VIII. EMS Saturation and System Cannibalization

Utica’s fire protection model relies on a dual-role deployment structure in which firefighters also serve as EMS providers. The City staff's fire engines and ambulances from the same finite pool of personnel across all six fire stations. While this model may function under light or moderate demand, under sustained modern EMS volume it produces predictable system failure citywide.

In contemporary urban fire departments, emergency medical responses constitute the majority of total call volume. When EMS demand becomes dominant, a dual-role system does not merely strain fire protection capacity, it consumes it.

Each ambulance response removes a full crew from availability for extended periods. Under ideal conditions, a single EMS transport typically occupies a unit for 30–40 minutes, excluding return travel. Hospital turnaround delays, documentation requirements, and congestion routinely extend that window. When calls overlap, as they frequently do, fire companies become unavailable not because apparatus are lacking, but because personnel are committed elsewhere.

This is not theoretical. It is a daily operational reality.

~ Staffing Structure and Exposure ~

The staffing model compounds this strain. Ambulances are staffed with five firefighter-EMS personnel and one officer, who may be either an EMT-Basic or a Paramedic. There is no mandatory requirement that the officer be a Paramedic or possess a minimum level of supervisory experience in high-acuity EMS environments.

At Station 7 in particular, staffing frequently consists of probationary firefighters or members with fewer than three years of service, paired with newly promoted officers. This occurs in one of the busiest EMS districts in the United States (Responder to Population), within the most centralized response area of the city, while simultaneously responsible for staffing a frontline engine with regional water-supply significance.

This staffing configuration increases clinical, operational, and command-level risk under sustained load.

~ Time-on-Task Reality ~

A standard Utica Fire Department shift operates on a 24-on / 72-off schedule. Under current conditions, shifts routinely average 40 or more incidents, the majority EMS-related.

At a conservative average of 35 minutes per EMS call, 40 EMS responses equate to approximately 23 hours of active service time per shift. While this work is nominally distributed across multiple personnel, in practice calls stack, peak simultaneously, and cluster seasonally. Recovery windows collapse. Crews rotate directly from EMS transport to engine response without meaningful rest.

These same personnel are expected to staff and respond with Engine 7, a critical suppression asset not only for the City of Utica but for Oneida County mutual aid planning.

This creates a structural contradiction. The same limited workforce is simultaneously tasked with sustaining two full-capacity emergency systems.

~ Historical Comparison: 1992 vs. 2022 ~

A 1992 operational study conducted by the MMA Consulting Group identified Rescue 1 (now Rescue 2) as overworked and approaching burnout. At that time:

• Total UFD call volume in 1992 was approximately 3,076 calls annually
• Total department run time was approximately 2,307 hours
• The department operated with 181 firefighters, averaging 31 firefighters per day

By comparison:

• 2022 call volume reached 17,209 calls
• Total run time increased to 12,906 hours and 45 minutes
• Department staffing declined to approximately 124 firefighters, averaging 23 firefighters per day

Ambulance 1 alone logged 7,117 hours and 30 minutes of run time in 2022, exceeding the entire department’s run time in 1992 by more than 4,800 hours.

Even when accounting for Engine 7’s split staffing and shared workload, Station 7 personnel collectively serviced approximately 7,573 hours and 45 minutes of calls. Over three times the workload that prompted concern in the 1992 study.

The system has fundamentally changed. Staffing levels have not kept pace.

Current Volume Trends

• 2025: 17,762 total calls
• 2024: approximately 16,000–17,000 calls
• 2021: 15,756 calls
• EMS accounts for over 75% of total incidents
• Structure fires remained relatively low (e.g., 42 in 2022)

~ January 2026 provides a real-world validation of this system strain. ~

According to the Utica Fire Department’s own published summary, firefighters responded to 1,361 incidents in January alone, averaging 43 calls per day, while also managing 27 reported fires, including 7 working fires and 6 multi-alarm incidents. These operations occurred during winter storms and sub-zero wind chills.

This workload did not occur in isolation from EMS demand. It occurred on top of an already saturated medical response system. The same personnel tasked with sustaining near-continuous EMS coverage were simultaneously required to staff multi-alarm fire responses. The result is not exceptional performance, it is compressed margin.

When a system is operating at this tempo, safety depends not on resilience, but on luck.

UFD Ambulance 1 has been ranked among the busiest fire-based ambulances in the United States, with Station 7 handling over 11,000 calls annually, representing more than 60% of citywide volume.

This concentration of demand leaves Engine 7 functionally unavailable for suppression up to 40–50% of the shift based on average ambulance utilization alone. Burnout is inevitable at this rate. 

~ Structural Conflict with NFPA 1710 ~

NFPA 1710 establishes minimum staffing, response, and deployment benchmarks for career fire departments. Its assumptions are explicit:

Fire companies are available for fire suppression

Engines and trucks respond with minimum on-scene staffing

Core fire-ground functions depend on unit availability

***attack, search, ventilation, RIT, and command***

NFPA 1710 does not contemplate a model in which fire companies are routinely unavailable due to EMS transport obligations. When suppression units are assigned to ambulance duties, the department inevitably falls below national safety benchmarks. Not because of unwillingness or incompetence, but because of structural unavailability.

“This is not an equipment problem.
It is not a training problem.
It is not even primarily a budget problem.

It is a staffing and deployment problem.”

~ Labor, Safety, and Legal Constraints ~

This strain intersects directly with state and federal law:

• New York State Civil Service Law 
  • governs classification and duty scope; sustained role compression increases legal exposure.
• PESH 
  • requires mitigation of recognized hazards, including chronic fatigue and unsafe workloads—even in inherently dangerous professions.
• FLSA 
  • assumes fatigue will be managed through staffing and scheduling safeguards.
• General Municipal Law 
  • places responsibility on municipalities to provide essential services safely and competently.
• NYS Fire and Emergency Regulations (Part 426)
  •  presume staffed, available suppression units.

None of these frameworks assume a fire department whose suppression capacity is routinely hollowed out by medical transport demand.

~ Operational Consequences ~

When EMS saturation consumes fire staffing:

First-due engines are delayed or understrength

Water supply is established late

RIT is incomplete or improvised

Search and ventilation are delayed

Command reallocates fatigued personnel

Mutual aid shifts from contingency to necessity

The system fails before the fire occurs.

~ To State the Obvious ~

Utica’s risk profile has changed. Its population is older. Call volume is higher. Buildings are more complex. Margins for error are thinner.

A deployment model designed decades ago for a different era is now being asked to absorb modern demand without structural adaptation. The result is predictable:

• Fire protection capacity is consumed by medical necessity
• Suppression readiness becomes conditional
• Fatigue compounds
• Injury risk rises
• Safety margins vanish

The question is no longer whether the system is strained. I ask whether the city will acknowledge that one workforce cannot sustain two full-capacity emergency systems simultaneously. I also ask if our politicians will choose to rebuild before the next alarm tests that assumption.

ASSUMPTIONS

• The typical EMS call takes 20 minutes
• The typical detail call takes 25 minutes
• One-third of “regular” calls are for working fires and typically take 80 minutes
• Two-thirds of “regular” calls typically take 30 minutes each
• Therefore, the average call takes about 45 minutes

***Rescue 1’s call volume was a large union issue for the majority of the 90’s. ***

Using 1992 and 2022 run statistics for each company, and 8,760 hours in 365 days, each of the companies is out of service at alarm calls for the following time percentages (to be conservative, each percentage is then doubled):Using 1992 and 2022 run statistics for each company, and 8,760 hours in 365 days, each of the companies is out of service at alarm calls for the following time percentages (to be conservative, each percentage is then doubled): Example: engine 1 - 373 runs x 45 min. = 280 hrs)+8760 = 3% - 6% (estimated to the nearest minute)