Calif. Fire Agencies Will Scale Back Medical Aid Response
Sept. 15--BRENTWOOD -- The two fire agencies serving East Contra Costa residents recently struck a new automatic aid agreement that aims to have them share the load more evenly but will further erode medical services to residents here.
For years the financially strapped East Contra Costa Fire District has relied heavily on neighboring Contra Costa County Fire District to provide additional engines when it lacked the necessary manpower to tackle a fire or medical emergency.
Con Fire has come to the rescue more often than the other way around, a lopsided state of affairs that worsened dramatically this spring when voters rejected a benefit assessment that East Contra Costa Fire had proposed. As a result, the district closed two stations, leaving only three to serve approximately 249 square miles.
To meet industry standards, fire districts must send five engines -- that equates to 15 firefighters and a battalion chief -- to a one-alarm structure fire, East Contra Costa Fire Chief Hugh Henderson said.
But his agency now has only nine firefighters available at any time, which means that two Con Fire engines are summoned every time a building goes up in flames, he said.
The numbers underscore the glaring disparity: From June through August, the computerized dispatch system sent Con Fire on 159 calls to East Contra Costa and with 212 of its engines. By contrast, East Contra Costa Fire responded to 64 requests from Con Fire, reciprocating with 74 engines.
"You can't depend on your neighbor 24/7," said Henderson, who proposed the revised agreement.
As of Sept. 1, his agency has been cutting back on the number of times it requests Con Fire's help on medical calls, reserving that source of help for emergencies that require multiple engine companies such as extricating accident victims trapped in a vehicle.
An ambulance will respond to minor incidents but neither agency will provide a fire engine.
In more serious cases, East Contra Costa Fire crews will show up along with an ambulance if they're available. If not, it's up to the paramedics to decide whether they need Con Fire's intervention.
Only in medical crises that are a matter of life and death will the auto-aid system automatically dispatch Con Fire if East Contra Costa Fire doesn't have the personnel.
The idea is to reduce the number of times that Con Fire engines have raced out of a station only for the ambulance crew that's already at the scene to cancel the call because they can handle the situation themselves.
Henderson predicts that by his agency cutting back on medical aid calls to Con Fire will all but eliminate the disparity between the number of times each helps the other.
But he doesn't think the agreement will solve the imbalance in the actual resources they share.
His district always will need two Con Fire engines for every structure fire, whereas Con Fire's emergencies typically require East Contra Costa Fire to share just one of its engine companies, Henderson said.
The two fire districts will revisit the agreement after it's been in effect for 60 days.
Reach Rowena Coetsee at 925-779-7141. Follow her at Twitter.com/RowenaCoetsee
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