ANN ARBOR, MI - While the Ann Arbor Fire Department has made progress in a number of areas in recent years, city leaders acknowledge the department still fails to meet national standards for response times to fires and other emergencies.



The three assistant fire chiefs appeared before the City Council Monday night, Jan. 22, to talk about the issue during a special work session, joined by City Administrator Howard Lazarus.



While the fire department is working on ways to improve and considering whether fire stations and staffing models are optimally situated, they said, the city also may set its own standards so the AAFD has new targets it can actually meet.



"Ann Arbor has the ability to adopt a local standard that would allow Ann Arbor to fall within the ranges that we actually would like to see within our community here," said Assistant Fire Chief Marc Tyler.



"It's not that we're looking to decrease the expectation. It's just we want to be able to work within the expectation, and if we have the ability to set that, then that's what we would be able to do."



Tyler presented the following numbers showing the city's response times don't meet National Fire Protection Association standards, with the city's combined turnout and travel times around 12 minutes for fires when the national standard is six minutes and 20 seconds.

Response-time data for the Ann Arbor Fire Department presented at a City Council work session on Jan. 22, 2018.





Lazarus said he thinks the city needs to come up with standards that are relevant for Ann Arbor, reliable and reproducible.



"We have to have something that we can measure crews against," he said. "We have to make sure that it's achievable, but it's not settling for a lower degree of protection."



Lazarus said the most important thing is seeing a decrease in loss of life and property damage.



Assistant Fire Chief Ellen Taylor said the number of structure fires in the city decreased from 144 to 95 from 2012 to 2017, a 34 percent drop. She said vehicle fires dropped from 35 to 25 during that same timeframe, so there are positive trends.



"There's a lot of statistics that show there's a great improvement over the last few years for the fire department," she said.



Taylor said she thinks an improved fire-inspection program the city started in 2012 has played a big role in preventing fires and the amount of losses when there are fires.



She said the annual property losses from fires in Ann Arbor dropped from $5.5 million to $581,000 from 2013 to 2016.



Council Member Jane Lumm, an independent from the 2nd Ward, said she appreciated the information and acknowledgement that there's room for improvement on response times, but she questioned the idea of the city establishing its own standards.



She noted the city tops a lot of national rankings and "best of" lists and she said she doesn't want to see the city lower the bar on this.



"I think the national standards - that's a pretty good, darn good benchmark," she said. "That's a standard established by the professionals nationally for what response times should be, so I would question why we'd want to set a different standard."



Lazarus said Lumm's point is well taken.



"I would share your concern about changing standards from a nationally accepted standard, but you also have to make sure it's relevant," he said. "And I think that's part of the analysis and discussion that we need to engage in, look at best practices elsewhere across the country and see what really suits our needs."



Tyler offered a few disclaimers when he presented the data showing the AAFD's response times.



"As I look at these times, I can see that they're just a little bit skewed," he said.



When dealing with a computer-aided dispatch system, Tyler said, there can be data issues that make turnout numbers unreliable.



"Technology issues pertaining with HVA (Huron Valley Ambulance) and the Washtenaw County 911 switch, that can be an issue considering the fact that when calls come in (to county dispatch) ... they actually go to HVA as well after that," he said. "So there's like just a slight delay in that aspect of it."



He said there's also a slight delay when dispatchers get a call because they have to input information manually.



In some cases, Tyler added, crews are out on the road already responding to another call when a new call comes in.



"So that also contributes to a slight delay," he said. "And when we're busy, which at times we are, calls can be stacked. So when calls are stacked, that also causes a slight delay."



Tyler said there are plans to move to a new computer-aided dispatch system this fall.



"As we're working through this and we're talking with HVA and getting things together, they're in the process of putting together a new CAD system, which will be up and operational in October," he said. "So with that occurring, we're hoping that some of this stuff will slowly disappear, meaning that when they get the call in that it will be automatically sent out, so crews will not have to wait for the calls to come in. At that point, that's where we are."



Tyler said the new CAD system will help all area fire departments and improve reliable measurements of response times.



"It will improve communications between dispatch and the Ann Arbor Fire Department, which is what we desperately need," he added.



With the addition of new software, Tyler said, the department also will be able to improve on mapping calls and tracking time of day, and obtain data needed for strategic planning.



Taylor said the majority of the AAFD call responses -- about 58 percent -- are for emergency medical services and rescues. She said that used to be above 75 percent, but it's less of a focus now.



About 23 percent of calls are for fires, explosions and hazardous conditions. And about 19 percent of calls fall into other categories, including "good intent" calls and severe weather.



She said the department has 10 members on a countywide hazmat team, the most of any fire department in Washtenaw County.



As for fire prevention Taylor said there's a lot of work being done beyond inspections of commercial buildings and rental properties.



"It's site plan reviews, it's public education, it's community outreach, it's fire inspections, it's hydrant flow testing for new construction, so there's a lot of events and tasks," she said.



Taylor acknowledged the department has failed to meet the goal of increasing fire inspections by 5 percent this past year.



She said the city failed to secure grant funding for mobile tablets, which delayed their purchase. She thanked council members for recently approving funding for the equipment, which she said will help the fire-prevention bureau be more effective and efficient.



Other issues that have hindered the fire-prevention bureau, Taylor said, include the retirement of the city's fire marshal.



"Our experienced, educated, fire marshal retired and that was a hard position to fill," she said, adding it had a domino effect and the city lost some fire inspectors as well. "So instead of having six inspectors, we were down to three and four inspectors."



Taylor noted most of Ann Arbor's fires are in commercial buildings, which have to undergo regular fire inspections.



"Nationwide, it's typically more residential fires versus commercial fires, but that is not the case in the city of Ann Arbor," she said.



Assistant Fire Chief Mike Kennedy spoke Monday night about the AAFD's fire station master plan. He said it's about halfway done and it should come back to council in the near future.



Related to that, he said, the AAFD is going through an accreditation process, which he said is behind schedule due to turnover within the department's assistant chief ranks. He said it has taken some other cities five to 10 years to go through the process.



"I certainly don't think it's going to take 10 years for us to do that, but we are working on an adjusted schedule for the accreditation process," Kennedy said. "The true value of accreditation is the complete review of fire department operations and comparing that against national standards, along with the adoption of what's called a standards of cover and community risk assessment."



He said that will need to be adopted by the City Council. He said there are national standards, but fire protection is ultimately funded by and the responsibility of local government.



"So it is our city's responsibility to determine the level of protection we want and then pretty much work backwards from there of how are we going to sustain that," Kennedy said.



Another large piece of the accreditation process is being able to be more flexible with incident responses, Kennedy said.



He said the response to a fire at a small home is much different than the response to a fire on the sixth floor of a hospital or in one of the high-rises in the downtown area.



"So that is a big part that the accreditation team wants to see that we're able to pivot as a community and as an organization to how are we addressing those low hazards -- the single-family house fire -- versus a high hazard and providing the appropriate response," he said.



As the accreditation process moves along, Kennedy said, the issue will come back to council for input and feedback.



28 ways to improve Ann Arbor Fire Department included in new strategic plan

"One of the issues with the standards of cover is how quickly we can get to our service area and we try to have that as standard as possible," Kennedy said, adding the department needs to be mindful of new developments, population densities and high-hazard areas, including where there are taller buildings.



From there, Kennedy said, the city will need to determine where longterm it might want to relocate fire stations.



He said Stations 3 on the west side of the city and Station 4 in southeast Ann Arbor are both approaching 60 years old, which he said is probably the end of their life.



"So do we relocate them at their current location? Do we look at adjusting them? That is all part of that accreditation and that is also all part of how we kind of move forward to be the most effective fire service we can for our city," Kennedy said.



The department has mapped the locations of fires, medical calls and population densities in relation to existing fire stations.



Kennedy said the fire locations show the current station distribution is "somewhat on par" with where it should be.



For medical calls, Kennedy noted there's a heavy cluster in the center of the city.



"When we run up with the stacking of incidents, especially when we're running one company downtown out of Station 1 and they're responding to the city core center, and then that second due unit is coming from one of the out stations, that then is increasing that response time," he said, adding that gets to the question of how the department can be more nimble.



Kennedy said that might involve using "high-response units" that aren't on 24/7, just during peak times and perhaps seasonally when University of Michigan students are in town.



"So just station locations may or may not be the main driver," he said. "We may be able to be more flexible in some of our deployment modes to make that happen."



Kennedy said the department's decisions will be data driven, looking at what changes in staffing models and station locations might do.



Lazarus said the university will be a stakeholder in this process. In terms of the number of emergency medical service calls in the downtown area, he said, a lot of that has to do with the student population. He said maybe the answer there is to have a smaller fire station with an EMS-equipped unit, or maybe EMS-equipped units out in areas where and when data shows they're needed.



"But as we look at where firehouses are going to be located or if they're going to be renovated, we need to make sure that our residents are comfortable with the degree of protection they're going to have, and we also need to marry that up against cost of service," he said, indicating there will be more community engagement.



Lazarus told council members the city still has a structural imbalance in its budget. He said revenues are projected to grow at an annual rate of 1.6 percent while expenses grow 2.6 percent, and 65 percent of the costs are personnel costs.



"So it's very hard to adjust those," Lazarus said. "A lot of them are governed by union contracts."



If the city doesn't take steps to close the gap, Lazarus said, there could be a $1.18 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2019-20 and $25 million by fiscal year 2034-35.



"Clearly we're not going to get there, because we have the requirement to balance the budget every year," Lazarus said.



"But there is the need to start taking turns now that will keep us from going over the cliff in the future."



Lazarus cited figures indicating public safety accounts for more than half the city's $76.2 million in recurring general fund expenses, with police and fire costs around $42.5 million this year.



"It makes up a pretty substantial portion of our general fund," he said, indicating most of that is in salaries.



The city has roughly 740 full-time employees, including 236 in the area of public safety. Those 236 employees represent about 62 percent of the city's 382 full-time employees funded by the general fund, which is separate from, for instance, the water and sewer funds.



"So police and fire do make up a substantial portion, both in terms of FTEs and cost," Lazarus said.