From the Publishers Desk
Results of Survey on Buying Apparatus and Equipment
One of the responsibilities that all publishers share is the need to keep abreast of current practices in their field and pass along this information to their readers. This is particularly true in the profession of fire fighting. One of the reasons that advances in the state of the art are constantly being made is that there is an unselfish sharing of information by fire officers—including both statistics and techniques.
In the March issue of Fire Engineering, we carried a research questionnaire on apparatus buying practices. ‘Thanks to your responses, we now have the results of that study.
In these days of tight budgets, it is natural that fire officers anxious to take the most effective approach to expense matters would like to compare their procedures and budgets with like-size departments. The following data should help you make that comparison:
Departments Serving Less More
Than Than
2500 2500
People People
No. of fire officers 8.4 6
involved in apparatus selection & purchase
Average 1981 apparatus & $9,914 $148,875
equipment budget
Average apparatus only $7,786 $114,236
budget in 1982
- In fire departments responding to the survey, an average of 6.5 officials participate in buying decisions.
- The chief is involved almost all the time, but particularly in the smaller departments.
- The average equipment and apparatus budget for departments that serve more than 2500 people is 15 times larger than the budgets for departments serving less than 2500 people.
So that we can continue to bring you the kind of data we are carrying, the second operations research study is in this issue. Due to the increased emphasis in recent years on fire departments supplying emergency medical service, the subject of this survey is ambulance practice by size of department. Because the value of the findings is related to your response, I urge you to take a few minutes right now and fill out and return the form on page 61 of this issue.
