Abstract
Fire departments nationwide seek to decrease their turnout times to emergencies. Turnout time is the time from which a dispatcher alerts a fire unit of an emergency to when the unit leaves the fire station. As such, it is an integral component of emergency response time. The National Fire Protection Association has set a 60 second standard for effective turnout. We examine how station design of dormitory location and the time of day of the emergency affect turnout times. Previous research indicates that the location of a station’s dormitory is major component of turnout time. Moving beyond descriptive statistics, we present a causal model and interactive hypothesis. Contrary to previous research, we hypothesize that the effect of station design is conditional upon the time of emergency – that above-the-garage dormitories have longer turnout times during the graveyard shift. We find that station design, per se, does not affect turnout time. We find that the effect of station design on turnout time is conditional upon the time of day of the emergency. Above-the-garage dormitories experience 10.7% longer turnout times, but during the graveyard shift. Across all station designs, the graveyard shift increases turnout times between 50.8% and 58.9%.
About the authors
Dennis Reglen is a retired Fire Lieutenant from the El Paso Fire Department having served 22 years. He holds a masters degree in public administration and a bachelors degree in business administration, both being awarded at the University of Texas El Paso. He continues to work closely in the El Paso community now managing the El Paso 311 center.
Daniel S. Scheller is an Assistant Professor in the Master of Public Administration Program at the University of Texas at El Paso. He received his PhD in Political Science from Florida State University. His research interests are in neighborhood governance, housing policy, and local emergency response. He has recently published articles in the Journal of Urban Affairs, Social Science Quarterly, and Urban Affairs Review.
Acknowledgments:
The authors would like to thank the editors and anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the manuscript. We would also like to thank the El Paso Fire Department and the City of El Paso for providing the opportunity to study the department and for making the data available. Finally, we are grateful to Joanna Martinez for help with copy-editing.
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