The union representing firefighters in the Town of Normal has wrapped up its series of community education forums about a study that calls for expanded services and a bigger fire department.
What happens now in the effort to add to the fire service in the town?
The issues of potential growth and improved service in the Normal Fire Department have eased from a full boil to a simmer. IAFF Local 2442 President Chad Pacey said the public response to the education efforts was "excellent," although the union's ask to keep a fire station open on College Avenue and the case for a fourth fire station have not advanced.
"Thus far, the town has not moved on that, and all indications point to the fact that they are not willing to move on that. We would still like that and believe that it would be an excellent position to have to service the town. But ultimately, I think we need to be forward thinking and find ways to address the concerns that are outside of fully staffing a fourth station," said Pacey.
Pacey said the union will continue to advocate for things that will provide the best service for citizens, including shorter response times. And he said he's encouraged by a recent sit down with town administration which suggests the town is receptive to firefighter involvement.
"The public takeaway and what we're going to be working on collaboratively with the town is a strategic plan for the fire department and the Local is going to have a seat at the table to be part of those discussions in planning for the future," said Pacey.
Meanwhile, Normal City Manager Pam Reece said the town is still implementing its existing plan.
"We will continue exploring appropriate sites for a future station three, which is the one currently located on Raab Road and Henry Street, which would allow us to more effectively respond to northwest Normal," said Reece.
Throughout the public discussion of the firefighters' study, the union pushed for faster response times.
There are several official ways to measure the professionally recommended standard. One is a total response time of arrival within six minutes 90% of the time. That includes the time to take down the information from an emergency call and in some cases firefighter "dress down" time for certain kinds of fires that require special preparation.
The town comes close to meeting that. Pacey said the union prefers to measure another way, which uses solely driving time.
“The things that we are presently advocating for is to identify and agree upon with the city staff what is our standard response time and NFPA 1710 states that is four minutes 90% of the time. And we feel strongly by that affirmation in promoting that standard because it is science backed," said Pacey.
Normal meets that standard about 63% of the time.
The comparables
WGLT surveyed more than a dozen Illinois fire departments serving communities of similar population size to Normal or ones that may be larger but are in Central Illinois. WGLT looked at the standards they use to define success, the number of stations, the square miles they cover and other factors. By arbitration, the union in Normal uses a specific list of comparable communities during contract negotiations over staff levels, said Pacey. That includes Bloomington, Champaign, Decatur, Urbana, Pekin, Decatur, Moline, DeKalb, Galesburg, Danville and Kankakee.
It's hard to do an apples-to-apples comparison because some cities have stations with varying numbers of apparatuses in them. Some have in-house emergency medical services. Some contract that to private firms. Some are in river valleys where topography affects access to parts of town. Some have recently studied the location of their fire stations. Some have not. At least one noted on its website the placement and size of some of its stations reflect decisions made to accommodate horse-drawn fire units. The availability and price of land also affect the locations of fire stations.
DeKalb may be the most comparable in population and they are a university town. DeKalb just added a fourth station. Urbana is opening two new stations and closing two older ones. One of Urbana’s four stations is close to the University of Illinois campus.
The limited takeaway is that most give a nod to the 4-6 minute, all included NFPA standard, but when it comes to solely drive times, communities often define success for themselves. It varies a bit but is somewhat longer than that 4-minute rubric.
Normal is not an outlier in response time standards, actual response performance or in the number of fire stations in a department.
Pacey acknowledged a flat 4-minutes is a lofty target.
"Admittedly, municipalities around the area don't meet that goal but we also would expect that there is a goal set and there is something to work towards," said Pacey.
The town has maintained it constantly looks at performance metrics and how to improve them.
City Manager Pam Reece said a change in technology that Normal and Bloomington are both looking at would allow emergency response vehicles to preempt traffic lights, turn them red when a fire truck or ambulance approaches an intersection. That's safer for fire department units and motorists in general. [Bloomington City Manager Jeff Jurgens said the city already uses similar but older technology to preempt signals. The one under consideration would be an improvement.]
Reece said they've been talking with a larger community in Georgia about what happened with the same vendor Normal and Bloomington are considering.
"They defined their response improvements as 'transformational' and better than they had originally anticipated," said Reece.
She said that community shaved 40 seconds off its average response time. Normal's result would not be as dramatic because it has fewer traffic lights.
"Right now, our average response time, I believe, is about 4:28. If we can knock off 15-20 seconds by using technology, that gets us very close to the 4-minute mark, and what we're referring to is on route time," said Reece.
She said the town has not yet locked in the price of the new technology but Normal has done some prep work.
"When we've improved our traffic signal installations and our intersection improvements, they already have the conduit in place and the infrastructure in place to accommodate this type of technology installation," said Reece.
Chad Pacey said the union local embraces any technology that will improve service.
Slow to change
It will be a while before there could be any big changes in the Normal Fire Department, even if they were someday deemed necessary. Some of the things at stake are bargainable issues, particularly surrounding staffing, for instance, how many firefighters are on an apparatus. And if you add staff, you also must add a certain number of available leave time slots per shift. The current contract just went into effect last July.
Reece said the town is confident the east side fire station that just went into service will lower average response times. And the eventual relocation of the station on Raab Road at Henry, she said, will improve response times for northwest Normal and further help the average.
"Our path forward is going to be through these strategic planning meetings specific to the fire department and within those meetings it'll be the local as well as the fire department administration and city administration that are sitting at the table and trying to come up with a comprehensive long-term plan," said Pacey.
By the time the town has implemented traffic signal preemption tech, has gauged the change in average response times from opening the station at Shepard and Hershey and relocated the station at Raab and Henry, data from the union study may no longer be relevant.
"Our hope is that we would look at the most current and objective data that we have available to us to make informed decisions as a group moving forward of what would be the best positions to serve the residents of the town," said Pacey.
Pacey said the union has some ideas on things that will be helpful and on potential funding sources it will bring to that strategic planning process.
"Our path forward is going to be through these strategic planning meetings specific to the fire department and within those meetings it'll be the local as well as the fire department administration, and city administration that are sitting at the table and trying to come up with a comprehensive long-term plan," said Pacey.
Even if the town eventually decided to add equipment and staff, supply would be a hurdle. Ambulances require about two years’ notice before delivery. Fire trucks are longer than that, Reece said.
And she said town staff analysis of performance and how to do better never stops.
