Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 25, 1995 TAG: 9505260016
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A16 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The recent rash of fires in urban, compact Roanoke city has demonstrated the point. The shorter the time between alarm and arrival at the scene, the better the chance a building can be saved and, even when that's not possible, the blaze kept from spreading. The latter is particularly critical, of course, where people and structures are more crowded.
Roanoke County faces the challenge of providing rescue and fire services in a jurisdiction where demand for these services is rising, but reasonable expectations for meeting emergency-service needs vary widely. Much of the county, where most of the people live, is urbanized. But much of the county's acreage remains rural - where longer distances make for slower response times, and the cost-effectiveness of building and staffing more stations is questionable. Residents of the county's rural areas have to accept slower responses to emergencies as an inevitable trade-off for choosing to live in more sparsely settled countryside.
National organizations recommend a response goal of six minutes. According to 1994 figures analyzed and reported Sunday in this newspaper, at only one of the county's 11 fire and rescue stations was that goal met or exceeded for at least half the calls. At several small stations, a six-minute response was achieved or bettered less than 12 percent of the time.
That's a problem - a big problem. Still, a bit of context is needed. Just three of those 11 stations - Hollins, Cave Spring and Fort Lewis - took 70 percent of the calls. Those three also had the highest percentages of responses of six minutes or less. (Fort Lewis, though, had a higher percentage than some of response times longer than 10 minutes.)
A number of ideas are being developed by an ad hoc committee of county staff, citizens, and fire and rescue workers (both paid and volunteer) for improving response times, as well as for addressing other key goals such as arriving at the scene with the right equipment and the right personnel for the specific situation. But the ultimate success of any plan will depend not only on the wisdom of its details, but also on maintaining an open-minded and cooperative spirit in conceiving it and carrying it out.
Improving the system, for example, probably should entail an adjustment in the county's balance of paid and volunteer crew members: Against the financial cost of more career personnel must be weighed the difficulty of recruiting volunteers with the time to undergo training and be available for duty while working full-time at other jobs. To work, this must be done with mutual respect for the dedication and qualifications of both paid and unpaid personnel.
Similarly, the county's 11 fire and rescue crews should be viewed not as entities apart but as cooperative parts of a single emergency-services system. Indeed, fire and rescue units throughout the entire Roanoke Valley should be partners in a single emergency-services system. The level of those services may inevitably vary, but the variation should reflect the nature of the service area rather than the boundaries of local governments.
by CNB