How Roswell Fire shaved a whole minute off its average response time

ROSWELL - The Roswell Fire Department has made a significant improvement in its response times. On average, the response time for all calls is 5:46 minutes, that’s 1:03 minutes faster than last year.

"Reducing a minute and three seconds from 2022 is a very big deal," said Roswell Deputy Chief Pabel Troche.

Chief Troche says in an emergency, 1:03 is crucial.

"If you want to see how important a minute is during a medical emergency or any emergency, try holding our breath for 30 seconds," said Chief Troche.

Chief Troshe says it’s taken dedicated first responders communicating as a team, battalion chiefs and captains coordinating a rapid response from fire stations throughout the city, and relatively new technology that gets them where they need to be quicker.

The department started using the Automatic Vehicle Location dispatch system, or AVL, last year.

It determines which unit can get to the scene the quickest. It’s not always the closest one. The AVL looks at distance and speed limits, and a number of other variables.

"Two-lane roads, four-lane roads, do you have to make a U-turn, do you go through a residential area with slower speeds? It’s taking all that information and giving us a data driven response," said Chief Troche.

Response times are critical. The quicker they can get to a scene and get to work, the better the outcome.

"Every second counts in what we do and we take that very seriously," said Chief Troche.