In retrospect, 2001 has been bittersweet for the Department. Many of the projects and goals that were set for the year have been achieved and those that have not are well on their way to completion. The Department’s material losses due to fire have remained fairly constant while the value and number of properties protected have increased substantially.
The Department has not been so fortunate with regard to human life. On the first day of this year, a fire on McLane Street claimed the life of 22 year old Brian Hoban. His roommate, 23 year old Brian Smith, was critically burned and spent almost three months in an intensive care unit at the Pittsburgh Burn Center. His fight back to a full recovery continues and has been nothing less than miraculous. On August 18, 20 year old Thomas Schwinn lost his life in a fire on College Avenue, and four of his roommates were sent to the hospital for various injuries that they sustained. The Fire Department Dive Team responded to two, separate incidences where 18 year old Justin Hayduk and 35 year old Charles Ritharic drowned in the Monongahela River. Their bodies were subsequently retrieved.
The Fire Department Rescue Team also spent four long days, along with members of the Fairfax County Virginia Rescue Team, the Monongalia County Mine Rescue Team, and various other agencies in the successful effort to retrieve the body of 32 year old Ronald Wolf who died in a structural collapse at the Beechurst Power Station. The entire Department, under the leadership of the Emergency Medical Team, has responded to hundreds of medical emergencies where many of those involved in the medical emergencies have lost their lives.
The preceding facts are well documented. What is not so clear or easily proven is the number of lives and property saved by the Morgantown Fire Department. To quantitatively assess the number of lives that would have been lost, or the dollar value of the property that might have been lost if the Morgantown Fire Department had not responded in the timely, professional manner to which the citizens of Morgantown have become accustomed, would be impossible. It is, however, sufficient to say that because of the Department, the citizens, property owners, business owners, and visitors to the City of Morgantown have enjoyed a much safer and higher quality of life.
In conclusion, it is a misnomer to refer to the Morgantown Fire Department as just a Fire Department. This name sometimes implies that the Morgantown Fire Department only responds to fires, and nothing could be farther from the truth. The statistical data provided in this Annual Report outlines the scope of the services provided by the Department and the benefits of those services. With that being said, I offer to you the Morgantown Fire Department 2001 Annual Report.
GENERAL DEPARTMENTAL INFORMATION
The Morgantown Fire Department is comprised of 45 sworn members, 1 civilian secretary, and 1 very special volunteer secretarial assistant. The Department’s responsibilities extend to over 4,965 acres of land and 403 acres of navigable waterway. The City has a population of nearly 30,000 residents, 23,000 WVU students, and a conservatively estimated daily influx of people who provide services or solicit services of over 20,000.
The Fire Department has three stations and administrative offices in the Public Safety Building. The forty-five sworn officers are organized into three crews of 14 men each. There are three daytime staff personnel including the Fire Chief, Fire Marshal, and the Training Coordinator. There is a minimum crew staffing level of ten men. Each crew is comprised of one Captain, two Lieutenants, and eleven-First Class or regular Firefighters.
Within the three stations, there are three frontline Engine Companies, one Truck Company, and one Heavy Rescue Company. The reserve equipment includes two backup Engines, four passenger size vehicles, one mini-pumper, one Hazardous Materials Response Trailer, one Dive Trailer, one Public Education Trailer, one 14ft. jon-boat, one Gator Trail response vehicle, and one 1926 American LaFrance parade piece.
TEAM INFORMATION
In the interest of efficiency and fiscal responsibility, the Department is organized into specialized Teams. All members serve on the Firefighting, Emergency Medical Response, and General Service Teams. All members below the rank of Captain are required to serve on two other specialized teams of their choosing. A brief description and outline of activities for each Team is as follows:
DIVE TEAM
The Dive Team roster includes eight members of the Department who have received specialized training in underwater search and rescue. Their operations are conducted out of a specially designed trailer that houses their equipment and offers a base of operation in the field. This team will take possession of a state of the art dive/rescue boat in the early spring. This boat will be housed in a dock located directly on the Monongahela River. This Team has responded to two drowning incidences in their first year of operation. Both of these calls for service were successful in recovering the victims. As the waterfront continues to develop, this Team will be more valuable with each passing year.
SCBA TEAM
The SCBA Team, or Self-Contained Breathing Apparatus Team, provides the Department with quality breathing air during a response in a toxic environment. This team has developed plans for a total Department upgrade of all the breathing apparatus in order to remain in compliance with the current laws. During this final year of replacement, all of the breathing apparatus will be current and state of the art. This Team is also responsible for maintaining and testing the apparatus to ensure a continued high quality. This three-member team is highly trained and properly certified for this most important of responsibilities.
PUBLIC EDUCATION TEAM
There is no more visible team than the Public Education Team. This Team has recently taken delivery of a trailer to house all of their equipment. They designed and constructed all of the necessary props, wiring, graphics, lettering, stages, and a host of other items specifically designed to educate people ranging in ages from pre-school to adults about the dangers of fire. There is not another unit of this type in the state of WV.
This Team has provided fire safety programs to 3,538 people during this year. They have also provided fire extinguisher training to 187 people and conducted station tours for over 413 people. More recently, this Team has utilized the Government Channel #15 to deliver their messages concerning those services being provided by the Morgantown Fire Department.
In order to accomplish their diverse mission, this Team has taken their messages to over fifteen various locations. They have also participated in numerous parades, provided honor guards for many memorial services, and worked with the Norwood WWII Memorial Committee to provide a lasting tribute for the WWII veterans who served from that area.
HAZARDOUS MATERIALS RESPONSE TEAM
Seventeen members comprise the Hazardous Materials Response Team. Contained within a twenty-four foot response trailer is many thousands of dollars worth of specialized equipment. This team’s technical training allows them to identify, contain, and mitigate most chemical and biological emergencies within their jurisdiction. The Department, along with members of this team, have responded to fifty hazardous material incidences this year with nearly forty of those responses for Anthrax scares.
RESCUE/EMERGENCY MEDICAL TEAM
Although all members of the Department are trained in this area, this team provides them with direction and guidance. With over five hundred responses to rescues and medical emergencies this year, this team maintains an extremely high level of proficiency. The Department’s heavy rescue truck is the most run piece of equipment in the Department. The rescue portfolio for the year includes vehicle extrications, confined space rescues, high-angle rescues, elevated rescues, and a multitude of unclassified responses.
FIRE INVESTIGATION TEAM
The Fire Investigation Team is one of the Department’s more successful teams. Because of their street patrols and citation powers, the street fires that were once a major problem in Morgantown have been substantially reduced. The seven members on this team have a very impressive training portfolio.
These members have used their extensive training to investigate 73 arson fires this year. These arson fires include 64 street fires, 7 structure fires, 1 vehicle fire, and 1 boat fire. These fires resulted in $107,150 worth of property damage. Eleven of these arson fires have been solved.
The Fire Investigation Team, along with the Fire Code Enforcement Team, have issued over forty citations for infractions such as illegal burns, illegal fireworks, overcrowding, locked exits, and tampering with fire equipment. These teams have also issued multiple citations and warning citations for parking in fire lanes, blocking fire access, and blocking fire hydrants.
FIRE CODE ENFORCEMENT TEAM
This four-member team is truly the backbone of what the Fire Department is trying to accomplish, and that is the elimination of fire. Although this goal may never be realized, the Fire Code Enforcement Team strives toward that end with a very aggressive inspection program. In one year, this team performed 749 business inspections with an additional 120 re-inspections. Those inspections revealed 212 violations and to date, there have been 113 corrections made.
Click to see larger chartThis team also conducts routine assembly inspections to ensure that the Life Safety Code is being followed and as a consequence, lives are protected. Because of these 173 assembly inspections, there have been 286 life safety notices issued and 29 citations given. As previously stated in this report, we can never know how many lives have been saved or property protected by these 1,042 inspections, but the life-loss figures and the fire-loss figures indicate that the efforts of this team are paying off in a big way.
Obviously, the Morgantown Fire Department is a winning team comprised of several smaller teams. It is because of the synergistic efforts of these smaller teams that the Morgantown Fire Department has become greater than the sum of its components.
COMPUTER TEAM
In any organization, communication and information dictate its success. One of the major reasons why the Morgantown Fire Department is so successful is because the seven members on the Computer Team have given the Department a state-of-the-art system to compile and disseminate information. On-board computers in the Engines ensure that the on-scene Officers have the required response information at their fingertips. This team has also streamlined the day-to-day operations by linking all of the stations to a server in the Public Safety Building and thereby reducing duplication of effort. What used to be a logistical nightmare of information transfer among the Department’s four locations is now just an email away. Not only has this team received national recognition for their efforts, they have created a system that is the envy of every Fire Department in West Virginia.
TRAINING
Preparation is the key to success and preparation in the fire service equates to training. That is why training is one of the higher priorities for the Morgantown Fire Department. The training program has been divided into three classifications. The first classification is the individual training records. Since January 1, 2001, there has been a total of 13,273 individual training hours logged. This equates to an average of 295 training hours per firefighter, or nearly seven and a half weeks. The second classification is logged as Company training. This type of training involves an entire crew or an entire company and may be conducted during the day or night. Since January 1, 2001, there has been a total of 5,716 company training hours logged. The final category of training is for individual training outside of the Department where specific certifications are given. There has been a total of 1,882 certified training hours logged this year.
Morgantown Fire Department continues to be one of the better educated Departments in the State. Among its members are two with Masters degrees, eight with Bachelor degrees, and eight with Associate degrees. Another two are currently pursuing their Master degrees and two others are pursuing their Bachelor degrees. Still another four are continuing to pursue Associate degrees.
Aside from all the other training and educational programs, the Department has eleven members participating in the mandated Department of Labor Apprenticeship Program. Clearly, the Morgantown Fire Department is a leader with regard to education and training and the payoff is performance. The following response section of this report illustrates what that performance means.
DEPARTMENT RESPONSE INFORMATION
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The extremely diverse nature of the call load clarifies why the title of Fire Department was referred to earlier in this report as a misnomer. The Department’s Mission Statement mandates that it will respond to any and all emergencies without prejudice or judgement regarding the validity of those emergencies. Careful review of the following statistics will reveal that this Department does just that.
Within the one-year time frame of this report, the Morgantown Fire Department has responded 2,711 times to calls for help. These calls for help include 198 actual fire calls, 50 hazardous materials response calls, 519 rescue or emergency medical response calls, 596 false alarms calls, and 1,348 general service calls. The general service calls comprise the highest call load and include emergencies that are as diverse as the people served, however, each of these calls represents an actual emergency for those who made the call.
The preceding figures represent a dollar loss of $530,410 for the year of this report.
SPECIAL PROJECTS
There have been a number of special projects undertaken during the 2001 year. Some of these projects have been completed while others are ongoing. Among the completed projects are the following:
The Department purchased a 16-foot trailer for the Public Education Team. The members planned, designed, and constructed all of the necessary items to make this trailer functional.
The members planned, designed, and built new lockers in the Company Two quarters.
The SCBA Team purchased $30,000 worth of apparatus to complete the revamping of the Self-contained breathing program. This program has been ongoing for the last three years.
Because the fiscal budget runs from July through June, and because the availability of merchandise can vary, and also because of the Department’s busy schedule, many projects have not been completed but are underway. These projects include the following:
A dive trailer for the Dive Team has been on order since July. The Department expects to receive this trailer in the very near future and will begin the process of alterations required to make it operational.
The Department has ordered a one-ton pickup truck. This truck will be used to transport the dive trailer, hazardous materials response trailer, public education trailer, and the boat trailer to various emergency scenes. When this unit arrives, the Department will supervise the installation of the radios, lights, and lettering and will do any other required modifications in order to make the unit operational.
A dive/rescue boat has been ordered and is scheduled to arrive in the early spring. Preparations are underway to provide a docking space on the Monongahela River for this unit.
The plans have been finalized for the Norwood Station addition that will house this newly acquired equipment. The advertising for bids is underway and the bid opening will be in December.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
This year has provided many challenges to the Morgantown Fire Department. The call-load reflects the diversity of the Department’s mission, and the loss figures reflect its ability to meet those challenges. The training figures illustrate that meeting those challenges has not been by chance, but rather through hard work, commitment of purpose, and through the most valuable resource, the fine men and women on the Morgantown Fire Department.
If the year 2001 has taught anything in the emergency services, it is that nothing is predictable. The upcoming 2002 calendar year will undoubtedly provide unique challenges of its own. What is not known is how great those challenges will be or how devastating the results. What is known, and easily predicted, is the response by the Morgantown Fire Department to those challenges. Those responses by the Morgantown firefighters will be as assured and committed as they have been for over 100 years.