USFA Report on Response Times
The USFA has released a report on the response times for structure fires in the U.S. Here are their major findings:
- Regardless of region, season, or time of day, structure fire response times are generally less than 5 minutes half the time.
- The nationwide 90th percentile response time to structure fires is less than 11 minutes.
- Structure fires in the Northeast have the lowest response times while those in the West have the highest.
- Average structure fire response times show a relationship between flame spread and longer response times, but only after flames have spread beyond the room of origin.
The whole report is pretty short so reading it should only take a few minutes.
There was an interesting bit from the conclusion that caught my eye:
Despite the differences in size of fire departments, career or volunteer status, time of year, or location in the country, there is not a great difference in response times to structure fires as analyzed here. A more detailed analysis may uncover larger differences.
I was surprised by this. It would seem that large, urban fire departments would have better response times, but according to the report that isn't necessarily the case.
Comments
The response time in the cities is probably slowed by the traffic. I know that when I run with my city company, our response time depends on the time of day. And out in the county areas, our response time depends again on the time of day and the traffic. Plus it helps when you have really good driving directions. We got lost last night on the truck back in this one huge development where we are the first due truck. Even the first due company gets lost back in there because of the roads and how they are laid out.
Posted by: Mia at February 27, 2006 02:58 PM
We are a big city in NJ.And it does go by the time of day, traffic.what part of town if all the trucks are in there district. and there is nothing else going on at the time of the alarm. But the newest thing is GPS laptops in the rigs. so if you have to go to another district or to another town, the newest thing is county fire stuff. and since the county gave us the laptops through a grant. we will be all over the place.
The link is to a web site from one of the fellow brother,he does a good job with the site.
Posted by: Frank at February 27, 2006 07:49 PM
