Determining New Fire Station Location, Response Time Coverage Area Approach

Abstract

An early and aggressive primary effort has a vital importance in a fire, rescue and medical emergency. Response time is the most critical component of a fire and an emergency case which includes alarm answering time, alarm processing time, turnout time, travel time and initiating action time. Travel time which is an important component of the response time is affected by various uncontrolled factors; such as traffic volume, road conditions, driver behaviours, time of day, weather and the location of the incident. Strategic location of fire stations is essential to ensure a minimal travel time and timely response to emergency calls. In this study, response time and in particular travel time criteria were determined according to the previous studies, then existing sites of fire stations in the study area were evaluated according to the previous fire and rescue cases using service area analysis. In addition, necessity of new fire and rescue stations and relocations of existing stations were investigated using k-means clustering algorithm and service area analysis.