City of Morgan Hill Public Safety Master Plan

helps departments reduce costs without impacting service delivery. All of these situations point to the need for good working relationships with other fire and EMS organizations.

CAL FIRE utilizes its mutual aid and automatic response agreements very effectively. Clearly, the interaction between Morgan Hill and SSCCFD is the most common form of automatic response occurring between the two agencies on a daily basis. Both agencies co-respond and cover each other’s areas as part of normal operations. As mentioned earlier, this is a very effective process that elevates overall efficiency. Our observation is that the interaction between Morgan Hill and SSCCFD is very equitable and in fact both agencies are able to fulfill their mission because of this interaction and cooperative arrangement. Table 4-4 summarizes the type of interaction that occurred between the two jurisdictions during the study period.

TABLE 4-4: Workload Distribution between Morgan Hill and SSCCFD

Workload Measure

Morgan Hill

SSCCFD

Mutual Aid/Other

Call Distribution

55.7% 46.0% 31.2%

35.0% 45.4% 57.1%

9.3% 8.6%

Unit Response Distribution (Runs) Workload Distribution/Hours

11.7%

When we look at the workload distribution between Morgan Hill and SSCFD there are a number of ways to measure the utilization of resources for response activities.

If we look at call distribution , which is a measurement of each actual incident (fire, EMS, other) and where they occurred, we find that 55.7 percent of the incidents (3,066) originated in Morgan Hill city limits. Similarly, 35.0 percent of the calls (1,929) were in the District and approximately 9.3 percent (513) were outside the two jurisdictions, primarily mutual aid and cancelled responses. We can also evaluate workload on the basis of unit responses , which is the number of unit movements or runs that were made. This distribution shows that 46.0 percent were made into the City, 45.4 percent in the District, and 8.6 percent for mutual aid and other. The number of unit responses varies from the number of actual calls because on each call, particularly fire calls, multiple units respond, whereas on a typical EMS call, only one unit will respond. When we evaluate the workload distribution/hours, we are looking at the combined time spent by all units for all responses. So if five units spend 20 minutes on a call, the total workload is 100 minutes for that call. If a single unit responds to a call and it spends 20 minutes on that call, it will account for 20 minutes of workload. This measure of workload hours incorporates all time associated with the call, from the time a response unit is alerted to the time the assignment is completed. In workload distribution, the District saw higher numbers than the City, even though the call distribution was higher in the City and the run distribution was nearly the same. CPSM attributes this to the longer response times associated with each response in the District and the higher number of actual fires and MVAs, which typically have longer call durations than EMS calls. Overall, however, the distribution of resources and workload is very equitable between the City and District and the current practice of combining resources in serving both jurisdictions is the most cost-effective approach. CAL FIRE units operating in the Morgan Hill and SSCCFD service areas frequently interact with neighboring agencies on mutual aid assignments. Agencies want to ensure that the frequency in which resources are given is comparable to the frequency in which resources are received. CAL FIRE has automatic response agreements primarily with the cities of San Jose, Hollister, and Gilroy. In addition, there is interaction between Pajaro Valley and the Pacheco station. CPSM estimates that mutual aid was given a total 443 times in 2015. During this same timeframe CAL FIRE units received mutual aid a total of 258 times. The mutual aid and automatic response

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