Increasing Call Volume for Ind. Fire Departments

Jan. 10--When a fire truck with lights and sirens activated speeds down a Vigo County road on an emergency response these days, it's not likely that firefighters are responding to a fire.

Medical runs and traffic accidents long ago eclipsed structure fires as the most common run for fire departments in Vigo County. And in 2015, some county fire departments set records in their calls for service to assist the public.

The Otter Creek Fire Department recorded 728 runs in 2015, an increase of 118 runs more than the 2014 total of 610 calls for service. That averages two runs per day.

"All charts have their ups and downs, but this is a massive jump," said Lt. Josh Craft of Otter Creek as he compared past years.

Otter Creek -- a volunteer department -- merged in 2011 with the Sandcut and Burnett departments. Since then, the department has had more than 600 runs each year, with last year being a challenge for the 53-member department.

"The county is growing, and with that comes an increase in workload for emergency services," Craft said."We've had days with no runs at all, but then have days with five runs in two hours time."

In the first six days of 2016, the department had already recorded 13 runs -- continuing the average of two calls per day.

Honey Creek Fire Department also saw a big increase in emergency runs last year.

Battalion Chief Joshua Sittler reports 1,676 emergency runs in 2015 -- 90 percent of those being medical calls -- with 2014 having 1,481 calls for service.

"We average 115 to 120 runs per month," Sittler said, "and previously it was 80 to 90 runs per month."

The reason for the increase? It's unknown, both at Honey Creek and Otter Creek.

Honey Creek has 33 paid firefighters and 10 to 15 volunteers, with around-the-clock staffing at four fire stations in the district.

At Sugar Creek Fire -- with three full-time firefighters, two part-timers, and 40 to 45 volunteers -- the emergency calls declined by 75 calls for service in 2015.

Chief Derrick Scott said his department, with stations at West Terre Haute and the small community of Saint Mary's, responded to 974 runs last year. The average for the past 5 years has ranged between 950 and 1,100 runs per year, he said.

In the 20-plus years that Scott has been a firefighter, he said, the types of calls have definitely changed from structure fires to more medical runs. He credits fire prevention programs, construction improvements, inspection and building codes, and use of smoke detectors with making residential and commercial structures safer for the public.

Chimney fires are not nearly as common as they were 25 years ago, Scott said.

A big addition to the public safety arsenal for Sugar Creek is the addition of a Riley Ambulance at the St. Mary's station. And, that ambulance will also benefit Fayette Township Fire Department, which has signed an agreement for mutual aid ambulance service.

Riley Fire Chief Jeff Fox said that his department's success in adding an ambulance service in 2015 led to the expansion of that service to a second ambulance stationed in the Sugar Creek district.

Last year, Riley had 2,0150 calls for service. Of those calls, about 1,700 calls were for the ambulance, and 1,500 people were treated, with 1,370 transported for additional treatment.

The call volume for fires -- about 300 in 2015 -- stayed about the same as in past years, Fox said.

"Our ambulance started a year ago to attempt ot improve delivery of service, and to have a dedicated paramedic ambulance for our communities," Fox said. Based at Honey Creek's station 92 on Springhill Drive, the ambulance had an average response time of 10 minutes to the areas of Riley, Honey Creek Township, and the Prairieton/Prairie Creek area.

If that ambulance responded to West Terre Haute, the response time was about 11 minutes. The response time to St. Mary's was 14 minutes.

"That was on the high end," Fox said of the response times into Sugar Creek, "so it made sense with those high response times to put an ambulance in St. Mary's. So, we expect to see the response times there to go down dramatically."

The national average for an ambulance response on an emergency call is 13 minutes, Fox said.

The local fire department is usually going to be the first emergency crew to arrive at a scene, he said, but the ambulance will be right behind it.

"I think the citizens are being well served by having both the Riley ambulances," Fox said.

About 50 percent of the patients transported by Riley so far have been Medicare patients, he said, while about 17 percent are private pay patients. The goal for the department is to have the user fees offset the cost to operate the ambulance, and so far, that has worked.

"We felt we had done our homework before putting the first ambulance out there," Fox said. "It's satisfying after the first year to say that our numbers were accurate. And to see it deliver that level of care was rewarding."

The Riley Fire Department has 40 members, including 11 career staff. Of those 11, eight are on the ambulance service while three are on the fire side. Another 12 are volunteers who staff shifts with the full-time and part-time staffers.

Sugar Creek's Scott said the cooperative effort with Riley to provide the ambulance service is at now cost to the township. The ambulance crew is paid by Riley, and now there is someone at the St. Mary's station around-the-clock, in addition to a firefighter at the station from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m.

At Otter Creek, ambulance service is provided by TransCare, which has a crew located at the new fire department headquarters on Clinton Street at Grant Avenue.

The new fire station has bunk rooms to accommodate the ambulance crew, Craft said, and during foul weather, the ambulance has a bay inside the station.

As an all volunteer department, Craft said the Otter Creek community is grateful to have the support of the community.

"Many residents cam to our open house last June," Craft said, "and many didn't realize that it is all volunteer. For a few years we have maintained more than 50 members who are dedicated to protecting our community."

The new station was built to replace the twice-flooded facility located along the banks of namesake Otter Creek several decades ago.

The department members have training and equipment for grain bin rescues, as well as extrications and medical runs. A new mobile command center is also being outfitted for responses to scenes as a support vehicle. The converted bus offers communications, and will come in handy for emergency personnel to take needed breaks during long events such as disaster responses or cold weather emergencies.

"We're taking leaps and bounds in what services we can provide," Craft said.

To document the busyness of the department, Craft said that the department's website at www.OtterCreekFire.com has a "calls archive" that maps the location of each fire run for 2014 and 2015. The maps are full of red pins.

Many of the department's runs to crash scenes occur at the busy intersections of Evans Lane and U.S. 41, Hasselburger and U.S. 41, and "any intersection" on Rosedale Road, but mostly Grant and Rosedale.

And the department's Facebook page shares useful public information, such as road closings due to flooding, fire safety tips and event announcements.

Sugar Creek's Chief Scott agreed that today's fire departments handle more than just putting out structure and brush fires and rescuing cats stranded in trees. And that is shown by the public's reliance on their services.

"We are a great value for our communities," he said.

Lisa Trigg can be reached at 812-231-4254 or at lisa.trigg@tribstar.com. Follow her on Twitter at TribStarLisa.

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