Who has the busiest fire company in the entire United States? Probably somewhere in a major city, and I'm sure that the firefighters who work in that station are pretty proud of that significant statistic. I'd like to make a couple of observations about that fire station that may not be accurate, but I'll try nonetheless.

For example, the reason that company has such a high run load is because the community's fire and emergency medical problem is quite severe. In general, it isn't the kind of place where the average citizen would want to reside. That's especially true if a person didn't want to become injured, suffer a property loss through excessive fire damage or die.

Fire companies that are incredibly busy like that don't tend to be in nice, quiet suburban communities. They tend to be immediately adjacent to rough-and-tumble areas that are incredibly dense and complex. It should come as no surprise that most of the high-activity engine companies throughout the entire country are located in metropolitan fire departments, not suburban ones.

My next observation is that the company probably isn't working a 24-hour shift. It's incredibly difficult to sustain a heavy call workload and remain awake for 24 hours in a row. Busy fire companies need to have shift changes on a periodic basis. In fact, according to accounts of some very busy companies, these shift changes more often take place in the field than in the firehouse.

For the most part, these incredibly busy fire companies are not the place you go to for retirement. Firefighting is a young person's game for the most part. Granted, there are some combat-hardened veterans who don't mind working at firehouses like that, but they're somewhat of an anomaly. More often than not the crews who staff these firehouses are trying to acquire a lot of experience in a short time, and they possess a great deal of emotional and physical stamina.

So who has the slowest firehouse in the country? Hardly anybody brags about that. As a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever seen anybody put out a survey to identify 20 of the slowest fire stations in the country. I have been around firehouses that not only don't roll a wheel for extended periods of time but also don't do much of anything else for extended periods of time. I once visited a department where the fire chief wanted to show off his newest apparatus. When he opened the cab door, a very extensive cobweb, complete with fly carcasses, pulled away from the steering wheel. Chances of that fire company making the Top 10 of anything are pretty remote.

And then there's the dubious middle ground. How busy does a fire company have to be before it can't handle any more? This is not a question that should be taken lightly because it has a great deal to do with the concept of how productive a fire company is and how much it's contributing to the community's fire and life safety. It goes without saying that a productive fire company is one that makes a difference. However, the fact that companies are in the field all of the time responding isn't a good indication of how effective a fire company is at maintaining the quality of life for those that they protect.

Fire company productivity has four components. The first of these is operational readiness. The amount of time it takes for firefighters to become physically fit, to conduct training and to ensure that apparatus are ready to respond isn't a waste of time. Any time spent in ensuring the operational readiness of a fire company is an investment in its capacity to perform under stress. The metrics of operational readiness aren't the same as operational response; operational readiness is evaluated by the personnel hours devoted to specific functions as opposed to riding red iron into the field.

The second component is community readiness, the time, energy and effort devoted to ensure that fire prevention practices are sustained and that the community public education efforts are taking place. The performance metrics of community readiness involve activity such as the elimination of fire hazards and the evaluation of community attitudes toward fire. This area could include but wouldn't be limited to such things as company inspections, pre-fire planning, neighborhood visits and involvement with public-education activities.

The third component is operational response, which is where everybody gets all excited. This is the workload that results in a fire truck responding to a call for service. The performance metrics are relatively simple and yet at the same time incredibly diverse. You have the issue of response time, but even more important is whether you can maintain operational readiness.

It's not necessarily how many times you go out the door that indicates whether you're an effective fire company; it's if you're ready to go out the door on each individual event without conflicts. To put it another way, a fire company that's so busy it can't respond to multiple calls for service in its first-in district may result in a second- or even a third-due company responding. At that point, the whole concept of response time begins to deteriorate quite rapidly. Therefore, operational response capacity is basically limited to the number of first-in events a company can handle within its first-in district without having to relinquish that call to an outside resource.

The last component of station performance makes some people really uptight if you even mention it. I am talking about standby, that period of a shift during which firefighters are not involved in any of the other three components. Quite frankly, this is an area that gets a lot of people who aren't firefighters agitated when it comes to talking about the effectiveness of fire companies. I'm sure you've heard the snide remarks about firefighters sleeping in the firehouse at night, as well as some other choice comments. On one level these remarks may be due to jealously, but we need to take into consideration that this perception has had many negative effects and needs to be refuted at every opportunity.

So what constitutes a productive fire company in a contemporary fire department? Is it one that doesn't do much except go to fires all the time? Is it one that doesn't go to fires at all? Is it one where the firehouse is just another version of an old folks home? Obviously those are extremes that have become clichés. Communities aren't interested in clichés; they're interested in coverage.

I would like to propose that a productive fire company is one in which the time allocated for a 24-hour shift is equitably distributed among these four components and evaluated on an annual basis. This philosophy maintains that a fire company which is operationally ready and working with a community to be prepared can respond effectively and provide 'round-the-clock coverage more economically than any other agency else.

The name of the game is balance. Balancing out the workload in a fire company requires a department to look at each company as a potential contributor to the department's overall capacity in the first three components. The fire department then invests an incremental amount to ensure each company can offer 24-hour coverage in the most cost-effective manner.

When any of these three components falls way out of balance, it's time for a fire department's management and leadership to start looking at mitigation. For example, let's say that you have a fire company that is literally running its wheels off. If one looks at fire statistics and notes that the company exceeds 2,000 alarms a year and the average time on each alarm exceeds one hour, you have a potential for a company to be overloaded with response. If you don't agree, take a look at some of your busiest fire companies. Many of them don't have any involvement in pre-fire planning or company inspection any longer because of the heavy workload associated with response capacity.

In collecting data from surveys of departments all around the country, I've developed a baseline that indicates any time a fire company approaches 1,500 alarms a year with an average on-scene time of 30 to 45 minutes, accompanied with 30 to 35 minutes worth of paperwork upon return, that company is approaching the limits to its capacity to be a balanced fire company.

When you examine engine company or truck company productivity, don't just look at one of these components. Looking at a productive fire company like comparing the statistics of a really good sports team. It isn't always the score at the end of the game that determines who's the best at what they do. In baseball we often look at such vital statistics as hits, runs, strikeouts, runs batted in and errors. In football we often look at first downs, conversions and completions. The same thing can be said for an effective fire company. What really makes a fire company successful is when it significantly contributes to all four components of providing protection to the community.

If you're in a firehouse that's on either extreme, you may have reason for pride or frustration. Now, I'm trying to use the word “pride” in the most positive way possible. Let's face it. Firefighters like to fight fire. Firefighters like to go on calls. Communities, however, could not stand a continuous assault against life and property for an extended period.

What makes a fire department professional is when it takes pride in its ability to deal with the issues without placing all of its emphasis on response. Even those companies on the lower level of response workload have an opportunity to feel pride, which they can measure in their contributions to the people they serve. Getting out of the firehouse and into the community is as much a way of developing a relationship as waiting until 911 is called by someone who has suffered trauma.

If you're the chief of the department that has fire stations which fall into these extremes, you have a managerial challenge to achieve balance. Do everything you can to support your heavily affected companies. Do everything you possibly can to motivate your less productive fire companies. Pride is always to be found in performance.

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A 40-year veteran of 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.