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Copyright 1998 by Walter G. Green III
Emergency services are, by nature, equipment and facilities intensive operations. Rescue, fire suppression, and emergency medical care all demand specialized vehicles built to meet the specific needs of the community and the service. Even law enforcement demands specialized vehicles, for example, the Virginia State Police's armored cars, bomb squad trucks and trailers, and the Camarros of the Ohio and Colorado state highway patrols. Vehicles and people mean that you must have stations and maintenance facilities as well, to ensure resources are adequately distributed around a jurisdiction for response and to provide for the upkeep of vehicles. Major fire departments, for example, operate very large and complex shop departments, and the vendors that sold Richmond their new Quints built a maintenance facility in Richmond to make sure service needs were addressed. Even a small rural rescue squad may have an investment of close to $500,000 in its vehicles and building. This means that as you assume a leadership role in an emergency services organization, you also assume responsibility for a large stock of real property and for the planning of the next generation of vehicles and facilities.
At the end of this session each student will be able to:
(1) Apply appropriate factors to the selection of a site for a new emergency services station.
(2) Plan appropriate spaces for inclusion in a new emergency services station.
(3) Identify types of vehicles appropriate for their emergency service and list design characteristics that may be important in their acquisition.
(4) Describe personal equipment that is critical to performing their emergency services duties.
(5) Identify communications requirements for their service.
During this session, read the following material:
(1) Chapter 11: Managment of Physical Resources in Carter and Rausch (2nd edition) MANAGEMENT IN THE FIRE SERVICE, Chapter 7 in the 3rd edition.
Everyone answer three of the following five questions (one E-mail to the Listserver per question, and make sure you include a subject line that identifies which question you are answering). You may answer them in any order you wish. Remember also to read and comment on at least two answers to questions by your fellow students.
(1) If you were in charge and had an unlimited budget would you change where your present emergency services station is located now? Why or why not? Is your current location adequate to meet needs of the current population, and is it easy to access major roadways from its position? If you are not a member of an emergency service look at a local emergency station in your community and evaluate it based on Carter and Rausch's placement criteria.
(2) For your organization (or for a nearby community emergency service) what types of rooms and spaces would you need if you were building a new station? Why?
(3) Your organization is considering purchasing a new vehicle (remember that boats and aircraft are vehicles). If the budget was unlimited, what should that vehicle have in it to maximize your mission effectiveness?
(4) What personal equipment do you use to do your emergency services job? How much does it weigh? Does it restrict your vision or mobility? How much of it is personal protective equipment and how much of it equipment that does work?
(5) On a day-today basis what technologies do you use to communicate administratively in your organization? What methods are used for what functions? How does this change in a major response? Are the day-to-day services adequate for a major event? If not, what needs to be changed.