In the 4th quarter of FY19, there were 20 fire incidents within city limits. The average response time of these 20 calls was 06:23. 16 (or 80%) calls had response times for the first-arriving unit under 08:30.

Of the four calls over the target of 08:30:

• Two were outdoor equipment/vehicle fires;
• One was a trash fire; and
• One was an electrical pole fire.

The reasons for these four calls exceeding the 08:30 target was because of out of district and highway calls, which can result in longer response times. An out of district call means a unit can respond to an incident outside of that unit's district because the owning unit could be on another call.

A building fire occurred on 9/19/2019 that was caused by lightning during a period of intense rain and street flooding. The fire was on the far west-side of New Territory on New Territory Boulevard; which made access to this incident difficult because of flooding water and stalled vehicles. This fire incident was not included in the emergency response results due to flood conditions hindering the crew's ability to traverse the area

Below is the categorical breakdown of this quarters emergency responses:

Additionally, since 16 out of 20 (or 80%) of the emergency calls had a response time less than the 08:30 target, the measure met its target and is evaluated as green.

Time elapsed between receipt of an Emergency Building Fire Call within corporate city limits by the telecommunications operator to the arrival of the first Sugar Land Fire – EMS (SLF -EMS) unit on scene.

SLF-EMS Unit: A fire apparatus designed to be used under emergency conditions to transport personnel and equipment and support the suppression of fires or mitigation of other hazardous situations.

Emergency Fire Calls: Calls within city limits coded NFIRS Incident Types 100-170, which includes, but is not limited to: structure fire, vehicle fire, natural vegetation fire, and cooking fire. 

Results are reported as the percentage of Emergency Fire Calls responded to within the target time of 08:30 (mm:ss).

80% of all responses to Emergency Fire Calls within 08:30 (mm:ss). This target includes a 01:00 dispatch call processing time and 07:30 response time.

A rapid response to emergency calls helps  save lives, prevent unnecessary property loss, and ensures public safety. 

In October of 2018, City of Sugar Land Fire-EMS, alongside Sugar Land Dispatch, began a new system of call prioritization based upon call acuity. This new call prioritization system was based on a recommendation from the Fire-EMS assessment provided from an independent consulting firm in 2017. This new system means that emergency Fire and EMS units are traveling to low acuity calls without lights and sirens. This system is meant to apply the appropriate level of risk required to respond efficiently and effectively to the incident at hand. Therefore, if a unit is on response to a non-emergency call with lights off, and the call gets upgraded to emergency status, lights will be turned on at that given point in the response. Since more calls are being responded to non-emergency with sirens and lights off, we expect to see a slight increase in response times city-wide. 

The effects of this new call prioritization system will continue to be monitored by the department.