An overwhelming percentage of calls to St. Paul firefighters are for medical emergencies, and the fire department needs “a paradigm shift” to best handle the workload, according to an outside study of the fire department.
Fires account for less than 5 percent of the emergency calls in St. Paul, and about half of 1 percent are structure fires. Meanwhile, demand for emergency medical services has been increasing 3 to 4 percent annually, much faster than population growth, and is likely to continue to increase, the review by TriData found. One recommendation is to consider eliminating one of St. Paul’s three fire-rescue squads in order to reallocate staff to ambulances.