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Section Ten: Historical Perspective 3. The West Eugene area continues to develop and generate more calls for service. Calls there have longer response times due to the greater distance from the nearest stations into that portion of the city. While these areas present localized challenges, it should be noted that changes in the service area and increases in volume of calls, no matter where they occur, have a systemic effect on the entire response network. That is, as companies are busy in one first-in area, resources are often brought in from another first-in area to cover a wider area. The resulting impact is an overall worsening of response time performance throughout the service area as resources are spread more thinly. Question//3. Have there been significant changes in the risk and demand that might indicate a need to increase or otherwise modify staffing? In general we can say that the risk has shifted and demand has increased over the past two decades, while staffing has remained nearly constant. As shown in Figure 9.1 above, the risk and demand have changed significantly over the past 20 years. This trend has continued right up to the present time. The greatest change has been the large increase in the number of EMS calls, while the number of fire calls has remained relatively static. This indicates a need for increased resource deployment for medical calls. When calls for only ambulances are included, the number of EMS calls has decreased slightly since 2002 due to the introduction of a new Ambulance Service Area (ASA) served by Lane Rural Fire/Rescue. The department has responded by modifying its ambulance staffing patterns to align them with demand. The demand of calls defined as "other" has increased as well. This includes all types of calls other than fires and medical responses and can largely be attributed to the overall increase in population served. The department has absorbed this increase by using existing resources more efficiently. In other words, the same number of fire fighters are responding to more calls for service. The fire risk has not increased significantly over the past 20 years, but neither has it decreased. This indicates that fire suppression resources, both personnel and apparatus, should not be further depleted. While the predominant risk has shifted to EMS, the continuing fire risk is a compelling reason to maintain the number of on-duty fire suppression personnel. In fact, with the addition of Santa Clara neighborhood to the service area, the overall risk of all types has increased, yet no additional resources have been added to cover this risk. The following table shows the changes in population, total call x~olume for firefighting companies (excluding ambulances on ambulance-only calls), and firefighters per thousand population in Eugene over the past 22 years. 76