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Glynn County Fire Rescue outlines response-time goals, EMS workload and ISO ambitions
Summary
Fire Rescue leaders told commissioners the service is the county’s busiest emergency responder for medical calls, noted improvements in turnout time, described steps to address travel-time gaps with a proposed new station and reported recruitment gains following a new pay plan.
Glynn County Fire Rescue briefed commissioners on staffing, call types, response-time targets and training objectives during the county’s public-safety strategy session.
“Over the last year, we’re the twelfth busiest fire department in the state of Georgia,” Fire Chief Vinnie DeCristo Follo said during the presentation, a point he used to explain constraints on unit availability and concurrent-call pressure.
Chief Vinnie and other rescue leaders said EMS makes up roughly 75% of Fire Rescue’s workload and that travel-time and turnout-time metrics are a primary focus. Turnout time — the interval between unit notification and en route status — improved after a departmental emphasis beginning in April, chief staff said; the presentation noted industry standards that the department will use to set local baselines (the industry benchmark cited was 60 seconds turnout for 90% of EMS calls, and the department discussed measuring to and adjusting toward that standard).
Travel-time performance is currently measured from en route to arrival of the first unit; the department set a local baseline of five minutes and said a planned station near Chapel Crossing and Highway 17 is expected to lower average travel times in a high-demand zone now handled principally by Station 1 (about 35% of calls).
On cardiac arrest care, leaders said the department measures return of spontaneous circulation at hospital arrival and is working with the hospital and new medical director to obtain longer-term outcome data. Chief Johnson (EMS operations) is changing data-collection fields to allow more reliable reporting of ECG monitoring and other clinical measures. A data-collection shortfall showed ECG monitoring recorded at about 80% in reports, the presentation said, though staff expect corrected reporting to show the procedure is performed more consistently.
Training, inspections and preparedness work were also discussed. The department inspects roughly 3,076 hydrants annually and inspected all hydrants on schedule in the reporting period; fire prevention visits to elementary schools are concentrated in October (Fire Prevention Month). The department reported maintaining an ISO rating of Class 2 and outlined a multi-year path to preserve or improve that rating.
Recruiting progress was highlighted: since the county pay plan took effect Fire Rescue has hired 13 members; the service listed 17 current vacancies and said it expects to fill nine positions in the near term. Leaders also described planned community bystander-CPR events and monthly outreach to increase lay rescuer training.
Chiefs said they have completed three accreditation-related documents (community risk assessment, community-based strategic plan and standards) and that those are under review by county staff, with facilitators available to brief commissioners on recommendations.
Commissioners and public-safety staff said the department’s focus will remain on improving data collection, sustaining turnout improvements and aligning station siting and staffing with growth-driven call volumes.
