How do staffing levels in the Ann Arbor Fire Department compare with other Midwest college towns?
According to the National Fire Protection Association, the average full-time career fire department in the United States has about 1.72 firefighters per 1,000 residents.
Right now, Ann Arbor has 0.78 firefighters per 1,000 residents — a figure that drops to 0.67 with budget cuts being proposed.
AnnArbor.com surveyed a random sample of Midwest college towns to find out their fire department staffing levels. The average among five communities that responded was 1.3 firefighters per 1,000 residents, nearly double the levels being considered in Ann Arbor.
Columbus, Ohio
- Home of Ohio State University
- 1,504 full-time firefighters
- 33 stations
- 212 square miles
- 787,033 population
- 1.9 firefighters per 1,000 residents
Evanston, Ill.
- Home of Northwestern University
- 107 full-time firefighters
- Five stations
- Eight square miles
- 74,486 population
- 1.4 firefighters per 1,000 residents
Bloomington, Ind.
- Home of Indiana University
- 110 full-time firefighters
- Five stations
- 20 square miles
- 80,405, population
- 1.4 firefighters per 1,000 residents
East Lansing, Mich.
- Home of Michigan State University
- 46 full-time firefighters
- Two stations
- 21-plus square miles (coverage area extends beyond city)
- 48,579 population
- 0.95 firefighters per 1,000 residents
Iowa City, Iowa
- Home of the University of Iowa
- 62 full-time firefighters
- Three stations (soon to be four)
- 24 square miles
- 67,862 population
- 0.91 firefighters per 1,000 residents
Ann Arbor, Mich.
- Home of the University of Michigan
- 89 full-time firefighters (proposed to drop to 77)
- Five stations
- 27 square miles
- 113,934 population
- 0.78 firefighters per 1,000 residents (0.67 after cuts)
Ryan J. Stanton covers government and politics for AnnArbor.com. Reach him at ryanstanton@annarbor.com or 734-623-2529. You also can follow him on Twitter or subscribe to AnnArbor.com's e-mail newsletters.
Comments
Gill
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 7:59 p.m.
Could we get the Insurance Service Office (ISO) rating and Public Protection Classification (PPC) for each of the Cities Fire Departments listed above to do a real comparison? Thank you.
deb
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 6:57 p.m.
Just wondering if any of the Universities in the towns above help, have their own fire service department, or do nothing to help the community like the U of M?
Bogie
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 5:11 p.m.
I see a lot of stories on here, about A2 FD. Has anyone thought about "paid on call" firefighters as a solution? Also, why doesn't the city look at another college town for ideas? Say, Kalamazoo? Combine the police and fire? Just wonderin'.
alan
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 3:34 p.m.
Just to clear up an apparent misunderstanding. MSU has its own fire department so the E. Lansing numbers do not include the population of students who live on campus because they are not served by the E. Lansing fire dept.
Concerned
Tue, May 17, 2011 : 1:14 a.m.
Unfortunately this is not a true statement. The MSU campus is covered by the East Lansing Fire Department. ELFD has a station on the MSU campus but is operated soly by ELFD, this is similar to AAFD's station 5. <a href="http://police.msu.edu/cleryreport.asp" rel='nofollow'>http://police.msu.edu/cleryreport.asp</a>
jjc155
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 1:41 p.m.
I thought that MSU has there own fire dept on campus that is seperate from East Lansing FD. Atleast that is how it was when I went to school there in the early '90's.
Richard Tyler
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 1:13 p.m.
Seems to be a very dangerous gamble on the part of the Ann Arbor City government. Gambling with peoples lives and property seems very risky. Maybe UofM with all its revenue sources should (as Gov. Snyder says) pay their fair share.
CynicA2
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 6:39 a.m.
"Municipal governments exist for very simple and singular purposes: 1) Provide police and fire protection, 2) Pave and maintain streets, provide water, sewer, trash, snow removal services, 3) Enhance quality of life through zoning, parks, libraries, golf courses, pools, festivals, and the like. The sets of purposes are in order of importance -- except in Ann Arbor, where the order is reversed." Thank you, Brimble! Couldn't have said it better myself. The only mystery is why voters in A2 keep re-electing the same lame losers who created this problem in the first place. Kind of like bailing out the Wall Street banksters who caused the financial crisis, when we should be hanging them from the lamposts. Hmmmm... now there's an idea!
Concerned
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 4:03 a.m.
The rationale of comparing the number of firefighters per square mile is asinine. If we used this statistic in place of the given statistic of number of firefighters per 1,000 citizens the numbers would not appropriately reflect the problem. If we used firefighters per square mile we would see rural departments that cover hundreds of square miles that would need New York City staffing levels. The call volume comes from population not the size of the coverage area! Now take another look at the statistics given, Ann Arbor is no where near where it needs to be for staffing. We all pay home and auto insurance but rarely do we actually file a claim. This is what police and fire are for us "insurance" and the day you need it you better hope it is there for you!
Tom Wieder
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 7:31 p.m.
Here's an explanation about the East Lansing population figures from Mark Grebner, East Lansing political consultant and long-time Ingham County Commissioner: "The population figure is about right, but if I were considering municipal services, I'd discount it to about 35,000. The Census counted 15,000 people living on the MSU campus itself, which has essentially no fires, very little ordinary crime, and mighty little demand for any kind of municipal services. Not to mention that they're only here 7 months of the year. The MSU student population counts maybe 3000 people who don't live anywhere near here: student teachers, ag extension, non-traditional ages, all-but-dissertation enrollment, and so on. And significant numbers spill over into Meridian, Bath, DeWitt Twps, and the City of Lansing. We have about 20,000 non-students, and roughly 25,000 students - during the school year." -mark grebner
Cash
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 7:59 p.m.
The MSU campus has VERY LITTLE "ordinary" crime?? Hahaha The Party School of America has little ordinary crime. That sounds a lot like the mayor of Ann Arbor explaining the rise in crime rate!! No bias there.
Ben Connor Barrie
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 4:53 p.m.
Why does the list stop at 6? Why not do all the Big 10 schools? We would still have the lowest number of firefighters per capita?
Plubius
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 4:30 p.m.
Meaningless drivel with stats specifically selected to further Ryan's agenda. Why not look at firefighters per square mile?: Columbus, 0.14 Evanston, 0.07 Bloomington, 0.18 East Lansing, 0.45 Iowa City, 0.39 Ann Arbor, 0.30 By this metric, Ann Arbor ranks #4 on the list instead of #6. See how simple it is to use data to make any point you wish?
Stupid Hick
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 5:10 a.m.
I think the numbers Plubius gives might be square miles per firefighter, not firefighters per square mile. But I think it's still valid, and I tried to make a similar point earlier. But I'm just a stupid hick, which is why I hope someone with subject matter expertise and a good grasp of risk management would help the city figure out how many firefighters and stations we need to provide adequate protection, at a level of risk that we can agree we're willing to accept. I sure hope that's the city's approach. I also hope a skilled, professional, journalist like Ryan will see fit to research what is standard in the industry, and report on whether the city's approach is credible, so readers will be better able to make an informed opinion on city government. I hope in-depth local reporting is something annarbor.com will do.
Cash
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 7:56 p.m.
How many building are there per sq mile? How many pre-building code buildings? How many renovated homes to apts? This could go on forever . And it would be a lot more menaingless than Ryan's figures that clearly define firefighters per population. What is Ryan's agenda? He's done articles on this subject quoting admin sources and firefighter sources. It's ridiculous to accuse him of favoring ANYone.
KarenH
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 6:29 p.m.
I wonder how many firefighters per square mile there are in New York City. Talk about a meaningless statistic!
Thinktanker
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 4:10 p.m.
Ahhh...more fuel for the "cut government or raise taxes" debate as a way to "fix what ails our economcy". A good chance to remember that middle class jobs have not stopped being done - they are now being done by people living in foreign countries - thus, Ypsilanti, previous home of many middle class manufacturing jobs - is not only a "food desert' but an "employment desert", as is much of the midwest at this point ( midwest is where manufacturing of products has primarily occurred). The politicians do not want to address this root cause of our current economic nightmare because it is very political, so neither Rick Snyder nor our democratic representatives will go after it. They also are successfully distracting everyone from this root cause by focusing on increasing taxes and reducing government compensation as the key to economic recovery, which then results in massive finger pointing and bickering - all while our global trade policies drastically penalize American made goods and gloriously reward imported goods from China, Mexico, etc, and all as the mass exodus of manufacturing jobs are given to chinese laborers who work for maybe $3.00 a day. Did you know that 90% of what WalMart sells is made in CHINA? Please wake up people and tell your legislatures and governors to STOP THE EXODUS, FIX TRADE POLICIES AND BRING JOBS BACK TO US!!!
DDOT1962
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 1:11 a.m.
You'd probably be surprised to learn the U.S. actually still leads the world in manufacturing output, although China is poised to wrestle that title from us. <a href="http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/af2219cc-7c86-11df-8b74-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1MTPJVMW2" rel='nofollow'>http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/af2219cc-7c86-11df-8b74-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1MTPJVMW2</a>
Stupid Hick
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 3:29 p.m.
I understand Ryan is merely reporting the NFPA's stats, but does anyone know whether the number of firefighters per 1000 residents an industry-accepted metric for measuring fire department staffing needs? It seems to me that population density, and the number, size, and age of buildings in the coverage area, and other factors would be important too. Is the number of residents more important than the size of the area covered? Per square mile covered, even after cuts, Ann Arbor would have 2.9 fire fighters per square mile, which beats 2.6 in Iowa City, and 2.3 in East Lansing, but is behind 5.5 per square mile in Bloomington, 13.4 in Evanston, and 7.1 in Columbus. And neither measurement takes into effect how many buildings there are to protect within each area. Surely there must be a more accurate industry standard way to evaluate risk and calculate the appropriate size of a fire department.
logicnreasoning
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 4:09 p.m.
@stupid Hick I agree the size of the area covered and the location of the firehouses is most important because it relates to response time. Number of buildings and age of buildings is also important IMO. I would also like to know what the industry accepted metric is. I t seems silly to use number of firefighters per 1000 residents when their are so many other things that seem more important (location, number of fire houses, age of buildings, frequency of fires etc.)
Cash
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 3:44 p.m.
What difference does it make how many square miles are there? In fact, I'd bet if you jam a lot of old pre-building code buildings into a compact area, the fires become more worrisome. I would think age of the buildings would play a big part in fire danger.
xmo
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 1:49 p.m.
It's nice that Ann Arbor has the best Fire Fighters "0.78 firefighters per 1,000 residents (0.67 after cuts)" Like everything at Michigan/Ann Arbor it is Top Notch! Keep it up Fire Fighters!
Random Man
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 1:36 p.m.
This is a good start for gving honest numbers to work with. Much better than the finger pointing articles we usually get. Could the article be expanded to include cost per 1,000 residents and average responses as well? Based on this article our fire fighters should get a raise and MSU is lying about it's attendance and should be giving back state funds. :o]
average joe
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 12:53 p.m.
While the stats are useful to compare these college towns,(although Columbus should not have been used because of it's size & population) the study should have gone farther. Because the issue at hand is city costs, the study should also include how much the fire depts cost per full time firefighter to each city. That statistic is perhaps more revelant in this case.
yourdad
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:09 p.m.
It would be helpful to know what response services these fire departments provide too. How do we compare to South Bend, Madison, Athens Ohio? Keep in mind that if the city has it's way with responses, your taxes will remain stagnant and your services (even if you need 911) will diminish, both in staffing types of responses.
63Townie
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 12:37 p.m.
Thanks for more of an "apples to apples" comparison. Let's put this "...when compared to Troy..." arguement to rest.
Basic Bob
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 12:11 p.m.
This makes a good point, but it is hardly a "random" sample. There are hundreds of college towns in the Midwest but you have selected 6 Big Ten universities. With almost 800,000 residents, Columbus does not really meet the definition of a college town.
cmadler
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 9:38 p.m.
Does AnnArbor.com even know what "random sample" means? Here's a hint, it doesn't mean "a handful of cities that bothered to reply quickly."
logicnreasoning
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 12:04 p.m.
Ryan, I think there is something incorrect about your population numbers. I have always thought that the population of Ann Arbor which is 113, 934 INCLUDED the students. Is that true? You have the population of E. Lansing as 48, 579. That can't include the student population because Michigan state has at about 46,000 students enrolled. So do these population numbers include the student population for ALL these cities? We need to be comparing apples to apples. I would venture to guess that some of these cities are not including the students and then have an arbitrarily high ratio of firefighters to residents compared to Ann Arbor that does include the student population. Statistics are funny things in that they can be skewed but such a little fact.
alan
Mon, May 16, 2011 : 3:31 p.m.
I can answer that, I worked at MSU for some time. MSU has it's own fire station that serves the student population. The figures given for E. Lansing are for the city fire dept that serves the city only, not the campus.
YpsiLivin
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 8 p.m.
According to the US Census bureau, college students should be counted in the place where they regularly live/sleep. In the case of college students who live on campus, but are still dependents, the nose count goes to the college town. College students should be counted at their "permanent" address (i.e. their parents' house) only if they regularly live/sleep there. This year's census form attempted to tackle that question (and eliminate double counting) by asking whether the person(s) identified on the form sometimes live somewhere else during the year - with "college housing" being one potential option.
logicnreasoning
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 3:22 p.m.
The inaccuracy could have to do with students who live on or off campus, where on campus students who live in the dorms are not counted in the census and could be counted at their parents address, while off campus students who officially rent are more likely to hand in their own census form. Ann Arbor actually has most of its student population live off campus while MSU has most live on campus. Don't know if this is true but a possibility Regardless I think the population numbers above can't tell us anything factual unless we get the population discrepancy clarified about whether students are included in all those cities. What should be looked at is how many fire stations there are within the square mile area. Since it is extremely rare for two fires to happen at once, the number of fire stations and their locations are much more relevant to the discussion about if the city is staffed appropriately.
lynel
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:51 p.m.
Quite a lot of MSU student housing is actually in the surrounding townships.
Craig Lounsbury
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:18 p.m.
Students are supposed to be counted where they go to school. So how does one explain MSU 46,000 students and East Lansing 48,000 residents?
Craig Lounsbury
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:14 p.m.
you make a good point. The count for students seems to be confusing.
Ryan J. Stanton
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:13 p.m.
I'm using census numbers for 2010. I'm not sure why the census would count students as residents in one town but not in the other.
15crown00
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 12:01 p.m.
Wow that's something to be proud of A2.
A2comments
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 11:33 a.m.
How about U of Illinois and U of Wisconsin?
Cash
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 11:03 a.m.
Ryan, Thank you for legitimate comparions....a "college town" is a different "animal" with century old campus buildings and old houses refit for student housing, etc. That is certainly true here, as well. Before the recently created posters arrive with their usual city administrator's spin, let me say that the lives of the residents should come before anything else. Period. Stop with the union and anti union crappola and begin acting like grown ups.
Cash
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 3:41 p.m.
DDOT, Well, that is for TPTB on both sides to negotiate. The coverage that is expected and necessary should NOT be up for negotiation either in the media or at the table. Negotiate in good faith on both sides is required. The game playing about buckets and other bull needs to stop.
yourdad
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 2:03 p.m.
@DDOT, I completely agree that we should be comparing as many factors as possible. However, you seem to be ignoring the fact that only a few short years ago the departments had substantially more staffing (both admin and frontline). The budget percentages have been shown to read in favor of the admin. They have taken several items out of the general fund reporting which has in fact ballooned the percentages of safety services, even though their numbers have continued to decline. If total compensation packages does get compared, I bet the AA people aren't as far out of line as you would like to think. But please keep in mind cost of living.
DDOT1962
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 1:44 p.m.
Yes, Ryan has given us an eye-opening comparison in this short study, but I think to make it even more legitimate, let's see a comparison of total compensation packages firefighters receive in these cities also, especially the percentage their pay and benefits make of their respective total municipal budgets. The reason this article is being written is because Ann Arbor is struggling with a budget deficit, and administrators are going after the public safety services because that area makes up over half of the general fund expenditures. You may be tired of the "union and anti-union crappola", but I think the reality is sinking in across this state that we've made promises (contracts) to public employees in the past that we're finding impossible to continue honoring today. We have a choice between renegotiating the terms and conditions of those contracts, which takes both parties agreeing to, or we continue to pare the number of public employees covered by those unsustainable promises. And don't get me wrong. I firmly believe all cuts possible to the administrators and department heads should come first, before anyone is laid off, but I still don't think we'd find the savings necessary to avoid cutting into public safety core services too. This is no one's fault, because no one has a crystal ball to see the future. We wanted to be a generous, progressive city that provided services above and beyond, but we've found that the good times often stall, and a re-evaluation has to take place. It's painful, but being human isn't clean. It's messy.
Susan Montgomery
Sun, May 15, 2011 : 10:46 a.m.
Wow, this really puts it in perspective, scary... Thanks, Ryan.