Firefighting capability falls perilously behind valley’s growth

Monday, July 31, 2000 | 11:23 a.m.

Reporter Lee Scrivner contributed to this story.

Funded stations

While stations are planned throughout the Las Vegas Valley, these stations have funding pledged for them:

Sahara Avenue and Hollywood Boulevard

Mountain Vista Street and Vegas Valley Drive

Spencer Street and Silver Hawk Avenue

Sahara Avenue and Town Center Drive

Patrick Lane and Durango Drive

Southern Highlands community (cross streets not yet identified)

Martin Luther King Boulevard and Charleston Boulevard

Buffalo Drive north of Summerlin Parkway

Alexander Road and Fort Apache Road

Summerlin Village 26 (cross streets not yet identified)

Smoke Ranch Road and Torrey Pines Drive

Pecos Road and Maryland Parkway in the Seven Hills area

Fire departments throughout the Las Vegas Valley are in a race with growth and they frequently lag behind.

Response times -- the critical factor, firefighters say, in saving lives -- are increasing valleywide and the only way to cut those is to put more stations, equipment and people into service.

"It's a major concern of ours," said Ray Ireland, the firefighters' union president for unincorporated Clark County. "The infrastructure is not keeping up with growth.

"The quicker you can get to a call, the safer people will be," he said. "We need more firehouses and more firefighters to handle the rapid pace of growth in the valley."

The cities of Las Vegas and Henderson have property tax increases on the November ballots to pay for more fire stations, equipment and personnel.

In Las Vegas, city residents will be asked to approve a 30-year tax initiative equal to $33.25 for every $100,000 of property value. Tim Szymanski, fire department spokesman, said that the city has nearly doubled in size over the last decade but has maintained the same number of fire stations -- 10 -- with the same number of firefighters and emergency response crews in that time.

"We're trying to play catch up," he said.

The initiative would pay for four more stations. Roy Lawson, the city Fire Department budget analyst, said the tax also would pay for 96 new employees and capital improvements including the addition of rescue services at three stations.

The city's response time averages 7.3 minutes, Szymanski said. The goal is 6 minutes citywide -- about the time it takes for brain damage to occur for a person without oxygen, or for a sudden "flashover," rapid ignition of a structure's contents, to happen.

In Henderson the tax increase would equal $84 for a $100,000 home. Most of the money would go to the police department -- boosting those numbers by more than 200 sworn officers and civilians -- but would also add 30 firefighters.

"This will meet our needs," said Fire Department Chief Joe Hill. "This is anticipating what we will need for the next six years."

The department, which opened its seventh fire station July 10, plans to add another station in December.

As the other departments in the valley have discovered, anticipating growth is one of the hardest parts of planning new stations.

"The growth isn't from the core outward," said Henderson Battalion Chief Gene Belin. "It grows in big leaps. That does have an effect on our response times."

Henderson is shooting for a five-minute response time throughout the city. Belin said the "further west and further south you go," the worse the response time.

No property tax is scheduled for the unincorporated county, but that doesn't mean growth isn't impacting those areas.

"We are continually trying to catch up with this growth," said Larry Dau, fire logistics officer for the county.

The Clark County Commission last year approved a 10-year plan that includes 10 new fire stations. Six are already funded by the county or through agreements with developers.

But Ireland said the county could easily use twice the number of firehouses in the 10-year plan.

The pressure on county departments has garnered national attention. Clark County Fire Department Station 18 was named the nation's busiest fire station, according to an annual survey conducted by Firehouse, a fire and rescue trade magazine.

"This will not translate into added funding but that is not what we are looking for," said Bob Leinbach, the department spokesman. "We want to do the best job we can and this just shows we are doing it.

The station isn't directly affected by growth of the urban area because it mostly serves the casinos and hotels of the Strip and UNLV. The fire department is happy to have the station in a high-volume area. Sometimes the county finds it hard to find similar properties in other fast-growing areas.

Dau said the growth sometimes makes it difficult to even find land for new fire stations -- houses are built over property that could have been used for a new station.

Dau said personnel are also needed for the county's fire and emergency services.

"As funding comes in we'll hire personnel," Dau said. "We don't have any vacant stations, and we're servicing the areas as best we can, but our response times are increasing."

The county goal is six minutes from receiving the call to getting to the emergency. The range now is six to 12 minutes, Dau said.

Dau said county firefighters are battling a problem shared by other valley fire departments -- traffic.

"Obviously, traffic congestion increases our response times," he said.

One important element in the valley's strategy for emergency response is mutual aid. There are times when county units might respond to a problem in Henderson, or vice versa.