Highlands Today
SEBRING, Fla. — EMS is “right on the cusp of being under-resourced,” Steven Knight with Fitch & Associates told Highlands County commissioners at their Tuesday night meeting. That’s why Fitch & Associates recommended adding a ninth ambulance, which can operate during peak hours.
Volunteer fire departments may lack resources too. Chief Adam Hess made it clear he was speaking Tuesday evening only for Lake Placid Fire Department, not for the county fire chief’s association. But other chiefs also said it was time for change.
“We’re struggling,” Hess said. When a fire call is answered, Hess said, “Are we getting two guys on a truck or three?”
Although he’s constantly recruiting on Facebook, Lake Placid doesn’t have enough men and women, and the average volunteer stays for two years.
“It’s a constant struggle,” Hess said. New firefighters get trained and move on. “Most of these guys just don’t hang around.”
One of his volunteers also works for a paid fire department and is a business owner. Not many business owners will allow employees to leave a paid job several times a day to answer fire calls, said Hess, who is also one of three volunteers on the hazardous materials team.
Even so, Lake Placid is more fortunate than many of the other nine volunteer fire departments. Nine of its volunteers received years-of-service awards as the county commission meeting began Tuesday. Including Hess, who got a 15-year pin, Lake Placid volunteers totaled 75 years.
Commissioners originally asked Fitch, the Platte City, Mo. experts, for an EMS assessment, said commission chair Jim Brooks, a former EMS director. Later, the commissioners asked Fitch to study the fire department as well.
“There aren’t going to be any decisions made here tonight,” Brooks said. “We’re going to listen to Fitch, to the fire department, to anyone in the audience.”
Whatever problems the county has now, Brooks contended, it was worse when he moved here, before the volunteer fire departments started. “Back then, if you had a fire, and you didn’t live in Avon Park or Sebring or Lake Placid, your best hope was that the forestry department would show up with a brush truck.” Volunteer fire departments started in barns with surplus Army equipment.
“You’ve been served very, very well by the current structure over the years,” Knight said. “If you are going to do anything different, what would that possibly look like?”
Fitch studied 14,000 incidents in 2014, Knight said. “Nearly every weekday, you are going to be out of ambulance capacity. Not that you don’t have a resource to answer the call. But the system is right on the brink.” The county is expected to grow by as much as 40,000 people in the next 20 years.
The 10 volunteer fire departments operate from 17 fire stations, Knight said. “The fire director’s office is challenged to maintain accountability. That’s not a comment on the capability of the fire director, it’s the design.”
Volunteer firefighters are a vital resource, Knight said. “It’s always an option to maintain the status quo.”
But he said a staff-level volunteer officer would have a better opportunity to address the issues. “It would really improve the accountability.”
Another alternative would be to train EMS to be firefighters and station at a place where they can get to 90 percent of calls with 10 minutes of travel time, Knight said. Highlands County would need only six stations.
“The price tag for that would be $1.1 million,” he contended, and it would improve response time from 18.8 to 12.5 minutes.
“Can we go to six stations?” Brooks asked. “Did I misunderstand that?”
“It would take additional personnel,” Knight said, but the county could use the stations it currently has.
Some volunteer firefighters are leaving the force to become paid firefighters for coastal cities, Knight suggested. “This would be an opportunity to keep that talent.”
Highlands County is in the process of building three new EMS stations, Brooks said. The county is close to obtaining building permits for downtown Sebring, and a deed has been issued for a joint EMS-sheriff’s-fire station at Florida Hospital Heartland Medical Center. The third will replace the EMS main station on George Boulevard.
Fourteen percent of the county’s fire trucks are so old they should be taken out of service, the Fitch Report said. “Forty-six percent of the fire fleet is out of compliance for front-line service, according to National Fire Protection Associations, and 14 percent should be taken out of service immediately… Nearly 42 percent of the (self-contained breathing apparatus) are 14 years old or older, approaching their useful life. Best practice is to replace SCBA every 10 years.”
Lorida Fire Chief Carl Beckman took exception. “Two of the trucks in my station are 20 years old. They are compliant. They are tested. They are in service, and they start right up.”
The 256-square-mile Lorida VFD protects Spring Lake, Lorida, Mossy Cove, Basinger, Hidden Acres and several Lake Istokpoga communities. But, Beckman said, the VFD only answers a few calls a month. He asked commissioners to include firefighters on the county’s health insurance policy.
“Just because a truck is not in compliance,” Brooks said, “doesn’t mean that truck isn’t capable of responding. I don’t want people to think that we’re driving something that doesn’t operate, because we’re not.”
“What we need is action,” Commissioner Jack Richie said. He suggested all 10 fire chiefs get together and agree on what they want to happen. “You will help us make it perfect. Let’s cut the talk and let’s get to work. Get the chiefs together; put a stamp on one of those three options.”
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