The study, conducted by Oregon -based firm Emergency Services Consulting International , resulted in a more than 300-page report and long-range master plan for the local fire department. The city spent nearly $65,000 in fiscal year 2022 for the services.
The study revealed the city is taking too long to respond to emergencies and sending too few people.
"You're a little bit shy on what we would call an effective response force for your base risk fire, which would be a 2,000-square-foot single story family dwelling," ESCI Project Manager and Senior Consultant Sheldon Gilbert told the city commissioners during their April 6 meeting.
Of all the calls received, HFD has a response time of about 12 minutes, including call processing, 90% of the time and is only able to send seven to nine people, according to the report.
The consultants recommended lowering response times to under 8.5 minutes and upping staffing levels to allow for a response of 14 to 16 people to better align HFD with national standards.
"We recommend you implement (a third station) immediately, even if you need to do something temporary or interim until you can build a permanent structure," Gilbert said. "We would highly encourage something to happen up there as soon as possible."
"Up there" refers to north of the railroad tracks, where Gilbert said the response times are "long and the call volume is significant." The study indicated a third station on Custer Avenue west of Interstate 15 would drastically lower response times in the area.
"You've got response times that are long on every call up there because of the geographic realities," he said. "You also have some impediments with railroads tracks, where you only have limited access out there with a significant amount of the population and calls out there. It's nowhere close."
The report indicated the addition of a third station in the north, along with continued mutual aid agreements and the creation of a more robust "automatic" aid agreement with Fort Harrison VA Fire Department , would have HFD much better positioned.
"You would have an effective response force of 14 to 16 for pretty much everywhere where there's population and significant road network, and that would give them the best chance to make an aggressive, quick stop on a fire of a single-family dwelling or even an apartment or a strip mall; versus right now, they're trying to do it with seven to nine people for the first 20 minutes," Gilbert said.
The report also details needed upgrades to the city's two existing stations and bolstering of current staffing levels.
The master plan further calls for a fourth and fifth station decades from now as population and development grow.
The consultants also recommended the city's fire department implement annual mandatory "fit for duty physicals" that are compliant with National Fire Protection Association standards.
"The No. 1 killer of firefighters in America is not structure fires or even vehicle accidents or freeway incidents. It's heart attacks," Gilbert said.
The study and subsequent master plan also address the department's inadequate training capabilities.
According to the report, the city needs to invest more in its fire training facility near Helena Regional Airport .
"I know you have a training facility now," Gilbert said. "... But basically you can't do live fire training. You can't do ladder truck (training), or what we call aerial operations, very effectively. So there's a number of things the training facility can't do."
The ESCI team said it spoke with city staff as well as community and regional stakeholders and found that the potential for funding partnerships exists. The city could also charge other agencies for training to help offset the cost of a new facility.
The report did offer funding strategies to help the city afford the necessary upgrades.
A public safety mill levy garnered enough revenue recently to trigger a 25% reduction in the city government's proportional contribution from its general fund.
Still other revenue streams exist, including grant funding and municipal bonding.
"In the context of (American Rescue Plan Act), we tend to lose sight of the fact that actually this report speaks to bonding, so that will definitely be on the table because we could put our entire ARPA allocation into this report, and we still wouldn't complete the report's total expectations, or maybe aspirations is a better term," City Commissioner Eric Feaver said. "It isn't all about ARPA. It's also about bonding or not and how else we might be able to put the pieces together to meet the third fire station and upgrade fire stations one and two."
Interim City Manager Tim Burton said every funding opportunity should be considered, including increasing utility rates to help pay for capital improvement projects involving city utilities and thereby freeing up ARPA money that would have been spent there.
"That's gotta be on the table in the future as well as bonding," Burton said. "And so when we lay all of them on the table at the same time, looking at ARPA, looking at the potential to bond, and perhaps future rate increases relative to utilities, it would be nice if we staged it correctly for the commission so that you'll have all those tools available."
City Commissioner Sean Logan thanked the consultants for their "comprehensive" plan.
Logan said when last the city received such a large, in-depth review of its fire department in 2007, a committee was formed to parse through it and offer more tailored recommendations to the commission.
"I'd be interested in that type of a process moving forward because I think the reality is if you take the five members of the commission and try to make decisions based on this very comprehensive plan, it's going to be pretty daunting for us," he said. "If I recall correctly, it lasted about a year before that planning committee actually got to the commission with some concrete recommendations, which, in the end, they did have some very concrete recommendations that went before the public, and I thought that was a well-vetted process."
Burton said the first step should be to take care of the upcoming budget and then tackle capital improvement plans within various city departments.
"I think we need to make progress relative to the budget process itself as a first-in-line priority," he said. "When we feel comfortable that we have made progress in the budget process, then we'll start talking to the commission about how (they) want to tee up the review of these various capital improvement plans, including the study that we're talking about here today."
Gilbert said a final draft of the report and subsequent long-range master plan will be made available to the city by month's end.
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