Chief's Monthly Report
Fire Department
Monthly Progress Report
West Valley Fire Department
Yakima County Fire District 12
For the Meeting of June 11, 2019
Agenda Topic: Department Monthly Progress Report
Prepared By: Chief Nathan Craig
Date Prepared: June 10, 2019
The primary purpose of this report is to keep the Board of Fire Commissioners informed as to the activities and progress on major programs or objectives. The items listed, as near as possible, are in priority order. As a second purpose, this report will be shared with the Officers Management Team and all fire personnel.
Personnel:
At the completion of this years Fire Science Futures class we have two perspective members that have successfully completed our application process, one firefighter and one cadet, Lt. Lyons will submit a request for this meeting.
Officer Boisselle pulled the top six applicants for our part-time office assistant opening and held interviews last week. At this time, she is following up background and reference checks on the top two from the interviews.
Support Member Mary Lou Sheen has rejoined the Department as part of our rehab team. Firefighter Dylan Ross has chosen to resign at the end of his leave, Firefighter Reed Barduhn has not been responsive following the end of his leave and been mailed a letter terminating him as a member of the Department.
Starting June, we have 91 volunteers, 80 in service for operations, 9 support, 2 on leave of absence. Our total number of personnel is 100.
Strategic Planning:
In May we completed our internal SWOT, finished up our citizen survey and held two planning meetings. At this time a draft updated plan is being developed with the next committee meeting scheduled for June 25th at 17:00.
Action plan update, we continue to research volunteer wages, develop preventative maintenance schedules, determine cost per incident, review and update job descriptions, recruitment plan, annexation and wildfire pre-planning.
New initiatives beginning this month include, multi-generational training, review of our LOSAP benefit program, a time use study for admin staff, monitoring dispatching options and moving forward with design and funding for Station 51 phase II.
Department Training and Safety: By Captain Jim Johnston
May Drills included: Department SWOT / Equipment Check, OTEP Workshop B / SWOT Rankings, Officer Choice, Drafting / Wildland Refresher Make-up, Live Fire in Burn Trailer (Station 53), and Recruit Class Graduation.
Developed the June Drill Schedule: Equipment Check, Hose Testing (Stations 51 & 52), Extrication (Station 53), Engine Company Attack Evolutions (Station 54), Safety Stand Down, Wildland Fireline Const / L&I Heat Awareness.
On May 4th this year’s Recruit Class wrapped up with the Wildland Field Day.
Captain Brian Vetsch and Firefighter Nathan Hede participated in a Multi Company Operations Tender Drill in the Nile on May 11th.
Travis Christopher, Jason Wood and I attended the Central Washington Inter Agency Fire Training Academy. Travis and I took a 2.5-day S-230 Crew Boss Class, Jason took the 12-hour S-131 Wildland FF1 Class.
Firefighter Tim Wilsey attended the Washington State Firefighter School in Wenatchee on May 17th and 18th, where he took two classes on Vehicle Extrication. He will be passing on what he learned at our May 12th Extrication Drill.
Firefighters Chase Tucker and Nick Dart attended NFA STICO (Strategies & Tactics for Initial Company Operations) class in Ellensburg on May 18th and 19th.
On May 20th Officer Christy Boisselle, Lt Chris Lyons, Captain Brian Vetsch and myself attended a class on “How to Manage Conflict”.
Budget/Finance: By Officer Boisselle
The annual State Auditors report was complete and submitted on May 22nd.
After we complete and close out June financials, I will run a report to make sure we are on track with the Budget for the first six months of the year. We can review at the July or August meeting.
Logistics:
A leaking toilet in the community center at Station 54 caused significant water damage to the carpet and linoleum. We have repaired the toilet and suctioned up the water and set out drying fans. It is too early to tell if we will have long term damage to the linoleum as it had bubbled up during the incident and we are waiting to see where it settles out.
The manifold of our pump testing device has failed, a new manifold is $1,500 and an entire unit $6,700. We have the new manifold on order to complete our hose testing for 2019. While we wait the scheduled pump tests are being conducted with the training engine to not put wear and tear on our first out engines.
Ongoing projects: we have selected the brand and type of AED we will purchase this year and are just waiting to determine if we are best to purchase from the manufacture or through AMR. Station 52 is determining what type of furniture they would like in their dayroom and our Training Officers are determining what the best video equipment and software will work for our needs. We are waiting for our new telephone system to be installed and have dual compliant pants on order.
This month we have ordered 5” hose, received quotes for Station 54 landscaping, working on a jaws tray for R-52 and soliciting quotes for the awning at Station 53.
Fire Prevention / Public Education: By Captain Jim Johnston
On May 1st Chief Craig and I hosted and attended the annual Wildland Pre-Season Fire meeting with numerous local agencies.
On May 9th I participated with the West Valley High School and Freshman Campus on a fire drill at each school utilizing our big smoke machine. Also, in attendance were representatives from ESD 105 and the Yakima County Fire Marshal’s Office.
Also, on May 9th the Duty Crew and myself visited Ahtanum Valley Elementary School to provide fire safety information to their Pre-School program students, we performed this for two classes with a total of 50+ kids.
Again, on May 9th Station 51 brought Engine 51 to Wide Hollow Elementary School for their annual West Valley Parent-Child Home Program. They handed out fire safety material, let the kids tour the Engine, and visit with Sparky.
Operations:
In June there were a total of 79 incidents of which 70 were handled by our personnel.
Incidents: YTD
Station 51 16 60
Station 52 17 52
Station 53 9 27
Station 54 3 17
Station 50 25 130
Yakima 2 18
Ambulance Only 7 31
2019 Total 335
Incident Type: Month Type YTD
Fire 8 4 building, 2 cooking, 1 brush, 1 outside 29
EMS 54 2 med alarm, 45 EMS, 6 MVC, 1 other 243
Hazardous Condition 3 1 overheated motor, 2 lines down 5
Service Call 9 8 assist invalid, 1 assist PD 25
Good Intent 3 2 controlled burn, 1 smoke 13
False Alarm 2 2 fire alarm 17
Action Taken: Month Type YTD
Canceled enroute 4 1 AA, 1 EMS, 1 AFA, 1 Food on stove 37
Extinguishment 5 1 brush, 2 building, 1 cooking, 1 outside 11
Provide BLS 51 212
Assist Invalid 7 22
Investigate 8 1 AA, 2 EMS, 1 smoke, 2 contrl brn, 2 pwr 29
Investigate fire out 0 5
Other 4 10
Automatic Aid Received (both agencies respond) Automatic Aid Given
From Highland 0 To Highland 2
From Yakima 0 To Yakima 3
From Gleed 0
YTD 3 YTD 17
Mutual Aid Received 0 Mutual Aid Given 2 (Dist 1 & 2) YTD 0 YTD 6
Response Times: (Target= within 1 mile of station 8 minutes or less, add 2 minutes every mile after) Qualifying Alarms: 52, Target met: mo 36 (69%) yr 146 (71%), Target not met: mo 16 (31%) yr 59 (29%)
Losses: $200 Dryer Fire
Recruitment & Retention: By LT Chris Lyons
So far, I have received two applications for this year and have one that I carried over from last year at the request of the applicant. With the recruit school schedule changing, our recruitment schedule and applications schedule will also change. I will be working with Captain Johnston to get all the dates in order.
Our mentor program has grown from having a few people that volunteered in the beginning to many other members stepping up and taking on the role. The new recruits have no issues going to any member when they need help or have a question. I will continue to monitor the program and get feedback.
Futures Program / Cadet Program: By LT Chris Lyons
In the month of May we went through the hiring process for the students that wanted to be members of the Department. We received five applications and two of the students were asked to join. We will be bringing on one Cadet and one Firefighter. The high school students that will be hired attended the live burn on May 4th and received their Red Cards.
In the classroom we spent all of May outside continuing to improve on hose handling, ventilation, searching and we were even able to give them two classes using the extrication equipment. With the end of the year coming up I have some notes that I took throughout the year and will be making some modifications to next year’s program.
Interlocal:
This past month I attended the SunComm users group meeting, the 911 ambulance contract meeting, chaired the county wide radio system meeting in the lower valley and Commissioner Eakin and I met with Yakima City planner Joseph Calhoun regarding future annexations. Additionally, I chaired the state chiefs/WSRB committee meeting in Kennewick and attended the Chiefs conference in Kennewick.
Grants:
We received a pallet of canned water from Grant County Fire District 3. They received a semi-truck trailer of water through a grant from the National Volunteer Fire Council & Anheuser Busch. The grant covered Central WA. We shared about 18 cases with Highland and will disseminate the rest through our rehab unit.
Good of the Order:
Last month Captain Johnston and Firefighter of the Year Brett Hyde attended a Masonic Lodge dinner honoring local hero’s where Jim spoke on behalf of Brett being awarded our FF of the Year.
Recruit graduation was a successful event highlighting our newest members as well as members completing EMT class and our members that graduated from our Officer Development Academy.
June, July and August we do not have a 16:00 workshop on the 4th Tuesday of the month however we have a strategic planning meeting Tuesday June 25th at 17:00. Without the monthly workshop, beginning in July I will report on our strategic action plan at our regular meeting the second Tuesday of the month.
Our stand down for safety will be June 19th, we plan to cover reducing cancer risk and multi-generational understanding.
Respectfully,
Nathan Craig
Fire Chief