# of First Due Workers around the country

tommyhal&oat · Dec 17, 2023

Recently, keeping stats of the first due jobs for the truck companies in the city has made me think, how do they compare to busier companies/departments around the country. I've tried to find some info. on this but could not find much. These days, most busy companies in the city do about 24+ first due jobs a year. How does that compare to companies in Baltimore City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, etc. I feel like I always see posts about companies operating at another job in a vacant dwelling pretty often. So I guess my question is, are companies in other departments doing more first due work than FDNY companies, or is it about the same/less?

scoobyd · Dec 17, 2023

Other cities have severely depressed real estate markets. We do not, even in the worst areas.

gym · Dec 17, 2023

Firehouse magazine used to have an annual national run survey. I think the magazine continues to be published and when I had a subscription, the survey was in the June issue. Hopefully another member can confirm this.

Lebby · Dec 17, 2023

gym said:
Firehouse magazine used to have an annual national run survey. I think the magazine continues to be published and when I had a subscription, the survey was in the June issue. Hopefully another member can confirm this.

They do but it only reports runs and not work.

From talking to friends on other jobs, I'd say some cities like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Detroit, St. Louis, Toledo, Wichita, Camden, Gary and Newark have companies that go to more work. Some important side notes, most of those jobs don't have the variation or the level of complexity that NYC jobs have. I.e. most jobs in Philly are row frames and most in Wichita are PDs. Finally many departments are moving to more exterior operations especially on "vacants" as seen in Detroit and Baltimore.

fdhistorian · Dec 17, 2023

tommyhal&oat said:
Recently, keeping stats of the first due jobs for the truck companies in the city has made me think, how do they compare to busier companies/departments around the country. I've tried to find some info. on this but could not find much. These days, most busy companies in the city do about 24+ first due jobs a year. How does that compare to companies in Baltimore City, Philadelphia, Detroit, Chicago, etc. I feel like I always see posts about companies operating at another job in a vacant dwelling pretty often. So I guess my question is, are companies in other departments doing more first due work than FDNY companies, or is it about the same/less?

The popular measures of activity are Runs and Workers (in NYC). These are total runs and total workers. Not every run is first due and not every worker is first due for every company. Not all workers are fires.
First due is not the same as first arriving. For any specific company, first due is an administrative designation. First arriving is more significant and that is not consistently predictable considering concurrent activity levels and related tasks such as training, medicals, etc.
The significance of first arriving is for measuring response time.
The significance of worker by first due area is geographic.
Correlating first due worker area to first arriving unit requires more analysis.

68jk09 · Dec 17, 2023

I remember back when I was in R*2 the Firehouse Magazine Survey had us listed as the "Worlds Busiest Heavy Rescue"....... around the same time in the "Worlds Busiest Firehouse" survey by FH Mag 290 /103 was the Busiest NY FH but on the Words Busiest List the top FH was an out of State one with SIX Units in the FH.

fdhistorian · Dec 17, 2023

68jk09 said:
I remember back when I was in R*2 the Firehouse Magazine Survey had us listed as the "Worlds Busiest Heavy Rescue"....... around the same time in the "Worlds Busiest Firehouse" survey by FH Mag 290 /103 was the Busiest NY FH but on the Words Busiest List the top FH was an out of State one with SIX Units in the FH.

Some companies were very creative in generating their statistics for the magazine's run survey. Placing a company administratively on every incident citywide without actually responding, giving each unit a separate incident number even on multiple unit responses, and generating an incident for every activity, such as fueling, training, grocery shopping, etc. were some of the gimmicks. It was acceptable because the survey was for entertainment only. It was scary when the survey was used for official presentations to municipal governments.
Every year someone would have to point out that the 'busiest' was only the single highest statistic unit in the department and in the larger departments, dozens more units could be numerically busier than the next highest unit in another jurisdiction.

grumpy grizzly · Dec 17, 2023

fdhistorian said:
Some companies were very creative in generating their statistics for the magazine's run survey. Placing a company administratively on every incident citywide without actually responding, giving each unit a separate incident number even on multiple unit responses, and generating an incident for every activity, such as fueling, training, grocery shopping, etc. were some of the gimmicks. It was acceptable because the survey was for entertainment only. It was scary when the survey was used for official presentations to municipal governments.
Every year someone would have to point out that the 'busiest' was only the single highest statistic unit in the department and in the larger departments, dozens more units could be numerically busier than the next highest unit in another jurisdiction.

You are correct about that survey concerning their description of a "run". Some of those were almost mathematically impossible on a daily basis. Most had to be medical runs or public service calls, if you had only 1/2 as many as fires you would have no city.

CFDMarshal · Dec 19, 2023

As cities undergo the transformation and gentrification you will see a change in run volume and the continued battle of runs versus work. Medical calls in many areas are wearing out personnel and equipment. In the southern part of the US, we are still seeing PD's and Garden Style Apartments as the source of work. Real estate is still hot here but people are still people and will continue to be the source of Job security for the fire service.
We have seen the addition of a pickup truck or SUV staffed with 1-2 FF's that respond as an independent unit to medical calls to relieve the wear and tear on the Engines and Trucks. We have them in our city and county departments and I know that Nashville will be adding them at certain companies where the run volume warrants.

nfd2004 · Dec 19, 2023

CFDMarshal said:
As cities undergo the transformation and gentrification you will see a change in run volume and the continued battle of runs versus work. Medical calls in many areas are wearing out personnel and equipment. In the southern part of the US, we are still seeing PD's and Garden Style Apartments as the source of work. Real estate is still hot here but people are still people and will continue to be the source of Job security for the fire service.
We have seen the addition of a pickup truck or SUV staffed with 1-2 FF's that respond as an independent unit to medical calls to relieve the wear and tear on the Engines and Trucks. We have them in our city and county departments and I know that Nashville will be adding them at certain companies where the run volume warrants.

"CFDMarshal", Rev., you are CORRECT.

They did a survey here where I live in CT., and one of the things they recommended was to get a pickup truck or SUV with two FF/EMTs to handle most of the medical calls, rather than an engine (or a Truck) when needed.

So far it hasn't been done, but I can see it happening.

Also, you and I were on this web sites last zoom meeting when we heard about buying new apparatus that could take up to 48-60 months.
Plus the very high price tag

As was mentioned also was trying to get parts for some apparatus even 8 years old or so, might be impossible to get.
Or if you can it, the huge cost factor.

I think for many places - changes are coming related to the fire service on a nationwide basis.

fdhistorian · Dec 19, 2023

The concept of using smaller utility type vehicles to reduce the wear on fire apparatus has a long history. Los Angeles County introduced their version of Squads in late 1969. Phoenix has used 'Ladder Tenders' as a second piece for Ladder companies since the 1990's.
Wider acceptance of the concept has been hindered by debate over dedicated separate staffing versus cross staffing by existing units.

entropychaser · Dec 19, 2023

If you want to go back to the War Years, in the 1970's Philadelphia was using Tac-Ladders. Seems like it was a ladder with an International Harvester carrying a booster tank/pump as a second piece that allowed the ladder company to extinguish small fires without the engine. Maybe one of the Philly guys here can elaborate.

grumpy grizzly · Dec 19, 2023

CFDMarshal said:
As cities undergo the transformation and gentrification you will see a change in run volume and the continued battle of runs versus work. Medical calls in many areas are wearing out personnel and equipment. In the southern part of the US, we are still seeing PD's and Garden Style Apartments as the source of work. Real estate is still hot here but people are still people and will continue to be the source of Job security for the fire service.
We have seen the addition of a pickup truck or SUV staffed with 1-2 FF's that respond as an independent unit to medical calls to relieve the wear and tear on the Engines and Trucks. We have them in our city and county departments and I know that Nashville will be adding them at certain companies where the run volume warrants.

I think Syracuse switched to the SUV concept over the past several years.