San Anselmo City Council
October 24, 2023

ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 2
off-duty personnel and volunteer firefighters provided some operational relief to the Department's two-person engine companies. This model was less than ideal, creating a delayed and inconsistent response force. The Department’s Volunteer Program no longer exists due to lack of interest and most full-time personnel have moved away from the community we serve primarily due to high housing costs.

Community expectations of the Department have increased, and external factors have created challenges and demands that have put our Department at the forefront of mitigating complex and challenging emergency responses of all kinds. Examples include flooding; swift water rescue; violent encounters / active shooter response; a “new normal” of intensely destructive Wildland Urban Interface fires; and extension of wildland fire season from a few months (formerly) to potentially almost year round. These realities, particularly from the fire prevention and risk reduction standpoints, have led the Department to enhance our fire hazard and life safety inspections of businesses and residential apartment buildings.

The Department, with the help of funding through Measure C, has also increased our neighborhood defensible space efforts, working with communities to reduce fuels, improve emergency access and egress, and plan for potential evacuations. Since the Departments JPA was formed 41 years ago, the Department has hired two Fire Inspectors (JPA Funds) to increase service demands relating to fire prevention, one Emergency Preparedness Coordinator (Measure C funds) and one Defensible Space Coordinator (Measure C funds).

No additional firefighters have been hired to meet these increased operational demands of the Department’s engine company, as the minimum fire engine company staffing still remains at two-personnel.

In 2001, the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), a leader in the development of industry standards for the fire service, issued its first edition of the “Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments” known as NFPA 1710. The document identifies minimum staffing for fire engines along with identifying the number of personnel that shall be deployed to a structure fire.

In 2019, Citygate Associates conducted a comprehensive Standards of Coverage Assessment of the Department to provide a foundation for future fire service planning. The goal of this assessment was to identify both current services and desired service levels, and to assess the Department’s ability to provide them. This data-driven report strongly suggests that the RVFD should staff three-person engine companies.

At the January 2020 Board meeting, a “Staffing/Deployment'' side letter was approved to enhance the current “Labor Management Subcommittee” (subcommittee) with additional members. The sub committee's goal was ” how to increase staffing”.

The subcommittee held its first meeting on April 20, 2022. Discussion was held regarding the need to identify future funding if the Department was awarded its grant application for the 2021 “Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response” (SAFER) Grant. It was explained that the grant would provide funding for the first 36 months of the proposed Firefighter position (three Firefighters in total), however, on month 37, the member agencies would need to begin funding the position. Staff was given direction to provide an 205
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ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 2
ongoing cost estimate after the first 36 months and present it to the Board for discussion at the June 2022 Board meeting. Staff presented the cost estimate at the June 2022 Board meeting. No direction to Staff or action was taken other than for Staff to keep the Board informed on the SAFER grant application. Ultimately the SAFER Grant was not awarded to the Department. The Subcommittee has not met since, and there has been no further formal discussions at the Board level.

At the September 2023 Board Meeting, Staff recommended filling a vacancy in the Subcommittee and holding another Subcommittee meeting before the October 2023 Board meeting.

The Subcommittee met on October 5, 2023. A staff report was presented and a discussion was held regarding increased staffing to three-person engine companies. A motion was passed to bring a recommendation to the Board that included a funding plan and start date for the new firefighter position.

DISCUSSION:

When evaluating the need to increase staffing, this staff report will refer to the industry standard set forth by the National Fire Protection Association 1710. The Departments 2019 Standards Of Coverage Assessment will also be a guiding document as to how the Department compares to the standard. Below is a brief background of these documents and key points within them relating to the Department's current staffing.

National Fire Protection Association 1710 (NFPA 1710) - A U.S.-based international nonprofit organization devoted to eliminating death, injury, property, and economic loss due to fire. In 2001, the first edition of NFPA 1710 was issued. The development of that benchmark standard was the result of a considerable amount of hard work and tenacity by the technical committee members and the organizations they represented. This standard was the first organized approach to defining levels of service, deployment capabilities, and staffing levels for career fire departments. Research work and empirical studies in North America were used by the committee as a basis for developing response times and resource capabilities for those services, as identified by the fire department.

The following two NFPA 1710 industry standards will be referred to within this staff report:

NFPA 1710 ENGINE COMPANY STANDARDS

5.2.3.1.1 These companies shall be staffed with a minimum of four on-duty members (NFPA 1710 p.11)
NFPA 1710 INITIAL ALARM ASSIGNMENT STANDARDS

5.2.4.1.1 206
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(9) Single family Dwelling Initial Alarm Assignment Capability - Total effective response force with a minimum of 16 firefighters. (NFPA 1710 p.12)
*Initial Alarm Assignment = number of firefighters initially deployed to a structure fire 2019 Standards Of Coverage Assessment (2019 SOC) - In 2019, Citygate Associates conducted a comprehensive Standards of Coverage Assessment of the Department to provide a foundation for future fire service planning. The goal of this assessment was to identify both current services and desired service levels, and to assess the Department’s ability to provide them. Citygate utilized various NFPA and Insurance Services Office publications as best practice guidelines, along with the self-assessment criteria of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.

The following are recommendations, opinions and excerpts from the 2019 SOC that correlate with how the Department meets the NFPA 1710 industry standards:

Recommendation #3: Consider providing a third firefighter per day on the three engines other than Engine 18. (2019 SOC p.7)
Citygates Overall Opinion: “Citygate is, however, concerned about the overall limited Department staffing per day and its ability to respond with more “weight of attack*” to keep emerging serious emergencies controlled. Even Countywide mutual aid resources are not quickly available in this part of Marin County, as they would be in an urban area with flat terrain and interconnected roads.” (2019 SOC p.4)

2.5.1 Critical Firefighting Tasks: “Table 8 illustrates the critical tasks required to control a typical single-family dwelling fire with six response units (engines/chief), for a total Effective Response Force* of 16 personnel, where the Ross Valley Fire Department initially sends 12. A confirmed serious fire additionally receives a second Battalion Chief and a fourth engine raising this to 15 personnel. However, in many locations these additional units come from much farther away. These tasks are taken from typical fire departments’ operational procedures, which are consistent with the customary findings of other agencies using the Standards of Coverage process. No conditions exist to override the Occupational Safety and Health Administration two-in/two-out safety policy, which requires that firefighters enter Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health atmospheres, such as building fires, in teams of two, while two more firefighters are outside and immediately ready to rescue them should trouble arise.” (2019 SOC p.26)

2.5.3 Critical Task Analysis and Effective Response Force Size - A question one might ask is, “If fewer firefighters arrive, such as does occur in the Ross Valley Department, what from the list of tasks mentioned would not be completed?” This is also critical given the two firefighter staffing. The initial force is a smaller count as it takes the third and 207
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ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 2
fourth-due units much longer to arrive. Most likely, the search team would be delayed, as would ventilation. The attack lines would only consist of two firefighters, which does not allow for rapid movement of the hose line above the first floor in a multiple-story building. Rescue is conducted with at least two person teams. Thus, when rescue is essential, other tasks are not completed in a simultaneous, timely manner. Effective deployment is about the speed (travel time) and the weight* (number of firefighters) of the response. (2019 SOC p.30)
This staff report will also reference various field studies. *Weight of attack - refers to multiple-unit responses (Effective Response Force, or ERF, commonly also called a First Alarm) for more serious emergencies such as building fires, multiple-patient medical emergencies, vehicle collisions with extrication required, or technical rescue incidents.

The Department’s current response model relies on a two-person engine company consisting of a Captain and Engineer for emergency (including Emergency Medical Services EMS) and non-emergency response, for fire prevention efforts, to provide public education, and to perform every other task that is required for the Department to function at the highest level and meet the needs of the community. Unlike other Fire Departments, and the NFPA 1710 industry standard (5.2.3.1.1), the Department does not have a Firefighter position within our ranks. Rather, the roles and assignments that typically fall on a person in this position at the scene of an incident instead fall to the Engineer or Captain. Below are the typical duties of a Captain, Engineer and Firefighter at a structure fire incident:

TYPICAL DUTIES AT A STRUCTURE FIRE

CAPTAIN ENGINEER FIREFIGHTER
Engine Company Supervisor
Crew Safety Officer
In charge of crew
accountability
Makes decisions
quickly/accurately to limit
loss of life
Command’s emergency
situations until relieved
COORDINATES fire
Operates and pumps fire
engine at fire
Responsible for maintaining
and driving apparatus to
emergency incidents
Functions as a Firefighter
when assigned to other
functions on the fire when not
the pumping Engine
CONDUCTS fire
control/search and
rescue/ventilation/salvage/
Responsible for stretching
hose lines
Operating all tools and
equipment on the Engine used
for various types of
emergency fire and rescue
operations
CONDUCTS fire
control/search and
rescue/ventilation/salvage/
overhaul/ventilation
operations
Provides EMS care
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control/search and
rescue/ventilation/salvage/
overhaul/ventilation
operations,
Provides EMS care
overhaul/ventilation
operations
Provides EMS care
All of the above are critical life saving tasks that need to be accomplished on the fire ground. You will notice the compaction of responsibilities that our Engineers and Captains experience at every incident due to no Firefighter position. Functioning with a two-person engine company negatively impacts our safety, capacity, and operational effectiveness as noted in the 2019 SOC “Critical Task Analysis” mentioned above.

The following section identifies common engine company workloads and quantifies the difference between a two-person and three-person engine company through National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) field experiments. Even an increase in staffing on one of our four fire engines will have an immediate impact as seen below:

Structure Fire Fighting Impacts - As mentioned in the Departments 2019 SOC, one of the two contributing factors to an effective deployment model is weight (number of firefighters) of the response. The Department currently has 15 firefighters on its Initial Alarm Response, one less Firefighter than the industry standard. Increasing staffing on one fire engine per the “Staffing/Deployment” agreement will allow the Department to comply with the following NFPA 1710 standard:

NFPA 1710 5.2.4.1.1: (9) Single family Dwelling Initial Alarm Assignment Capability Total effective response force with a minimum of 16 firefighters. (NFPA 1710 p.12) Fire extinguishment and search/rescue operations are time critical and can be a matter of life or death. The following “National Institute of Standards and Technology Fireground Field Experiments” (NIST Fire) quantifies the time differences between two and three person engine companies. You will notice a faster “Hose Stretch” that equates to a more rapid fire extinguishment and a faster “Search/Rescue Start Time.” All that equates to an increased survivability rate for fire victims.

NIST FIREGROUND FIELD EXPERIMENTS
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Hose Stretch A two-person crew took 57 seconds longer than a threeperson crew to stretch a line. (NIST Fire p.38) Search/Rescue Start Time
The three-person crew started a primary search/rescue more than 25 % faster than the two-person crew.
(NIST Fire p.41)
Emergency Medical Care Impacts - Engine companies are usually the first on scene during Emergency Medical Service (EMS) calls. The following “National Institute of Standards and Technology EMS Field Experiments” (NIST EMS) quantifies the time differences between two and three person engine companies. Notice a three-person engine company provides faster “Patient Access” and a “Patient Removal “ start time. All that equates to improved medical care on routine EMS incidents.

PATIENT ACCESS
Two-person crews finished the patient access tasks approximately half a minute later than larger first responder crews.(NIST EMS p.33)
*(Note: Our two-person engine companies are sometimes tasked with carrying 94.6 lbs of medical equipment while gaining “patient access”.)

PATIENT REMOVAL
Two-person first responder crews completed patient removal between (1.2 – 1.5) minutes slower than larger crews, depending on crew size. This is largely the result of work load in carrying equipment, supplies and the patient with fewer crew members. (NIST EMS p.33) One of the most challenging EMS calls a firefighter responds too is a cardiac arrest (not breathing/no pulse). Providing efficient CPR is vital to reversing the effects of cardiac arrest and saving a life. Providing chest compressions, rescue breathing and operating a defibrillator are three core tasks that must take place simultaneously. A two-person engine company cannot perform these three tasks simultaneously. Additional fire engines from further away subsidize our two-person engine company, thus delaying efficient CPR by minutes, when seconds count.

The “Chain Of Survival'' identifies four factors that will increase the survivability rate of someone in cardiac arrest. Increasing to a three-person engine company will improve speed of patient access/patient removal, and allow the first engine company on scene to provide immediate CPR (chest compressions/rescue breathing) and defibrillation, resulting in an improved survivability rate within the community.
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CHAIN OF SURVIVAL

1. Early Access Patient Access

2. Early CPR Chest Compressions and rescue breathing are core CPR tasks

3. Early Defibrillation Core CPR task

4. Early Advanced Medical Care Part of Patient Removal
Physiological Effects - Reports on firefighter fatalities consistently document overexertion/overstrain as the leading cause of line-of-duty fatalities. There is strong epidemiological evidence that heavy physical exertion can trigger sudden cardiac events.

Therefore, information about the effect of crew size on physiological strain is very valuable.

Danger is increased for small crews because the stress of fire fighting keeps heart rates elevated beyond the maximum heart rate for the duration of a fire response. (NIST Fire pg 50)
Average Heart Rates
● Higher for members of small crews.
○ Particularly two-person crews.
● Higher heart rates were maintained for sustained time intervals.

CONCLUSION
The Department needs a paradigm shift to maintain effective operational readiness in this modern world. In order to meet all of these new demands, we need to increase our engine company staffing as soon as possible. The Department is currently the only department in Marin County that has two-person engine companies. Marin County fire agencies have a combined 31 staffed fire engines, 26 of which are staffed with three personnel. Of the remaining five engines not staffed with three personnel, four of those engines are the Departments.

It has been a long term goal of the Fire Board to make the transition to a three-person engine company. The “2022 Staffing/Deployment” Side Letter provides an opportunity for the Department to begin staffing its engines with one three-person engine company prior to July 1, 2025 if the Board so chooses. The remaining two engine companies will be staffed with three personnel after the closure of Station 18 on July 1. 2025. 211
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MEMBER AGENCY COSTS
The chart below represents a fully-burdened cost of three Firefighter Paramedic positions, taking into consideration the following: monthly salary/benefits were calculated using the Boards agreed (on 1/8/22) amounts from the Firefighter Paramedic “Side Letter Of Agreement” and salary schedule/benefits were adjusted to match the negotiated increase/benefit changes since 2020, overtime costs are based on the negotiated leave days (sick/vacation), and one time equipment costs are based on outfitting a Firefighter with protective clothing (one time equipment costs only included in 24/25 and 25/26).

COST BY MEMBER AGENCY
FY Fairfax Ross San Anselmo Sleepy Hollow
FPD
Percent Share 23.30% 23.37% 40.53% 12.80%
24/25 $147,262 $147,705 $256,161 $80,900
25/26 $156,034 $156,503 $271,420 $85,719
26/27 $164,114 $164,607 $285,473 $90,157

FUNDING OPTIONS
Option 1: Each Member agency will begin paying their respective “percentage share” from the position date of hire. (*This is the funding option chosen by the subcommittee) Option 2: Authorize one-time use from undesignated reserves to fund the first year from the position date of hire. Each Member agency will begin paying their respective “percentage share” after year one.

Option 3: Authorize one-time use from undesignated reserves to fund a phased approach using a combination of undesignated reserves and member agency respective “percentage share” for the first two years of the position. The Department would use undesignated reserves to pay the difference of the actual cost and the amount being billed to the member agencies. Member agencies would be charged 50% in year one, 75% in year 2, and 100% in year 3.(See chart below).
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OPTION 3: COST BY MEMBER AGENCY (PHASED APPROACH)
FY Fairfax Ross San
Anselmo
Sleepy
Hollow FPD
Reserve
Funds
Percent Share 23.30% 23.37% 40.53% 12.80%
24/25 (50%) $73,631 $73,852 $128,080 $40,450 $316,014
25/26 (75%) $117,026 $117,377 $203,565 $64,289 $167,419 26/27 (100%) $164,114 $164,607 $285,473 $90,157 $0
FISCAL IMPACT:

If the Board supports the subcommittees recommendation of a funding plan that entails “Option 1: Each Member agency will begin paying their respective “percentage share” from the position date of hire” and a start date of July 1, 2024 the fiscal impact would include a $632,028 increase to the FY 24/25 Budget.

ENCLOSED REFERENCES/ATTACHMENTS:

Ross Valley Fire Department 2022 Side Letter Staffing/Deployment Between Ross Valley Fire Department And Ross Valley Firefighters’ Association Local 1775.

Ross Valley Fire Department 2020 Side Letter of Agreement between the Ross Valley Fire Department and the Ross Valley Professional Firefighters’ IAFF Local 1775. (2019 SOC): Citygate Associates, LLC. 2019. Ross Valley Fire Department Standards of Coverage Assessment Volume 1 of 2: Technical Report.
(NIST Fireground): National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2010. Report Residential Fireground Field Experiments. 56.
(NIST EMS): National Institute of Standards and Technology. 2010. Report on EMS Field Experiments. 60.
(NFPA1710): National Fire Protection Association. 2020. NFPA 1710 Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments. 213
Side letter of Agreement between the Ross Valley Fire Department and the Ross Valley Professional Firefighters’ IAFF Local 1775 Whereas the Ross Valley Fire Department is in the process of analyzing facilities and staffing, the parties agree to the following:

1. The parties agree on the importance of maintaining filled positions to allow necessary time for entry level training prior to being placed on emergency apparatus. Additionally, parties agree on the importance of long-term planning for facilities and staffing that must be done in a collaborative and thoughtful way to ensure quality, sustainable services.

2. The parties agree to move forward with the creation of a Firefighter Paramedic position. Additionally, the parties agree to place on hold the Firefighter/Engineer Paramedic recruitment to allow a reasonable timeframe to work collaboratively on staffing options.

3. The parties agree that the Firefighter Paramedic position will be dissolved and incumbents holding those positions will be automatically transferred into the existing Firefighter/Engineer Paramedic position after successfully passing a probationary period or 12mos whichever is first if parties do not reach mutually agreeable terms related to position restructuring.

4. This agreement shall hereby be incorporated by this reference into the parties’ MOU.

5. The Firefighter Paramedic position will be entitled to the same benefits and provisions as others in the Ross Valley Firefighters’ Association according to the current MOU.

6. The monthly Salary for the Firefighter Paramedic position shall be:

Step A $7,986
Step B $8,385
Step C $8,805
ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 3

214
Ross Valley Fire Department
Ross Valley Fire Firefighters’
Association IAFF Local 1775
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
Ratified: IAFF Local 1775
By: ____________________________
Name:

Title:

Date

ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 4

215

SIDE LETTER

STAFFING I DEPLOYMENT

BETWEEN

ROSS VALLEY FIRE DEPARTMENT
AND
ROSS VALLEY FIREFIGHTERS' ASSOCIATION LOCAL 1775
The Ross Valley Fire Department (hereinafter Department) and the Ross Valley Firefighters' Association (hereinafter Association) have mutually agreed to the following:
• Upon the closure of Fire Station 18 located in Ross, California, scheduled for July 1, 2025, the six assigned personnel (three Fire Captains and three Firefighter Engineers) shall be moved West to increase staffing from two to three personnel at Fire Stations 19 and 21;
• The parties further agree the third person on each engine will be converted to a Firefighter Paramedic Position through attrition.
• Nothing in this letter agreement shall affect the minimum number of personnel required for daily staffing under the parties' MOU.
• The parties agree that the labor-management sub-committee will meet at minimum quarterly, beginning the first quarter of 2022, with the goal of determining how to also increase the staffing to three personnel at Fire Station 20 in Sleepy Hollow. This subcommittee will include at least one Association member representing labor, a Board member from each member agency, and the management committee.

If the foregoing is in_ accordance with your understanding, please sign below:

For the Department )
Date: o1 ( 10 l J,022-
Item 5f
Attachment # I

ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 4 Page 1 of 1
216
Ross Valley Fire Department
Ross Valley Fire Firefighters’
Association IAFF Local 1775
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
By:

Name:

Title:

Date
Ratified: IAFF Local 1775
By: ____________________________
Name:

Title:

Date

ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 4

185 217
•• rw1 •• CITYGftTf ftSS�ClftTfS, LLC
•• PUBLIC SAFETY SERVICES

STANDARDS OF COVERAGE

ASSESSMENT
VOLUME 1 OF 2: TECHNICAL REPORT

ROSS VALLEY

FIRE DEPARTMENT
SEPTEMBER 2019
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WWW.CITYGATEASSOCIATES.COM
600 COOLIDGE DR., STE. 150 PHONE: (916) 458-5100
FOLSOM, CA 95630 FAX: (916) 983-2090
ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 1 of 105
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Ross Valley Fire Department—Standards of Coverage Assessment Volume 1—Technical Report
Table of Contents page i

TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOLUME 1 of 2 – Technical Report (this volume)
Section Page
Executive Summary ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 Policy Choices Framework ......................................................................................................................... 1 Overall Summary of Current Ross Valley Fire Crew Deployment............................................................. 1 Citygate’s Overall Opinions ....................................................................................................................... 3 Deployment Key Findings and Recommendations ..................................................................................... 4 Next Steps ................................................................................................................................................... 8 Section 1—Introduction and Background ................................................................................................................. 9

1.1 Report Organization ........................................................................................................................ 9

1.1.1 Goals of the Report ........................................................................................................... 9

1.1.2 Limitations of Report ...................................................................................................... 10

1.2 Project Approach and Scope of Work ........................................................................................... 10

1.2.1 Project Approach and Research Methods ....................................................................... 10

1.2.2 Project Scope of Work .................................................................................................... 11

1.3 Communities Served Overview..................................................................................................... 11

1.4 Fire Department Overview ............................................................................................................ 13

1.4.1 Facilities and Resources .................................................................................................. 13 Section 2—Standards of Coverage Assessment ...................................................................................................... 15

2.1 Standards of Coverage Process Overview ..................................................................................... 15

2.2 Current Deployment ...................................................................................................................... 17

2.2.1 Current Deployment Model ............................................................................................ 19

2.3 Outcome Expectations................................................................................................................... 20

2.4 Community Risk Assessment ........................................................................................................ 23

2.4.1 Risk Assessment Methodology ....................................................................................... 23

2.4.2 Risk Assessment Summary ............................................................................................. 24

2.5 Critical Task Time Measures—What Must Be Done over What Time Frame to Achieve the Stated Outcome Expectation? ....................................................................................................... 25

2.5.1 Critical Firefighting Tasks .............................................................................................. 26

2.5.2 Critical Medical Emergency Tasks ................................................................................. 28

2.5.3 Critical Task Analysis and Effective Response Force Size ............................................ 29

2.6 Distribution and Concentration Studies—How the Location of First-Due and First Alarm Resources Affects Emergency Incident Outcomes ....................................................................... 31

2.6.1 Deployment Baselines .................................................................................................... 31

2.7 Statistical Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 34

2.7.1 Demand for Service ........................................................................................................ 34

2.7.2 Simultaneous Emergency Incident Activity .................................................................... 38

2.7.3 Operational Performance ................................................................................................ 40

2.7.4 Call Processing ............................................................................................................... 41

2.7.5 Turnout Time .................................................................................................................. 41

2.7.6 Travel Time ..................................................................................................................... 42

2.7.7 Call to Arrival ................................................................................................................. 44 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 3 of 105
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2.7.8 Effective Response Force (First Alarm) Concentration Measurements .......................... 45 Section 3—Town of Ross Focused Study ................................................................................................................. 47

3.1 Questions Regarding Station 18 .................................................................................................... 47

3.2 Impact if Fire Station 18 Closes .................................................................................................... 54 Section 4—Overall Evaluation ................................................................................................................................. 59

4.1 Deployment Recommendations .................................................................................................... 60 Appendix A—Risk Assessment ................................................................................................................................ 65 A.1 Community Risk Assessment ........................................................................................................ 65 A.1.1 Risk Assessment Methodology ....................................................................................... 65 A.1.2 Risk Assessment Summary ............................................................................................. 66 A.1.3 Planning Zones ............................................................................................................... 67 A.1.4 Values at Risk to Be Protected ........................................................................................ 68 A.1.5 Hazard Identification ...................................................................................................... 72 A.1.6 Service Capacity ............................................................................................................. 74 A.1.7 Probability of Occurrence ............................................................................................... 75 A.1.8 Impact Severity ............................................................................................................... 76 A.1.9 Overall Risk .................................................................................................................... 77 A.1.10 Building Fire Risk ........................................................................................................... 78 A.1.11 Vegetation Fire Risk ....................................................................................................... 81 A.1.12 Medical Emergency Risk ................................................................................................ 88 A.1.13 Hazardous Material Risk ................................................................................................. 91 A.1.14 Technical Rescue Risk .................................................................................................... 94 Table of Tables
Table 1—Call to Arrival Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents (Taken from Table 16) .................... 2 Table 2—Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents (Taken from Table 15) ........................ 3 Table 3—Fire Department Facilities and Assigned Resources .................................................................................... 13 Table 4—Standards of Coverage Process Elements .................................................................................................... 16 Table 5—Fire Service Deployment Paradigm ............................................................................................................. 17 Table 6—Response Plan by Incident Type .................................................................................................................. 20 Table 7—Overall Risk by Hazard ............................................................................................................................... 25 Table 8—First Alarm Residential Fire Critical Tasks – 16 Personnel ......................................................................... 27 Table 9—Cardiac Arrest Critical Tasks – Three Engine Personnel + Two Personnel ALS Ambulance ..................... 29 Table 10—Incidents: Quantity by Incident Type – 2018 ............................................................................................ 37 Table 11—Incidents: Quantity by Property Use – 2018 .............................................................................................. 38 Table 12—Percentage by Number of Simultaneous Emergency Incidents ................................................................. 39 Table 13—Call Processing Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents .................................................... 41 Table 14—Turnout Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents....................................................... 42 Table 15—Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents ......................................................... 43 Table 16—Call to Arrival Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents...................................................... 44 Table 17—Distribution – Structure Fire Initial Response – Fourth-Due Unit Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents ......................................................................................................................... 45 Table 18—Incidents: Quantity – Year by Incident Type for Station 18 – 2017 and 2018 .......................................... 48 Table 19—Station 18 Response Times to All Calls at 90 Percent Compliance........................................................... 50 Table 20—Responses by Vehicle ID – 2017 and 2018 ............................................................................................... 52 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 4 of 105
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Table 21—EMS Responses by Station 18 Apparatus by Destination Station Area .................................................... 52 Table 22—Station 19 Response Times to All Calls at 90 Percent Compliance........................................................... 54 Table 23—Distribution Travel Time Analysis of Fire and EMS Responses from 01/01/17 to 12/31/18 .................... 55 Table 24—Overall Risk by Hazard ............................................................................................................................. 67 Table 25—Key Demographic Data – Ross Valley Fire Department ........................................................................... 69 Table 26—High Risk Building Occupancy Inventory by Risk Category .................................................................... 71 Table 27—High Risk Occupancy Inventory by Planning Zone .................................................................................. 71 Table 28—Marin County Hazards ............................................................................................................................... 73 Table 29—Probability of Occurrence Scoring Criteria ............................................................................................... 76 Table 30—Impact Severity Scoring Criteria ............................................................................................................... 77 Table 31—Overall Risk Score and Rating................................................................................................................... 78 Table 32—Building Fire Service Demand .................................................................................................................. 80 Table 33—Building Fire Probability Scoring .............................................................................................................. 80 Table 34—Building Fire Impact Severity Scoring ...................................................................................................... 81 Table 35—Overall Building Fire Risk......................................................................................................................... 81 Table 36—Vegetation Fire Service Demand ............................................................................................................... 87 Table 37—Vegetation Fire Probability Scoring .......................................................................................................... 88 Table 38—Vegetation Fire Impact Severity Scoring ................................................................................................... 88 Table 39—Overall Vegetation Fire Risk ..................................................................................................................... 88 Table 40—Medical Emergency Service Demand ........................................................................................................ 90 Table 41—Medical Emergency Probability Scoring ................................................................................................... 91 Table 42—Medical Emergency Impact Severity Scoring ........................................................................................... 91 Table 43—Overall Medical Emergency Risk .............................................................................................................. 91 Table 44—Hazardous Material Service Demand ........................................................................................................ 93 Table 45—Hazardous Material Probability Scoring .................................................................................................... 93 Table 46—Hazardous Material Impact Severity Scoring ............................................................................................ 94 Table 47—Overall Hazardous Material Risk .............................................................................................................. 94 Table 48—Technical Rescue Service Demand ............................................................................................................ 98 Table 49—Technical Rescue Probability Scoring ....................................................................................................... 98 Table 50—Technical Rescue Impact Severity Scoring ............................................................................................... 98 Table 51—Overall Technical Rescue Risk .................................................................................................................. 99 Table of Figures
Figure 1—Fire Station Districts and General Geography ............................................................................................ 12 Figure 2—Fractile versus Average Response Time Measurements ............................................................................ 21 Figure 3—Overall Risk ............................................................................................................................................... 24 Figure 4—Annual Service Demand by Year ............................................................................................................... 35 Figure 5—Number of Incidents by Year – All Incident Types ................................................................................... 35 Figure 6—Service Demand by Hour of Day and Year ................................................................................................ 36 Figure 7—Number of Incidents by Station – 2018 ...................................................................................................... 37 Figure 8—Number of Simultaneous Incidents by Year............................................................................................... 39 Figure 9—Number of Single-Station Simultaneous Incidents by Station by Year ...................................................... 40 Figure 10—Fractile for Incidents Turnout (CAD) ....................................................................................................... 42 Figure 11—Fractile for Incidents Travel (CAD) ......................................................................................................... 43 Figure 12—Fractile for Incidents Call to First Arrival ................................................................................................ 44 Figure 13—Number of Incidents by Year by Incident Type – Station 18 ................................................................... 48 Figure 14—90 Percent Response Times by Distance for All Department Stations ..................................................... 51 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 5 of 105
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Figure 15—Overall Risk ............................................................................................................................................. 66 Figure 16—Risk Planning Zones ................................................................................................................................. 68 Figure 17—Commission on Fire Accreditation International Hazard Categories ....................................................... 74 Figure 18—Building Fire Progression Timeline ......................................................................................................... 79 Figure 19—SRA Wildland Fire Hazard Severity Zones – Marin County ................................................................... 82 Figure 20—Wildland Fire Hazard Map ....................................................................................................................... 83 Figure 21—Areas of Wildfire Concern – Marin County CWPP ................................................................................. 84 Figure 22—Marin County Wildfire History ................................................................................................................ 86 Figure 23—Survival Rate versus Time to Defibrillation ............................................................................................. 89 Figure 24—Earthquake Faults ..................................................................................................................................... 96 Figure 25—Flood Hazard Areas .................................................................................................................................. 97 VOLUME 2 of 2 – Map Atlas (separately bound)
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The Ross Valley Fire Department (Department) is a consolidated department protecting lives, property, and the environments of Ross, San Anselmo, Sleepy Hollow, and Fairfax. The Department retained Citygate Associates, LLC (Citygate) to conduct a comprehensive Standards of Coverage (SOC) assessment to provide a foundation for future fire service planning. The goal of this assessment is to identify both current services and desired service levels, and then to assess the Department’s ability to provide them. As part of this study, the Town of Ross (Town) requested an analysis of the impact on the current level of services if the fire engine in the Town was relocated, and alternatively, the fire engine and ambulance were relocated from their present location in the Town. After understanding any possible gaps in operations and resources, Citygate has provided recommendations to improve Department operations and services over time.

This assessment is presented in several parts, including this Executive Summary outlining the most significant findings and recommendations; the fire station/crew deployment analysis supported by maps and response statistics; and an assessment of specific fire crew deployment choices for the Town of Ross. A separate Map Atlas (Volume 2) contains all the maps referenced throughout this report. Overall, there are 18 findings and 3 specific action recommendations.

POLICY CHOICES FRAMEWORK
There are no mandatory federal or state regulations directing the level of fire service staffing, response times, or outcomes. Thus, the level of fire protection services provided are a local policy decision and communities have the level of fire services that they can afford, which may not always be the level desired. However, if services are provided at all, local, state, and federal regulations relating to firefighter and citizen safety must be followed.

OVERALL SUMMARY OF CURRENT ROSS VALLEY FIRE CREW DEPLOYMENT Citygate finds that that the Department is well organized being a partnership of several agencies to accomplish its mission to serve a suburban population in a municipal land-use pattern although in hilly terrain with few cross-connecting roads aside from the main roads on the valley floor. The Department serves mostly residential and small downtown populations with a mixed land-use pattern typical of Marin County communities. The small towns and the road to West Marin attract a high number of visitors that also must be protected. However, the hilly geography and the limited road network, which is dependent on one main connector road, makes the area very difficult to serve efficiently from a small number of fire stations.

Fire service deployment, simply stated, is about the speed and weight of the response. Speed refers to initial response (first-due) of all-risk intervention resources (engines, trucks, and/or ambulances) strategically deployed across a jurisdiction for response to emergencies within a time interval to ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 7 of 105
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achieve desired outcomes. Weight refers to multiple-unit responses (Effective Response Force, or ERF, commonly also called a First Alarm) for more serious emergencies such as building fires, multiple-patient medical emergencies, vehicle collisions with extrication required, or technical rescue incidents. In these situations, a sufficient number of firefighters must be assembled within a reasonable time interval to safely control the emergency and prevent it from escalating into a more serious event.

Most suburban communities desire outcomes to include limiting building fire damage to only part of the inside of an affected building and/or minimizing permanent impairment resulting from a medical emergency. To do so, the initial units should arrive within 7:30 minutes from 9-1-1 notification and a multiple-unit ERF should arrive within 11:30 minutes of 9-1-1 notification at the Marin County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center (Comm Center), all at 90 percent or better reliability.

Total response time to emergency incidents includes three distinct components: (1) 9-1-1 call processing/dispatch time; (2) crew turnout time; and (3) travel time. Recommended best practices for these response components are 1:30 minutes, 2:00 minutes, and 4:00/8:00 minutes respectively for first-due and multiple-unit ERF responses in urban/suburban areas.

In the Department, the current fire station system provides the following first-due unit response time performance across a variety of population density/risk areas for emergency medical and fire incident types. As Table 1 shows, all station areas receive service longer than a best practices goal point of 7:30 minutes.

Table 1—Call to Arrival Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents (Taken from Table 16)
Station Area 2018
Department-Wide 08:45
Station 18 07:55
Station 19 07:45
Station 20 08:47
Station 21 09:07
The Department’s dispatch times are excellent. Crew turnout times need modest improvement.

The times in Table 1 do, however, reflect a longer travel time slower than an urban/suburban preferred 4:00 minutes for 90 percent of the incidents, as Table 2 displays.

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Table 2—Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents (Taken from Table 15)
Station Area 2018
Department-Wide 06:09
Station 18 04:40
Station 19 05:38
Station 20 06:24
Station 21 06:30
The overall longer-than-desired first-due unit travel times are not the result of a lack of fire stations.

They are the result of the non-grid street network design, simultaneous incidents at peak hours of the day, and traffic congestion—particularly rush hour and tourism on weekends.

CITYGATE’S OVERALL OPINIONS
The Department is very difficult to serve efficiently from a small number of fire stations due to the hilly geography and the limited road network, which is dependent on one main connector road.

Over time, each population cluster opened a fire station for a minimum single first unit response and knew they were co-dependent on each other for multiple-unit serious emergencies. The geography cannot be changed and improving the road network is not politically feasible or costeffective. Thus, reducing coverage by removing any one or more fire engines or the paramedic ambulance will increase response times to the local community receiving reduced coverage.

While the state fire code now requires fire sprinklers even in residential dwellings, it will be many more years before the vast majority of homes are replaced or remodeled with automatic fire sprinklers. If the communities’ desired outcomes include limiting building fire damage to only part of the inside of an affected building, minimizing permanent impairment resulting from a medical emergency, and keeping wildland fires small to a few acres at the ignition point, then the communities served by the Ross Valley Fire Department will need first-due unit coverage in all neighborhoods.

However, even with maintaining the current four-station spacing, given the topography, not all hillside areas can receive response time coverage consistent with suburban best practice incident outcomes and a Citygate performance recommendation of a first-due arrival within 7:30 minutes from 9-1-1 dispatch notification and a multiple-unit Effective Response Force (ERF) arrival occurring within 11:30 minutes of 9-1-1 notification, all at 90 percent or better reliability.

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times which are longer than desired. Department resources and equipment are appropriate to protect against the hazards likely to impact the Department’s service area, but the daily staffing of eight firefighters on four engines, plus a two-firefighter/paramedic ambulance from the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA) and a Duty Chief Officer only provides a minimum total response force sufficient to begin controlling a single emerging to serious fire incident, or to provide care at an EMS incident with one to five patients.

In terms of emergency incident workload per unit, no single fire unit or station area is approaching workload saturation. The level of simultaneous incidents is not high enough to warrant another unit at peak hours of the day. Citygate is, however, concerned about the overall limited Department staffing per day and its ability to respond with more “weight of attack” to keep emerging serious emergencies controlled. Even Countywide mutual aid resources are not quickly available in this part of Marin County, as they would be in an urban area with flat terrain and interconnected roads.

The quantity of calls in the Town of Ross (or any other single historic population cluster in the joint Department’s service area) is too small and too volatile from which to use historical incidents as the only criteria to maintain the fire station. Providing fire services is akin to purchasing fire insurance, and it is important to consider the desired level of protection. The public policy issue is whether to have access to a fire station nearby or farther away, knowing that a station farther away, even with its unit(s) available for response, cannot offer more than edge suburban or emerging rural area response times to much of the Town of Ross.

DEPLOYMENT KEY FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
The following are findings and recommendations presented throughout the report.

Finding #1: The Department has legacy response performance objectives partially consistent with best practice recommendations as published by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International. However, they should be updated to reflect current risks and desired outcomes for all types of emergency risk outcomes.

Finding #2: The Department has a standard response plan that considers risk and establishes an appropriate initial response for each incident type. Each type of call for service receives the combination of engines, specialty units, and command officers customarily needed to begin to control that type of incident based on Department experience.

Finding #3: The mapping analysis shows the need for neighborhood-based first response units for fire and EMS incidents.

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Finding #4: The risk assessment maps show there are risks to be protected from fire besides just single-family homes, and some areas have lower fire flow capacity for serious or conflagration size fires.

Finding #5: The Department’s service demand is consistent, indicating the need for a 24-hoursper-day, seven-days-per-week fire and EMS emergency response system.

Finding #6: The number of simultaneous incidents is volatile. However, in a four-station department, it is very rare that more than two incidents occur at once.

Finding #7: Call processing performance at 1:04 minutes is better than a best practice recommendation of 1:30 minutes.

Finding #8: Crew turnout performance at 2:41 minutes is slower than a Citygate-recommended goal of 2:00 minutes or less.

Finding #9: First-due unit travel time performance to 90 percent of the incidents Departmentwide at 6:09 minutes is well past the Department’s likely goal of 4:00 minutes, a goal consistent with best practices.

Finding #10: The Department’s call to arrival time to 90 percent of the incidents at 8:45 is slower than a Citygate’s recommended goal of 7:30 minutes in developed suburban areas.

The principal reason is the longer travel times, reflective of the topography and road network in the Department’s service area.

Finding #11: The Effective Response Force (First Alarm) travel times are only modestly longer than a best practices goal of 8:00 minutes and are reflective of the good, central placement of the four fire stations.

Finding #12: In the Town of Ross, on EMS emergencies, Engine 18 responded 214 times and Medic 18 responded 169 times in a two-year period.

Finding #13: In the Town of Ross, adjoining Engines 17 (Kentfield) and Engine 19 each arrived first over a two-year period 19 and 20 times, totaling 39. Thus, the outside units only arrived/were needed first 12.6 percent of the time.

Finding #14: In a two-year period, Engines 18 and 17 (Kentfield) were assigned to incidents at the same time 78 times or 16 percent of Engine 18’s total responses. Stated this way, if Engine 18 was closed, there are approximately 1.5 incidents per week to which Engine 17 will not be available to respond.

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Finding #15: Closing Station 18 will add about 2:00 minutes minimum of travel time into that station area.

Finding #16: In the Ross Valley Fire Department, Station 18 has the best travel time of any of the four station areas at 4:40 minutes, only 40 seconds longer than an urban/suburban best practice recommendation of 4:00 minutes. Adding 2:00 minutes travel, plus dispatch and turnout time of at least 3:00 minutes, moves a Town of Ross total response time from 7:40 to 9:40 which would be more like an edge suburban area or emerging rural area. First unit response times of 10:00 minutes-plus means small fires will become larger and critical EMS patients may not receive lifesaving care.

Finding #17: If the Engine 18 daily firefighter count of two were transferred to Engine 19, or reduced to one being transferred, they would be joining an engine that serves a much larger area and is more exposed to simultaneous incident demand. Due the dynamic nature of 9-1-1 emergencies, there is no way to predict if all of the Town of Ross Engine 18 and Medic 18 first arrivals would be covered by just Engines 19 and 17 (Kentfield) or by other units even farther away.

Finding #18: Covering the Town of Ross from either Station 19 or 17 (Kentfield) depends on essentially one road being open and not congested with traffic. Any one accident or natural emergency could close the road, effectively making the Town of Ross a culde-sac served from one direction and, in a sub-regional emergency, either Engine 19 or 17 would be shared with a larger service area.

Recommendation #1: Adopt Updated Deployment Policies: The Ross Valley Fire Department governing Board should adopt updated, complete performance measures to aid deployment planning and to monitor performance. The measures of time should be designed to deliver outcomes that will save patients medically salvageable upon arrival and to keep small but serious fires from becoming more serious. With this is mind, Citygate recommends the following measures:

1.1 Distribution of Fire Stations: To treat pre-hospital medical emergencies and control small fires, the first-due unit should arrive within 8:30 minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 9-1-1 call at dispatch; this equates to a 90-second dispatch time, a 2:00-minute company turnout time, and a 5:00- minute travel time.

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1.2 Multiple-Unit Effective Response Force for Serious
Emergencies: To confine building fires near the room of origin, keep vegetation fires under one acre in size, and treat multiple medical patients at a single incident, a multiple-unit ERF of at least 12 personnel, including at least one Duty Chief Officer, should arrive within 12:30 minutes from the time of 9-1-1 call receipt in dispatch, 90 percent of the time; this equates to a 90- second dispatch time, 2:00-minute company turnout time, and 9:00-minute travel time.

1.3 Hazardous Materials Response: Provide hazardous materials response designed to protect the Department’s service areas from the hazards associated with uncontrolled release of hazardous and toxic materials. The fundamental mission of the Fire Department’s response is to isolate the hazard, deny entry into the hazard zone, and notify appropriate officials/resources to minimize impacts on the community. This can be achieved with a first-due total response time of 8:30 minutes or less to provide initial hazard evaluation and/or mitigation actions. After the initial evaluation is completed, a determination can be made whether to request additional resources from the regional hazardous materials team.

1.4 Technical Rescue: Respond to technical rescue emergencies as efficiently and effectively as possible with enough trained personnel to facilitate a successful rescue with a first-due total response time of 8:30 minutes or less to evaluate the situation and/or initiate rescue actions. Following the initial evaluation, assemble additional resources as needed within a total response time of 12:30 minutes to safely complete rescue/extrication and delivery of the victim to the appropriate emergency medical care facility.

Recommendation #2: Consider maintaining the current location of all four engines and keeping Medic 18 in the Town of Ross to balance its coverage area to the west and east.

Recommendation #3: Consider providing a third firefighter per day on the three engines other than Engine 18. Doing so would raise the daily weight of attack from 12 to 15 and, with Kentfield’s three personnel, to 18. This force would be sufficient to provide the weight of attack and simultaneous incident ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 13 of 105
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redundancy for suburban positive outcomes. Especially on serious building and wildland fire ignitions, there is no second chance to stop the fire. This is a local policy decision to be made by the affected communities to determine the level of fire service that they can afford.

NEXT STEPS
‹ Review and absorb the content, findings, and recommendations of this report. ‹ Adopt revised response performance goals as recommended. ‹ Request staff to return with a community engagement plan to discuss adding up to three more firefighters per day, one on each of the three engines other than Engine

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SECTION 1—INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
The Ross Valley Fire Department (Department) retained Citygate Associates, LLC (Citygate) to conduct a comprehensive Standards of Coverage (SOC) assessment to provide a foundation for future fire service planning. The goal of this assessment is to identify both current services and desired service levels and then to assess the Department’s ability to provide them. Citygate’s scope of work and corresponding Work Plan were developed consistent with Citygate’s Project Team members’ experience in fire administration and deployment. Citygate utilizes various National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) and Insurance Services Office (ISO) publications as best practice guidelines, along with the self-assessment criteria of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI).

1.1 REPORT ORGANIZATION
This report is organized into the following sections. Volume 2 (Map Atlas) is separately bound.

Executive Summary: Summary of current services and significant future challenges.

Section 1 Introduction and Background: An introduction to the study and background facts about the Department.

Section 2 Standards of Coverage Assessment: An overview of the SOC process and detailed analysis of existing deployment policies, outcome expectations, community risk, critical tasks, distribution and concentration effectiveness, reliability and historical response effectiveness, and overall deployment evaluation.

Section 3 Town of Ross Focused Study: An assessment of the effectiveness of locating one of the Department’s engines and/or ambulances in the Town of Ross.

Section 4 Overall Evaluation: An overall deployment evaluation with concluding recommendations.

Appendix A Risk Assessment

1.1.1 Goals of the Report
This report cites findings and provides recommendations, as appropriate, related to each finding.

Findings and recommendations throughout this report are sequentially numbered. A complete list of all these same findings and recommendations is provided in the Executive Summary.

This document provides technical information about the way fire services are provided and legally regulated and the way the Department currently operates. This information is presented in the form of recommendations and policy choices for consideration by the Department’s leadership.

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The result is a solid technical foundation upon which to understand the advantages and disadvantages of the choices facing Department’s partners regarding the best way to provide fire services and, more specifically, at what level of desired outcome and expense.

1.1.2 Limitations of Report
In the United States, there are no federal or state regulations requiring a specific minimum level of fire services. Each community, through the public policy process, is expected to understand the local fire and non-fire risks and its ability to pay, and then choose its level of fire services. If fire services are provided at all, federal and state regulations specify how to do so safely for the public and for the personnel providing the services.

While this report and technical explanation can provide a framework for the discussion of Department services, neither this report nor the Citygate team can make the final decisions, nor can they cost out every possible alternative in detail. Once final strategic choices receive policy approval, Department staff can conduct any final costing and fiscal analysis as typically completed in its normal operating and capital budget preparation cycle.

1.2 PROJECT APPROACH AND SCOPE OF WORK

1.2.1 Project Approach and Research Methods
Citygate utilized multiple sources to gather, understand, and model information about the Department. Citygate requested a large amount of background data and information to better understand current costs, service levels, history of service level decisions, and other prior studies.

In subsequent site visits, Citygate performed focused interviews of the Department’s project team members and other project stakeholders. Citygate reviewed demographic information about the Department’s service area and the potential for future growth and development. Citygate also obtained map and response data from which to model current and projected future fire service deployment, with the goal to identify the location(s) of stations and crew quantities required to best serve the Department as it currently exists and to facilitate future deployment planning.

Once Citygate gained an understanding of the Department’s service area and its fire and non-fire risks, the Citygate team then developed a model of fire services that was tested against the travel time mapping and prior response data to ensure an appropriate fit. Citygate also evaluated future service area growth and service demand by risk types. This resulted in Citygate proposing an approach to both address current needs with effective and efficient use of existing resources and long-range needs. The result is a framework for enhancing Fire Department services while meeting reasonable community expectations and fiscal realities.

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1.2.2 Project Scope of Work
Citygate’s approach to this Standards of Coverage assessment involved:
‹ Reviewing information provided by the Department and the Town along with conducting stakeholder listening sessions with project stakeholders. ‹ Utilizing a geographic mapping software program to model fire station travel time coverage.
‹ Using an incident response time analysis program called StatsFD™ to review the statistics of prior incident performance, plotting the results on graphs and geographic mapping exhibits.
‹ Identifying and evaluating future Department population and related development growth.
‹ Projecting future service demand by risk type.
‹ Identifying and evaluating potential alternate service delivery models. ‹ Recommending appropriate risk-specific response performance goals. ‹ Identifying a long-term strategy, including incremental short- and mid-term goals to achieve desired response performance objectives.
‹ Utilizing the CFAI self-assessment criteria and other NFPA standards as the basis for evaluating the deployment services provided.

1.3 COMMUNITIES SERVED OVERVIEW
The Department is a consolidated department protecting lives, property, and the environments of Ross, San Anselmo, Sleepy Hollow, and Fairfax. Ross Valley fire departments trace their history to the early 1900s, with the formation of small volunteer fire departments in the newly formed towns of Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax. Built near the wildfire prone slopes of Mount Tamalpais, these communities were and continue to be acutely aware of the risk of fire.

In 1982, the Fairfax Fire Department and the San Anselmo Fire Department joined forces and became known as the Ross Valley Fire Service. At the time Sleepy Hollow was receiving fire protection from the Town of San Anselmo through a contract for service and Sleepy Hollow chose not to become a member of the joint powers authority (JPA) while maintaining a non-voting seat on the Board. In 2010, the JPA was expanded to make Sleepy Hollow a full member of the JPA, ending its contract for service with the Town of San Anselmo. With the expansion of the JPA, the name was changed to the Ross Valley Fire Department. In 2012, Ross Valley Fire Department’s Board of Directors voted to consolidate fire services with the Town of Ross, incorporating the ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5 Page 17 of 105
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Town of Ross Fire Station 18 into the Ross Valley Fire Department. The current aggregate population of the Department’s service area is estimated to be 24,785.

Figure 1—Fire Station Districts and General Geography
FS20
FS21
FS19
FS18
Map #1: Service Area with Station Locations
Legend
JPA Member Jurisdictions
Fairfax
Ross
San Anselmo
Sleepy Hollow
JPA Fire Stations
FS18
FS19
FS20
FS21
Roads
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1.4 FIRE DEPARTMENT OVERVIEW
The Department’s service capacity for building fire, wildland fire, medical emergency, hazardous materials, and technical rescue risk consists of eight personnel on duty daily staffing four Type-1 fire engines and one Duty Battalion Chief, operating from the Department’s four fire stations. In addition, Medic 18 with two paramedic/firefighters from the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA) is located at Station 18 in the Town of Ross.

All response personnel are trained to either the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) level— capable of providing Basic Life Support (BLS) pre-hospital emergency medical care—or EMTParamedic (Paramedic) level—capable of providing Advanced Life Support (ALS) pre-hospital emergency medical care. Ground paramedic ambulance service is provided by the RVPA in the Department’s service area.

Response personnel are also trained to the U.S. Department of Transportation Hazardous Material First Responder Operational (FRO) level to provide initial hazardous material incident assessment, hazard isolation, and for support for the Countywide hazardous material response team.

The Department also operates a cross-staffed Office of Emergency Services (OES) Type-1 (Structural Fire) engine from Station 20, a cross-staffed Type-3 (Wildland Fire) engine from Station 21, plus two reserve structure fire engines, one breathing air resupply unit, one hazardous materials response unit, and one utility truck. Technical rescue personnel and heavy rescue equipment would come from the County mutual aid system.

1.4.1 Facilities and Resources
The Department provides the aforementioned services from four fire stations as shown in Table 3.

Table 3—Fire Department Facilities and Assigned Resources Station Location Primary Assigned Resources Minimum
Staffing
18 33 Sir Francis Drake Blvd., Ross Engine 2
19 777 San Anselmo Ave., San
Anselmo
Engine
Battalion Chief
2 1
20 150 Butterfield Rd., San
Anselmo Engine 2
21 10 Park Road, Fairfax Engine 2
Total Per Day 9
Source: Fire Department
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SECTION 2—STANDARDS OF COVERAGE ASSESSMENT
This section provides a detailed, in-depth analysis of the Department’s current ability to deploy and mitigate emergency risks within its service area. The response analysis uses prior response statistics and geographic mapping to help the Department and the community to visualize what the current response system can and cannot deliver.

2.1 STANDARDS OF COVERAGE PROCESS OVERVIEW
The core methodology used by Citygate in the scope of its deployment analysis work is Standards of Cover, 5th and 6th editions, which is a systems-based approach to fire department deployment published by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI). This approach uses local risk and demographics to determine the level of protection best fitting a community’s needs.

The Standards of Coverage (SOC) method evaluates deployment as part of a fire agency’s selfassessment process. This approach uses risk and community expectations on outcomes to help elected officials make informed decisions on fire and emergency medical services deployment levels. Citygate has adopted this multi-part systems approach as a comprehensive tool to evaluate fire station locations. Depending on the needs of the study, the depth of the components may vary.

Such a systems approach to deployment, rather than a one-size-fits-all prescriptive formula, allows for local determination. In this comprehensive approach, each agency can match local needs (risks and expectations) with the costs of various levels of service. In an informed public policy debate, a governing board “purchases” the fire and emergency medical service levels the community needs and can afford.

While working with multiple components to conduct a deployment analysis is admittedly more work, it yields a much better result than using only a singular component. For instance, if only travel time is considered, and frequency of multiple calls is not considered, the analysis could miss over-worked companies. If a risk assessment for deployment is not considered, and deployment is based only on travel time, a community could under-deploy to incidents.

Table 4 describes the eight elements of the Standards of Coverage process.

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Table 4—Standards of Coverage Process Elements
SOC Element Description
1 Existing Deployment Policies Reviewing the deployment goals the agency has in place today.
2 Community Outcome Expectations Reviewing the expectations of the community for response to emergencies.
3 Community Risk Assessment Reviewing the assets at risk in the community. (For this report, see Appendix A—Risk Assessment.)
4 Critical Task Analysis
Reviewing the tasks that must be performed and the
personnel required to deliver the stated outcome
expectation for the ERF.
5 Distribution Analysis Reviewing the spacing of first-due resources (typically engines) to control routine emergencies.
6 Concentration Analysis
Reviewing the spacing of fire stations so that more
complex emergencies can receive sufficient resources in a timely manner (First Alarm Assignment or the ERF).
7 Reliability and Historical Response
Effectiveness Analysis
Using prior response statistics to determine the percent of compliance the existing system delivers.
8 Overall Evaluation Proposing Standard of Coverage statements by risk type as necessary.

Source: CFAI Standards of Cover, 5th Edition
Fire service deployment, simply summarized, is about the speed and weight of the response. Speed refers to initial response (first-due), all-risk intervention resources (engines, trucks, and/or ambulances) strategically deployed across a jurisdiction for response to emergencies within a specified time interval to control routine to moderate emergencies without the incident escalating to greater size or severity. Weight refers to multiple-unit responses for more serious emergencies such as building fires, multiple-patient medical emergencies, vehicle collisions with extrication required, or technical rescue incidents. In these situations, a sufficient number of firefighters must be assembled within a reasonable time interval to safely control the emergency and prevent it from escalating into a more serious event. Table 5 illustrates this deployment paradigm.

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Table 5—Fire Service Deployment Paradigm
Element Description Purpose
Speed of Response
Travel time of initial response of allrisk intervention units strategically located across a jurisdiction.

Controlling routine to moderate
emergencies without the incident
escalating in size or complexity.

Weight of Response
Number of firefighters in a multipleunit response for serious emergencies.

Assembling enough firefighters within
a reasonable time frame to safely
control a more complex emergency
without escalation.

Thus, smaller fires and less complex emergencies require a single-unit or two-unit response (engine and/or specialty resource) within a relatively short response time. Larger or more complex incidents require more units and personnel to control. In either case, if the crews arrive too late or the total number of personnel is too few for the emergency, they are drawn into an escalating and more dangerous situation. The science of fire crew deployment is to spread crews out across a community or jurisdiction for quick response to keep emergencies small with positive outcomes, without spreading resources so far apart that they cannot assemble quickly enough to effectively control more serious emergencies.

2.2 CURRENT DEPLOYMENT
Nationally recognized standards and best practices suggest using several incremental measurements to define response time. Ideally, the clock start time is when the 9-1-1
dispatcher receives the emergency call. In some cases, the call must then be transferred to a separate dispatch center. In this setting, the response time clock starts when the dispatch center receives the 9-1-1 call into its computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system. Response time increments include dispatch center call processing, crew alerting and response unit boarding (commonly called turnout time), and actual driving (travel) time.

The Department’s response time goals are somewhat dated and not completely up to best practice recommendations. They were most recently discussed in a 2005 Standards of Cover (adopted March of 2005) done by staff as a companion to the 2005 Strategic Plan:
‹ First unit on-scene within total reflex time of 7-minutes to all areas served with a high potential for life loss, economic value or fire flow. Further 8-minutes for areas with a moderate or low potential for life loss, economic value or fire flow. Time was to be from the 911 call receipt to 90% of the incidents.

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EXISTING DEPLOYMENT

POLICIES
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‹ Confine 90% of all structure fires within 30-minutes of arrival after 911 call receipt to the area of involvement as reported by the first arriving fire units, using an Effective Response Force of 14 firefighters with a fire flow stream(s) application of 1,500 gallons per minute (GPM).
‹ Maintain an emergency response capability, measured from 911 call receipt to arrival, that will ensure initiation of wildland structural fire protection with the first arriving unit within 8-minutes, and the first alarm companies within 12-minutes to 90% of all responses in all areas.
‹ Maintain an Emergency Medical Response of EMT-Ds,1
measured from 911 call
receipt to arrival, within 8-minutes to 90% of the incidents in all areas served.

Cities, towns, and counties in California have General Plans for land use regulation. One required chapter is a Safety Element. In reviewing the Ross Valley Fire Department’s partners General Plans, none of them mention response times. As would be expected in the Marin County region, all of the General Plans contain significant goals and policies for the mitigation of wildfire, including vegetation management, structure resistance to fires, and road access.

The Department does not appear to regularly report measures of response time performance, per the 2005 criteria, to itself and its partner local governments. Internally, Service Level Objectives were reviewed on a regular basis until 2013.

Having adopted performance measures pertaining to all types of risks beside fire and EMS, such as hazardous materials and technical rescues, is considered a best practice today. The Department does have a service level history that can be documented in retrospective response times, number of response companies, and minimum staffing.

Currently, National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Standard 1710,2 a recommended
deployment standard for career fire departments in urban/suburban areas, recommends initial (first-due) intervention unit arrival within 4:00 minutes travel time and recommends arrival of all the resources comprising the multiple-unit First Alarm within 8:00 minutes travel time, at 90 percent or better reliability.

As the Department’s 2005 goals properly cited, response time begins with the receipt of the 9-1-1 call. The most recent published best practices by the NFPA for dispatching have increased the dispatch processing time up to 90 seconds and, if there are language barriers, 120 seconds. Further, 1 Emergency Medical Technician – Defibrillator capable. 2 NFPA 1710 – Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments (2016 Edition).

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for crew turnout time, 60-80 seconds is recommended depending on the type of protective clothing that has to be donned.

If the travel time measures recommended by the NFPA (and Citygate) are added to dispatch processing and crew turnout times recommended by Citygate and best practices, then a realistic 90 percent first unit arrival goal is now 7:30 minutes from the time of the Marin County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center (Comm Center) receiving the call. This is comprised of 90 seconds dispatch + 2:00 minutes crew turnout + 4:00 minutes travel.

Finding #1: The Department has legacy response performance objectives partially consistent with best practice recommendations as published by the Commission on Fire Accreditation International.

However, they should be updated to reflect current risks and desired outcomes for all types of emergency risk outcomes.

2.2.1 Current Deployment Model
Resources and Staffing
The Department’s current deployment model consists of four engines staffed with a minimum of two personnel each and one Battalion Chief, for a total daily minimum year-round continuous staffing of at least 9 personnel operating from four fire stations, plus a two-firefighter/paramedic ambulance from the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA). The Department has automatic and mutual aid agreements with all the fire agencies in Marin County and is also a signatory to the State of California Mutual Aid Agreements.

Response Plan
The Department is an all-risk fire agency providing the people it protects with services that include fire suppression, pre-hospital paramedic (ALS) EMS, hazardous material and technical rescue response, and other non-emergency services, including fire prevention, community safety education, and other related services.

Given these risks, the Department utilizes a tiered response plan calling for different types and numbers of resources depending on incident/risk type. The Sheriff’s Dispatch Center (Comm Center) process selects and dispatches the closest and most appropriate resource types pursuant to the Department’s response plan, as shown in Table 6.

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Table 6—Response Plan by Incident Type
Incident Type Resources Dispatched Total Personnel*
Single-Patient EMS 1 Engine + 1 Paramedic Ambulance 4
Vehicle Fire 1 Engine 2
Building Fire, Initial
Response**
3 Engines, 1 Ladder Truck, 1 Paramedic
Ambulance, 1 Battalion Chief 12
Wildland Fire 4 Engines or Wildland Engines, 1 Paramedic Ambulance, 1 Battalion Chief
12 Rescue 3 Engines, 1 Ladder Truck, 1 Paramedic
Ambulance, 1 Battalion Chief 12
Hazardous Material 4 Engines, 1 Paramedic Ambulance, 1 Battalion Chief
12 * Personnel were calculated as follows: engines = 2 personnel (except if Engine 17 (Kentfield) staffs 3 personnel); ladder truck = 3 personnel from outside the Department; paramedic ambulance = 2 personnel. ** Confirmed serious fires receive a second Battalion Chief and a fourth engine Source: Fire Department
Finding #2: The Department has a standard response plan that considers risk and establishes an appropriate initial response for each incident type.

Each type of call for service receives the combination of engines, specialty units, and command officers customarily needed to begin to control that type of incident based on Department experience.

2.3 OUTCOME EXPECTATIONS
The Standards of Coverage process begins by reviewing
existing emergency services outcome expectations. This
includes determining for what purpose the response system exists and whether the governing body has adopted any
response performance measures. If so, the time measures used must be understood and good data must be available.

Current national best practice is to measure percent completion of a goal (e.g., 90 percent of responses) instead of an average measure. Mathematically, this is called a fractile measure.3 This
is because measuring the average only identifies the central or middle point of response time 3 A fractile is that point below which a stated fraction of the values lies. The fraction is often given in percent; the term percentile may then be used.

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COMMUNITY OUTCOME

EXPECTATIONS
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performance for all calls for service in the data set. Using an average makes it impossible to know how many incidents had response times that were way above the average or just above.

For example, Figure 2 shows response times for a fictitious fire department. This agency is small and receives 20 calls for service each month. Each response time has been plotted on the graph from shortest response time to longest response time.

Figure 2 shows that the average response time is 8.7 minutes. However, the average response time fails to properly account for four calls for service with response times far exceeding a threshold in which positive outcomes could be expected. In fact, it is evident in Figure 2 that 20 percent of responses are far too slow and that this jurisdiction has a potential life-threatening service delivery problem. Average response time as a measurement tool for fire services is simply not sufficient.

This is a significant issue in larger cities if hundreds or thousands of calls are answered far beyond the average point.

By using the fractile measurement with 90 percent of responses in mind, this small jurisdiction has a response time of 18:00 minutes, 90 percent of the time. This fractile measurement is far more accurate at reflecting the service delivery situation of this small agency.

Figure 2—Fractile versus Average Response Time Measurements More importantly, within the Standards of Coverage process, positive outcomes are the goal, and from that crew size and response time can be calculated to allow appropriate fire station spacing (distribution and concentration). Emergency medical incidents include situations with the most ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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severe time constraints. The brain can only survive 4:00 to 6:00 minutes without oxygen. Cardiac arrest and other events can cause oxygen deprivation to the brain. Cardiac arrests make up a small percentage; drowning, choking, trauma constrictions, or other similar events have the same effect.

In a building fire, a small incipient fire can grow to involve the entire room in a 6:00- to 8:00- minute time frame. If fire service response is to achieve positive outcomes in severe emergency medical situations and incipient fire situations, all responding crews must arrive, assess the situation, and deploy effective measures before brain death occurs or the fire spreads beyond the room of origin.

Thus, from the time of 9-1-1 receiving the call, an effective deployment system is beginning to manage the problem within a 7:00- to 8:00-minute total response time. This is right at the point that brain death is becoming irreversible and the fire has grown to the point of leaving the room of origin and becoming very serious. Thus, most urban/suburban population density communities desire a first-due response goal that is within a range to give the situation hope for a positive outcome. It is important to note the fire or medical emergency continues to deteriorate from the time of inception, not the time the fire engine starts to drive the response route. Ideally, the emergency is noticed immediately and the 9-1-1 system is activated promptly. This step of awareness—calling 9-1-1 and giving the dispatcher accurate information—takes, in the best of circumstances, 1:00 minute. Then crew notification and travel time take additional minutes. Upon arrival, the crew must approach the patient or emergency, assess the situation, and deploy its skills and tools appropriately. Even in easy-to-access situations, this step can take 2:00 minutes or more.

This time frame may be increased considerably due to long driveways, apartment buildings with limited access, multiple-story apartments or office complexes, or shopping center buildings.

Unfortunately, there are times when the emergency has become too severe, even before the 9-1-1 notification and/or fire department response, for the responding crew to reverse; however, when an appropriate response time policy is combined with a well-designed deployment system, then only anomalies like bad weather, poor traffic conditions, or multiple emergencies slow the response system down. Consequently, a properly designed system will give citizens the hope of a positive outcome for their tax dollar expenditure.

For this report, total response time is the sum of Marin County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center (Comm Center) dispatch processing plus crew turnout, and road travel time steps. This is consistent with CFAI and NFPA and Citygate best practice recommendations.

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2.4 COMMUNITY RISK ASSESSMENT
The third element of the SOC process is a community risk assessment. Within the context of an SOC study, the
objectives of a community risk assessment are to:
‹ Identify the values at risk to be protected within the community or service area.
‹ Identify the specific hazards with the potential to adversely impact the community or service area.
‹ Quantify the overall risk associated with each hazard. ‹ Establish a foundation for current/future deployment decisions and riskreduction/hazard mitigation planning and evaluation.

A hazard is broadly defined as a situation or condition that can cause or contribute to harm.

Examples include fire, medical emergency, vehicle collision, earthquake, flood, etc. Risk is broadly defined as the probability of hazard occurrence in combination with the likely severity of resultant impacts to people, property, and the community as a whole.

2.4.1 Risk Assessment Methodology
The methodology employed by Citygate to assess community risks as an integral element of an SOC study incorporates the following elements:
‹ Identification of geographic planning sub-zones (risk zones) appropriate to the community or jurisdiction.
‹ Identification and quantification (to the extent data is available) of the specific values at risk to various hazards within the community or service area. ‹ Identification of the fire and non-fire hazards to be evaluated. ‹ Determination of the probability of occurrence for each hazard. ‹ Identification and evaluation of multiple relevant impact severity factors for each hazard by planning zone using agency/jurisdiction-specific data and information. ‹ Quantification of overall risk for each hazard based on probability of occurrence in combination with probable impact severity as shown in Figure 3.

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COMMUNITY RISK

ASSESSMENT
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Figure 3—Overall Risk

2.4.2 Risk Assessment Summary
Citygate’s comprehensive risk assessment is contained in Appendix A of this study. Citygate’s evaluation of the values at risk and hazards likely to impact the Ross Valley Fire Department service area yields the following:

1. The Department serves a diverse population, with densities ranging from less than 500 people per square mile to approximately 5,000 per square mile, over a varied land use pattern.

2. The Department’s service area population is projected to grow by only 7.7 percent over the next 11 years to 2030, or an average annual growth of approximately 0.7 percent.

3. The service area includes nearly 11,000 housing units, as well as a large inventory of non-residential occupancies.

4. Marin County has a mass emergency notification system to effectively communicate emergency information to the public in a timely manner.

5. The Department’s overall risk for five hazards related to emergency services provided range from Low to High, as summarized in Table 7. Probability Impact Severity
Overall Risk
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The values in the summary table do not place a severity measure on any one risk type; they reflect a composite formula of the probability of occurrence in combination with probable impact severity. For example, while the Department’s service area has significant wildland fire risks, the Department experienced only 19 vegetation fires over this study’s two-year period, comprising

0.34 percent of total service demand. However, EMS is a daily occurrence, ranging from low- to high-risk individual medical events.

Table 7—Overall Risk by Hazard
Hazard
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Building Fire Low Low Moderate Moderate
Vegetation Fire Low Low Low Low
Medical Emergency High High High High
Hazardous Material Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate
Technical Rescue Low Low Low Low

2.5 CRITICAL TASK TIME MEASURES—WHAT MUST BE DONE OVER WHAT TIME FRAME TO ACHIEVE THE STATED OUTCOME EXPECTATION?
Standards of Coverage (SOC) studies use critical task
information to determine the number of firefighters needed within a timeframe to achieve desired objectives on fire and emergency medical incidents. Table 8 and Table 9 illustrate critical tasks typical of building fire and medical emergency incidents, including the minimum number of personnel required to complete each task. These tables are composites from Citygate clients in urban/suburban departments similar to Ross Valley, but with the more typical unit staffing of three personnel per engine and two personnel per ambulance. It is important to understand the following relative to these tables:
‹ It can take a considerable amount of time after a task is ordered by command to complete the task and arrive at the desired outcome.
‹ Task completion time is usually a function of the number of personnel that are simultaneously available. The fewer firefighters available, the longer some tasks will take to complete. Conversely, with more firefighters available, some tasks are completed concurrently.

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CRITICAL TASK TIME
STUDY
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‹ Some tasks must be conducted by a minimum of two firefighters to comply with safety regulations. For example, two firefighters are required to search a smokefilled room for a victim. ‹ Given the two-firefighter staffing on the Department units, the time to completion will be longer, at times significantly depending on task complexity or a hard to access patient or fire location.

2.5.1 Critical Firefighting Tasks
Table 8 illustrates the critical tasks required to control a typical single-family dwelling fire with six response units (engines/chief), for a total Effective Response Force of 16 personnel, where the Ross Valley Fire Department initially sends 12. A confirmed serious fire additionally receives a second Battalion Chief and a fourth engine raising this to 15 personnel. However, in many locations these additional units come from much farther away. These tasks are taken from typical fire departments’ operational procedures, which are consistent with the customary findings of other agencies using the Standards of Coverage process. No conditions exist to override the Occupational Safety and Health Administration two-in/two-out safety policy, which requires that firefighters enter Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health atmospheres, such as building fires, in teams of two, while two more firefighters are outside and immediately ready to rescue them should trouble arise.

Scenario: Simulated approximately 2,000 square-foot, two-story residential fire with unknown rescue situation. Responding companies receive dispatch information typical for a witnessed fire.

Upon arrival, they find approximately 50 percent of the second floor involved in fire.

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Table 8—First Alarm Residential Fire Critical Tasks – 16 Personnel Critical Task Description Personnel
Required
1st-Due Engine (3 personnel)
1 Conditions report 1
2 Establish supply line to hydrant 2
3 Deploy initial fire attack line to point of building access 1–2 4 Operate pump and charge attack line 1
5 Establish incident command 1
6 Conduct primary search 2
2nd-Due Engine (3 personnel)
7 If necessary, establish supply line to hydrant 1–2
8 Deploy a backup attack line 1–2
9 Establish Initial Rapid Intervention Crew (IRIC) 2
1st-Due Truck (3 personnel)
10 Conduct initial search and rescue if not already completed 2 11 Deploy ground ladders to roof 1–2
12 Establish horizontal or vertical building ventilation 1–2 13 Open concealed spaces as required 2
Chief Officer
14 Transfer of incident command 2
15 Establish exterior command and scene safety 1
3rd Due Engine and Rescue Unit (3 personnel each)
16 Establish Initial Rapid Intervention Crew (IRIC) 3
17 Secure utilities 2
18 Deploy second attack line as needed 2
19 Conduct secondary search 2
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tasks, the incident progression clock keeps running. These tasks are also consistent with nationally published research studies.4
Fire in a building can double in size during its free-burn period before fire suppression is initiated.

Many studies have shown that a small fire can spread to engulf an entire room in less than 4:00 to 5:00 minutes after free burning has started. Once the room is completely superheated and involved in fire (known as flashover), the fire will spread quickly throughout the structure and into the attic and walls. For this reason, it is imperative that fire suppression and search/rescue operations commence before the flashover point occurs if the outcome goal is to keep the fire damage in or near the room of origin. In addition, flashover presents a life-threatening situation to both firefighters and any occupants of the building.

2.5.2 Critical Medical Emergency Tasks
The Department responds to more than 1,407 EMS incidents annually, including vehicle accidents, strokes, heart attacks, difficulty breathing, falls, childbirths, and other medical emergencies.

For comparison, Table 9 summarizes the critical tasks required for a cardiac arrest patient, typically with at least five personnel responding, where the Department sends four. 4 Report on Residential Fireground Field Experiments, National Institute of Standards and Technology Technical Note 1661, April 2010. NFPA 1710, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments, 2016 Edition.

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Table 9—Cardiac Arrest Critical Tasks – Three Engine Personnel + Two Personnel ALS Ambulance
Critical Task Personnel
Required Critical Task Description
1 Chest compressions 1–2 Compression of chest to circulate blood 2 Ventilate/oxygenate 1–2 Mouth-to-mouth, bag-valve-mask, apply O2 3 Airway control 1–2 Manual techniques/intubation/cricothyroidomy 4 Defibrillate 1–2 Electrical defibrillation of dysrhythmia 5 Establish I.V. 1–2 Peripheral or central intravenous access 6 Control hemorrhage 1–2 Direct pressure, pressure bandage, tourniquet 7 Splint fractures 2–3 Manual, board splint, HARE traction, spine 8 Interpret ECG 2 Identify type and treat dysrhythmia
9 Administer drugs 2 Administer appropriate pharmacological agents 10 Spinal immobilization 2–5 Prevent or limit paralysis to extremities 11 Extricate patient 3–4 Remove patient from vehicle, entrapment 12 Patient charting 1–2 Record vitals, treatments administered, etc. 13 Hospital communication 1–2 Receive treatment orders from physician 14 Treat en route to hospital 2–3 Continue to treat/monitor/transport patient

2.5.3 Critical Task Analysis and Effective Response Force Size What does a deployment study derive from a critical task analysis? The time required to complete the critical tasks necessary to stop the escalation of an emergency (as shown in Table 8 and Table 9) must be compared to outcomes. As shown in nationally published fire service time vs. temperature tables, after approximately 4:00 to 5:00 minutes of free burning a room fire will escalate to the point of flashover. At this point, the entire room is engulfed in fire, the entire building becomes threatened, and human survival near or in the room of fire origin becomes impossible. Additionally, brain death begins to occur within 4:00 to 6:00 minutes of the heart stopping. Thus, the ERF must arrive in time to prevent these emergency events from becoming worse.

The Department’s daily staffing plus automatic aid is sufficient to deliver a single ERF of 12 personnel to a building fire—if they can arrive in time, which the statistical analysis of this report will discuss in depth. Mitigating an emergency event is a team effort once the units have arrived.

This refers to the weight of response analogy; if too few personnel arrive too slowly, then the emergency will escalate instead of improving. The outcome times, of course, will be longer and yield less desirable results if the arriving force is later or smaller.

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The quantity of staffing and the arrival timeframe can be critical in a serious fire. Fires in older and/or multiple-story buildings could well require the initial firefighters needing to rescue trapped or immobile occupants. If the ERF is too small, rescue and firefighting operations cannot be conducted simultaneously.

Fires and complex medical incidents require that additional units arrive in time to complete an effective intervention. Time is one factor that comes from proper station placement. Good performance also comes from adequate staffing and training. But where fire stations are spaced too far apart, and one unit must cover another unit’s area or multiple units are needed, these units can be too far away and the emergency will escalate and/or result in less-than-desirable outcomes.

Previous critical task studies conducted by Citygate, the National Institute of Standards,5 and
NFPA Standard 1710 find that all units need to arrive with 15+ firefighters within 11:30 minutes (from the time of 9-1-1 call) at a building fire to be able to simultaneously and effectively perform the tasks of rescue, fire suppression, and ventilation.

A question one might ask is, “If fewer firefighters arrive, such as does occur in the Ross Valley Department, what from the list of tasks mentioned would not be completed?” This is also critical as given the two-firefighter staffing, the initial force is a smaller count as it takes the third- and fourth-due units much longer to arrive. Most likely, the search team would be delayed, as would ventilation. The attack lines would only consist of two firefighters, which does not allow for rapid movement of the hose line above the first floor in a multiple-story building. Rescue is conducted with at least two-person teams; thus, when rescue is essential, other tasks are not completed in a simultaneous, timely manner. Effective deployment is about the speed (travel time) and the weight (number of firefighters) of the response.

Sixteen initial personnel could handle a moderate-risk, confined residential fire; however, even an ERF of 16 personnel will be seriously slowed if the fire is above the first floor in a low-rise apartment building or commercial/industrial building. This is where the capability to add additional personnel and resources to the standard response becomes critical.

The Department has to initially dispatch extra units via mutual aid to deliver more personnel, given the two-firefighter per unit staffing, but doing so to deliver the “weight of attack” comes at two disadvantages—first, it takes longer (speed of attack) and second, more units are out of service should another simultaneous incident occur.

Given that the Department’s ERF plan delivers 12 personnel to a moderate-risk building fire, it reflects a goal to confine serious building fires to the building of origin, not the room of origin or 5 Report on Residential Fireground Field Experiments, National Institute of Standards and Technology Technical Note #1661, April 2010.

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to prevent the spread of fire to adjoining buildings or wildland areas. This is a lesser desired outcome for urban/suburban areas, where the goal is to confine a building fire to or very near to the room of origin. That goal requires more firefighters more quickly.

The Department’s current physical response to building fires is, in effect, its de-facto deployment measure to its populated areas—if those areas are within a reasonable travel time from a fire station. Thus, this becomes the baseline policy for the deployment of firefighters.

2.6 DISTRIBUTION AND CONCENTRATION STUDIES—HOW THE LOCATION OF FIRST-DUE AND

FIRST ALARM RESOURCES AFFECTS EMERGENCY INCIDENT OUTCOMES The Department is served today by four fire stations
deploying four engine companies and one Battalion Chief as the duty Incident Commander. It is appropriate to
understand using geographic mapping tools what the
existing stations do and do not cover for both risks to be protected and the geography that units must travel over.

In brief, there are two geographic perspectives to fire station deployment:
‹ Distribution – the spacing of first-due fire units to control routine emergencies before they escalate and require additional resources.
‹ Concentration – the spacing of fire stations sufficiently close to each other so that more complex emergency incidents can receive sufficient resources from multiple fire stations quickly. As indicated, this is known as the Effective Response Force, or, more commonly, the First Alarm Assignment—the collection of a sufficient number of firefighters on scene, delivered within the concentration time goal to stop the escalation of the problem.

To analyze first-due fire unit risks to be protected and coverage, Citygate used a geographic mapping tool to produce the maps described in the following subsection, which can be found in Volume 2.

2.6.1 Deployment Baselines
Map #1 – General Geography, Station Locations, and Response Resource Types Map #1 shows the Department boundary, communities, and fire station service areas. This is a reference map for other maps that follow.

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CONCENTRATION STUDY
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Map #2a – Risk Assessment: Planning Zones
Map #2a shows the four risk planning zones, as recommended by the CFAI, used for this study, which are the same as each station’s initial (first-due) response area.

Map #2b – Risk Assessment: High Risk Occupancies
Map #2b displays the locations of the higher-risk building occupancies within the Department, as defined by the CFAI. These building occupancies typically require a larger initial ERF (staffing) due to the higher risks associated with these specific occupancies. It is apparent that there are highrisk occupancies in every planning zone.

Map #2c – Risk Assessment: Hazardous Materials Use/Storage Occupancies Map #2c displays the locations of the higher-risk commercial building occupancies that use and/or store regulated Hazardous Materials. The regulations for these uses are enforced by the County Department of Public Works as the State-designated Certified Unified Program Agency (CUPA) for the County.

Map #2d – Risk Assessment: Wildland Fire Severity Zones Map #2d displays the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) State Responsibility Areas for wildland fire protection, where the state has primary fiscal responsibility for wildfires through the Marin County Fire Department.

Map #2e – Risk Assessment: Lower Fire Flow (Water) Locations Map #2e displays the locations of fire hydrants on older, smaller water mains that can only provide up to 500 or 1,000 gallons per minute of firefighting flow. Most newer communities can provide neighborhood fire flows substantially higher than this and most current fire department pumpers can easily pump 1,500-2,000 gallons per minute. Larger commercial building fires can require 2,000 to 5,000 gallons per minute, provided by several pumpers and hydrants.

Map #3 – Distribution: First-Due Travel Distance Coverage This map displays the Insurance Service Office (ISO) recommendation that fire stations in developed areas cover a 1.5-mile distance response area. Depending on a jurisdiction’s road network, the 1.5-mile measure usually equates to a 3:30- to 4:00-minute travel time. Thus the 1.5- mile measure is a reasonable indicator of station spacing and overlap. This map shows first-due unit coverage distance of 1.5 miles across the public road network from the Department’s current fire station locations. The 1.5-mile coverage goes from very light meaning a single unit to very dark where three units overlap. The coverage also assumes all units are in station and available for response.

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The purpose of response coverage modeling is to determine response time coverage across a jurisdiction’s geography and station locations. This geo-mapping design is then validated against dispatch time data in the next section of this study to reflect actual response times. There should be some overlap between station areas so that a second-due unit can have a chance of an acceptable response time when it responds to a call in a different station’s first-due response area. As can be seen, there is some overlap coverage in the more built-up areas of the Department.

Map #4 – Medic 18 Ambulance Coverage Areas
This map displays the service area assigned to Medic 18, where the goal is to cover the most populated areas within 8:00 minutes travel time. This map shows the importance for Medic 18 to be centrally located to cover from Greenbrae west to Sleep Hollow and Fairfax.

Map #5 – All Incident Locations
Map #5 shows the location of all incidents from 2017 through 2018. It is apparent that incidents occur in most all areas of the Department and to other areas for mutual aid.

Map #6 – Emergency Medical Services and Rescue Incident Locations Map #9 illustrates only the emergency medical and rescue incident locations over the last two years. With the majority of the calls for service being medical emergencies, virtually all areas of the Department need pre-hospital emergency medical services. The greatest population density also incurs the highest EMS demand patterns. Medic 18 responses are not located on this map.

Map #7 – All Fire Locations
This map identifies the location of all fires within the Department over the last two years. All fires include any type of fire call, from vehicle to dumpster to building. There are obviously fewer fires than medical or rescue calls. Even given this, it is evident that fires occur in all fire station areas.

Map #8 – Structure Fire Locations
Map #8 displays the location of the structure fire incidents over the last two years. While the number of structure fires is a smaller subset of total fires, there are two meaningful findings from this map. First, there are structure fires in every fire station area, and second, there are a relatively small number of building fires in the Department overall, which in Citygate’s experience is consistent with other similar smaller communities in the western United States.

Finding #3: The mapping analysis shows the need for neighborhood-based first response units for fire and EMS incidents.

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Finding #4: The risk assessment maps show there are risks to be protected from fire besides just single-family homes, and some areas have lower fire flow capacity for serious or conflagration size fires.

2.7 STATISTICAL ANALYSIS
The map sets described in Section 2.6 above and presented in Volume 2 show the ideal situation for response times and the response effectiveness given perfect conditions with no competing calls, traffic congestion, units out of place, or simultaneous calls for service. Examination of the actual response time data provides a picture of actual response performance with simultaneous calls, rush hour traffic congestion, units out of position, and delayed travel time for events such as periods of severe weather.

The following subsections provide summary statistical information regarding the Department and its services.

2.7.1 Demand for Service
The Department provided both federal National Fire Reporting System (NFIRS) version 5 incident and computer-aided dispatch (CAD) apparatus response data for two complete years from January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2018.

In 2018, the Department responded to 2,685 incidents, which is a daily demand of 7.36 incidents.

During this same period, there were 7,503 individual apparatus responses. This means there was an average of 2.8 apparatus responses per incident, which is considered high and is likely due to the low staffing levels on each apparatus. The number of incidents has been calculated from NFIRS 5 records furnished for 2017 and 2018. According to these records, the Department experienced a decline in the number of incidents from 2017 through 2018.

SOC ELEMENT 7 OF 8

RELIABILITY & HISTORICAL

RESPONSE EFFECTIVENESS

STUDIES
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Figure 4—Annual Service Demand by Year
Figure 5 illustrates the number of incidents by incident type. While fire and EMS incidents remained relatively constant, there was a decrease in the number of other incident types. A reduction in the number of “other” incidents was most responsible for the decline in the total number of incidents.

Figure 5—Number of Incidents by Year – All Incident Types ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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Figure 6 shows service demand by hour of day, illustrating that calls for service occur at every hour of the day and night, requiring fire and EMS response capability 24 hours per day, every day of the year. There was also a pattern of increased activity in 2017 during the morning, afternoon, and early evening hours.

Figure 6—Service Demand by Hour of Day and Year
Finding #5: The Department’s service demand is consistent, indicating the need for a 24-hours-per-day, seven-days-per-week fire and EMS emergency response system.

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The next figure illustrates the number of incidents by station area in 2018. Station 21 had the highest volume of activity.

Figure 7—Number of Incidents by Station – 2018
Table 10 lists the activity rankings of incidents by incident quantity, for more than 15 occurrences in a year. Note the strong ranking for EMS incidents.

Table 10—Incidents: Quantity by Incident Type – 2018
Incident Type 2018
321 EMS call, excluding vehicle accident with injury 1,343 611 Dispatched and canceled en route 232
553 Public service 197
554 Assist invalid 135
651 Smoke scare, odor of smoke 126
550 Public service assistance, other 75
322 Vehicle accident with injuries 51
743 Smoke detector activation, no fire – unintentional 49 700 False alarm or false call, other 41
745 Alarm system sounded, no fire – unintentional 35
412 Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) 32
444 Power line down 31
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Incident Type 2018
600 Good intent call, other 30
622 No incident found on arrival of incident address 22 733 Smoke detector activation due to malfunction 20
740 Unintentional transmission of alarm, other 17
324 Motor vehicle accident no injuries 16
500 Service call, other 16
111 Building fire 16
735 Alarm system sounded due to malfunction 16
736 CO detector activation due to malfunction 15
Table 11 illustrates the ranking of incidents by property types. The highest rankings for incidents by property type are residential dwellings. Only those property types with 25 or more incidents are shown.

Table 11—Incidents: Quantity by Property Use – 2018
Property Use (NFIRS Code/Description) 2018
419 1 or 2 family dwelling 1,338
429 Multifamily dwellings 271
962 Residential street, road or residential driveway 218 960 Street, other 157
963 Street or road in commercial area 80
900 Outside or special property, other 72
311 24-hour care nursing homes, 4 or more persons 58
215 High school/junior high school/middle school 39
965 Vehicle parking area 34
161 Restaurant or cafeteria 29
888 Fire station 29
519 Food and beverage sales, grocery store 26
931 Open land or field 25

2.7.2 Simultaneous Emergency Incident Activity
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while one or more other incidents were underway. The following is the percentage of simultaneous emergency incidents broken down by the number of simultaneous incidents. Non-emergency incidents are not included as a unit can be re-dispatched to a serious emergency.

Table 12—Percentage by Number of Simultaneous Emergency Incidents Number of Simultaneous Incidents Percentage
1 or more simultaneous incidents 16.05%
2 or more simultaneous incidents 01.30%
3 or more simultaneous incidents 00.01%
The following graph shows the number of simultaneous incidents can be volatile and recently decreased.

Figure 8—Number of Simultaneous Incidents by Year
In a larger region, simultaneous incidents in different station areas have very little operational consequence. However, when simultaneous incidents occur within a single station area, there can be significant delays in response times.

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Figure 9 illustrates the number of single-station simultaneous incidents by station area by year.

Station 21 has the highest number of in-station-area simultaneous incidents. Each station area experienced a significant drop in the number of simultaneous incidents from the previous year.

Figure 9—Number of Single-Station Simultaneous Incidents by Station by Year Finding #6: The number of simultaneous incidents is volatile. However, in a four-station department, it is very rare that more than two incidents occur at once.

2.7.3 Operational Performance
Measurements for the performance for the first apparatus to arrive on the scene of emergency incidents are the number of minutes and seconds necessary for 90 percent completion of the following components:
‹ Call processing
‹ Turnout
‹ Travel
‹ Dispatch to arrival
‹ Call to arrival
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Each one of these components starts with a year-to-year comparison followed by a representation of performance over incremental time segments. Finally, each section includes a graph breaking down compliance with a stated goal by hour of day.

2.7.4 Call Processing
Call processing measures the time from the first incident time stamp in the Marin County Sheriff’s Dispatch Center (Comm Center) until apparatus are notified of the request for assistance.

Table 13 shows call processing is 1:04 minutes for 90 percent compliance.

Table 13—Call Processing Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents Station 2018
Department-Wide 01:04
Station 18 01:12
Station 19 01:03
Station 20 01:01
Station 21 01:04
Finding #7: Call processing performance at 1:04 minutes is better than a best practice recommendation of 1:30 minutes.

2.7.5 Turnout Time
Turnout time measures the time from apparatus notification until apparatus starts traveling to the scene. In Table 14, a 2:00-minute Citygate recommended goal is used for measurement. Only one fire station is less than 30 seconds from a 2:00-minute turnout time.

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Table 14—Turnout Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents Station 2018
Department-Wide 02:41
Station 18 02:19
Station 19 02:50
Station 20 02:38
Station 21 02:40
Figure 10 illustrates fractile turnout time performance. The peak segment for turnout performance is 75 seconds.

Figure 10—Fractile for Incidents Turnout (CAD)
Finding #8: Crew turnout performance at 2:41 minutes is slower than a Citygaterecommended goal of 2:00 minutes or less.

2.7.6 Travel Time
Travel time measures time to travel to the scene of the emergency. In most urban and suburban fire departments, a 4:00-minute travel time 90 percent of the time would be considered highly desirable. Table 15 shows that no stations achieve that goal.

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Table 15—Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents Station 2018
Department-Wide 06:09
Station 18 04:40
Station 19 05:38
Station 20 06:24
Station 21 06:30
The following graph illustrates fractile travel time performance. The peak segment for travel time performance is 180 seconds, or 3:00 minutes. There is a rapid drop-off in volume after the 180- second mark.

Figure 11—Fractile for Incidents Travel (CAD)
Finding #9: First-due unit travel time performance to 90 percent of the incidents Department-wide at 6:09 minutes is well past the Department’s likely goal of 4:00 minutes, a goal consistent with best practices.

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2.7.7 Call to Arrival
Call to arrival measures time from receipt of the request for assistance until the apparatus arrives on the scene. The existing Department total response time goal is 7:00 minutes to 90 percent of the emergency incidents.

Table 16—Call to Arrival Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents Station 2018
Department-Wide 08:45
Station 18 07:55
Station 19 07:45
Station 20 08:47
Station 21 09:07
The following graph illustrates fractile call to arrival performance. The peak segment is 300 seconds, or 5:00 minutes. The right-shifted graph indicates a number of incidents with longer travel times.

Figure 12—Fractile for Incidents Call to First Arrival
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Finding #10: The Department’s call to arrival time to 90 percent of the incidents at 8:45 is slower than a Citygate’s recommended goal of 7:30 minutes in developed suburban areas. The principal reason is the longer travel times, reflective of the topography and road network in the Department’s service area.

2.7.8 Effective Response Force (First Alarm) Concentration Measurements The minimum (not including the Chief Officer or ambulance) ERF for structure fires from the Department is three engines and one ladder truck. Additionally, an ambulance unit and one Chief Officer are sent. A best practices goal is for the last arriving unit’s travel time to be less than 8:00 minutes in developed areas.

Table 17—Distribution – Structure Fire Initial Response – Fourth-Due Unit Travel Time Performance to 90 Percent of Fire and EMS Incidents
Station 2018
Station 18 08:50
Station 19 08:19
Station 20 10:20
Station 21 10:21
Finding #11: The Effective Response Force (First Alarm) travel times are only modestly longer than a best practices goal of 8:00 minutes and are reflective of the good, central placement of the four fire stations.

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SECTION 3—TOWN OF ROSS FOCUSED STUDY
As part of the overall Standards of Cover assessment for the Ross Valley Fire Department partnership, the Town of Ross requested a focused study for the need to maintain the fire engine and/or Medic Ambulance 18 in the Town’s fire station which dates to 1926. As all the partners know, replacing or relocating this station will be very difficult due to land use limitations. To evaluate the need for a station in the Town of Ross a series of questions must be considered. These questions are all answered in this section. After this section and Citygate’s resultant findings, the last section of this study will provide a set of comprehensive recommendations.

The incident data range used in this section (except for items #1 and #2 below) is the same as the overall analysis in Section 2.7—January 1, 2017 through December 31, 2018.

3.1 QUESTIONS REGARDING STATION 18

1. How many fires have there been in the Town in each of the last six years? How many of them were structure versus non-structural?
¾ One structure fire; 25 non-significant structure fires such as arcing wires or smell of smoke from equipment.

2. What is the fire loss estimate in the Town for the last six years? ¾ $198,107

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Figure 13—Number of Incidents by Year by Incident Type – Station 18 Table 18—Incidents: Quantity – Year by Incident Type for Station 18 – 2017 and 2018 Incident Type 2017 2018
321 EMS call, excluding vehicle accident with injury 114 133 611 Dispatched and canceled en route 71 38
553 Public service 28 20
554 Assist invalid 25 6
550 Public service assistance, other 11 15
651 Smoke scare, odor of smoke 10 11
412 Gas leak (natural gas or LPG) 11 9
571 Cover assignment, standby, move-up 8 11
743 Smoke detector activation, no fire – unintentional 8 10 745 Alarm system sounded, no fire – unintentional 10 7
400 Hazardous condition, other 13 2
444 Power line down 7 6
322 Vehicle accident with injuries 2 10
700 False alarm or false call, other 8 3
744 Detector activation, no fire – unintentional 5 5
622 No incident found on arrival of incident address 7 3 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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Incident Type 2017 2018
733 Smoke detector activation due to malfunction 6 3
735 Alarm system sounded due to malfunction 5 3
111 Building fire 7
736 CO detector activation due to malfunction 3 3
740 Unintentional transmission of alarm, other 1 4
324 Motor vehicle accident no injuries 2 3
500 Service call, other 2 2
900 Special type of incident, other 1 2
730 System malfunction, other 2 1
650 Steam, other gas mistaken for smoke, other 1 2
600 Good intent call, other 1 2
531 Smoke or odor removal 1 2
440 Electrical wiring/equipment problem, other 3
812 Flood assessment 2
800 Severe weather or natural disaster, other 2
746 Carbon monoxide detector activation, no CO 2
734 Heat detector activation due to malfunction 2
653 Barbecue, tar kettle 1 1
551 Assist police or other governmental agency 1 1
520 Water problem, other 1 1
463 Vehicle accident, general cleanup 1 1
131 Passenger vehicle fire 1 1
118 Trash or rubbish fire, contained 2
100 Fire, other 2
813 Wind storm, tornado/hurricane assessment 1
621 Wrong location 1
552 Police matter 1
522 Water or steam leak 1
521 Water evacuation 1
462 Aircraft standby 1
461 Building or structure weakened or collapsed 1
441 Heat from short circuit (wiring), defective/worn 1
422 Chemical spill or leak 1
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Incident Type 2017 2018
354 Trench/below grade rescue 1
162 Outside equipment fire 1
160 Special outside fire, other 1
151 Outside rubbish, trash or waste fire 1
142 Brush, or brush and grass mixture fire 1
141 Forest, woods or wildland fire 1
140 Natural vegetation fire, other 1
130 Mobile property (vehicle) fire, other 1
116 Fuel burner/boiler malfunction, fire confined 1
113 Cooking fire, confined to container 1
Total 400 330

4. What is the service call comparison between each of the four stations? Are there industry averages or norms with which that can be compared? ¾ There are no comparisons; all communities are different and “purchase” fire protection stand-by as “fire insurance” if they use it once a year or once a day.
¾ See Figure 7 on page 37 for volume by station.

5. In the Town, what is the 90 percent response time to fire calls, emergency calls, and all calls – anywhere Station 18 went?
¾ The following table shows the Station 18 response times to emergency incidents. The time listed is the time to completion, 90 percent of the time; the number in parenthesis is the number of records included in the calculation.

Table 19—Station 18 Response Times to All Calls at 90 Percent Compliance Response Element—Station 18 Overall 2017 2018
Dispatch Processing 01:12 (214) 00:52 (93) 01:12 (121)
Crew Turnout 02:32 (170) 02:38 (77) 02:19 (93)
Travel Time 05:05 (174) 05:14 (78) 04:40 (96)
Call to Arrival 08:28 (226) 08:40 (100) 07:55 (126)
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6. What does the map that shows 90 percent response times by Station 18 look like? ¾ As would be expected, the better response times tend to be closer to the stations and along the main road network. However, given the low quantity of incidents (small sample size math) and that some incidents are covered by units not in the station, or are responded to by a station farther away due to simultaneous incidents, the following map is not a static picture year over year.

The following map shows in green where travel time is the fastest—at or near the desired goal point of 4:00 minutes. Orange to red indicates the longest travel times of 5:00 to 9:00 minutes.

Figure 14—90 Percent Response Times by Distance for All Department Stations

7. What is the number of events that Station 18 responded to in the response areas for Stations 19, 20, and 21?
¾ The following table lists the responses by vehicle ID.

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¾ The table also includes multiple-unit responses as some complex incidents require more staffing.

Table 20—Responses by Vehicle ID – 2017 and 2018
City E18 E19 E20 E21 M14 M18
San Anselmo 133 1,550 761 117 188 1,012
Fairfax 12 29 213 1,733 22 707
Ross 287 15 3 38 187
Sleepy Hollow 95 11 42
Kentfield 44 3 804
Woodacre 7
Fallon 4 2
Larkspur 2 1 2 131
Greenbrae 2 756
Forest Knolls 2
San Rafael 1
San Geronimo 1
Point Reyes Station 1
Corte Madera 1 151
Total 481 1,599 1,069 1,881 248 3,792

8. What is the number of medical emergencies the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority responds to in the Town per year?
¾ The following table shows the number of responses by apparatus by destination station area.

Table 21—EMS Responses by Station 18 Apparatus by Destination Station Area Station E18 M18 Total
18 214 169 383
19 60 862 922
20 12 192 204
21 12 707 719
Total 298 1,930 2,228
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The previous table shows Medic 18’s most frequent destination is Station 19, followed by Station 21. The station least likely to require a medic unit is Station 18.

However, Medic 18 is a regional unit and, as such, is properly located in the middle of its response area east to west. This table also shows Engine 18 is more likely to remain inside Station 18’s area but, if drawn outside, is most likely to travel into Station 19’s area.

The following list shows which engine arrived first to EMS events in the Town of Ross. When both Station 18 units respond from inside the Town, arriving first is only a matter of seconds. The purpose of this table is to also show units other than those at Station 18 which arrive first:
¾ Engine 18 arrived first 165 times
¾ Engine 23 arrived first 40 times
¾ Engine 19 arrived first 6 times
¾ Engine 17 arrived first 3 times (Kentfield)
¾ Engine 21 arrived first 1 time
¾ Medic 18 arrived first 33 times
¾ Medic 14 arrived first 2 times
These numbers were calculated for all apparatus responding to EMS incidents and tend to mimic actual operational arrivals. If the search from the regional CAD data for the last two years is for where Station 18 EMS incidents involved both Engine 18 and Medic 18, there were 224 incidents.

9. How often was Station 17 (Kentfield) first on scene to a Town call? What is Station 17’s response time to a Town call?
¾ In 2017 and 2018, Engine 17 arrived first in Station 18’s area 19 times for all incident types. The 90 percent travel time was a little over 8:00 minutes, but this figure is highly volatile and ranges from 5:00 minutes to 21:00 minutes travel time across the various areas of the Town.

10. How often was Station 19 (San Anselmo) first on scene to a Town call? ¾ In 2017 and 2018, Engine 19 arrived first in Station 18’s area 20 times to all types of incidents. The 90 percent travel time was about 9:45 minutes; again, this figure is highly volatile.

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11. What is Station 19’s average response time to a Town call? ¾ By national best practices, response times are not reported as averages, but as a fractile percent of a goal point. The following table lists anywhere Station 19 responded. The time listed is the time to completion 90 percent of the time; the number in parenthesis is the number of records included in the calculation.

Table 22—Station 19 Response Times to All Calls at 90 Percent Compliance Response Element—Station 19 Overall 2017 2018
Dispatch Processing 01:02 (971) 01:01 (481) 01:03 (490) Crew Turnout 02:44 (773) 02:40 (383) 02:50 (390)
Travel Time 05:50 (788) 06:00 (387) 05:38 (401)
Call to Arrival 08:03 (991) 08:23 (490) 07:45 (501)

3.2 IMPACT IF FIRE STATION 18 CLOSES

12. Provide a current map of the first response for Stations 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21. ¾ Please refer to Map #3 in the Map Atlas of this report in Volume 2.

13. If Station 18 closed, what is the first response map for Stations 17, 19, 20, and 21? What is the zone of coverage map for the back-up initial response with closure of Station 18?
¾ Station 17 is outside of Citygate’s historical statistical and geographic analysis. The Marin County Fire Chiefs Association would have to create a response matrix based on fire reporting districts to create a map. Based on existing station locations for 17 and 19, the Town of Ross would not receive the same coverage as from Station 18.

14. What is the impact to response times in Stations 19, 20, and 21 areas without Station 18?
¾ Simultaneous incidents occur when other incidents are underway at the time a new incident begins. In the entire Ross Valley Fire Department’s response area during 2018, 16.05 percent of incidents occurred while one or more other incidents were underway.

In 2017, Station 17 was on an incident at the same time as Station 18 45 times. In 2018, Engines 17 and 18 were on incidents at the same time 33 times.

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In 2017 and 2018 combined, Engine 18 had 481 responses anywhere.

Across two years, Engines 17 and 18 were active at the same time 78 times, or 16 percent of all of Engine 18’s responses.

Stated this way, if Engine 18 was closed, there are approximately 1.5 incidents per week to which Engine 17 will not be available to respond.

Then for Engine 18 and Engine 19 from the other direction, based on year 2018 data, both units are committed together approximately 109 times, or two times per week. This is higher than the Engine 18/17 measure. Most occurrences average a joint co-commitment time of 38 minutes.

So, when Engine 18 is busy there is a small chance every week that either or both Engines 17 and 19 also will not be available. This makes sense as all units have more calls for service during peak daylight hours of the day, versus after midnight.

Table 23—Distribution Travel Time Analysis of Fire and EMS Responses from 01/01/17 to 12/31/18
Station
Area
Apparatus
Arrivals
Home
Resources
Outside
Resources
Outside
Percent
Overall
Travel Home Travel
Outside
Travel
Delta
Home/Out
18 969 881 88 9.08% 07:03 (602) 06:43 (550) 08:44 (52) 2:01 19 2,586 1,859 727 28.11% 06:38 (1,913) 06:29 (1,385) 07:13 (528) 0:44 20 1,248 903 345 27.64% 07:05 (1,022) 06:33 (756) 08:28 (266) 1:55 21 2,627 1,992 635 24.17% 07:22 (1,629) 06:46 (1,303) 08:31 (326) 1:45 Closing Station 18 will add about 2:00 minutes of travel time into that station area.

Overall medic travel times will be reduced to some incidents if Medic 18 were to be moved west, as the unit is located closer to a higher medic demand area.

15. What is the impact of having first response from Station 19 with a three-person engine and Station 17 with a four-person engine versus Station 18 as a two-person engine?
¾ Total staff (weight) is the same firefighter count of eight. But the Town firefighters are now located in and serving two other areas and are thus subject to simultaneous incident use in Stations 19 and 17’s areas.

16. If RVPA stays in the Town, is there a response time change to medical emergencies?
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¾ No, if the ambulance is available. Otherwise response time depends on Engine 19 or Engine 17 being available to respond.
¾ Other medic units needed in the Town of Ross when Medic 18 was not available were Medic 14 (53 times), Medic 95 (eight times), and one each for Medic 97, Medic 94, Medic 59, and Medic 13. This means other medic units needed to respond into Station 18’s territory 65 times in two years.

17. If RVPA moves to Station 17 or Station 19, what is the average change in response time to a medical emergency?
¾ Per Table 23, without a Station 18 resource, there are an additional 2:00 minutes of travel time, meaning total response time (dispatch processing, turnout, and travel time) is almost 12:00 minutes from 9-1-1, which is the same as a rural level of response.
¾ Moving Medic 18 to Station 17 would also move it farther away from the highest incident densities that it serves.

Finding #12: In the Town of Ross, on EMS emergencies, Engine 18 responded 214 times and Medic 18 responded 169 times in a two-year period.

Finding #13: In the Town of Ross, adjoining Engines 17 (Kentfield) and Engine 19 each arrived first over a two-year period 19 and 20 times, totaling

39. Thus, the outside units only arrived/were needed first 12.6 percent of the time.

Finding #14: In a two-year period, Engines 18 and 17 (Kentfield) were assigned to incidents at the same time 78 times or 16 percent of Engine 18’s total responses. Stated this way, if Engine 18 was closed, there are approximately 1.5 incidents per week to which Engine 17 will not be available to respond.

Finding #15: Closing Station 18 will add about 2:00 minutes minimum of travel time into that station area.

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Finding #16: In the Ross Valley Fire Department, Station 18 has the best travel time of any of the four station areas at 4:40 minutes, only 40 seconds longer than an urban/suburban best practice recommendation of 4:00 minutes. Adding 2:00 minutes travel, plus dispatch and turnout time of at least 3:00 minutes, moves a Town of Ross total response time from 7:40 to 9:40 which would be more like an edge suburban area or emerging rural area. First unit response times of 10:00 minutes-plus means small fires will become larger and critical EMS patients may not receive lifesaving care.

Finding #17: If the Engine 18 daily firefighter count of two were transferred to Engine 19, or reduced to one being transferred, they would be joining an engine that serves a much larger area and is more exposed to simultaneous incident demand. Due the dynamic nature of 9-1-1 emergencies, there is no way to predict if all of the Town of Ross Engine 18 and Medic 18 first arrivals would be covered by just Engines 19 and 17 (Kentfield) or by other units even farther away.

Finding #18: Covering the Town of Ross from either Station 19 or 17 (Kentfield) depends on essentially one road being open and not congested with traffic. Any one accident or natural emergency could close the road, effectively making the Town of Ross a cul-de-sac served from one direction and, in a sub-regional emergency, either Engine 19 or 17 would be shared with a larger service area.

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SECTION 4—OVERALL EVALUATION
The Department serves mostly residential and small
downtown populations with a mixed land-use pattern
typical of Marin County communities. However, the hilly geography and the limited road network dependent on one main connector road, is very difficult to serve efficiently from a small number of fire stations.

Over time, each population cluster opened a fire station for a minimum single first unit response and knew they were co-dependent on each other for multiple-unit serious emergencies. The geography cannot be changed and improving the road network is not politically feasible or costeffective. Thus, reducing coverage by removing any one or more fire engines or the paramedic ambulance will increase response times to the local community receiving reduced coverage.

While the state fire code now requires fire sprinklers even in residential dwellings, it will be many more years before the vast majority of homes are replaced or remodeled with automatic fire sprinklers. If the communities’ desired outcomes include limiting building fire damage to only part of the inside of an affected building, minimizing permanent impairment resulting from a medical emergency, and keeping wildland fires small to a few acres at the ignition point, then the communities served by the Ross Valley Fire Department will need first-due unit coverage in all neighborhoods.

However, even with maintaining the current four-station spacing, given the topography, not all hillside areas can receive response time coverage consistent with suburban best practice incident outcomes and a Citygate performance recommendation of a first-due arrival within 7:30 minutes from 9-1-1 dispatch notification and a multiple-unit Effective Response Force (ERF) arrival occurring within 11:30 minutes of 9-1-1 notification, all at 90 percent or better reliability.

The Department’s call processing performance is excellent. The crew turnout time needs modest improvement but even such attainable improvement cannot substantially lower the fire unit travel times which are longer than desired over the challenging geography and road network.

Department resources and equipment are appropriate to protect against the hazards likely to impact the Department’s service area, but the daily staffing of eight firefighters on four engines, plus a two-firefighter/paramedic ambulance from the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA) and a Duty Chief Officer only provides a minimum total response force sufficient to begin controlling a single emerging to serious fire incident, or to provide care at an EMS incident with one to five patients.

In terms of emergency incident workload per unit, no single fire unit or station area is approaching workload saturation. The level of simultaneous incidents is not high enough to warrant another unit at peak hours of the day. Citygate is, however, concerned about the overall limited Department SOC ELEMENT 8 OF 8

OVERALL EVALUATION
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staffing per day and its ability to respond with more “weight of attack” to keep emerging serious emergencies controlled. Even Countywide mutual aid resources are not quickly available in this part of Marin County, as they would be in an urban area with flat terrain and interconnected roads.

In reviewing the Town of Ross questions about the utility of its fire station, while maintaining a fire crew in town is expensive, any alternative solution will raise response times beyond suburban best practice goals and come at the cost of sharing staffing with a larger service area. Relocating the crews out of the Town of Ross impacts more than just the Town. As an example, even if the Town paid Kentfield for fire coverage, Kentfield would be serving the entire Town of Ross in addition to its own community, which would mean the Kentfield fire unit would occasionally not be available to respond to an emergency call in its primary area.

The quantity of calls in the Town of Ross (or any other single historic population cluster in the joint Department’s service area) is too small and too volatile from which to use historical incidents as the only criteria to maintain the fire station. Providing fire services is akin to purchasing fire insurance, and it is important to consider the desired level of protection. The public policy issue is whether to have access to a fire station nearby or farther away, knowing that a station farther away, even with its unit(s) available for response, cannot offer more than edge suburban or emerging rural area response times to much of the Town of Ross.

4.1 DEPLOYMENT RECOMMENDATIONS
Based on the technical analysis and findings contained in this Standards of Coverage assessment, Citygate offers the following deployment recommendations:

Recommendation #1: Adopt Updated Deployment Policies: The Ross Valley Fire Department governing Board should adopt updated,
complete performance measures to aid deployment
planning and to monitor performance. The measures of
time should be designed to deliver outcomes that will
save patients medically salvageable upon arrival and to keep small but serious fires from becoming more serious.

With this is mind, Citygate recommends the following
measures:

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1.1 Distribution of Fire Stations: To treat pre-hospital medical emergencies and control small fires, the first-due unit should arrive within 8:30 minutes, 90 percent of the time from the receipt of the 9-1-1 call at dispatch; this equates to a 90-second dispatch time, a 2:00-minute
company turnout time, and a 5:00-minute travel time.

1.2 Multiple-Unit Effective Response Force for Serious
Emergencies: To confine building fires near the room of origin, keep vegetation fires under one acre in size, and treat multiple medical patients at a single incident, a multiple-unit ERF of at least 12 personnel, including at least one Duty Chief Officer, should arrive within 12:30 minutes from the time of 9-1-1 call receipt in dispatch, 90 percent of the time; this equates to a 90-second dispatch time, 2:00-minute company turnout time, and 9:00-
minute travel time.

1.3 Hazardous Materials Response: Provide hazardous
materials response designed to protect the Department’s service areas from the hazards associated with
uncontrolled release of hazardous and toxic materials.

The fundamental mission of the Fire Department’s
response is to isolate the hazard, deny entry into the
hazard zone, and notify appropriate officials/resources to minimize impacts on the community. This can be
achieved with a first-due total response time of 8:30
minutes or less to provide initial hazard evaluation and/or mitigation actions. After the initial evaluation is
completed, a determination can be made whether to
request additional resources from the regional hazardous materials team.

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1.4 Technical Rescue: Respond to technical rescue
emergencies as efficiently and effectively as possible
with enough trained personnel to facilitate a successful rescue with a first-due total response time of 8:30 minutes or less to evaluate the situation and/or initiate rescue actions. Following the initial evaluation, assemble
additional resources as needed within a total response
time of 12:30 minutes to safely complete
rescue/extrication and delivery of the victim to the
appropriate emergency medical care facility.

Recommendation #2: Consider maintaining the current location of all four engines and keeping Medic 18 in the Town of Ross to
balance its coverage area to the west and east.

Recommendation #3: Consider providing a third firefighter per day on the three engines other than Engine 18. Doing so would raise the
daily weight of attack from 12 to 15 and, with Kentfield’s three personnel, to 18. This force would be sufficient to provide the weight of attack and simultaneous incident
redundancy for suburban positive outcomes. Especially
on serious building and wildland fire ignitions, there is no second chance to stop the fire. This is a local policy
decision to be made by the affected communities to
determine the level of fire service that they can afford.

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APPENDIX A

RISK ASSESSMENT
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APPENDIX A—RISK ASSESSMENT
A.1 COMMUNITY RISK ASSESSMENT
The third element of the Standards of Coverage (SOC)
process is a community risk assessment. Within the context of an SOC study, the objectives of a community risk
assessment are to:
‹ Identify the values at risk to be protected
within the community or service area.
‹ Identify the specific hazards with the potential to adversely impact the community or service area.
‹ Quantify the overall risk associated with each hazard. ‹ Establish a foundation for current/future deployment decisions and riskreduction/hazard-mitigation planning and evaluation.

A hazard is broadly defined as a situation or condition that can cause or contribute to harm.

Examples include fire, medical emergency, vehicle collision, earthquake, flood, etc. Risk is broadly defined as the probability of hazard occurrence in combination with the likely severity of resultant impacts to people, property, and the community as a whole.

A.1.1 Risk Assessment Methodology
The methodology employed by Citygate to assess community risks as an integral element of an SOC study incorporates the following elements:
‹ Identification of geographic planning sub-zones (risk zones) appropriate to the community or jurisdiction.
‹ Identification and quantification (to the extent data is available) of the specific values at risk to various hazards within the community or service area. ‹ Identification of the fire and non-fire hazards to be evaluated. ‹ Determination of the probability of occurrence for each hazard. ‹ Identification and evaluation of multiple relevant impact severity factors for each hazard by planning zone using agency/jurisdiction-specific data and information. ‹ Quantification of overall risk for each hazard based on probability of occurrence in combination with probable impact severity, as shown in Figure 15.

SOC ELEMENT 3 OF 8

COMMUNITY RISK

ASSESSMENT
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Figure 15—Overall Risk
Citygate used the following data sources for this study to understand the hazards and values to be protected in the District:
‹ U.S. Census Bureau population and demographic data
‹ District Geographical Information Systems (GIS) data
‹ Marin County General Plan and Zoning information
‹ Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan ‹ Fire Department data and information.

A.1.2 Risk Assessment Summary
Citygate’s evaluation of the values at risk and hazards likely to impact the Ross Valley Fire Department service area yields the following:

1. The Department serves a diverse population, with densities ranging from less than 500 people per square mile to approximately 5,000 per square mile over a varied land use pattern.

2. The Department’s service area population is projected to grow by only 7.7 percent over the next 11 years to 2030, or an average annual growth of approximately 0.7 percent. Probability
Impact Severity
Overall Risk
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3. The service area includes nearly 11,000 housing units as well as a large inventory of non-residential occupancies.

4. Marin County has a mass emergency notification system to effectively communicate emergency information to the public in a timely manner.

5. The Department’s overall risk for five hazards related to emergency services provided range from Low to High, as summarized in Table 24.

Table 24—Overall Risk by Hazard
Hazard
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Building Fire Low Low Moderate Moderate
Vegetation Fire Low Low Low Low
Medical Emergency High High High High
Hazardous Material Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate
Technical Rescue Low Low Low Low
A.1.3 Planning Zones
The Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI) recommends that jurisdictions establish geographic planning zones to better understand risk at a sub-jurisdictional level. For example, portions of a jurisdiction may contain predominantly moderate risk building occupancies, such as detached single-family residences, while other areas contain high- or maximum-risk occupancies, such as commercial and industrial buildings with a high hazard fire load. If risk were to be evaluated on a jurisdiction-wide basis, the predominant moderate risk could outweigh the high or maximum risk and may not be a significant factor in an overall assessment of risk. If, however, those high- or maximum-risk occupancies are a larger percentage of the risk in a smaller planning zone, then it becomes a more significant risk factor. Another consideration in establishing planning zones is that the jurisdiction’s record management system must also track the specific zone for each incident to be able to appropriately evaluate service demand and response performance relative to each specific zone. For this assessment, Citygate utilized four planning zones, incorporating each fire station’s first-due response area, as shown in Figure 16.

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Figure 16—Risk Planning Zones
A.1.4 Values at Risk to Be Protected
Values at risk, broadly defined, are tangibles of significant importance or value to the community or jurisdiction potentially at risk of harm or damage from a hazard occurrence. Values at risk typically include people, critical facilities/infrastructure, buildings, and key economic, cultural, historic, and/or natural resources.

FS20
FS21
FS19
FS18
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People
Residents, employees, visitors, and travelers in a community or jurisdiction are vulnerable to harm from a hazard occurrence. Particularly vulnerable are specific at-risk populations, including those unable to care for themselves or self-evacuate in the event of an emergency. At-risk populations typically include children less than 10 years of age, the elderly, and people housed in institutional settings. Table 25 summarizes key demographic data for the Ross Valley Fire Department’s service area.

Table 25—Key Demographic Data – Ross Valley Fire Department Demographic 2017 Percentage
Population 24,785
Under 10 years 2,150 8.67%
10 – 19 years 3,483 14.05%
20 – 64 years 14,217 57.36%
65-74 years 3,111 12.55%
75 years and older 1,824 7.36%
Median age 48.4 N/A
Housing Units 10,813
Owner-Occupied 7,683 71.05%
Renter-Occupied 2,534 23.43%
Average Household Size 2.53 N/A
Ethnicity
Caucasian 22,492 90.75%
Asian 910 3.67%
Other 1,383 5.58%
Education (population over 24 yrs. of age) 18,158 73.26% High School Graduate 17,546 96.63%
Undergraduate Degree 11,134 61.32%
Graduate/Professional Degree 5,309 29.24%
Employment (population over 15 yrs. of age) 20,261 81.75% In Labor Force 13,816 68.19%
Unemployed 626 4.53%
Population Below Poverty Level 1,091 4.40%
Population without Health Insurance Coverage 487 1.96%
Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2017)
Of note from Table 25 is the following:
‹ More than 28.5 percent of the population is under 10 years or over 65 years of age.

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‹ The Department’s service area population is predominantly Caucasian (91 percent), followed by Asian (3 percent), and other ethnicities (6 percent). ‹ Of the population over 24 years of age, more than 96 percent has completed high school or equivalency.
‹ Of the population over 24 years of age, more than 61 percent have a college degree. ‹ Slightly more than 68 percent of the population 15 years of age or older is in the workforce; of those, 4.5 percent are unemployed.
‹ The population below the federal poverty level is 4.4 percent. ‹ Only two percent of the population does not have health insurance coverage.

The service area population is projected to increase by approximately 1,900 (7.7 percent) to nearly 27,000 over the next 11 years to 2030,6
for an average annual growth of approximately 175 (0.7
percent).

Buildings
The service area includes nearly 11,000 housing units, as well as a large inventory of nonresidential occupancies, including office, research, professional service, retail sales, restaurants/bar, motel, church, school, government facility, healthcare, and other non-residential uses.

Building Occupancy Risk Categories
The CFAI identifies the following four risk categories that relate to building occupancy:

Low Risk – includes detached garages, storage sheds, outbuildings, and similar building occupancies that pose a relatively low risk of harm to humans or the community if damaged or destroyed by fire.

Moderate Risk – includes detached single-family or two-family dwellings; mobile homes; commercial and industrial buildings less than 10,000 square feet without a high hazard fire load; aircraft; railroad facilities; and similar building occupancies where loss of life or property damage is limited to the single building.

High Risk – includes apartment/condominium buildings; commercial and industrial buildings more than 10,000 square feet without a high hazard fire load; low-occupant load buildings with high fuel loading or hazardous materials; and similar occupancies with potential for substantial loss of life or unusual property damage or financial impact. 6 Reference: Marin County Housing Element 2015-2023, Figure II-2 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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Maximum Risk – includes buildings or facilities with unusually high risk requiring an Effective Response Force (ERF) involving a significant augmentation of resources and personnel and where a fire would pose the potential for a catastrophic event involving large loss of life and/or significant economic impact to the community.

Evaluation of the service area building inventory reveals 174 high risk building uses as they relate to the CFAI building fire risk categories as summarized in Table 26, Table 27, and Map #2B in Volume 2 (Map Atlas).

Table 26—High Risk Building Occupancy Inventory by Risk Category Building Occupancy Classification2 Number Risk Category1 A-1 Assembly 5 High
H Hazardous 0 High
I-4 Institutional 1 High
R-1 Hotel/Motel 2 High
R-2 Multi-Family Residential 148 High
R-2.1 Assisted Living Facilities 4 High
R-3.1 Residential Care Facilities 9 High
R-4 Care Facilities – Greater than 6 Persons 5 High
Total 174
1 CFAI Standards of Cover (5th Edition)
Source: Ross Valley Fire Department
Table 27—High Risk Occupancy Inventory by Planning Zone Occupancy
Classification
Planning Zone
Total
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
A-1 1 2 1 1 5
I-4 1 1
R-1 1 1 2
R-2 1 110 37 148
R-2.1 2 1 1 4
R-3.1 1 5 2 1 9
R-4 4 1 5
Total 5 124 43 2 174
Source: Ross Valley Fire Department
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Critical Infrastructure / Key Resources
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security defines Critical Infrastructure / Key Resources (CIKR) as those physical assets essential to the public health and safety, economic vitality, and resilience of a community, such as lifeline utilities infrastructure, telecommunications infrastructure, essential government services facilities, public safety facilities, schools, hospitals, airports, etc. A hazard occurrence with significant impact severity affecting one or more of these facilities would likely adversely impact critical public or community services. No critical facilities or key resources were identified by the Department for this assessment.

Economic Resources
No economic resources were identified for this assessment.

Natural Resources
No natural resources were identified for this assessment.

A.1.5 Hazard Identification
Citygate utilizes prior risk studies where available, fire and non-fire hazards as identified by the CFAI, and agency/jurisdiction-specific data and information to identify the hazards to be evaluated for this study.

The 2018 Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan (LHMP) identifies the following 13 hazards for the County.

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Table 28—Marin County Hazards
Hazard
1 Coastal erosion
2 Dam failure
3 Drought
4 Earthquake
5 Flood
6 Heat
7 Landslide/mudslide/debris flow
8 Levee failure
9 Liquefaction
10 Severe wind/tornado
11 Severe storm
12 Tsunami/seiche
13 Wildfire
Reference: 2018 Marin County LHMP, Table 3-1
Although the Fire Department has no legal authority or responsibility to mitigate any of these hazards other than wildfire, it does provide services related to all these hazards, including fire suppression, emergency medical services, technical rescue, and hazardous materials response.

The CFAI groups hazards into fire and non-fire categories, as shown in Figure 17. Identification, qualification, and quantification of the various fire and non-fire hazards are important factors in evaluating how resources are or can be deployed to mitigate those risks.

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Figure 17—Commission on Fire Accreditation International Hazard Categories Source: CFAI Standards of Cover (5th Edition).

Subsequent to review and evaluation of the hazards identified in the 2018 Marin County MultiJurisdictional LHMP and the fire and non-fire hazards as identified by the CFAI as they relate to services provided by the Department, Citygate evaluated the following five hazards for this risk assessment:
‹ Building Fire
‹ Vegetation Fire
‹ Medical Emergency
‹ Hazardous Material Release/Spill
‹ Technical Rescue
A.1.6 Service Capacity
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and competencies; resource distribution and concentration; availability of automatic and/or mutual aid; and any other agency-specific factors influencing its ability to meet current and prospective future service demand relative to the risks to be protected.

The Department’s service capacity for building and vegetation fire, medical emergency, hazardous materials, and technical rescue risk consists of eight firefighters on four engines, plus a twofirefighter/paramedic ambulance from the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA) and a Duty Chief Officer.

All response personnel are trained to either the Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) level, capable of providing Basic Life Support (BLS) pre-hospital emergency medical care, or EMTParamedic (Paramedic) level, capable of providing Advanced Life Support (ALS) pre-hospital emergency medical care. Ground paramedic ambulance service is provided by the Ross Valley Paramedic Authority (RVPA). Air ambulance services, when needed, are provided by Reach Air Medical Services (Concord, Santa Rosa, or Napa), LifeFlight (Palo Alto), the California Highway Patrol, or Sonoma County Sheriff. Three regional hospitals provide emergency medical services, including Marin General Hospital, Kaiser Permanente Medical Center San Rafael, and Novato Community Hospital. Marin General Hospital is also a Level-III trauma center.

Response personnel are also trained to the U.S. Department of Transportation Hazardous Material First Responder Operational (FRO) level to provide initial hazardous material incident assessment, hazard isolation, and support for a hazardous material response team. Additional hazardous materials response capacity is available from the Marin County Hazardous Materials Response Team. The Hazardous Materials Response Unit is housed at the Ross Valley Fire Department and is cross-staffed by Ross Valley personnel as needed for regional response.

Technical rescue services are provided by the Marin County Urban Search and Rescue (US&R) Regional Task Force, a multi-agency/discipline team with the tools, equipment, and training to conduct confined space, low/high-angle rope rescue, breaching, shoring, excavation, trench, and water rescue operations.

A.1.7 Probability of Occurrence
Probability of occurrence refers to the probability of a future hazard occurrence during a specific period. Because the CFAI agency accreditation process requires annual review of an agency’s risk assessment and baseline performance measures, Citygate recommends using the 12 months following completion of an SOC study as an appropriate period for the probability of occurrence evaluation. Table 29 describes the five probability of occurrence categories and related scoring criteria used for this analysis.

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Table 29—Probability of Occurrence Scoring Criteria
Score
Probable
Occurrence Description General Criteria
0–1.0 Very Low Improbable Hazard occurrence is unlikely

1.25–2.0 Low Rare Hazard could occur

2.25–3.0 Moderate Infrequent Hazard should occur infrequently

3.25–4.0 High Likely Hazard likely to occur regularly

4.25–5.0 Very High Frequent Hazard is expected to occur frequently Citygate’s SOC assessments use recent multiple-year hazard response data to determine the probability of hazard occurrence for the ensuing 12-month period.

A.1.8 Impact Severity
Impact severity refers to the extent a hazard occurrence impacts people, buildings, lifeline services, the environment, and the community as a whole. Table 30 describes the five impact severity categories and related scoring criteria used for this analysis.

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Table 30—Impact Severity Scoring Criteria
Score Impact
Severity General Criteria
0 – 1.0 Insignificant
• No serious injuries or fatalities
• Few persons displaced for only a short duration
• None or inconsequential damage
• None or very minimal disruption to community
• No measurable environmental impacts
• Little or no financial loss

1.25 – 2.0 Minor
• Some minor injuries; no fatalities expected
• Some persons displaced for less than 24 hours
• Some minor damage
• Minor community disruption; no loss of lifeline services • Minimal environmental impacts with no lasting effects • Minor financial loss

2.25 – 3.0 Moderate
• Some hospitalizations; some fatalities expected
• Localized displacement of persons for up to 24 hours
• Localized damage
• Normal community functioning with some inconvenience
• Minor loss of critical lifeline services
• Some environmental impacts with no lasting effects, or small environmental impact with long-term effect
• Moderate financial loss

3.25 – 4.0 Major
• Extensive serious injuries; significant number of persons hospitalized • Many fatalities expected
• Significant displacement of many people for more than 24 hours • Significant damage requiring external resources
• Community services disrupted; some lifeline services potentially unavailable • Some environmental impacts with long-term effects
• Major financial loss

4.25 – 5.0 Catastrophic
• Large number of severe injuries and fatalities
• Local/regional hospitals impacted
• Large number of persons displaced for an extended duration • Extensive damage
• Widespread loss of critical lifeline services
• Community unable to function without significant support • Significant environmental impacts and/or permanent environmental damage • Catastrophic financial loss
A.1.9 Overall Risk
Overall hazard risk is determined by multiplying the probability of occurrence score by the impact severity score. The resultant total determines the overall risk rating as shown in Table 31.

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Table 31—Overall Risk Score and Rating
Overall Risk
Score
Overall Risk
Rating
0–5.99 LOW

6.0–11.99 MODERATE

12.0–19.99 HIGH

20.0–25.0 MAXIMUM
A.1.10 Building Fire Risk
One of the primary hazards in any community is building fire. Building fire risk factors include building size, age, construction type, density, occupancy, number of stories above ground level, required fire flow, proximity to other buildings, built-in fire protection/alarm systems, available fire suppression water supply, building fire service capacity, fire suppression resource deployment (distribution/concentration), staffing, and response time. Citygate used available data from the Department and the U.S. Census Bureau to assist in determining the Department’s building fire risk.

Figure 18 illustrates the building fire progression timeline and shows that flashover, which is the point at which the entire room erupts into fire after all the combustible objects in that room reach their ignition temperature, can occur as early as 3:00 to 5:00 minutes from the initial ignition.

Human survival in a room after flashover is extremely improbable.

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Figure 18—Building Fire Progression Timeline
Source: http://www.firesprinklerassoc.org
Population Density
Population density within the service area ranges from less than 500 to approximately 5,000 people per square mile. Although risk analysis across a wide spectrum of other Citygate clients shows no direct correlation between population density and building fire occurrence, it is reasonable to conclude that building fire risk relative to potential impact on human life is greater as population density increases, particularly in areas with high density, multiple-story buildings.

Water Supply
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and according to Fire Department staff, available fire flow is insufficient in several sections of the service area as shown in Map #2E in Volume 2 (Map Atlas).

Building Fire Service Demand
For calendar years 2017 and 2018, the Department experienced 44 building fire incidents comprising 1 percent of total service demand over the same period, as summarized in Table 32.

Table 32—Building Fire Service Demand
Risk Year
Planning Zone
Total
Percent Total
Service
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21 Demand
Building Fire
2017 3 3 7 11 24 0.83%
2018 0 5 7 8 20 0.75%
Total 3 8 14 19 44 0.79%
Percent of Total Service Demand .79% 0.42% 1.46% 0.97% 0.79% Source: Ross Valley Fire Department incident data
As Table 32 illustrates, building fire service demand was consistent across the two-year study period, with the highest volume of incidents occurring at Station 21 and the lowest at Station 19.

Overall, the Department’s building fire service demand is very low, comprising less than one percent of all calls for service, which is consistent with other California jurisdictions of similar size and demographics.

Probability of Building Fire Occurrence
Table 33 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of building fire probability by planning zone based on building fire service demand from Table 32.

Table 33—Building Fire Probability Scoring
Building Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Probability Score 1.25 1.50 2.0 2.25
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Building Fire Impact Severity
Table 34 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of the Department’s probable building fire impact severity by planning zone.

Table 34—Building Fire Impact Severity Scoring
Building Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Impact Severity Score 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Overall Building Fire Risk
Table 35 summarizes the Department’s overall building fire risk scores and ratings by planning zone.

Table 35—Overall Building Fire Risk
Building Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Total Risk Score 3.75 4.50 6.00 6.75
Risk Rating Low Low Moderate Moderate
A.1.11 Vegetation Fire Risk
Most of the service area is susceptible to a vegetation fire, particularly along the northern and western edges abutting the Mount Tamalpais watershed.

Wildland Fire Hazard Severity Zones
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) designates wildland Fire Hazard Severity Zones (FHSZ) throughout the State based on analysis of multiple wildland fire hazard factors and modeling of potential wildland fire behavior. For State Responsibility Areas (SRAs) where CAL FIRE has fiscal responsibility for wildland fire protection, CAL FIRE designates Moderate, High, and Very High FHSZs by county, as shown in Figure 19 for Marin County. Note the Moderate, High, and Very High FHSZs immediately to the north, northeast, and west of the service area.

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Figure 19—SRA Wildland Fire Hazard Severity Zones – Marin County CAL FIRE also identifies recommended FHSZs for Local Responsibility Areas (LRAs), where a local jurisdiction bears the fiscal responsibility for wildland fire protection, including incorporated cities, as shown in Figure 20 for Marin County.

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Figure 20—Wildland Fire Hazard Map
Note that there are no recommended FHSZs within the Department’s service area. The 2016 Marin County Fire Department Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP), however, identifies significant sections of the service area as Moderate, High and Very High Areas of Concern based on composite geospatial modeling of population density, potential flame length, and potential rate of spread as shown in Figure 21.

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Figure 21—Areas of Wildfire Concern – Marin County CWPP Reference: 2016 Marin County CWPP, Figure 15
Vegetative Fuels
Vegetative fuel factors influencing fire intensity and spread include fuel type (species), height, arrangement, density, and moisture. Vegetative fuels within the service area, in addition to decorative landscape species, include both native and non-native annual and perennial plant species, including grasses, weeds, shrubs, and chamise, and mostly hardwood trees including bay, eucalyptus, madrone, and oak. The majority of the service area has moderate to high vegetative fuel density. Once ignited, vegetation fires can burn intensely and contribute to rapid fire spread under the right fuel, weather, and topographic conditions.

Weather
Weather elements such as temperature, relative humidity, wind, and lightning also affect vegetation fire potential and behavior. High temperatures and low relative humidity dry out vegetative fuels, creating a situation where fuels will more readily ignite and burn more intensely.

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Wind is the most significant weather factor influencing vegetation fire behavior; higher wind speeds increase fire spread and intensity. Wildland fire season, when vegetation fires are most likely to occur due to fuel and weather conditions, occurs from approximately June through October in Marin County. Summer weather within the service area typically includes cool mornings, warm afternoons and evenings, and west/northwest breezes that can reach 15-25 miles per hour. Occasional summer gradients can produce temperatures in the high 90s to low 100s, low relative humidity, and offshore winds as high as 40 miles per hour. These weather conditions create the potential for a large, damaging wildfire.

Topography
Vegetation fires tend to burn more intensely and spread faster when burning uphill and up-canyon, except for a wind-driven downhill or down-canyon fire. The service area’s terrain varies from flat to steep slopes, which can contribute significantly to wildfire behavior and spread.

Wildfire History
Since the early 1900s, there have been several large wildland fires in Marin County, including the 1972 Kent Woodlands Fire, 1976 Scorich Park Fire, and 1995 Vision Fire (12,354 acres) as shown in Figure 22.

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Figure 22—Marin County Wildfire History
Source: Marin County CWPP, Figure 6
Water Supply
Another significant vegetation fire impact severity factor is water supply immediately available for fire suppression. According to Department staff, available fire flow is insufficient in several sections of the service area as shown in Map #2E in Volume 2 (Map Atlas).

Wildland Fire Hazard Mitigation
Hazard mitigation refers to specific actions or measures taken to prevent a hazard from occurring and/or to minimize the severity of impacts resulting from a hazard occurrence. While none of the hazards subject to this study can be entirely prevented, measures can be taken to minimize the consequences or impacts when those hazards do occur.

The Towns of Ross, San Anselmo, and Fairfax, and the Sleepy Hollow Fire Protection District, have adopted the 2016 California Fire Code and the 2015 International Wildland Urban Interface Code with amendments.

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The 2016 Marin County CWPP identifies the following wildfire hazard mitigation strategies, in addition to building codes, ordinances, and standards, and defensible space enforcement and public education strategies:
‹ Residential chipper programs
‹ Increasing dedicated staffing for vegetation management programs ‹ Annual weed abatement program
‹ Implementing an enhanced County Vegetation Management Program (conditional on voter approval of a Municipal Service Tax)
‹ Fuel breaks
‹ Eucalyptus and pine tree removal
‹ Roadside fuel reduction
‹ Evacuation route fuel reduction
‹ Creation of shaded fuel breaks in WUI transition zones Vegetation Fire Service Demand
The Department experienced only 19 vegetation fires over the two-year study period, comprising

0.34 percent of total service demand over the same period, as summarized in Table 36.

Table 36—Vegetation Fire Service Demand
Risk Year
Planning Zone
Total
Percent Total
Service
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21 Demand
Vegetation Fire
2017 2 3 1 5 11 0.38%
2018 1 3 2 2 8 0.30%
Total 3 6 3 7 19 0.34%
Percent of Total Service Demand 0.41% 0.32% 0.31% 0.36% 0.34% Source: Ross Valley Fire Department incident data
As Table 36 shows, overall vegetation fire service demand is extremely low.

Probability of Vegetation Fire Occurrence
Table 37 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of vegetation fire probability by planning zone based on vegetation fire service demand from Table 36.

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Table 37—Vegetation Fire Probability Scoring
Vegetation Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Probability Score 1.25 1.50 1.25 1.50
Vegetation Fire Impact Severity
Table 38 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of probable vegetation fire impact severity by planning zone.

Table 38—Vegetation Fire Impact Severity Scoring
Vegetation Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Impact Severity Score 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Overall Vegetation Fire Risk
Table 39 summarizes the Department’s overall vegetation fire risk scores and ratings by planning zone.

Table 39—Overall Vegetation Fire Risk
Vegetation Fire
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Total Risk Score 3.75 4.50 3.75 4.50
Risk Rating Low Low Low Low
A.1.12 Medical Emergency Risk
Medical emergency risk in most communities is predominantly a function of population density, demographics, violence, health insurance coverage, and vehicle traffic.

Medical emergency risk can also be categorized as either a medical emergency resulting from a traumatic injury or a health-related condition or event. Cardiac arrest is one serious medical emergency among many where there is an interruption or blockage of oxygen to the brain.

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influence survivability as well, such as early CPR and pre-hospital advanced life support interventions.

Figure 23—Survival Rate versus Time to Defibrillation
Source: www.suddencardiacarrest.org
Population Density
The Department’s service area population density ranges from less than 500 people per square mile to approximately 5,000 per square mile. Risk analysis across a wide spectrum of other Citygate clients shows a direct correlation between population density and the occurrence of medical emergencies, particularly in high urban population density zones.

Demographics
Medical emergency risk tends to be higher among older, poorer, less-educated, and uninsured populations. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 20 percent of the service area population is 65 and older; 4.4 percent of the population is at or below poverty level; only 3.4 percent of the population over 24 years of age has less than a high school education or equivalent; and only two ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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percent of the population does not have health insurance coverage.7 Overall, this indicates a welleducated and employed population with good health insurance coverage, all factors that can contribute to reducing medical emergency service demand.

Vehicle Traffic
Medical emergency risk tends to be higher in those areas of a community with high daily vehicle traffic volume, particularly those areas with high traffic volume traveling at high speeds. The service area transportation network includes Sir Francis Drake Boulevard, the primary two-lane regional thoroughfare with a very high daily traffic volume, particularly during weekday commute hours and on weekends.

Medical Emergency Service Demand
Medical emergency service demand over the two-year study period includes more than 2,800 calls for service comprising slightly more than 51 percent of total service demand over the same period, as summarized in Table 40.

Table 40—Medical Emergency Service Demand
Risk Year
Planning Zone
Total
Percent Total
Service
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21 Demand
Medical Emergency
2017 118 488 243 584 1,433 49.81%
2018 146 499 240 539 1,424 53.10%
Total 264 987 483 1,123 2,857 51.39%
Percent of Total Service Demand 36.16% 51.98% 50.21% 57.06% 51.39% Source: Ross Valley Fire Department incident data
As Table 40 shows, medical emergency service demand varies by planning zone and is trending consistently over the past two years. Overall, the Department’s medical emergency service demand is similar to other California jurisdictions of similar size and demographics.

Probability of Medical Emergency Occurrence
Table 41 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of medical emergency probability by planning zone based on medical emergency service demand from Table 40.
7 Source: U.S. Census Bureau (2017)
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Table 41—Medical Emergency Probability Scoring
Medical Emergency
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Probability Score 4.0 4.5 4.25 4.75
Medical Emergency Impact Severity
Table 42 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of probable medical emergency impact severity by planning zone.

Table 42—Medical Emergency Impact Severity Scoring
Medical Emergency
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Impact Severity Score 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Overall Medical Emergency Risk
Table 43 summarizes the Department’s overall medical emergency risk scores and ratings by planning zone.

Table 43—Overall Medical Emergency Risk
Medical Emergency
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Total Risk Score 12.0 13.5 12.75 14.25
Risk Rating High High High High
A.1.13 Hazardous Material Risk
Hazardous material risk factors include fixed facilities that store, use, or produce hazardous chemicals or waste; underground pipelines conveying hazardous materials; aviation, railroad, maritime, and vehicle transportation of hazardous materials into or through a jurisdiction; vulnerable populations; emergency evacuation planning and related training; and specialized hazardous material service capacity.

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Fixed Hazardous Materials Facilities
The Marin County Department of Public Works, serving as the State-designated Certified Unified Program Agency for the County, identified 38 facilities within the Department’s service area requiring a State or County hazardous material operating permit as shown on Map #2C in Volume 2 (Map Atlas).

Transportation-Related Hazardous Materials
The Department also has transportation-related hazardous material risk due to hazardous materials transported into or through its service area, primarily on Sir Francis Drake Boulevard.

Population Density
Because hazardous material emergencies have the potential to adversely impact human health, it is logical that the higher the population density, the greater the potential population exposed to a hazardous material release or spill. The service area population density ranges from less than 500 people per square mile to approximately 5,000 per square mile.

Vulnerable Populations
Persons vulnerable to a hazardous material release/spill include those individuals or groups unable to self-evacuate, generally including children under the age of 10, the elderly, and persons confined to an institution or other setting where they are unable to leave voluntarily. Almost 29 percent of the service area population is under age 10 years or is 65 years of age and older.

Emergency Evacuation Planning, Training, Implementation, and Effectiveness Another significant hazardous material impact severity factor is a jurisdiction’s shelter-in-place / emergency evacuation planning and training. In the event of a hazardous material release or spill, time can be a critical factor in notifying potentially affected persons, particularly at-risk populations, to either shelter-in-place or evacuate to a safe location. Essential to this process is an effective emergency plan that incorporates one or more mass emergency notification capabilities, as well as pre-established evacuation procedures. It is also essential to conduct regular, periodic exercises involving these two emergency plan elements to evaluate readiness and to identify and remediate any planning and/or training gaps to ensure ongoing emergency incident readiness and effectiveness.

The Office of Emergency Services (OES), within the Marin County Sheriff’s Office, is responsible for disaster/emergency preparedness and management in the unincorporated areas of the County, including hazard information, coordination with other local/regional emergency management organizations, emergency preparedness, and disaster response, communications, and recovery.

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accounts, cell phones, smartphones, tablets, and landline telephones. AlertMarin notifications can be initiated by designated fire or law enforcement agency personnel.

The Sheriff’s Office is also responsible for initiating emergency evacuations in the unincorporated areas of the County. No information was identified for this assessment relative to pre-planned evacuation routes, evacuation procedures, or evacuation exercises.

Hazardous Material Service Demand
The Department responded to 91 hazardous material incidents over the two-year study period, comprising 1.64 percent of total service demand over the same period, as summarized in Table 44.

Table 44—Hazardous Material Service Demand
Risk Year
Planning Zone
Total
Percent Total
Service
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21 Demand
Hazardous Material
2017 12 18 7 12 49 53.8%
2018 9 14 10 9 42 46.2%
Total 21 32 17 21 91 100%
Percent of Total Service Demand 2.88% 1.69% 1.77% 1.07% 1.64% Source: Ross Valley Fire Department incident data
As Table 44 indicates, hazardous material service demand is relatively consistent across all planning zones and years. While this service demand seems high for this size agency and jurisdiction, it is most likely due to Department personnel cross-staffing the Hazardous Materials Response unit for responses to other regional jurisdictions, rather than hazardous materials incidents within the service area. Overall, the Department’s hazardous material service demand is low.

Probability of Hazardous Material Occurrence
Table 45 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of hazardous materials probability by planning zone based on hazardous material service demand from Table 44.

Table 45—Hazardous Material Probability Scoring
Hazardous Material
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Probability Score 2.50 2.75 2.25 2.50
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Hazardous Material Impact Severity
Table 46 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of probable hazardous material impact severity by planning zone.

Table 46—Hazardous Material Impact Severity Scoring
Hazardous Materials
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Impact Severity Score 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
Overall Hazardous Material Risk
Table 47 summarizes the Department’s overall hazardous material risk scores and ratings by planning zone.

Table 47—Overall Hazardous Material Risk
Hazardous Materials
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Total Risk Score 7.50 8.25 6.75 7.50
Risk Rating Moderate Moderate Moderate Moderate
A.1.14 Technical Rescue Risk
Technical rescue risk factors include active construction projects; structural collapse potential; confined spaces, such as tanks and underground vaults; bodies of water, including rivers and streams; industrial machinery use; transportation volume; and earthquake, flood, and landslide potential.

Construction Activity
There is ongoing residential, commercial, and/or infrastructure construction activity occurring within the Department’s service area.

Confined Spaces
There are multiple tanks, vaults, and temporary open trenches within the Department’s service area.

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Bodies of Water
Bodies of water within the Department’s service area include Corte Madera, Fairfax, Ross, San Anselmo, and Sleepy Hollow creeks.

Transportation Volume
Another factor is transportation-related incidents requiring technical rescue. This risk factor is primarily a function of vehicle, railway, maritime, and aviation traffic. Vehicle traffic volume is the greatest of these factors within the service area, with Sir Francis Drake Boulevard carrying a high daily traffic volume.

Earthquake Risk8
The potential for earthquake damage exists throughout Marin County due to the combination of the number of active faults within and near the County and the presence of soils vulnerable to liquefaction. Active faults include the Hayward, Rodgers Creek, and San Andreas as shown in Figure 24. According to the Working Group on California Earthquake Probabilities, there is a 72 percent probability of at least one earthquake of magnitude 6.7 or greater within the Bay Area before 2043. The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) Resilience Program projects a 52 percent chance of a magnitude 6.7 or greater earthquake on one of the faults affecting Marin County by 2036.
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Figure 24—Earthquake Faults
Flood Risk9
All of Marin’s watersheds are small and largely prone to flash flooding. Several Marin communities, including Ross Valley, are protected by levees. Flooding has historically resulted in extensive damage in many County communities, including most of the Department’s service area, from significant flood events in 1955, 1958, 1964, 1969, 1970, 1982, 1983, 1986, 1995, 1997, 9 Reference: 2018 Marin County Multi-Jurisdictional Local Hazard Mitigation Plan, Section 3 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 5

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1998, 2005, 2006, and 2017. Figure 25 shows the flood hazard zones within the Department’s service area as identified by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Figure 25—Flood Hazard Areas
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Technical Rescue Service Demand
Over the two-year study period, there were a total of six technical rescue incidents comprising 0.11 percent of total service demand for the same period, as summarized in Table 48.

Table 48—Technical Rescue Service Demand
Risk Year
Planning Zone
Total
Percent Total
Service
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21 Demand
Technical Rescue
2017 0 0 0 3 3 0.10%
2018 1 1 0 1 3 0.11%
Total 1 1 0 4 6 0.11%
Percent of Total Service Demand 0.14% 0.05% 0.00% 0.20% 0.11% Source: Ross Valley Fire Department incident data
As Table 48 shows, technical rescue service demand is extremely low.

Probability of Technical Rescue Occurrence
Table 49 summarizes Citygate’s technical rescue probability scoring by planning zone based on service demand from Table 48. These probability scores are based predominantly on known historical flood data rather than recent service demand history.

Table 49—Technical Rescue Probability Scoring
Technical Rescue
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Probability Score 1.25 1.25 1.25 1.25
Technical Rescue Impact Severity
Table 50 summarizes Citygate’s scoring of probable technical rescue impact severity by planning zone.

Table 50—Technical Rescue Impact Severity Scoring
Technical Rescue
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Impact Severity Score 3.0 3.0 3.0 3.0
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Overall Technical Rescue Risk
Table 51 summarizes the Department’s overall technical rescue risk scores and ratings by planning zone.

Table 51—Overall Technical Rescue Risk
Technical Rescue
Planning Zone
Sta. 18 Sta. 19 Sta. 20 Sta. 21
Total Risk Score 3.75 3.75 3.75 3.75
Risk Rating Low Low Low Low
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NIST Technical Note 1661
Jason D. Averill
Lori Moore-Merrell
Adam Barowy
Robert Santos
Richard Peacock
Kathy A. Notarianni
Doug Wissoker
Edited by Bill Robinson
U.S. Department of Commerce
Gary Locke, Secretary
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Patrick D. Gallagher, Director
April 2010 1
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April 2010
NIST Technical Note 1661
Report on Residential
Fireground Field Experiments
Jason D. Averill
Lori Moore-Merrell
Adam Barowy
Robert Santos
Richard Peacock
Kathy A. Notarianni
Doug Wissoker
Edited by Bill Robinson
U.S. Department of Commerce
Gary Locke, Secretary
National Institute of Standards and Technology
Patrick D. Gallagher, Director
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Certain commercial entities, equipment, or materials may be identified in this document in order to describe an
experimental procedure or concept adequately. Such
identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and
Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose.
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National Institute of Standards and Technology Technical Note 1661, 104 pages (March 2010) CODEN:

Produced with the Cooperation of
Montgomery County
Fire and Rescue
Chief Richard Bowers
Produced with the Cooperation of
Fairfax County
Fire and Rescue
Chief Ronald Mastin
Funding provided through DHS/FEMA Grant Program Directorate for FY 2008 Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program – Fire Prevention and Safety Grants (EMW-2008-FP-01603)
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Table of Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................9 Executive Summary ..........................................................................10 Background........................................................................................12 Problem ..............................................................................................13 Review of Literature ..........................................................................14 Purpose and Scope of the Study ....................................................16 A Brief Overview of Fire Department Fireground Operations....17 The Relation of Time-to-Task Completion and Risk ..........................18 Standards of Response Cover............................................................18 Part 1: Planning for the Field Experiments....................................20 Part 2: Time-to-Task Experiments ..................................................24 Field Experiment Methods ..............................................................21 Field Site ..............................................................................................21 Overview of Field Experiments ..........................................................22 Instrumentation ....................................................................................22 Safety Protocols ..................................................................................23 Crew Size ............................................................................................24 Department Participation ....................................................................24 Crew Orientation..................................................................................24 Tasks ....................................................................................................25 Data Collection: Standardized Control Measures..............................27 Task Flow Charts and Crew Cue Cards ............................................27 Radio communications........................................................................27 Task Timers..........................................................................................27 Video records ......................................................................................27 Crew Assignment ................................................................................28 Response Time Assumptions..............................................................28 Part 3: Room and Contents Fires....................................................29 Fuel Packages for the Room and Contents Fires..............................29 Experimental Matrix for Room and Contents Fires............................30 Procedure for Minimizing the Effect of Variance in Fire Growth Rate ..........31 Analysis of Experimental Results ..................................................33 Time-to-task Analysis ..........................................................................33 Data Queries........................................................................................33 Statistical Methods - Time to Task ......................................................33 Regression Analysis ............................................................................33 Measurement Uncertainty ..................................................................34 How to Interpret Time-to-Task Graphs................................................34 Time-to-Task Graphs ..........................................................................35 Part 4: Fire Modeling ........................................................................43 Time to Untenable Conditions: Research Questions ........................45 Fire Modeling Methods........................................................................45 Fire Growth Rates................................................................................46 Fractional Effective Dose (FED)..........................................................47 Results from Modeling Methods ........................................................48 Interior Firefighting Conditions and Deployment Configuration ........49 Physiological Effects on Firefighters: Comparison by Crew Size........50 Study Limitations ..............................................................................51 Conclusions........................................................................................52 Future Research ................................................................................53 Acknowledgments ............................................................................55 References..........................................................................................56 7 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

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Service expectations placed on the fire service, including Emergency Medical Services (EMS), response to natural
disasters, hazardous materials incidents, and acts of
terrorism, have steadily increased. However, local
decision-makers are challenged to balance these community service expectations with finite resources without a solid technical foundation for evaluating the impact of staffing and deployment decisions on the safety of the public and firefighters.

For the first time, this study investigates the effect of varying crew size, first apparatus arrival time, and response time on firefighter safety, overall task completion, and interior residential tenability using realistic residential fires. This study is also unique because of the array of stakeholders and the caliber of technical experts involved. Additionally, the structure used in the field experiments included customized instrumentation; all related industry standards were followed; and robust research methods were used. The results and conclusions will directly inform the NPFA 1710 Technical Committee, who is responsible for
developing consensus industry deployment standards.

This report presents the results of more than 60 laboratory and residential fireground experiments designed to quantify the effects of various fire department deployment configurations on the most common type of fire — a low hazard residential structure fire. For the fireground experiments, a 2,000 sq ft (186 m2), two-story residential structure was designed and built at the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in
Rockville, MD. Fire crews from Montgomery County, MD and Fairfax County, VA were deployed in response to live fires within this facility. In addition to systematically controlling for the arrival times of the first and subsequent fire apparatus, crew size was varied to consider two-, three-, four-, and five-person staffing.

Each deployment performed a series of 22 tasks that were timed, while the thermal and toxic environment inside the structure was measured. Additional experiments with larger fuel loads as well as fire modeling produced additional insight. Report results quantify the effectiveness of crew size, first-due engine arrival time, and apparatus arrival stagger on the duration and time to completion of the key 22 fireground tasks and the effect on occupant and firefighter safety.

Abstract
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Both the increasing demands on the fire service - such as the growing number of Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
responses, challenges from natural disasters, hazardous materials incidents, and acts of terrorism — and previous research point to the need for scientifically based studies of the effect of different crew sizes and firefighter arrival times on the effectiveness of the fire service to protect lives and property. To meet this need, a research partnership of the Commission on Fire Accreditation International (CFAI), International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC), International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) was formed to conduct a multiphase study of the deployment of resources as it affects firefighter and occupant safety.

Starting in FY 2005, funding was provided through the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) / Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Grant Program Directorate for Assistance to Firefighters Grant Program — Fire Prevention and Safety Grants. In addition to the low-hazard residential fireground experiments described in this report, the multiple phases of the overall research effort include development of a conceptual model for community risk assessment and deployment of resources, implementation of a generalizable department incident survey, and delivery of a software tool to quantify the effects of deployment decisions on resultant firefighter and civilian injuries and on property losses.

The first phase of the project was an extensive survey of more than 400 career and combination (both career and volunteer) fire departments in the United States with the objective of optimizing a fire service leader’s capability to deploy resources to prevent or mitigate adverse events that occur in risk- and hazard-filled environments. The results of this survey are not documented in this report, which is limited to the experimental phase of the project.

The survey results will constitute significant input into the development of a future software tool to quantify the effects of community risks and associated deployment decisions on resultant firefighter and civilian injuries and property losses.

The following research questions guided the experimental design of the low-hazard residential fireground experiments documented in this report:

1. How do crew size and stagger affect overall start-to-completion response timing?

2. How do crew size and stagger affect the timings of task initiation, task duration, and task completion for each of the 22 critical fireground tasks?

3. How does crew size affect elapsed times to achieve three critical events that are known to change fire behavior or tenability within the structure:
a. Entry into structure?
b. Water on fire?
c. Ventilation through windows (three upstairs and one back downstairs window and the burn room window).

4. How does the elapsed time to achieve the national standard of assembling 15 firefighters at the scene vary between crew sizes of four and five?
In order to address the primary research questions, the research was divided into four distinct, yet interconnected parts:
 Part 1 — Laboratory experiments to design appropriate fuel load  Part 2 — Experiments to measure the time for various crew sizes and apparatus stagger (interval between arrival of various apparatus) to accomplish key tasks in rescuing
occupants, extinguishing a fire, and protecting property  Part 3 — Additional experiments with enhanced fuel load that prohibited firefighter entry into the burn prop – a building constructed for the fire experiments
 Part 4 — Fire modeling to correlate time-to-task completion by crew size and stagger to the increase in toxicity of the atmosphere in the burn prop for a range of fire growth rates.

The experiments were conducted in a burn prop designed to simulate a low-hazard1 fire in a residential structure described as typical in NFPA 1710® Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments. NFPA 1710 is the consensus standard for career firefighter deployment, including requirements for fire department arrival time, staffing levels, and fireground responsibilities.

Limitations of the study include firefighters’ advance knowledge of the burn prop, invariable number of apparatus, and lack of experiments in elevated outdoor temperatures or at night. Further, the applicability of the conclusions from this report to commercial structure fires, high-rise fires, outside fires, terrorism/natural disaster response, HAZMAT or other technical responses has not been assessed and should not be extrapolated from this report.

Primary Findings
Of the 22 fireground tasks measured during the experiments, results indicated that the following factors had the most significant impact on the success of fire fighting operations. All differential outcomes described below are statistically significant at the 95 % confidence level or better.

Overall Scene Time:

The four-person crews operating on a low-hazard structure fire completed all the tasks on the fireground (on average) seven minutes faster — nearly 30 % — than the two-person crews. The four-person crews completed the same number of fireground tasks (on average) 5.1 minutes faster — nearly 25 % — than the three-person crews. On the low-hazard residential structure fire, adding a fifth person to the crews did not decrease overall fireground task times. However, it should be noted that the 1 A low-hazard occupancy is defined in the NFPA Handbook as a one-, two-, or three-family dwelling and some small businesses. Medium hazards occupancies include apartments, offices, mercantile and industrial occupancies not normally requiring extensive rescue or firefighting forces. High-hazard occupancies include schools, hospitals, nursing homes, explosive plants, refineries, high-rise buildings, and other highlife hazard or large fire potential occupancies.

Executive Summary
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2 NFPA Standard 1710 - A.5.2.4.2.1 …Other occupancies and structures in the community that present greater hazards should be addressed by additional fire fighter functions and additional responding personnel on the initial full alarm assignment. 3 NFPA 1710 Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments. Section 5.2.1 – Fire Suppression Capability and Section 5.2.2 Staffing. 4 As defined in the handbook, a fast fire grows exponentially to 1.0 MW in 150 seconds. A medium fire grows exponentially to 1 MW in 300 seconds. A slow fire grows exponentially to 1 MW in 600 seconds. A 1 MW fire can be thought-of as a typical upholstered chair burning at its peak. A large sofa might be 2 to 3 MWs. benefit of five-person crews has been documented in other evaluations to be significant for medium- and high-hazard structures, particularly in urban settings, and is recognized in industry standards.2
Time to Water on Fire:

There was a 10% difference in the “water on fire” time between the two- and three-person crews. There was an additional 6% difference in the "water on fire" time between the three- and four-person crews. (i.e., four-person crews put water on the fire 16% faster than two person crews). There was an additional 6% difference in the “water on fire” time between the four- and five-person crews (i.e. five-person crews put water on the fire 22% faster than two-person crews).

Ground Ladders and Ventilation:

The four-person crews operating on a low-hazard structure fire completed laddering and ventilation (for life safety and rescue) 30 % faster than the two-person crews and 25 % faster than the three-person crews.

Primary Search:

The three-person crews started and completed a primary search and rescue 25 % faster than the two-person crews. The four- and five-person crews started and completed a primary search 6 % faster than the three-person crews and 30 % faster than the two-person crew. A 10 % difference was equivalent to just over one minute.

Hose Stretch Time:

In comparing four-and five-person crews to two-and
three-person crews collectively, the time difference to stretch a line was 76 seconds. In conducting more specific analysis comparing all crew sizes to the two-person crews the differences are more distinct. Two-person crews took 57 seconds longer than
three-person crews to stretch a line. Two-person crews took 87 seconds longer than four-person crews to complete the same tasks. Finally, the most notable comparison was between two-person crews and five-person crews — more than 2 minutes (122 seconds) difference in task completion time.

Industry Standard Achieved:

As defined by NFPA 1710, the “industry standard achieved” time started from the first engine arrival at the hydrant and ended when 15 firefighters were assembled on scene.3 An effective response force was assembled by the five-person crews three minutes faster than the four-person crews. Based on the study protocols, modeled after a typical fire department apparatus deployment strategy, the total number of firefighters on scene in the two- and three-person crew scenarios never equaled 15 and therefore the two- and three-person crews were unable to assemble enough personnel to meet this standard.

Occupant Rescue:

Three different “standard” fires were simulated using the Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) model. Characterized in the
Handbook of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers as slow-, medium-, and fast-growth rate4, the fires grew exponentially with time. The rescue scenario was based on a non-ambulatory occupant in an upstairs bedroom with the bedroom door open.

Independent of fire size, there was a significant difference between the toxicity, expressed as fractional effective dose (FED), for occupants at the time of rescue depending on arrival times for all crew sizes. Occupants rescued by early-arriving crews had less exposure to combustion products than occupants rescued by late-arriving crews. The fire modeling showed clearly that two-person crews cannot complete essential fireground tasks in time to rescue occupants without subjecting them to an increasingly toxic atmosphere. For a slow-growth rate fire with two-person crews, the FED was approaching the level at which sensitive populations, such as children and the elderly are threatened. For a medium-growth rate fire with two-person crews, the FED was far above that threshold and approached the level affecting the general population.

For a fast-growth rate fire with two-person crews, the FED was well above the median level at which 50 % of the general population would be incapacitated. Larger crews responding to slow-growth rate fires can rescue most occupants prior to incapacitation along with early-arriving larger crews responding to medium-growth rate fires. The result for late-arriving (two minutes later than early-arriving) larger crews may result in a threat to sensitive populations for medium-growth rate fires. Statistical averages should not, however, mask the fact that there is no FED level so low that every occupant in every situation is safe.

Conclusion:

More than 60 full-scale fire experiments were conducted to determine the impact of crew size, first-due engine arrival time, and subsequent apparatus arrival times on firefighter safety and effectiveness at a low-hazard residential structure fire. This report quantifies the effects of changes to staffing and arrival times for residential firefighting operations. While resource deployment is addressed in the context of a single structure type and risk level, it is recognized that public policy decisions regarding the cost-benefit of specific deployment decisions are a function of many other factors including geography, local risks and hazards, available resources, as well as community expectations. This report does not specifically address these other factors.

The results of these field experiments contribute significant knowledge to the fire service industry. First, the results provide a quantitative basis for the effectiveness of four-person crews for low-hazard response in NFPA 1710. The results also provide valid measures of total effective response force assembly on scene for fireground operations, as well as the expected performance time-to-critical-task measures for low-hazard structure fires.

Additionally, the results provide tenability measures associated with a range of modeled fires.

Future research should extend the findings of this report in order to quantify the effects of crew size and apparatus arrival times for moderate- and high-hazard events, such as fires in high-rise buildings, commercial properties, certain factories, or warehouse facilities, responses to large-scale non-fire incidents, or technical rescue operations.
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The fire service in the United States has a deservedly proud tradition of service to community and country dating back hundreds of years. As technology advances and the scope of service grows (e.g., more EMS obligations and growing response to natural disasters, hazardous materials incidents, and acts of terrorism), the fire service remains committed to a core mission of protecting lives and property from the effects of fire.

Firefighting is a dangerous business with substantial financial implications. In 2007, U.S. municipal fire departments responded to an estimated 1,557,500 fires. These fires killed 3,430 civilians (non-firefighters) and contributed to 17,675 reported civilian fire injuries. Direct property damage was estimated at $14.6 billion dollars (Karter, 2008). In spite of the vigorous nationwide efforts to promote firefighter safety, the number of firefighter deaths has consistently remained tragically high. In both 2007 and 2008, the U.S. Fire Administration reported 118 firefighter fatalities (USFA 2008).

Although not all firefighter deaths occur on the fireground — accidents in vehicles and training fatalities add to the numbers — every statistical analysis of the fire problem in the United States identifies residential structure fires as a key component in firefighter and civilian deaths, as well as direct property loss.

Consequently, community planners and decision-makers need tools for optimally aligning resources with the service commitments needed for adequate protection of citizens.

Background
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Despite the magnitude of the fire problem in the United States, there are no scientifically based tools available to community and fire service leaders to assess the effects of prevention, fixed sprinkler systems, fire fighting equipment, or deployment and staffing decisions. Presently, community and fire service leaders have a qualitative understanding of the effect of certain resource allocation decisions. For example, a decision to double the number of firehouses, apparatus, and firefighters would likely result in a decrease in community fire losses, while cutting the number of firehouses, apparatus, and firefighters would likely yield an increase in the community fire losses, both human and property. However, decision-makers lack a sound basis for quantifying the total impact of enhanced fire resources on the number of firefighter and civilian lives saved and injuries prevented.

Studies on adequate deployment of resources are needed to enable fire departments, cities, counties, and fire districts to design an acceptable level of resource deployment based upon community risks and service provision commitment. These studies will assist with strategic planning and municipal and state budget processes. Additionally, as resource studies refine data collection methods and measures, both subsequent research and improvements to resource deployment models will have a sound scientific basis.

Problem
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Research to date has documented a consistent relationship between resources deployed and firefighter and civilian safety. Studies documenting engine and ladder crew
performance in diverse simulated environments as well as actual responses show a basic relationship between apparatus staffing levels and a range of important performance variables and outcome measurements such as mean on-scene time, time-to-task completion, incidence of injury among fire service personnel, and costs incurred as a result of on-scene injuries (Cushman 1981, McManis 1984, Morrison 1990, Ontario 1991, Phoenix 1991, Roberts 1993).

Reports by fire service officials and consulting associates reviewing fire suppression and emergency response by fire crews in U.S. cities were the first publications to describe the relationship between adequate staffing levels and response time, time to completion of various fireground tasks, overall effectiveness of fire suppression, and estimated value of property loss for a wide range of real and simulated environments. In 1980, the Columbus Fire Division’s report on firefighter effectiveness showed that for a predetermined number of personnel initially deployed to the scene of a fire, the proportion of incidents in which property loss exceeded $5,000 and horizontal fire spread of more than 25 sq ft (2.3 m2) was significantly greater for crews whose numbers fell below the set thresholds of 15 total fireground personnel at residential fires and 23 at large-risk fires (Backoff 1980). The following year, repeated live experiments at a one-family residential site using modern apparatus and
equipment demonstrated that larger units performed tasks and accomplished knockdown more quickly, ultimately resulting in a lower percentage of loss attributable to factors controlled by the fire department. The authors of this article highlighted that the fire company is the fire department’s basic working unit and further emphasized the importance of establishing accurate and up-to-date performance measurements to help collect data and develop conclusive strategies to improve staffing and equipment utilization (Gerard 1981).

Subsequent reports from the United States Fire Administration (USFA) and several consulting firms continued to provide evidence for the effects of staffing on fire crews’ ability to complete tasks involved in fire suppression efficiently and effectively. Citing a series of tests conducted in 1977 by the Dallas Fire Department that measured the time it took three-, four-, and five-person teams to advance a line and put water on a simulated fire at the rear of the third floor of an old school, officials from the USFA underscored that time-to-task completion and final level of physical exhaustion for crews markedly improved not after any one threshold, but with the addition of each new team member.

This report went on to outline the manner in which simulated tests exemplify a clear-cut means to record and analyze the resources initially deployed and finally utilized at fire scenes (NFA 1981). A later publication detailing more Dallas Fire Department simulations — ninety-one runs each for a private residential fire, high-rise office fire, and apartment house fire — showed again that increased staffing levels greatly enhanced the coordination and effectiveness of crews’ fire suppression efforts during a finite time span (McManis Associates 1984). Numerous studies of local departments have supported this conclusion using a diverse collection of data, including a report by the National Fire Academy (NFA) on fire department staffing in smaller
communities, which showed that a company crew staffed with four firefighters could perform rescue of potential victims approximately 80 % faster than a crew staffed with three firefighters (Morrison 1990).

During the same time period that the impact of staffing levels on fire operations was gaining attention, investigators began to question whether staffing levels could also be associated with the risk of firefighter injuries and the cost incurred as a result of such injuries at the fire scene. Initial results from the Columbus Fire Division showed that “firefighter injuries occurred more often when the total number of personnel on the fireground was less than 15 at residential fires and 23 at large-risk fires” (Backoff 1980), and mounting evidence has indicated that staffing levels are a fundamental health and safety issue for firefighters in addition to being a key determinant of immediate response capacity. One early analysis by the Seattle Fire Department for that city’s Executive Board reviewed the average severity of injuries suffered by three-, four-, and five-person engine companies, with the finding that “the rate of firefighter injuries expressed as total hours of disability per hours of fireground exposure were 54 % greater for engine companies staffed with 3 personnel when compared to those staffed with 4 firefighters, while companies staffed with 5 personnel had an injury rate that was only one-third that associated with four-person companies” (Cushman 1981). A joint report from the International
Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) and Johns Hopkins University concluded, after a comprehensive analysis of the minimum staffing levels and firefighter injury rates in U.S. cities with populations of 150,000 or more, that jurisdictions operating with crews of less than four firefighters had injury rates nearly twice the percentage of jurisdictions operating with crews of four-person crews or more (IAFF, JHU 1991).

More recent studies have continued to support the finding that staffing per piece of apparatus integrally affects the efficacy and safety of fire department personnel during emergency response and fire suppression. Two studies in particular demonstrate the consistency of these conclusions and the increasing level of detail and accuracy present in the most recent literature, by looking closely at the discrete tasks that could be safely and effectively performed by three- and four-person fire companies. After testing drills comprised of a series of common fireground tasks at several fire simulation sites, investigators from the Austin Fire Department assessed the physiological impact and injury rates among the variably staffed fire crews. In these simulations, an increase from a three- to four-person crew resulted in marked improvements in time-to-task completion or efficiency for the two-story residential fire drill, aerial ladder evolution, and high-rise fire drill, leading the researchers to conclude that loss of life and property increases when a sufficient number of personnel are not available to conduct the required tasks efficiently, independent of firefighter experience, preparation, or training.

Reviews of injury reports by the Austin Fire Department furthermore revealed that the injury rate for three-person companies in the four years preceding the study was nearly one-and-a-half that of crews staffed with four or more personnel (Roberts 1993). In a sequence of similar tests, the Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario, Canada likewise found that three-person Review of Literature
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fire companies were unable to safely perform deployment of backup protection lines, interior suppression or rescue operations, ventilation operations that required access to the roof of the involved structure, use of large hand-held hose lines, or establish a water supply from a static source without additional assistance and within the time limits of the study. Following these data, Fire Marshal officials noted that three-person crews were also at increased risk for exhaustion due to insufficient relief at fire scenes and made recommendations for the minimum staffing levels per apparatus necessary for suppression and rescue related tasks (Office of the Fire Marshal of Ontario 1993).

The most comprehensive contemporary studies on the
implications of fire crew staffing now include much more accurate performance measures for tasks at the fireground, in addition to the basic metric of response time. They include environmental measures of performance, such as total water supply, which expand the potential for assessing the
cost-effectiveness of staffing not only in terms of fireground personnel injury rates but also comparative resource expenditure required for fire suppression. Several examples from the early 1990s show investigators and independent fire departments beginning to gather the kind of specific, comprehensive data on staffing and fireground tasks such as those suggested and outlined in concurrent local government publications that dealt with management of fire services (Coleman 1988). A report by the Phoenix Fire Department laid out clear protocols for responding to structure fires and response evaluation in terms of staffing, objectives, task breakdowns, and times in addition to outlining the responsibilities of responding fire department members and the order in which they should be accomplished for a full-scale simulation activity (Phoenix 1991). One attempt to devise a prediction model for the effectiveness of manual fire suppression similarly reached beyond response time benchmarks to describe fire operations and the step-by-step actions of firefighters at incident scenes by delineating the time-to-task breakdowns for size-up, water supply, equipment selection, entry, locating the fire, and advancing hose lines, while also comparing the predicted time-to-task values with the actual times and total resources (Menker 1994). Two separate studies of local fire department performance, one from Taoyuan County in Taiwan and another from the London Fire Brigade, have drawn ties between fire crews’ staffing levels and total water demand as the consequence of both response time and fire severity. Field data from Taoyuan County for cases of fire in commercial, business, hospital, and educational properties showed that the type of land use as well as response time had a significant impact on the water volume necessary for fire suppression, with the notable quantitative finding that the water supply required on-scene doubled when the fire department response increased by ten minutes (Chang 2005).

Response time as a predictor of residential fire outcomes has received less study than the effect of crew size. A Rand Institute study demonstrated a relationship between the distance the responding companies traveled and the physical property damage.

This study showed that the fire severity increased with response distance, and therefore the magnitude of loss increased proportionally (Rand 1978). Using records from 307 fires in nonresidential buildings over a three-year period, investigators in the United Kingdom correspondingly found response time to have a significant impact on final fire area, which in turn was proportional to total water demand (Sardqvist 2000).

Recent government and professional literature continues to demonstrate the need for more data that would quantify in depth and illustrate the required tasks, event sequences, and necessary response times for effective fire suppression in order to determine with accuracy the full effects of either a reduction or increase in fire company staffing (Karter 2008). A report prepared for National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) stressed the ongoing need to elucidate the relationship between staffing and personnel injury rates, stating that “a scientific study on the relationship between the number of firefighters per engine and the incidence of injuries would resolve a long-standing question concerning staffing and safety” (TriData 2005). While not addressing staffing levels as a central focus, an annual review of fire department calls and false alarms by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) exemplified the need to capture not only the number of personnel per apparatus for effective fire suppression but also to clarify the demands on individual fire departments with resolution at the station level (NFPA 2008).

In light of the existing literature, there remain unanswered questions about the relationships between fire service resource deployment levels and associated risks. For the first time this study investigates the effect of varying crew size, first apparatus arrival time, and response time on firefighter safety, overall task completion and interior residential tenability using realistic residential fires. This study is also unique because of the array of stakeholders and the caliber of technical advisors involved.

Additionally, the structure used in the field experiments included customized instrumentation for the experiments; all related industry standards were followed; robust research methods were used; and the results and conclusions will directly inform the NFPA 1710 Technical Committee, as well as public officials and fire chiefs. 5
15 5 NFPA is a registered trademark of the National Fire Protection Association, Quincy, Massachusetts. NFPA 1710 defines minimum requirements relating to the organization and deployment of fire suppression operations, emergency medical operations, and special operations to the public by substantially all career fire departments. The requirements address functions and objectives of fire department emergency service delivery, response capabilities, and resources. The purpose of this standard is to specify the minimum criteria addressing the effectiveness and efficiency of the career public fire suppression operations, emergency medical service, and special operations delivery in protecting the citizens of the jurisdiction and the occupational safety and health of fire department employees. At the time of the experiments, the 2004 edition of NFPA 1710 was the current edition.

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This project systematically studies deployment of fire
fighting resources and the subsequent effect on both
firefighter safety and the ability to protect civilians and their property. It is intended to enable fire departments and city/county managers to make sound decisions regarding optimal resource allocation to meet service commitments using the results of scientifically based research. Specifically, the residential fireground experiments provide quantitative data on the effect of crew size, first-due engine arrival time, and subsequent apparatus stagger on time-to-task for critical steps in response and fire fighting.

The first phase of the multiphase project was an extensive survey of more than 400 career and combination fire departments in the United States with the objective of optimizing a fire service leader’s capability to deploy resources to prevent or mitigate adverse events that occur in risk- and hazard-filled environments.

The results of this survey are not documented in this report, which is limited to the experimental phase of the project, but they will constitute significant input into future applications of the data presented in this document.

This report describes the second phase of the project, divided into four parts:
 Part 1 — Laboratory experiments to design the appropriate fuel packages to be used in the burn facility specially constructed for the research project
 Part 2 — Field tests for critical time-to-task completion of key tasks in fire suppression
 Part 3 — Field tests with real furniture (room and contents experiments)
 Part 4 — Fire modeling to apply data gathered to slow-, medium-, and fast-growth rate fires
The scope of this study is limited to understanding the relative influence of deployment variables on low-hazard, residential structure fires, similar in magnitude to the hazards described in NFPA® 1710, Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations, Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments.

The standard uses as a typical residential structure a 2,000 sq ft (186 m2
) two-story, single-family dwelling with no basement and no exposures (nearby buildings or hazards such as stacked flammable material).

The limitations of the study, such as firefighters’ advance knowledge of the facility constructed for this experiment, invariable number of apparatus, and lack of experiments in extreme temperatures or at night, will be discussed in the Limitations section of this report. It should be noted that the applicability of the conclusions from this report to commercial structure fires, high-rise fires, outside fires, and response to hazardous material incidents, acts of terrorism, and natural disasters or other technical responses has not been assessed and should not be extrapolated from this report.

Purpose and Scope of the Study
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Regardless of the size of a structure on fire, firefighting crews identify four priorities: life safety of occupants and firefighters, confinement of the fire, property conservation, and reduction of adverse environmental impact. Interdependent and coordinated activities of all fire fighting personnel are required to meet the priority objectives.

NFPA 1710 specifies that the number of on-duty fire
suppression personnel must be sufficient to carry out the necessary fire fighting operations given the expected fire fighting conditions. During each fireground experiment, the following were dispatched to the test fire building:
 three engine companies
 one truck company
 a command vehicle with a battalion chief and a command aide
Staffing numbers for the engine and truck crews and response times were varied for the purposes of the tests. Additional personnel available to ensure safety will be described later in this report.

The following narrative account describes the general sequence of activities in part 2 of the experiments (time-to-task), when the fuel load permitted firefighter entry:

The first arriving engine company conducts a size-up or initial life safety assessment of the building to include signs of occupants in the home, construction features, and location of the original fire and any extension to other parts of the structure. This crew lays a supply line from a hydrant close to the building for a continuous water supply.

The truck company usually arrives in close proximity to the first engine company. The truck company is responsible for gaining access or forcing entry into the building so that the engine company can advance the first hose line into the building to locate and extinguish the fire. Usually, they assist the engine company in finding the fire. The NFPA and
OSHA 2 In/2 Out 6 crew is also assembled prior to anyone entering an atmosphere that is immediately dangerous to life or health (IDLH). This important safety requirement will have a large impact on availability of firefighters to enter the building when small crews are deployed.

Once a door is opened, the engine crew advances a hose line (attack line) toward the location of the fire. At the same time, members from the truck crew accompany the engine crew and assist in ventilating the building to provide a more tenable atmosphere for occupants and firefighters. Ventilation also helps by improving visibility in an otherwise “pitch black” environment, but it must be coordinated with the attack line crew to ensure it helps control the fire and does not contribute to fire growth. The truck crew performs a systematic rapid search of the entire structure starting in the area where occupants would be in the most danger. The most dangerous area is proximate to the fire and the areas directly above the fire.

Depending upon the travel distance, the battalion chief and command aide will have arrived on the scene and have taken command of the incident and established a command post.

The role of the incident commander is to develop the action plan to mitigate the incident and see that those actions are carried out in a safe, efficient, and effective manner. The command aide is responsible for situational assessment and communications, including communications with crew
officers to ensure personnel accountability.

Depending on response time or station location, the second (engine 2) and possibly the third engine company (engine 3) arrive. The second arriving engine (engine 2) connects to the fire hydrant where the first engine (engine 1) laid their supply line. Engine 2 pumps water from the hydrant through the supply line to the first engine for fire fighting operations.

According to NFPA 1710, water should be flowing from the supply line to the attack engine prior to the attack crew’s entry into the structure.

The crew from the second engine advances a second hand
line as a backup line to protect firefighters operating on the inside and to prevent fire from spreading to other parts of the structure.

The third engine crew is responsible for establishing a Rapid Intervention Team (RIT), a rescue team staged at or near the command post or as designated by the Incident Commander (in the front of the building) with all necessary equipment needed to locate and/or rescue firefighters that become trapped or incapacitated. The RIT plans entry/exit portals and removes hazards, if found, to assist interior crews.

As the fire fighting, search and rescue, and ventilation operations are continuing, two members of the truck
company are tasked with placing ground ladders to windows and the roof to provide a means of egress for occupants or firefighters. The truck crew is responsible for controlling interior utilities such as gas and electric after their ventilation, search, and rescue duties are completed.

Once the fire is located and extinguished and occupants are A Brief Overview of the Fireground Operations
6 The “2 In/2 Out” policy is part of paragraph (g)(4) of OSHAs revised respiratory protection standard, 29 CFR 1910.134. This paragraph applies to private sector workers engaged in interior structural fire fighting and to Federal employees covered under Section 19 of the Occupational Safety and Health Act. States that have chosen to operate OSHA-approved occupational safety and health state plans are required to extend their jurisdiction to include employees of their state and local governments.

These states are required to adopt a standard at least as effective as the Federal standard within six months.

OSHAs interpretation on requirements for the number of workers required to be present when conducting operations in atmospheres that are immediately dangerous to life and health (IDLH) covers the number of persons who must be on the scene before fire fighting personnel may initiate an attack on a structural fire. An interior structural fire (an advanced fire that has spread inside of the building where high temperatures, “heat” and dense smoke are normally occurring) would present an IDLH atmosphere and therefore, require the use of respirators. In those cases, at least two standby persons, in addition to the minimum of two persons inside needed to fight the fire, must be present before fire fighters may enter the building.

Letter to Thomas N. Cooper, Purdue University, from Paula O. White, Director of Federal-State Operations, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, November 1, 1995.
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removed, the incident commander reassesses the situation and provides direction to conduct a very thorough secondary search of the building to verify that the fire has not extended into void spaces and that it is fully extinguished. (In a nonexperimental fire situation, salvageable property would be covered or removed to minimize damage.)
Throughout the entire incident, each crew officer is
responsible for the safety and accountability of his or her personnel along with air management. The location and
wellness of crews is tracked by the command aide through a system of personal accountability checks conducted at
20-minute intervals.

Following extinguishment of the fire, an onsite review is conducted to identify actions for improvement. Crews are monitored, hydrated and rested before returning to work in the fire building.

The Relation of Time-to-Task Completion and Risk
Delayed response, particularly in conjunction with the
deployment of inadequate resources, reduces the likelihood of controlling the fire in time to prevent major damage and possible loss of life and increases the danger to firefighters.

Figure 1 illustrates a hypothetical sequence of events for response to a structure fire. During fire growth, the temperature of a typical compartment fire can rise to over 1,000o F (538o C).

When a fire in part of a compartment reaches flashover, the rapid transition between the growth and the fully developed fire stage, flame breaks out almost at once over the surface of all objects in the compartment, with results for occupants, even firefighters in full gear, that are frequently deadly.

Successful containment and control of a fire require the coordination of many separate tasks. Fire suppression must be coordinated with rescue operations, forcible entry, and utilities control. Ventilation typically occurs only after an attack line is in place and crews are ready to move in and attack the fire. The incident commander needs up-to- the-minute knowledge of crew activities and the status of task assignments which could result in a decision to change from an offensive to a defensive strategy.

Standards of Response Cover
Developing a standard of response cover — the policies and procedures that determine the distribution, concentration, and reliability of fixed and mobile resources for response to fire (as well as other kinds of technical response) — related to service commitments to the community is a complex task. Fire and rescue departments must evaluate existing (or proposed) resources against identified risk levels in the community and against the tasks necessary to conduct safe, efficient and effective fire suppression at structures identified in these various risk levels.

Leaders must also evaluate geographic distribution and depth or concentration of resources deployed based on time parameters.

Recognition and reporting of a fire sets off a chain of events before firefighters arrive at the scene: call receipt and processing, dispatch of resources, donning protective gear, and travel to the scene. NFPA 1710 defines the overall time from dispatch to scene arrival as the total response time. The standard divides total Figure 1: Hypothetical Timeline of Fire Department Response to Structure Fire 18 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

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response time into a number of discrete segments, of which travel time — the time interval from the beginning of travel to the scene to the arrival at the scene — is particularly important for this study.

Arrival of a firefighting response force must be immediately followed by organization of the resources into a logical, properly phased sequence of tasks, some of which need to be performed simultaneously. Knowing the time it takes to accomplish each task with the allotted number of personnel and equipment is critical. Ideally crews should arrive and intervene in sufficient time to prevent flashover or spread beyond the room of origin.

Decision-making about staffing levels and geographic
distribution of resources must consider those times when there will be simultaneous events requiring resource deployment.

There should be sufficient redundancy or overlap in the system to allow for simultaneous calls and high volume of near
simultaneous responses without compromising the safety of the public or firefighters.

Policy makers have long lacked studies that quantify changes in fireground performance based on apparatus staffing levels and on-scene arrival time intervals. These experiments were designed to observe the impact of apparatus staffing levels and apparatus arrival times on the time it takes to execute essential fireground tasks and on the tenability inside the burn prop for a full initial alarm assignment response. It is expected that the results of this study will be used to evaluate the related performance objectives in NFPA 1710.
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Laboratory Experiments
The purpose of the first segment, the laboratory experiments, was to characterize the burning behavior of the wood pallets as a function of:
 number of pallets and the subsequent peak heat release rate (HRR)
 compartment effects on burning of wood pallets
 effect of window ventilation on the fire
 effect on fire growth rate of the loading configuration of excelsior (slender wood shavings typically used as packing material)
Characterization of the fuel package was critical in order to ensure that the field experiments would not result in a flashover condition, one of the primary safety considerations in complying with the protocols in NFPA 1403: Standard on Live fire Training Evolutions.
7 Appendix A of this report contains the methods and
full results for the laboratory experiments, which are summarized below. Figure 2 shows a test burn of pallets in the laboratory.

Results of Laboratory Experiments
The objective of the laboratory experiments was to quantify the spread of heat and smoke throughout the planned burn prop in order to ensure that the fuel package would result in a fire large enough to generate heat and smoke consistent with a residential structure fire, yet not so large as to transition to flashover. The full results of the laboratory experiments and modeling are shown in Appendix A and Appendix B. To summarize briefly, a
four-pallet configuration, which produced a peak of
approximately 2 MW, was determined to be the largest fuel load the room could support without the threat of transitioning to flashover. The compartment produced a negligible effect on the heat release rate of the fire compared to open burning conditions.

The presence of an open window in the burn room reduced the production of carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide gases, primarily through enhanced oxygen availability and dilution, respectively. The location and quantity of excelsior had a significant impact on the growth rate of fire. More excelsior located nearer the bottom of the pallets resulted in a more rapid achievement of peak burning.

The results of the fuel load experiments to inform the building and experimental design indicated development of untenable conditions in the field experiments between 5 min and 15 min, depending upon several factors: fire growth rate, ventilation conditions, the total leakage of heat into the building and through leakage paths, and manual fire suppression. This time frame allowed for differentiation of the effectiveness of various fire Part 1: Planning for the Field Experiments
Figure 2: Test Burn of Pallets in Laboratory
20 7 NFPA 1403 contains the minimum requirements for training all fire suppression peronnel engaged in firefighting operations under live fire conditions.

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department response characteristics.

I
n part 2, fire experiments were conducted in a residential-scale burn prop at the Montgomery County Public Safety Training Academy in Rockville, MD.

Field Site
Montgomery County (MD) Fire and Rescue Department
provided an open space to construct a temporary burn prop, with ready access to water and electrical utilities, at the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Training Facility in Rockville, MD.

The burn prop was constructed as a two-story duplex with a common stairwell and movable walls between the sections to allow for multiple experiments daily. Symmetrically dividing the structure about the short axis allowed one side of the test structure to cool and dry out after a fire test with suppression. The burn prop contained two mirror-image, two-story units each totaling 2,000 ft2 (186 m2), without basement or nearby exposures — each therefore a typical model of a low-hazard single-family residence identified in NFPA 1710. An exterior view of the burn prop is shown in Figure 3. For each experiment there was a confirmed fire in the living room in the first floor rear of one unit of the structure.

Details and dimension are shown
in the floor plan in Figure 4.

The black lines in Figure 4
indicate load-bearing reinforced
concrete walls and red lines
indicate the gypsum over steel stud
partition walls. The ceiling height
was 94 in (2.4 m) throughout the
entire structure except in the burn
compartments, where additional
hardening was installed to protect
against repeated exposure to fire
during the experiments. This
additional fire proofing slightly
reduced the ceiling height.

Complete details about the
building construction are included
in Appendix C.

Noncombustible furniture (angle
iron and gypsum board
construction) was fashioned to
represent obstacles of realistic size
and location for firefighters
navigating the interior of the
structure. The dimensions were
typical of residential furnishings.

Figure 5 shows an example of the
noncombustible furniture used in
the time-to-task experiments.

Part 2: Field Experiment Methods
Figure 3: Exterior View of Burn Prop
Figure 4: Dimensions of the Burn Prop Floor Plan
21 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

343
Overview of Field Experiments
In order to evaluate the performance representative of a NFPA 1710-compliant fire department, the field experiments consisted of two parts (the second and third parts of the four described in this report). In the first of the two parts of the field experiments, firefighter participants from Montgomery County (MD) and Fairfax County (VA) Fire Departments simulated an initial alarm assignment response to a structure described in NFPA 1710 as a low-hazard residential structure to which firefighters respond on a regular basis.

The staffing level of fire apparatus was varied incrementally from two to five personnel per piece. The interval between apparatus on-scene arrival times was varied at either 60 s or 120 s. Trained timing staff were used to record the start and completion times of 22 tasks deemed essential for mitigation of a residential fire incident by the study’s technical experts. The pallet and excelsior configuration chosen from the laboratory experiments repeatably produced a consistent and realistic quantity of heat and smoke, similar to what firefighters encounter at a residential structure fire.

Although the fire source used in part 2 of the field experiments created a realistic amount of heat and smoke, the requirements of NFPA 1403 prevented use of a fire source which could potentially reach flashover within the structure. Therefore, part 3 of the fire experiments was conducted in order to change the fuel package to be representative of realistic fuel loading that could be found in a living room in a residential structure (sleeper-sofa, upholstered chairs, end tables, etc). The
intent of this part of the study
was to determine how the times
of firefighter interactions,
averaged with respect to the
staffing and arrival intervals,
impacted the interior tenability
conditions. Fire fighting tactics
were performed in a manner
which complied with NFPA
1403; ventilation was performed
with proper personal protective
equipment (PPE) and hand tools
from the exterior of the burn
prop. Suppression was
performed with an interior
remote suppression device
operated from the exterior of the
burn prop.

Instrumentation
Instrumentation to measure
gas temperature, gas
concentrations, heat flux, visual
obscuration, video, and time
during the experiments was
installed throughout the burn
prop. The data were recorded at
1-second intervals on a
computer-based data acquisition
system. Figure 6 presents a
schematic plan view of the
instrumentation. All
instruments were wired to a
centralized data collection room
attached as a separate space on
the west side of the building,
which is described later in this
report ensuring physical separation for the data collection personnel from the effects of the fire, while minimizing the wire and tube lengths to the data logging equipment. See Appendix C for additional details about the instrumentation.

Figure 5: Noncombustible Furniture Used in the Time-to-Task Experiments Figure 6: Instrumentation and Furniture Prop Layout
22 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

344
Safety Protocols
Firefighter safety was always a primary concern in conducting the research. Participants were drawn from two departments — Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD — that
regularly conduct NFPA 1403 compliant live fire training for their staff and recruits.

A safety officer was assigned to the experiments by the Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Department to assure
compliance with NFPA 1403. The safety officer (Figure 7) participated in all orientation activities, daily briefings, and firefighter gear checks and was always actively involved in overseeing all experiments. The safety officer had full authority to terminate any operation if any safety violation was observed. In addition to the safety officer, a rapid intervention team (RIT), assigned from dedicated crews not in the actual experiment, was in place for each experiment, and a staffed ambulance was on standby at the site. Radio communication was always available during the experiments should a “mayday” emergency arise.

Experiments were stopped for any action considered to be a protocol breach or safety concern. For example, all ladders — 24 ft (7.3 m) or 28 ft (8.5 m) — were to be raised by two firefighters.

As crew sizes were reduced, some firefighters attempted to place ladders single-handedly in an effort to complete the task more quickly. This procedure, while vividly illustrating how firefighters try to do more with less in the field, is unsafe and could potentially result in strain or impact injuries.

Additional safety features were built in to the field structure.

A deluge sprinkler system oriented to the known location of the fuel package could be remotely activated for rapid fire suppression. All first floor rooms had direct access to the exterior of the building through either doors or windows. The second story had an emergency exit to the roof of the attached instrumentation room.

A closely related concern to ensure firefighter safety and readiness to repeat experiments with equivalent performance was adequate rehabilitation (see Figure 8). At the beginning and end of each day, crews completed a health and safety check. The importance of staying well-hydrated before and during
experiments was especially emphasized.

Figure 8: Crew Rehabilitation
Figure 7: Fireground Safety Officer
23 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

345
On-Scene Fire Department Tasks
The on-scene fire department task part of the study focused on the tasks firefighters perform after they arrive on the scene of a low-hazard residential structure fire. A number of nationally recognized fire service experts were consulted during the development of the on-scene fire department tasks in order to ensure a broad applicability and appropriateness of the task distribution.8 The experiments compared crew performance and workload for a typical fire fighting scenario using two-, three-, four-, and five-person crews. 24 total experiments were conducted to assess the time it took various crew sizes to complete the same tasks on technically similar fires in the same structure. In addition to crew sizes, the experiments assessed the effects of stagger between the arriving companies. Close stagger was defined as a 1-minute time difference in the arrival of each responding company. Far stagger was defined as a 2-minute time difference in the arrival of each responding company. One-minute and
two-minute arrival stagger times were determined from analysis of deployment data from more than 300 U.S. fire departments responding to a survey of fire department operations conducted by the International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) and the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF). Considering both crew size and company stagger there were eight experiments conducted in triplicate totaling twenty-four tests, as shown in the full replicate block in Table 1. A full replicate was completed in a randomized order (determined by randomization software) before a test configuration was repeated.

Crew Size
For each experiment, three engines, a ladder-truck and a battalion chief and an aide were dispatched to the scene of the residential structure fire. The crew sizes studied included two-, three-, four-, and five-person crews assigned to each engine and truck dispatched. Resultant on-scene staffing totals for each experiment follow: (FF = firefighter)
 Two Person crews = 8 FFs + Chief and Aide = 10 total on-scene  Three Person crews = 12 FFs + Chief and Aide= 14 total on-scene
 Four Person crews = 16 FFs + Chief and Aide = 18 total on-scene
 Five Person crews = 20 FFs + Chief and Aide = 22 total on-scene9
Department Participation
The experiments were conducted in Montgomery County, MD at the Montgomery County Fire Rescue Training Academy during the months of January and February 2009. All experiments took place in daylight between 0800 hours and 1500 hours.

Experiments were postponed for heavy rain, ice, or snow and rescheduled for a later date following other scheduled
experiments.

Montgomery County (MD) and Fairfax County (VA)
firefighters participated in the field experiments. Each day both departments committed three engines, a ladder truck and associated crews, as well as a battalion chief to the experiments.

The two battalion chiefs, alternated between the roles of battalion chief and aide. Firefighters and officers were identified by participating departments and oriented to the experiments. Each experiment included engine crews, truck crews and command officers from each participating department. Participants varied with regard to age and experience. Crews that normally operated together as a company were kept intact for the experiments to assure typical operation for the crew during the scenarios.

However, in all experiments crews were used from both
departments, including engine crews, truck crews, and officers.

This allocation of resources made it possible to conduct back-to-back experiments by rotating firefighters between field work and rehabilitation areas.

Crew Orientation
All study participants were required to attend an orientation prior to the beginning of the experiments (see Figure 9, page 25).

The orientations were used to explain experiment procedures, task flows, division of labor between crews, and milestone events in the scenario.

Daily orientations were conducted for all shifts to assure every participant attended. Orientations included a description of the overall study objectives as well as the actual experiments in which they would be involved. Per the requirements of NFPA 1403, full disclosure regarding the structure, the fire, and the tasks to be completed were provided. Crews were also oriented to the fireground props, instrumentation used for data collection, and the specific scenarios to be conducted. Every crew member was provided a walkthrough of the structure during the orientation and each day prior to the start of the experiments.

Table 1: Primary Variables for Time-to-Task Experiments 8 Technical experts included Dennis Compton, Russell Sanders, William “Shorty” Bryson, Vincent Dunn, David Rohr, Richard Bowers, Michael Clemens, James Walsh, Larry Jenkins and Doug Hinkle. More information about the experts is presented in the Acknowledgments later in this report. 9 Note that the on-scene totals account for only the personnel assigned to “work” the fire. Additional personnel were provided for an RIT team, a staffed ambulance on site, and a safety officer specific to the experiments. The additional personnel are not included in thee staffing described above.

Time-to-Task Experiments
Crew Size Apparatus Stagger
2 Person Close Stagger (One minute)
3 Person Close Stagger (One minute)
4 Person Close Stagger (One minute)
5 Person Close Stagger (One minute)
2 Person Far Stagger (Two minutes)
3 Person Far Stagger (Two minutes)
4 Person Far Stagger (Two minutes)
5 Person Far Stagger (Two minutes)
24 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

346
Figure 10: Ground Ladders Figure 11: Ventilation
Figure 12: Ground Level Window Breakage Prop
Figure 14: Door Forcible Entry Prop Figure 15: Crew Preparation and Cue Cards Figure 13: Second Story Window Breakage Prop
Figure 9: Crew Orientation and Walkthrough
25 Tasks
Twenty-two fireground tasks
were completed in each
experiment. Meticulous
procedures gathered data to
measure key areas of focus,
such as individual task start
times, task completion times,
and overall scenario
performance times. Each task
was assigned a standardized
start and end marker, such as
crossing the threshold to enter
the building with a hose line or
touching a ladder to raise it to
a second story window. The 22
tasks, with the events for
measuring start and stop times,
are shown in Table 2 (page26).

Figures 10 — 19 illustrate
firefighter activity in a number
of the tasks to complete
experiments or prepare for the
next experiment.

For reasons of both safety and
cost efficiency, two tasks —
forcible entry of the front door
and ventilation of the windows
on the first and second stories
— required special procedures.

The study could not
accommodate replacing the
doors and windows daily for
the fire suppression
experiments. Before the start
of experiments with the full
sequence of tasks, these two
tasks were measured in a
realistic manner using training
props constructed at the site of
the fireground experiments. As
with the overall experiments,
these two tasks were repeated in
triplicate and the times
averaged. The average time to
complete the tasks was then
used in the larger scale
experiment. As firefighters
came to the point of breaching
the door or windows, the timers
would hold them for the time
designated by the earlier
experiments and then give them
the approval to open the door
or windows. The start and end
times were then recorded just as
other tasks were.

ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

347
Table 2: Tasks and Measurement Parameters

1. Stop at Hydrant, Wrap Hose START - Engine stopped at hydrant
STOP - Firefighter back on engine
and wheels rolling

2. Position Engine 1 START - Wheels rolling from
hydrant
STOP - Wheels stopped at
structure

3. Conduct Size-up START - Officer off engine
(360-degree lap), transmit STOP - Completes radio
report, establish command transmission of report

4. Engage Pump START - Driver off engine
STOP - Driver throttles up pump

5. Position Attack Line START - Firefighter touches hose (Forward Lay) to pull it from engine
STOP - Flake, charge and bleed
complete (hose at front door
prepared to advance)

6. Establish 2 In/2 Out Company officer announces – “2
In/2 Out established” (4 persons
assembled on scene OR at the
call of the Battalion
Chief/Company Officer)

7. Supply Attack Engine START - Firefighter touches
hydrant to attach line
STOP - Water supply to attack
engine

8. Establish RIT Time that Company Officer
announces RIT is established

9. Gain/Force Entry START - Action started
(HOLD time= 10 seconds)
STOP - Door opened for entry

10. Advance Attack Line START – Firefighter touches hose STOP – Water on fire

11. Advance Backup Line START - Firefighter touches hose (stop time at front door) to pull from engine bed
STOP - Backup line charged to
nozzle

12. Advance Backup START - Firefighter crosses
Line/Protect Stairwell threshold
STOP - Position line for attack at
stairwell

13. Conduct Primary Search START - Firefighters enter front door
STOP - Firefighters transmit
“search complete”

14. Ground Ladders in Place START - Firefighter touches ladder to pull it from truck
STOP - 4 Ladders thrown: 3
ladders on the 2nd-story windows
and 1 to the roof

15. Horizontal Ventilation START- Firefighter at 1st window to (Ground) begin ventilation (HOLD for 8
seconds)
STOP - Hold time complete -
window open

16. Horizontal Ventilation START - Firefighter grabs ladder (2nd Story) for climb. (Firefighter must leg lock
for ventilation. HOLD time at each
window is 10 seconds)
STOP - All 2nd-story windows open
- descend ladder - feet on ground.

17. Control Utilities (Interior) START - Radio transmission to control utilities
STOP - When firefighter
completes the task at the prop

18. Control Utilities (Exterior) START - Radio transmission to control utilities
STOP - When firefighter
completes the task at the prop

19. Conduct Secondary Search START - Firefighters enter front door
STOP - Firefighters transmit
“secondary search complete”

20. Check for Fire Extension START- Firefighters pick up (walls) check-for-extension prop
STOP- Completion of 4 sets total
(1 set = 4 in and 4 out)
This task may be done by more
than one person.

21. Check for Fire Extension START - Firefighters pick up (ceilings) check-for-extension prop
STOP - Completion of 4 sets total
(1 set = 3 up and 5 down)
This task may be done by more
than one person.

22. Mechanical Ventilation START - Firefighters touch fans to remove from truck
STOP - Fans in place at front door
and started
Tasks Measurement Parameters Tasks Measurement Parameters 26 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6

348
Data Collection:

Standardized Control
Measures
Several control measures were
used to collect data, including
crew cue cards, radio
communications, task timers,
and video recording.

Performance was timed for each
task in each scenario including
selected milestone tasks such as
door breach, water-on-fire, and
individual window ventilation.

Data were collected for crew
performance on each task, and
individual firefighter
performance was not considered.

Task Flow Charts and
Crew Cue Cards
Task procedures were
standardized for each
experiment/scenario. Technical
experts worked with study
investigators to break down crew
tasks into individual tasks based
on crew size. Task flow charts
were created and then
customized for the various crew
sizes. The carefully designed task
flow ensured that the same
overall workload was maintained
in each experiment, but was
redistributed based on the
number of personnel available
for the work. See Appendix D
for additional details.

All tasks were included in each
scenario and cue cards were
developed for each individual
participant in each scenario. For
example, a four-person crew
would have a cue card for each
person on the crew including the
officer, the driver, and the two
firefighters. Cards were color
coded by crew size to assure
proper use in each scenario.

Radio communications
Interoperability of radio equipment used by both participating departments made it possible to use regular duty radios for communication during the experiments. Company officers were instructed to use radios as they would in an actual incident.

Montgomery County Fire and Rescue Communications recorded all radio interaction as a means of data backup. Once all data quality control measure were complete, the records were then overwritten as a routine procedure.

Task Timers
Ten observers/timers, trained in the use of a standard stop watch with split-time feature, recorded time-to-task data for each field experiment. To assure understanding of the observed tasks, firefighters were used as timers, each assigned specific tasks to observe and to record the start and end times.

To enhance accuracy and consistency in recording times, the data recording sheets used several different colors for the tasks (see Appendix D). Each timer was assigned tasks that were coded in the same color as on the recording sheet. All timers wore high-visibility safety gear on the fireground (see Figure 20).

Video records
In addition to the timers, video documentation provided a backup for timed tasks and for quality control (see Figure 21). No less than six cameras were used to record fireground activity from varied vantage points. Observer/timer data were compared to video records as part of the quality control process.

Figure 16: Connecting to the Hydrant Figure 17: Crews Responding Figure 18: Ceiling Breach/Molitor Machine Figure 19: Incident Command Figure 20: Task Timers Figure 21: Video Recording for Quality Control 27 ITEM 2.2 - ATTACHMENT 6