Master Plan Nashua Fire Rescue, NH
RESOURCE DISTRIBUTION
To determine how Nashua Fire Rescue’s current deployment model affects coverage throughout the City,
the current performance of the department must first be evaluated. Using fire service industry standards to
include the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) standards and Insurance Services Office (ISO)
criteria, Nashua’s deployment model and performance were evaluated.
In the first section, NFPA criteria specific to fire department performance were applied, and Nashua Fire
Rescue’s performance was evaluated.
NFPA 1710 Criteria
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) is an industry trade association that develops and provides
standards and codes for fire departments and emergency medical services for local governments. One of
these standards, NFPA 1710: Standard for the Organization and Deployment of Fire Suppression Operations,
Emergency Medical Operations, and Special Operations to the Public by Career Fire Departments, serves as a
national consensus standard for career fire department performance, operations, and safety. Within this
standard, a travel time of 240 seconds, or 4 minutes, is identified as the benchmark for career departments
to reach emergency calls within their jurisdiction with the first arriving unit. Additionally, the balance of the
response (called the effective response force) is required to arrive at the incident within 480 seconds, or 8-
minutes. Figure 73 provides a synopsis of Nashua Fire Rescue’s ability to meet these standards based upon
predicted travel times using historical traffic data from Esri for traffic patterns at 8 a.m. on Monday mornings.
Unshaded pockets indicate that the area falls outside of the model’s maximum extension from the road
network.
fj Emergency Services
ESC) Consulting International 110
