Browndale Fire Company 
Fire Station 43 
Standard Operating Guideline 

Shift Assignments
S.O.G. 600-10-02
Issued by: Ronald W. Richards, Fire Chief    Ronald W. Richards

Issue date:   July 17, 2010
Effective date: August 1, 2010
   
I. PURPOSE 

To establish a procedure to insure adequate staffing and to best manage human resources. 

II. SCOPE 

This guideline is applicable to all emergency service personnel who respond to emergency incidents. 

III. RESPONSIBILITY 

The fire chief is responsible to insure the safety of all fire department personnel and to insure staffing is available for emergency responses. 

The Assistant Chief and the Deputy Chief are responsible developing strategies for emergent and non-emergent responses. These operations must always be performed with first considering the safety and welfare of fire department personnel. 

Company officers including the Station Captain and the Sergeants are responsible for insure the completion of tactics at emergent and non-emergency activities. 

Firefighters are responsible to adhere to the procedures established within this guideline. 

IV. BACKROUND 

The volunteer fire service now has more demands than ever before on its personnel. As a result often more has to be done with less at the same time insure that our mission is completed.
The shift program provides for several key objectives are met including:

• Insuring that a minimum staffing is available to respond to emergencies. 
• Built in “off duty” time for volunteer members by requiring response only while on a duty shift.
• Non-emergent station duties are completed on a scheduled basis on a rotating basis allowing work a more equal distribution of the workload.
• Personnel will be afforded more individualized training and hands on experiences within the shift.
 

V. PROCEDURES 

1. All suppression personnel will be assigned to a shift. There will be two shifts. Each duty shift will cover a period of 48 hours in length.

2.  An active response member is one who has been assigned PPE and an FD pager. Individuals who are unable or chose not to participate in this program will respond to emergent or non-emergent calls. However, those individuals will remain as active-non-response personnel.

3. Each shift will have a shift commander and alternate shift commander. The shift commander will be responsible to insure adequate staffing on his shift. Each shift will have a minimum of 10 personnel.  Each on-duty shift will maintain a minimum staffing of 6 personnel.  Four (4) of the six (6) personnel on a duty shift will include an officer, chauffeur, and two interior firefighters. 

4. The shift commander will be responsible for insuring appropriate training takes place within his platoon. This training includes: Probationary, chauffer, and other operational training.

5. Members assigned to a shift will maintain their availability to respond by being within reasonable responsible distance to the station or be at the station. On-duty personnel who will be unable to respond while a duty shift will:
• Notify his shift commander of his unavailability for duty.
• Secure a replacement with similar qualifications to cover during the time of unavailability.

6. The on-duty shift  will serve as the primary response crew on any emergent or non-emergent incident.  “Off-duty” personnel at the station may respond as part of the on-duty duty crew if logged into the IAMRESPONDING systems. The on-duty platoon leader may utilize the additional staffing  a situation dictates. However, it is the primary responsibility of the on-duty crew to respond.  Off duty staff on station will allow a “reasonable” amount of time for on-duty personnel to respond to the station prior to responding without the duty crew.  

7On a report of a working fire or clear demand for additional human resources are needed, the shift commander may request additional personnel from the off-duty shift to man the station, respond with additional apparatus or utilize as needed.

8. All personnel will utilize the IAMRESPONING program. The shift commander will utilize this application for scheduling purposes. All personnel will utilize this application for emergency responses.

9. The shift commander will utilize the other features of IAMRESPONDING application to send emails and text messages to request additional staff or any other changes that need to be shared with his platoon or the other platoon. It is imperative that good communication is maintained using all available forms of communication including IAMRESPONDING, text messaging, emails, voicemail, phone calls and face to face communication.

10. Since work schedules vary, the on- duty schedule only pertain to hours when the member is NOT working. The IAMRESPONDING program will be used to show non-work hour availability. 

11. Only the “on-duty shift” will show their status on the IAMRESPONDING program. This will be posted prior to 18:00 hours.

12. The shift commander will be responsible to insure non-emergent station duties such as, equipment and apparatus checks and shift training is completed following the attached schedule. All documentation will be completed as required for all activities.

13. The shift commander will be responsible for annual performance reviews of all personnel in his shift.

14. Requests for change of platoons should be directed to the shift commander who will evaluate the merits of the request.

15. Apparatus checks, portable equipment inspection, general station maintenance and cleaning will be completed by the duty shift on Tuesdays.

16. Both shift will training together on Wednesday evenings, unless otherwise specified. However each shift can training independently on as directed by the shift commander.

17. The SOG will be re-evaluated 90 days from the effective date, (November 1, 2010).

VI. SUPERSEDED GUIDELINE 

This guideline replaces a previous operating guideline, #600-09-01 with similar subject matter.