Vol. EMS and F.D. Merger

[mcarlile]

My local vol. fire department and EMS are planning to merge within the next few months. The community is very rural and both entities are non-profit corporations. I am on the committee that is attempting to create new bylaws. Does anyone out there have any experience with this type of merger? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[Guest DELETED]

DELETED

[hfdff422]

I only know that if you are going to have "fire based EMS" as some people call it, you need to make sure that firefighting is placed appropriately in order of priority. About 90% of our runs are EMS, rescue or service based, the other 10% make up fire runs. In our system, the FD is no longer a fire department, it is an EMS agency that also does firefighting. We have people that are strictly fire, but they are in the minority. We keep up on fire training but emphasize EMS and rescue training. There is no reason to treat EMS as the stepchild of the FD as too many systems do. It will be your bread and butter and it needs to be treated as such. Several officers must be dedicated to maintaining training, records, and affiliations. You need to staff based on ambulance coverage- any staffing must be dedicated to the bus first and should be able to only fill in as a truck company, but should not be treated as a dual engine/ambulance crew. You need to operate with the understanding that the ambulance crew is that unless there is a working structure fire and only then should the ambulance crew be delegated to a truck or other second due apparatus- at which time you need to call for ambulance coverage from mutual aid or other volunteers.

[Dustdevil]

Point 1:

• Minimally qualified professional firefighter = 12 weeks full time training.

Minimally qualified professional paramedic = 2 years full time education.

• Percentage of calls for fire service = 10 percent

Percentage of calls for emergency medical service = 90 percent

• Of course, those first numbers are for a PROFESSIONAL agency, not a volunteer agency, but the point remains the same. This is really and truly an absolute no brainer. Anybody who cannot look at the numbers and clearly understand where the priorities should logically lay is either blind or stupid. They are completely separate professions with absolutely no professional similarities beyond lights and sirens. The only logical argument that can even be remotely made for combination is that of budgetary concern, and even those are dubious. However, if your budgetary concerns are so absolutely overwhelming that you are willing to sacrifice quality to satisfy them, then I suppose you must do what you must do. But at least use your brain and work to assure that your professional priorities are coincidental with reality.

[hfdff422]

Actually, I can think of a pretty darn good argument. The need for full time firefighters is very minimal, the need for full time EMS is critical. So, instead of hiring firefighter candidates- which anyone can be an average firefighter- hire EMS personnel and use them to staff transporting and rescue units full time, and to augment critical fire responses instead of what seems to be the standard with most departments that are transporting EMS fire departments, which is to use firefighters to run EMS and "cross train" them as paramedics or EMT's. This is basically instituting municipally or township ran EMS services- it is under the "fire" chief ultimately, but the dedication to EMS is there, it is not a stepchild by any stretch of the imagination. In the system I come from you cannot put in an application unless you are an EMT-B or higher. Several agencies have stopped recognizing the B level and require all their personnel to be EMT-I's just to be a firefighter. They will train you to be a firefighter, but they require you to show the capability to do EMS first. The aptitude tests are just that for the firefighting, but require you to pass a level appropriate approximation of the state EMS test in conjunction with the fire fighting aptitude test.

This also fixes the problem of bad working conditions and inferior pay and benefits (theoretically). The EMS/firefighting personel are better paid than the cops and they have the 24 on/48 off shift rotation which allows them to work part time at private ambulance services or smaller fire departments (or wahtever they choose). Plus paramedics make a premium above all other personnel, in fact, if you are a paramedic and you can pass the PERF physical and the agility test, you pretty much have a job.

If "fire based EMS" is done properly, it can work. The problem is there are too many people that focus on the firefighting even though it is secondary to all other emergency services endeavors. On the scene of a fire you are taught that rescue comes first (right after personal safety), so we are supposed to help the victim before we bother with fire suppression. So right there in firefigthing 101 we get our priorities taught to us, which should tell those departments who train for firefighting more than EMS that their priorities are way off. Competency in firefighting is easy to achieve with regular drilling, so the majority of training should be in EMS continuing/advancing education.

[Dustdevil]

Exactly what I was saying. Good job. :thumbright:

[Kansas Stan]

Plenty of emergency organizations in this area are fire/ems and it seems to work fine. I am a firefighter/emt and think it's biased thinking that assumes "anyone" can be an average firefighter. There is just as much to learn to be a good firefighter as there is to the ems side of the coin. Our FD works very well with our EMS on extrication, traffic control, etc and we aren't even combined. Sometimes I think the biggest proplem in this area is ego that can't take a step back and see there are others doing jobs just as important in that "other" truck.

[Punisher]

There is just as much to learn to be a good firefighter as there is to the ems side of the coin.

As someone who has served as both a fire captain and as an EMS command officer, I agree with this. Personally some of the toughest and complicated decisions I have ever made are those as incident command on fire calls. The issue between the "two" groups- fire and EMS- boils down to an across the board failure to check egos at the door when it comes to working with one another. Neither group is more important than the other and we have far more in common than we often are willing to believe.