Fire Department - 5-26-23 City Council Strategic Planning Workshop

[0:00:00] first slide up there is the mission statement of the fire department I think it's important for us to truly focus on what we're here for and I routinely look at this and it gives us guidance and Direction while we're here uh first slide is basically just our call volume some statistics uh fire calls last year 2022 4700 calls of service for fire fire only and then 12 200 EMS calls public education this aspect I'm actually really proud of because we're directly feeding back into our community we're giving our community the tools for them to help themselves and help their neighbors we delivered over 30 stop to bleed presentations to our community and delivered 40 CPR certification classes to our community as well and put those together that's more than one class a week very busy in this program educating our community to help themselves the next few slides are going to be a report on some projects that we've had over over the last year that we're kind of closing down engine three and engine fives are set to go into production on the first of July we purchased these over 15 months ago and they're just now going into production with a completion date of September and hopefully these vehicles will be in full service prior to the end of this year we also implemented a health and fitness initiative and this is a a fitness initiative that we kind of modeled after the Texas DPS and this plan is a 100 meter road test and each individual's time is based on their age their gender and then also their weight so our goal for every member of our department is to have a 50 percent VO2 max and what's a VO2 max right so basically a VO2 max is the efficiency that your body consumes O2 oxygen and then how your body translates that and uses that oxygen to convert it to energy

[0:02:03] so the higher your VO2 max the more efficient and the more athletic you are so National about 35 to 40 is the national VO2 max but for elite athletes Like Chief Carter and myself 85 to 90 is a good figure city council what would that number I just 35 to 40 is average now keep in mind we said the we said our minimum standard for our department at 50 okay national average for male is 35 to 40. so we also mandated a daily PT program every day of firefighters on shift they're required to participate in some sort of PT activity so um yearly we did a road test to evaluate the performance of our personnel and we had 100 participation in this road test and 2021 94 of our department met that 50 standard in 2022 96 met that 50 standard and we've got a goal in 2023 of 98 percent and yes we do have several of our members that are 85 all the way up to 100 and I gave that figure of the lead athletes or above 85. we have a lot of really good athletes in our department a lot of a lot of folks in great shape so so we've also increased our tiffness capabilities last year we had one Strike team leader trainee that person is now a full-fledged Strike team leader and out on the Wildland incident scene this person would be in charge of five units with three to four Personnel on in on each unit so pretty much in charge of the entire incident so that is a very high ranking position in the in the Wildland world we also maintained seven engine bosses and 40 Deployable team members and we've maintained our Rim team which is rapid extrication module and with these Tiff Miss that's Texas interest intrastate fire Mutual Aid

[0:04:07] System I forgot to tell you all that but anyways on this Rim team there's only about three of these teams across the entire State and at a certain level of incident they're required to have a rem team Deploy on this so we actually went on one Rim team deployment last year some of our other deployments we had five Wildland deployments we also had four Wildland paramedic deployments as were a paramedic respond with a four-wheel drive vehicle or an ambulance unit and uh they're there for the firefighters on the fire line Wildland event is a true wildfire that our guys are out there working on different communities across the state of Texas and then also border support we have an engine staged to protect a prison um and that and that program has been continual up into this point [Music] so down in the Border support we have eight people that rotate day shift and night shift 12 hour shifts and uh they'll be they're there for two weeks at a time and then they rotate back here yeah is the city compensated for the absolutely it's zero costs for the city our overtime that the members that are deployed make the overtime for the backfield to fill those positions at home and we are also compensated for that for our units that are deployed so a type 1 engine receives 70 no receives 81 dollars an hour when it's on deployment so my next slide I was going to come back to this well it was mentioned earlier which one of these programs not necessarily in my department but which one of these programs has the highest possibility of generating Revenue I've got two different programs where a fire department doesn't necessarily generate Revenue it's a service for our community well we have found a way to generate Revenue in multiple different aspects our training center being one of those and being members of this stiffness program also another ability to generate Revenue

[0:06:10] because of the classes you held yes ma'am for all the certifications you can't just jump into the Tiff Miss World um let me back up one so the way the progression starts is these Deployable members they're called firefighters one and two you have to open a task book for that Rank and it you have to spend hundreds of hours completing that task book you actually have to go on deployment so you were a you're a firefighter trainee first and you have to do that for a period of time and then you'll open up a engine boss task book same thing you have to do Pac testing that pack test is where it's a physical fitness test that shows that you can make it on an actual Wildfire event you have to take certification courses from the Texas Forest Service there is a whole lot to go into each one of these ranks that's why as you see it tears up there's less and less people that are at those higher ranks so a lot goes into it and it should it keeps people safe this is a yet I thank you back to council our bunker gear project if y'all remember last year y'all approved for this project to be fully funded we now have two complete firefighter ensembles for every member of the fire department we've also installed a bunker gear dryer at every fire station and then also an extractor which is a firefighter bunker gear washing machine it is a um Special Machine to pull the pull the liquid out of the fibers of the bunker gear without destroying them so but thank you Council for fully funding this and this program is closed down now Training Center uh this is a program that I I just got finished telling you I'm really excited about and actually really proud of the success we had last year we hosted two Regional area schools for our local volunteer community we just finished one up last month it was

[0:08:13] in the vehicle Tech 2 extrication class and some of those pictures are actually on this slide and by the fall of 2024 we will be offering our our first basic fire academy to outside students we talk about generating Revenue if we allow outside students to come into our Academy they will pay for us to do that okay we are already teaching our students so it doesn't cost us any more to teach one or two or three or five more students but we have the benefit of generating a little bit of revenue for that service um what's the revenue so that question's kind of still up in the air because some of these other departments or some of these other educational facilities offer 100 online course at a extremely reduced price because they get reimbursements about back from the state to offer that fire academy well with us doing face to face we haven't quite decided on exactly what the tuition would be per student somewhere between 2500 to 5 000 per student with the potential of having 20 to 30 students per class yeah no that's too much not until I get my training center additional classroom that's what I mean by busting at the seams we could probably realistically do 15 to 20 fire students at one time and if you have 20 of those students outside there's a potential for a large amount of Revenue can't make any promises because we're not there yet So currently what do you have for Revenue building how much revenue have we generated well the fall of 24 will be the first outside class for the fire academy the other trainings that you have done oh okay so like that vehicle extrication class we had 20 students from the outside the area and they um the cost for the course was 4 400 a student and of course we have some overhead costs overtime for my Personnel food costs for the students and uh just

[0:10:17] some general operating expenses where we netted about six thousand dollars for the course over a three day weekend we made it netted about six thousand dollars well I have a huge need out of the training academy and no way to fund that need which is to put up a fence around the property well I don't think six thousand dollars is going to be able to cover a fence to surround the property but it's going to certainly take care of six thousand dollars of that expense so found an additional six thousand dollars to help us with that budgetary problem that we have no even not to mention heads and beds people staying here oh absolutely we brought we bought uh um people from outside of our community I'm all the way down from South Texas down by Houston we had students from all the way down there had a couple out of the Panhandle so not the food restaurants so um the next point on here that we acquired an aircraft prop one of the goals that I had last year was to acquire an aircraft prop and this just kind of fell in our lap um and it cost us next to nothing it's you know this is a firefighter prop that is plumbed with propane and it's all rudimentary steel and it kind of looks like an aircraft and right now we have the prop now we just got to find the funding to put it into put it into place and the very next item that we purchased in American Airlines aircraft that one truly did fall in our laps we were reached out to by a carrier that wanted to sell us this aircraft for about thirty five thousand well do some negotiations one way to another we ended up getting it delivered for less than six thousand dollars so what what would we use an airplane for I I don't have a pilot's license I'm not going to be flying back and forth this this aircraft was decommissioned Wings taken off of it it is used for uh our aircraft rescue firefighting training for search and rescue within the fuselage it's one of

[0:12:19] the objectives of getting that certification that we have to have for our aircraft personnel so a lot of really exciting things going on at the training academy uh looking forward to the growth and the expansion of the services provided out there we've got a lot of great people out there and they're motivated to make this successful okay so my next slide sorry so my next slide this is a coverage map of San Angelo and uh you recognize the red line is the city limits within the city and each one of the blue circles is a three mile diameter circle and the center point is a fire station and you can look for the most part the city of San Angelo has got pretty decent coverage with fire stations with one fairly glaring exception um right right there okay that is south of town right on Grand Canal and what's important about this is that area is more than five road miles from the closest fire station so fire stations fire station why won't this thing move okay so fire station Seven which is just immediately North to that area fire station four which is northeast of that area out on chadburn of the North or South Gate of Goodfellow Air Force Base and then Fire Station 8 which is out by the airport which is uh Southwest of that area each one of those stations is greater than five road miles from this area and more importantly the closest fire station is more than seven seven minute response so this next video it's actually a video that was put together for by underwriter Laboratories and it was based on some research from

[0:14:21] the fire service research institute and the video illustrates there's like a play button at the bottom I was worried this would have oh did you see it a little play button okay so uh what this video illustrates is a it's a comparison of two separate rooms and in these two rooms you have a legacy room which basically is furniture that is pre-1950s heavy wood cotton fiber burns slow does not burn very hot and on the right side of this video you're going to see what is a modern room okay basically what we encounter today day to day both of these fires are started at the exact same time with the same size Flame and what you're going to see is initially the natural fibers the the Legacy room is going to start and it's going to start to burn real fast if I want y'all to pay attention to the Smoke production because that is what is lethal on side of Fire smoke production in that time counter now this is time lapsed and it has picked up this the speed of the time but the the two minute timeline that is the actual real time it's just sped up so we don't have to sit here for 20 minutes to watch a video so at the two and a half minute Mark you've got heavy smoke production in the top of the the right the right room within three minutes you had lethal amounts of smoke in the top of the room this is still survivable this is still occupy people could still occupy this space but in a very short time a fire doubles in size every minute I'm glad I have all natural response I will tell you that if you've replaced your carpet in the last 50 years or replaced your uh drapes in the last 50 years or your couch in the last

[0:16:24] 50 years you have the the modern you do have the modern Furnishings okay and they're heavy plastic lighting they're full of carcinogens they're full of star or Foams polyurethanes polystyrenes and they they burn at twice the rate as natural natural fibers the reason why I selected this video is the important note of time to flash over flashover is an unsurvivable condition that's when everything within that space instantly catches on fire and I don't know if y'all were y'all saw in that video where there's a point where a bunch of stuff was on fire and then everything was on fire that's flashover it's unsurvivable for occupants and it's also unsurvivable for firefighter and turnout gear that we are protected what was the time on that that flashover four minutes 50 seconds what's the closest fire station to that neighborhood that I just showed you but on the other neighborhoods you know we got it at seven minutes five miles right but and for example at the one at the top very top North and then to the east what would be the East to me on this it could be to the West on you are you referring up here up up there over over to the right to my right right in here yes ma'am that's the time frame in there so that Circle that is a three mile rate uh it's actually a half mile and a half radius it's a three mile diameter thank you Tina sure you're talking about that further north and then to the right well I will tell you a a consultant did a comparison for the entire city of San Angelo and there is only one neighborhood that's greater than five road miles away from a fire station and that's that southern district that I showed you and I want to know what it is in this upper corner because it looks like a lot of space and room and it would look like it would be greater than five miles based off of this diagram in that diagram

[0:18:26] well that's a month so from the center of that dot to the edge of that blue line that's a mile and a half so from the center of that dot is where the fire station is located straight out the radius of that is a mile and a half and what makes it so difficult down here on the south sector of town is in station eight is actually fairly close but the lake is right between them and that neighborhood so they have to go all the way around South Concho Drive remember it's five road miles okay now when you ever go a little bit north for station five seven and station four which is directly north and north east on chadburn they have a fairly fairly straight shot to that neighborhood except it's just that far away so Southgate Church of Christ is actually right off of that 277 interchange right there that is within five miles okay but as you come around Grand Canal and go over into that Pinehurst and the Country Club Lake Estates area and the brand new subdivision that was added on onto Ratliff Road those are outside that Five Mile five roads according to this map it is not but we just add next that in about four months ago five months ago it has not been that long since we annexed Ratliff Odin that whole development my btj but it's not animals yeah we did they added somewhere around 230 homes are being constructed out there on the south side of grand canal and all that area has been annexed and it's seven and a half minute response time for our closest unit so that's the takeaways from that video unsurvivable conditions after four and a half minutes or four minutes and 50 seconds and um we're by the time we arrive on scene we're significantly behind the power curve and we're set up for failure at that point and if there is a fire in that area it's going to be a defensive

[0:20:29] fire because the fire will have a stronghold on that property and interior offensive operations won't be um oh I'm sorry interior no I'm fine smoke from the video I told you it was bad so uh interior operations will not be feasible at that point when arrival and sing so we do absolutely need a ninth fire station in the southern district of San Angelo oh come on okay good so let's focus on 2024 some of the things that uh are high on the priority uh is fire after fire apparatus Capital allocation and I touched on that when we were going over CIP uh last year I spoke on on this subject regarding how we receive about 250 we received 250 000 a year for Capital allocation we cash flow all of our apparatus to avoid any kind of a lending borrowing fees um I just received a quote for a new fire engine and it is just a touch over eight hundred thousand dollars for just a regular fire engine and uh with an allocation of 25 or 250 000 it's going to take greater than three years to play replace one truck we have 10 vehicles in our Fleet it will take 30 years to completely replace our Fleet so National Fire Protection Agency recommends a 10-year replacement period but we have pushed that why because we have a fairly robust maintenance program and we also have a reduction in call volume so we can afford to push that out to 15 years but we can't afford to push it out to 30 years I don't know anybody in the room that wants a 30 year old fire truck showing up to the house right and we have four of them we have four 30-year-old vehicles in our Fleet and I'm hoping by the end of this year I can sell those off and replace them hoping to

[0:22:32] so again that figure needs to honestly if 250 000 produces 30-year if you double that figure you'll reduce the 30-year to a 15. so we realistically need that figure to be 500 to 550. so I know funding's tough but if we don't take steps now we're going to be in a real bind Zone so another thing I'd like to see is secure the funding to be to begin a health and wellness initiative and more healthy are you going to get them we are athletes is what we are so what I mean by that more specifically is not a health and wellness initiative but to take care of our own technology has increased so much in the last 10 years there is now a a test that a person a firefighter can take where they can detect cancer in its very early stages so firefighters are nine times more likely to develop cancer and 14 times more likely to die from cancer than an average citizen why because of all the carcinogens that we encounter in our day-to-day lives the pfos they're in the firefighter Foams the pfases that are in our bunker gear that we put on our bodies every day we go to work we have we have the technology to test for cancer at its early stages and y'all all know Chief done he was lucky he caught his cancer at stage two but he was stage two he's a survivor of cancer because of that if we can catch one person if we can catch one cancer in its early stages it'll pay for this entire program so how much does it cost body scans are 500 per person 60 people 60 people per year 60 people per year that came through it's thirty thousand dollars annually we have 180 personnel and a three year period every single member of this department will have a cancerous treatment and then you repeat the process and you repeat the process um

[0:24:34] so that's that's a huge initiative that I would say I'd love to see happen I know we've asked for it for multiple years in a row I would really love to see that happen this year um a big one that I just covered was the choir of the land for fire station number nine my goal for fire station number nine is to have it ribbon cutting ceremony five years from now that's our Target five years to have that station purchased built and moved into in five years and I know it takes a lot of time it takes a lot of money step one is to get the land and I'm actively working on securing that land uh secure the funding for the training center expansion I I kind of told you that we are busting at the seams I want to expand into offering EMS out there currently we uh we partner up with Howard College and we have to use Howard College's uh Howard College's lab I don't have a lab that fired over the training academy um I want to run fire and EMS simultaneously so I can potentially shorten my recruit Academy or I can have one group of recruits going through fire school and another group of recruits going through EMS schools so I overlapped my academies so I've reduced that 15-month turnaround time down to about 12 month turnaround time so and that's in training so that's all I have if y'all have any questions I'll be more than happy to answer any mom Patrick yes sir when you take these old units out is there any residual value to them no and you wouldn't talk panties on the dollar that's even a joke so ladder ladder seven if y'all remember about three years ago we replaced that ladder seven with the new aerial beautiful truck by the way thank you all um we took ladder seven put it through the auction um we got twenty five hundred dollars for that truck at the auction the aluminum in the ladder was worth more than twenty five hundred dollars the engine even if the engine had to be rebuilt it was worth 20 more than twenty five hundred dollars but we're we're kind of bound by sending it through auction I have looked

[0:26:36] into a couple options firefighter truck options but still it's Pennies on the dollar I checked with our um one of the vendors do you all take trade-ins yes well how much would you give me for a 1992 Pierce Dash because that's what I have he goes about 2500. I guess everything's worth twenty five hundred dollars I don't know there's a point of you know law of diminishing returns it's kind of like training truck do you want to ride it all the way to the end or do when you get four gears on them do you want to spin them when you still get half your headquarter yeah I mean those are things we need to look at and analyze it's obvious that you're going to need some help try to get back up and getting compliance on her just it's one of those things we we don't have a lot of wiggle room with compromising safety and we and we understand that but I was just trying to get a picture on what you need and quick and so until sooner or later I told you next week that I was going to come to council with a recommendation to move forward with the purchase of another engine well talk about Revenue generation engine 8 I'm bringing out bringing to council for y'all because we were not in a position to purchase engine eight engine eight is a 17 year old unit okay it is due for replacement and I didn't have the money last year Council was gracious enough Finance was gracious enough to throw an extra 200 000 into my Capital allocation I still don't have enough money but because of the participation in the tiffness program we're able to buy that truck two years ahead of schedule that is huge for our taxpayers huge for city council that relieved the burden of two more years of us waiting for that vehicle because already two years out of date now I would love to be able to count on that Tiff Miss money every single year but if you look outside it's rainy it's cool and nothing's burning so I I can't count on Tiff Miss money year after year after year and that's why I talked to you all about

[0:28:37] I need that guaranteed Capital allocation because that tiffness is not always going to be there to bail us out but yes sir Tom no thank you sir any other questions Manpower so we're good for now but in the very short time so in March I hired six personnel and I hired six above my Manning I had 180 people and I hired six additional people I'm also no let me correct myself I had 178 people and I had six additional people so I'm six over why because I've had four people drop their papers in the last week so one one person retired and I had one person turned in as a retirement paperwork and three people quit to seek employment other places completely away from the fire fire department that one hurts it's one thing to leave the fire department to go somewhere else and make more money with the fire department because this is our passion and our dream and our life but to give it up to go to another industry entirely tells me it was about one thing pay pay and schedule and that's a tough thing for me to hear yeah and risk absolutely so um by September this year I'll be back to even and I still have an active list I intend on hiring off of that list because it takes 12 to 14 months to get these recruits to the academy I'm going to offer another test from what I understand we already have 30 people signed up for the next test actually my recruiter is sitting right back there and he does a fantastic job giving me applicants so anyways we we've had more applicants in the last two years on not more than what we've had in the previous years but what we have seen is a slight increase in applicants showing up to the test why because we're showing up to the schools for um

[0:30:40] career day where blasting social media Brian Groves is helping us out with making a video and we're blowing up social media with San Angelo Fire Department is hiring where we took out Google ads we're showing up to the mall we're doing a bunch of these PR events where people see us especially at the schools because that is our future is those young people in high school and Junior High we are doing a lot of PR events where we're getting our name out there so I think that's why in the last couple years we've seen a slight increase in um right a recruitment of a personnel and this last group we had a lot of very very qualified applicants and I was very pleased with it any other questions you're welcome

Captured 2026-07-26 · source: youtube.com/watch?v=rMgdKKtCQUA