Fire chief outlines plan to staff fourth station, add medical support squad as call volume rises

The Little Elm fire chief briefed the council on emergency medical response changes after the department took on service for the Paloma Creek area, noting a roughly 19% rise in call volume and asking the council to approve a staffing approach to reduce response risk.

The chief said the town temporarily assigned extra resources to Station 3 (Naval Road) while Station 4 was made operational from a temporary site near a local elementary school. “Looking at the first 3 months that we took on the Paloma area, we saw a 19% increase in our total call volume,” the chief said. Much of the increase was medical calls, and the chief described how overlapping medical calls can leave ambulances out of service for extended periods because patient care and hospital transfer take time.

To reduce that operational risk, the department proposed adding a medical support squad (a smaller non-transport vehicle staffed to support ambulance crews) and the option to convert that squad to a staffed reserve ambulance when all regular ambulances are committed. To staff the squad 24/7 the chief said the plan would add nine positions: three supervisors and six firefighter-paramedics. He said the unit is “multipurpose” and could be more efficient for certain calls while enabling the department to field a fifth ambulance in overload situations.

Staff told the council the squad vehicle already exists and the town has trialed the concept; what remained was the personnel to staff it continuously. The chief said the new positions would be funded by revenue from the town’s new service contract(s) that offset the cost of additional staffing.

Council members asked about hospital destinations and medical-direction protocols; the chief said the department follows a transport matrix set by its medical director, which directs certain patients (for example, suspected stroke) to definitive care centers when time and patient condition permit.

No formal council vote was taken at the March 18 meeting on staffing. The presentation was informational and the chief said staff would return with specifics for any required budget or hiring approvals.