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HomeMy WebLinkAbout2022-12-07 Fire Commission Minutes HAWAII FIRE COMMISSION REGULAR SESSION MINUTES DECEMBER 7, 2022 WEST HAWAII CIVIC CENTER, BUILDING A, COUNCIL CHAMBERS 74-5044 ANE KEOHOKALOLE HWY., KAILUA-KONA, HI CALL TO ORDER AND ROLL CALL Chair Kosaki called the meeting to order at 9:00 a.m. Present: Gerald Kosaki, Chair Gregory Henkel, Commissioner Shon Magsalin, Commissioner Wesley Mattos, Commissioner Gene Nakashima, Commissioner Carlene Wolf, Commissioner A quorum was present. Absent: Benjamin Agdeppa, Vice Chair Corey Luke, Commissioner Also present: Kazuo Todd, Fire Chief Eric Moller, Deputy Fire Chief Suzanna Tiapula, Deputy Corporation Counsel Charisse Correa, Secretary A moment of silence was observed in remembrance of Commissioner Daniel "Danny" Paleka. Commissioner Magsalin read his obituary. Chair Kosaki stated that he passed away on November 8, 2022, and services will be this Saturday, December 10, 2022. PUBLIC STATEMENTS ON AGENDA ITEMS (None) APPROVAL OF MINUTES • Commissioner Magsalin motioned to approve the regular and executive session minutes of September 22, 2022. Commissioner Henkel seconded, it carried unanimously, and the minutes were approved. FIRE CHIEF'S REPORT Chief Todd Highlighted items from the November Fire Chief's Report. A detailed report is on file. • Highlights: HFD participated in the naming of the Pahoa Community Park in honor of the past Mayor Billy Kenoi. The ceremony was held in the gym he was instrumental in getting built. The Fire Equipment Operator Assessment Center was completed, and they've generated a list in terms of rankings and who's going to get promoted. Currently this year, they're looking at approximately three retirements, so potentially three captain positions will open up, three will get promoted, and the list will hold until approximately June 30, 2023. They have also been working on updating the Standard Operating Procedures. The SOPs will be accessible online for the public to Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes December 7, 2022 Page 2 view eventually. On November 27, 2022, Mauna Loa started to erupt and was contained within the caldera. A lava lake formed at the summit and spilled over to the north and southwest portions of the summit. This initial spillage alarmed the community of a potential flow, but this rapidly gave way to a northeast rift zone eruption. At first light, HFD got the chopper up, got video footage, and streamed it on their Facebook site. Chair Kosaki wanted to know if there were any problems in the Ocean View area with excessive ash or a lot of smoke when Mauna Loa first started erupting. Chief Todd stated no, he was working for the first ten hours, 40 minutes after the lava started erupting, he was at the EOC and it wasn't an issue. There have been reports of people who had respiratory irritation from SO2. Chair Kosaki asked if there's been a lot of vog and asked if they have been measuring it. Chief Todd stated yes, there has been vog. Chair Kosaki asked if the Department of Health or Fire Department is monitoring SO2 levels. Chief Todd stated they aren't monitoring in the sense of releasing any numbers or figures at this time, primarily because it's not a residential area. They distributed four of their old units to the Police Department. HFD is in the process of looking to procure more SO2 monitors and about 200 sets of P100 acid gas cartridges. Chief Todd noted that they are trying to get all the video footage taken from the chopper onto their Facebook site as a public service, to share the latest pictures of what's going on. • Budget Report: Chief Todd stated his goal is to being more stats and analytic data, that's useful to see how the department is being run. He referred to a new budget data graph, which shows statistics for the percentage of the year completed, expended FYTD, and projected EOFY. Chair Kosaki asked why the EMS equipment expense is so high. Chief Todd stated that it's all been basically spent and explained their biggest equipment expense is ambulances and it's already been secured, they bought five ambulances. They won't be purchasing any more ambulances for the year, if anything it would be once a year. Commissioner Wolf wanted to know the difference between two line items on the graph; equipment, and operations equipment. Chief Todd explained that OCE is operating capital expenditures and equipment is basically equipment. S&W is salaries and wages. OCE refers to electricity, water, trash pickup, uniforms, smaller pieces of equipment, and refrigerators at the station. Equipment would be large purchases, such as an ambulance, fire truck, etc. Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes December 7, 2022 Page 3 Chief Todd noted that the budget was submitted for the next fiscal year. It was due on October 15, 2022. He also explained that they have been looking at ways to change the limitations to comp time. • Alternative Funding and Grants: Chief Todd stated that most of their grants continue as is. There aren't many updates, with the exception of CBDG, the community development grant. HFD received initial approval to apply for five brush trucks and three ex vehicles, those applications were put together and submitted to the Department of Housing. Another grant they are working on is the USDA Forest Service Grant, he's waiting on the specs for the new brush truck, so it can go out for bid. It primarily focuses on volunteers; volunteer equipment and supplies. • Personnel Report: Chief Todd referenced a change to the report, they added a calendar to show an overview for the calendar year, which shows when FEO tests are scheduled. Secretary Leanne Kapahu will be retiring at the end of the year. An Account Clerk has been promoted to Accountant I. They are looking to fill the third Accountant I position shortly. firefighter recruit class interviews have been completed. They are looking to hire in June or July 2023, when they anticipate having 20 vacant firefighter positions. They created a new position which is a Fire/EMS recruit, the goal of this position is to recruit paramedics. They're in the process of asking the County Council for ten job position numbers. They are also in the process of moving the WSOs to full-time, this is currently still in discussion with the union. • Operations Performance Report: Chief Todd referred to a data chart that covers the key performance indicators in terms of response time, total call volume, where they expect to be by the end of the year, and vacancies. He stated HFD currently has nine or ten vacancies. • Total Calls for Service (Calendar Year): Chief Todd reported that in 2018 there were 25,331 calls for service, in comparison to 26,869 in 2019, 25,015 in 2020, 27,398 in 2021, and this year they are expecting 29,357 for the calendar year 2022, based on estimates. • Response Times (Calendar Year): Chief Todd stated HFD's response times are not doing great, but the first step to improvement is to measure. In the long term, he would like to get dashboards inside every fire station, as they're responding to calls, they can see their shift's response time and see where they stand based on the national average. Sometimes they stage at the station, so the response doesn't technically start because they're waiting for police to get on the scene, they could be sitting there for 20-30 minutes which affects the response time. They're currently trying to figure out whether their accounting of times they use to run the report is drawing good data. Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes December 7, 2022 Page 4 Chair Kosaki asked when the alarm comes in for a police call, if police aren't on the scene and they need to stage, can they acknowledge and say they're responding, but staging? Chief Todd stated they're still exploring how to get the most accurate data. Chair Kosaki asked if he networks with other departments to see how they do it because they must have the same issues. Chief Todd stated he's not sure if a lot of them are tracking it, locally. Honolulu does, but he hasn't had a chance to sit in their stations. They basically had external expertise and figured it out. HFD has been heavily reliant on external IT, up until recently when he got an IT position for the department. • Fire Impacts (Calendar Year): Total acres burned this year is 18,196. November was a slow month, the largest chunk of that was the 17,000-acre fire that occurred at PTA. Chair Kosaki asked if the Hazmat Tech training class is the full class or if retraining is scheduled for two weeks. Chief Todd stated it's the full class, he believes the class was shortened but will check on that. Commissioner Wolf asked if HFD oversees the fire science class at Hilo High School. Chief Todd stated no, they don't oversee the class, however, last year he did a presentation for a class and Chief Moller taught the class for a day this year. They're involved, but the class is run by the teacher at the school. • EMS Report: Chief Todd reported that the went through procurement to pick up a new box truck. This bid came in at $110,417. All personnel in the 51st fire recruit class have successfully completed their state and national registry exams to officially become state-licensed EMTs. The EMS Branch facilitated a clerk III interview and a fire medical specialist III assessment center in the month of November. HFD received new Panasonic Toughbook laptops for patient charting which are currently being programmed. These new laptops will be distributed shortly. • Training Report: Annual Hazardous Materials First Responder of Operations and Hazardous Materials Technician refresher training has been completed by 95% of personnel. The 51 st Recruit Class was called upon to assist with the Pahala Brushfire. Recruits got real-world experience in wildland fire suppression, including fire attack, fuel removal, and pump operations. The International Association of Fire Fighters Fire Ground Survival Program was delivered to the 51 st Recruit Class. Chair Kosaki wanted to know what happened to the old EMS truck. Chief Todd stated they still have it, but it has mechanical issues. When they get the new truck, the old one will possibly be given to training, if they can fix it. • Volunteer Fire Report: Chief Todd explained that John Bertsch's title as "volunteer commander" has been changed back to "assistant chief' due to the ranking structure. They are also looking to potentially create some battalion chief positions Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes December 7, 2022 Page 5 on the volunteer side. Some of them have been volunteers for 20-30 years and have responded to more brush fires than paid personnel. There's a wide disparity on the volunteer side with guys that have almost no experience and have no idea what they're doing out there to guys that have worked 300 fires. It's a problem, which they are trying to tackle and figure out how to provide the training that the volunteers need to be able to be effective and safe in how they integrate with paid personnel. Chief Todd stated they'll create positions that they eventually want to be funded on the volunteer side and then push for that position to get funded. He explained that some fire stations around the island were originally volunteer stations, that were later funded. Chair Kosaki stated to the commission that HFD is the only department in the state that has volunteers, which is a combination department with volunteers. They are also the only department in the state that is fire-based EMS, they run the EMS system with fire. Every other island is separate. Commissioner Magsalin stated that the Laupahoehoe community is getting bigger. She asked if she could invite one of the volunteer captains to talk at one of the North Hilo community meetings. Chief Todd stated it's not a problem, just email him, he'll pass it on to Assistant Chief Bertsch and he can get one of his volunteers in that area to attend a meeting. • Fire Prevention Report: Chief Todd reported that the average plan review time is two hours per plan and the average calendar review time is 14 days. The Fire Prevention Branch investigated 4 structure fires during the month of November. He noted that they have been looking to input reports online, cloud-based, away from the county servers. The 2018 NFPA 1 Fire Code passed the first hearing with the County Council. There are two more hearings scheduled on December 21, 2022, and a final hearing on January 5, 2023. Chair Kosaki asked during special events such as Ho`olaule`a where roads are blocked with tents, etc., they need to submit a permit for the road closure, but when they set up tents, do they need to submit a fire permit. Chief Todd explained that part of the park permit submitted goes over to fire. During the event, personnel inspects the tents. • Auxiliary Services Report: An 89-day temporary hire was offered and accepted by Lene Labrador, who will be helping as a clerk III. Captain Domingo has been working under Auxiliary Services to deal with issues in dispatch. They are looking into bringing temporary firefighter dispatchers into the center because they are short- staffed, currently down to seven. They have gone to both unions, and generally, everyone is on board. They're currently working on the paperwork to get this done. Hawaii Fire Commission Regular Session Minutes December 7, 2022 Page 6 • Hawaii Fire Chief's Association 2022 Conference: Chief Todd stated the HFCA Conference is next week, at the Fairmont Orchid, in Waikoloa. Details of the conference are on the website. Recess was called at 10:22 a.m. The meeting reconvened at 10:38 a.m. Chair Kosaki stated that Ms. Correa sent out the dates for the 2023 meetings. He asked that all commissioners look at the dates, and see if they're able to attend. If they're not available on any dates, bring it up at the next meeting and we'll see if we can make adjustments if necessary. Chief Todd stated that he won't be able to attend the meeting in May, due to the Executive Fire Officer Program. ANNOUNCEMENTS The next meeting is scheduled for January 26, 2023, at 9:00 a.m., in the County Building, Council Chambers, Suite 1401, 25 Aupuni St., Hilo, HI. ADJOURNMENT The meeting adjourned at 10:40 a.m. SUBMITTED BY: CHARISSE CORREA, SECRETARY APPROVED BY: GERALD KOSAKI, CHAIR