Image taken by Bella Marello
NORMAL, Ill. – Town officials told the Normal Town Council Monday that relocating a fire station would not slow emergency response times, presenting GIS-based data that sparked an intense and detailed debate among council members over how fire coverage is measured and planned.
On Monday, Feb. 3, a team of town staff, including Director of Innovation and Technology Vasudha Gadhiraju, Fire Chief Mick Humer, administrative analyst Jacob Smith, Assistant City Manager Jenny Keigher and GIS coordinator Sarah Rogers, spoke to the council and the public.
A question the town’s data strives to answer is whether the fire station relocation impacts fire station response times.
Gadhiraju and Keigher said the network analyst model shows the relocation will not impact the four- to six-minute response times the town currently meets.
“What we’re seeing from these numbers is basically that they’re not telling us at this time that there’s a need for an additional station,” Keigher said. “We have the capacity to respond to our calls and we have the capacity to be a responsible mutual aid partner.”
The team used Esri, GIS software for mapping and spatial analytics, to model response times through a service area analysis that measured drive times from point A to point B. Gadhiraju said that they used CAD and ImageTrend Data for modeling validation.
Before the presentation, City Manager Pamela Reece said all the data presented that night had already been shared with the public through the town’s website, emails, public speeches and media interviews. The presentation was intended to organize the information in one place and clear up any misunderstandings.
“We all have the same goal, everyone in this room in terms of providing the highest quality of exceptional service to our residents, but we just wanted to take some time to explain how we get to the conclusions we get to and what’s evaluated to make sure we can provide the service,” Reece said.
Following the meeting was an intense and detailed council discussion on the topic.
Council member Andy Byars said the model maps showed a surprisingly high level of overperformance, with many areas categorized in the four- to six-minute response range frequently recording response times of four minutes or less.
“I don’t see any neighborhoods that are in the four to six minute category that aren’t having overperformance fairly regularly based on the data, so I found that impressive,” Byars said.
Byar also asked a list of questions for the team, including how long the town has been using the four- to six-minute response time as the standard.
Humer said the four- to six-minute response standard was in effect when he joined the fire department in 2007. Reece said the same standard has been in place since 1997, when she negotiated union contracts as chief union negotiator.
Council member Kathleen Lorenz pointed out that she did not believe the model was taking important factors into account, like the influx of incidents we see at places like Rivian, a car manufacturer in Normal.
“I want to point out that this data and your analysis today ignore incidents. It ignores what’s happening more frequently in a given area than in another,” Lorenz said. “It’s just assuming that all aspects of this community are the same, and that’s not a valid assumption. They’re ignoring an element of measuring appropriate response time by not measuring and reflecting the likelihood of incidents happening in one area of town or another.”
Council member Karyn Smith said Lorenz was confusing the model with forecasting.
“My colleague over there was talking about not talking about the number of incidents, and it seems to me, it’s kind of confusing,” Smith said. “A model that is based on actual data and looking at whether or not we’re meeting the standards, with where this new location is, versus forecasting based on changes we are expecting in neighborhoods. We weren’t attempting to forecast the number of calls based on any characteristics of the residents of those areas.”
Lorenz brought a 25-year view plan to the meeting and questioned a statement made under infrastructure and public safety.
“It says in fire response time, that the National accepted standard is six minutes response time, one minute each for alarm, processing and turnout, so that’s one and two plus four minutes of travel time, coming up with a total of six,” Lorenz said. “NFPA strives to accomplish this benchmark on 90% of its calls in 2016. NFPA responded in under six minutes, that bundled amount, 92.3% of the time. In 2016, you were measuring yourself against the standard.”
Humer responded to Lorenz’s statement.
“I don’t think I’ve ever said that we haven’t strived to respond quicker to every call that we respond to. I mean, that’s what we do every day, is try to respond quicker and more effectively,” Humer said.
Council member Rory Roberge asked the team to go back to a presentation slide that said that in 2024, the fire department responded to 61% of calls in four minutes or under.
“I’m just going to say where we are today based on what the slide says. Under four minutes says we’re at 61, so it looks like we’ve taken a step back in the last 10 years,” Roberge said.
The Normal Town Council meets on the first and third Monday of each month. The next meeting is scheduled for Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. on the fourth floor of Normal City Hall.
