Giving Compass' Take:
- Kirk McKinzie argues that fire response is infrastructure, and cities need to reimagine how they keep their fire response technology up to date.
- Does your city treat fire response as infrastructure? How is having the infrastructure for preparedness vital to wildfire relief and recovery?
- Ask a custom question to find other nonprofits focused on disaster relief and recovery.
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Captain (Ret.) Kirk McKinzie is a 37-year fire service veteran and president of McKinzie SMART Technologies.
Fire departments are among the most visible services a city provides — and among the least modernized.
City leaders are often surprised to learn how much of fire department operations still run on periodic, paper-based equipment checks. When a pump fails or a tool is under-maintained, the gap isn’t discovered until the moment it’s needed most. This has real consequences for fire departments and the people they protect. A system failure or tool that isn’t ready when needed can determine the difference between a family returning to their home and one that doesn’t.
Across the country, fire departments are also navigating long wait times and rising costs for new apparatus and replacement parts, forcing many to extend the life of aging fleets. The National Fire Protection Association’s most recent estimates found that roughly 49% of all fire department engines and pumpers in the U.S. are at least 15 years old — the age at which the organization recommends engines be moved to reserve status. Aging equipment often translates to higher maintenance costs, more downtime and lower operational reliability. When a vehicle is pulled from the line for unscheduled repairs, staffing must be reshuffled, district coverage adjusted and mutual aid called in — all of which add cost and slow response.
While departments struggle with aging equipment disruptions, the demands on their fleets have intensified. Synthetic furniture and room contents, which are much more common today, burn far more quickly than rooms with natural materials. In one study, a room with natural furnishings took an average of 30 minutes to reach flashover conditions — the moment when all combustible material in a room simultaneously ignites — while synthetic furnishings reached that point in under five. When small flames reach flashover in three to five minutes, every second of response time matters more than it used to.
Read the full article about fire response as infrastructure by Kirk McKinzie at Smart Cities Dive.