Despite the fact that people have been writing about fire protection for some 300 years, I have yet to run across anyone who has come up with a strong, accurate rule of thumb about how much is too much and how little is too little. However, I've been able to observe that communities with adequately funded fire departments have a better quality of life, as well as a better look and feel, than those with underfunded departments.

From a pragmatic point of view, I believe that most fire departments start off at one point before moving in a direction determined by the community. For example, you might start off with a low population in a very small area, but then your assessed valuation starts to increase and your per capita expenditures rise, taking you in a new direction. This is nothing more than the incremental decision-making process that could and should be part of land-use planning. Unfortunately, many fire departments and land-use planners might as well be living on different planets.

Modern fire protection requires two baselines or benchmarks. First, you need to collect developmental fees on increases in both population and area being protected for the very simple reason that fire trucks and firehouses don't grow on trees. They have to be bought with money that should come from those who benefit from that growth. Second, the ability to sustain a staffing level has to be planned and visualized over a period much longer than the annual budget. Long-range planning in the fire service isn't a widely accepted concept, yet it's essential to the success of any fire department that expects to remain viable.

To individual departments, I offer these simple questions:

• How much area do you protect?
• What is your population?
• What is your assessed valuation?
• What is your per capita fire effort today?

If you're on the low end of the population area and you have adequate funding to do your job, consider yourself lucky. If you find that you have a heck of a lot of responsibility and are barely able to make ends meet, you have my sympathy. In both cases the resolution of this particular issue resides in the hands of those who accept or reject our arguments for modern fire protection. Welcome to the real world of political advocacy.

With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.