During an emergency, every second counts. For years, the National City Fire Department made those seconds count while making do with a lower-than-desired number of firefighters. The department says it responds to about 11,000 emergency calls per year. Many of those calls have been challenging, because historically, the department has only been able to assign three firefighters to an engine, instead of four.
Firefighter Chris Berry understands what that means very well.
“It definitely adds a little bit of stress to the scene,” Berry said. “You're kind of at a higher gear when you get to a scene of an emergency because you know that you're just going to be doing a little bit extra.”
The National Fire Prevention Association puts out policy guidelines for fire departments across the country. One of the recommendations is to have four crew members assigned to each fire engine. In National City, the difference between a four-person team and a three-person team is easy to understand.
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“We can't go into a structure that's on fire until we have that fourth person,” Berry told us. “So there might be somebody in there that we don't know about, but we have to wait a couple of minutes until another engine gets there for us to go in and actually search those rooms.”
The department has one policy exception. Firefighters can do a search, only if they know that someone is trapped inside the structure.
“The big thing is we don't know right, if somebody is inside or not,” Berry said. “It's very apparent when somebody is telling us, 'Hey, so and so is trapped inside of a building,' and that's when we're going to put our lives in danger without having a fourth person to go and try to make a rescue”.
The difference a fourth firefighter makes
Studies from NFPA and other agencies show a four-person crew can make a big difference. It says a team of four can complete tasks on patients with trauma or cardiac crisis in one minute and 45 seconds faster than with three people, can complete tasks at emergency scenes 25% faster, and is 54% less likely to experience an injury to one of its firefighters.
For almost three decades, the National City Fire Department has had to constantly shift staff around in order to meet this standard for at least one of its engines.
Fire Chief Sergio Mora, says the agency has been struggling to acquire enough personnel that would continually meet NFPA recommendations and at the same time, satisfy the city’s budget.
“I think the financial well-being of the city is in a much better place now where the city is able to commit to increasing staffing for the fire department,” Mora said.
Thanks to the council's approval of the fiscal year 2024 budget, the department will increase its staff from 39 to 42 firefighters, giving it the ability to staff a four-person engine around the clock.
Battalion Chief James Stiles, showed NBC 7 Investigates the differences firsthand, during drills. The four-person engine crew put out a fire and rescued simulated victims in 7 minutes and 45 seconds, versus 10 minutes and 55 seconds for a three-person engine crew.
“In real life, these seconds, and we are talking minutes, is huge,” Stiles told us “[The] fire doubles in size approximately every minute. One minute is the trash can, the other minute is the bed, and the next minute half the room is on fire.”
The department says these new positions will speed up their emergency response time and make them less reliant on other local agencies. They often ask for support from San Diego and Chula Vista firefighters to meet their response time goal of seven minutes.
About a third of the money in the budget is sponsored by a government grant. Chief Mora says he is optimistic his agency and his community will continue to be a priority for the city.
