EUGENE, Ore. The two cities, strapped on budget because the Eugene Springfield Fire is short on firefighters, are working to improve fire response times and relieve their crews.

Although the city’s fire departments are grouped under one name, they have separate budgets; The smaller city funds about 28 percent of the ESF budget, and Eugene covers the remaining 72 percent.

Springfield covers the cost of its five fire stations largely by relying on a local operating levy that is renewed every five years.

Meanwhile, Eugene has 10 stations, including the 11th at Eugene Airport.

Chief Michael Caven said that in the city’s first two-year budget, Eugene had to move funds from the general fund to the public safety payroll tax just to avoid losing a fire engine.

He says due to historically low staffing numbers, where staff are typically forced to work overtime four times a year, during the summer months alone most work two to three mandatory overtime shifts over a nine-day period.

Because of the strain on staff and equipment, a total of 250 firefighters across ESF, all full-time paid personnel, are performing at about 80 percent of response time standards, although Springfield is closer to 86 percent and Eugene is closer to 77 percent.

Caven says that as the population of cities increases, demand also increases.

“We had a busy summer and were understaffed. We relied heavily on overtime and were forced to work overtime. Springfield is well staffed by demand, and in Eugene the city has been very open about releasing information about high-rise residential growth. Ten years ago 13′ We’ve gone from 1 to 48 now, which requires a lot more firefighters, so as the community gets busier, response times increase,” said Chief Caven.

Chief Caven told us ESF currently has 25 employees in the academies, with 15 firefighters graduating on November 22nd and 10 paramedics and EMTs graduating three weeks from now, but there are concerns about overworked staff losing morale.

Eugene said he hasn’t added first responder fire response resources in 40 years.

“They’re adding one firefighter every day. That was going from a two-man unit to a three-man unit. That’s what’s going on. We’ve had a thousand percent increase in our call volume in that time period. Fortunately, we’ve seen over the last year since the University District shutdown and how busy our system is.” , by partnering with PeaceHealth we have been able to significantly reduce the time ambulances spend waiting for a bed in the emergency department, but still, call volume is still high, everyone is getting extra work.”

Caven says it costs between $80 million and $89 million each year to run the department.

A two-man crew will be added to the fire fee proposed by the city of Eugene as fire danger increases.

The city also has a federal grant pending to add another fire truck.