Dallas Fire-Rescue adopts innovative approach to cut down false alarms

Dallas, Texas - In light of escalating emergency calls, Dallas Fire-Rescue is refining its response guidelines to optimize resource allocation, Dallas Metro News reported.

A significant portion of the department's focus has historically been channeled towards non-fire emergencies such as false alarms, individuals stranded in elevators, and minor accidents on city streets — primary contributors to resource depletion. These calls are particularly taxing at a time when the department operates with minimal surplus capacity.

In recognition of this scenario, people have expressed endorsement for the newly introduced departmental policies. The objective of these policies is to judiciously recalibrate the response of firefighters and paramedics to such calls, ensuring no compromise on public safety.

At the heart of this policy revamp is a reconsideration of the department's approach towards non-highway, low-speed vehicular incidents. Though these occurrences pose as hindrances to city traffic and are a source of irritation for commuters, they seldom result in severe injuries. The fresh protocol signifies a departure from the previous routine of automatically dispatching ambulances to such sites. Under the new scheme, only fire engines will be dispatched to the nearly 20,000 calls of similar nature reported annually. Every fire engine, equipped with essential medical supplies, will have at least one skilled paramedic onboard, poised to provide the requisite medical assistance.

In a meticulous dialogue with the Dallas City Council’s public safety committee, Emergency Medical Service Battalion Chief Scott Clumpner elucidated the rationale behind the policy amendment. He underscored that should a situation necessitate an ambulance for transporting individuals to a medical facility, it can be dispatched swiftly, reaching the scene within mere minutes. However, as Chief Clumpner noted, a scant 13% of all EMS transports annually arise from surface street car mishaps, rendering the automatic dispatch of ambulances an operationally extravagant endeavor.

Amidst a milieu of surging emergency calls, Dallas Fire-Rescue is assiduously reengineering its response framework, with a goal to enhance operational efficacy. A thorough analysis of their call records revealed a staggering 14,000 automatic fire alarm activations per year, averaging 38 instances daily. However, a meticulous review of the past year's data divulged that merely 16 of these alarms, a sparse 1%, were legitimate signals of structure fires, a revelation shared by Emergency Medical Service Battalion Chief Scott Clumpner.

The revamped protocol now delineates that during the nocturnal hours of 7 p.m. to 7 a.m., solely a fire engine will respond to these calls, deviating from the previous norm of dispatching both an engine and a ladder truck. Concurrently, the diurnal hours, which typically saw the dispatch of merely a fire engine, will now witness these units operating under the subdued Code 1 level, devoid of the urgent cacophony of blaring sirens and flickering lights.

The updated framework also sketches a shift in addressing situations where individuals are entrapped in elevators, circumstances often perceived as critical by those ensnared. Public Safety Committee Chair Cara Mendelsohn's recount of her recent liberation from a stalled City Hall elevator resonated the gravity of such episodes. However, the engagement of Battalion Chiefs at these scenes, especially during tempestuous weather conducive to igniting fires necessitating a Chief's oversight, has been deemed as an overextension. The proficiency of firefighters has been recognized as sufficiently adept to navigate these elevator entrapments.

“We have run out of battalion chiefs,” Clumpner said. “We’d rather they be at structure fires.”

The thorough data analysis and thoughtful consideration by the department have received praise as it strives to enhance efficiency. The enduring aim of responding within the targets of 9 minutes for medical emergencies and 5 minutes 20 seconds for structure fires in 90% of the calls continues to elude them, with current compliance at 83% and 87%, respectively.

Credit: Dallas Metro News, Dallas Fire-Rescue, Dallas City Council