Brooks-Powers asks about resource thinning from nearby communities
Brooks-Powers says when larger incidents occur on the peninsula, resources are pulled from Howard Beach and Springfield Gardens, leaving those communities short. She asks whether staffing is why more personnel cannot be based on the peninsula; Maiano says EMS staffs to average call volume, while Sirocco says FDNY relocates and backfills units during fires.
Thank you for that update.
And then also I've heard from like some of the other houses that when we have, I guess it may be like a three alarm that triggers like more support that's needed on the peninsula.
Like we're pulling from like Howard Beach.
We're pulling from Springfield Gardens, which then is leaving those community without their personnel.
Is it a staffing issue why we don't have just more people located on the peninsula?
Like, how is that determined in terms of how many trucks, how many personnel are based there?
Fire or EMS question?
Well, both can answer, really, because I've heard it from both that we drain, not to say drain, but we use other houses, resources when we have a certain level
happening on the peninsula.
So obviously I'll let Chief Sirocco speak about the fire side, but for EMS, right, we look at the average call volume in the particular area and we staff to try and meet that call volume.
So that's why we have 10 ambulances that's located on the peninsula.
Regarding fire operations, if there's a fire on the peninsula, obviously we'll relocate other units from other areas in there to cover possible other fire in that same area.
And we do backfill those positions from other areas.
Obviously, we're spreading ourselves thinner out, but that's how we do it via the relocation process.