Jackson fire chief says response times have been growing past few years

With a little less than two months until Jackson residents vote on a new sales tax to fund operations at the current and proposed satellite fire stations, the city's fire chief said his department's response times have increased throughout the past five years.

Fire chief Jason Mouser said the accepted national standard is that stations should be able to respond to a call within five minutes from the time of dispatch to arrival on the scene, and reach that goal on 90 percent of calls.

According to statistics provided by the Jackson Fire Department, in 2009 the Jackson station reached the five-minute goal 65 percent of the time, a number that is down from 78 percent in 2005. The number of calls that took longer than seven minutes to respond to increased to 13 percent in 2009. That number was 8 percent in 2005.

While an increase measured in minutes and seconds may not seem like a big difference, Mouser said, time is critical when fighting a fire. For every minute a fire burns, it doubles in size, he said.

Mouser said he and his firefighters strive to decrease their response times but that there are several factors making it a difficult task.

As people continue moving into the area, he said, there is a lot of expansion in the subdivisions along the outer boundaries of the city in areas such as Klaus Park and Pioneer Orchard. The U.S. Census Bureau population estimates indicate Jackson increased from 12,962 residents in 2005 to 13,929 in 2009.

As the city's population increases, more people are depending on the city's existing services. Mouser said the station has seen evidence of that in the number of simultaneous calls the station receives each year. In 2005 the station received 21 calls at the same time, and the number jumped to 78 simultaneous calls in 2009.

"Not a week goes by it doesn't happen," he said.

Last year, when firefighters were on the east side of town extinguishing a brush fire, a call came in about a dust fire at a business in the center of town. He said it took firefighters eight minutes to reach the business, whereas it would have typically taken them between two and three minutes.

In addition to the population increase, Mouser said, some of the station's other responsibilities place additional strain on the department.

"Our fire crews are responsible for going out and flowing hydrants and doing walk-throughs of existing commercial occupancies and developing preincident plans. We may be in one area of town doing this when calls come in, but these are critical tasks that have to be completed," he said.

Mouser sees having a second on-duty crew as particularly helpful in assisting with those maintenance-type issues.

"This will be another advantage of having two crews in town. One crew can concentrate on these daily activities in their district and still be ready to respond in their area," he said.

Mouser said cities such as Cape Girardeau are fortunate to have four fire stations. The Census Bureau estimates Cape Girardeau's 2009 population at 37,657, an increase from 36,217 in 2005. According to the Cape Girardeau Fire Department, its average response time from 2005 to 2009 was four minutes, 49 seconds to emergency medical assists and four minutes, 47 seconds to fires.

Fire departments in Sikeston, Mo., and Perryville, Mo., did not return calls or e-mails requesting their response times.

The quarter-cent sales tax appearing on the November ballot will finance personnel as well as equipment for both stations. The site of the proposed station on Old Orchard Road near Interstate 55 and the east water tower is owned by the city, and construction of the station would be paid for with money in the district's tax increment financing fund.

While not all of the city's aldermen approve of the proposed location, none of them plan to campaign against the sales tax.

cbartholomew@semissourian.com

243-8600

Pertinent Address:

525 S. Hope St., Jackson, MO