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Fire chief says emergency response improved; ambulances available nearly all the time, staffing up
Summary
Fire Chief Rich Giusti told council targeted programs, staffing increases and new apparatus have reduced periods without ambulance availability from roughly 70 minutes per day to under ten minutes and that ambulance availability is now about 99.9%.
Chief Rich Giusti told council the Bryan Fire Department has strengthened response capacity through targeted staffing growth, new apparatus and programmatic changes. Using city maps and response‑time data, Giusti said the department meets a four‑minute first‑unit travel‑time benchmark about 85% citywide and nearly 100% in urban zones, and that unit‑level utilization remains below thresholds that would require immediate additional units.
Giusti described operational changes and grants that funded new ambulances and apparatus and credited programs — including a community paramedic initiative and an MIH program — with reducing periods where no ambulances were available. “That means our ambulances are available 99.9% of the time, which is an exceptional level of performance,” he said. Councilmembers praised the department’s recruitment and training work, asked about applicant pools and SAFER‑grant hires, and thanked firefighters for the improvements. No policy vote resulted from the briefing.
