Why Are Local Fire Departments Frequently Called to Non-Emergencies?
Baldwin County Alabama
By: Rick McCann
October 30, 2024
Every day in America, thousands of fire alarms are activated when there are no fires and no emergencies.
Nationwide, according to a recent study, almost ninety percent of activated alarms are false.
There are several reasons for falsely activated fire and burglar alarms.
Improperly installed or faulty equipment, testing of equipment without putting it in a test mode, and sometimes bad weather can trigger an alarm but consistently, the number one reason for the false alarm is “user error”.
Frequently, the user wasn’t properly trained in how to use the system or they have entered an incorrect passcode when arming or disarming the device or something similar.
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) reports that US fire departments respond to nearly 3 million false fire alarms every year. This number has increased by more than 230% since 1980, when fire departments responded to 896,500 false alarms.
False alarms can be a major annoyance and disrupt daily operations. They also require emergency services to respond, which can be dangerous if the public becomes unresponsive to the alarms.
In 2018, U.S. fire departments responded to a total of 2,889,000 false alarms. Malicious false calls increased by 22% from 2017, accounting for 171,500 of all false calls.
Nationwide and here in Alabama, there is a move by law enforcement agencies and fire departments not to respond to certain alarm calls.
Many departments will no longer respond to automatic fire alarms at commercial and workplace premises unless a fire has been confirmed. This change is intended to free up firefighters to respond to real emergencies and do more community safety work.
Recently, the City of Gulf Shores Fire Department presented a request for a new ordinance that would make property owners and management companies more proactive in repairs, testing, and maintenance of their equipment.
Under the proposed ordinance, property owners could be fined for certain false alarms including elevator and commercial fire alarms.
Gulf Shores Fire Rescue has responded to 331 false fire alarms and 120 elevator entrapments this year alone, according to Gulf Shores Fire Rescue Chief of Staff Melvin Shepard.
AUTOMATIC CRASH NOTIFICATION
Now, local volunteer and paid fire departments are being dispatched frequently to “Automatic Crash Notifications”, a function on some cellphones that is triggered when the phone has a hard impact and automatically calls 911 reporting a possible accident at the GPS coordinates that the phone has locked into its system.
Firefighters and ambulances and sometimes the local police are all dispatched to investigate whether a crash has occurred, and yes, sometimes, there is a real emergency.
There have been times when responders have found a motor vehicle accident at the location but many times the phone has just been dropped off a vehicle or has been tossed out of the vehicle’s window or dropped at a business and there’s no emergency at all.
More and more cellphone providers and other similar services such as Life360 continue to
offer these types of services.
While the service can be a true lifesaver for some, imagine local emergency personnel having to respond to hundreds or thousands of these false alarms yearly.
For small communities and volunteer fire departments, it would not only be difficult but for many, it would be impossible.
Currently, 97% of Americans own a cell phone, and 90% of those own a smartphone.
As of 2023, the United States has almost 386 million mobile cellular subscriptions, with 112 subscriptions per 100 people. The number of smartphone users in the US is over 310 million, and the smartphone penetration rate is over 96%.
If only a small fraction of those subscribers dropped, threw, or inadvertently hit their cellphones and it activated an emergency response sending local fire departments to the area, especially in rural areas, it could be disastrous for those community emergency agencies.
MEDICAL/LIFT ASSIST
Another service that has recently been added to many fire departments’ menu of services is known as a “lift assist” or non-emergent medical assist call. Many times, these are non-medical in nature, non-emergency, and consist of lifting a patient from one location and helping them over to another location within their residence.
Some of these patients call their local fire department several times a day to be moved from one place to another, a task more commonly done by a home health nurse or patient assistant.
In one fire department, it was recorded that the patient called them for a lift-assistance, seven times in one 24-hour period.
A firefighter on social media posted that his department had one person call over 130 times in 2022 for lift assistance from the wheelchair to the toilet or to a sofa, their bed, or someplace in between. We even had to wait sometimes up to 40 minutes if they needed us to he said.
One recent early morning, a volunteer fire department had responded to provide a patient with lift assistance but while performing the task, another more urgent call of a motor vehicle accident with injuries was dispatched to their fire department.
At that time of the day, most members are either at work or driving to work, and unable to respond to an emergency call.
A different volunteer fire department was ultimately dispatched to the accident scene and arrived almost fifteen minutes after the initial call for help.
The fire engine assisting the patient at home also responded a few minutes later and provided medical care to the vehicle’s driver while waiting for an ambulance.
Across the county, providing a patient with lift assistance is frowned upon because firefighters can be injured if they improperly lift the patient and there is an increase in liability should a patient be dropped.
The more lift assistance that a department provides, the greater the risk of injury or a lawsuit.
Even with proper lift techniques, workers who manually lift patients, especially large patients expose themselves to lift-related injuries such as a herniated disc, muscle tears or strains, knee tendon pain, and so on. The typical lifting solution for many fire departments or ambulance staff is for 1-3 or more responders to manually lift the fallen individual back up onto their feet or onto a chair or gurney if unable to walk.
Even with proper lift mechanics, injuries happen, often requiring them to go on temporary disability leave such as Worker’s Compensation plans. This is an expensive cost to all parties involved as temporary workers must be brought in or overtime paid to cover shifts.
Some fire departments have now begun charging a fee each time that they provide the service.
Others only respond when the patient has fallen and cannot get up on their own or they have been injured.
In these situations, fire departments and ambulances should be dispatched so that the patient can be
checked for injuries, a set of vitals should be taken and an assessment done. The patient may need
to be further treated at a hospital.
Large metropolitan fire departments have more staffing and are much more capable of responding to
these non-emergency calls for service.
Small, rural, or volunteer fire departments are already strapped for resources, often spread thin with personnel and in some areas, don’t have staffing available during certain times of the day and are unable
to provide such services on a regular or frequent basis.
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