City of Morgan Hill Public Safety Master Plan

SECTION 8. DATA ANALYSIS

INTRODUCTION

This data analysis, prepared as a key component of the study of the Morgan Hill Fire Department (MHFD) and South Santa Clara County Fire District (SSCCFD), was conducted by the Center for Public Safety Management, LLC (CPSM). This analysis examines all calls for service between January 1, 2015, and December 31, 2015, as recorded in the computer-aided dispatch (CAD) system and the National Fire Incident Reporting System (NFIRS). This analysis is made up of four sections. The first section focuses on call types and dispatches. The second section explores time spent and workload of individual units. The third section presents an analysis of the busiest hours in the year studied. The fourth, and final, section provides a response time analysis of MHFD and SSCCFD units. During the period covered by this study, both MHFD and SSCCFD stations were staffed and operated under separate contracts with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) and were part of the CAL FIRE Santa Clara Unit. During this time, the two departments operated out of five stations utilizing six engines, five reserve engines, one ladder truck, two water tenders, six utility vehicles, one air support trailer, and various administrative units. While the Pacheco Pass fire station (station 31) is funded half of the year (six months) by SSCCFD and provides coverage to the far eastern portion of SSCCFD’s area all year, it was not treated as a SSCCFD station in this study. Station 31 was, however, included when looking at automatic aid received from other agencies. During the study period, there were 5,508 calls for service, of which 56 percent occurred in the MHFD coverage area and 35 percent occurred in the SSCCFD coverage area. The remaining calls occurred in other departments’ coverage areas. MHFD and SSCCFD responded to 5,250 calls, and an additional 258 calls in the MHFD and SSCCFD coverage areas were handled by other agencies under automatic aid agreements. Overall, 60 percent of calls were EMS calls. The total combined yearly workload (deployed time) for all calls was 5,677 hours, which included 4,345 hours for all MHFD and SSCCFD units and 1,332 hours for units from other agencies. The average response time of the first arriving unit was 6.0 minutes to MHFD calls and 9.3 minutes to SSCCFD calls. The 90th percentile response time was 8.8 minutes to MHFD calls and 14.8 minutes to SSCCFD calls.

METHODOLOGY

In this report we analyze calls and runs. A call is an emergency service request or incident. A run is a dispatch of a unit. Thus, a call might include multiple runs.

We received CAD data and NFIRS data for both departments. We first matched the CAD and NFIRS data. Calls were then categorized based on NFIRS incident type, where possible, and on CAD problem description when no matching NFIRS call was found. For the purposes of this report, only calls outside of both departments’ coverage areas were considered mutual aid calls. This was determined using both the NFIRS mutual aid field and city. Calls to which a neighboring agency responded under automatic aid agreements and no MHFD or SSCCFD non- administrative units responded were categorized as automatic aid received. Calls to which no units responded, such as burn authorizations, were excluded.

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