Newport Fire Chief outlines staffing, call-volume rise, new engine and ISO grading

Rob Murphy, Newport’s fire chief, gave the council a broad operations update, noting staffing levels, call-volume trends, recent equipment work and preparedness activities for the summer fire season.

Murphy said the department is a combination model (career staff plus volunteers), is budgeted for 15 full-time equivalents and is currently at 13.6 FTEs. He listed department personnel by name and role: Assistant Chief / Fire Marshal Tom Sikaris; Captains Steve Moody, Doyle Hemmerichs and Eric Stafford; three fire engineers; six firefighter positions of which four are filled and two candidates are in background checks; one executive assistant (Catherine, 0.6 FTE); an emergency-preparedness coordinator (Del); and about 13 active volunteers.

Murphy provided 2024 call-volume data drawn from the National Fire Incident Reporting System categories: 48 fires; 1,559 medical calls; 73 hazardous-conditions incidents (which includes hazardous-materials responses and gas leaks); 314 service calls; 405 good-intent calls; 176 false alarms; and a total of 2,577 calls for service in 2024. He said calls have risen about 25% from 1,924 in 2020 to 2,577 in 2024 and that year-to-date through April the department recorded 827 calls. He noted overlap rates (more than one active call) were about 30.62% last year and 34.38% this year; average response time improved from 8 minutes 2 seconds last year to 7 minutes 23 seconds so far this year.

Murphy described recent and planned department work: a firefighter hiring process that produced two candidates in background; an internal promotion that elevated Steve Moody to captain; rollout of a Lexipol policy manual with staged protocol releases; migration to a new records-management system (went live May 1, with some post-launch bugs remaining); delivery and final outfit work on a new fire engine expected to be online within one to two weeks; completion of an ISO (Insurance Services Office) grading visit with a likely retention of the department’s Class 3 rating; and preparations for the summer wildfire season, including hose and ladder testing and attendance at a task-force leaders symposium.

Murphy discussed the department’s service area: Newport city limits plus an intergovernmental agreement to serve a surrounding rural fire protection district on three sides, totaling about 26 square miles and roughly 16 miles of coastline, and noted automatic-aid and mutual-aid arrangements with neighboring districts, nine county fire agencies and the Oregon Department of Forestry. He recounted that local crews have deployed out-of-state through the Oregon Fire Service Mutual Aid System (conflagration response) to large incidents in California.

On capacity, Murphy said the department generally staffs one primary apparatus and that officials begin serious consideration of a second company when annual call volume reaches roughly 3,000–3,500 calls, which he estimated might occur in five to seven years if trends continue. He told councilors the department is exploring an intern program to increase presence at outlying stations and to build a recruiting pipeline, and that volunteer recruitment efforts have historically relied most effectively on word-of-mouth despite repeated outreach drives.

Councilors asked for and received clarifications about hazardous-conditions call types (spills, propane or gas leaks, carbon-monoxide alarms), boundaries of the rural district served, the city’s approach to ambulance/fire engine joint responses for serious medical calls, and the status of an Agua Beach (combined-use) fire station project expected to open in October. Murphy also confirmed the department has previously considered billing non-residents or nonresident motor-vehicle-crash responses to recover some costs and said other jurisdictions use third-party billing for crash-related costs.

Murphy closed by inviting councilors to ride along with crews and by asking the council to note several challenges cited statewide by the Oregon Fire Service Policy Council: increasing calls for service, decreasing volunteer participation, increased wildfire threat, and funding pressures.