By Travis Kellar
The Times-Leader
WILKES-BARRE, Pa. — The number of fire calls in the city has dropped 20 percent since 2010, but other calls have steadily risen.
Those changing trends, according to Fire Chief Jay Delaney, indicate a changing role for firefighters as they respond to a number of other calls.
“We are more emergency responders than we are anything,” Delaney said about firefighters. “I want the public to understand that the firefighter doesn’t just put fires out.”
The National Fire Protection Association provides the number of fires nationally dating back to 1980. Nationally, fires have dropped by 53 percent from 1980 to 2012.
Delaney provided data that show the calls for the city’s fire calls since 2010. From 2010 to 2013, the number of fire calls decreased by nearly 20 percent. Delaney attributed the lower numbers to better technology, such as fire alarms and sprinkler systems in place.
Smoke alarms also have an important role. Delaney said that 76 percent of all fire deaths occur in 1 and 2-family dwellings — 60 percent of those did not have a working smoke alarm.
“Having a working smoke alarm … it may not contribute to the (lower) amount of fires, but it’s contributing to (fewer) fire deaths,” he said. He added that efficient building codes and better building construction have also helped the number of fires dwindle.
Though the number of fires has gone down, Delaney stressed that fires are still a very real threat.
“You take any house in Northeastern Pennsylvania, mostly the dwellings built in the ’40s, ’50s and ’60s, burn fairly quick,” he said.
At the same time, Delaney newer buildings rarely burn due to their type construction, but what’s inside — and those items, notably petroleum-based substances in furniture and other materials — fuel hotter, more intense blazes.
Delaney recently showed a reporter a video by Underwriters Laboratories that showed the difference between a fire in a modern room versus a room filled with older items.
In the video, a fire set in the newer room took just under four minutes to reach the flashover— that is, when exposed surfaces in a space begin to give off flammable gases. It took the older room nearly 30 minutes to reach that point.
Opposite reaction
While the number of fires in the city is down, other calls that the department responds to have increased.
Data provided by Delaney indicated that the department responded to 279 false alarms from Jan. 1 to June 30 — that’s three times the number of fires in that same time period.
New policy
In an effort to make responses to false alarms safer for firefighters and the public, Delaney said a new policy is being enacted for when crews respond to those calls. Before, three fire engines, an ambulance, an aerial ladder and an assistant chief would be sent to all commercial fire alarms.
“That’s a huge risk for us to send six pieces of equipment,” Delaney said. “Imagine all the intersections they went through, the chance of them being in an accident.’
To lessen those chances, Delaney said once department has one more shift to train, the department will only send one fire engine in emergent mode — the rest of the vehicles will go non-emergent.
Rescue calls
That isn’t the only figure to go up for the city fire department. Delaney said that rescue/EMS calls continue to rise, with a total of 1,833 calls made in 2013, a 2-percent increase from 2010. Service calls, such as vehicle lock-outs and animal rescues, also have increased, with a total of 429 calls in 2013 alone.
Delaney said those increases are a result of public demand — from those increases, he said the department has to be proficient at responding to a variety of calls. Those calls can range from saving someone from the Susquehanna River, unlocking a car with a baby inside or helping someone who is locked out of their home.
“It is really, really hard to be good at everything, but the public demands that,” Delaney said. “When someone calls 911, they just want someone to help them, and there’s almost that expectation that we can do everything and we can fix everything.”
In the future, Delaney predicted that the trend of fires would continue to go down, but added that other calls would inevitably increase as the role of the firefighter continues to change.
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©2014 The Times Leader (Wilkes-Barre, Pa.)