Greenback Volunteer Fire Departm

Citing volatile fuel prices, shrinking personnel numbers and illness, Greenback Volunteer Firefighters will stop taking in-home medical calls in Blount County on Saturday, April 15.

A subscription-based department, GVFD currently answers such calls in Blount and Loudon counties, between which Greenback is divided.

In an April 6 letter to Blount County American Medical Response, which also handles emergency medical calls in Greenback, Fire Chief Ronnie Lett wrote that the department’s medical service would stop April 15, 2024. During a phone interview Wednesday, April 12, Lett told The Daily Times that the year noted on the letter was a typo and confirmed the service will end Saturday.

The letter obtained by The Daily Times says that the fire department “will not answer medical calls in Blount County.” Lett said Wednesday that the fire service will keep answering calls for wrecks, fires, and other emergencies, but will stop offering medical services at people’s homes. Such calls often consist of helping people who have fallen, Lett said.

“The calls usually aren’t medically serious,” he commented.

GVFD will continue taking medical calls in the Loudon County part of Greenback.

Lett estimated that GVFD responds to around 500 requests for in-home medical assistance in Greenback per year. In contrast, Greenback residents typically report about 100 fires in a year, he said.

The disparity in call types is also clear nationally. A 2020 report from the U.S. Fire Administration, a federal agency that works on issues concerning fire services and research, states that 4% of all calls firefighters answered were “fire-related.” The agency also reports that 55% of all runs took firefighters to a person’s home.

Response speed, responders

Lett told The Daily Times that he’d been considering making the shift for about six months. He noted that Blount AMR serves the Blount County part of Greenback, in addition to GVFD. AMR personnel often arrive at scenes of medical calls well ahead of the fire department, he said.

Spokesperson for Blount AMR Mike Cohen emailed The Daily Times a statement Thursday that reads in part, “Our contract is with Blount County, so we respond to any emergency call anywhere in Blount County as quickly as we possibly can ... we are comfortable everyone in Blount County continues to receive quality care … and receive it quickly.”

AMR also trains Blount County Sheriff’s deputies in emergency medical response. BCSO spokesperson Marian O’Briant told The Daily Times Wednesday that 62 deputies who qualified as emergency medical responders are dispersed throughout the county on each patrol shift. That addition to the number of trained EMRs covering the parts of Greenback that belong to Blount County contributed to Lett’s decision, he said.

With Blount County Sheriff’s deputies also receiving first responder training, “it just doesn’t make sense to continue,” he commented.

Costs

The department’s budget was also a major factor in the decision to stop in-home medical service, Lett said.

Tax filings for the 2021 fiscal year show that GVFD’s revenue was $229,169. Its reported expenses were $236,480, putting the department over $7,000 in the red. The previous year, the department had a positive net income of over $30,000. Its income in 2019 was also positive, at $18,251.

The department’s funds come mostly from its subscribers. The yearly subscription rate is $120 for one home, $200 for two homes and $300 for three, according to information published on GVFD’s site.

Those rates won’t change when the medical call shift goes into effect Saturday, as Lett said that GVFD only charges for fire response.

Blount County also supplies the volunteer fire departments in the county with some funding. GVFD received a $23,250 yearly contribution for 2023, in addition to $33,361 for EMS supplies from the Blount EMS board.

But the fuel cost increases that have hit the department’s budget have gotten too much to bear, Lett said. GVFD’s total fuel budget is about $20,000; Blount County calls typically amount to between $8,000 and $9,000 per year in fuel costs.

The department’s 26 trucks run on diesel.

“The expense of fuel is just tearing our budget up,” he said.

Data from AAA — The Auto Club Group shows that the average price of diesel fuel in Tennessee was $3.95 Wednesday. The average prices of gas — unleaded and diesel taken together — in Loudon and Blount counties were $3.25 and $3.28, respectively.

Lett noted that the price of diesel has fluctuated recently. Its average cost in Tennessee was $4.91 per gallon April 12 of 2022. Though that cost has lessened somewhat, he said, “I’ve tried to make ends meet, but I just can’t make them meet.”

COVID

Costs and the availability of other first responders are two parts of the issue, for Lett. Personnel shortages are another. The April 6 letter references difficulties stemming from COVID-19 and from retirements. Lett told The Daily Times, “Every member of my medical staff has gotten COVID at least once.”

GVFD has 25 medically-qualified personnel of 55 total volunteers.

He noted that he’d been hospitalized for a week in an intensive care unit the first time he’d contracted the virus. He’s had COVID since then, he said, and illnesses have chipped away at the number of available volunteers.

Staffing issues are common problems for volunteer fire departments, and EMR qualifications are often a priority. Departments across Blount County, volunteer and career-based, have also noted the difficulty of retaining staff and ensuring that departments have a sufficient number of EMR-qualified personnel.

That leaves them to either step up training and recruitment efforts, or, in some situations, to cut services.