Your Wichita firefighters are responsible for protecting the largest city in Kansas, your personal safety and your property. They respond not only to home and business structure fires, but many other emergencies as well, including brush fires, car fires, medical emergencies, personal injuries and vehicle accidents. Many times, firefighters are the first responders on the scene of an emergency.

Increasingly, your firefighters’ ability to protect your safety and property is being compromised due to a lack of funding. Based on current recommended levels suggested by the International City/County Management Association (ICMA), the Wichita Fire Department budget falls short by 9.8 million dollars. This budget shortfall is resulting in serious public safety concerns:

• Firefighter staffing is not up to adequate levels for a city of Wichita’s size. To meet recommended staffing, the Wichita Fire Department would need to hire 160 more firefighters.
  • Wichita currently employs 412 firefighters, responding to 41,827 alarms annually over 164.2 square miles. By comparison, 676 firefighters cover 180 square miles in Omaha, Nebraska, and respond to 38,000 alarms a year. In Kansas City, Kansas, with 127 square miles, 453 firefighters handle 24,619 annual alarms.
• Response time is critical for saving lives. Ideally, first responders should be on the scene in 4 minutes or less for the best chance at providing help. As Wichita grows in size and population, and due to a lack of fire department staff and stations have created a situation in which sub 4-minute response times are often not possible in many parts of the city.
• In Wichita, 19 fire stations serve a territory of 164.2 square miles. There are only two fire stations west of the “big ditch,” leaving many areas of rapidly growing West Wichita with inadequate response time coverage.
• In the event of a major fire, emergency or other disaster response situation that could require all units to respond — say at a large hotel, sports or entertainment venue, school or business — coverage for other response calls could be non-existent or severely delayed. So even if you live close to a fire station, will your local fire crew be there to help if needed?
• Even a single house fire can deplete the resources of three or more fire stations, impacting response time for other emergencies.

In the past 30 years, as Wichita has grown in size and population, the number of calls/alarms requiring fire department response has increased nearly five times. Meanwhile, inadequate funding has led to fewer firefighters, firefighting resources and much larger burdens in emergency responsibilities:

Source: Wichita City budgets; 2006 National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) report