The news media are filled with regular reports of communities “browning out” fire stations on a rotating basis. Brownouts involve reducing staff or coverage, often on a rolling basis, as an alternative to permanently closing specific stations or apparatus. But such practices do little to address the underlying problem. Without clearly measuring the pre- and post-reduction results, the real effect on the safety of both citizens and employees is unknown.
Dramatic changes in resources should never be executed without a detailed understanding of likely outcomes and the associated risks involved—including strategies to mitigate those risks. Without this understanding, an agency is rolling the dice with the public’s health and welfare. To work through the logic in simple terms: Say a community with six fire stations has decided to rotate the closure of one station per day. Each station, depending on its location, has different risks associated with its specific response area and responds to a different number of calls each day. Some stations are very busy; some are not. Some serve high-risk or densely populated areas, while others may serve neighborhoods with relatively low volume of fire and EMS responses. If the downtown station runs an average of 10 calls per day and a slower station only runs an average of one call per day, the risk to an individual living downtown for delayed EMS care or firefighting response is exponentially greater when that station is closed for the day.
Policymakers must understand the consequences of station closures before making changes. Better data and information provide greater insight and the ability to minimize the risk. Furthermore, any failure to quantify the impact and mitigate potential risks will only fuel critics if there is a significant degradation in the response to a major event such as a high-profile EMS call, a fatal house fire or a serious vehicle crash.
