The purchase of a new squad pumper for the Grapevine Fire Department will lead to reorganization efforts first discussed in February.
During the April 7 Grapevine City Council meeting, council members voted 6-1 in favor of purchasing a $325,000 Fouts Bro. squad pumper from Houston-based Metro Fire Apparatus Specialists Inc.
The vehicle, which will be on the chassis of a Ford F-550 crew cab, will be delivered within 90 days, barring any delays, according to city documents.
Grapevine Fire Department Chief Darrell Brown said once it is put in service, the department will move forward with reallocation of personnel and equipment, previously reported from a Feb. 17 meeting.
The details
The deactivation of Engine 1 and the addition of Squad 1 are part of many changes that will unfold at the Grapevine Fire Department.
Brown said the squad will be staffed by a captain and a firefighter-paramedic, and respond to emergency medical services calls.
With the deactivation of Engine 1, a fourth medic will be placed in service, and a dedicated driver for the city’s blocking apparatus, called Scorpion, will be added. Daily staffing will increase from 26 to 27, Brown said.
A new ambulance arrived and is in reserve status, while another ambulance purchased will arrive next spring, Brown said. He said that when the city needs to place a fifth ambulance in service, additional employees will need to be hired. When queried on a timeline, he said two years to three years.
Four ambulances are stationed in Fire Station Nos. 2-5, according to previous reporting.
Brown said the average response time for a Grapevine ambulance is six minutes. He said a recent mutual aid call for an ambulance took 18 minutes.
What’s happened
The initial council meeting had only two people speak out against Brown’s plan for moving personnel and deactivating Engine 1. During this meeting, nine people spoke during the public comment portion of the meeting, most voicing concerns about the impact of the reallocation and the pushback from the Grapevine Professional Firefighters Association.
"This proposal impacts response times, resource availability, firefighter safety and community safety," the Grapevine Professional Firefighters Association said in a statement on its Facebook page.
Brown said the new squad vehicle will be able to respond to EMS and fire calls for service.
The chief said EMS calls comprised 71% of the total calls received by the fire department last year. During the February meeting, he said that the fire department responded to only seven actual fires in FY 2024-25.
In their own words
“[I] truly believe this is the best plan, the best thing we can do for the citizens,” Brown said at the April 7 meeting. “Our commitment to our citizens has not changed. We're still going to show up whenever they call. I believe this is going to improve overall safety for not only our members, but I think it will improve the safety of our system. It's allowing me, as a fire chief, to be fiscally responsible for the citizens and their hard-earned tax money that they give the city. To you all, I believe it will increase our fire department efficiency as we respond.”
What they’re saying
Council member Leon Leal said he had a meeting with Brown, the fire association, Mayor William D. Tate and City Manager Bruno Rumbelow.
“I went away feeling very comfortable that we are going to be a very safe community,” Leal said. “And I went away with even the association saying the same thing. They say, ‘Hey, we're going to take care of this community.’ I think that's what the community needs to hear more than anything.”
On the other side was council member Duff O’Dell, who voiced concern about the proposed changes.
“When we approved that fourth ambulance, there were no caveats to it,” she said. “There was no discussion about strings attached; if we got that, we were going to take the equipment away or do something different. We never talked about that. We just said, ‘Yes, we know we're making a lot of the EMS calls and we need another ambulance.’ I think we all know that, but borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and taking something away. I think you've done a great job coming up with a plan based on what you've been told to do, with it the constraints you have with staffing. But I can't agree with it.”
Quote of note
“I don't like change either, but the world is changing,” Tate said. “We have less and less because we are building safer and fire codes are reducing the amount of fires we have. Ambulance calls are increasing. I can't see that just eliminating one fire truck. ... It's going to affect our ability to fight fires. I mean, if we see we need to add something back, we will. We always do so. People need to have credibility that the council's going to protect them.”
One more thing
Brown said the department should be receiving two new vehicles, a ladder truck and a bucket truck, this summer.
