Tampa Fire Rescue on a mission to improve response times across city

TAMPA, Fla. - Keeping response times low is a big focus for Tampa Fire Rescue. It’s a problem that the city has tried to address in the past. 

At Thursday’s city council meeting, members will hear from TFR Chief Barbara Tripp as she shares whether any of the solutions they’ve implemented to help keep response times low are paying off.

Fire Station 25, which serves the North Tampa and Sulphur Springs areas, has been overrun with emergency calls, putting a lot of strain on the first responders in that area. Station 25 was re-purposed into a medical-only station back in August to help Fire Station 13 handle some of the medical calls that were coming in so that Station 13 could focus on fire calls. Three months later, city council wants to hear whether this solution had made a difference.

The problem is that Tampa is constantly growing and with more people, comes more emergency calls. With all the growth, the city’s emergency response services haven’t been able to keep up, and response times are reflecting that.

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Chief Tripp and local leaders agree more should be done to keep those response times low. 

Tripp told FOX 13 back in August that they regularly run data analysis that helps show them which areas of the community need more help. As of right now, the New Tampa area, and specifically the K-Bar Ranch area, seem to be the areas with the biggest needs. 

Tampa City Councilman Luis Viera said earlier this year that these areas have some of the longest response times in the city. It’s why he has been a supporter of adding another fire station in that area of town.  

City Council is scheduled to meet Thursday morning.