COVERING CY-FAIR The Cy-Fair area is primarily covered by the Cy-Fair, Cypress Creek and Jersey Village re departments, all of which have seen uctuations in their sta ng numbers since 2019.
agency surrounding us for mutual aid.” Mutual aid calls are common for the CCFD as well, due to its location and the dispatch center. According to Lie- der, his team responds to calls in con- junction with departments from Klein, Ponderosa and Spring Northwest. Despite some sta ng challenges, response times for the CCFD improved from 2020 to 2021 going from 6 min- utes, 23 seconds to 6 minutes, 14 sec- onds. JVFD’s response time was down to 5 minutes, 53 seconds in 2021 but has jumped up to 6 minutes, 50 sec- onds in 2022. Tommy Balez served as president of Emergency Services District No. 9— the taxing entity for the CFFD—for the past four years until he was unseated in the May 7 election. He said response times “used to be a problem, but I don’t think it’s a problem anymore.” “I think our bigger issue in the lon- ger term is just going to be the loca- tions of our stations as well as the number of stations we have,” Balez said. “We’ve purchased a software that will take all of our dispatch infor- mation and then use arti cial intelli- gence to tell us the ideal or optimal position [for our next re station] based on our dispatching.” The CFFD was unable to provide response time data by press time. Volunteering gaps The CFFD has hired new full-time re ghters and EMS sta since tran- sitioning from reliance on volunteers. According to Balez, this was largely due to a steep drop in the number of people volunteering from 283 volun- teers in 2019 to 135. “So the mix has changed [since 2019], and we knew that when we did the transition,” Balez said. The JVFD has 15 people helping to operate the re department, com- pared to the department’s peak sta - ing of 41 volunteers in 2014. Bitz said the department is ooding job sites to boost its numbers, but he said his re- ghters need to have a broader skillset. “I think it’s more di cult for us because our sta has to do both [ re- ghting and EMS services],” Bitz said. “Many re ghters don’t want to get on an ambulance, and unfortunately for them, that’s what this business is about—80% of what we do is medical.” Despite the idea that some re ght- ers do not want to do medical tasks, career re ghters are required to take courses on EMS skills and attain cer- ti cations to perform basic medical tasks. The step above this is para- medic skills, which, according to Bitz,
CONTINUED FROM 1
certi ed re ghters and EMTs right now,” CCFD Fire Chief Richard Lie- der said. “It’s quite a competitive hiring market.” Cy-Fair Fire Chief Amy Ramon said while the department has had no problem lling full-time positions, the recruitment of volunteers has been an issue due to the time commitment. “It’s a lot to ask of somebody to give seven to nine months of their life, tak- ing an EMS class and learning how to be a re ghter,” she said. “It’s every week- end, and so there’s not a lot of people that want to just give up their life for that long to do something like that.” However, smaller departments, such as the Jersey Village Fire Depart- ment, still rely solely on volunteers. JVFD Fire Chief Mark Bitz said the onset of the pandemic had aging vol- unteers and volunteers with young families warier about responding to calls and risking exposure to the virus. “When COVID[-19] started is when we really started seeing our [sta - ing] problems back in March 2020,” Bitz said. Low sta ng, high response times When the CFFD transitioned from a volunteer re department in 2019, Ramon said the ability to enroll in the state’s pension system and o er- ing competitive salaries and bene ts allowed the department to attract more personnel. “We wanted to be in the top percent so that we can give them a quality of life. If they’re happy, then in turn, they make the community happy,” she said. “A miserable employee is going to have poor customer service, and we can’t have that.” While the CFFD has been able to expand its services in recent years, smaller departments receive assis- tance from other departments to ade- quately respond to emergencies. O cials with the CCFD and JVFD said their departments can hold their minimum sta ng levels but need more sta to comfortably respond to multiple emergency calls. As of May, the JVFD has 15 re ghters while the CCFD has 129 and the CFFD has 309. “The problem that many depart- ments our size see is when two calls come at the same time,” Bitz said. “So you might have a call that’s within a couple of minutes of another call, and when we’re out on one call, … our sta ng levels might not be appropri- ate to be able to handle that second call, which forces us to call another
Jersey Village Fire Department
Cy-Fair Fire Department
Cypress Creek Fire Department
249
290
The Cy-Fair Fire Department covers more than 160 square miles.
1960
99 TOLL
6
529
N
The department has 536 total sta members for 2022, including: CY-FAIR FD 135 volunteers 139 EMS personnel 173 duty crew re ghters.
CFFD has seen a 7.6% decrease between 2020 and 2022 sta ng numbers.
JERSEY VILLAGE FD
38 salaried 58 hourly 29 volunteer re ghters. CYPRESS CREEK FD The department has about 125 crew members.
The department has 15 volunteer re ghters. JVFD has seen a 60.5% decrease from 2020’s sta of 38.
RESPONSES BY DEPARTMENT
The calls for response increased from 2020 to 2021 as the three re departments serving Cy-Fair faced sta ng challenges. The JVFD and CCFD saw response times uctuate, with the average being around six minutes over the past three years.
Cy-Fair Fire Department
30,199
2020 2021
+23.97%
37,440
Jersey Village Fire Department
1,281
2020 2021
+18.18%
1,514
Cypress Creek Fire Department
1,802
2020 2021
+30.52%
2,352
Average response times in 2021 Response times not provided.
5 minutes 53 seconds
6 minutes 14 seconds
Cy-Fair Fire Department
Jersey Village Fire Department
Cypress Creek Fire Department
SOURCES: CYPRESS CREEK FIRE DEPARTMENT, JERSEY VILLAGE FIRE DEPARTMENT, CY FAIR FIRE DEPARTMENT COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER
28
COMMUNITY IMPACT NEWSPAPER • COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM
Powered by FlippingBook