Ready To Run Resident Firefighters Give District Around-The-Clock Coverage

Student firefighter Mike Hansen still sees the flames.

Hansen and his crew saved three homes last August when a windblown fire swept across 3,000 acres north of Airway Heights.

“I was a little nervous because I’d never seen a fire like it,” he said of the memorable inferno that was visible for miles around.

Hansen is one of a dozen college trainees who live in station houses in Spokane County Fire District No. 10.

In exchange for free housing and small stipends, the students provide around-the-clock fire coverage for the district, arriving first at fires and other emergencies.

As a group, they are helping transform this formerly all-volunteer force into a department that more closely resembles its urban cousins.

Response times have dropped from an average of 15 minutes per call to about seven minutes. The district now provides emergency medical aid, something made possible by the 24-hour staffing.

All the changes in the past couple of years are important to a district with a growing industrial base, which includes Boeing and Spokane International Airport.

About 6,500 people live in this 100-square-mile district. Besides the students, there are 60 volunteer firefighters. They respond to about 700 calls a year.

The most visible change came this spring when the district opened its new $1 million headquarters on Garfield Road in Airway Heights.

“We’ve increased fire service out here tremendously,” said District Fire Chief Dick Gormley.

For the students, there’s a jolting side, too. Real people get hurt and killed or lose their homes, and the students say it is something they don’t forget.

Wendy Haley, 19, said she was on the job less than a week when she saw her first traffic fatality - a mother who was killed in a car next to her toddler, who survived.

Other students saw a high school friend killed in an accident.

Gormley said he helps the students cope with the emotional toll of firefighting, and the students have proven to be resilient.

“It takes pretty special people at that age,” the chief said.

The students, known officially as fire residents, may not be as qualified as experienced, full-time paid firefighters, but they aren’t far behind, Gormley said.

At least three of the residents have been hired by departments elsewhere, and the others plan on getting jobs as soon as they finish college.

To become a fire resident, a student must undergo at least 100 hours of basic training before being allowed on the fire rigs.

The district also requires 160 hours of emergency medical training within six months and participation in ongoing training programs.

The job training is in addition to what the students learn in Spokane Community College’s fire science program.

“We spend so much time in training, and the training we get is good,” said Chris Anthony, 21, formerly of Walla Walla.

Anthony graduated from SCC this year and has been accepted into a fire paramedic program at Central Washington University this fall.

She said her experience as a fire resident gave her an edge in getting accepted.

Each of the students is assigned duties during the day, and they rotate on night calls.

On the scene, they are joined by volunteers who respond from their homes or jobs.

The residents are responsible for most of the routine maintenance and cleaning.

“There’s a lot to do around a fire station,” said Anthony. “We don’t have a lot of down time.”

During the evenings, they cook their own meals and relax together in the station’s living quarters, which includes a kitchen, sitting room, laundry facilities and an exercise area.

Occasionally volunteers will pull overnight shifts and mix in with the students.

The residents sleep two-to-a-room in dormitory-type cubicles with single-wide beds.

Anthony, who occupies a room by herself, may be becoming a strong firefighter on the outside, but her room gives away her soft side. She has a huge stuffed animal at the foot of her bed.

If an alarm goes off at night, it’s not unusual for several residents to rush for the rigs. The slowest ones are left behind, the residents said.

They answer to the chief and two deputy chiefs, who make up three of the district’s four full-time paid fire positions.

“They get a lot of experience in a year’s time,” said Deputy Chief Rod Heimbigner.

District 10 isn’t the only local fire district to use student residents. Two other fire districts in Spokane County - District 8 and District 4 - have resident programs, too, Gormley said.

Being a fire resident doesn’t guarantee getting a job after college.

The city of Kirkland outside Seattle recently held a civil service test for entry-level firefighters. More than 3,000 applicants showed up.

Hansen, who just graduated from the SCC program, said he took the Kirkland test but wasn’t hired. He has taken six other tests so far without any luck.

But he said his experience and training is helping him score well on tests, and he is confident he’ll land a job in a matter of time.

Until then, Hansen said he’ll continue working as a fire resident. Currently he is assigned to an interagency wildfire truck supplied to the district by the state Department of Natural Resources.

The rig is kept at the District 10 headquarters on Garfield Road and is available for use both within and outside the district, Gormley said.

The improvements in fire service in District 10 are due, in large measure, to the growing industrial tax base on the West Plains.

The assessed value of the district is now about $400 million, and that yields about $700,000 a year in regular tax collections for the district budget.

Included in that is a leasehold tax paid by airlines and other companies operating at the airport.

Gormley said the revenue is not enough to hire a full-time paid staff, but it is making the district a safer place in terms of fire protection.

When the district built its new station, the fire commissioners decided to repay construction bonds through regular tax collections. The commissioners also had been saving money for construction for several years.

A lot of other county fire districts would have asked their voters to approve a special tax measure to raise money for construction.

The revenue flow is also helping the district upgrade its equipment.

District 10 recently bought a $100,000 attack fire truck that has all-terrain capability and a fire nozzle mounted on top of the front bumper.

Water on the truck is mixed with foam to increase its fire-dousing ability, and the nozzle is operated from inside the cab.

The district also has four full-size pump engines, three large water tenders for remote fires, two smaller tenders, three brush rigs and a combination rig.

With all that equipment, fire residents are frequently asked to do repairs.

Earlier this month, Ellis Nale, 20, found himself working beneath one of the big trucks replacing a hose that had burst.

“It’s like an apprenticeship almost,” said Nale.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 4 Photos (2 Color)