By QUINTON SMITH/YachatsNews
YACHATS – The Yachats fire district will continue to give and receive help on routine calls with its counterpart in Waldport under an “automatic aid” agreement its board tentatively approved Monday.
The agreement would replace one from 2011.
The Yachats Rural Fire Protection District board agreed the districts should continue to help each other – but with new, specific directions to Salem-based dispatchers. They directed administrator Frankie Petrick to run the agreement past their lawyer before giving it to the Central Oregon Coast Fire & Rescue board.
The Central Coast board sent a letter to the Yachats and Seal Rock fire departments in November giving their chiefs and boards two month’s notice the “automatic aid” agreement with it would expire Jan. 17 if they did not sign one of two suggested documents – or meet to come up with a different one.
The Seal Rock board, which with its chief has been feuding with COCF&R for two years over operational differences, voted in December to not sign it and no longer have Waldport-based firefighters automatically respond to their more routine emergencies.
The Yachats board had to ask Petrick to see the agreement at the end of its only meeting in December, when she dismissed the whole issue as problems between the COCF&R and Seal Rock boards. She said then that Yachats could continue under the 2011 agreement with Seal Rock and let the one expire with Central Coast.
The Central Coast board and chief Jamie Mason have been discussing updating the 13-year-old agreement for months. That’s because it feels dispatchers need updated instructions on who and what equipment to send on most calls. Without new instructions, Mason says, the old document could leave districts vulnerable to misunderstandings, wasted resources and lawsuits.
On Monday, the Yachats meeting had more people in the audience than any during the last five years, including three of its own firefighter/paramedics, two Central Coast firefighters, Mason, board member Jon MacCulloch, and Seal Rock chief Will Ewing and board member Paul Rimola.
While personnel from the three departments see each other on calls or during training almost every day, members of the three boards rarely if ever interact and know little about the other departments.
The background
Because of the size of the three districts and their barebones staffing, firefighters and volunteers from three departments regularly help each when responding to many calls.
Mutual aid is an arrangement by Lincoln County fire chiefs that establishes a response for backup support if a district asks for help when it cannot handle a big emergency. It is entirely different from Central Coast’s proposed automatic aid agreement.
Automatic aid is a contract between two districts requiring each to automatically respond to the other’s emergency calls as dispatched and is designed improve response times for fires, vehicle accidents, or high-priority medical calls.
But due to its central location and staffing differences, firefighters from Waldport-based Central Coast district more often help with calls to the south in Yachats or to the north in Seal Rock.
Yachats’ two on-duty firefighter/paramedics are also regularly out of the area because they staff South Lincoln Ambulance, a private nonprofit controlled by Petrick and assistant district administrator Shelby Knife. When the ambulance is on a call, the Yachats district relies on Central Coast to respond first to other emergencies. Pacific West Ambulance covers medical calls in the Seal Rock and Central Coast districts.
Updating responses
On Monday, Petrick and Mason had to explain to the Yachats board what mutual aid and automatic aid entailed and differences between the two.
Mason told the Yachats board that the 2011 automatic aid contract calls for shared responses only on structure fires – not car accidents, medical calls, grass or wildland fires, water rescues or similarly small but regular emergencies.
If a resident of Yachats or Waldport raises an issue of why one department is covering for another, he said, they can point to the automatic aid agreement that details what kind of personnel and equipment responds.
“Technically, we have no documents justifying why we go,” Mason said. “This is trying to correct the gap from 2011 to now and how our responses have changed. It’s not a very complicated thing … we just need some document to reflect what we’re actually doing today.”
But Ewing said he and the Seal Rock board thought their agreement with Central Coast was “too written out” and should be more general. The Seal Rock district, he said, would continue to use its 2011 agreement with Yachats and have none with Central Coast.
Rimola, who has led the Seal Rock pushback against Central Coast in their board meetings, said the district also objected to Central Coast providing an incident commander when responding to emergencies in Seal Rock.
“I don’t want them coming into our district and taking over command,” he said, adding – although it wasn’t the issue – that Seal Rock “will never consolidate in my lifetime” with the other departments.
When asked by Yachats board members about incident command, Mason said the automatic aid agreement only offered it if asked and did not dictate that COCF&R take command at scenes. Yachats has trimmed that from the proposed document.
Yachats board member Drew Tracy, a former East Coast police chief, said it was important to get resources rolling on emergencies.
“Everyone here realizes we don’t have enough public safety officers on the coast,” he said. “We have to come to an agreement …”
MacColluch said he thought the Central Coast board would sign the agreement with Yachats once their lawyer gives it the OK.
“What these documents are doing is showing how we are doing business between these two districts,” he said. “We just need to clarify what we’re doing. This is better for the community … and if or when something goes sideways on a call, you’re covered.”
- Quinton Smith is the editor of YachatsNews.com and can be reached at YachatsNews@gmail.com
I have not followed this issue closely but it seems all these little fire districts have been fighting and malfunctioning for years. Is there any good reason why these three districts don’t just merge into one district?