Broken Arrow City Council
Meeting of: 07-03-2018
Title:
title
Approval of and authorization to execute renewal of agreement for automatic aid in fire protection and first response and mutual aid in fire protection and first response between the City of Tulsa and the City of Broken Arrow
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Background:
In February 2012, the City of Broken Arrow and the City of Tulsa entered into an agreement to provide reciprocal fire department automatic/mutual aid. This agreement defined specific geographical areas within each respective city that would automatically initiate a response from the nearest fire station to citizens in need. This agreement resulted in the Broken Arrow Fire Department (BAFD) responding into the City of Tulsa in areas to the north of Broken Arrow and the Tulsa Fire Department (TFD) responding into the western portions of the City of Broken Arrow.
In 2015, the parties agreed to modify the terms of the agreement through practice. The modifications limited the responses by BAFD into Tulsa to only fire calls and other higher priority emergencies. This reduced the amount of calls and the type of apparatus and equipment that was needed to respond to the City of Tulsa. The Tulsa Fire Department agreed to provide “Backfill Capability” to the City of Broken Arrow. (Backfill results in TFD assigning equipment and staff at a Broken Arrow fire station while Broken Arrow resources were committed to emergency calls.) This agreement has allowed BAFD to provide continued service delivery to our citizens while having a significant amount of our apparatus, equipment, and personnel committed to an ongoing incident(s).
In 2017 the Broken Arrow Fire Department responded to fire and/or medical calls in the City of Tulsa’s automatic aid on average twice per week. These calls were generally of short duration lasting between 10 and 30 minutes. Additionally BAFD does not send units to Tulsa if there are an inadequate number of fire trucks or ambulances to protect our citizens. Conversely, the Tulsa Fire Department sends multiple units for several hours to Broken Arrow when we have no available resources to serve our citizens.
A recent example of this service occurred on December 31, 2017. BAFD responded to a fatality structure fire in freezing conditions and with a limited water supply. The department utilized resources from almost every fire station and also had mutual aid assistance from the Coweta Fire Department. This resulted in significantly diminished coverage throughout Broken Arrow should another fire or medical incident have occurred. As a result, Tulsa Fire Department provided two fire trucks assigned to two separate stations for several hours to provide coverage for our citizens.
This partnership between Tulsa and Broken Arrow provides our respective citizens with adequate fire and emergency medical coverage and fulfills a need that each department cannot currently provide without the other agencies assistance.
This revised agreement will now memorialize the practices agreed upon in 2015.
Lastly, this agreement has a positive impact on the Insurance Services Office Inc., (ISO) rating for both communities. BAFD is currently undergoing an ISO audit and the renewal of this agreement will be beneficial to our citizens and help us maintain or even reduce their annual homeowner’s insurance premiums.
Cost: NA
Funding Source: NA
Requested By: Jeremy K. Moore, Fire Chief
Approved By: Michael L. Spurgeon, City Manager
Attachments: BAFD and TFD Auto and Mutual Aid Agreement
Recommendation:
recommend
Approve and authorize execution of agreement for automatic aid in fire protection and first response and mutual aid in fire protection and first response between the City of Tulsa and the City of Broken Arrow
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