MEDICAL LAKE — With the ongoing takeover of Medical Lake’s fire department by Spokane County Fire District 3, so will officially disappear the second oldest fire service in the county.
But all good things tend to come to an end and in the case of emergency services in the community it all about saving lives and property.
“I’m never gonna’ fault our residents for wanting things to stay the same or having loyalties,” City Administrator Doug Ross said.
“But I think at the end of the day, everybody realized that if you’re in trouble, if you have a medical emergency or a fire emergency, the name and the patch on that uniform, I don’t think is the number one issue,” he added.
With a limited tax base, emergency services of all types in the city have in the past decade or more been at the center of much discussion. The desire for a self-contained police department gave way to a contract with the Spokane County Sheriff’s Office several years ago.
Now fire protection travels a similar road.
“A full time Fire Department was never going to be an option here unless there was a huge funding source, a consistent funding source, Ross said. “Let’s be honest, cities are getting much less money than they ever have, from the state, from the feds, etc.”
Response was becoming, and has been an issue in recent years. And while the roster might have said there were 25 volunteers, truth is that as with most operations that rely on people willing to devote their time to things, it’s just a core group that does the heavy lifting.
“I think there’s a romantic notion of the good old days where you are sitting at home and the fire siren rings downtown, you hop in your truck and you go 90 miles an hour to the fire station, hop on a truck and go fight a fire,” Ross said.
Such is no longer the case, Ross said. “The training requirements are incredible for volunteers, and are a very large time consumer.”
“Everybody recognized that we were having some missed calls,” Ross said. “The council talked about it and agreed to put on the ballot annexation into Spokane County Fire District 3.”
Fire District 3 also had to put it on a ballot, but in the end both groups of constituents agreed it was a good move.
And it has proven itself in a practical sense, too.
District 3 Chief Cody Rohrbacher reported to Medical Lake City Council recently that his agency has answered 100 percent of the calls, and that’s from their station in Four Lakes.
But that’s kind of been the situation before the annexation.
“They were the ones that were either covering our missed calls or the calls were going unanswered,” Ross said. “So rightfully so, they had a desire for us to do something.”
Ross said he’s certain their volunteers were not happy having to respond and “Our volunteers, they weren’t happy or proud of the fact that we may have had a missed call.”
Currently the station at City Hall is undergoing remodeling and eventually, hopefully this year, there will be a firefighter stationed 24 hours a day.
“It’s more timing than lack of desire,” Ross said, noting the newest members of District 3 still need to complete the fire academy which has yet to even be scheduled by Spokane County.
At the same time service isn’t suffering by any stretch, Ross said.
“Again, you call for someone and they come.”
Paul Delaney can be reached at pdelaney@cheneyfreepress.com.
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