opinion
april2
2015
An Opinion: Firefighters Need Us to Respond
By Scott Laird
Vernonia area first respond-
ers were busy last week. In the early
morning hours of Wednesday, March
25, local fire fighters from the Vernonia
Rural Fire Protection District (VRFPD)
fought a structure fire, a single story
apartment building, with assistance
from the Mist-Birkenfeld and Banks
departments. Late the next night law
enforcement officers were called to the
scene of a fatal shooting.
Both these events were tragic,
but thankfully are rare occurrences in
this community. They were a stark re-
minder of the importance of our local
first responders, who are called to help
us at our worst moments.
The VRFPD just announced
two ballot measures for the May 19
election that would help address several
critical issues currently facing their de-
partment.
Vernonia Fire Chief Dean Smith
is a long time member of the department,
a dedicated volunteer firefighter and of-
ficer that the VRFPD Board of Directors
thought so highly of that they promoted
him to Chief several years ago. Smith is
VRFPD’s only paid responder.
Smith has been expressing con-
cerns about the need to address several
issues for many years. According to
Smith, call volume is increasing annual-
ly and is at an all-time high. Volunteers
from the VRFPD don’t just respond to
fires, they are also trained to be rescue
and emergency medical responders as
well, assisting with medical and other
emergency assistance situations.
Meanwhile community volun-
teerism is slowly declining, not just in
fire departments across the country, but
within our communities in general. The
VRFPD currently only has eleven vol-
unteers. Smith says he often has a short-
age of volunteers available to handle the
calls they face. State requirements for
training also continue to increase and
are becoming more difficult to reach
and maintain.
In addition, the costs associ-
ated with the purchase, operation and
maintenance for firefighting appara-
tus continue to increase while current
equipment ages and no longer meets
recommended safety standards.
The VRFPD Board of Direc-
tors, working closely with Smith, have
crafted two measures they think will
help address some of these concerns.
One measure would fund a paid
Training Captain position. The second,
a tax levy, would pay for the purchase
of a brand new water tender/pumper.
Both these measures make
sense for so many reasons.
The Training Captain posi-
tion would create a dedicated position
responsible for the District’s required
training program for volunteers. The
Training Captain would also be avail-
able to respond to calls during day time
hours.
The creation and funding of this
position would have many benefits for
the VRFPD. Obviously, having another
paid responder to handle calls gives the
District flexibility and better coverage.
Having a paid professional in
charge of volunteer development has
its own advantages. In recent history
the Training Officer position has been
staffed by a volunteer, usually one of
the best and top officers in the depart-
ment. The job often requires an extra
fifteen to twenty hours of work per
week to plan and develop weekly drills
for volunteers. Smith says the position
quickly leads to burn out; the recent av-
erage length of time someone has held
the position is three years.
A paid Training Captain could
work with volunteers to plan a more
flexible training schedule to meet their
needs around their other commitments
and busy personal lives and help with
volunteer recruitment and retention.
At this point we should prob-
ably take a moment to recognize and
appreciate the huge commitment each
and every one of these dedicated vol-
unteers make to our community. They
spend an enormous amount of time
training, responding and fundraising,
all with no compensation. When they
respond lives are saved and property is
protected. These people are important
in our community and they deserve our
respect and gratitude.
The equipment levy would al-
low the District to purchase a brand new
piece of apparatus, something sorely
needed. The current first-out engine,
purchased in 2000 with a similar levy,
is now fifteen years old; the recom-
mended standard for first-out vehicles
is ten years. This past year the Dis-
trict was fortunate to purchase a twenty
year old rig from their friends in Banks,
which is now their second-out vehicle.
Again, this rig is five years beyond the
recommended standard. Their current
water tender/pumper is thirty-five years
old and has needed continual mainte-
nance and band aids to keep it on the
road, and is well beyond the twenty year
standard for a backup unit. Funding for
apparatus succession and replacement is
desperately needed.
Together these two measures
would cost Vernonia area voters $58.21
per $100,000 of property value. That’s
less than $5 month.
Chief Smith says the District
has patiently waited its turn to ask for
funding as the community has tried to
address its waste water treatment issues,
recovered from a flood and entirely re-
built its school campus. Smith doesn’t
mention the fact that the Columbia
County Sheriff’s Office has recently
placed several levies on the ballot to
fund operations and keep the jail open.
Chief Smith says it’s impera-
tive that the VRFPD receive this fund-
ing for operations and equipment and I
believe him.
As the firefighters were finish-
ing up extinguishing the recent apart-
ment fire last week, a task that took
several hours, nearby neighbors who
witnessed the fire expressed thanks for
the firefighters who arrived and kept the
fire from spreading to their homes.
Whenever the members of this
community call for help, whether it’s to
battle flames, perform a motor vehicle
extrication, answer a medical emergen-
cy, or assist law enforcement in main-
taining the scene of an emergency, our
local firefighters respond, at anytime,
anywhere, every day of the week.
Now they are asking for our
help. I hope you will join me in re-
sponding to their call.
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