FL City Eyes Improving Fire, ALS Services

July 03 -- NORTH PORT, FL -- North Port city commissioners took steps Monday to improve both ambulance and fire coverage in Sarasota County's largest municipality, which sprawls over 105 square miles.

Steven Knight, a consultant hired by the city, stressed that North Port Fire Rescue already ranks highly in response times, with a time of eight minutes or less for calls.

The fire department also has an ISO rating of 1 by the Insurance Service Office — the best available ranking.

"You have a very good department that's well situated," said Knight, a representative of Fitch & Associates, the consultant that suggested both a five-year strategic plan and conducted a management study for North Port.

The main purpose of the study is to provide guidance on how to best maintain, or improve those figures as the city grows — especially in the West Villages area, which is primarily served out of Sarasota County Fire Station 26, at 8020 S. Tamiami Trail, Venice, under an agreement.

Long-range plans call for the city to eventually operate its own fire station in the West Villages.

"It's to help us move our fire department into the future and give us a road map on how we'll get there," City Manager Peter Lear said.

In addition to the agreement with Sarasota County for coverage from Station 26, North Port operates five other stations — the busiest of which is Station 82, at 5650 North Port Blvd. It accounts for more than one-third of all calls within city limits.

North Port Fire Rescue includes the firefighting component, which is funded by the city's fire and rescue district, and ambulance service, financed through the general fund.

There were roughly 9,000 incidents in the city in 2016, the most recent year analyzed by Fitch, with 74.1 percent involving EMS; typically 70 to 85 percent of an agency's calls involve EMS.

Fitch offered three main options to improve response time of advanced life support services to city residents.

The first involved improving certification of emergency responders serving in on fire engines operating out of Station 81, at 4980 City Center Blvd, and Station 85 at 1308 N. Biscayne Drive, from basic life support to advanced life support.

The cost, both Knight and North Port Rescue Chief Scott Titus said, would be minimal — some additional equipment and a corresponding bump in training and compensation for firefighter/EMTs to become firefighther/paramedics.

The second recommendation involved adding ambulances that would be staffed for 12-hours a day — coinciding with peak call volume — to Station 82 and to Station 83, which is at 3601 E. Prince Blvd.

Station 83 is currently the only one of the five city-operated stations that does not have an ambulance.

Realistically, Titus said, that ambulance would likely be floated to cover for ambulances dispatched out of Station 82.

Typical management strategies call for such practices to make sure that reasonable response time is maintained everywhere the department covers.

The proposal to add two 12-hour ambulances would eventually require hiring and outfitting another 10 people at a cost of roughly $745,000 a year.

A third proposal, to have those ambulances be available 24 hours a day — like the four ambulances North Port currently operates — would require the hiring of a total of 15 new people, at a cost of more than $1 million.

"I'm suggesting maintaining where we are right now," Titus said, then added that the department should also move toward certifying the firefighter/EMTs as firefighter/paramedics, with the idea of eventually adding the two 12-hour ambulances as well.

He planned to seek grants to offset the cost of new equipment and stressed that the department could cover calls for at least the next year, if not two.

The commission unanimously voted to follow that course. It must also conduct a similar second vote on the issue.

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