In the Hiring Performance Report, which personnel should be included in the “Total Staffing Level” field?
This number should include the sum of only career uniformed/operational personnel in the following categories:

• Firefighters, engineers (driver/operators), and fire officers employed at time of application;
• SAFER-funded firefighters;
• Any additional operational personnel hired since the time of application.

Note: Volunteer firefighters, paid-on-call firefighters, and civilian administrative personnel should not be included in this count.

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In the Hiring Performance Report, what is meant by the “staffing discrepancy” comment field?
A staffing discrepancy arises if your “Total Staffing Level” number is different from the sum of the number of firefighters indicated at time of application plus the SAFER-funded firefighters. If this is the case, please provide a brief explanation, e.g., “the total number indicated in the performance report includes 4 command officers who were not counted on the application” or “we hired an additional 3 firefighters since submitting our application.”

Remember that the SAFER grant identifies the staffing and assembly portions of NFPA 1710 and 1720. NFPA 1710, Section 5.2.4.2 calls for the assembly of 14 qualified personnel (15 if an aerial device is used) within an 8-minute response time to 90 percent of structure fires. NFPA 1720, Section 4.3, calls for differing levels of staffing and response time based on the type of demand zone (urban, suburban, rural, and remote) served by the department. Types of information that should be addressed in the performance report include:

• How the firefighters are being used in your department to achieve NFPA compliance improvements, (e.g., 4 th on the engine company; daytime driver Monday – Friday; etc.);
• A comparison of your pre-SAFER and post-SAFER assembly capabilities (e.g., before SAFER we averaged 8 firefighters on a structure fire and now we are averaging 10; our average response time to assemble the full compliment of personnel on the fire ground used to be 12.5 minutes, now it is 9.3 with the SAFER personnel; etc.);
• A brief description NFPA standard compliance improvements you are able to achieve with SAFER staffing (e.g., while our average response time is now 9.3 minutes, we are arriving within 8 minutes to 70 percent of our calls, which is much higher than before we had the SAFER staffing; we can only get 12 personnel on scene within 8 minutes, and have to wait for mutual aid to arrive for the remaining personnel, which usually takes an additional 4 to 5 minutes; our SAFER firefighter is able to respond with the engine right away, so our volunteer personnel can respond directly to the scene and we now get at least 6 firefighters on scene within 14 minutes most of the time; etc.)
• This last point is best addressed at the end of each of the SAFER grant years - a description of any results you are able to see in your department and community as a result of the increased SAFER staffing (e.g., because we are able to get more firefighters on the incident more quickly, we have seen an 10 percent reduction in fire loss; because we now have a full compliment of firefighters deployed, we were able to make two successful rescues during the past year that we might not have been able to make before SAFER; since hiring the SAFER firefighters, we have noted a 27 percent reduction in firefighter injuries).