It can come down to a matter of minutes.
“It can be the difference between life and death” Chief Richard White of the Natick Fire Department told FOX25.
In the Natick , there are four fire stations to serve 32,000 people and the average response time is below the national standard of 6.5 minutes set by the National Fire Protection Association, or NFPA.
White said those times can be impacted by various factors including distance and the number of fire stations in each municipality.
“It’s the difference between a fatal fire and a rescue and getting the fire out with minimal damage” White said.
FOX25 Investigates found through an open records request that last year, out of 340 departments, over a third reported average response times higher than the national standard, 46 of those departments had response time greater than 10 minutes.
“If a community is seeing 13, 14, 15 minute response times I would strongly suggest they ask the question, what would we have to do to close that response time,” said Ken Willette, the division manager for the NFPA.
Willette told FOX25 at 10 minutes a fire can be devastating.
“At that benchmark the entire room explodes into flame, there's no breathable air, and anybody who’s in that space has little chance of survival," he said.