Response time a hot topic in Hermosa Beach fire debate
Hermosa firefighters guide an engine into its temporary enclosure on Bard Street. The department is facing issues with both staffing and facilities. Photo
As Hermosa Beach ponders the future of its fire department, one issue has emerged as a particular concern: the impact on response times of contracting with the Los Angeles County Fire Department.
With the Hermosa Beach Fire Department facing significant staffing shortages, the city has two options: expand funding for the existing department, or contract with the county to provide services. A final decision is likely to come from the city council in November. Residents consistently laud the quick response times of the existing department, and a slowdown could tilt public opinion against the county option.
At an informational meeting at City Hall last month, Scott Hale, acting assistant chief with the county fire department, said there would be no reduction in response times. Under either option a station house will remain in Hermosa, he said, and the units will be deployed from there, just as they are now.
But switching to the county to provide fire services would involve a change in how 911 calls for fire and emergency medical services are dispatched.
Currently, 911 calls in Hermosa go to the South Bay Regional Public Communications Authority, known as the Regional Communications Center or “RCC.” The system relies on a “two-phase” dispatch system, in which a complaint taker speaks with the victim and tries to determine the appropriate agency to handle the call, said Ralph Mailloux, executive director of the RCC. As the complaint taker goes through specified questions, a dispatcher is patched into the call and sends out needed units.
Mailloux said that those dialing 911 do not realize that after the first few questions, there are usually three people on the line: the citizen, the complaint taker, and a dispatcher listening in.
“People say, ‘You’re taking too long, you’re asking too many questions, send them out already!’” he said. “They don’t realize, well, they’ve already gone.”
If Hermosa were to contract with L.A. County Fire, the RCC would gather information, and transfer the call to the county’s Emergency Operations Center, Mailloux said. Although there are no exact statistics for how long this would take, he said that the “industry standard” is about 20 seconds.
“Twenty seconds allows us to ask some basic questions, make sure it’s going to the right place,” Mailloux said.
Some residents said that learning of this added time made them feel deceived. Ken Hartley, a former member of Hermosa’s Emergency Preparedness Advisory Commission who has served in a volunteer fire department, is among those who have criticized interim Hermosa chief Pete Bonano for presenting faulty data about response times.
“So when they say there’s no difference in response time, it depends when you count response time from,” Hartley said. “If you look at time of deployment, there’s no difference. However, if you look at time of call, there is. It would have been nice to get that information in the fact sheet.”
Hartley has said he prefers that the city maintain its own department, and argued that even small delays can make a difference in the life-or-death calls the department responds to.
But Bonano, who has been a firefighter for 35 years and a paramedic for 10 years, said he has never seen 20 seconds make the difference between life and death. Far more important, he said, are factors such as how long a victim was alone before 911 was called.
“This idea that the sky is falling is just ridiculous,” Bonano said. “Twenty seconds will not make a difference.”
Bonano noted that dozens if not hundreds of daily 911 calls for Hawthorne and Gardena currently go through the same process. Of the five cities that currently make up the RCC — Hermosa, Manhattan Beach, El Segundo, Gardena and Hawthorne — both Gardena and Hawthorne currently contract with the county for fire services.
Consolidation with larger departments is a trend all over the country, said Timothy E. Sendelbach, editor of Firehouse Magazine. While the changes often bring anxiety about diminished response times, Sendelbach said such concerns are usually not legitimate.
“With a larger agency, everyone is concerned about how busy they are,” he said. “But they also have larger resources upon which to call.”
Some residents raised the prospect that competing obligations for the county department could tax department resources to Hermosa’s detriment. The department’s jurisdiction extends into Malibu, causing some residents to worry that there would be fewer units available during fire season.
But Hale, of L.A. County Fire, said in such a situation the department would rely on units closer to the blaze, and would be highly unlikely to remove units from Hermosa.
Sendelbach, who previously was assistant fire chief in North Las Vegas and the chief of training for Savannah Fire and Emergency Services, said that this is consistent with how large departments typically operate: they rely on complex computerized models to shift units around in response to need.
“Say you have a very large incident. The system is constantly reacting to that, reallocating units to fill gaps accordingly,” Sendelbach said.
Hermosans are not the only ones thinking about the effect on response times by joining with the county. At an August meeting of the Manhattan Beach City Council, Manhattan Chief Robert Espinosa made a presentation demonstrating the interdependence of the two cities, and indicated potential delays for Manhattan residents if Hermosa were to switch to the county. Espinosa said in a subsequent interview that the department was still processing the data about potential delays, and that while he is not “concerned” about delays, he wants to stay on top of changes.
“I’m not sure if I’d say concerned; I want to be prepared,” Espinosa said. “We just want to make sure that we’ve done all we can to provide the same level of service to cities in the South Bay.”