LAFD to Restore Full-Time Ambulance to Porter Ranch Fire Station 28

Bowing to political pressure from a and the revelation that the fire department relied upon skewed data to show it met five-minute response times, an ambulance will be restored to Fire Station 28 in Porter Ranch.

The fire station on Corbin Avenue will get a basic life-support ambulance staffed 100 percent of the time beginning next month, LAFD spokesman Capt. Jamie Moore told the Daily News

confirmed Tuesday he did not clearly communicate data about the department's emergency response times to City Council members before they voted to approve a deployment plan that cut the size of the department as part of the 2011-12 budget process.

Cummings, however, defended the data and said the department never intentionally misled city officials to believe it was performing better than it was.

, a former deputy to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has said that the cost-cutting LAFD redeployment plan had dramatically worsened response times. On Monday he released data from July through October that showed the Fire Department arrived to emergencies in Porter Ranch within five minutes only 30 percent of the time, according to the Daily News.

The newspaper also reported that:

Patrick Pope, a member of the Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council, said there's concern in the community about receiving adequate ambulances services. The biggest issue, he said, is the desire to have more advanced life saving ambulances, which are equipped to treat more serious calls. The city currently has 89, according to officials, and hasn't lost any during the recent budget cuts.

Additionally, he points out that the fire station in Porter Ranch doesn't have the most advanced Jaws of Life equipment. It must come from a neighboring area.

Pope said the restoration of a full-time staffed ambulance at Station 28 is a good start.

"It's not what we need, but it's better than what we have," Pope said.

"There's a general feeling that people aren't getting what they paid for."

The chief made his comments during a meeting of the Fire Commission, which asked Cummings to address allegations that the department deliberately misled council members to sell its new deployment plan, which went into effect last July.

The plan approved by the City Council and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa eliminated 18 fire companies and four ambulance companies in order to cut $54 million from the department's 2011-12 budget.

• Read the Daily News report here.

In selling the plan, the Fire Department presented Villaraigosa with data that suggested first-responders made it to the scene of medical emergencies within five minutes 78 percent of the time. The department has since acknowledged that percentage was calculated using a six-minute window of time. Revised figures showed that LAFD crews were meeting the five-minute goal 63 percent of the time prior to 2009.

"We didn't communicate clearly or as soon as was necessary what the issue was here," Cummings said.

Commission President Genethia Hudley-Hayes backed Cummings, saying there was "no intent on anybody's part in the Fire Department to in fact present something that wasn't accurate at the time."

Cummings also raised a new defense of the department's statistics Tuesday, saying that he and former Fire Chief Millage Peaks presented city officials with response times that were calculated by computer modeling software.

The software, Cummings told the commission, calculates response times using ideal conditions when all fire companies and their vehicles are at the ready, which rarely occurs in reality. Response times calculated via the software are projections and usually faster than firefighters were actually able to respond under the new deployment plan, which went into effect in July.

Cummings and fire commissioners asserted that they warned council members last year that cutting the department's budget would result in slower response times.

"There was not one City Council member who did not understand, clearly understand, that if the budget would be reduced ... as the budget was reduced, that there will be some, some, reduction in response time," Fire Commissioner Andrew Friedman said.

The bottom line, Cummings told the commission, is that "we are thin."

Pat McOsker, president of the union representing rank-and-file firefighters and a critic of the department's deployment model, disputed Cummings' account.

"Three fire chiefs in a row said these response times and service would improve if we made these changes, this reconfiguration," McOsker said. "That didn't happen ... These LAFD budget cuts affect real people. People are being harmed."

-- The Daily News and City News Service contributed to this report.