QVRs should save money Smaller vehicles are also improving emergency service response times
Walker County Emergency Services placed three Quick Response Vehicles (QVRs) into operation recently. The QVRs are located in three of the fulltime fire stations in Walker County, including LaFayette, Rock Spring and Chickamauga.
The QRVs are already inhouse vehicles that are being repurposed and come at no extra cost to the county.
The QRVs are equipped with mostly the same emergency response equipment seen in the larger fire engines and can respond to any incident, but will be used primarily for medical calls and traffic accidents.
This comes at no extra cost to the county and the QRVs save taxpayers money as the vehicles get twice as much gas mileage as the larger engines, Commissioner Shannon Whitfield said.
It will allow for quicker response times and due to the lighter weight, it will not cause as much wear and tear on the tires, as the larger fire engines tires wear down faster due to the weight and come at a cost of $1,000 each.
According to a press release from the Commissioner’s Office:
“In their first 48 hours in service, firefighters used QRVs to respond to 23 out of 24 service calls. The one call where a Quick Response Vehicle was not used came while a QRV was already dispatched on a medical call. WCES used a QRV to respond to 39 of 44 calls last week.
“The addition of these QRVs comes at no added expense to the taxpayer, and will provide Walker County residents with significant savings. WCES repurposed trucks used to battle brush fires. In addition, the department relocated medical and extrication equipment from fire engines for this new service.
“QRVs are more costeffective to maintain than fire engines, get twice as much gas mileage and will improve response times. They also allow WCES to extend the life span of existing fire engines, since these 35,000+ pound units will now be used to primarily respond to residential and commercial fires.
“Each QRV is staffed with a minimum of two firefighters.”
Walker County Fire Chief Blake Hodge said, “We found that 90 percent of our call volume — annually — we could actually respond to using a Quick Response Vehicle.”
Hodge said Walker County has 460 square miles and with that type of response across the county, there is often 25-30 minute response times using the larger fire engines, thus bringing more cost due to mileage and wear and tear on the vehicles. The QRVs allow for cost-cutting measures and prove safer for firefighters as it is harder to manage a larger fire engine making its way to a call due to the weight of the vehicle as well as breaking distance.
“The capabilities of the QRVs are much like the larger apparatus and pumpers, just on a smaller scale,” Hodge said.