Fire district shorthanded

HAYDEN — The labor shortage hasn’t skipped the fire district.

Northern Lakes Fire Protection District fire chief Pat Riley said staffing has been a constant struggle.

“We were already short staffed as it is, without COVID being brought in,” Riley said Friday.

About two months ago during a surge in COVID cases, Riley said at one time he had 12 out of his 36 sworn firefighters out on COVID protocol, a third of the entire fire department.

Riley said finding people to fill empty positions is insanely hard. He recently had three recruits decline: They couldn't move from across the country because they couldn't find affordable housing here.

However, recruiting firefighter-paramedics isn’t the only issue. The district also doesn’t have a large enough budget to add on more staff.

Northern Lakes has run five unsuccessful levy campaigns over the last nine years, trying to increase its staffing to meet national certification standards.

“The public has not been willing to approve that via the votes, so we are operating with considerably less firefighter-paramedics than are needed in my own fire district,” Riley said. “It’s not a luxury. It's a necessity to be able to provide the service to the existing citizens, let alone any new growth that’s coming in.”

On the district website, a report says district crews responded to almost 6,400 emergency calls in 2021, more than a 17% increase from 2020.

Today, the district serves five communities with more than 60,000 residents. It's an all-hazards organization providing structural and wildland fire protections, advanced life support, emergency medical services, fire prevention and public education services.

The district operates out of two fire stations, located in Hayden and Rathdrum. A typical staffing day is nine people out of both stations combined, the minimum manning level. If one of those nine can’t make it in, the district has to pull from an overtime list to meet that minimum.

Riley said they should have 12 firefighters on duty. However, those ideal days happened only eight times last year.

Late last year, a geographic information system emergency services response analysis was completed through the International Association of Firefighters, which recommended 12 more firefighters be added on immediately.

“We should have had those on duty seven years ago,” Riley said.

The report further said that the district should continue to add more firefighters until they had a total of 23 additional firefighters.

Riley said it’s not uncommon for the agency to have up to five calls at once and no units available to respond to the next call. This is where neighbor fire stations will send a unit if they have one available.

“I’m proud of this partnership that we set up,” Riley said.

However, it can make the response time longer as these units are coming from farther stations. Sometimes a call will come in and the closest available unit is over 15 minutes away.

The national standard says they should be able to be at 90% of calls within 4 minutes and 59 seconds or less.

Due to the strain, Riley said they’re averaging 11-plus minutes in response time, just because they have to clear one call to be able to move to the next.

“That’s the whole reason we’re trying to add more engine companies and more paramedic units to the whole county,” Riley said. “I think if everybody were able to increase (their firefighter paramedics), not to an exorbitant amount but to what is truly needed, that would have more units on duty and available in their primary response area.”

Fire captain Luke Michael, currently working as battalion chief because of the staff shortage, said while on shift, there's always something to do. Firefighter paramedics stay busy between calls doing their training requirements, checking equipment and more. They also have to write up reports for each call.

On Wednesday, the district hired three new firefighter-paramedics by cutting out some other budget items to put those funds toward personnel. Riley said he hopes those cuts won’t affect service; however, the No. 1 service they provide is response and firefighter-paramedics to make that response were direly needed.

The three new firefighter-paramedics will start the five-week recruit academy on April 4th.

However, these three added firefighter personnel are only a fraction of what’s recommended by the analysis.

Because of the unsuccessful levies, Riley applied for a FEMA grant to pay 12 additional firefighters. If awarded, SAFER, Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response, will cover the wages of the additional firefighters for three years.

If additional firefighters are added through the grant, Riley said he plans to open the existing but not in use fire station in Garwood.

If by the end of the three years there isn't a successful levy, Riley will have to lay off the 12 firefighters and close the extra fire station.

“I don't have any other way to add additional firefighter paramedics without increasing our levy, and that is an increase in tax, but there's a very big disconnect in how that is applied,” Riley said. “We have a lot of work to do to work with the public to provide the service.”