HomeMy WebLinkAboutFire Department Annual Report 2008.PDFCAYTJGA HEIGHTS
FIRE
DEPARTMtrNT
ANNJAL REPORT
2008
C AYU GA H EI d; TITS F X RE D E PARTVI EIVT
194 Pleasanf Grove R.oad
Ithaca, llY 14850
(607) 25t-2377
March 10,2009
Mayor James Gilmore and the
Board of Trustees for the Village of Cayuga Heights
The following is the Annual Reportlof the CayugaHeights Fire Department for 200g.
The volunteers of the Cayuga Heights Fire Department had a very busy year in 200gwith
a total of 542 calls. There were 299 runs in the Village of Cayuga Heights, 175 runs in
the Town of Ithaca and we responrled to 68 requests for mutual aid. We were down 14
calls from 2007 but last year we responded,to I22mutual aid calls because of the closure
of the Thurston Ave. Bridge. There were 4 structure fire calls, 22 motor vehicle crashes,
254 EMS calls and 262 other type incidents. "Other type incidents" fall into the categoryof calls such as car fires, fire alann activations, po*"r lines down, flooded basemJnts,
brush fires, spills, cooking fires r:tc... The highest percentage of calls that we run
continue to be emergency medical requests. The Cayugu H"ightr Fire Department
provides excellent and timely serv.ice to our dishict. We have been able to respond to
every fire call that we have been dispatched to and with very few exceptions we are able
to respond to all EMS alarms as w,ell. Every once in a while we will huu" un EMS call
and have no EMT available to respond. In these instances we wiil have a firefighter at
the station contact to responding ambulance to let them know that we have personnel
available to respond if needed. Every firefighter in this department is CpR/AED
certified. We are very proud of our ability to have personnei r.udy to respond to every
call we are dispatched to. Two of our structure fire incidents *.r" ,iopped while the fires
were small. In March we were dispatched to a residence where puint.ru were using a
heat gun to strip paint from a building. The wood siding on the htuse caught fire from
misuse of the heat gun causing fire extension into the wall of the home. Ouifirefighter,s
rapid response allowed us to get werter on the fire quickly and stop the spread of the firequickly. The second structure fire was in August. The depanment responded to a
reported kitchen fire on Warren Road in an apartment. First aniving units found a heavy
smoke condition in an apartment caused by a fire on the stove. A nlighbor had knocked
down most of the fire prior to our arrival but we did overhaul the area io .nrrrr. that there
was no extension of the fire and did an investigation" The other two f,rres that were
classified at structure fires were a cooking fire that was contained to the stove and a
chimney fire that was extinguished with little damage to the home. As stated many times
before, the rapid response of the volunteers of the Cayuga Heights Fire Department keeps
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I-tr ELP P REVEIVT F I R.ES"
these small fires contained before they get out of control. We do continue to be an asset
that our neighboring departments use regularly with mutual aid assignments. Many times
our firefighters are involved directly with fire attack a1- mutual aid fires. Our members
ars very well trained, disciplined and in great physical condition which allows us to
perform well during interior operations. We are huppy to respond to these requests for
help because we know that when we have a major incident our neighboring departments
will be there to help us.
In 2008 we had an average response time of 3.3 rninutes with an average of 9.3
firefighters per call. Our average call lengJh was 20.ji minutes per call with a total of
3028.32 man hours out on calls for 2008. As stated itr previous years reports, the man
hour total only includes the time spent on the call and iloes not cover the amount of time
spent cleaning our equipment after each call to put it back in service. This number also
does not cover all the time spent by department members maintaining equipment,
cleaning trucks, maintaining and cleaning the fire station, mowing lawns in the summer
and clearing snow in the winter. The members of the Caluga Heights Fire Department
are very proud of our equipment and our station and work very hard to keep everything in
top condition.
In 2008 the department responded to 254 EMS calls. EMS calls count for our greatest
percentage of responses. Our dedicated EMTs are second to none in this county in my
opinion. We have 16 Basic EMTs, 1 EMT Intermediate, 2 EMT-CC and 3 Paramedics.
We currently have 4 EMTs enrolled in the Paramedic Program in Elmira. We continue to
provide ALS first response to our district. Our EMS coverage is one of the most amazing
aspects of this department. These calls are some of out'most important runs but often go
unheralded. It is very easy to see three large yellow fire trucks with lights flashing on the
side of the road, often there to reset a fire alarm system that has malfunctioned. Less
noticeable is the rescue truck which responds, many times, without lights flashing and
siren wailing to a home where somebody is sick and in.need of medical care. Often there
are two or three EMTs helping this person and supporting family members until the
ambulance arrives and transports the person to the hospital. The truck sits in the
driveway or on the side of the road and nobody is even aware that there is an emergency.
The EMS side of our operation is overlooked often but is the service that we provide
most often.
In 2008 we had 52 in house trainings at the fire department. We had an average of 15
people at each training and a total of I,997 man hours of in house training taken at the
department. These trainings are done either at the file station or the county training
facility in the city. These trainings are put together by the officers of the department and
taught by us. We also had 1,815 hours of State and National level trainings taken by
members of the department. All new members of ther department are required to take
either Scene Support Operations (27 hours) or Firefight.er 1 (78 hours) and ICS (Incident
Command System) Level 700 and 800 within their fir:st year in the department. These
numbers do not include the countless hours of continuing education that each EMT must
take. Basic EMTs are required to take 12 hours of continuing education each year and
Paramedics are required to take 24 hours each year. Each EMS provider has to recertify
every three years as well. This requires the individual to take a refresher class that coversmany hours of core topics, These trainings are done on nights and weekends.
There are currently 46 members of the fire department and 10 members of the firecompany support staff for a current roster of 56 members. A11 of our members arecurrently active. We do a status review of our membership rolls twice u y.u, to ensurethat every person !n the department is current on their call and training requirements. Atthis time we have 24 intetior firefighters, 17 exterior firefighters 5 probationary members.In 2008 we had two recruit classes, one in the spring and one in the fall. we accepted 2gnew members into the department/company. Welave retained 18 of these members.our recruits join with the best of intentions after a serious interview process with thedepartment and company officers. At times the new recruits do not realize,even afternumerous information sessions, that joining the fire department requires a majorcommitment of time. We do not like the attrition but we doixpect ro*.. The memberswe retain usually end up being very dedicated to the department and when they leave ourdepartment, ffiffiy times, they join irolunteer departmenis in their new towns.
Several projects were started and rcompleted at the station in 200g. A major hurdle tocommunications was conquered this year with the implementation of the gO0MgHz radiosystem' We have new mobile (vehicle based) radios in every truck as well as newportables' We now have a portable radio for every seat in the heavy apparatus. Thisallows every firefighter enterirng a dangerous environment to have instantcommunications on the fire ground. This makes our job much safer. Around the stationwe made a couple of improvements as weli this year. With support of the fire companywe purchased a new floor for the g.ym at the station. We did all-the work on this projectwith manpower from the departmen.t. We pulled up the old carpet and laid down the newrubberized floor over a weekend in July. ihe new-floor is *,rrh easier to keep clean andlooks better and is more functional ihen the carpet that was there before. we alsoreplaced the carpet in the company room with tile. Again this project was funded withmoney from the fire company. The new tile floor is much easiei to maintain in this hightraffic area. We have continued to have problems with the boiler room at the station butwe are in the process of working with a plumbing contractor and Brent Cross to come upwith a permanent solution for the heat and hot water issues at the station.
We at the fire station _do not only contribute to our community by responding toemergencies. Our merybers are very active with many projects in the community thatstart at the fire station. Fire Preverrtion in our elemeniary schools and area pre schoolscontinues to be a priority for us. Wr: receive requests for visits to schools throughout theyear' We visit Cayuga Heights Elernentary School and Northeast Elementary during fireprevention week in the fall. During the year we receive requests to either open the stationfor young children or to have firefighters go out to preschools to visit children. FirePrevention is one of our most important functions" If *. .un keep children aware of thehazards of fire then we help keep our community safer. It seems as if every weekend weh9s,t a group of young children at the station for birthday parties. This piogram startedwith one party several years ago and has blossomed into stmething many clildren lookforward to for their birthdays. Matt MacDougal has taken this prigram on and does a
great job with it. The children have a lot of fun having aparty at the fire station that they
will never forget and some times we gain adult members from the parents attending. We
held our First Annual Community Yard sale last May and it was an amazing weekend.
All members of the department contributed time to this project led by Lt. Dave
Openshaw. We collected items for sale the month prior to the yard sale and when the
weekend arrived we had crowds lined up. We truly appreciated the donations to the yard
sale from the community and all the time and effort that the members put in to make this
event work. We look forward to making this an annual tradition at the station. We still
have many organizations that use the station for meetimgs. These orgarizations include
the local bridge club, the Guiding Eyes for the Blind, Ithaca Girls Hockey, the Ithaca
Ballet, Ithaca Doll Artists, Ithaca Garden Club and the Ithaca Women's Club. The
station is very much apart of this community.
We continue with a strong bunking program. All seven bunker rooms are full at this
time. The bunkers keep up with day to day cleaning and maintenance of the fire station
and the fire trucks. These men and women provide an amazing service to this
community" Much of the credit for our rapid response in the middle of the night goes to
the dedicated bunkers of the department.
We at the fire department are dedicated to our mission of providing a very high level of
fire and EMS protection to our community. The officers and firefighters of the Cayuga
Heights Fire Department are proud of our accomplishrnents over the past year and look
forward to improving our services in the coming year. We again would like to thank the
village board for the support that you have given us this past year. Without the support of
the Village of Cayuga Heights and the Town of Ithaca our mission would be impossible.
Thank You.
Gdfirge Tamborelle
Fife Chief/Superintendent
Cayuga Heights Fire Department
Date Range: From 0l/01/200 g to 12/31/200g
Box/Zonel Code; Alt
District: All
Situation Found: AII
Exclude Mutual Aids: No
Exclude Exposuresl No
Incident Totals by Time of Dav
Time: l1:35 AM
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Cayuga Heights Fire Department
Fire Department: 55002
Companies: All c
Date Range: From 01/01/2008 to 12i31/2008
Bo/Zone/ Code: All
District: All
Situation Found: All
Exclude Mutual Aids: No
Exclude Exoosures: No
Incident Reponse Performance Analysis
Response Time
Response Time
(Minutes)Number of lncidents Totals Additional
0.1
2-3
4-5
6-7
8-9
>10
ffiww
ffi
ffi
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81
248
1',l1
39
19
12
Longest Time: 17.0
Incident#: 2008-080147
Average Time: 3.3
Apparatus Travel'l'ime
TravelTime
(Minutes)Number of Incidents Totals Additional
0-4
5-9
10-14
15-19
20 -24
>25
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423
76
7
3
0
1
Longest Time: 30.0
Incident#: 2008-080147
Average Time: 3.3
Incident Lengttr
Incident Length
(Minutes)Number of lncidents Totals Additional
0-29
30-59
60-89
90 - {19
't20 - 149
> 150
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442
37
14
4
6
7
Longest Time: 368.0
lncident#: 2008-080395
Average Time: 20.5
Date: 03/06/2009 Page: 1 Time: 11:43 AM
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