Yearly Report: Busiest Year Ever in Fire Department

The 2012 report for the West Bloomfield Fire Department was approved at Monday's board of trustees meeting. This report contains narrative explanations of highlights within the department as well as charts of raw data explaining how the department spent the year. 

The 15,136 annual responses marked a 1.74 percent increase over 2011's total, which is a record for the third consecutive year. The previous record of 14,877 from last year had grown from 14,134 in 2010.

In an October 2011 story on Patch, Fire Chief Jay Wiseman asserted that the growth to that point largely stems from West Bloomfield's senior living centers.

"We have, every single day, an automatic fire alarm tripped in one of our senior complexes, and people will say those are false alarms — but they’re not. They’re usually a small incident which could’ve turned into a fire, but the staff are quick to respond," Wiseman said then.

Resources are a concern in new year

Fire Station No. 2 (on Maple Road, east of Halsted Road) remained the busiest of the six stations during the recent quarterly period, accounting for 4,686 responses

Wiseman added that myriad factors, from increased responses to decreased available staff due to injury, could be cause for change at the administrative level as well as in the fire department's contract.

Wiseman explained that in particular due to a large amount of medical leaves within the department, he would be working throughout the year to study alternatives to current staffing and distribution models.

"It is clear that this pathway is unsustainable and that changes and adjustments need to be made," Wiseman wrote. "I firmly believe that there is no one solution for this issue."

To read the report, download it at www.wbtwp.com (PDF).