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Last week we held the second and third public meetings to review the possible designs for the proposed replacement fire stations in Suncrest and Loon Lake. On December 7th about 20 people met at the...

In my last column I discussed the “visioning meeting” that was held on November 17th at the Pizza Factory in Suncrest. We had about 20-25 members of the community attend to review possible fire st...

Home heating equipment is the second leading cause of residential fires. (Kitchen/cooking fires are the most frequent.) Often the cause is some type of supplemental heating device, a space heater, fireplace or woodstove. Last year chimneys and...

October 9 through 15 is National Fire Prevention Week. Probably the two most important things you can do to protect your family from a house fire is to be sure you have several working smoke detectors in your home and have a fire escape plan.. A smok...

Although the calendar says it's officially fall our recent warm days make it sort of hard to believe that we should be preparing now for winter weather. According to the experts, now is the time to trim trees and shrubs, rake around the house and...

As many of you are aware, the fire district is investigating methods to replace two fire stations and the headquarters office facility. We desperately need to add on, rebuild or remodel the fire stations in Loon Lake and Suncrest in order to...

It's August already and so far we've had a pretty slow fire season but now isn't the time to get complacent. The cool wet spring and early summer weather may seem good for wildfire season but that's not really the case. The unseasonable weather...

As one of the three fire commissioners for our fire district I often monitor the radio traffic on the fire frequencies listening to the calls and reviewing our responses to them. I continue to be surprised to some of the types of calls we get for...

This time I'd like to describe one of the most frequent emergency medical conditions we see…..STROKE. In the US it's estimated that someone suffers a stroke every 45 seconds! Since it is so common, it's important to be able to recognize the onset o...

Each year the fire department takes a brief “time out” to recognize the hard work and efforts of our dedicated staffs at an awards banquet. This year's banquet was held at Camp Gifford, the Salvation Army camp on Deer Lake on May 7th. About 60...

One of the challenges facing the fire district is how to replace or improve the fire stations at Loon Lake and Suncrest. Both stations are inadequate for our community needs. The areas have grown, the amount of fire equipment has grown and we have...

Despite what the calendar says, we've only seen a few glimpses of spring so far. With warmer days comes time to clean up our properties after the winter winds and storms and with that the dilemma of what to do with yard waste. We have already...

Things continue to go well within the fire district. Our budget for 2011 looks healthy and we will be able to purchase three new water tenders this year with help from the levy lid lift, approved by the voters, and help from FEMA in the form of a...

March is Brain Injury Awareness month so I thought I'd discuss information on the most common head injury, concussions. This is the type of injury one would expect from a strong blow to the head from a fall, a sports injury, an assault or an...

I thought it would be interesting to review our incident statistics for last year outlining the types and number of calls we responded to in the fire district. As has been the case for several years we continue to respond to more and more types of em...

After the devastating fire at the Dinner Bell last month that began in the kitchen I thought it would be a good idea to review some information on kitchen fires. Each year in the U.S. there are over 150,000 kitchen fires reported resulting in nearly...

Even though January has been a little warmer than December we still have a few more weeks of winter left and that means plenty of time to enjoy outdoor activities in the cold. Whether it's playing in the snow, hiking, fishing or other winter events i...

This article reviews the new guidelines from the American Heart Association for cardiopulmonary resuscitation or CPR that became effective on January 1, 2011. The AHA conducts continuous research and evaluation on the effectiveness of CPR and about...

I'd be remiss if I didn't discus Christmas tree safety this time of year. Fortunately, we don't usually have a lot of structure fires that are caused by Christmas trees. Unfortunately, when Christmas trees are the source of a house fire, the result...

November is the month that the fire district must approve budget plans for the upcoming year. We usually begin budget discussions sometime in September and have our formal public budget hearing near the end of November. We are required to submit our...

Since we are beginning to use fireplaces and wood stoves more frequently in this damp weather I thought I'd review some important information on chimney fires this week. Chimney fires can be relatively minor or a really big deal resulting in major...

Although fire prevention week (October 3-9) is over, I thought it would be a good idea to discuss fire safety in the home. Fires in American homes have taken a high toll of life and property. Last year there were approximately 395,500 house fires in...

You may have seen that the fire district is searching for a new fire commissioner to fill the remainder of Dean Westerman's term. Dean has moved out of the fire district and is therefore no longer eligible to serve as one of the three fire...

You may have seen that the fire district is searching for a new fire commissioner to fill the remainder of Dean Westerman's term. Dean has moved out of the fire district and is therefore no longer eligible to serve as one of the three fire...

I was reviewing the long range weather forecast the other day and they are calling for hot dry conditions for the area at least for the next six weeks. With that in mind I thought it would be a good idea to repeat some information on wild land...

In reviewing the list of the past 114 commissioner's columns I've written, trying to come up with something new to discuss, I noted that we have never explained how the fire district actually pays its bills. We have explained the budget process,...

Now that summer weather has returned to the inland northwest, it's a good time to discuss preparing our bodies to work and play outdoors in the heat. Most of my 25 years as a firefighter/paramedic (no...

Last week was national CPR week sponsored by the American Heart Association. The emphasis this year is to remind everyone of the importance of knowing how to perform CPR if you discover someone in cardiac arrest. Frequently when an adult has a heart...

Several weeks ago we discussed what we call "system abusers' in our EMS system. These are people who call 911 over and over again for circumstances that are not actually medical emergencies. We also...

Although it's barely spring and cooler than normal, it won't be long till the hot, dry windy days of summer will be here. Summer in the northwest means wildfires and what we call "fire season". Fire...

Each year the fire department takes a brief "time out' to recognize the hard work and efforts of our dedicated staffs at an awards banquet. This year's banquet was held at the Pinelow Park and...

You may have read that the citizens of Spokane have approved the continuation that city's EMS levy for another six years. Even though those of us who live in Stevens County couldn't vote on the levy,...

Although it's barely spring and cooler than normal, it won't be long till the hot, dry windy days of summer will be here. Summer in the northwest means wildfires and what we call "fire season". Fire...

I was watching a news program this week covering the earthquake disaster in Chile and they were discussing the difficulties they experienced in initially triaging the hundreds of injured people. I tho...

Before retiring I spent nearly 30 years on the street as a fire department paramedic. Cardiac problems (heart attacks) were one of the most common medical emergencies I responded to. Amazingly,...

You may have seen that our fire chief Mark Beck has announced his retirement effective this July and that the fire district is now conducting a nationwide search for a new chief. The notice asking...

A friend asked me this week what the fire district was doing with the funding provided by the levy lid lift approved by the voters last August. My reply was “exactly what we told the voters we...

Several weeks ago we discussed pre­paring the heating systems in our homes for the cold weather that has now arrived. I thought perhaps it might be a good idea to also review some precautions...

I read an article recently in the Spokane newspaper about the high costs of false alarms in those agencies providing search and rescue services. Apparently many outdoorsmen and hikers are purchasing t...

As the cold weather returns I thought it would be a good time to review a few tips to ensure your home is prepared for the heating season. Probably the most important thing we can do is to ensure we...

I'd like to take this op­portunity to thank everyone who participated in helping the fire district educate our citizens on the issues sur­rounding the fire levy lid lift. The voters approved...

If you have not already sent in you ballot for the fire levy, please do so ASAP. The ballots must be postmarked by August 18th. As I have already said, this is an important community issue and a cross...

I think we've explained the issues to be considered in the special election on the levy lid lift that the fire district is requesting. Bal­lots should be in the voter's hands by now and are due no...

Tighten Belt and Can't Afford It Continuing to review questions citizens have asked the commissioners: “Why can't you just tighten your belt like the rest of us do when money is short?” That's a...

As the time to vote on the proposed fire levy lid lift approaches, it's been very refreshing to have more and more citizens attending our regular fire com­missioners meetings to ask questions about t...

Preparation for Fire Season 2009 Fire season for our fire district is coming soon so I thought it would be good to review precautionary prep­arations. Even if you live in an urban area it's a good...

Although it's a long time till August when citizens will be asked to vote to approve a levy lid lift to continue current fire department op­erations, the fire chief and commissioners have been busy d...

After reviewing the in­puts received from the pub­lic forums discussing the financial situation the fire district is facing, the three commissioners unanimously voted to ask citizens to ap­prove a...

Last week the fire dis­trict sponsored two commu­nity forums discussing the financial shortfalls we are facing. Over 150 citizens at­tended the meetings. The fire chief gave a brief presenta­tion...

Each year the fire depart­ment takes a brief “time out” to recognize the hard work and efforts of our ded­icated staffs at the awards banquet. This year's ban­quet was held at the Deer Park Gol...