firefighters, closing facilities, and in some cases even going bankrupt.  We have been spared some of the carnage here in Lincoln, but all of my peers in public safety management recognize that we are facing a new reality in government, and have to come up with new solutions.  Looking at the fire coverage problem from another vantage point has allowed us to come up with a more viable option for serving the City as well as we can with the resources citizens are willing and able to provide.

Another unfunded project that lingers in the City's Capital Improvement Program is a police substation in southeast Lincoln. This would be a facility where about 40-50 police employees would report to duty.  Officers would pick up their cars and equipment here, attend the shift briefing, and hit their beats.  This is where their locker room, report room, supplies, evidence drop-off, interview rooms and so forth would be located.

A south Lincoln police station is imperative, because officers working in deep southeast Lincoln are presently deploying at shift change from police headquarters downtown.  The time lag and fuel usage is horribly inefficient.  Two other substations of this type (27th and Holdrege and 49th and Huntington) work very well, and we are long overdue for a similar arrangement in the southeast area.  As cities grow, you inevitably see police stations decentralized in this fashion for the same reason: time and gas.

So, if we have a couple of fire stations in southeast Lincoln in our future, and a police substation as well, why not be roomies?  It is an attractive idea. We could share land, parking, locker and PT facilities, restrooms, foyers, hallways, multi-purpose room, and probably have some savings in basic stuff like concrete, HVAC, and footings, data, and more.

I'm betting a joint facility would be significantly less expensive than two separate facilities. It would also be a nice step in something else I've been up to as public safety director: improving the working relationship between police and fire personnel.  We've made some nice strides in the past few months, and this would be another good step in that direction.

More than four

Last week, the committee assembled by the Mayor to make recommendations on replacement of the City's radio system and optimization of fire stations held it's first meeting. I'm chairing the committee. Last week the committee considered the need for updating the radio system, 80% of the use of which is by public safety personnel. This week, our attention will shift to fire stations.

At the same time the committee is working, the City is also conducting what has become an annual process for engaging citizens in the discussion of the City's budget priorities. This year, the online survey portion of that process is also asking about these two public safety projects. I've been reviewing the results as they are compiled, and also looking at the comments. It's apparent to me that many people are still a little fuzzy about why we think it's important to have a fire station within four minutes travel time to as many addresses in the community as possible.

Four minutes is a national standard for urban fire and rescue services, adopted by the National Fire Protection Association and widely used as the benchmark U.S. cities.  The standard is worded as a percentile: travel time to life-threatening emergencies of four minutes or less, 90% of the time. In Lincoln, we are at 80% so far this year, and we've been getting a little worse as the years pass--primarily due to geographic growth.

It's important, because the amount of time from the onset of an emergency to the arrival by Lincoln Fire & Rescue equipment and personnel makes a big difference in the outcome. A few minutes delay in the event of a stroke, fire, traumatic injury, cardiac or respiratory arrest can literally be the difference between life and death. Right now, only about 89% of the addresses in Lincoln are within four minutes of a fire station. We'd like to get that up above 95%.

On the map below, you can easily see the areas most at risk for delayed response due to excessive travel time. Green is good, red is bad. The white outline represents the projected future service area of Lincoln in 2040. As you can see, the growth areas in the north, south, and east are going to be increasingly orange and red if we don't do something.

Travel time

The final element in this response time series is travel time.  Simply put, travel time begins when the wheels on an ambulance or fire apparatus start turning, and ends when they stop. Travel time is influenced by several different things: roadway capacity, traffic, weather, and navigation  accuracy--to name a few.  In the public safety business, travel time can generally be estimated by examining distance and the posted speed limit.

Experiments have shown that emergency responders are actually doing quite well if the travel time divided by distance averages the speed limit.  This is exactly how we conducted the analysis for Lincoln Fire & Rescue's fire station optimization plan.  Using GIS software, we just calculated the extent of the area that could be reached from each of Lincoln's 14 fire stations within four minutes if averaging the posted speed limit on the roadway network.  Fast driving does not help: smooth and safe wins the race, coupled with good navigation.  Remember when some Type A driver passed you, only to be stuck at the next light as you glided by in the adjacent lane?

Total response time, thus, is the sum of call processing time, turnout time, and travel time.  Of the three, travel time is the longest interval, and thus of particular interest when your goal is to maintain a reasonable response time to life-threatening emergencies.