Santa Maria Fire Dept. updates assessment report after 20 years
SANTA MARIA, Calif. – Its been twenty years since the Santa Maria Fire department did a study called Risk Assessment report.
The report is to improve services in the community.
But it’s long overdue and the fire department plans change that.
the standards of cover report was last updated in the year 2,000.
“Basically it’s a document that evaluates and assesses our community and the risks our community experiences to what services the fire department provides. So it compares risk to services that we provide,” said Leonard Champion of the Santa Maria Fire Department.
Champion said the study looks at all kinds of risks in the community.
The results of the report will be presented at Tuesday’s City Council meeting in Santa Maria.
“This is a really good thing for the community because it gives our fire department a way to even get better. This is a like blueprint of growth as resources allow,” said spokesperson Mark van de Kamp of the City of Santa Maria.
In the report, there were 14 recommendations made to the fire department.
Champion said the fire department is already in the process of addressing some of the community needs listed in the report.
“The great thing is we’re already working on a number of those recommendations through measure U and through the general fund. So it’s great to see the department in the city already addressing these recommendations,” Champion said.
One of those recommendations is improving response times.
“So with a better alerting system that’s in place and with a better cad system, we should see an improvement in those response times,” Champion said.
The fire department will also be addressing staffing in the fire prevention bureau in order to help the fire marshal with inspections.
“So all of those things are what we’re focusing to improve on,” Champion said.
But perhaps the biggest improvement will be to update the report, not in the next twenty years, but some time much sooner.
“So we’re going to do the recommendations in five more years ,and we’re going to be revisiting this report and updating it along the way,” Champion said.
Champion said the main reason for the twenty-year gap was due to limited resources.
