During the Neighbor to Neighbor process, the Task Force asked a number of questions and stated concerns regarding Fire Department programs. I have provided below a re-statement of our responses to these questions and concerns:

• What would be the benefit to the City of El Cerrito and the Fire Department if the department was staffed with volunteers?

• What impact does an all volunteer staff have on the Fire Department?

If we are looking to reestablish a completely volunteer staff for the fire department, we need to ask ourselves what has changed in the community over the past thirty years to improve the prospects that a volunteer-based fire department would now have a better ability to provide fire protection services? Clearly the median age of the citizens in El Cerrito has become older, decreasing the pool of eligible young citizens who are likely to serve as volunteers. Moreover, if nearby communities such as Pinole and Rodeo can serve as examples, it would be very difficult to build and maintain a combination paid-volunteer fire department, let alone a completely volunteer force. Within the modern urban and suburban areas of the East Bay area, volunteers seem most often to be people looking for full-time work as firefighters and who seem to be very poorly situated to provide immediate assistance on emergency calls on a 24-hour basis. From other departments' experience, the impacts on the fire department of a volunteer force would be as follows:

1. The establishment of a volunteer program would be costly and time-consuming at best. The program may not even be feasible because of an inability to obtain sufficient numbers of volunteers to respond consistently to emergency calls at any time they are received.

2. Objections to a volunteer staff could be expected from our joint response partners who, at least initially, would question the professionalism and training of personnel not completely devoted to firefighting as a career.

3. Volunteer firefighters are required by state law to maintain training substantially equivalent to paid firefighters. This requirement is likely to be very hard to meet. Training must take place in addition to responding to emergency calls. As the call volume increases, the time available to volunteers for fire training related activities decreases.

4. In order to be able to respond to approximately 2000 emergency calls annually, a volunteer force of at least 100 persons would need to be fully trained and actively maintained. Even with enthusiastic participation, this call load and training represent a significant commitment of a volunteer's time: more than six hours per day. We expect the training costs to the Fire Department would be in the range of $ 85,000 to $ 95,000 annually.

5. The fire prevention, public education and disaster preparedness programs currently administered by engine company staff would need to be handled by volunteers or another City department. This requires staff time beyond that devoted to emergency calls and training.

• Can volunteers be reliable?

• What is the cost for a volunteer firefighter program?

A program designed to fully cover the City with a volunteer-based fire department would involve separate processes to recruit, train and schedule the volunteers into an effective protection system, while maintaining the paid-staff system until it can be replaced by the volunteers. The overall program could take years to implement fully, even with an active response from volunteering citizens. Without an active response by volunteers, the program may never be implemented fully, at least in the way initially envisaged.

Implementation of a volunteer firefighter program beyond the limited scope of the present volunteer program would entail, on the one hand, either adding fire department or City staff to administer the program or, on the other hand, dropping one or more existing programs to free up a full-time staff person. Since the training and scheduling requirements would require both fire service expertise and command rank, the volunteer coordinator should be a sworn position of at least a Captain rank. The cost for personnel and support services would be approximately $ 150,000. The Fire Prevention Officer (FPO) could be discontinued, the programs handled by the FPO dropped, and that person reassigned. This route would involve fewer cash expenses to the City, but would also involve dropping the NEAT program and the Fire Hazard Abatement Program, removing a fire investigator from the department, and eliminating a significant portion of both the engine company fire inspection program and the public education program.

Only after the volunteer program has been given an opportunity to grow can we assess whether it may be sufficiently reliable to begin supplementing full-time paid staff in an emergency response role. We may anticipate significant labor union opposition to this step. Savings to the City will accrue only after full-time positions are eliminated in favor of volunteers.

• What would it take to put more staff resources into the N.E.A.T. program?

• What would the cost savings be if we closed the Arlington fire station and how would it affect the response time to emergencies in the hill areas? What would be the fiscal and human impact of closing a fire station in El Cerrito?

1. Closing Fire Station # 72. The City would save initially in the costs for personnel, services, supplies, training and capital outlay approximately $ 900,000 a year by closing Fire Station # 72. A closure would undoubtedly prompt a renegotiation of our contracts with our neighboring partners, and our net savings would only be $ 450,000.

The most significant cost to the city would be in lost fire protection services. Closing Fire Station # 72 would leave 31.4% of the structures (2649) within the City without fire protection services arriving within six minutes of a call to 911. Fire engine responses longer than six minutes significantly increase the risk of complete fire destruction of a building and certain death from heart attacks or breathing interruptions. Within the zone of risk (longer than six minute response time) would be Madera School, Arlington Park, Tassajara Park, the Mira Vista Golf and Country Club and the Hillside Natural Area (HNA). Timely response by the El Cerrito Fire Department to Richmond's Vista Heights, the County's East Richmond Heights, Wildcat Canyon or in support of Kensington's Engine # 65 would not be possible. The City's largest fire hazard, the intermix zone in the hill area from the HNA to Wildcat Canyon, would be largely unprotected by any early and effective response.

Fires occurring within unprotected areas would eventually obtain fire suppression resources. But the longer burning times for these fires would significantly increase the risk that all fires would reach and even exceed the assessed valuation for the involved property, that occupants who could not escape on their own would perish, and that such fires would tend to grow to a point where very likely they could ignite adjacent structures or yard vegetation.

In 1997 the actual fire loss for properties within the city was $ 272,615 on property assessed $ 13,716,160. Without Fire Station # 72, and given last year's rate of fire incidents, we would expect the fire loss in the unprotected zone to approach and even surpass the assessed valuation for those properties involved in fire. If the unprotected zone is 31.4% of the city, and the assessed valuation for property involved in fire was $ 13,716,160, and we assume that structure fires occur in a uniform distribution throughout the city, then we may expect the fire loss in the unprotected zone to reach and exceed $ 4.3 million.

However, we should also examine the worst case possibilities as well. Should any house fire extend beyond a single property to a block or larger, the fire loss may be expected to reach the total assessed valuation of private property and public infrastructure for entire neighborhoods. In conditions of strong Diablo winds (out of north and east) which occurs an average of six times each year for periods of two to four days, a fire which is not contained to a single house would be expected to initiate a conflagration involving up to 1,300 structures (mostly homes) within the hill areas alone. This number represents those homes at risk due to a wildland interface fire originating from Wildcat Canyon and spotting by aerial transmission into the Hillside Natural Area, creating a two-front fire with the neighborhoods along the Arlington caught between. Fire losses in the private sector in this instance would be estimated upwards of $ 170 million.

Obviously, we cannot assume that the failure of a fire engine to arrive within six minutes to a fire scene will mean necessarily the difference between a low fire loss confined to one room and a hill area conflagration. My point in raising the worst case scenario is that often the ignition of a fire starts a sequence of processes which, left to themselves, have the potential of leading to very large losses. The 1991 Oakland-Berkeley Hills fire is an example of a worst case scenario.

Another component of risk entails the threat to life due to an engine company arriving on an emergency scene six minutes after receipt of the 911 call. The fire department responds on the average to about 175 medical emergencies per year within the area of the city left unprotected if Fire Station # 72 is closed. About 30% of all medical calls in El Cerrito have historically involved either heart or respiratory maladies of a life threatening nature where timeliness of response is critical. It is difficult to determine how many patients in this group would not be saved if response times were delayed. What is more easily determined, however, is that approximately 45 - 50 lives within the unprotected zone are at risk every year, and a delay in receiving basic life support for these patients will likely harm their medical condition.

Joint Response Impacts. Richmond, Kensington and the County Fire District have joined with El Cerrito in establishing a collective security system called Joint Response. These contract relationships require every partner to provide for their own protection and lend their support to neighboring jurisdictions on the basis that the nearest engine responds to the incident. The closure of Fire Station # 72 would create a significant hole or gap in the fire protection system established under Joint Response. We could expect our partners to react to such a station closure with displeasure, since El Cerrito would no longer have the resources or the locations necessary to remain a viable and effective contributor to the system.

Gauging the intentions of our Joint Response partners under hypothetical circumstances is a risky undertaking. What follows is the most likely scenario: our partners cancel their Joint Operations agreement with us and Kensington renegotiates its contract. El Cerrito would realize a net savings of about $ 450,000 in personnel and station costs, more than 31% of the City would remain unprotected outside a six minute response zone, and El Cerrito would rely upon Richmond for mutual aid and special call assistance on a delayed and pay-as-you-go basis.

2. Closing Fire Station # 71 (on San Pablo Avenue). Similar to Station # 72, the City would save initially in the costs for personnel, services, supplies, training and capital outlay approximately $ 900,000 a year by closing Fire Station # 71. A closure of Fire Station # 71, however, would result in a renegotiation of our contracts with our neighboring partners. The initial savings to the city for closing Fire Station # 71 are likely, therefore, to be consumed by the added expenses of maintaining the fire protection coverage to within a six minute response time for all but 16.1% of the structures.

Without renegotiating our Joint Response contracts, a Station # 71 closure would leave 40% of the city beyond a six minute response time for the nearest engine, most of this area involving the flat areas of residential and commercial districts. Significant hazards in this unprotected zone include the El Cerrito Plaza, most of the San Pablo Avenue commercial district, El Cerrito High School and five other public and independent schools, one BART station (Plaza), and City Hall.

As stated previously, fires burning within the unprotected areas would eventually obtain fire suppression resources. But the longer burning times for these fires would significantly increase the risk that they would reach or even exceed the assessed valuation for the involved property, that occupants who could not escape on their own would perish, and that such fires would tend to grow to a point where very likely they could ignite adjacent structures. This is particularly true within most of the commercial district.

Using the same methodology employed for analyzing a closure of Fire Station # 72, we can estimate the fire loss for areas affected by Fire Station # 71's closure. If the unprotected zone contains 40% of the city parcels with structures upon them, and the assessed valuation for property involved in fire was $ 13,716,160, and we assume that structure fires occur in a uniform geographic distribution throughout the city, then we may expect the fire loss in the unprotected zone to reach and exceed $ 5.49 million. This analysis seriously underestimates the fire loss, however, since the assessment for commercial properties is a much higher value per unit than residential properties, and since property-to-property fire transmission is a very serious concern with all commercial structure fires.

Joint Response Impacts. Again I caution you about attempting to judge the intentions of our Joint Response partners as to a hypothetical scenario. If El Cerrito were to close Fire Station # 71, our partners would not generally view this move favorably, as an enhancement to regional fire protection. Fortunately, we can still provide at least minimal service to the greatest number of El Cerrito citizens if we pursue a renegotiation of both the Kensington and Joint Response agreements. Unfortunately, we are not likely to realize any appreciable net savings to City expenses.

The savings for cutting the Station # 71 staff and operations would be spent largely in providing service to El Cerrito down the hill from Kensington and over from Station # 64 in Richmond. Engine # 71's call volume in 1997 was over 2000, and we would not expect Engine # 72 to handle more than about 30% of these calls. Therefore, we would expect both Kensington and Richmond to demand significant compensation from El Cerrito for adding 1,400 emergency calls to their engine companies.

Keep in mind that, in the case of closing Fire Station # 71, the consequences for reducing the number of engine companies within the local fire protection system from three to two is that fire protection in all areas is thin most of the time. You may get one engine company fairly fast, but it will be a long time before the next company arrives. And with an El Cerrito and Kensington emergency call volume already at 2932 calls, averaging over eight calls per day, the odds increase by 50% that the first due engine company will already be busy on another call when a citizen dials 911.

As a final note, it should be pointed out that El Cerrito always has the option of simply cutting its costs irrespective of its Joint Response agreements. Either fire station could be closed. We could expect a net savings for this scenario of about $ 850,000, but it may take at least two years to realize this savings since it would take a minimum of 18 months to extricate ourselves from the Kensington service contract. In this event, as shown above for Station # 72, 31.4% of the city would be in the unprotected zone of greater than six minute response.

• Is there a problem with water pressure in the El Cerrito hill area?

There are a few areas of the city along northern San Pablo Avenue where the water pressure is substandard to our need for adequate fire flows. It is not a critical concern, except that we must take into account these low pressure zones when reviewing the fire protection needs of large residential and commercial structures along San Pablo Avenue. We expect the EBMUD seismic upgrades to improve all of the areas now within low pressure zones.

• What is the cost of implementing a full paramedic program, including patient transport? What is the possibility of establishing a medical service fee either under the current system or with a full paramedic and ambulance system run by the City?

On the average, the cost for implementing a service enhancement to full paramedic ambulance transport is about 40% of a fire department's budget. It involves hiring new personnel already trained as paramedics or offering the training to existing fire department personnel; it requires additional investment in equipment and apparatus.

The attractiveness of a full paramedic program, including paramedic transport, is that with careful management it becomes a profit center for the agency. Ambulance transport can be linked to all other fire department medical services in the billing of patients or their insurance companies. Subscription services have been established in some communities whereby the fire department sells for an annual fee ambulance transport. The citizens sign a waiver of their insurance deductible and assign to the city the right for the city to seek the transport fee directly from the citizens' insurance carriers.

Fees for service have also been established to cover various aspects of fire department services, including fire calls and medical responses. Fire departments generally are most successful in imposing fees for services on those services citizens have not already become accustomed to expecting as a part of the basic tax-supported services. In the customer marketing sense, fees should be charged for service value received, and a large component of the "customer" in this case is the medical care provider (Medicare, HMO's, insurance companies). To the extent that the fire department can provide a means of providing service value to the medical care providers, for example by reducing costs and managing care for their clients in the emergency medical system (home/street to hospital), then these care providers will be willing to buy our services.

A fee for service system imposed on the El Cerrito Fire Department's medical response services at this point would likely net the City $ 58,000 annually based upon a per call charge of $ 75, and assuming a collectible rate of 67%. Insurance companies generally do not cover fire department response fees, and so we would expect neither the City nor the patient much success in obtaining payment from the insurance carriers. Because of this fact, most fire departments have declined to impose what has the potential for being a very unpopular fee for basic medical response services. Fees for full paramedic transport services, on the other hand, seem to be accepted widely. The EMS market, along with the managed health care market, is in a state of rapid change. Medical care providers are considering establishing "auxiliary answering points" in addition to the 9-1-1 system for emergencies just so that they can better manage the financial risks of the emergency medical system (EMS). The future for fire-based EMS service is likely to be in the direction of establishing a more intensive presence in filtering and prioritizing 9-1-1 callers and administering lower level and definitive care directly at the scene. This service appears to be in high demand by the medical care providers and, from an entrepreneurial view, is an available opportunity for fire department EMS providers. We are working now with the Richmond Fire Department and the County EMS office on developing the requisite medical priority dispatch system for entering this market.

There remains to be discussed the practicality of establishing a paramedic ambulance transport system under the fire department organization within El Cerrito. There is presently legislation before the California State Legislature to grant cities and special districts the legal authority under the Public Safety Code to establish ambulance service within their jurisdictions (AB 2586, Ortiz). This legislation arose out of California Supreme Court decision granting San Bernardino County (and other counties) the right to preempt other jurisdictions in EMS transport service. If AB 2586 is successful, El Cerrito could join with other West county jurisdictions to establish paramedic ambulance service for the area.

Conceivably, the fire departments in the West County area could establish paramedic engine companies to administer Advanced Life Support care as part of the initial fire department medical response before the ambulance arrives. This program is relatively easy to implement, compared to a full paramedic program, although it does not have the potential of generating the revenues of a full transport program. The cost to implement a paramedic engine company program vary between 10% and 20% of the fire department's annual budget. Given an overall market opportunity afforded by implementing a Medical Priority Dispatch System, however, paramedic engine companies may well become fiscally self-supporting.

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