Increased traffic on State Road 7 and Royal Palm Beach Boulevard has made it slightly tougher for Palm Beach County Fire Rescue to respond as quickly to emergency calls in the village, according to Battalion Chief Michael Arena.
For fiscal year 2013, the average response time was 6 minutes, Arena told the Village Council last week. That number inched up 5 seconds in 2014.
“Traffic is one of those things we’ve been struggling with,” Arena said, pointing to rush hour, school buses and population growth in the area. “But we’re working on remedies to improve that.”
For instance, Arena said the department is working with the county on technology that can predict when a fire truck or emergency vehicle will reach a certain intersection, ensuring the traffic signal will be green.
Arena said there has been some pilot testing of the technology in south county.
“We’ll try to bring it out here,” he said. “If we can shave 2 seconds off every call, we’ll have a noticeable difference.”
Response time starts the moment someone calls 911 to when Fire Rescue arrives on the scene. The target response time in the village is 6 minutes, Arena said, with the average call handling time 37 seconds.
“When we compare that to the whole county, the village has one of the best response times in Palm Beach County,” Arena said.
Councilman Fred Pinto wondered if the village’s two fire stations are enough. Station 28 is on Royal Palm Beach Boulevard and Station 29 is on Belvedere Road.
“You really have 49 stations,” Arena said, referring to the number of stations throughout the county. “It’s not uncommon for one of the stations in Wellington to be running a call here. We also have stations in The Acreage and they run here when needed. Your coverage is like a web … they’re all running together.”
From Oct. 1, 2013, through Sept. 30, 2014, Fire Rescue responded to 3,713 emergency calls in the village, 100 more than the previous year for the same period.
The majority of the calls — 2,740 — were for medical issues.
As for vehicles and equipment, Fire Rescue received a new district chief command vehicle early last year. Arena said the department hopes to have other vehicles replaced as part of its capital replacement plan.
Fire engines, he said, are typically replaced at the 10-to-12-year mark, while rescue vehicles are switched out after 7 to 10 years.
kthompson@pbpost.com Twitter: @KevinDThompson1
Traffic Growth Challenges Palm Beach County Fire Rescue
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