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Fire chief asks council for ladder truck, new station and six firefighters as city expands
Summary
Georgetown Fire Chief Tim Thompson urged council to fund a new ladder apparatus, a fourth station and six additional firefighters, citing rising call volumes, aging apparatus and areas of the city outside the department’s 4-minute response target.
Georgetown Fire Chief Tim Thompson outlined staffing and equipment shortfalls April 28 as city growth stretches the department's coverage. Thompson told council the department has doubled local population since 2007 while call volumes have grown faster, and he repeated long-standing recommendations for apparatus replacement, a new fire station and added personnel.
“We are doing more with less,” Thompson said, citing a near 2.5-fold rise in calls compared with 2007 levels and increases in complex incidents including swift-water rescues and hazmat responses. Thompson said the city's primary ladder truck has been unreliable; over the last four fiscal years it was out of service 38% of the time, and annual maintenance costs for the primary truck have run roughly $65,000. The department’s reserve ladder is an older vehicle with rising maintenance costs; Thompson said the reserve recently cost about $40,000 in repairs.
Thompson asked council to approve a financing plan to replace the ladder truck (a stock unit would take roughly nine months to obtain; a custom build could take years) and said he is also seeking funding and a timeline for a new Station 4 on the east side of the city to improve response times in areas currently outside the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 1710 four-minute response standard. He said Station 4 would reduce the percentage of calls in the area that exceed the four-minute target; presently, he noted, many neighborhoods and the business park/Toyota-area fall outside the four-minute target.
The chief recommended hiring six additional firefighters now rather than waiting for construction of a new station. He said incremental hires would reduce overtime costs, improve minimum shift staffing and smooth training; a 14-week recruit class and follow-up training work would take months to integrate new personnel.
Chief Thompson tied the requests to insurance and public-safety metrics: Georgetown's Insurance Services Office rating improved from a 4 to a 2 following radio and water-system improvements, but Thompson said staffing and coverage prevent an immediate move to a
