MIN CHARTER 2018-08-10 (2018-2020)

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Hawaii County Charter Commission -2 August 10, 2018 we utilize the terminology of "company," "platoon," "battalions," and "divisions." We basically have five oversights for the whole department. Fire suppression, which actually is about four percent of our total call volume. Emergency medical services, which is the ambulance transport services, which is at about 85 percent of call volume. Search and rescue, which is at about four percent, and that's ocean, rivers and also a mountainous type of search and rescue. Hazardous materials mitigation, which is less than one percent. And then our Ocean Safety Division, which is our protected beaches. We handle all of the Water Safety Officers on the County beaches that have protection. Once again, the command structure of the department really follows a paramilitary chain of command starting from the Fire Chief all the way down to the Firefighter, or on the Ocean Safety Division, the Water Safety Officer. So we have two areas in our department that are career, and also a voluntary division. So in our career response areas, we do have 20 career stations spread out across the island, with 20 pumpers, which is the name for our fire truck. And I'll show you some pictures of those. We have two aerial apparatus, or apparatus that have ladders to reach the high areas of our commercial and hotel structures as well as residential structures; two light rescue vehicles, two hazmat response vehicles; and then we have 18 advanced life support ambulances, six tanker apparatus, eight brush trucks, two helicopters, four rescue boats, four power watercraft which is commonly referred to as a Jet Ski, but Jet Ski is a trademark; 16 four-by-four trucks, seven four-by-four sport utility vehicles, and two maintenance trucks. A lot of them, apparatus and personnel, to provide the services that we provide to the County. Staffing for our department, right now we have about 529 total Fire Department positions. Three hundred eighty-two are strictly County funded positions; 120 are State EMS (Emergency Medical Services) funded positions. So when we receive a grant that's currently at about $17 million to run the emergency medical services operation here on Hawai`i Island. Twenty-seven of our positions are split between State and County funded positions, and those are normally all of our staff positions: our secretaries, the clerks, payroll personnel that have to do both sides. We have 351 in our Operations Division, those are the boots on the ground out there at the stations actually doing the incident mitigation. We have 42 in Support Services Division. So those are the guys that are getting the boots on the ground the equipment, the training and the support that they need. Then we currently have 56 in Ocean Safety across our beaches on Hawai`i Island. Then 16 administrative staff here in our office, which is right upstairs here. Page 22