Step by step, fire service is improving across Johnston

SMITHFIELD — The group tasked with revamping fire service in Johnston County is checking boxes on its to-do list.

The group, which is now the Johnston County Fire Protection Service District Commission, had four goals, its leader, Cleveland Fire Chief Chris Ellington, told County Commissioners earlier this month.

Goal 1 was to provide a standard funding avenue for Johnston fire departments while supporting a reasonably equal level of service among the many departments.

"And that is completed," Ellington said.

Early on, at the group's urging, commissioners funneled extra dollars to departments that needed manpower or equipment. More recently, commissioners scrapped some two dozen fire service districts in favor of one district supported by one fire tax.

"Through the creation of the fire service district, we created that one funding mechanism to help with equal service," Ellington said. In short, with all fire departments funded by a single, large pot of money, the county can steer dollars where they're needed most to improve service.

Goal 2 was to provide a minimum level of service throughout the county.

"As of July 1, every department inside Johnston County has some form of (paid) staffing," whether part-time or full-time, Ellington said. "That was an accomplishment in itself."

Part of that goal was also for all fire departments to provide medical responder service by January of next year. "That is a feat I never thought in my career I would see in Johnston County," Ellington said. But "as of Sept. 3, all 23 fire departments in Johnston County provide medical responder services."

"If we stopped today, that was an accomplishment," he said.

But the group isn't stopping. It's now working to guarantee that an "effective response force" answers every emergency call.

"An effective response force is how many personnel it takes in a certain amount of time to effectively answer an emergency," Ellington said. "We're working through that through some data collection."

Goal 3 was to implement common practices countywide that would allow standard data collection among all departments. "On Aug. 1, we moved to a new reporting system ... and that's going very well," Ellington said.

Uniformed reporting allows the county to track response times of each department with greater accuracy, he explained in an email last week.

Here are the response times the group wants to capture:

• From dispatch to having an apparatus en route to an emergency.

• Dispatch to first apparatus arriving on scene.

• Dispatch to second apparatus arriving.

"This is all in an effort to provide the fastest assistance to the emergencies," Ellington said. "We are also using this data to track other factors such as manpower, required number of apparatus, and overall quality of services provided."

Goal 4 was to create a budgeting process that allows departments to provide a reasonably equal level of service.

"We have completed strategy one," Ellington said. "All departments receive funding based on the approved tax rate."

Commissioner Patrick Harris applauded the news that all fire departments now provide medical service. "I think there will be so many lives saved as a result of that one step," he said.

"That is a tremendous accomplishment," Harris added. "Because now every single fire department in this county has medical capabilities, and their strategic location throughout the county puts them in close proximity to an event that happens, whether it's a heart attack or it's a motor vehicle accident."