The New Orleans Fire Department (NOFD) set high standards for itself, but now it appears to be failing those standards. In a report at wwltv.com, the NOFD set a goal of arriving at the scene of a fire within 6-minutes and 20 seconds in 90 percent of fire calls. However, the NOFD met the goal only 79 percent of the time, according to the report.
For its part, a NOFD spokesperson commented that a significant amount of road construction is happening in the city. Much of the roadwork is taking place near the NOFD’s fire houses, said the spokesperson, which slows down response time. The NOFD hopes that new mapping technology will help improve future response times.
In addition to faster response times, the NOFD also set a goal of inspecting over 33,000 commercial buildings. So far, it has inspected just over 2,000 commercial buildings. Another NOFD goal was to only have 75 firefighter injuries. To date, 95 firefighters have suffered injuries on the job. The NOFD spokesperson said the injuries do not represent a lack of manpower, but said the poor conditions of the buildings contribute to the fire-related injuries.
Have you had to make an emergency fire call this year? If so, do you feel the NOFD responded fast enough?
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