Fire
Mission
The mission of the Tybee Island Fire Rescue is to serve our community by protecting life, property, and the environment through preparation, prevention and response.
Vision
The concept of the Tybee Island Fire Rescue vision will reflect on everyone’s ability to constantly demonstrate Professionalism, Respect, Integrity, Dedication, and Excellence.
CORE SERVICES: The core services of the Tybee Island Fire Rescue will be defined by the needs of our community and government. Core services are: proactive services in response to emergency and non-emergency incidents such as fire suppression, emergency medical services, hazardous materials response and technical rescue; proactive services designed to prevent and mitigate adverse effects; and coactive efforts in partnership with our community departments.
READINESS AND TRAINING: The Tybee Island Fire Rescue will be prepared with well-trained, well-equipped personnel, specialty teams and logistical resources to respond to the needs of our community. We will strive to maintain highly skilled, competent, and confident staff that deliberately and continuously strives to improve their skills and knowledge. Each employee will take personal responsibility for their own professional development, and the department will provide the infrastructure and opportunities for success. We will optimize our use of enabling technology and innovations to meet our community's service needs. We will partner with our community and region to increase resources and training capacity.
EFFICIENT AND EFFECTIVE: The Tybee Island Fire Rescue will strive to be efficient and effective in services and training by meeting quality control standards. We will review our services to reduce duplication in errors. We will evaluate and enhance the effectiveness of our resources. We will benchmark and measure our performance. We will constantly evaluate the future needs of our community and determine how to meet those needs. We must maximize our capacity to provide efficient and effective services that improve the quality of life in our community.
PREVENTION, OUTREACH, EDUCATION: The Tybee Island Fire Rescue will empower our community by establishing open, two-way communication. Prevention and outreach programs will utilize social media, fliers, and in person education. We are creating a relationship with local media outlets to relay information to citizens and visitors. We will educate, assist and support our community in building self-sufficiency to address their own health and safety needs. We are accomplishing this through Smoke detector installation, and inspection services. Our initiatives will be based on community and departmentally determined priorities selected through a range of needs assessments, pre-planning and health and safety concerns. We will strive to provide interventions that involve research-based practices, and efforts will be accurately documented, measured and evaluated.
STAFF SUPPORT: The culture of the Tybee Island Fire Rescue is determined by our staff and our community. To maximize the effectiveness of our department, we must support every member, provide for their wellness, encourage their professional development and expand our growth through partnership with our community. There will be an emphasis placed on learning, safety, technology and innovation. I will expect and develop leadership at all levels and ranks by empowering staff to make appropriate decisions and continually provide opportunities for input and participation in the decision-making process. In order to maintain a high level of service to our community, we will incorporate recruitment practices that align with our community's needs, values and the department's mission.
PARTNERSHIPS: The Tybee Island Fire Rescue will strive to create and sustain community partnerships that enhance service to the public and employees of the city and surrounding areas. Partnership with our community will enhance everyone's accountability for creating a safer community. Assessment will include identifying our needs and potential gaps in providing effective and efficient services and eliminating the duplication of services wherever possible. The ultimate goal of partnership is to share resources, responsibilities and create mutual accountability. It is the responsibility of each member of our fire department and each member of our community to engage in being part of the solution.
ORGANIZATIONAL DEVELOPMENT & COMMUNICATION: Communication is a key element in any successful organization. Another key element is trust of ourselves and in others. To maximize the effectiveness of our communication, we will continually strive to provide information to all levels of the department. We will strive to be as transparent as possible. Each member of our department will be provided with opportunities to communicate and provide input, and each member will be accountable to share information. Each member is personally responsible for the creation of our organization's culture, the quality of our own work experience, the outcomes and results we want to achieve, the quality of cooperation within our fire department, our own morale, the consequences of our actions and the wise use of resources.
We will continuously solicit input from our community related to organizational development. We will optimize and continuously evolve our organizational structure to maximize the knowledge, skills and abilities of our staff. We will create a learning organization by managing our knowledge and sharing information in order to provide the best possible outcome. Further, to develop a sustainable organization, succession planning must always be a consideration and we will continually look to the future and proactively plan for success.
Fire Plugs Color Coding on Tybee
In 2017, the fire hydrants on Tybee Island have undergone a face lift.
A visitor asked the other day why Tybee fire hydrants are now typically painted silver with orange tops. Our hydrants used to be painted red, but the Fire Department has been making various upgrades to make our fire fighters more effective over the last few years.
It started when they began placing blue reflective bumps in the road to indicate the location of hydrants. The bump will be placed closer to the side of the road where the hydrant is located.
More recently, they upgraded the colors of the hydrants themselves. The National Fire Prevention Association, or NFPA, has specified standard markings for the body, tops, and even side caps on fire hydrants, to indicate various properties of each hydrant.
The standard body colors indicate the source of water for the hydrant. Yellow hydrants supply from a municipal water system. TIFD has used an alternative for the public water supply color of silver, to make the hydrants more visible at night. Red hydrants supply from a private water system, such as a well in a neighborhood or a reservoir to support an apartment complex. A violet or purple hydrant indicates reclaimed water or groundwater well supply, which would be considered non-potable.
The top of the hydrant indicates the gallons-per-minute flow that can be expected from the hydrant. Red is for less than 500 GPM. The common Tybee color is orange, which indicates a flow rate of 500-1000 GPM. A green cap is used when the hydrant can supply between 1000 and 1500 GPM. A light blue cap shows a flow rate of better than 1500 GPM.
The side caps may also be color coded, and very low or very high GPM flows may have values stenciled on the hydrant. Hydrants out of service should be painted black.
Although these color-coding standards were used by fewer than half the communities in the US in 2005, it has been taken up by other communities in the last 10+ years. There don’t seem to be any published compliance rates that would update that statistic, however.
If you see an open hydrant running water onto the street, this is part of the normal maintenance of the system. The supply lines need to be flushed on occasion to keep them clean and to make sure they are functioning properly and at expected rates.