Attachment 12

National Fire Protection Association Standard: NFPA 1710

Recommendation 2

That the “Fire Rescue Key Service Level Targets” (Attachment 2 of the Emergency Response Department’s April 23, 2003 report) be approved subject to annual consideration of funding.

Report Summary

The City of Edmonton needs to identify and define the standards and targets that will be used for the provision of Fire Rescue Services within the City. These targets must ensure the safety of the citizens of Edmonton as well as the safety of Fire Rescue personnel. Specifically, the City must establish minimum criteria relating to service delivery, response capabilities and resource requirements.

This report provides a summary of the issues currently facing the Emergency Response Department (ERD) in the provision of Fire Rescue Services, and describes how the lack of defined targets has led to the erosion of services and the resulting impacts on the safety of citizens of Edmonton.

The seven “Fire Rescue Key Service Level Targets” identified in this report could be achieved over the next eight to ten years with City Council’s approval of incremental funding.

In determining appropriate service levels, the City must take a number of factors into consideration. The safety needs of the citizens of Edmonton and those who work in and visit the city is of paramount importance. However, the need to provide safe and effective firefighting conditions for firefighters, and the need to minimiseminimize the potential for loss and damage to property, must also be considered. A balance must be struck between the risks inherent in those factors and the ability to provide a realistic, safe and affordable level of service.

ERD believes that NFPA 1710the standard of the National Fire Protection Association, NFPA 1710, properly establishes the targets and establishes the minimum criteria relating to service delivery, response capabilities and resource requirements for Fire Rescue Services. NFPA is an international non-profit membership organization with over 75,000 members in 100 countries. It is the world’s leading advocate of fire prevention and public safety and has developed over 300 safety codes and standards. Its consensus-based approach to safety code development has earned accreditation from the American National Standards Institute. The standardNFPA 1710 is based on the proven science of fire behaviour and emergency medicine and sets forth the minimum criteria related to resource requirements and to the functional effectiveness and efficiency of the services provided.

The Department has identified the service level targets within NFPA 1710 that have the greatest impact on the safety of the citizens of Edmonton. Adoption of these targets as a long term strategic goal, will allow the City to identify needs, set priorities, develop strategies and implement actions to ensure that the service provided strives to meet the minimum required fire industry standards.

“Fire Rescue Key Service Level Targets”:

  1. Ensuring all engine companies (units)all companies (pumpers) whose primary function is fire attack, search and rescue, ventilation or aerial operations are staffed with a minimum of four firefighters.
  2. Ensuring that where technical hazards, high hazard occupancies, high incident frequencies or geographical restrictions occur that a minimum complement of five firefighters is provided on pumper companies.
  3. That staff training ensures that competency is maintained.
  4. Establishing one minute (60 seconds) as the target for turnout time[1].
  5. Establishing four minutes (240 seconds), or less, as the target time for the arrival of the first arriving enginepumper company at a fire suppression incident and/or eight minutes (480 seconds) or less for the deployment of a full first alarm assignment at a fire suppression incident.[2]
  6. Establishing four minutes (240 seconds), or less, as the target time for the arrival of a unitpumper company with first responder capability at an emergency medical incident.
  7. Establishing a performance objective of not less than 90 percent for the achievement of the response times identified in targets 4, 5 and 6.

Issues

In order to successfully organiseorganize and deploy Fire Rescue resources within the City of Edmonton, the City must identify and defineidentify, define, measure and compare the standards and targets related to service provision. There are no Federal, Provincial or Municipal regulations that mandate the level of fire protection that a municipality must provide. The City, therefore, must determine the level of service that it deems appropriate.

Without defining and maintaining minimum service standards, the Department does not have a mechanism to readily identify the impact that the combination of population growth, increase in call volume and decrease in the number of Fire Rescue personnel has had on the level of Fire Rescue Services provided. Service Challenges in Attachment 4(c))1(c) provide specific details of the impact of these issues.

ERD is faced with the challenge of providing emergency Fire Rescue Services in the City of Edmonton during a period of significant growth and expansion. The fringe areas of the city have shown the most marked increase in both population and call volume and have seen a significant reduction in the Department’s ability to respond to those calls in a timely manner. The population of the city is projected to grow by 27% by 20252008 and ERD must ensure that as. As the city expands, new operational fire stations are establishedneed to be provided in those growth areas.

The changes in climate conditions in recent years have also increased the volatility and number of wildland fires and as the city continues to expand into the perimeter, the number of wildland fires is projected to increase.

The reduction in the number of Fire Rescue personnel means that the number of firefighters deployed in some areas of the city and on some types of apparatus is insufficient to provide the necessary level of service. This leads to additional delays in the time of response and significantly impacts the ability of crews to safely and effectively initiate fire attack when they arrive on scene.

  • ERD currently has seven, single rigfiretruck stations mannedstaffed with four firefighters. The staffing level is insufficient to safely initiate fire attack and staff isfirefighters are forced to wait until a second crewfiretruck arrives.

ERD currently has only two firefighters assigned to staff aerial apparatus. There is no staffare no firefighters available for rescue or ventilation activities on these units. StaffFirefighters must again wait for the arrival of a second crewfiretruck before safely initiating fire attack.

  • rescue or ventilation, which elevates risk to the community and firefighters.
  • Low staffing levels within ERD does not permit the required basic training re-certification and core competency training to occur in a consistent and timely manner.

ERD faces the potential retirement of approximately 50% of its staff over the next five to ten years. The Department will lose its most experienced officers and staff. This level of replacement will place an increased demand on the ability of the Department to train personnel to assume those vacantwho will assume those roles and the associated responsibilities, primarily in incident command on the fireground.

Review of ERD Fire Rescue Services by the Insurance Advisory OrganisationOrganization (IAO) determined that the provision of services in 1999 had “lost ground when compared to our last full survey in 1981”[3]. The IAO downgraded the Public Fire Protection Classification of the City from a Class 2 to a Class 3. The grades established by the IAO are used in the development of some property insurance rates. The IAO Actuarial Review estimated potential premium costs would increase by $2.3M in 2001 rising to $2.6M in 2003 for commercial properties as a result of the downgrading.

Comparing and benchmarking performance against other Fire Rescue agencies will allow ERD to identify where industry best practice exists and lead to improvements in service. However, such comparisons are difficult without first establishing common performance standards. Methods of defining, collecting and reporting data can vary as different agencies aim for different performance targets. Comparing performance without common standards is fraught with potential misinterpretations and misunderstandings; in effect there is no confidence that "apples" are being compared to "apples".

ERD must identify the standards for the provision of Fire Rescue Services in order to be able to assess current performance, identify service deficiencies, identify and implement improvement strategies and to be able to measure the success of those strategies.

Impacts on Citizen Safety

The issues identified in the Service Challenges (Attachment 1(c)) have significant impacts on the safety of citizens of Edmonton and the protection of property.

Early and aggressive fire attack is recognisedrecognized as the most effective strategy to reduce the loss of lives and property damage. Approximately ten minutes into the fire sequence, flash overstage, flashover from the room of origin occurs due to superheating of room contents and combustibles. Statistics reported by the NFPA provides empirical data that rapid and aggressive interior attack can substantially reduce the human and property loss associated with structural fires. Once the fire has spread beyond the room of origin civilian injuries rise three-fold, civilian deaths rise nine-fold and the dollar loss per fire rises seven-fold.[4]

The rapid nature of fire propagation means that delays in responding to incidents and delays in fire attack can lead to fire spreading beyond the firefighters’ control such that aggressive fire attack is not possible and crews are forced into a defensive fire attack mode.

The current ERD trend of lengthening response times and the lack of availability of staff to safely initiate aggressive fire attack, raises concerns for citizen safety and protection of property.

  • Property loss per capita due to fire has been on the rise since 1999.
  • Civilian injury rates have recently begun to rise.
  • There has been no improvement in the civilian death rate since 1999.

The difficulties the Department is experiencing in providing the basic level of retraining and re-certification affects the efficiency and skill level of Fire Rescue personnel. The inability to certify staff and maintain skill levels increases the liability to the City and increases the overall risks to the citizens of Edmonton.

There are significant differences in the level of service provided across the city. Citizens living in the fringe areas of the city experience a response rate that is 40 percentage points lower than the rate for those citizens living in the inner city areas.

The population of Edmonton is projected to grow by 27% by 2025 and this will lead to a significant increase in demand for Fire Rescue Services. The City must ensure that it is proactive in providing Fire Rescue Services that ensure citizen safety and protection of property.

Relevant NFPA Service Level Targets

In determining appropriate service level targets, a number of factors must be taken into consideration. A balance needs to be struck between the risks inherent in those factors, and providing a realistic and affordable level of service.

  • The safety and needs of the citizens of Edmonton and those who work in and visit the city is of primary concern. It is the reason why the Department exists.
  • The need to provide safe and effective firefighting conditions for firefighters. Firefighters must be well trained, have sufficient resources and apparatus to safely and effectively initiate aggressive fire attack.
  • The need to minimiseminimize the potential for loss and damage to property within the city. The nature and characteristics of the properties within the city will greatly influence the level of resources and the types of apparatus required.

Service level targets must balance these factors and yet be realistic and achievable. In addition, the City must also balance the financial impact of meeting such targets.

ERD believes that NFPA 1710 encapsulates the service level targets that are critical to Fire Rescue operations as these targets are based on the fundamentals of the scientific behaviour of fire and fire propagation.

NFPA 1710 requires that Fire Rescue agencies identify the minimum staffing levels required to ensure that a sufficient number of stafffirefighters are assigned, on duty and available to provide safe and effective services. While the appropriate number of personnel can only be determined by the City itself, the standard does identify that engine companies (units)fire companies whose primary functions are fire attack, search and rescue, ventilation, aerial operations and the like must be staffed with a minimum complement of four firefighters. However, in jurisdictions with technical hazards, high hazard occupancies, high incident frequencies, geographical restriction or other factors, then these companies must be staffed with a minimum of five or six firefighters.

The standard requires that a training program and policy will be established to ensure that all firefighters are trained and that competency is maintained to execute the activities consistent with the services delivered.

The key response times are identified within NFPA 1710 section 4.1.2.1.1 as:

  • One minute (60 seconds) for turnout time.
  • Four minutes (240 seconds) or less for the arrival of the first arriving engine company at a fire suppression incident and/or eight minutes (480 seconds) or less for the deployment of a full first alarm assignment at a fire suppression incident.
  • Four minutes (240 seconds) or less for the arrival of a unit with first responder or higher level capability at an emergency medical incident.

A performance objective of not less than 90 percent for the achievement of each response time identified is also stipulated.

NFPA 1710 is based on sound scientific research and balances the needs of the public, the safety of Fire Rescue personnel and the protection of property. As the only industry recognisedrecognized standard for the provision of Fire Services, it in essence becomes “THE” standard by which Fire Rescue Services measure themselves.

Adoption of the seven “ERD Key Service Level Targets” within NFPA 1710 will allow ERD to measure its ability to provide Fire Rescue Services against an industry recognisedrecognized standard and will also allow it to benchmark itself against other municipalities and service providers.

Implementation Strategies

ERD recognizes that NFPA 1710 represents a long-term goal in the provision of Fire Rescue Services within the City of Edmonton. It is unrealistic to expect that the targets identified in the standard can be met in the next two to three years. What is required is a long-term, planned approach.

The Department has analyzed the current level of services provided and compared them to the requirements laid out in the standard and identified what it believes to be the critical issues. The Service Challenges (Attachment 1(c)) and the proposed Three-Year Funding Strategy (Attachment 5) of this report, move ERD towards achieving these service level targets, as City Council approved funding permits.

To meet the identified resource requirements and response time capabilities the following strategies are proposed[5]:

  • 35 firefighters will be used to increase the staffing in single rigfire truck stations to five firefighters per unit. This will allow those unitscompanies to safely initiate aggressive fire attack without having to wait for a second unit.firetruck.
  • 90 firefighters will be used to bring the staffing of aerial apparatus up to the minimum level of four staff.firefighters. An additional aerial will also be brought into service. This will allow aerial crewscompanies to safely initiate fire attackrescue and ventilation activities without having to wait for a second unit.firetruck.
  • Ten firefighters for fighting Urban Wildland fires.Urban Interface fires[6].
  • 20 firefighters to establish roving crews to support training activities.
  • Two training instructors to administer training.
  • Seven additional recruit classes and eight officer-qualifying classes are required over the next three years to keep pace with staff retirements.
  • Three new fire stations have been identified in the Long Range Financial and Capital Priorities Plan. In the next three years, the Administration has identified the need for new capital funding for a fire station on the north side. Other new fire stations have been identified beyond the three-year funding plan.

Emergency Response Department Service Challenges: A Three-Year Funding Strategy

Attachment 2 - Page 1 of 3

[1] Turnout time. The time beginning when units acknowledge notification of the emergency to the beginning of response time.

[2] Response time. The time that begins when units are en route to the emergency incident and ends when units arrive at the scene.

[3] Municipal Fire Defense Study for City of Edmonton Emergency Response Department. November 1999. IAO Municipal Consulting Services.

[4] NFPA 1710 table A.5.2.1.2.1 Fire Extension in Residential Structures 1994 – 1998.

[5] Note: Strategies to improve the turnout time of crews are already in progress. Primarily this involves the installation of computers within vehicles to improve communications and information transfer. This project is known as i-mobile and is already funded.

[6] NFPA 1710, 5.7.4 Wildland Fire Suppression Services. Staffing.