2014 Fire Chief s Report By Chief Joseph V. Maruca

Transcription

1 2014 Fire Chief s Report By Chief Joseph V. Maruca In 2014 the West Barnstable Fire Department (WBFD) responded to 630 emergency calls. This is 24 fewer calls than in The busiest year in the department s history was 2013 when we responded to 654 emergency calls. Ranked Among the Nation s Best As 2014 came to an end, the Insurance Services Office (ISO) notified the WBFD that our community s Public Protection Class (PPC) had improved from an ISO Class 3/6 to an ISO Class 2/4. West Barnstable s rating is among the twelve highest rated in Massachusetts out of 380 fire departments, and 810 th highest rated in the nation out of 49,610 rated communities. This puts the WBFD in the top 1.5% of fire departments nationwide when it comes to performance, training, systems, water supply and staffing. The ISO rates communities for fire protection on a scale of 1 to 10. A Class 1 is the best and a Class 10 means no meaningful fire protection. The West Barnstable ISO Rating is split between the hydrant district and the non-hydrant district. The ISO Class 2 area is for the hydrant district those properties within 1000 of a fire hydrant. The ISO Class 4 area is for the non-hydrant district those properties more than 1000 of a fire hydrant. About 10% of West Barnstable has fire hydrants. The handful of cottages on Sandy Neck Beach receives an ISO Rating of Class 10 because they are more than five road miles from the fire station. The WBFD and the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills FD are the only ISO Class 2 fire departments on Cape Cod. Other ISO Class 2 communities in Massachusetts include: Boston, Springfield, Worcester, New Bedford, Brockton and Somerville. Cambridge is a Class 1. Many insurance companies use ISO ratings to determine the fire insurance premiums for residential and commercial properties. An ISO Class 2/4 means that homeowners in West Barnstable should be receiving among the lowest fire insurance rates available. The department s ISO Class 4 rating when operating without fire hydrants demonstrates the effectiveness of its training and operations with water tankers. Very few communities without fire hydrants ever achieve an ISO rating greater than a Class 8 or Class 9. The ISO measures fire protection based upon staffing, training, apparatus and equipment, planning, policies/procedures, water supply, communications, community risk reduction and deployment of resources. You can read the entire ISO report for West Barnstable at our website: Fires On April 15, 2014 at 2:05 in the afternoon, the WBFD experienced a challenging and serious fire at home on Barnhill Road. The WBFD was successful in saving the home and containing the damage without any civilian or firefighter injuries. A plumber s torch set off the fire in the occupied home while making renovations to a secondfloor bathroom. Because the walls and ceilings were opened, the fire spread rapidly to the first floor and attic. When the first WBFD engine arrived at the fire (6 minute response) the house was fully charged

2 with thick black smoke and fire could be seen in the first floor living room and was extending from the second floor master bedroom into the attic. The WBFD struck a Working Fire Assignment which is a signal for assistance from our neighbors and puts into play a pre-plan for this type of fire. Within the first 14 minutes (from the time of the 911 call) the WBFD assembled ten of its firefighters with three trucks at the fire, along with the Chief and Deputy Chief from both Barnstable and Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills (COMM), for a total of 12 firefighters. In total, 58 firefighters responded to the fire. Nineteen of these firefighters were from the WBFD and 39 came from Barnstable, COMM, Sandwich, Cotuit and Hyannis. 14,000 gallons of water was trucked to the fire scene. A complete detail of the response is found in this Annual Report and titled West Barnstable Fire Department Standards of Cover and NFPA 1720 Report. Annual Emergency Call Volume Calendar Year 1975: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : 534 From a firefighting standpoint this was a difficult fire to fight because it got inside the walls of the house right from the start and spread fast into the attic. It took a great deal of coordination and skill by firefighters to prevent the fire from spreading across the attic and burning the roof off the house. The two other building fires in West Barnstable in 2014 were small compared to the Barnhill Road Fire. We had one Chimney Fire on Willow Street with little damage and an electrical fire in the walls of a house on Old Stage Road that did some significant damage to the electrical system of the house and was close to becoming a serious fire. One of the more notable fires the WBFD faced was a fire in East Sandwich at the Waste Management Facility off the Service Road. The WBFD was called to the fire at 6:48 AM on June 26, The fire quickly escalated to a Five Alarms. The WBFD provided an Engine, a Ladder Truck, an Engine-Tender and its pick-up truck with the air supply trailer, along with 16 firefighters to the scene of the fire. Chief Maruca was the water supply manager at the fire. WBFD Ambulance 293 provided ambulance coverage to Sandwich. The first WBFD units arrived at about 7 AM and the last left at 11 PM. For all practical purposes the WBFD was fully committed to this fire for a full day. The Yarmouth Fire Department covered West Barnstable in our absence. Motor Vehicle Crashes (MVC) In 2014 the WBFD responded to 58 MVCs. Last year there were 61 and the year before (2012) there were 40. I don t see any new trends in MVC activity. They appear to be steady but not increasing or decreasing much. My observation is that the severity of injuries is decreasing and I think that will be a topic we ll do some research into. If injuries are decreasing, my guess is that we are seeing the results of the increasing sophistication of automotive safety features. The WBFD initially responds to MVCs as an Emergency Medical Service (EMS) call with Ambulance 293. Then Ladder 297 responds with additional staff to provide an all-hazards response to the incident. While the ambulance primarily tends to injuries or assesses for injuries, the ladder crew deals with extrication of patients, traffic safety, hazardous materials mitigation, securing the damaged vehicles, lifting of patients and EMS if there are multiple patients.

3 Patient Transports to Hospital Calendar Year 2006: : : : : : : : : 275 Emergency Medical Services (EMS) EMS represents the majority of the emergency incidents that the WBFD responds to. The department continues to provide an Advanced Life Support Ambulance (paramedic level) in eight minutes or less 90% of the time. We measure our response time from the moment the 911 call is answered by the dispatcher to the time the ambulance arrives at the house or other location. The response time includes the time it takes the dispatcher to handle the call and dispatch the incident, the time it take us to get the ambulance staffed and on the road, and the travel time to the incident location. Of the 328 EMS calls in 2014 in West Barnstable, 39 of them were to assist people who had fallen and needed assistance getting back up into a chair, bed or other position. As the population of West Barnstable continues to age these types of calls are likely to increase as well. Overlapping Emergency Calls Last year we started tracking overlapping emergency calls. This is when the WBFD gets a second, and sometimes a third, emergency call while it is still dealing with a prior incident. Overlapping calls stretch our resources because we aren t staffed to handle more than one call at a time, and we are completely reliant upon volunteers and off-duty career staff responding to these second or third calls. When we have multiple ambulance calls, we will send our engine with a medical crew and call for an ambulance from one of our neighboring towns. Typically, our mutual aid ambulance comes from the Barnstable Fire Department or the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills Fire Department. In 2014 the WBFD experienced 38 overlapping emergency calls representing 6% of our emergency call activity for the year. This is down from 54 overlapping emergency calls in Our concern about overlapping calls is that they can result in longer than usual response times or short-staffed (less effective) responses. While these are a small number of our incidents we know that nobody wants to be the person who has an emergency and is second in line for help. That s why we will continue to collect and analyze data from these incidents as a way to plan for dealing with them. EMS Costs & Billing In 2014, the WBFD, its accountant, Kathleen Barrette, and Tanya Stepasiuk from the Collins Center at UMASS Boston did an in-depth analysis of what it actually costs to provide ambulance service so that we could set our ambulance billing rates based on the factual cost, and not just estimates. We determined that it costs $2585 for each trip the ambulance makes to an EMS call or motor vehicle crash.

4 This number was arrived at by looking at staffing costs, certain administrative costs that are unique to providing ambulance service and EMS supply costs. It also includes the amortized cost of WBFD Ambulance Revenue FY 2000 $61,803 FY 2001 $29,060 FY 2002 $0 FY 2003 $30,925 FY 2004 $62,693 FY 2005 $58,712 FY 2006 $81,485 FY 2007 $123,330 FY 2008 $120,326 FY 2009 $133,084 FY 2010 $141,699 FY 2011 $188,884 FY 2012 $179,470 FY 2013 $183,212 FY 2014 $181,998 purchasing an ambulance every ten years, the cost of insuring the ambulance and the cost of maintaining the ambulance and medical equipment. Kathleen and Tanya invested a great deal of effort into this project. It was a complex project and something that the WBFD had never undertaken. Industry observers who have seen the data think it is one of the most comprehensive analysis s they ve seen of fire department ambulance costs. While the data from this project will allow the fire district to set its 2015 ambulance rates based upon actual cost data, the real takeaway from the project was that ambulance revenue only covers 20% of the cost of providing ambulance service to West Barnstable. While it costs $2585 to send the ambulance out on an emergency call, Medicare only pays us an average of $ for a Basic Life Support Ambulance Trip and an average of $ for an Advanced Life Support Ambulance Trip. Medicare patients (and other government insurance) make up 56% of the people transported in the WBFD Ambulance. This is why private (for-profit) ambulance services don t want to service small communities with aging populations (that use Medicare) like West Barnstable. Further complicating the revenue picture is that we are only allowed to bill a patient if we transport them to the hospital. We don t get any revenue for the calls to assist people who ve fallen and we don t take to the hospital. If we go to a motor vehicle crash and nobody needs to go the hospital then we cannot bill for the call. These types of calls represent 21% of all ambulance trips in West Barnstable. Even if we set our 2015 ambulance rates at $2585, it probably won t result in a big increase in ambulance revenue. Medicare (and other government insurance programs that use the Medicare rate schedule) will only pay the amount on their schedule. Private insurers may pay the full rate, but there aren t enough of them to offset the losses we experience with so many WBFD Ambulance Rates v. Medicare Rates FY 2015 Medicare: WBFD Charge: BLS Rate: $ $ ALS Rate: $ $ ALS2 Rate: $ $ Mileage: $ 7.09 $ Medicare patients and unbillable patients. In FY 2014, 56% of all of the patients transported by the WBFD ambulance were on Medicare or some other government insurance, and 13% had no insurance. This limits our ability to raise revenue through ambulance fees. To see the complete PowerPoint presentation on EMS costs and billing at the WBFD go to our website at: The good news is that the WBFD does collect much more from ambulance revenue today than it did ten or twenty years ago. If not for the revenue we do collect, $181, in FY 2014, fire district taxes would be about 20% higher. We at the WBFD understand and appreciate the importance of maximizing ambulance revenue as a means of holding down taxes, and we will do everything we can to do so.

5 As you ll notice, the ambulance revenue that the WBFD collects has been hovering right around $175,000 for the past three years, after a high of $188,884 in FY This is primarily because the number of transports to the hospital by our ambulance has been fairly steady at 286, 313 and 275 over the past three years was our busiest year ever with 342 ambulance transports and this coincides with having collected the most ambulance revenue in FY Big Recruit Class In July 2014 the WBFD started a new volunteer firefighter recruit class of fourteen students. This was the biggest recruit class in the department s history. We added such a large class to help combat the increasing speed at which our volunteer staff leaves for career jobs with other fire departments. Twelve of the recruits finished their fire training by the end of the year and started responding to emergency calls in January Two recruits dropped out of the program because of scheduling and time conflicts. The new recruits are: Sean Stephens, Andrew Desmarais, Wendy DeOliveria, Robert Archibald, Bruno Arraes, Michael Demoracski, David Desley, Christopher Standish, John Neal, Edward Longo, Connor McShera and Matt Cikins. New volunteers attend a fire recruit academy at the WBFD and taught by WBFD instructors. The WBFD has eight Certified Fire Instructors who lead the program which is based upon a national firefighter training standards (NFPA 1001) and a national curriculum and textbook (Fundamentals of Fire Fighter Skills from Jones & Bartlett Publishing). Recruits attended class every Wednesday night and then attended a hands-on training session on alternating Saturdays and Sundays from July to December. While most of the training is done at the WBFD, we used the live fire training facility ( burn building ) at the Fall River Fire Department for part of the class. At the end of their training all of the recruits passed the Firefighter I/II Certification Exam given by the Massachusetts Fire Training Council at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy in Stow, MA. This is a three-part test (over three days) that includes a written test, a practical test of non-fire skills such as knots, hose handling and ladder handling, and a practical test of firefighting skills. The department is now recruiting its next recruit class and will be repeating this program in If you or anyone you know would like to be a volunteer firefighter, come by the fire station and apply to join us. Our firefighter recruit training program is led by Lt. Troy Jewett, and the primary instructors are Zac Hammond, Bob Silva, Kim Sylvia, Steve Frye, Ian Diaz, Dave Maki, Lt. Bill Murray, Lt. John Garofoli, Keith Stranger, Lt. Kevin Duquette and Mike Whitely. The department thanks them for the hundreds of hours of effort they put into this program and its great success.

6 Training in General The WBFD provides a comprehensive and on-going training program for all of its firefighters. The average WBFD firefighter trains for about 150 hours each year. The department holds training sessions almost every Tuesday night. This training is in addition to the recruit class we hold for new volunteer firefighters. In 2014, Janice King, our administrative assistant and Lt. Troy Jewett, worked with Tanya Stepasiuk of the Collins Center at UMASS Boston, to analyze our training to get a better sense of how much training we do and what it costs. We found that in 2012 the department conducted a total of 7030 staff-hours of training and in 2013 the department conducted 5147 staff-hours of training. The decrease in training hours from 2012 to 2013 was because the 2013 recruit class was smaller than the 2012 recruit class. With fewer recruits in the class the number of staff hours of training dropping. This doesn t represent a reduction in the number or type of training sessions. We also determined that it costs between $20,233 and $30,350 to run our volunteer firefighter recruit class each year. Most of this is the cost of paying for instructors. We estimate that a typical class requires about 624 Full Time Equivalent (FTE) hours by our instructors. There is some variation in this based upon the size of the class. For the hands-on part of the class we have found that a studentinstructor ratio of 2-3 students to 1 instructor is the most effective. If there are too many students per instructor, students spend more time standing around awaiting instruction or their turn at a skill. This means we need more class time to accomplish the same level of training. So, with a class of 12 volunteer recruits and a cost of $30,350 to train them, our cost per volunteer firefighter for initial training is $2529 each. This is a bargain price for the outcome: a volunteer firefighter who meets or exceeds all of the national standards for being a professional firefighter. In 2014 the department won an Assistance to Firefighters Grant (AFG) in the amount of $11,850 for the purchase of a propane powered live fire training prop. This unit ending up costing $11,303. The federal grant paid for $10,737 of the cost and the WBFD paid the remaining $566. This unit allows us to use a propane fueled fire to teach hose and nozzle techniques to our firefighters and it allows us to teach fire extinguisher use with live fire to both firefighters and civilians. If you d like to learn how to use a fire extinguisher let us know and we ll set-up a session for you. We were also part of a regional training grant from the AFG program in 2014 that funded Rapid Intervention Team (RIT) training for all of the firefighters at the WBFD, the Barnstable FD, the Hyannis FD, the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills FD and the Cotuit FD. This training will provide three full days of training for all WBFD firefighters and five days of training for our officers. The AFG provided $289,121 for this training and the local share to the five fire districts is 10%. RIT training is a specialized fire ground rescue training designed to rescue firefighters that are trapped, injured or disoriented inside of a burning building. A RIT team (of four firefighters) is part of the routine for fighting any building fire in West Barnstable. The five Barnstable fire districts started this RIT training in December 2014 and it will continue until June The training is being provided by instructors from the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy and is being conducted at the WBFD and the COMM FD. Besides increasing our firefighter s skill levels with the use of self-contained breathing apparatus (SCBA), search & rescue skills and selfrescue skills, there will be a town wide benefit because firefighters from one fire district will be able to serve as the RIT team for any of the other districts. We will all be using the same techniques and procedures. We hope to expand this approach Cape wide.

7 The RIT training grant was hosted by the COMM Fire Department, and while the WBFD collaborated in the grant process, we can t take credit for writing the grant. Finally it should be noted that with regard to training, the WBFD s extensive training program is one of the reasons that the ISO rated us as a Class 2 community. Grant Success The WBFD received five federal or state grants in Two grants we discussed above, the AFG grant for a training prop and the AFG regional grant for RIT training. The third grant received is a $252,203 federal Staffing for Fire & Emergency Response (SAFER) grant to hire a deputy fire chief. This grant started on May 16, 2014 and pays for all of the costs associated with the deputy fire chief for two years. The WBFD must assume the costs of the deputy fire chief in year three. After receiving this grant, the department promoted Captain David Paananen to the new Deputy Fire Chief s position and hired Firefighter/Paramedic Keith Stranger to fill the position vacated by Deputy Paananen. All of the cost of the position is paid by the grant in FY In FY 2016, the grant will pay for all but about 7.5 weeks of the position s expenses. And, in FY 2017, the fire district will be responsible for all of the costs associated with the position. The additional position increases our daytime career staffing from a chief and two firefighters/paramedics to a chief, a deputy chief and two firefighter/paramedics on weekdays. The department still has one career firefighter/paramedic on-duty at night and on weekends (supplemented by volunteers). Having a deputy chief also improves department supervision and management. Having only one chief officer or manager to supervise 50 firefighters 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, left a lot of gaps in the operation that having a deputy chief helps to close. The deputy chief position also adds a fourth person to weekday staffing when the fewest volunteers are available. The Deputy is an impact player available during daytime hours when we most need additional response staff, and able to handle significant administrative/management tasks. The department could still use a volunteer or part-time call deputy chief whose role is mostly responding to and assisting with the management of emergency incidents. West Barnstable also received a grant from the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency (MEMA) to replace all of the windows at the fire station with new hurricane resistant glass (per the current building code for all windows within a mile of the ocean). The amount of the grant is $56,250. The total estimated cost for the project is $75,000 and the WBFD will pay the balance. The grant covers 75% of the project cost. The project is out to bid and sealed bids are scheduled to be opened on March 4, The windows at the fire station are original to the building (1988) and approaching the time when we d have to replace with or without grant assistance. This kind of grant is difficult to get and we should commend Lt. Chuck Marshall of the WBFD and Katherine Garofoli, a former grant writer for

8 Barnstable County and the wife of WBFD Lt. John Garofoli for a tremendous amount of work on this grant. We expect to have the new windows installed in the late spring or early summer of The department also received a grant in the amount of $2000 from the Massachusetts Department of Conservation Resources (DCR), from a program called the Volunteer Firefighter Assistance Program (VFA) for the purchase of wildland firefighting equipment. We used these funds to purchase some new wildland firefighting personal protective equipment (coats, shirts, pants, helmets, etc.) and a new portable water tank. This is a 50/50 grant program, so the WBFD contributed $2000 to the project and the grant contributed $2000 to the project. We did not receive the Regional AFG Grant for radio equipment that we applied for. This was a $1.2 million grant that would have funded 90% of the cost of installing a new UHF Radio system for West Barnstable, Barnstable, Sandwich, Bourne, Falmouth, Mashpee and Joint Base Cape Cod. The UHF Radio system would have replaced the aging low band radio systems that we use for paging and back-up radio operations. The WBFD wrote this grant and would have been the host for grant. We ve refiled a new similar regional AFG grant for UHF radios; however, because the federal government changed its grant priorities and criteria from 2013 to 2014, the new grant is for significantly less money. The new grant asks for $490,921. The federal government will only pay for the radios and pagers for the new system, and it won t pay for infrastructure costs such as repeaters, antennas, licenses, installation (labor) costs, and other hardware to build-out the system. If we get the grant, each community will have to fund its own infrastructure costs. I ll discuss this in greater detail later in this report when discussing Article 15 for the upcoming Fire District Annual Meeting. The WBFD has had great success with obtaining grant funding over the past decade. Since 2001, when the department started pursing competitive grants we have collected at least $961,178 in federal, state and county funds. This represents a significant savings for West Barnstable taxpayers. The competitive grants received by the WBFD in recent years include the following: 2001 AFG Grant for EMS Jackets $ AFG Grant for Wildland Personal Protective Equipment $ AFG Grant for Structural Fire Personal Protective Equipment $ 27, AFG Grant for to purchase a used Ladder Truck (L-297) $ 300, AFG Grant for a Computer & Printer $ VFA Grant for Wildland Firefighting Equipment $ Southeastern Regional Homeland Security Grant Lighting Trailer $ VFA Grant for Wildland Firefighting Equipment $ AFG Grant for Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus (SCBA) $ 95, VFA Grant for Wildland Firefighter Equipment $ AFG Grant for Diesel Exhaust System for Fire Station $ 36, VFA Grant for Firefighting Foam $ Southeastern MA EMS Council Grant for Ambulance Computer $ Southeastern Regional Homeland Security Grant Air Trailer $ 78, AFG Grant for Training Software $ 8, VFA Grant for Wildland Firefighting Equipment & Foam $ VFA Grant for Foam & Chainsaws $ Barnstable County Grant for Wildland Fire Training $ AFG Grant for Propane Fire Prop $ 11, SAFER Grant for Hiring Deputy Fire Chief $ 252, MEMA Grant for Fire Station Windows $ 56,250

9 2014 AFG Regional Grant for RIT Training (shared with 5 departments) $ 289,121 (About $50,000 of this can be attributed to the WBFD) 2014 VFA Grant for Wildland Firefighting Equipment $ 2000 The WBFD has also been aggressive at pursuing equipment through donations and the federal excess property program. The department has two trucks that it received in the past seven years for no cost from the federal excess property program. One is Tanker 286, a former air force fuel truck that is now a 5000 water tender for the WBFD. The WBFD has invested about $25,000 into repurposing this truck into a water tender. Purchasing this truck new would have cost about $200,000. The other truck is Forestry 288, a 2 ½ ton military truck that we use for storm operations, accessing Sandy Neck and wildland firefighting. The department s other forestry truck, F-290, is built on a Ford F-450 4x4 chassis that was donated new to the WBFD. The department then built out the truck using existing equipment, equipment purchased with VFA grant funds and about $20,000 of department funds. Purchasing the same vehicle already built from a fire truck manufacturer would cost about $85,000. In past years the department has also obtained a free set of Jaws of Life with a value of $30,000 and about 90 chairs for our training room from the federal excess property program. A New Strategic Plan The WBFD s Five-Year Strategic Plan expired in 2014 and the department created a new plan for the years 2015 to A Strategic Planning Committee made up of West Barnstable citizens developed the new plan and the Prudential Committee adopted it on December 17, The members of the Strategic Planning Committee were Patricia Cahill, Lois Andre, Stuart Shulman, Kate Mitchell and Al Schofield. The Strategic Planning Committee started work on the plan in the Spring of 2014 by meeting with firefighters, citizens, fire department administrative staff, elected officials, and many of the WBFD s partners such as neighboring fire departments, Cape & Islands EMS, water departments and Sandy Neck staff. The meetings asked the participants to identify the WBFD s strengths, weakness, threats and opportunities. In addition, the Committee conducted an online poll of citizens and a mail-in survey of West Barnstable businesses to gather feedback about the fire department. The Committee also reviewed the department s progress and accomplishments from the expiring Strategic Plan. A summary review of the 2009 to 2014 Strategic Plan is included in this 2014 Annual Report and is available for viewing at the department s website. The new 2015 to 2020 WBFD Strategic Plan calls for the WBFD to address four strategic issues and four tactical issues. The four strategic issues are: 1. Address Volunteer Firefighter Turnover. 2. Develop a Capital Plan and Space Plan for the Fire Station. 3. Develop and Maintain a Succession Plan for the Chief and Deputy Fire Chief. 4. Develop a Plan for the Placement of Water Cisterns for Firefighting in the District.

10 The tactical issues are: 1. Develop Improved Response Plans for Sandy Neck Beach. 2. Develop a Meeting Space Policy for the Fire Station. 3. Create Exit Signs for the Conservation Areas. 4. Refresh the West Barnstable Fire Department Website. The complete 2015 to 2010 WBFD Strategic Plan can be viewed at the WBFD website or you can pick-up a copy at the fire station. I would like to thank the members of the Strategic Planning Committee for all of their work on this project. It s a big undertaking and they accomplished it in about nine months. It is this kind of community support that helps to make the WBFD so successful. Promotions In 2013 and 2014 the WBFD ran two promotional processes. The first was for company officer (lieutenant/captain) and the second for deputy fire chief. Both processes involved a posting for the position, a review of the candidate s qualifications, an assessment center and interviews. The company officer position also included a written test. While the company officer promotional process was conducted in 2013, some of the promotions were not made until early in The company officer promotion process included an extensive assessment of the candidates fire ground knowledge and skills. Candidates participated in a computerized fire command simulation, assessed structures for building construction, fire hazards, fire loads and water supply features, and participated in personnel problem scenarios. The process ran for about three months and eight firefighters participated in the process. Firefighter/EMT Chuck Marshall was promoted to lieutenant and took over as the department s Public Education Officer. Lt. Marshall is a certified Fire Instructor I and Fire Officer I/II. Firefighter/EMT John Garofoli was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to be the Executive Officer of Group 4. He was later reassigned to Group 3 to fill a vacancy. Lt. Garofoli is a certified Fire Instructor I. Firefighter/EMT Kevin Duquette was promoted to lieutenant and assigned to be the Executive Officer of Group 2. Kevin also became the department s second part-time member. He works a 10-hour part-time shift at the fire station each Tuesday. He handles special projects for the WBFD such as updating/revising our Standard Operational Guidelines. He is also the department s Right To Know Coordinator. Lt. Duquette is a certified Hazardous Material Technician and Fire Instructor I. Next, in April/May of 2014 the department held a Deputy Chief Promotion Process to fill the new career Deputy Chief Position we could create using our SAFER Grant. In March of 2014 we were notified that our grant application for federal funds to hire a career deputy fire chief had been approved and we had until May to fill the position. We used a hiring process similar to the company officer promotion process, but we added an inbasket exercise, a writing project and a more extensive interview

11 process. The department had three strong candidates for the position. Captain David Paananen was promoted to Deputy Fire Chief on May 12, Deputy Chief Paananen has an Associate s Degree in Fire Science and is working on his Bachelors Degree. He is a certified Fire Officer I & II, Fire Instructor I and Paramedic. Dave has been a member of the WBFD since August He has been our Fire Prevention Officer/Fire Inspector for over a decade. Accreditation For the past six years the WBFD has been preparing to apply for accreditation. In 2014 we finalized our application that consisted of about 500 pages detailing our operations, with about another 5000 pages of supporting documents. We compared our operations to 258 performance standards. Unfortunately, the five-member team that was responsible for reviewing our application decided that we didn t meet all of the standards required for accreditation. Their decision is a great personal and professional disappointment for me. When I became chief one of my goals to raise the quality and professionalism of the WBFD to the highest level. Attaining accreditation would have capped that effort. Had we succeeded, we would have been the first fire department in Massachusetts to ever be accredited. We would also have been one of the smallest to ever be accredited. To say I am disappointed by the rejection is a bit of an understatement. Despite failing to accredit, the process of attempting to become accredited has been excellent for the WBFD. It forced us to improve all our operations. It helped us to embrace data based decisionmaking and pushed us to measure ourselves against national standards. There is no part of the WBFD that was not improved by our quest for accreditation. Additionally, there is no doubt that seeking accreditation directly resulted in our excellent ISO rating and the lower homeowners and fire insurance premiums for West Barnstable residents. While I don t plan to continue our quest for accreditation, I do plan to continue to use the performance standards of the accreditation process as a guide how the WBFD operates. Changing Roles As 2013 ended, the WBFD had a vacancy in its career staff and the department was undergoing a hiring process to fill the position. Lt. William Murray, a volunteer member of the WBFD and the Group 4 Executive Officer, was hired to fill the vacancy and became the career Shift Commander of Group 3. Additionally, when Captain Paananen was promoted to Deputy Fire Chief, it became necessary to fill his vacancy as the daytime career firefighter (four 10-hour days, Tuesday to Friday). Volunteer Firefighter/Paramedic Keith Stranger was hired to fill this position. FF Stranger has been a member of the WBFD for nine years.

12 Staff Moving On In 2014 seven members of the WBFD left the department. Four of them left for career firefighter positions with other fire departments. One of our greatest losses was Lt. Jeremy Cadrin. Lt. Cadrin left the WBFD to take a career firefighting position with the Sandwich Fire Department. Lt. Cadrin had been a volunteer member of the WBFD for 13 years. He was our emergency vehicle operator instructor, the Executive Officer of Group 3, and excellent company officer. Jeremy was recruited by the Sandwich Fire Department. He caught the eye of the chief and deputy chief of the Sandwich FD while leading Engine 294 s company at the Waste Management Fire in East Sandwich. He worked all day as the company officer for E294, and then he returned that evening as the company officer for Ladder 297 to assist Sandwich with overhauling the fire. He spent about 16 hours at the fire. After observing Lt. Cadrin all day the leadership of the Sandwich FD said he s the guy we want for our next firefighter, and when an opening came up they asked him to apply. He had his first interview, his second interview and his job offer all in the same day. It was a great day for Sandwich and sad day for West Barnstable. Jeremy Cadrin is a skilled and knowledgeable firefighter/emt with a tremendous work ethic. He was also a key player for the WBFD when it came to community events. We already miss him and he is irreplaceable. We lost FF/Paramedic Rich Anderson to the Centerville-Osterville-Marstons Mills Fire Department (COMM FD) in a similar way. The chief and deputy chief of the COMM FD were assisting us at the house fire on Barnhill Road in April, and they saw Rich Anderson working at the fire and liked what they saw. A few months later the COMM FD hired Rich for a career firefighter position. Rich had been a volunteer member of the WBFD for three years. Both Lt Cadrin and FF Anderson were available to respond to daytime emergencies in West Barnstable, and they had very high participation rates for daytime incidents. Their loss, particularly at about the same time, has been felt by us. It has left us struggling with staffing response levels for a lot of emergency calls in the daytime. Lt. Chuck Marshall, a five year volunteer, got married in November 2014 and moved to a new home in Hingham. He commutes to Woods Hole and his wife commutes to Boston. The loss of Chuck shows how other life events (marriage, new job, college, new home, birth of a child, divorce, etc.), besides hiring by career fire departments, have an impact on volunteer firefighting forces. Chuck had been a volunteer member of the WBFD since Lt. Marshall was the department s public education officer and in particular he managed our community CPR program. Chuck has agreed to continue serving long-distance in these roles while he helps us transition these programs to another member of the department in Lt. Marshall is also responsible for helping me develop, create and update most of the statistical data and information you read in this Annual Report. As a CPA and expert at Excel Spreadsheets he has been invaluable to me as a data manager. He was also a key player in managing many community events Both Lt. Marshall and Lt. Cadrin were strong candidates for promotion to Deputy Fire Chief in

13 In December, the Mashpee Fire Department for a career firefighter position chose FF/Paramedic Scott Thomas, and he starts his new job on February 23, Scott was a member of Group 3 and had been a volunteer member of the WBFD for three years. Scott was reliable member of Group 3 and spent most Group 3 nights staffing the fire station. Also, in December, FF/EMT Ally Valade left the WBFD for family and personal reasons. Ally had been serving as a volunteer with the WBFD three years. She is also in paramedic school. Early in the year, the Yarmouth Fire Department tapped WBFD FF/Paramedic Mike Perry for a career position. Mike has since moved from the Yarmouth FD to the COMM FD. It shows the WBFD is not the only fire department that other department s raid for staff. (The hiring of staff from other departments is a growing practice in our region.) Mike had served as a volunteer member of the WBFD since September The WBFD also lost FF/EMT David Fetterman in Dave left the WBFD because family and work obligations didn t leave him enough time to keep volunteering with us. He had served on Group 3 and was a member of the WBFD for three years when he left. We hope we ll get Dave back someday when his schedule eases up. The Budget This year s Fiscal Year (FY) 2016 Fire District tax appropriation represents a 2.5 % increase over last year. The payroll and operations budgets don t change much and don t contain any new programs. The fire district tax appropriation is growing at a rate less than the Town of Barnstable s and most other local governments. The fire district continues to be debt free and we continue to save significant money towards capital projects. The FY 2016 budget will have a line for $30,000 for overtime associated with sending one firefighter to the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy, and $6000 for other costs (books, travel, meals, lodging) associated with this. In FY 2015 we had a similar appropriation because we knew we were hiring at least one career firefighter to fill a vacancy. In 2014 (FY 2015), we sent Lt. Bill Murray to the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy shortly after hiring him. In FY 2016 we planned to send FF Keith Stranger who we hired to fill the vacancy created by the promotion of Deputy Paananen. However, Lt. Murray was injured about two weeks into his nine weeks of training at the Massachusetts Firefighting Academy. He was hospitalized and out of work for about eight weeks. As a result, we ended up using the training funds to cover his shift while we was out injured, and we will have to send him to the fire academy in FY 2016 instead of FF Stranger. This means that we will need these training funds again in FY 2017, a year longer than we planned. In FY 2016 we will also see the end of our federal funding for the new Deputy Fire Chief s position and we will start to transition to paying for the position with WBFD funds. In FY 2017 we will be paying for the Deputy Fire Chiefs position in full. We had hoped to repurpose the fire academy training funds that we appropriated in FY 2015 and FY 2016 to cover much of the Deputy Chief s cost in FY 2017, however that will no longer be an option. We will have to wait until FY 2018 to make that move. It will make for a tight budget in FY Another factor putting pressure on our FY 2016 budget is employee health insurance costs. Next year s health insurance premiums are going to rise 10%. The WBFD is a member of the Cape Cod Municipal Health Group, a collaborative of fifty-three towns and districts on Cape Cod and Martha s Vineyard with a total of 20,818 employees. We are the second largest municipal purchasing group in

14 Massachusetts. Even with our group purchasing power, we are experiencing significant health insurance premium increases. There are seven special articles in the FY 2016 appropriation request at this year s annual fire district meeting. Article 11 requests $9000 to fund an annual independent audit of the fire district. We have been doing annual audits since FY The FY 2014 annual audit is complete and audit did not revel a single deficiency in the districts finances or financial practices. Very few cities, towns or districts succeed at having such an audit. Fire District Treasurer Mike Daley and Accountant Kathleen Barrette are commended for the excellent work they do to keep our finances in excellent condition. You can view the Fire District Audit at the WBFD website. Annual audits are important. They are your way of ensuring that the fire district s financial systems are conforming to the law and to best practices. They also make sure that our purchasing systems are following bidding laws, our funds are used for the purposes authorized and that money is being handled in the most appropriate manner (best practices). Article 12 requests $13,000 for the purchase of six sets of structural firefighting personal protective equipment (PPE). The items purchased include firefighting helmets, coats, pants, boots, hoods, gloves, reflective traffic vests and EMS jackets. This gear has a life span of ten years. At the end of ten years it must be retired. With a staff of firefighters and EMTs of 45 to 50, the WBFD needs to maintain an inventory of about 60 sets of PPE at all times. Purchasing six sets each year accomplishes this goal. Article 13 is a request for $15,000 to help fund the Whelden Memorial Library. Last year the fire district and the legislature voted to include library funding as one of the authorized purposes of the West Barnstable Fire District. Last year (FY 2015) the fire district annual meeting appropriated $15,000 for this purpose. This year s request from the Whelden Memorial Library is for the same amount. You can read more about this in the report from the Whelden Memorial Library included in this Annual Report. The fire station s water filtration and treatment system needs replacement, and that is the subject of Article 14. This is a request for $16,000. The new water filtration system will be designed to address multiple problems. The water at fire station has high sodium content. The water is corroding plumbing both in the fire station and on the fire apparatus. The water is etching glass on the fire apparatus. This item was not anticipated and hasn t been part of our capital plan. In last year s annual report I wrote extensively about upcoming radio system needs (see also the section of this report on grants) and the district appropriated $25,000 in Article 17 (FY 2015) to match a federal grant for a UHF Radio System that we applied for. We did not get this grant, so the department is turning back the $25,000 unused. The department has submitted another grant to the federal government (joint with five other departments) to fund the transition of our paging system and back-up radio system from VHF Low Band (33.48 MHz) to UHF (400 MHz). If we get this new grant it will only cover the cost of purchasing and installing the UHF mobile radios in the trucks, the UHF portable radios and the pagers our firefighters

15 use. It won t pay for any of the infrastructure for the new system. The infrastructure we need includes two base radios with pager controller (one for Sheriff s Dispatch Center and one for the WBFD HQ), repeaters, receivers and antennas installed on multiple towers. West Barnstable s share of the grant is $82,000 federal dollars, and the WBFD will be responsible for 10% of the cost, or $ This pays for mobile radios, portable radios, pagers and radio chargers. The WBFD will need $150,858 to install the infrastructure for the new system if we want to use it has a fully functional two-way communications system. This means that not only can we page our volunteers and off-duty career staff, but also they can talk back to us with a small portable radio (more like a two-way pager). This makes coordinating responses much more effective because we know who is responding and how far away they are. We can then direct resources. Additionally, this system would function as a back-up system to our Cape Wide 800 MHz fire ground operational radio system in the event it fails. (The WBFD has experienced three such failures during firefighting operations in the past 12 to 15 years.) We would have talk-back capabilities within all of Barnstable and most of Yarmouth and Sandwich. If, however, to use the new system only for one-way paging, our infrastructure cost is $72,000. This is big difference. For the time being, we are only going to request funding for one-way paging. In the meantime, I am continuing to investigate potentially less expensive alternatives. In addition to the $72,000 we are requesting for UHF radio infrastructure, Article 15 includes $8500 to match the federal UHF radio grant if we get it. The total request for Article 15 is $80,500. Article 16 is also about radios. We are asking for $36,036 to replace all of the mobile radios in our nine fire trucks. This sounds like a lot of money for nine two-way mobile radios, and it is. Cape Cod has a regional fire ground operations radio system. It is part of the Massachusetts State Police radio system. It is a trunked 800 MHz radio system (highly computerized and complex). The State Police own and maintain this radio system so we have no infrastructure costs for the system. However, 800 MHz radios are about the most expensive radios on the market today. We have been informed that the State Police will be transitioning the 800 MHz radio system from analog to digital in about three years. When this transition is completed, none of the 800 MHz mobile radios and portable radios used by the WBFD (or other Cape Fire Departments) will work on the system. We will need to change to digital radios. Each mobile radio will cost about $3489 plus about $515 for installation. Each portable radio and charger will cost a bit more at about $4500 each. In order to avoid coming to you to fund the replacement all of these radios at once when we reach the deadline for making the change, the department is asking to fund the radio replacement over three or four years. In FY 2016 we will fund the replacement of the radios in our trucks with new digital radios for a total cost of $36,036. In the following two or three years, we will replace our portable radios in batches. We currently have 33 portable radios.

16 We are actively seeking two ways to reduce the cost of this radio expenditure. First, we have approached all of the other fire departments in Barnstable County and the Barnstable Sheriffs Office about a group purchase of radios in an attempt to get a bulk discount. There is some interest in this, but it s too soon to tell how this will play out. We are also trying to determine if we can purchase less expensive off-brand radios instead of Motorola Radios. The 800 MHz radio system is a Motorola System and designed for use with their radios. There are some other manufacturers who sell less expensive radios that they claim will work on the Motorola system, but may not have quite the same transmission quality or be able to use all of the system features. We are going to assess these options before making any purchases and try to get our cost below the amounts we ve requested. Article 17 is a request of the Water Commissioners for $6000 to rehabilitate the test well in the Bridge Creek Conservation Area behind the fire station. The West Barnstable Fire District has an easement to develop a public water well in the conservation area. This easement has been in place since While the district has never developed this well and has no plans to do so, there is a test well in place that allows us to monitor the water quality. This year, the Water Commissioners were unable to conduct a water test because the well had collapsed and needs rehabilitation. Capital Budgeting & Planning The WBFD maintains a 20-year capital budget projection. A copy of the capital budget is printed in this annual report. The capital budget tries to predict future capital needs and create a replacement schedule for the department s significant capital equipment such as trucks, the fire station and equipment with values over $5000 (generally). We review and revise the capital budget each year. In 2014 we added the capital costs associate with the radio system upgrades and replacement costs to the plan. The area that is currently the most complex and most vexing for us has to do with the three primary fire apparatus: Engine 294, Ladder 297 and Engine-Tender 296. We are struggling to determine the best course of action with regard to either replacing or refurbishing (or doing neither) to these trucks. We are trying to see if some different combination of trucks might effectively meet our mission needs and maintain the same high quality service level we provide. Further complicating these considerations are escalating annual maintenance costs as these trucks age. In the spring of 2015 the WBFD has contracted with an independent consulting group to survey the condition of these trucks and review our maintenance records and costs. The goal is for them to provide us with an estimate of the life-expectancy of these three trucks and tell us if it will be technically and financially practical to refurbish them, rather than replace them. (Refurbishment is not an option for ET-296 because it was already refurbished once, and is 29 years old, but we need to know how much longer we can expect to safely and financially operate it.) It is our hope that we can use the information from our consultants to settle on a plan for replacing and/or refurbishing our apparatus in a fiscally responsible manner. Simply replacing these three trucks would cost us about $1.9 million. How we handle the issues of

17 our aging fire trucks is among the most expensive decisions we will make. We included in this year s annual reports a spreadsheet detailing the maintenance costs and replacement costs of all of our apparatus. On similar note, you should be aware that we are planning to replace our ambulance (A-293) in FY The ambulance was purchased in 2007 and it will be ten years old and ready for replacement. We have been setting aside money every year in a dedicated ambulance stabilization fund (savings account) for the eventual replacement of the ambulance. I expect that in FY 2017 we will be able to purchase the new ambulance fully from savings and trade-in value, and without having to raise taxes or borrow money. Streetlights In 2014, the fire district, in collaboration with the Cape Light Compact, finished the process of taking ownership of the all of the streetlights in West Barnstable that had previously been leased from NSTAR by the fire district. And, the lights have all been converted to new LED light fixtures. All of the funds for this project came from a grant obtained by the Cape Light Compact. We also added two new streetlights in The first one is located at the intersection of Route 149 and the driveway to the West Barnstable Community Building. The second one is located to illuminate the crosswalk on Route 132 at the entrance to the Cape Cod Community College. Each new light costs us $600 to install. In 2015 we will be looking to replace some of the floodlights operated by the district such as the one illuminating the flag at the village green with LED fixtures, and we will be investigating if the district should take over any of the privately owned streetlights (or streetlights owned by other government agencies) if there is a good public purpose for them. The WBFD operates a total of 91streetlights. If you notice a streetlight problem call the fire station at and tell us about it. We have a service contract with Siemens for the repair and maintenance of the streetlights. We ll need to know what the problem is, the address of the light (if there is house/business in front of it or across the street) and if you can find it, the pole number that is found on the pole (facing the street). Dispatching The Barnstable County Sheriff s Office (BCSO) continues to move towards creating a Regional Emergency Communications Center (RECC) and building a new dispatch center near the jail in Bourne. The Sheriff and his staff and the chiefs of the fire departments that the BCSO currently provide dispatch services for have continued to meet regularly to negotiate and work out details of the structure of the RECC, the financials for the project and the scope of services to be provided. The current estimate is that the RECC will need an operating budget of $2,997, in FY 2016 and the WBFD s share of this will be $17, This a reasonable fee for the high level of service provided. The fire departments that the BCSO currently dispatches for are Barnstable, Bourne, Brewster, Dennis, Harwich, Mashpee, Orleans, Wellfleet, Joint Base Cape Cod and West Barnstable. No police departments are currently being dispatched by the BCSO.

18 Privacy Policy In 2014 the WBFD updated its Privacy Policy. You can view the WBFD Privacy Policy on our website at And the Winners Are Each year the WBFD awards its Firefighter of the Year, Fire Officer of the Year and EMT/Paramedic of the Year. These are awards for outstanding service, motivation, dependability, dedication and action. These are not heroism awards. We give this at an awards banquet just after the end of the year, usually the Saturday night before the Super Bowl. We also give length of service awards and some special award. The 2014 Firefighter of the Year is FF Zac Hammond. The 2014 Fire Officer of the Year is Lt. Troy Jewett. The 2014 EMT of the Year is FF/EMT Andy Mandel. Congratulations to all of you for great service to West Barnstable and the WBFD. Fire Chief s Car I have a new pickup truck. The white 2000 Ford F-150 that I ve been driving passed 200,000 miles in 2014 and it started making frequent trips to the repair shop. I replaced it with a black, 4-door, 2010 Ford F-150. I mention this to remind you that the fire district doesn t provide my vehicle. I am probably the last fire chief in Eastern Massachusetts that doesn t use an official department vehicle as chief. I am not asking you for a vehicle. You also don t pay for any of my vehicle expenses except for the rare case the truck is damaged in the line of duty, or once or twice a year for fuel on a long department related trip. The installation of radios, warning lights, a siren and other fire chief related equipment comes out of the fire department budget. A fire chief s vehicle costs about $50,000 fully equipped with radios, computer terminal, warning lights, siren and reflective graphics. This would be the basic 2014 Ford Police Interceptor Utility (SUV) that you see the Massachusetts State Police using, except painted red and with fewer options. We can purchase them from the same vendor that supplies the state police at state s bulk price. The basic communications system in a police cruiser costs about $30,000 alone. The two radios in my truck cost about $9000. At some point I will need to add a mobile computer terminal. We live in an electronic world and I m a bit of dinosaur, but I can t hold out forever. I bring up the topic of a chief s car to remind you that someday I won t be chief and you ll have to purchase a vehicle for the new chief. This isn t imminent, but you need to know this kind of expense is on the horizon. While using my personal car, at my expense, for WBFD business and responding to emergency calls works for me, it is unreasonable to expect that it will work for anyone else in the future.

19 Nine Years I celebrated my ninth anniversary as your fire chief in For me it has been a year of extreme emotions. I ve experienced a great failure with accreditation, but then we ve achieved a great success with our ISO rating. Each year it gets harder for me to watch firefighters we ve trained and mentored leave for career jobs with other departments. And, at the same time I am very proud of their success and our success in making them into excellent firefighters and EMS providers. Our firefighting operations have been highly effective, and our EMS operations are providing fast and high quality medical care --- we have an organization that any chief would be happy to lead. As I start into my tenth year, one of my goals is to develop a good succession plan and start training and educating multiple members of our staff to someday serve as chiefs and deputy chiefs. I want to make sure that the WBFD s success and excellence is ingrained in the organization. Thank you for allowing me to continue serving as chief. It is an honor and privilege. Respectfully Submitted, Chief Joseph V. Maruca