WEST CHESTER TWP. -- West Chester Twp. officials are keeping a cautious eye on response times to emergencies in an area of the township lacking a fire station.

Fire Chief Tony Goller made a presentation July 24 to township trustees with data on population growth and fire and emergency medical service calls since 2006 to the township's northwest area -- bordered from the north by Hamilton Mason Road, from the east by Lesourdsville-West Chester Road, from the south by Tylersville Road to Beckett Road, and from the west by the township's border one mile west of Ohio 747.

Goller said one focus of the township's 2006 campaign for a 6-mill replacement fire levy was the possible future need for a sixth and seventh fire station dependent on continued growth. But after the economy plummeted the population was no longer increasing at its previous rate.

As of June 30, the northwest portion of the township had 9,885 residents -- a 16.6 percent increase from 2006. The number of fire and EMS runs to this area has remained stable and are "extremely low" -- ranging from 419 incidents in 2006 to just 369 incidents in 2011, according to Goller.

"I think demand for service is being effectively met without redundancies and burden to taxpayers," Goller said.

The northwest area of the township is mainly serviced by Fire Station 74, located in the 8000 block of Beckett Road. According to industry standards, each fire station should adequately cover a 1.5-mile radius within the national response time standard of six minutes. A portion of the northwest corner is within Station 74's 1.5-mile radius.

"Response times to areas outside the 1.5-mile radius average slightly more than nine minutes," according to township records.

Goller said the increased response rate in the northwest area isn't troublesome to him because, "it's only 6 percent of runs and less than 1 percent of working structure fires," each year.

In an effort to keep fire stations staffed at all times, the fire department began using in the past year a teleconference video system for firefighters and medics to complete training from their own fire station without having to report to fire headquarters on Cincinnati-Dayton Road.

"Within the first couple of days we had a kitchen fire and the unit was there two minutes sooner than if it had come from fire headquarters," Goller said. "We're so geographically large; we have 35-square miles."

As well, Goller said earlier this year the township administrators and fire chiefs in West Chester and Liberty townships met to discuss partnering to reduce response times. He said as of June 1, Liberty Twp.'s fire station on Ohio 747 will automatically be dispatched along with West Chester for working structure fires only in the northwest area.

But Goller said the automatic response agreement has yet to be used. In fact, data shows the automatic response by Liberty Twp. would have been utilized less than six times each year since 2007 due to such a small number of working structure fires.

At the July 24 meeting, Judith Boyko, township administrator, said the trustees should consider short- and long-term goals for servicing this northwest portion of the township. In fact, Goller said the township has been "pursuing land since 2002" to purchase and build a new fire station at once the population growth rebounds. No purchases or plans are in place.

"It's not a commodity we can just go out and purchase when we need it, especially in that isolated area," Boyko said.

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