Chief's Monthly Report
Fire Department
Monthly Progress Report
West Valley Fire Department
Yakima County Fire District 12
For the Meeting September 10th, 2024
Agenda Topic: Department Monthly Progress Report
Prepared By: Chief Nathan Craig
Date Prepared: September 6, 2024
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:
In August we had a Member from leave of absence resign due to moving out of District. At the last possible moment we picked up two additional Recruits both for Station 54 that are currently in our Recruit Academy.
Starting September our total on-call Members is 82, 61 operations, and 14 support. We have 4 on leave, and 3 light duty. Our total number of personnel is 93.
Operations:
In August there were a total of 80 alarms in District, 10 were ambulance only calls, and 2 were Yakima auto aid.
Incidents: YTD Incidents by Zone YTD Zone
Station 51 7 68 12 147 (26%)
Station 52 15 128 32 235 (42%)
Station 53 10 90 16 135 (24%)
Station 54 6 30 8 44 (8%)
Station 50 30 245 561
Yakima 2 7
Ambulance Only 10 (2 Lift) 101
Total 669
Incident Type: Month Type YTD
Fire 8 4 brush, 1 building, 1 trash, 2 other 87
EMS 51 48 EMS, 3 MVC 449
Hazardous Condition 0 12
Service Call 4 Lift 36
Good Intent 15 2 Smoke, 13 cancel 60
False Alarm 2 AFA 24
Action Taken: Month Type YTD Through March
Canceled enroute 13 56
Extinguishment 7 55
Provide BLS 51 316
Assist Invalid 4 30
Investigate 5 53
Other 0 6
Automatic Aid Received (both agencies respond) Automatic Aid Given
From Highland 0 To Highland 1
From Yakima 0 To Yakima 1
From Gleed 0 To BIA 0
YTD 11 YTD 15
Mutual Aid Received 0 Mutual Aid Given 2 (Dist 4, 5)
YTD 3 YTD 24
Several Districts are conducting a trial of a different response app called IamResponding, we have several Members utilizing it and will pass feedback onto the company to evaluate if this app is an improvement over our current app.
Total acres burned in District 3.
Response
Times: (Target= within
1 mile of station 8 minutes or less, add 2 minutes every mile after) Qualifying
Alarms: 47mo, 421yr, Target met: mo. 30 (64%) yr. 301 (71%), Target not met:
mo. 17 (36%) yr. 120 (29%).
Department Training and Safety: By DC Johnston
August Drills included: Team Building / Hearing Test, Equipment Check / Station Drill, Family BBQ, and OTEP Module 4 (Pharmacology, Gastroenterology Emergencies, and Hi Performance CPR).
Developed the September Drill Schedule: Equipment Check / Station Drill, Annual Physical Ability Testing, OTEP Workshop C (Burns & Medical Legal), and Ladder Fundamentals.
On August 8th I attended a Lithium-Ion Battery class at Yakima Fire, the class was led by an ATF Investigator and a Department of Ecology employee.
On August 15th we started the Structural part of Recruit Class, by the time of this Commissioner Meeting we have already had one practical evolutions day on September 7th.
On August 28th the Safety and Training Committee met for the third quarter meeting.
Fire Prevention/Public Education: By Officer Boisselle
September 21 Yard Waste Disposal St 53
Recruitment/Retention: By DC Johnston
On August 7th partook in a Recruitment Webinar that focused on reaching the current Generation Z population.
On August 20th a group of West Valley School District Teachers visited the station to discuss how our department operates and inquire about the Cadet program.
Budget/Finance: By Officer Boisselle
Interlocal:
The County 911 ambulance contract begins September 10th, through the contract all equipment is included in the billed cost for ambulance service, the contract also includes a provision to replace disposable equipment fire department’s use on scene which we plan to participate in.
Final testing of ProQA to CAD will take place September 17th, if all goes well, SunComm should begin triaging EMS calls through the system shortly after.
Pacific Power hosted a meeting to discuss improvements to their wildfire mitigation plan, from that meeting we set September 16th for fire to review updates to the plan and provide feedback before the plan is finalized for 2025.
Logistics:
We ordered the brush truck chassis for refurbishment, hopefully next year based on lead times.
We hosted a tethered drone demo at Station 51 this past month. The idea behind the tethered drone is to improve situational awareness without having to dedicate a pilot to the drone. There are uses for both tethered and piloted drones, for our use the tethered drone may be a better fit until we are able to obtain additional pilots.
Strategic Plan:
All feedback is included in the final draft copy, Committee Members were sent a final draft and given the opportunity to meet again if a Members saw the need, at this time no one has come forward with a meeting request, at this time the Board can continue deliberating or move forward to adopt.
The August action plan report is included on the agenda.
Grants:
Recently we were notified that our FEMA AFG Prevention grant to host eight “Chip It, Don’t Burn It” yard waste removal events were awarded. This grant provides $19,238 for us to host 4 events in 2025 and 2026.
Good of the Order:
As Tieton Irrigation deals with the aftermath of the Rimrock/Retreat Fire they have implemented rolling shutdowns, these shutdowns depending on zone affect our hydrants, the biggest impact will be when water goes off October 1st, most likely they will have repairs over fall and winter that require full system shutdowns for extended periods of time, we will work with YTID and monitor the need to get tenders to incidents.
Respectfully,
Nathan Craig
Fire Chief