Ready To Roll It Might Seem As If Fire Crews Overdo It When Answering Emergency Calls, But They’ve Learned There’s Safety In Numbers

Three fire trucks, a paramedic truck and an officer’s car - 11 firefighters - recently converged on Lauren Braley’s home on East Eighth.

Light smoke was coming from the kitchen.

While firefighters in full gear scurried through Braley’s house, she marveled at how quickly - and how many - firefighters had shown up.

She had been boiling water to sterilize baby bottle nipples. When Blake started crying, Braley went to check on her 3-week-old son and forgot about the water. The pan started smoking when the water boiled off.

Hardley a fire. Still, two minutes later five trucks arrived at her door.

“I wasn’t sure why they sent the big truck,” Braley said, referring to the long fire truck equipped with a 100-foot mechanical ladder. “They were ready for anything.”

That’s the idea, said Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries.

“If we don’t send enough people, we put people at risk,” he said. “We want to err on the safe side.”

Braley’s inquiry wasn’t the first time Humphries has heard a similar question posed. Callers frequently are puzzled by the number of trucks that respond to a fire or car accident, the chief said. They also want to know why fire trucks respond to medical calls.

Humphries’ answer? Manpower.

Serious fires require more than a dozen firefighters to search for victims, pull hoses and operate the water pumps on the trucks, the chief said. Car accidents also can keep that many firefighters occupied checking for fire, pulling victims from cars and directing traffic, he said.

Even complex medical calls easily keep a handful of firefighters and paramedics busy taking vital signs, starting IVs and recording the treatment, said assistant chief Karl Bold.

“If a guy is going to experience a full heart attack, you can keep five or six guys busy,” Bold said.

On medical calls, there’s another reason fire trucks are dispatched. They often reach the patient first.

At least one fire truck is based at each of Valley Fire’s seven stations. Every fire truck is equipped with an automatic heart defibrillator, designed to treat an abnormal heart beat, the most common heart problem medics face. And every firefighter is an emergency medical technician, trained to use basic life-saving techniques.

However, only two paramedic trucks cover the Valley. One is assigned to Station No. 1, located across Sprague from University City Shopping Center. The other is based at Station No. 5 near the Spokane Industrial Park.

“The economics say you can’t have a paramedic on every corner,” Humphries said.

Dispatchers do the best they can to assess each situation, Bold said. As the caller describes the problem, a screen prompts the dispatcher to ask five or six questions that help determine how many trucks should respond. As dispatchers continue to gather information, unnecessary trucks are returned to the station.

Humphries said the first truck should reach the patient within four minutes after the call for help. A paramedic truck stationed farther away, or returning from another call, can take up to eight minutes to arrive.

Paramedics count on firefighters to perform basic procedures - control bleeding, take vital signs, gather medical history - that will help them treat the patient quicker, Bold said.

Firefighters are still needed once paramedics arrive, Bold said. Using a cardiac-arrest scenario as an example, Bold explained that two firefighters team up to perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

Meanwhile, a paramedic inserts a tube into the victim’s throat to prevent the patient from vomiting. Another starts an IV. A third firefighter keeps track of the treatment on a clipboard.

“We don’t have that many (cardiac) arrests, but you don’t know,” Bold said.

How a car accident will play out also is hard to predict, Humphries said.

A two-car accident last week in an Opportunity neighborhood caused five injuries. None was serious, but one person did have to be cut out of his crumpled car.

Between the five victims and two cars, the accident was enough to keep seven firefighters, two fire paramedics and six ambulance paramedics busy for the better part of an hour.

A couple of firefighters worked to treat and comfort the victim who was trapped. A handful helped cut the top off of his car. Others applied ice to bruises and bandaged cuts on other victims.

But at a similar two-car accident Wednesday at Argonne and Interstate 90, there was no one to treat or cut out of a car when a fire truck, a paramedic truck, and an ambulance showed up. At this accident, fluids leaking from a wrecked minivan and thick lunchhour traffic were firefighters’ primary concerns.

All three rescue vehicles left when state troopers arrived, but Ben Stiles, who had witnessed the accident, was glad they came.

“One of those cars was leaking,” Stiles said. “What if nobody came? Then what?”

A structure fire can be even more labor-intensive. A typical house fire requires 15 or 20 firefighters to safely battle the blaze, Humphries said. That number multiplies by the number of floors in a building during a commercial fire.

That’s why five fire trucks - two with long mechanical ladders - responded to a fire at the Spokane Industrial Park on Wednesday morning. A paramedic truck and an officer’s car also were dispatched.

The fire turned out to be sawdust burning in an exterior ventilation system. To the relief of firefighters, flames did not spread inside the building, firefighter Tim Cruger said.

“We had flames coming out the windows” when firefighters arrived, Cruger said. “We thought (the building) was going to go.”

Had it been a large fire, firefighters would have searched for possible victims, cleared smoke from the building, operated the water pumps on the trucks, and doused flames.

Safety regulations require firefighters inside burning structures to work in teams of at least two, Humphries said. Another team is stationed outside the fire to rescue firefighters inside should they become trapped or injured.

“The unpublished rule of firefighting is that if you’ve got everybody working you don’t have enough guys,” said firefighter Monte Nesbitt.

Residents have suggested that Humphries make vans carrying four or five firefighters available to respond to labor-intensive situations. But, the chief said such “manpower squads” aren’t practical or cost-effective.

Sending an extra fire truck costs the district about $4 in fuel and wear-and-tear, Humphries said. Fire trucks last about 20 years.

“And, if it turns out to be a major fire, we’ve got them rolling,” Bold said.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 photos (1 color)

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: DRIVERS MUST STOP FOR EMERGENCY VEHICLES Drivers, when you see the flashing lights of an emergency vehicle in your rearview mirror, pull over and STOP. It’s the law. Valley Fire Chief Pat Humphries said most Valley drivers pull over, but few stop completely. They assume moving out of the way is enough. Not so, Humphries said. Fire trucks always drive in the left lane. That means, right turns are made from the left lane. Drivers who try to guess where the fire truck is going to turn may cause an accident, Humphries said. Nationwide, about one-third of injuries to firefighters are the result of accidents on the way to calls, assistant chief Karl Bold said. Although accidents involving Valley Fire trucks have been rare, they are always possible. “Every time you respond with lights and sirens, you put yourself at risk,” Humphries said. The last significant accident involving Valley Fire was about four years ago, Bold said. A car ran a red light and slammed into a fire truck. The impact sent the fire truck crashing into a real estate building at the corner of Pines and Broadway, Bold said. Brian Coddington