Be prepared- you’re going to hear this phrase over and over by the Frisco Firefighters Union. They’ll say Frisco is not safe because Frisco’s staffing of a fire truck includes only 3 personnel on a truck, not 4, as indicated in the NFPA (National Fire Protection Association) standards.
Did you know that’s the same line and playbook the City of Arlington Firefighters Union used to pressure voters to accept Civil Service? Ask yourself- Is Frisco the same as Arlington? Do we want to be same? Are all cities across the U.S. the same?
Bottom Line: 4 firefighters on a truck is simply a RECOMMENDATION, not a mandate, from the NFPA. And in Frisco, it’s not necessary due to multiple factors:
- EXISTING EXCEPTION: Did you know there’s already an existing EXCEPTION to the NFPA recommendation of 4 on a truck? It applies when you have multiple firetrucks arrive to an incident. Why? Because with multiple firetrucks, you’ve already got MORE THAN 4 firefighters coming to the incident. That’s how our Frisco Fire Department handles a catastrophic fire to make sure you AND our firefighters are safe. Don’t be fooled; it’s about Safety First, both for the NFPA and the City of Frisco’s Firefighters.
- MINIMAL NUMBER: Less than .02% of all calls for service to the Frisco Fire Department are for structure fires. Structure fires are not all catastrophic; most include stovetop, microwave, oven, or any small fires that are often extinguished even before the Firefighters get to the scene. In 2023, there were only 78 recorded calls for structure fires in Frisco.
- MUTUAL AID: Of those 78 structure fires, 4 were categorized as Mutual Aid calls, which means our Fire Department staff had the time, bandwidth, and capability to help other cities with structure fires outside Frisco.
- MORE STATIONS vs. MORE STAFF: Rather than focusing solely on personnel and adding one more full-time STAFF to each truck, our City and Fire leadership takes into account ALL data points and has ensured that our city has adequate number of Fire STATIONS. That’s why, thanks to the citizens of Frisco and the bond program, Fire Station 10 is currently under construction and Fire Station 11 is in Design.
- LOWEST TURNOVER: Did you know that the Frisco Fire Department has the Lowest turnover rate of any City of Frisco department? If staffing were such an issue, don’t you think we’d be seeing a high turnover rate and firefighters fleeing the City of Frisco for something better? Instead, the opposite is happening; more firefighters are leaving other cities to become a City of Frisco firefighter and receive competitive pay and benefits, thanks to YOU the taxpayer.
The truth is, the Frisco Fire Department has everything it needs, both staffing and equipment, to protect YOU, 24/7. We have many highly-trained firefighters in Frisco ready to go at a moment’s notice, which provides more staff to catastrophic fire events, even more than “4 on a Truck.” Don’t fall for the Union’s line and playbook about “4 on a Truck”; it is an answer looking for a problem.
Let’s take an in-depth look at this issue.
What do the standards say?
The Standard in question is NFPA 1710. There is a lot to it, click here to see a summary. This standard was developed in part by the study in question, but also with significant input from the IAFF (International Association of Fire Fighters, their Union). The standard was originally developed in 2001 and is on a 5-year review cycle. The 2020 version is the most recent. As with all standards the City of Frisco relies upon, the City evaluates the standard compared to its operations and factors specific to the City of Frisco. The current standard states minimum staffing should be 4 in a company (i.e. Engine, Truck, etc.). A company for conversation’s sake is going to be 1 piece of fire equipment that shows up to an incident. Sure- so 4 would be safer than 3, but so would 5, 6, and 7. Just remember, when there’s a call for a catastrophic fire, we have more than just 4 firefighters coming to the rescue to ensure YOUR safety!
A VERY important item to note on the standard of 4 on a truck is the following:
EXCEPTION to company (sic 4) arriving on one apparatus:
• Multiple apparatuses are assigned, dispatched and arrive together
• Continuously operate together
• Managed by a single officer
It is important to note for structure fires Frisco sends multiple apparatus to a call. We do not send 1 apparatus; we send multiple immediately. This is important as we will discuss below the experiment intentionally waited a period of time between sending the first apparatus and sending a second.
Now, let’s take a look at the study and what it actually says. A copy of the study can be found HERE, and also on our resources page.
What is the report?
The report was the result of a scientifically designed experiment to study the effect of different crew sizes.
Both the increasing demands on the fire service – such as the
Report Executive Summary Page 10
growing number of Emergency Medical Services (EMS)
responses, challenges from natural disasters, hazardous
materials incidents, and acts of terrorism—and previous research
point to the need for scientifically based studies of the effect of
different crew sizes and firefighter arrival times on the effectiveness of
the fire service to protect lives and property.
This report presents the results of more than 60 laboratory and
Report Abstract Page 9
residential fireground experiments designed to quantify the
effects of various fire department deployment configurations on
the most common type of fire—a low hazard residential
structure fire.
Being that the report was developed as part of an experiment we must understand that within the experiment they had to develop controls to measure only the specific data point they were measuring. The point is this was a very controlled experiment that doesn’t take into account many real-life factors, to which the report admits. One of the controlling factors was that the experiment would send one apparatus, wait a minute or two, then send another. As previously mentioned, Frisco does not wait to send multiple apparatus. We send them immediately. What does this mean? It means for the experiment there were ONLY 3 or 4 personnel on scene for a period of time, whereas in Frisco we will have more than that number because we deploy more apparatus immediately. The NFPA standards also specify a total number of fire fighters on hand to fight a fire.
Initial Alarm Deployment (*number of fire fighters including officers)
NFPA Standard 1710
• Low hazard = 15 Fire fighters
• Medium hazard = 28 Fire fighters
• High hazard = 43 Fire fighters
Frisco meets this standard on our fires by sending sufficient apparatus to have the appropriate total number of personnel on scene.
Doesn’t that leave us short in other areas of the City if there is a fire? No. We use a “Closer too” dispatch system that sends the closest apparatus to an incident. Other stations that are not needed for that incident will cover the City. It is important to understand that for the year ending 2023 Frisco had only 78 calls for fires out of nearly 19,000 calls which is less than 0.4% of all of the calls placed to the fire department. Thats not even 1 call every 5 days across 9 fire stations for a fire. Of those calls not all of them are what you might imagine to be a fire, it could be fences, or grills. Further we live in a large metropolitan area. We have agreements with surrounding cities to provide mutual aid should we need it. To date Frisco assists other fire departments more than other fire departments assist Frisco, indicating we have the capacity to send the necessary apparatus to an incident to meet total on scene NFPA standards, and still have a safe level of coverage for other areas of the City.
Over half the calls in 2023, 9,229, were for EMS. The same NFPA standards require only 2 Paramedics for an advanced life support call. Frisco pays for the training of our Fire Fighters to become paramedics, because of this nearly all of the personnel on a given apparatus are paramedics, and we regularly send our fire apparatus, not just ambulances, on EMS calls. Since we are sending 3 personnel on those calls, we are sending more than required by the standard but can meet the standards for fire fighters at a fire by sending multiple apparatus. Here is the report to council for year-end December 2023.
The study in question is thorough and we are not questioning its methodology, however it is important to understand the results of the experiment cannot be viewed in a vacuum. In fact the report states the following:
The design of the experiments controlled for variance in
performance of the incident commander. In other words, a
more-or less-effective incident commander may have a significant
influence on the outcome of a residential structure fire.Attempts to generalize the
Report Page 51
results from these experiments to individual departments must
take into account tactics and equipment that vary from those used
in the experiments.
What does all of this mean?
In our opinion it means we need our elected leaders and City staff to critically evaluate standards and apply them in a professional manner for the Citizens of Frisco. We are not making an argument against 4 fire fighters on an apparatus, we believe that our leaders should have the flexibility to take into account all factors that could affect our fire service, personnel and residents and make informed professional decisions. We do not believe blindly adhering to any guideline is a benefit to the citizens. The union would have you believe that the ONLY way to ensure safety is to have 4 fire fighters on an apparatus.
What would the impact be to staff the additional personnel on a truck? Frisco’s current 3 per truck staffing level requires a minimum of 62 personnel on shift 24/7. We schedule nearly 80 per shift. The difference in the schedule and the actual on shift is to account for training, vacations, sick leave, etc. To increase the additional 20 personnel would not only mean hiring an additional 20 personnel, but actually almost double that to account for those same difference we currently account. Additionally adding that level of staffing would inhibit and slow the ability of the City to expand the number of fire stations due to the budgetary costs. Station 10 is currently under construction and with 11 soon behind that. Why is that important? The additional fire stations mean the fire personnel and equipment will be closer to where they are needed for calls. The September fire report shows those new zones and the need in those areas. As we all know the time it takes to get to a call is extremely important. Minutes matter.
In conclusion Frisco has a top performing Fire Department, one of the best in the nation by any measure. We need to keep it that way and allow our elected leaders and management to effectively and efficiently implement policies that benefit everyone. Unions stifle innovation and the ability to effectively and efficiently manage our department.