Jumpline magazine JUNE 2023 pages - Flipbook - Page 9
1403 Officers Continued
Paul D Blake, Ret.
Treasurer
ballooned by $117 Million from the 2019-20 budget of $545
million. This is more than enough to cover adding additional
units. In fact, if we truly had a Class 1 mindset, why wouldn’t
we look to add an additional suppression unit to at least one
station/battalion; especially our busiest? This would provide
both an engine and aerial piece in those stations in addition to
the rescue. In stations where the rescue is overwhelmed with
transports then you place a second rescue at those stations.
No different than what other “Class 1” systems do.
Recently, I heard a remarkable statistic. While we have seen
a rapid increase in medical calls, they have not necessarily
been “rescue” calls. For example, take a 17-B (fall injury) and
public assists. Last year we responded to 32,923 fall injuries
and 9,052 public assists. Of those, only 5,115 required the patient to be transported to the hospital. So, that is approximately
37,000 suppression calls. Is that significant? For those that pay
attention (or will now) how often is one of the original suppression units, if not the primary, not available to respond because
they are enroute or on scene of a medical call? What is worse?
A 4-person, ALS equipped fire truck showing up to a cardiac arrest or a three-person rescue truck to a car fire that is extending
to the carport.
A few years ago, I heard we were going to try and increase
our ISO classification. I was intrigued by it. and looking forward
to it because of how we operate and the way we train. Add to
that our staffing and tactics, we deserve an ISO Class 1 rating.
Most important was that it would give us a chance to improve
our delivery of water to incidents where we were beyond 1,000
feet from a creditable water source.
Whether that involved training in relay operations (laying
lines) or utilizing water shuttles, the opportunity to truly piece
together a seamless response to these types of fires was going
to be on MDFR’s radar. No longer would an MDFR representative appear before television cameras and say, “We lost the
structure because there were no hydrants in the area.” Or as
HIHFTY (Hit’n It Hard From The Yard) commenters say, “Everybody goes home but the homeowners.”
As if the absence of fire hydrants outside the UDB just presented itself as a recent issue. Not so. Homeowners living outside the UDB pay the same tax rate as those living in urban areas. Their trash gets picked up just the same.
The same as the mail is delivered, or as school
buses pick up their kids. Now we also would be
able to manage a fire in their home the same as
if happened inside the UDB.
In 2007, there was a fatal fire that brought
to light the issue of not having adequate water
available to us outside the UDB. Fire Chief Lorenzo addressed the issue of installing wells outside the UDB. The cost was overstated and as
a result the county shelved the idea. That was
15 years ago. Today, the same situation exists.
The only way to make up for the lack of hydrants
outside the UDB would be to staff a water tender.
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into a portable tank which it is supposed to carry, Jacksonville
has several. Our water tender sits at Station 16. It was obtained from the parks department back in the 1990s and then
refurbished. It is only able to respond when there are trained
individuals to do so. Because the trained individuals are from
another unit, the unit providing the driver needs to be placed
out of service to staff the water tender. The vehicle is old and
was already old when it was given to us.
ISO has a performance standard for rural areas. It requires
that 250 GPM be flowed within five minutes of the first fire
suppression unit’s arrival and maintained continuously for two
hours. I have run multiple scenarios with calculations and there
is no way that MDFR can meet or exceed the rural fire flow
without a staffed water tender. With us seeking to attain a Class
1 rating why would we not invest in something as simple as a
water tender? If MDFR had the mindset of a Class 1 system,
the water tender would have been put into service 15 years
ago.
As you can see it is not about the cost. We have plenty of
money to both staff the unit and purchase several new ones.
There is no shortage of impact fee funds that could be used
for the purchase of the vehicles. There is more than enough,
both in our reserves and operating budget, to staff it. Still, they
Department won’t. Nope, it is about priorities.
For some reason it is not a priority. They have other priorities.
Instead of prioritizing operations and the additional units to help
reduce response times and unit unavailability, the Department
has chosen to ensure that all the boxes in their table of organization are filled. We do not have a robust response when we
have a fire outside the UDB, but we do have a fully staffed legal
department.
So, with us being five points away and having done nothing substantive to address the issue of ensuring that we have
enough water to suppress a fire outside the UDB, what is the
angle to achieving those five extra points? Is there some sort
of ISO cheat code? Is it ensuring that you are inputting your
training each shift?
For your training to count for ISO credit, it must occur at a
3-story training tower or a facility with a burn building. For
maximum credit, the facility must have both a 3-story
tower and a burn building on two acres of land. The
only place this can happen is in Doral. If we were
fully committed to being an ISO Class 1, why
would you not see satellite training facilities as
fully funded capital projects? It’s leaving half of
the battalion vacant so that you can drive to HQ
for drills that could have easily been done in your
territory.
I just do not know how MDFR will meet the rural water flow criteria for ISO. Maybe they just
exclude our rural areas? That is like taking a family photo, but only including those that are photogenic. I believe that we will be granted an ISO
Class 1/1X, although it is different from a Class
1. I am certain that when we are given an ISO
Class 1/1X, it will be included in more than one
person’s resume and potentially be used as a
The water tender is a fire truck that carries
4,000 gallons of water. It has dump valves on
it which allow it to empty its tank at 1,000 GPM
June 2023 | JUMPLINE Magazine
