CINCINNATI — Cincinnati's largest neighborhood is also the one the Cincinnati Fire Department feels it's struggling the most to fully serve, CFD officials told Cincinnati city council members Tuesday morning.
Westwood accounted for roughly 9% of all of Cincinnati fire department's incident runs in 2022, according to a presentation given to council by Interim Fire Chief Steven Breitfelder.
Specifically, Westwood alone had 7,493 incident runs in 2022; CFD went on an estimated 83,167 runs city-wide.
The data became more clear after fire dispatch switched its system. The previous system used to first dispatch a designated fire engine per area, then the closest engine after that if the designated engine was unavailable. Now, the system focuses only on dispatching engines based on geographical proximity to the location of the emergency reported.
That system switch highlighted the disparities in both longer run times and higher demand on fire crews working on Cincinnati's west side, Breitfelder said.
"In doing so, we found that Westwood area, their runs basically just went through the roof to a point where they were not going to be able to sustain that," said Breitfelder. "Within a 24-hour period, they were making anywhere from 25 to 30 runs a day."
By contrast, most other fire houses in Cincinnati did not see a major change in their emergency run data.
But the issue isn't specific to Westwood — it impacts much of Cincinnati's west side, Breitfelder said.
In addition, Western Hills, Roll Hill Village, West Price Hill and East Westwood were all highlighted as neighborhoods where CFD's response times were higher, while at the same time there were higher volumes of calls coming from those neighborhoods.
For much of Cincinnati's west side, the Cincinnati Fire Department has only two fire houses in service, though other townships and agencies in west side neighborhoods are relied upon to help with runs, Breitfelder said.
Still, data shows Cincinnati Fire Department Stations 35 and 24 — in Westwood and in West Price Hill, respectively — have the highest volume of emergency calls and runs daily, Breitfelder told city council.
The fire station in Westwood responded to 6,430 incidents in 2022 — or 7.7% of all of CFD's runs. The Price Hill station responded to 5,149 incidents in 2022 — or 6.2% of the city's runs, according to Breitfelder's presentation.
The median company response during 2022 for all of Cincinnati's 26 firehouses throughout all of the city's 52 neighborhoods came to roughly 2,721 incident runs in all of 2022, Breitfelder said. The average amount totaled among all 26 firehouses came to roughly 2,832 incident runs.
Finding Solutions: What can be done?
To help solve the problem, Cincinnati Fire Department is asking for the ability to build a new firehouse on the west side.
Specifically, CFD highlighted an area near the intersection of Queen City Avenue and Boudinot Avenue where a new firehouse could extend CFD's reach into west side communities while shortening response times.
Breitfelder's presentation estimated that a new firehouse could drop response calls significantly for Stations 35 and 24. With the new station in place, he estimated the Westwood station would drop to 4,756 incident runs in a year and the West Price Hill station would drop to 4,845 incident runs in a year.
"If an additional fire house is not built in this location, the west side of town will continue to have a delay in service-delivery due to the number of incidents in this service area," wrote Breitfelder in his presentation. "Other companies will have to respond into these areas, causing a longer response time."
Previously, a possible solution proposed to CFD would have seen the creation of a temporary firehouse that could help solve response time issues while a more permanent solution was found, but Breitfelder said that's not actually a tenable solution based on CFD's needs for a facility.
Cincinnati council members did not commit to nor vote on any decisions regarding a new firehouse or the data presented by Breitfelder, but some members agreed the data indicates something should be done.
"I agree a temporary fire house is just kicking the can down the road," said Scotty Johnson, Cincinnati Council member. "But we've got to make sure that we're positioning ourselves to make sure we're providing every option for the fire department and the police department."
Johnson said he believes CFD is doing the best it can, but he lamented that chronic staffing issues plaguing both CFD and CPD in recent years have made serving citizens in Cincinnati much tougher.
"We've just got to make sure we're doing everything we can do to keep getting it done with less, and we've got to make sure we're providing them with the proper tools," said Johnson.
Cincinnati council member Liz Keating said while city council was aware of the staffing shortages, increased emergency run times and other issues being faced by first responders in Cincinnati, seeing Breitfelder's presentation helped to drive the issue home.
"We have heard that the west side is overwhelmed with runs and we heard that there are concerns with staffing and response times," said Keating. "Seeing the data that shows that — that verifies that — is extremely concerning, because the city's number one job is to be able to respond in emergencies and we are not doing that job."
Watch Live:
