Baltimore City Fire Department

[Guest]

[quote name='edburke' post='120811' date='Jun 19 2007, 19:24 ']I've been saying since the mid 80's that EMS has no place in the fire department, and 20 years later, I still believe that. I do not know of anyone that joined the fire department to go on medical runs, and my statement was made out of selfishness when I was dropped from 2nd on a list to 103rd for a fire job because I wasn't an EMT. Now, I look at it from the selfishness of having had the local fire department make multiple runs at taking my job as an EMT away, and forcing those who joined to fight fires into doing more medical runs, as the primary EMS provider, which they most likely don't want to do. In places like Baltimore, where fire and EMS have been run by the same agency since before the publishing of the White Paper, it's not as black and white, but the fact remains that EMS's role continues to increase, while fire call load continues to decrease in those departments that have provided both services historically, which does warrant recognition of the emerging predominant service of the fire department. I'm not sure how the budget line items work in Baltimore, but fire duty generally does not provide billable revenue, but EMS work does. If anyone has the run numbers from last year, did Trucks 1 & 2 do more fire duty or EMS work, and where was the majority of generated revenue that was put back into the city coffers? From fire duty or EMS work? I know we're talking about a tax base here, but if you look at offsetting funds, EMS most likely contributed more cash towards purchasing these rigs than fire duty, so why shouldn't it receive some recognition? The way fire prevention is going, 20 years from now you may just see a name change to the Baltimore City EMS and Fire Department, as it will be the better description of the work done by the members.[/quote]



The fire calls don't generate any monies from billing, but by protecting the city's tax base from burning up, they keep the city's coffers full of tax revenues. The EMS billing monies are a drop in the bucket compared to the loss of tax monies.