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What do you consider a Fire Call?

What does your department consider a call worthy of a "fire report" and considering it a "call". There are some departments in my area that obviously changed how they classified thier calls since they went from around 500 to around 1000 in a little over a year.

I have listened to members of other departments state that conducting prefire plans, community events and public fire education at the schools is a "fire call" and they they write it up that way to bolster their numbers which helps with the town council and helps to be viewed more favorably for grants.

My department also typically makes a record of community service events including public fire education at the schools however we do not write it up as a "fire call". We only consider actual dispatched calls as fire calls.

So what do you do? What is the reason behind it? I am just curious.

Thanks,

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Michael Bricault (ret) on August 5, 2012 at 10:56am

-Depends on what you're looking for, but I think I know what you're getting at. Should a "show and tell" be listed as a fire call? Should EMS or hazmat count as a fire response or generate a fire alarm number? No way! All Fire Depts. should use the National Fire Incident Reporting System.

-We generate a fire report and count the response as a call, generating a trackable/traceable alarm number, for several types of fire incidents. These incidents are tracked separately.

-Structure fires, including room and contents fires.

-Smoke in the area.

-False alarms (malicious and good intent).

-Activated ringing alarms.

-Outside fires; vehicle: car/truck/boat, train, aircraft, dumpster/trash/refuse on the street.

-Brush fires and wild land.

-These fire incidents are separately trackable/traceable based on incident type, the alarm dispatch, what was actually encountered on the street and the company/apparatus resource alarm response.

-For things like community involvement, "show and tell", fire drills, public education etc are tracked separately using their own "report" to track time and resources used and absolutely do not count as a fire response.

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Permalink Reply by Ron Becknell on August 5, 2012 at 11:03am

That is what I was getting at. Some departments even make a "fire call" out of installing smoke detectors.

Michael Bricault said:

-Depends on what you're looking for, but I think I know what you're getting at. Should a "show and tell" be listed as a fire call? Should EMS or hazmat count as a fire response or generate a fire alarm number? No way! All Fire Depts. should use the National Fire Incident Reporting System.

-We generate a fire report and count the response as a call, generating a trackable/traceable alarm number, for several types of fire incidents. These incidents are tracked separately.

-Structure fires, including room and contents fires.

-Smoke in the area.

-False alarms (malicious and good intent).

-Activated ringing alarms.

-Outside fires; vehicle: car/truck/boat, train, aircraft, dumpster/trash/refuse on the street.

-Brush fires and wild land.

-These fire incidents are separately trackable/traceable based on incident type, the alarm dispatch, what was actually encountered on the street and the company/apparatus resource alarm response.

-For things like community involvement, "show and tell", fire drills, public education etc are tracked separately using their own "report" to track time and resources used and absolutely do not count as a fire response.

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Permalink Reply by Gary T. Feldman Sr. on August 7, 2012 at 1:44pm

A fire call has to have involved fire of some form. We do Technical rescue, Haz-Mat, and EMS first response, but those are coded accordingly. A fire is a fire is a fire. We pull a number eveytime there is a call for service, but we are averaging 1/3 fires and 2/3 everything else 800 calls last year. I know departments that go to a car accident with a battery short and three patients and a fluid spill as a fire, three EMS runs and a Haz Mat. That's just padding the statistics and not accomplishing anything.

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Permalink Reply by James Cleveland on August 7, 2012 at 1:45pm

I know with our agency medical, rescue and haz mat calls all get entered into NFIRS and tracked as an incident (ie EMS calls are incident type 321 in NFIRS). We have also documented dedicated standby at an event as an incident. We do not, however, document routine public education or other types of events as an incident. I can see why agencies want to pad their numbers in times like these but it would be hard to defend if someone did some snooping around in your reports.

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Permalink Reply by 2paryrr1fh03a on August 7, 2012 at 2:00pm

I would have to say that if it requires emergency crews to respond and thus be taken out of service for any additional 911 calls, it deserves a report. We will pull a crew from a P.R. assignment for a fire where we will not pull a crew from a heart attack for the same fire. These are emergency calls and therefore deem a report for future staffing and funding needs. A heart attack, an individual trapped in a vehicle or a spill of chlorine are emergency calls and should be handled and reported as such.

We also need to remember what is not an emergency to the responder is to the individual who dialed 911, this was there only option they knew to mitigate the issue they were having. While we hear one side complain that people are abusing the system, we as proffessionals have become to critical and uncaring of the people we serve.

I do agree that Public Relations type calls should not be part of the reporting process but my tax payers having a heart attack is not PR.

-Depends on what you're looking for, but I think I know what you're getting at. Should a "show and tell" be listed as a fire call? Should EMS or hazmat count as a fire response or generate a fire alarm number? No way! All Fire Depts. should use the National Fire Incident Reporting System.

-We generate a fire report and count the response as a call, generating a trackable/traceable alarm number, for several types of fire incidents. These incidents are tracked separately.

-Structure fires, including room and contents fires.

-Smoke in the area.

-False alarms (malicious and good intent).

-Activated ringing alarms.

-Outside fires; vehicle: car/truck/boat, train, aircraft, dumpster/trash/refuse on the street.

-Brush fires and wild land.

-These fire incidents are separately trackable/traceable based on incident type, the alarm dispatch, what was actually encountered on the street and the company/apparatus resource alarm response.

-For things like community involvement, "show and tell", fire drills, public education etc are tracked separately using their own "report" to track time and resources used and absolutely do not count as a fire response.

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Permalink Reply by Jonah Smith on August 7, 2012 at 5:53pm

We use any Fire Alarm, Car Accident, HazMat, CO, Fire, Car Fire or Power line investigation as a fire call. All EMS calls are separately counted. We do not use any demos, alarm installs or community service as a call. We have separate call requirements for Fire and Fire and EMS personnel so that is why they are counted separately.

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Permalink Reply by Elliot Belote on December 17, 2012 at 4:06pm

Any dispatch, we consider a fire call (we do not do ems; vollunteer dept). However, when it comes to public education or community outreach, we list that under special assignment. Special assignments are not calculated into NIFRS but they are calculated into our department total for the year. Same goes for department meetings.

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