West Fargo fire response times improve – InForum

WEST FARGO — West Fargo Fire Department officials say response times have improved about 50 percent since the new headquarters opened and a second group of full-time firefighters came on duty this autumn.

The new head office at 1201 10^th Avenue E. opened in October and became fully staffed and operational before the end of 2023.

The department divides its coverage areas into planning areas. Fuller said all zones experienced a reduction in response times when comparing all of 2022 to the first quarter of 2024. In planning zone one, the department saw a 49% reduction in response times. responding to emergency service calls in the event of a fire and a 51% reduction in response times. response times to emergency medical services (EMS) calls.

“In Planning Zone 1 alone, our department has seen a nearly three-minute decrease in response times to fire, rescue and hazmat calls for service,” said Fire Chief Dan Fuller. said. “This is a testament to the hard work that went into planning this building and the commitment to service that our crews demonstrate every day as they serve West Fargo in an emergency.”

“The improvement came after the station opened,” Fuller said. “We saw some reduction in 2023, mainly because the station opened in October and we only saw two months of improvement in lead times.”

Firefighters went from an average of 8 minutes and 36 seconds in 2022 to 4 minutes and 23 seconds per call in the first quarter of 2024 in planning zone one.

Crews broke ground on the nearly 48,000 square foot headquarters in May 2022. The headquarters is home to nine 24-hour operational employees and 14 administrative, harm reduction, training and services employees. Before the headquarters was added and a second full-time fire crew was on duty, all full-time crews were based at the West Fargo Fire Department's South Station, only part-time crews serving the rented northern barracks. Prior to 2018, when the fire department became a full-time staffed municipal department, the West Fargo Fire Department was strictly volunteer.

Headquarters crews are now focusing on calls for service north of Interstate 94.

“I attribute this reduction to a drastic decrease in travel times. Previously, all firefighting apparatus had to travel to the scene from the Southside Fire Station,” Fuller said.

Reducing response times is now where Fuller wants to see progress, and he plans to continue to closely monitor the department's efforts.

“We try to meet or meet the goal of 5 minutes for any medical call and 5 minutes and 20 seconds for any fire/rescue/hazmat call,” he said. “These times correspond to the first truck due to a call. We track the times of all other trucks (effective response force) to the most serious calls, but we need a full year of data to make a decision. This is mainly because we have so few serious appeals that we need a larger dataset to properly analyze the data.

Wendy Reuer covers all things West Fargo for The Forum.