County’s Fire Protection Committee recommends a 15 minute response time goal for VFDs
(Seguin) — The Guadalupe County Commissioners Court is hoping to improve response times for fire and other emergency services in the unincorporated areas of the county. The court on Tuesday received an update from its Fire Protection Committee. Assistant Emergency Management Coordinator Bryce Houlton says the committee was formed by the county to help come up a coordinated plan for emergency medical responses in the county.
“A few months ago, we had a workshop where we talked about fire protection in Guadalupe County. We had fire chiefs in here, (and) we had the cities. At the end of that meeting, it was decided that a committee would be formed — made up of the volunteer fire departments, the cities, a county commissioner, as well as our office. The committee was formed. We had members from three volunteer fire departments, representing Geronimo Volunteer Fire Department, Kingsbury Volunteer Fire Department and Marion Volunteer Fire Department; as well as the cities of Cibolo and Seguin, representing the (municipal) fire departments; (Precinct 2) Commissioner (Drew) Engelke represented the court on that commimttee; and then our office had representatives in there as well. We started meeting right away and during our first meeting we decided to look at what was an effective response in the county:”
“We didn’t just look at isolated areas. We looked across the entire county — whether you were in the heart of an urban area or in an extreme rural area in the county, (and determined) what was an effective response,” said Houlton.
Houlton says that the committee is recommending that there be a response time goal of 15 minutes for 90 percent of the emergency calls received in Guadalupe County. He says this is based on their study of the service areas for the various volunteer and paid fire departments, the mutual aid agreements that exist between many of these agencies, and the added responses from the county’s contracted EMS providers.
“Our goal is to have responders on scene within (that time)…90 percent of the time. The majority of these times is 15 minutes. We looked at mapping. The majority of the county volunteer fire departments can cover their district pretty well, within the 10 to 15 minute range. Some are a lot faster. Some, in the farther stretches and the larger areas — you’re getting closer to that 15 minutes. We also reviewed the EMS contract. The EMS contract, that Guadalupe County signed with Schertz EMS and then (they) subcontracted out, is 13 minutes, 90 percent of the time. So our thinking was, if we kept them to 15 minutes, 90 percent of the time, hopefully that ten percent where EMS is not there in 13 minutes — the volunteer fire department is there in at least 15 minutes to provide care to those residents during EMS calls,” said Houlton.
The committee’s recommendation was laid out as a goal for the first responders in the county. It’s not something that will likely happen overnight, but it is something that the county may decide to put into its contracts with the volunteer fire departments. It’s a question that was raised by County Emergency Management Coordinator Patrick Pinder. Pinder says the court will need to provide some guidance on whether or not the lanaguage should be included in the new contracts, which would start on October 1.
“Do we want to put this in the contract? Do we want the departments — all the volunteer fire departments to have a standardized response? That’s the discussion that we will have later on.”
“But we just wanted to present this to you guys and show you that this is what the committee has been working on, because we feel — in the county — that all departments, in all the areas should be somewhere if they get a call at a certain time, and this is who should show up. So that’s kind of what this document is presenting,” said Pinder.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Greg Seidenberger says that he understands that the 15 minute response time is a goal, but he says many volunteer fire departments, and he used the Kingsbury VFD as an example, may have personnel that are 15 or more minutes away from the fire house. He says that would make it nearly impossible for them to meet that standard. Pinider says that concern is already built into the committee’s recommendations. He says the responding agency, if it couldn’t make the call, should then reach out for mutual aid to make sure that help arrives in a reasonable amount of time.
“If a department can’t make that time, they would contact another department that is available. If Kingsbury can’t make a location, like you just stated, they can contact Seguin, who is available or they can contact Luling. We had two fires on Friday, in which that was done. They contacted a mutual aid department. We had a semi-truck fire out on the interstate and then we had a grass fire on the interstate, and so they had mutual aid departments that showed up and assisted and tried to achieve those times,” said Pinder.
One of the issues, that the response time goal hopes to address, is calls that are completely missed by some agencies. In other words, a dispatch tone went out and the agency did not respond that it was in route. It also didn’t reach out to say that it would not be responding at all, and that another agency needed to be contacted. Houlton says their office tracks missed calls, and the overall number of missed calls has gone down, but this would help to provide a standard level of service that would also help them look at service areas and other factors to determine the best way to provide an adequate level of service for any given area.
“This will allow us to look at that area and look at that department, and say why is the call being missed or why is the call taking 25 minutes to get there? Is it a one time event, or is it becoming a repeat event? That allows the county and the department to sit down and make adjustments, whether it’s districting — they need a smaller district or they need to give up their district to somebody else, or is that where the county maybe needs to focus on additional paid staffing out there in that department, because that area has grown so much that their call volume has tripled,” said Houlton.
Precinct 3 Commissioner Michael Carpenter says the missed call data is something that needs to be carefully looked at, because he says those numbers could be somewhat misleading. He says in most cases both the first responders and one of the EMS providers are both being called out to the scene for service. He says even if the volunteers are unable to show up, the paid EMS workers will still respond. Carpenter says the bottom line for the public — is that help was on the way.
“For the resident, it’s not a missed call. They have a medical call that they made and the ambulance showed up. The ambulance and that crew gave whatever care was needed at that time — transported (them) if necessary. So from the perspective of is the resident being taken care of? The answer is yes in that case. I want to make sure that nuance is captured, because numbers could be inappropriately skewed to say that no one went, which isn’t the case,” said Carpenter.
Some of the volunteer fire departments in the county have suggested to the committee that they might not be willing to sign on to a new service contract if the 15 minute response time goal is included. Pinder says those agencies that have expressed concern, all say that they are worried that the county is going to penalize them financially if they fail to meet that standard.
County Judge Kyle Kutscher says that’s not something they are likely to do, and that’s not the goal of this recommendation. He says the committee’s recommendation is important as the county looks for ways to provide an adequate response time for emergency services in the unincorporated areas. He says Guadalupe County is a fast growing county, and the demand for these services will only continue to increase.
“Having a foundation of understanding — through a contract — of a goal that everyone is striving to (and) that sets the same kind of playing field that bascially keeps Guadalupe County residents safe, is not a bad thing. We tried to implement a $200 fine for missed calls, and this was a (past) conversation that we go into, and fire departments didn’t like it. They are helping out the county and we weren’t supporting them the same way, and we went through some really, really difficult, controversial conversations. We had some hard honest conversations, about what was being done and what wasn’t being done from both sides. We came to a middle ground, continued to work together and communicate to say, how do we support each other and make sure that people are protected in a very fast growing county. This, is what came out of that conversation,” said Kutscher.
Judge Kutscher says the commissioners court has shown that it supports the volunteer fire departments and to the municipal agencies that provide emergency services throughout the county. He says people should not lose sight of that, because this is all about taking care of the people of the county.
“I hope that everybody will keep their eyes wide open. Look at the budget that we are hopefully going to vote on and approve today, and the one last year and the one prior to that. We have continually supported, finacially, the volunteer fire departments as well as municipal fire departments — all emergency services in the county, because of our growing population. Even though we know, our entire structure is going to have to change long term to be able to handle what we are going to see in the future. But we are not taking anything away. Other counties have done that in the past. They said ‘four years from now, you’re not funded, volunteers. Create ESDs (emergency service districts) or do something else.’ We are trying to work organically and collectively to get to a better place and not shove stuff down people’s throats,” said Kutscher.
The court on Tuesday did approve the fiscal year 2021-22 budget, which included funding for the volunteer fire departments. Judge Kutscher said that setting up a goal for response times and encouraging departments to not completely miss calls, are things that they should not have to argue about. He says it’s in the best interest of everyone involved.
“I hope the volunteers, the cities and everybody understands that we continue to talk and kind of work through these changes and say ‘look, we are not going to force this on you and we are not going to penalize you for it,’ but we should all strive to do a better job. Showing up 28 or 35 minutes to a structure fire after somebody calls, or not going to a medical call, is not okay. When I call 911 or when John Q. Public calls 911, they want a police officer, a firefighter, and an ambulance to show up — like now. I mean everybody should understand that. That’s not a complicated concept,” said Kutscher.
The court took no formal action on whether or not the response time goal would be included in the contracts, and if it is included in the contracts, what does that mean for those agencies that don’t meet the standard. The court will revisit the issue soon, so that the contracts can be approved in time for the start of the new fiscal year, which begins on October 1.