County Fire Services Need Rethinking Grand Jury Concludes

A civil grand jury report released on Wednesday indicated that changes, particularly in regard to outdated response protocols, must be made within Santa Clara County fire departments to save taxpayer money and improve efficiency.

The City of Cupertino contracts its fire department services with Santa Clara County Fire Department.

The report, titled "Fighting Fire or Fighting Change? Rethinking Fire Department Response Protocol and Consolidation Opportunities," claims that by shifting resources and adopting reforms, fire departments in the county can reduce costs and enable stations to remain open despite budget strains.

Among the main critiques in the report is that fire departments send more personnel and firefighting equipment in response to medical emergencies that are not life-threatening than is necessary, draining taxpayer dollars.

The fire departments' response protocol is outdated, the report maintains, because even though fire-related calls have declined, fire departments continue to use the same strategy from decades ago, when fire-related calls were more frequent, to respond to all emergencies.

The report states that 70 percent of the calls firefighters respond to are for medical emergencies, whereas only 4 percent are for fires.

It would be better to deploy an ambulance at the cost of $100,000 than to send a fire engine at the cost of $500,000 to taxpayers, according to the report.

Another critique is that only one of every three fire crew members is trained to respond to medical situations, which indicates a "mismatch between service needed and service provided."

The report makes a number of recommendations, including managing fire department personnel more effectively, changing response protocol to better respond to emergency calls that are medical-related, and exploring consolidation opportunities.

San Jose Fire Chief William McDonald addressed some of the critiques at a news conference Thursday afternoon, saying that some changes within the department are afoot. He said smaller vehicles and fewer personnel, consisting of one paramedic and one firefighter, would be deployed in response to most incidents that are not fire-related.

"We have lots of support and willingness to better the department," McDonald said.

--By Bay City News Service