'The stewardship word'

At approximately 360,000 acres, or roughly 565 square miles, Spokane County Fire District 3 is the third largest fire district in the state of Washington.

Included in this is 20 miles of interstate highway, 65 miles of primary state highway, 1,300 miles of paved and unpaved gravel roads, six major recreational lakes, two medium-sized municipalities, several state health institutions, a national wildlife refuge and a large, regional university. Not to mention the hundreds, if not thousands, of homes, businesses and other out buildings in need of protection.

With all that, one could forgive the SCFD 3 governing body for coming to the voters periodically to ask for tax or fee increases needed to not only provide new equipment but also maintain what's existing - and throw in a little training now and then for the nine full-time and 120 part-time/paid volunteers operating out of 10 stations. And yet, rarely has any type of bond measure or tax increase supporting the fire district appeared on a local ballot.

If you ask District Fire Chief Bruce Holloway or anybody on his staff why that is, you'll get a simple answer.

"It's the 'stewardship' word," Deputy Chief Don Crawford said.

How that stewardship works will be on prominent display this Saturday as the district is hosting an open house from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. at its headquarters on Presley Drive in Cheney. The centerpiece of the event will be its recently completed training center, which began with land purchase and ground clearing in February 2011 and finished with the beginning of training classes in a new administration/classroom building this past August.

The idea for the center began as an idea for meeting the district's long-range goals of providing good training while also maximizing expenditures. Division Chief, and district education officer, Debby Dobson said training is always being required as fire fighting techniques are updated, but the closest facility was at Spokane Community College - a little bit of a distance for many volunteers.

"It was impractical for us to go into the city of Spokane to use their facility," Dobson said.

After purchasing land on the west corner of First and Presley adjacent to the headquarters building, the district slowly began to put it's training center plan together. The first phase was construction of a burn tower, which required purchasing and assembling several shipping containers and was finished in fall 2012.

Phase two was site paving and installation of concrete pads for specialized training such as auto rescue, propane fire fighting training and a confined space training area. The final phase was the classroom building, which has several offices and a meeting room with an occupancy of 219, but currently configured for training of 150.

The end result is a facility that would have normally cost upwards of $5 million, but which the district paid just under $1.5 million, office manager Debra Arnold said. All of the money came from district savings in its operating budget, which is the product of property taxes, and the expertise of district personnel.

"As much as we could, we did ourselves," Crawford said of the construction, adding there were a couple building trades district personnel did not poss ess and which they had to use outside contractors to provide.

One of the reasons behind the district's ability to save money is its headquarters is equipped with a full shop possessing all of the tools and machines needed to retrofit, if not virtually build, firefighting vehicles. Many of the district's 34 total vehicles, ranging from wildland attack rigs to pump/tenders to command units, have come through the shop.

In fact, the district's latest vehicle, pumper/tender 310, is only the second actual firefighting apparatus the district purchased new at $225,000, shop supervisor Barry Gillingham said. And even that went through the shop, being outfitted with $33,000 in modifications that included different fittings, hoses and an expanded 2,500-gallon capacity water tank.

In the bay next door to 310 is a red and white, somewhat banged up ladder truck the district purchased for $34,000 - and which Gillingham drove - from the Brownwood Fire Department in Brownwood, Texas, located just over 30 miles south of Abilene. Gillingham said they plan to strip it down from the pump panel back, changing it to a tandem axle, increasing its water tank capacity from 450 gallons to 1,000 gallons and adding a 75-foot ladder in place of the current 55-foot version.

"Might be a quarter million (dollars in modifications) by the time it's done," Gillingham said.

A similar vehicle new could range anywhere from $500,000 to $1 million, depending on what's included.

"Can't justify that, not when I can refurbish it," Gillingham said.

Gillingham said the refurbished engine is destined for Station 34 on Grove Road near Marshall. It will replace a unit the district purchased in 1980, but for which no more parts are available.

"This will go where hydrants are," Gillingham said. 'We'll use the ladder to shower water down."

Besides not needing to ask residents for money, the district's efforts have also kept area residents' fire insurance ratings down. While many homes in rural areas carry fire insurance ratings between 8 – 10, Holloway said rural homes around Cheney actually carry a rating of 5, similar to those in the city, if they are within 1,000 feet of a fire hydrant and five miles of a fire station.

Homes outside the 1,000 feet, but still within five miles of a station carry a rating of six.

Saturday's open house, which runs from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. will feature live fire, extrication and rappelling demonstrations, hands-on instruction on the use of fire extinguishers, kids' activities including fire truck tours, coloring activities and a scavenger hunt along with giving the public a chance to tour the district's recently completed training center.

John McCallum can be reached at [email protected].