Why are American firefighters so slow?

Whenever I see a video about American firefighters, I notice when they arrive on scene, they seem to roll out 3 miles of hoses and then discuss who's going to do what next.

In the Netherlands they make a plan and put on their oxygen mask on the way to the incident. From the moment the fire truck stops, it only takes about 20 seconds for the first water to hit the fire. How is that in your country?

In this video they arrive around 3:10 and manage to start extinguishing only 16 seconds after parking:
[media=https://youtu.be/uwzvvcIRGGo]

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ElwoodBlues · M

According to the table in https://gothamist.com/news/emergency-response-times-unchangedbut-fewer-nyc-firefighters-deployed-due-to-vaccine-protest
NYC firefighter response times average around 4 min. How does that compare with times in the Netherlands?

NerdyPotato ·

@ElwoodBlues that's a little hard to compare because I can only find averages per region. By including rural areas, the averages are of course higher than in a city alone. But in the region with the highest city to rural ratio, the average is 6.6 minutes between the start of the emergency call and arriving on scene.

This includes asking what service is needed, forwarding to the fire brigade intake, assessing the situation, alarming the closest fire station, getting dressed and into the vehicle, and driving to the location of the emergency.

ElwoodBlues · M

@NerdyPotato I agree that comparing firefighter response times is difficult. I looked at a few other US cities, LA & Houston, and they're around 6 minutes. I'm sure rural responses in the US can stretch far longer.

NerdyPotato ·

@ElwoodBlues here the goal is 8 minutes, but in rural areas that's almost never accomplished, mostly because they rely on volunteers. Professional firefighters live at station during a 24 hour shift, but volunteers have different jobs and sleep at home. When they get an alarm, they have to get to the station first.

The absolute maximum that must not be exceeded under any circumstances is 18 minutes, which is pretty scary if you know how quickly a fire can spread. Thankfully I live in city where response times are fairly low. The one time I had to call them for a non-emergency they arrived in about 10 minutes without lights and sirens, so in case of a fire they can probably make it in 6 or so.