Chief’s Message
Community Members,
Your Shared Fire Management Team is pleased to share the May 2014 monthly performance report. The feedback and support from our first report has been extremely positive and well received by the community.
In the month of May the executive chiefs and shift Division Chiefs continued engaging in open, ongoing dialogue with fire crews during a third round of station visits, to discuss our work to date and plans for the future. These forums have proven to be a valuable opportunity for the leadership team to provide in-person updates and answer questions and concerns of employees.
This month also saw the beginning of efforts to explore further regional shared services amongst Yolo County fire agencies. The concepts include a further integration of the City of Davis and City of Woodland Fire Prevention Division and creating a shared Fire Fleet Maintenance center for conducting regular maintenance and repair of fire apparatus in the County.
May also provided some incidents of significance including the relocation of 101 residents from Davis Healthcare to facilities throughout the Sacramento area during a power surge that resulted in electricity arcing throughout the complex. Under the leadership of the Shared Fire Management team, and with support of outstanding partners throughout the region, we were able to safely accomplish this herculean task.
This report, and the data in it, continues to mature as we do a better job of collecting, comparing, and interpreting the numbers. We hope the community finds this document both engaging and informational as we continue to tell our story.
Looking forward,
Nathan J. Trauernicht, MPA, CFO, CTO, MIFireE
Fire Chief
City of Davis & UC Davis Fire Departments
Emergency Management
Emergency Management will be a focus of the shared management team of the Davis and UC Davis Fire Departments as we move forward. Over the last six months our efforts have been on reviewing the emergency plans for the City of Davis, UC Davis, and Yolo County respectively. We have reached out to our partners throughout the City and the County in an effort to improve communications, identify collaborative opportunities, and seek innovative solutions that challenge our organizations and communities with respect to preparing for and responding to a disaster. Updates to each of the abovementioned plans are continuously taking place and we remain engaged and involved with those efforts.
Our immediate goals over the next several months include:
- With the support of the City Manager and all departments over the next few months update Emergency Management Certifications for all of our City employees. The Emergency Operations Center (EOC) website has been updated to allow all within the City to complete the required training online.
- Reinstitute regular Emergency Operations Planning Committee (EOPC) meetings with the goal of providing stability, continuity, improved capabilities and resiliency for our Emergency Management program.
- In September in partnership with the Yolo County Office of Emergency Services, we will bring an Introduction to the EOC class for EOPC members, to immediately be followed by a functional exercise.
- We have asked for and received funding to support training, equipment, and supplies for our Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) thus we are looking forward to bolstering that program.
- With the assistance of the Yolo County Office of Emergency Services we are pursuing a number of promising grant opportunities for critical equipment needs.
Finally, we have realigned one of our Division Chiefs duties to focus more on community and agency preparedness.
A significant component of our efforts will be to more fully engage and work with our partners throughout the region as we seek to provide the best level of service for our respective communities. We look forward to continuing our forward progress in this area.
Fire Prevention
Prevention is a critical piece of the fire department’s mission. This month we provide a brief overview of that Divisions services provided in the month of May. Next month we will provide a more in-depth overview of the functions of the Division and we will continually work on refining the data set we provide in this report to better explain and share their work in the community. The table below only contains data for DFD as the University’s Prevention Services are under a different branch of the campus that aligns its structure similarly to other UC campuses.
Alternative Funding Success
The City of Davis Fire Department is part of a county-wide grant effort to secure 46 new self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA). The total amount requested on the grant is $391,287.00. Of this amount, the City of Davis stands to secure approximately $240,000.00 in order to replace our outdated air packs. We received notification that our application is favorable, our banking information has been requested, and we expect a confirmation of award sometime in October.
A self-contained breathing apparatus, or SCBA, sometimes referred to simply as a breathing apparatus (BA), is a device worn by rescue workers, firefighters, and others to provide breathable air in an IDLH (immediate danger to life and health) atmosphere.
For firefighting, the design emphasis is on heat and flame and modern firefighting SCBAs incorporate a PASS device (Personal Alert Safety System) or an ADSU (Automatic Distress Signal Unit) into their design. These units emit distinctive high pitched alarm tones to help locate firefighters in distress by automatically activating if movement is not sensed for a certain length of time (typically between 15 and 30 seconds), also allowing for manual activation should the need arise.
so the real question and perhaps the chief can pop back on here? is the new system working? has boundary drop meant faster service? are we able to cover more areas with fewer people? are people are safe now as they were with four on an engine at all stations?
Davis Progressive, sorry for not seeing this sooner, but here’s my responses to your questions:
Is the new system working? If you are referring to shared management and the boundary drop, then without hesitation, I say YES! If you are referring to reduced staffing and decoupling Engine and Rescue 31, I don’t feel like I have a large enough data set from a long enough period of time to make a definitive determination right now. Certainly the data shared in these monthly reports has positive indicators that performance is good.
Has the boundary drop meant faster service? Yes, the data in the reports are supporting that. Unit reliability is improved thanks to the drop and revised move & cover strategies; Engine 32 and 33 are staying in their primary response districts more often making them available, faster, for those they serve.
Are we able to cover more areas with fewer people? Not sure I understand this intent of the question. Please elaborate.
Are people safe now as they were with four on an engine at all stations? That question is pretty broad and a tad inflammatory, but all that aside: four person staffing is about speed of completing tasks and number of tasks that can be completed simultaneously. Logic would lead us to believe that the more people you have doing simultaneous tasks in a situation that is time sensitive for successful results would garner more favorable outcomes.
A great depiction of what I am saying is the NIST studies which can be found here: http://www.nist.gov/el/fire_research/
Watch the videos, read the studies, draw your own conclusions.
I must re-emphasize that local service delivery strategies are a community decision. Staffing decisions made by the community through their elected officials should be based on community risk, the community’s willingness to accept risk, and their willingness to pay for the chosen level of service.
We do our best to keep people safe everyday with the resources provided to us and take great pride in it.
Thanks for the questions!
Chief T