Fire department weighs future options

By LAURA BEHENNA

Bigfork Eagle

The Bigfork Fire Department someday will need a full-time, 24-hour paid force to cover Bigfork’s growing needs, department leaders said.

Right now the department has one part-time and two full-time paid employees, while all other members are volunteers, fire chief Chuck Harris and Captain Katie Edwards said. But the falling rate of volunteerism means the department will have no choice but to hire a full roster of paid staff who can answer whenever calls come in.

“If there’s nobody to volunteer, then you’re going to have to pay someone to do the job a volunteer did,” Edwards said.

“Years ago it seemed like the pace of life was slower and people had more time to volunteer with community groups, and now we really have a hard time recruiting and retaining volunteers,” Harris said.

The Fire Department has 28 volunteers now, and only four to six are typically available to respond to an incident, especially during business hours on weekdays, Harris said. More responders would be better, and more will be necessary as Bigfork grows, especially when other calls come in while available responders are already out on a call, Harris and Edwards said.

Even with a paid staff the department may continue to ue volunteers, but that depends on who’s willing to step up and offer their time, Edwards said.

Edwards, who volunteers for both the Fire Department and Bigfork Ambulance, added, “Twenty years down the road we fully intend to be fire and medical. It’s unavoidable.”

“Our firefighters would probably have to be paramedics as well,” following a nationwide trend, Harris said, adding that all Kalispell firefighters are trained paramedics. “It’s different with volunteers, but when you’re a paid department you can write the criteria for your applicants.”

A paid fire and medical staff will also need a new fire station with proper facilities, and the department is continuing its search for an appropriate place. Potoczny Park had been the department’s top choice, but neighborhood opposition has pushed that option to the back burner, Harris said.

“We’re still looking for a site that’s close to town, that’s large enough [and] ideally, close to a controlled intersection” with traffic lights, Harris said. He explained that a controlled intersection is safer for fire trucks than having to cross two or three lanes of moving traffic. The road-widening project planned for Highway 35 between Woods Bay and Bigfork, tentatively scheduled to begin sometime after 2011, according to Montana Department of Transportation, will make maneuvering the fire engines much safer, Edwards added.

If the project takes place while the Fire Department is still in its current building, it will mean losing some parking space and make backing the fire trucks into the station more difficult, Harris added.

The new station would have more room than the current building, with living and sleeping quarters for the 24-hour staff, a full kitchen, more garage space for current and new fire trucks and maybe ambulances, and up-to date training room and equipment, the two firefighters said. The training room would be used not only by department personnel but also “anyone else who would like to train,” Edwards said.

The Bigfork station now has a rescue truck, a fire engine, a brush truck for wildland fires, and a utility-command truck. It needs a ladder truck and space to house it, along with space for more ambulances if Bigfork Ambulance is ever integrated back into the Fire Department, Edwards said. Depending where the new station is situated, it might be necessary to house ambulances in other places around the community where they would most likely be needed, she added.

Edwards would like the new building to have a greeting area for visitors, as well as a place to display the department’s antique fire engine that was built in 1883. The antique was originally used in St. Paul, Minn. and was drawn by horses. In the early 20th century it was fitted with an engine, she said. The Bovey Foundation donated the engine to the Fire Department in 2001.

A separate fire marshal would make assistant fire chief Nat O’Farrell’s job easier, because he juggles four jobs now, Edwards said. Besides being assistant fire chief, O’Farrell also serves as fire marshal, fire engine mechanic and training officer for the department. The community needs a fire marshal who can focus specifically on fire prevention and investigation, Edwards said.

Where will the money come from to pay the full-time staff, build the new fire station and buy new trucks and equipment? Increased funding from county taxes will be needed — unless Bigfork decides to become an incorporated town in the future, Harris said. Then an additional tax on city residents would pay for in-city fire services, although the city would probably contract with the Bigfork Fire Department for services within the city limits, he said.

“Taxpayers need to realize that if they want good fire services, they’re going to have to pay for it,” he said. “Improving our fire service to the community by upgrading our equipment and building a new station may mean increased taxes.”

Downtown Bigfork is a special concern for the Fire Department because the buildings are packed tightly, and in summertime, so are the cars.

“Downtown is our greatest hazard because the buildings are so close together,” Edwards observed. “If one catches on fire, they’re probably all going to catch on fire.”

The department plans ahead for these kinds of emergencies, but heavy traffic could impede the best plans.

“Can you imagine in the summer if we had a fire down there?” Harris said. “Trying to get all of our big fire trucks down there — it would be a challenge.”