Proposals take away local control
Published 1:06 am Friday, October 3, 2008
The National Fire Protection Association has recently made a proposal that would change the minimum number of personnel in fire departments and emergency medical services. The new standard would call for fire departments to have a minimum of four on-duty personnel basically operating one apparatus, such as a fire truck or aid car. The proposal would also require five to six personnel in a hazardous or high-risk area.
The 1710 proposal, which uses these numbers, is for municipal fire departments with paid employees. Another proposal, 1720, requires similar staffing levels for volunteer departments. But beyond staffing levels are specific response times that locally could only be achieved with the addition of several new fire stations. Turn-out time would have to be one minute, with arrival of the first engine company at a fire in four minutes. A first responder for EMS would need to be at the scene in eight minutes, with full alarm deployment also at eight minutes.
The underlying concern is not the proposed staffing levels or response times. Heck, if my house were burning, I would be fully supportive of the proposals, and in the perfect world, they would be great. But reality and cost dictates affordable levels of coverage. In an area that has had trouble passing a levy-lid lift, adding more stations and asking for more taxpayer dollars just doesn’t seem possible.
But more importantly than a proposal by the NFPA, is the lack of local control on service levels. I strongly believe that a major reason for having local government is that it is typically more in tune with local issues and concerns. To remove local control over emergency services is just one more level of taxation without representation. Why would anyone want some national association controlling local emergency services’ tax dollars?
What authority would an NFPA proposal have? Well let’s assume the association passes minimum staffing levels and response times. Does that mean the first time a house burns at 2 a.m. in the morning and someone is killed, litigation against the responding department could be filed? You bet. Let’s assume the first engine didn’t arrive for six minutes. Lawyers would be all over that, stating the department failed to respond at its standard response time. The department would be sued, and the only one getting rich would be the lawyer. Another waste of taxpayer dollars.
Both the city of Snoqualmie and Eastside Fire & Rescue have said they oppose the proposal, as does the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Washington State Association of Fire Chiefs.
Jim McKiernan
