“To say they (our crews) are staying busy would be an understatement,” said Dayton Fire Department Assistant Chief Nicholas Hosford. “They’ve had a higher call volume and a higher workload than they have ever had historically.”
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
Community needs have changed, along with the distribution of the city’s population, and the fire department says it analyzes a variety of metrics to try to improve service delivery.
Some of that data and analytics may help the city determine where to build a new joint police and fire station.
Historic numbers
The Dayton Fire Department responded to about 41,580 calls for service in 2022, which was up more than 7% from 2021, officials said. It was the highest call volume in the city’s history.
This year, the fire department already has responded to more than 28,300 calls for service, which officials say puts it on track to exceed 43,000 calls by year’s end.
July was the single busiest month in fire department history, with 3,973 incidents, said Assistant Chief Hosford.
August 2023 was the second busiest month ever (3,739 incidents), he said.
The fire department last year received 9,190 more calls for service than it did in 2013. The agency averaged about 32,065 calls annually between 2007 and 2013.
911 and emergency responders are the community’s safety net, Hosford said.
He said many residents seek these services because they do not have primary care physicians or other places they feel they can turn to when they have health and safety needs.
“As soon as there is something that overwhelms their immediate resources, 911 is the first place they call and we respond,” he said.
Some calls for service end up not being emergency situations, but Hosford said he certainly does not want to discourage people from calling 911 when they feel they need help.
Differences
Last week, Hosford gave a presentation to the Dayton City Commission about the fire department’s response times, service demands and efforts to improve service delivery.
Hosford said every second counts when there is a medical or fire emergency, but response times are not the same across the city because of varying travel distances.
Citywide, the department on average gets its first fire engine or ladder unit to the scene of a fire call in about five minutes and 45 seconds, according to a memo from Dayton Fire Chief Jeff Lykins.
On average, citywide, the first Dayton emergency response unit for EMS calls arrives in about six minutes and 20 seconds, the memo states.
Credit: Jim Noelker
Credit: Jim Noelker
But fire and EMS units tend to arrive more quickly to calls for service that come from downtown and East Dayton, which are more compact areas.
The longest response times are in the most western and northeastern parts of the city, which are larger geographic areas with less dense populations, officials said.
“In the center of the city, we’re a little quicker,” Hosford said. “In the outskirts, it takes us a little longer to get to those incidents.”
Hosford, however, noted that some areas of the city are served by mutual aid that is provided by other communities.
First-responders, from outside agencies, sometimes are first to the scene to incidents that occur in Dayton.
New station
The fire department has a dozen stations, and the newest one was created in 1985, while the oldest facility opened in 1939.
Dayton City Manager Shelley Dickstein has talked about how the city’s public safety facilities may no longer be in the best places to minimize travel times to emergencies because of changes in population and demographics since they were built.
Dayton plans to build a new joint police and fire station in the northwestern quadrant of the city.
The fire department says it used an internal drive-time analysis and predictive analytics software to start identifying possible locations for the facility.
Officials say the city is getting close to selecting an architect to design the station and help figure out where to put it.
The city plans to use about $11 million of its $138 million in federal COVID relief funds to pay for the project, which is part of the Dayton Recovery Plan.
“The emergency response data analysis for 2023 demonstrates our commitment to tracking incident trends and conducting analysis of current operations to identify opportunities to improve our service delivery model and to ensure all services are provided equitably and efficiently based on our core values and mission statement,” says Lykins memo to the city manager.
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