In 2023, the Statesboro Fire Department successfully hired firefighters and trained recruits to fill the 21 additional firefighter positions funded in the past two years and meanwhile answered 1,474 calls for service, a 17.5% increase from the previous year.

Those calls for service included 192 actual fires, 12 overpressure or explosion incidents and 118 rescue calls, such as when firefighters used extrication equipment to remove people from vehicles after crashes or assisted the Emergency Medical Service in rendering aid.

Fire Chief Tim Grams summarized the department’s 2023 annual report Tuesday during a City Council work session.

“We’ve been very busy in hiring, recruitment,” he said. “Utilizing an aggressive recruitment strategy, we were able to fill 21 positions. We got outside of the box using television commercials and some different things, very, very beneficial, and you know that was a huge success for us to fill that many positions in such a short period of time.”

Back in fiscal year 2022, which ended June 30, 2022, the council had approved local funding to add nine firefighters. Then one year ago, in February 2023, the department and city were awarded a $2.1 million federal Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, or SAFER, grant to add another 12 firefighters. The grant is meant to cover 100% of those firefighters’ salaries and benefits for three years. After that, the city will have to pick up the cost to maintain the same force.

Before the grant, the department had 57 Georgia Firefighter Standards and Training Council certified personnel, so the addition of 12 brought the total to 69 certified firefighters and raised the number of “frontline” firefighting personnel who from 48 to 60.

5 more per shift

The increased number of firefighters is allowing the department to get in step with National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA, standards, Grams said. The SFD is now preparing to raise its minimum staffing from the current 12 firefighters in any shift to at least 17 on duty “24-7, 365.”

“That’s going to put four firefighters on every apparatus, as well as a battalion chief or a commanding officer to manage the scene,” Grams said.

As a result, one “apparatus” such as a fire engine, will now deliver four firefighters to a structure fire and provide the “two-in, two-out” presence required to begin interior fire suppression operations, he said.

Grams cited data from the National Institute of Standards and Technology showing that four-person crews completed the same number of “fireground” tasks on average almost 25% faster than three-person crews and reduced the time from arrival to putting water on a fire by 6%. Deployment of ground ladders for rescue and ventilation operations was also 25% more efficient with four-person versus three-person crews.

“So there’s a tangible benefit to having those additional firefighters on the apparatus,” Grams said.

Non-fire calls

Last year’s 1,474 Statesboro Fire Department calls for service also included 104 calls for what turned out to be “hazardous conditions” with “no fire,” another 161 “good intent” calls and 676 false alarms or false calls. Many of the false alarms were automated and not intentional.

Still, false alarms or false calls made up the largest slice, 46%, of the total calls for service in 2023. But the predominance of false alarms is not new. In the previous year, 2022, there had been 601 false alarms or false calls, or 48% of the total of that year’s 1,254 calls for service.

“Again, those are not always malicious, but I anticipate those numbers to maintain, the more (alarm) systems that we put online as we grow,” Grams said.

As in previous years, he agreed with council members that the large number of college students in Statesboro contributes to a higher percentage of intentional false alarms. Reducing false alarms to about 35% of total calls could be a goal, he said, but he does not expect to reduce their incidence much more than that.

Incidentally, the Fire Department participated in 52 investigations, often working with the Statesboro Police Department, in 2023, on things such as causes of fires.

In 2022 there had been 169 actual fires, 85 rescue calls, four overpressure/explosion responses and 69 “hazardous condition-no fire” calls. The numbers of these more significant types of calls all increased in 2023.

Not cat rescues

For 2023, the pie chart of call types also includes a tiny slice for six “special incident” calls. When council members asked, Grams said that simply means calls for which there is no other category, but not rescuing cats from trees. Because of liability and the risk of injury, the SFD does not rescue cats from trees, he said.

“When we say total calls for service, that’s everything from a smoke detector install, a class fire station talk, community events, things of that nature,” he said.

Of the 1,474 total “calls,” 1,016, or 69%, were to addresses inside the Statesboro city limits, while 401, or 27%, were in the “fire district” outside the city but within five miles of either of the SFD’s two stations. The Bulloch County government collects a special property tax millage and pays into the city’s fire fund for this service.

Just 57 calls, or 4% of the total, were outside the city and fire district, providing mutual aid to the Bulloch County Fire Department or other agencies.

The Statesboro Fire Department’s average response time, from dispatch to arrival, in 2023 was six minutes and nine seconds, Grams reported.

Prevention efforts

His slideshow included separate information about the activities of the SFD Prevention Division, whose inspectors performed 654 annual fire inspections, 295 re-inspections, 34 plan reviews and 26 certificate of occupancy visits, plus 658 “other” actions such as consultations, responses to complaints and fireworks stand visits last year.

The Prevention Division was also credited with installing more than 300 smoke alarms in 230 homes. Personnel conducted two smoke alarm “blitzes,” one targeting seven mobile home parks and areas in the city and the fire district and another blitz in the areas of South Main Street, Shady Trail, West Grady Street and Vista Circle.

SFD personnel collectively participated in 19,268 hours of training in 2023, according to the report.