TOWARD A STANDARD OF DELIVERY FOR FIRE PROTECTION SERVICES

TOWARD A STANDARD OF DELIVERY FOR FIRE PROTECTION SERVICES

You may not know this, but you’re the subject of a computer simulation game, and this time the fire department isn't the hero. The game is called SimCity, and the players are city managers. When budget time rolls around, one of the decisions a player must make is whether to expend dollars for police and fire protection or repair potholes in the street. As each player makes these critical decisions, the computer conducts “surveys” to determine the player's popularity and the city residents’ level of concern. Players may intensify their level of play by increasing the size and population of the city and adding disasters like storms, fires, and floods. To some degree, crime is always present. One of the key barometers for each player’s performance is the rate of public approval. That’s the game: balancing the delivery of services, the budget, and the level of community approval. To those of us in the fire service, the game is all too real.

There aren’t a lot of answers around, either. Small rural communities hold bake sales to purchase equipment for their volunteer departments, while large city unions clamor for minimum staffing levels. The problem —fire —is the same in both communities; the fires differ only in scale, frequency, complexity, and size of the area affected. The solution to the problem remains constant: Prevent fires. If you can’t prevent the fire, then you must deliver sufficient personnel and equipment to stop the fire’s progress and minimize the community’s loss. How much is enough? How much is too much? Aren’t there models to follow? Can’t someone put this on a computer and figure out how much we need? In SimCity, maybe; but not where you live. We don’t have those kinds of universal standards.