Report Queens Fire Responses Have Improved; UFOA Still Skeptical Of Dispatch System As It Expands

By ARI PAUL

A pilot program for Fire Department dispatchers is reducing response times by more than half a minute in Queens, the borough where they have been the highest, Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta said April 17.

STEVE CASSIDY: Doesn't believe the stats.

On Feb. 13, dispatchers began providing only addresses to responding units, and later gathering more information from 911 callers in an effort to get units out of the firehouses faster. The 90-day program went into effect after Queens elected officials and union leaders complained that response times in the borough were dangerously high. The average response time to structural fires in Queens was four minutes and 58 seconds in 2007, while the response to medical emergencies was four minutes and 42 seconds. Citywide, those numbers were 4:27 and 4:20, respectively. The average response time to all incidents was 4:49 citywide last year.

'We'll Expand Citywide'

"We're getting what we think is an early release of the units, so we have reduced response times in Queens by about 31 seconds," Mr. Scoppetta said in a phone interview. "There is little doubt in my mind that we will expand it citywide."

CONFRONTING UNIONS' DOUBTS: Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta (left) has yet to win over fire union leaders to a new dispatch system that that he said 'gets firefighters to an emergency faster than they were before.' Uniformed Fire Officers Association President John J. McDonnell conceded that response times had improved in Queens but said the lack of specific details provided to fire companies when they are sent to emergencies increases the possibilities of 'confusion and more apparatus accidents.'

Two weeks into the pilot program, Uniformed Firefighters Association President Steve Cassidy called it "idiotic" and a "band-aid" approach, saying that it was causing units to respond to wrong addresses and slowing response times. David Rosenzweig, president of the Fire Alarm Dispatchers Benevolent Association, defended the policy from the outset, however, saying that it cut down on the central office processing time.

"For the life of me I can't understand why the UFA doesn't join in with us because this is going to be a citywide policy that is going to reduce response times," Mr. Scoppetta said. "How can you quarrel with a policy that gets firefighters to an emergency faster than they were before?"

UFA President Cassidy said that the department had not updated his union on the current dispatch policy in Queens since his public condemnation of it. He added that the department's way of calculating response times created misleading statistics, saying that rather than stopping the clock when a unit has arrived, it should stop the clock when a hose line is established.

"It takes two engines to stretch a line," he said. "One unit in front of a burning building is not an adequate response."

'History of Fudging'

Mr. Cassidy said that the UFA did not trust the department's numbers on response times in general, pointing specifically to a New York Times article from 2003 showing that the department had publicized response times in the areas where six firehouses had just been closed that were calculated by stopping the clock upon the arrival of a ladder company or a Battalion Chief, rather than the arrival of an engine company.

"We don't believe this data, 31 seconds," Mr. Cassidy said. "And they have a history of not being open and honest with us."

Dan Andrews, a spokesman for Queens Borough President Helen Marshall, believed that the reduction in response times was a sign of progress, but said Ms. Marshall still wanted a Long Island City firehouse that was closed in 2003 to be reopened, because commercial and residential development has increased dramatically in that part of the borough since then.

'A Mystery Closing'

"We're saying that the closing of the firehouse in that area is somewhat of a mystery because there are not a lot of firehouses in the area," Mr. Andrews said. "They closed this house in the midst of all this development."

Uniformed Fire Officers Association President John J. McDonnell said that while he was happy to see a reduction in response times, the policy was problematic because dispatchers were sending out three trucks regardless of the incident, which could potentially divert resources from more-severe incidents nearby.

He added that the pilot program also left companies driving to incidents with little or no knowledge of the specific details.

"You don't have any particulars," Mr. McDonnell said. "They could be responding to a structural fire or something as minimal as a stuck elevator."

The UFOA believed, he said, that a long-term solution would be to reopen the Long Island City company as well as add new units to the borough.

"We're hoping that this pilot dispatch policy is not expanded to the other boroughs, especially the densely populated areas," Mr. McDonnell said. "We only foresee confusion and more apparatus accidents with the increased amount of units on the streets."