The Toronto fire department wastes precious minutes getting crews out the door after a 911 call, a previously secret report ordered released to the Star reveals.

From operators processing the call, to dispatchers alerting fire halls, to getting firefighters on the road, all times are significantly slower than the North American standard.

Toronto Fire Services, with a $370 million budget, has a “need for speed,” said consultants, who made a series of recommendations.

The only part of the dispatch process that closely approaches the standard is the race by firefighters along our busy streets.

But with numerous lags in dispatch time, the Toronto Fire Services take eight minutes or more to get to a fire call. The standard is six minutes or less — and every second is crucial. The longer a fire burns the harder it is to rescue residents and put out the blaze.

The report — “Toronto Fire Services Quality Assurance Review” — was kept secret by Toronto Fire Chief Bill Stewart and the city for almost two years.

The Star asked for the 2009 report soon after it was given to Stewart. The chief at first told the Star there were many “privacy implications” and he could not simply release it. (It turns out there is no private information in the report.) The Star then requested the document under municipal freedom of information legislation.

After the Star’s initial request, the city released a heavily censored version. Dozens and dozens of pages were blank, and the city said either it was “not responsive” to the request for information or that to reveal it would affect labour relations.

The Star appealed to the provincial Information and Privacy Commission, arguing it was in the public interest for the citizens of Toronto to know how effective its publicly funded fire department was.

Similar reports done by the same consultant for other fire departments were made public shortly after they were delivered.

On Monday, the entire Toronto report was released after the commission ruled the city was wrong to withhold key portions. Chief Stewart did not respond to requests for an interview.

Vera Maute, Toronto fire’s communications chief, emailed the Star Monday evening to say that in the past year the service has taken 10 seconds off its dispatch time and hopes to do better in the future. It has added a quality assurance manager and has improved training for communications centre staff.

“The professional staff working in the Toronto Fire Services communications centre are dedicated to serving the public reporting emergencies, and work as quickly as possible,” Maute said.

The report, which cost Toronto taxpayers $150,000, was carried out by Vancouver-based Dave Mitchell and Associates, veteran emergency response consultants.

A Star investigation done around the same time analyzed fire calls to fatal blazes and found it routinely took Toronto Fire two or three minutes longer than the standard to arrive at a call. Chief Stewart was not pleased with the Star’s stories and said at the time: “You, as a reporter, should not be looking at this information.”

Though the consultants do not identify specific blazes, their report takes take the reader through a series of problems with the Toronto department.

Until the consultants flew in from Vancouver, Toronto had no quality assurance system to determine how well the fire department was doing or, if there were problems, how to fix them.

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The consultants noted that this was unusual, pointing out that Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, London and Windsor all had systems in place for this.

“(Toronto fire dispatch staff) are clear about the need for speed and accuracy but were largely unaware of the existence of external standards of service that defined these criteria,” the consultants wrote.

Until Monday, all recommendations by the consultant were kept secret. They include the development of a quality assurance program, with appropriate training, to ensure that dispatch standards are met.

The report dissects the details of emergency calls, comparing Toronto’s performance each step of the way with the standards laid down by the U.S.-based National Fire Protection Association, a recognized world leader in fire standards.

In a section of the report that was previously censored, the consultants list areas where Toronto can improve:

• The 911 call. The Toronto Police Services manages the 911 system. The desired standard for processing a call and passing it on to fire is 15 seconds. In Toronto, this takes 30 seconds.

Dispatch: At the Toronto Fire dispatch centre in the city’s north end, staff process calls. The standard for dispatchers to notify the appropriate fire hall is 60 seconds. In Toronto, it takes nearly 100 seconds on average. Add to that another 25-35 seconds during which Toronto fire dispatchers speak on the telephone to the 911 operator but do not start the official clock.

Getting out of the fire hall: The standard for what firefighters call “turn out” — getting dressed and into the truck and out the doors — is 80 seconds. The consultants said Toronto firefighters are taking 185 seconds.

Fire hall travel time to fire call: The Toronto average is 4.5 minutes, just a half a minute over what is recommended.

In ordering the city and Toronto Fire Services to release the entire report, the provincial information commission wrote of the importance for “public accountability in the expenditure of public funds.”

Kevin Donovan can be reached at kdonovan@thestar.ca or 416-869-4425