Matter of Life and Death?
Fire Rescue Needs New Station to Properly Respond to Surf-Bal-Bay Calls

“We’re not waiting for problems to come, we’re anticipating problems.”

Example of the newer stations found around Miami-Dade County. Photos courtesy of Miami-Dade Fire Rescue.

By Evan Berkowitz

The Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department is seeking land to put a new Advanced Life Support (ALS) facility in the Bal Harbour-Bay Harbor-Surfside area.

Approximately two months ago Division Chief Pedro Bas, who oversees 29 stations in the northern half of the county, met with the three respective managers for each of these municipalities. In recent months he attended public meetings. His message to officials: His department plans to spend between $1.5 million to $2 million building a three-person ALS base station with a transport-capable unit somewhere in their area.

Bas, a 20-year veteran, said his department is very concerned about its ability to swiftly transport people to the nearest hospital, specifically Mount Sinai Medical Center at 4300 Alton Road in Miami Beach and Aventura Hospital and Medical Center at 20900 Biscayne Blvd. The rescuers strive for a five-minute time frame for hospital delivery. “We're concerned that we're getting over the six-minute range,” Bas told the Bay Harbor Islands Town Council at its Nov. 13 meeting.

Bas said Fire Rescue recently purchased a sophisticated “environmental scanning” computer program that evaluates service issues like future community growth, local traffic patterns, number of calls received, etc., and then projects the situation into the future. “We’re not waiting for problems to come, we’re anticipating problems,” Bas told the SunPost. 

Bas said another issue now affecting speed of service is the chronic overcrowding of hospital emergency rooms. He said it often takes up to a half-hour for the hospitals to find a bed for patients, and then allow the paramedics to turn the individual over. During the waiting period the paramedics are responsible for patient’s care and they are often delayed. Of course, the area’s traffic-clogged roads affect them too. Bas said that in spite of the ALS ambulance vehicles or fire truck’s lights and sirens, Fire Rescue vehicles often have problems moving through heavy traffic. “We can’t fly over it,” he said.

In March last year, the Fire Rescue Department discussed with Bal Harbour officials the idea of adding an ALS facility to a new police-fire station they were planning to build near their new Village Hall. Bas said those plans never came to fruition.

Bas said Surfside officials advised Fire Rescue that the town is considering purchasing land near its Town Hall at 9293 Harding Ave. which could possibly be used for ALS service purposes. Bas considers Surfside an ideal location because that neighborhood offers access to Harding Avenue, the Indian Creek area and roads leading to the mainland.

Surfside also offered to build a temporary/ trailer ALS facility, and to have it up and running in three months time. This, of course, would be contingent on the town locating a site; the Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Department is requesting at least 7,000 square feet. The county would fund the facility’s day-to-day operations. According to Bas, a temporary site would cost approximately $400,000 to set up, and ALS facilities cost about $1.4 million to run annually. This includes costs for drugs, medical equipment, vehicles, fuel and other necessities. Starting pay for paramedics is approximately $40,000 a year.

At the Nov. 13 Bay Harbor Islands Town Council meeting, Bas discussed the possibility of attaching an ALS facility to the first floor of a parking garage the town plans to build across from Bay Harbor Elementary School, located at 1155 93rd St. The new garage is needed because there are plans to expand the school to a K-8 facility very soon. Mayor Peter Lynch noted that an ambulance station is the type of building that people often do not want in their neighborhood. “Everybody wants a jail, but not across from my house,” he quipped.

Surfside, Bal Harbour, Bay Harbor Islands and part of Sunny Isles Beach are currently served by Station 21 at Haulover Beach, located at 10500 Collins Ave. The county also has plans to demolish Station 10 in Sunny Isles, located on 172nd Street just west of Collins Avenue, and replace it with a new station that will house an ALS unit in addition to two fire engines.

Bas said that currently 60-70 percent of all fire trucks are equipped with Advanced Life Support service and equipment; the hope is to increase that number to 100 percent soon. Unfortunately, fire suppression vehicles cannot do the transportation work an ALS rescue vehicle can, Bas said. He also claimed his crews are far more capable than ambulance drivers, who normally do only basic life-support for patients.

According to the county Web site, Miami-Dade has the sixth largest Fire Department in the United States, with an annual budget of more than $399 million. Miami-Dade Fire Rescue is staffed by more than 2,300 employees, of whom nearly 1,900 are uniformed firefighters. Fire and rescue units respond to more than 200,000 calls for assistance annually, approximately 80 percent of which originate as medical rescue calls — probably due to the county’s large elderly population, Bas said. With more than 2,300 employees located at approximately 60 fire rescue stations and several administrative facilities, this department provides service to unincorporated Miami-Dade County and 28 municipalities, including a resident population of more than 1.6 million distributed over approximately 1,900 square miles.

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