Fire Department

Mission Statement

The Hopetopia Fire Department aims to save lives, protect property, provide rescue services, educate citizens, empower volunteers, and promote community safety. Through our state of the art range of equipment, training exercises, emphasis on communication, high standards of excellence, and culture centered around safety and disaster response, we will be able to prevent, diminish, and/or extinguish fires, hazardous spills, and dangerous situations warranting fire department personnel. Additionally, the Hopetopia Fire Department will foster a well-trained, dedicated group of first-responders that excel in bravery, compassion, honor, perseverance, and diligence to help succeed in this mission and serve as role models for our community.

Recent News

Note

10/3/2023 In conjunction with city-wide efforts to improve services, the Fire Department has identified three performance goals that it will begin tracking and reporting publicly. 1. 90% of calls receive first response in under 7.5 mins. w/ at least 4 people. 2. Survey report satisfaction with monthly fire safety events. 3. Improve community satisfaction with all services in biannual community feedback survey.

Note

9/27/2023 Under the long-standing fire chief, morale is generally high, though the number of fires due to faulty wiring has been increasing. The fire chief believes inspection efforts for fire safety are underfunded and should be a priority.

Operations

Who We Are

Table 1 provides a count of the number of FTE staff by position and separately by demographic characteristics of interest to the public.

Table 1: Fire Department Staffing Descriptive Statistics (FTE)

	Inspectors	Investigators	Central office	Firefighters	Station head	Total
White	84	60	129	1589	35	1897
Non-white	15	15	70	397	5	502
Male	75	65	89	1738	30	1997
Female	25	10	109	248	10	402
Non-resident	89	50	99	1242	10	1490
College degree+	94	75	149	1316	40	1674
Total	100	75	198	1987	40	2399

How We’re Doing

Table 2 reports the average performance of stations in each Ward on our new performance indicators for the first half of 2022.

Table 2: Fire Department Performance Indicators by Ward

	NW	SW	NE	SE
Percent of responses w/in 7.5 mins	92	73	53	98
Attendance at monthly fire safety events	15	20	8	12
Community survey rating (5 point scale)	4.3	2.15	1.2	4.6

Current Operations Budget

Table 3 provides an overview of the FY23 budget proposed by the mayor and passed by the city council. The mayor’s proposed budget allocated steady funding to the Department of Emergency Services. Although the Fire Department requested more resources, the mayor and Executive Director of the Department of Emergency Services reduced the Fire Department budget by 500,000. After a month of meeting with fire apparatus technicians, families young children in the community, and residents in rural parts of our service area, we have decided to maintain efforts on maintaining our fleet of fire engines for longevity and our current inspection levels. We have absorbed the cut in our operations budget by scaling back available overtime.

Table 3: Budget Overview

(a) Operations Budget for FY23 (in 1,000s)

Fire	281,537
Operations	181,389
Administrative support	20,235
Support Services	25,296
Prevention and Inspections	24,408
Professional Development	10,254
Management	19,955

(b) Operations Budget for FY23 (in 1,000s)

Fire	281,537
Personnel FT Pay	176,559
Pay - Other	963
Fringe benefits	38,900
Overtime	65,115

FY22 Operations Budget

Table 4 outlines our budget for FY22. Table 4 (a) summarizes the budget by operations and Table 4 (b) summarizes the budget by type of expenditure. Our FY23 budget is currently in development.

Table 4: Budget Overview

(a) Operations Budget for FY22 (in 1,000s)

Fire	282,037
Operations	181,889
Administrative support	20,235
Support Services	25,296
Prevention and Inspections	24,408
Professional Development	10,254
Management	19,955

(b) Operations Budget for FY22 (in 1,000s)

Fire	282,037
Personnel FT Pay	176,559
Pay - Other	963
Fringe benefits	38,900
Overtime	65,615