Chelan Fire & Rescue holds town hall meeting

CHELAN - As it was announced in April, Chelan Fire and Rescue held a town hall meeting on May 30 to inform the public on their future plans regarding funding, apparatus replacement, fire chief succession and staffing. The evening’s event was held at the Chelan Senior Center, only a dozen or so community members gathered together to hear from CFR’s chief officers and commissioners.

Chelan Fire and Rescue Fire Chief Tim Lemon commenced the presentation with an overview of the night’s agenda. Lemon also introduced the three fire commissioners who were present: Russ Jones, Jay Witherbee and Phil Moller and thanked all for attending the event. Lemon then transitioned into talking about CFR’s mission and responsibilities. He clarified that the primary mission of CFR is to protect the lives and property of the year-round residents and visitors. “We cover 125 square miles and we operate five fire stations,” said Lemon. CFR works with neighboring fire agencies in Manson, Entiat, Orondo and Pateros. “If we call they come, if they call we go,” however CFR only responds to mutual aid if they have the staffing capabilities to do it. Some CFR firefighters/EMTs are signed up to aid with the State Mobilization Fires which create revenue for the district. “Our people get significant experience and they bring that home. That skill is valuable to us,” stated Lemon.

CFR is responsible for containing and extinguishing structural and vehicle fires. They also respond to wildland fires in partnership with the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and U.S. Forest Service. In terms of emergency medical responses CFR is responsible for basic life support services and it’s supported by Lake Chelan Community Hospital and Clinics EMS. Lemon mentioned that all CFR staff are first aid trained. CFR also deals with vehicle extractions and runs a special operation unit. Public education and fire prevention services are also provided by CFR.

A 22 percent  volume increase in calls has occurred since 2010, which is over 200 more calls per year that CFR is answering. “For us to handle this in conjunction with EMS it is a tremendous amount ... it’s a lot of work and effort to do what we do best,” said Deputy Chief Mark Donnell. Various numbers of WAC, RCWs and codes affect CFR staffing-wise. “They were put in place primarily for firefighters safety,” said Donnell. Typically for initial response four firefighters are needed. On-duty staff personal for CFR has a combination of two career duty staff, volunteer stipend and volunteer shift as first response. Home volunteer, career call back and mutual aid account for secondary response when needed. For example, Donnell expalined that in the City of Chelan and surrounding area the on-duty crew averages five minutes response time while home response takes up to 14 minutes.

Attendees became aware of how old the apparatus equipment is that CFR owns. “We have 21 pieces of apparatus in our fire district ... our apparatus is aging rapidly,” said Assistant Chief Brandon Asher. Asher explained that CFR’s goals is to replace each piece of equipment, upgraded little by little. Out of the 21 apparatus, six are up for replacement ranging from 26 up to 32 years old. Six other pieces are over 15 years old. According to the code all apparatus over 25 years old should be retired. “To replace this stuff it takes funding, we are going to do our best to downsize the fleet, combine the abilities of the apparatus to do more with less and make it safer for our firefighters and our community,” Asher stated.

At the end of the year Chief Lemon will retire and fire commissioners have been working on succession planning. Commissioner Russ Jones spoke about the plan and how it would look like. The idea will be to promote Chief Donnell to Fire Chief and to reduce from three chief officers to two. “Donnell will be a pretty good guy to take the chief’s place, he has 29 years with the fire service,” said Jones. The second chief then will be Asher, “he is currently working for us under a four-year grant,” Jones added.

Funding was another item talked about during the town hall. Commissioner Jones explained that currently CFR collects .88 cents per 1,000 of assessed value. Out of those .88 cents, .11 cents go towards administrative staff and .14 cents towards chief officers expenses. “Our career firefighters cost about .05 cents per firefighter,” stated Jones. He clarified that in order to keep up with the growth in the community, the district needs more funding available. “What we feel is our best route currently would be a fire lid lift of .21 cents per 1,000. That would give us funding for two additional career firefighters, that would take us to nine career firefighters with the idea of one volunteer as stipend ... it gives us the ability to provide that two in two out service,” said Jones. The levy would help expand the stipend program for volunteers, in addition to generating revenue to replace apparatus. With the .21 cent increase, $1.09 per 1,000 would be the new amount to be paid by the homeowner. The levy will not be run until conversations with the community take place. “We want to make sure we are heading in the right direction and have the right plan,” said Commissioner Jones.