Fire chief urges application for FEMA SAFER grant, citing staffing and response gaps

Chief Polar told the City Council at the June 8 study session that the Rochester Fire Department is meeting some internal goals but remains short of national benchmarks for emergency response and staffing.

"We added a second battalion chief per shift," Polar said, outlining recent administrative repurposings, investments in electronic reporting and training, and the purchase of a planned Station 6 site to improve northwest coverage. He said the department engaged Fitch Associates to draft a standard-of-cover (SOC) that will analyze incident data, community risk, and station deployment.

The chief emphasized gaps against NFPA 1710 benchmarks. He said the city does not currently track alarm-answering time, reported EMS call-processing time of roughly 6.5 minutes versus the NFPA 64-second benchmark, and turnout time near 2.7 minutes compared with the 80-second NFPA target. "We are two and a half times the national standard for call processing," he said. He added that travel times are also above the 4-minute 90th-percentile standard in many parts of the city.

Polar described operational data and a recent six-week trial with Mayo Ambulance in which Mayo shared dispatch codes back to the city. "Of that almost 600 calls, 40% of those we never even got out of the rig and saw a patient," he said, arguing that better shared data could reduce unnecessary apparatus responses and preserve resources for true emergencies. He also said the department is implementing an EPCR (electronic patient care reporting) system to improve medical reporting that is currently limited by fire-focused software.

To address the shortfalls in Effective Response Force (ERF) staffing — a 28-person ERF for garden-apartment and strip-mall fires and 43 for high-rise fires under NFPA metrics — Polar previewed a FEMA SAFER grant application that would add 15 firefighters (five per shift). "We want a total of 15 additional firefighters," he said, estimating a loaded first-year salary and benefits cost at roughly $135,000 per firefighter. Under current SAFER terms he outlined, the federal share would cover 75% of a first-year firefighter package in the first two grant years and 35% in the third year; the city would be responsible for ongoing costs thereafter. The three-year cost estimate on the presentation was about $6.2 million with the federal share covering roughly $3.7 million; the fourth-year levy impact if absorbed was estimated at about $2.4 million annually.

Council members asked for follow-up information on the algorithm trial, dispatch-process timing, overtime impacts, EMS versus firefighter-EMT cost comparisons, and potential offsets (billing for lift assists, false alarms or fee-for-service models). Several expressed operational sympathy and fiscal caution; one council member said he was not yet comfortable committing to a long-term levy increase without more data. Staff said they expect to return next week with a formal request to authorize application for the SAFER grant if council directs.

The chief stressed that SAFER is designed to fund firefighter positions (not EMT-only hires) and that additional staffing would permit meeting ERFs for garden-apartment and strip-mall incidents and allow response to two simultaneous single-family house fires more reliably. He urged council to weigh the safety and operational benefits against the long-term fiscal implications.

The council did not take a final vote at the study session; staff said a formal authorization to apply and any acceptance of a grant award would be returned for council action if requested.