You have to be aware that a faster response time is significant for emergencies or incidents in order to improve communities’ general safety, make the allocation of emergency resources more efficient, and improve situational awareness.

Ideally, first responders are supposed to respond to fire incidents within the span of five to seven minutes within a 5-7 kilometer radius.

The standard response time in the United States establishes an 80-second “turnout time” and 480-second “travel time,” together, 560 seconds or 9 minutes and 20 seconds “response time.”

A U.S. fire department responds to a fire every 24 seconds. Structure fires occur about every 63 seconds, and home fires occur about every 88 seconds.

If the clock starts when the 911 dispatcher sends emergency services to you, how long will it take for help to arrive depends on a number of factors, such as the priority of the emergency, the number of personnel available, and the distance that emergency services have to cover.

Naturally, you want firefighters to get there as fast as they can. But not every 911 call is created equal because of varying emergency situations.

911 dispatchers triage the calls they receive, sorting them by priority.

The highest-priority calls are immediate, life-threatening situations.

Less urgent calls, in roughly descending order, include the immediate threat of serious property damage, situations where a quick response wouldn’t save a life but would be useful (such as apprehending a criminal), and situations requiring fact-finding or assistance (like taking a report about stolen goods or a vehicle accident with no injuries).