Latest data shows wide range of response times for fire department

Published 10:17 am Tuesday, October 16, 2012

A brand-new map produced by King County Emergency Medical Services shows what many at the fire station and on Vashon already know — the department’s response times in medical emergencies differ greatly by location.

While the department’s average response time in recent years has been 7.5 minutes, the farthest reaches of the Island have seen waits of up to 22 minutes in emergencies.

“It’s far from where I think it should be,” Chief Hank Lipe said of the numbers. “But we’re making progress, especially with the amount of funding we have to work with.”

The map, presented to the Vashon Island Fire & Rescue board of commissioners at its meeting last Tuesday, compiles data on medical emergency response — not fire response — from more than three years, from 2009 through February of this year. The patchwork, color-coded map — with green being the best response and red the longest — divides the Island into squares, listing VIFR’s average response time to each area.

The areas closest to Vashon town, which have the vast majority of emergency calls, have seen the shortest response times, averaging from half a minute to five minutes. Much of the Island’s core and places along Vashon highway see times shorter than six or eight minutes.

Neighborhoods in the northernmost part of Vashon have seen times averaging from 7.9 minutes near the ferry terminal to 11.5 minutes near Dolphin Point.

The southern parts of Vashon and Maury Island, on the other hand, mostly wait longer than 10 or 12 minutes for responders. The southernmost tip of Vashon is at 17.8 minutes and the Manzanita neighborhood on Maury has seen the longest average response time, 22.1 minutes.

Both Lipe and Assistant Chief George Brown pointed out that the department, comprised of a mix of paid and volunteer responders, has improved response times significantly in recent years and continues to work to reduce them. Volunteers are now assigned to shifts, and more volunteers are staying at the station while on duty instead of at home — measures that have improved response times, they said.

Because of changes in the volunteer system, Brown said, the department can also handle multiple calls better than it used to.

Just a couple years ago, Brown said, the department could usually handle only two emergency calls — one requiring a ferry transport and one not requiring transport — at one time. Now, Brown said, the department can almost always handle two calls requiring transports and one not requiring a transport, and at times it can field up to four emergencies at once.

Lipe concurred.

“When we get simultaneous calls, we’ve really been able to shorten the time span on those second or third calls,” he said.

Lipe and Brown said the department is still working to reduce times. To reduce some of the long waits on the south end of Vashon and Maury, Brown said, the department needs to recruit more volunteers and keep the volunteers it has longer. He noted that VIFR isn’t alone in the struggle — departments across the nation have seen declining volunteer numbers for years.

Lipe said that decades ago VIFR volunteers were scattered all over the Island and could reach outlying nieghborhoods more quickly. Response times to the south end were much better then, he said, because many who worked at the Asarco smelter in Tacoma responded out of a station on the south end.

Now, VIRF is a department with more off-Island volunteers, often young people who move on to careers in other places.

“We’re constantly bringing in new volunteers,” Brown said. “We’re constantly trying to reach people and revamp what we’re doing to keep people.”