KANNAPOLIS — On Monday afternoon, the Kannapolis City Council held a work session in order to gain more knowledge on specific topics involving different aspects in the community.

While no action is taken by council, these sessions still provide information and foreshadow what may be under discussion in the future. During the meeting, Kannapolis Fire Chief Tracy Winecoff spoke to council about the fire department’s test run of an adaptive response vehicle program.

Winecoff explained that Kannapolis has an “all-hazards” fire department that responds to fires, medical emergencies, car accidents and other calls for service. This requires fire engines and other costly vehicles to be sent out for what Winecoff describes as “low equity calls” that don’t deal with life or death circumstances. With Kannapolis’ population growing and their workload increasing, the department has been seeking solutions to help mitigate costs while keeping the same standard of service intact.

Recently, the department began using a surplus EMS ambulance to answer some of their non-emergency calls. They based the ARV program on similar initiatives that Durham, Mooresville and Wilmington have adopted. The ambulance was available 18 days out of a month and in that time, was able to answer 28 percent of the calls so that the larger fire trucks could be used for “high-risk incidents” 72 percent of the time.

In Wilmington, the fire department recently fully adopted a similar new deployment model for quicker, more cost-effective and efficient response times.

“Since 2017, we have been working on a new deployment model that creates a more efficient way to respond to calls, the majority of which don’t require a large firefighting apparatus,” said Wilmington Fire Chief Steve Mason in a recent release. “This new deployment model will reduce wear and tear on our larger, very expensive fire units, extending their service life and increasing their availability to respond to fires. In addition, we have been able to save hundreds of thousands of dollars in our fleet replacement fund.”

The goals for the Kannapolis fire department and equipment would be the same.

The average response time for a Kannapolis fire truck is 3 minutes and 36 seconds. Smaller, more maneuverable, and more fuel-efficient vehicles would provide faster response times without using the larger, less cost-effective trucks.

Roughly 60 percent of calls are medical and 40 percent are about fire, according to Winecoff. Fully implementing an AVR program would cost $280,000 in cash expenditures for two vehicles, with a recurring annual cost of $1 million for 12 new positions. However, those funds were not included in the Imagine Kannapolis Strategic Plan. 

Due to the high cost, there will need to be conversations about if it would be cost-effective enough in the long run to make it worth pursuing. Chief Winecoff said he is flexible about the number of drivers and vehicles for a full pilot program, if  the cost of full implementation is too much. He also brought up that it could be phased in for use only during the busiest times on the weekdays, which could reduce the cost. 

“If the pilot is approved, we would use the data from the trial program to determine the effectiveness and benefit to see if expansion or continuation was warranted,” Winecoff said.