BUENA PARK : Fire Chief Fields Questions on Merger

Residents asked the city’s fire chief about 240 questions at a recent public forum on a proposal to merge the city Fire Department with the Orange County Fire Department.

The county proposal offers the city two options, both of which would eliminate one of the city’s four engine companies.

The first option would cost the city $4.7 million a year and would add a fourth firefighter to one of the remaining engine companies at fire station No. 1.

The second option would cost $4.4 million and keep the engine company at its current level of three firefighters.

All 61 members of city Fire Department would keep their jobs and be absorbed into the county Fire Department if a contract is approved.

A decision by the council is tentatively scheduled May 16.

Buena Park Fire Chief Herb R. Jewell responded to some of the top concerns expressed by residents at the April 4 meeting:

Q: There is concern about the eight-minute-or-less response time 80% of the time for paramedic units. Would there be any difference in paramedic response times?

A: No. Both the city Fire Department and the county Fire Department have a desired service level of having a fire company arrive on the scene of any type of local emergency within a five-minute-or-less response time 80% of the time. This responding fire company will be the closest available unit, and not necessarily one that is paramedic-staffed.

In addition, the city Fire Department, county Fire Department and the other 14 city fire departments countywide operate under a standard--established by the Orange County Emergency Medical Services Agency--of having a paramedic-staffed fire company arrive on the scene of a local medical emergency within an eight-minute-or-less response time 80% of the time. In addition, since the county Fire Department would continue to operate two paramedic-staffed fire companies in Buena Park as the city Fire Department does today, the paramedic unit response times citywide by the county Fire Department would remain the same.

Q: Are there any impacts of eliminating one of the city’s engine companies?

A: Under the regionally delivered fire services that the merger would provide, this action would not greatly affect local emergency response capability due to the number and location of the county’s fire companies in the neighboring cities of Cypress, La Palma and Stanton. In fact, the county would provide one more engine company than the city does on most initial responses to residential structure fires and a substantially greater initial response to structure fires at major entertainment-corridor attractions along Beach Boulevard.

Q: Would fire insurance rates increase for residents or business owners if a county contract is approved?

A: Buena Park barely made a Class 2 rating in 1985. The city will remain a Class 2 until the next analysis in early 1995. (The cities the county provides fire protection to are classified as a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 as best and 10 as worst.) But since 1991, the city has reduced its Fire Department staffing by almost 24%, or by 19 positions. If the city Fire Department remains, the next time it is analyzed, it might drop to a classification of 3 due to the reduction in staffing that has occurred.