NCFPD adopts response time standards

New response time standards for North County Fire Protection District emergency calls were adopted by the NCFPD board, Jan. 22.

The board’s 5-0 vote sets standards of nine minutes for urban areas, 13 minutes for suburban areas and 18 minutes for outlying response areas while targeting 90 percent of all responses to be within those standards.

“We think it paints a clearer picture of how we’re actually doing,” Steve Abbott, NCFPD fire chief, said.

The district and Citygate Associates worked on a standards of cover assessment and report in 2008.

“About 10 years ago we had an assessment of our response time,” Abbott said.

The total response time is comprised of three measurements. Call processing time is the time elapsed between when the communication center receives the call and when the information is processed and given to the first responding units. Turnout time is the time between when the station personnel receive the call and when they leave the station. Travel time is how long it takes to drive to the incident location.

All three of those response measurements have standards which are supposed to be met at least 90 percent of the time. The standard is one minute for the call processing time and two minutes for the turnout time. The travel time standard varies based on population density and a community’s expectations. The National Fire Protection Association has a five-minute response time in NFPA standard 1710.

The Citygate report indicated that NCFPD personnel could meet an emergency response time of eight minutes 90 percent of the time in urban areas, a response within 13 minutes 90 percent of the time in suburban areas and a response within 18 minutes 90 percent of the time in the district’s outlying areas.

“We decided to come up with our own standards that mirrored 1710,” Abbott said.

Rather than having different response times based on population density a single response time with different compliance rates for population density was adopted. The standards the district had been using called for eight-minute response times 90 percent of the time in areas with a population density of more than 1,000 people per square mile, 80 percent of the time for areas with population densities between 500 and 1,000 per square mile and 70 percent of the time for areas with population densities below 500 people per square mile.

“What we have isn’t really reflective of what we’re doing,” Abbott said. “It really didn’t give a clear picture of how we were actually doing compared to other standards.”

The fire district provides Advanced Life Support services and has an exclusive operating area contract to provide ambulance service. The contract stipulates that the fire district must respond to emergency incidents in the urban population zones within 10 minutes and to incidents in rural or suburban population zones within 15 minutes. The contract does not stipulate a response time for outlying population areas.

In December 2017, the county board of supervisors approved an implementation plan to improve emergency medical services in the unincorporated county's backcountry which included emergency medical service boundary adjustments and a unified service area intended to update response time standards to reflect population patterns and integration. The ambulance response time standards for calls are 10 minutes for urban areas, although if a fire agency paramedic arrives within eight minutes the ambulance response time is 12 minutes, 16 minutes for rural areas – 20 minutes for ambulance arrival if a fire agency paramedic arrives within 15 minutes, and 25 minutes for outlying areas – 30 minutes if a paramedic arrives within 23 minutes. An exclusive operating area contract with a 15-minute response standard for rural and suburban areas would supersede the 16-minute unified response area standard.

The eastern part of DeLuz has a rural zone classification under the county’s plan while the western part of DeLuz is an outlying zone. If the North County Fire Protection District receives a call for medical service in DeLuz the ambulance from Station 1 on Ivy Street is dispatched if it is available. Including the trip to the hospital a call for service in DeLuz places an ambulance out of service for other needs for approximately two hours. Approximately 50 percent of NCFPD calls for medical service are in the area which would be served by the Station 1 ambulance if it is available.

The new NCFPD standards define urban as more than 500 people per square mile, suburban as 100 to 500 people per square mile and outlying as fewer than 100 people per square mile. According to the most recent data the district is meeting the new standards. The 90th percentile for the first arriving unit is 8:48 for urban areas, 10:41 for suburban areas and 16:20 for outlying areas.