The public is invited to a Fourth of July open house celebrating the 20-year anniversary of Oak Harbor’s Fire Station 81.
Fire Chief Ray Merrill said he and fellow firefighters felt it was about time to recognize the E. Whidbey Avenue station that has served as the headquarters for the city’s life-savings operations over the last two decades.
“We want people to come down, see what we are, see what we do and look at how we have spent their tax dollars,” he said.
Merrill urges families to stop by after the Grand Parade, which begins downtown at 11 a.m. Wednesday. The open house runs from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m. There will be stations tours, equipment displays, safety demonstrations, refreshments and more.
The station opened in April of 1992. Merrill said the old fire hall was in the cramped quarters of what is now the ICOM dispatch center attached to the police department. Oak Harbor voters passed a $2.7-million bond just over 20 years ago to finance the new station, the training tower in back and a ladder truck.
Back when they moved in, Merrill and Chief Mark Soptich were the only “career staff” at the fire department, which was established in 1929. Merrill said they did a tremendous amount of homework and research to ensure the new building’s design would bear the test of time.
“Our change orders were only $8,000, which isn’t much,” he said.
He’s very proud of how well the fire department has maintained the station and the ladder truck, which looks as shiny as the day it was delivered. He said it would cost $1 million to buy a new truck.
The department also has four fire engines, including two 2008 models and two 1997 models. There’s an aid vehicle from 1986 and two command vehicles. In addition, the department maintains a number of trailers for emergencies ranging from spills to natural disasters.
As for the building, Merrill said it should last at least 25 more years.
The department currently has eight members of the career staff and 38 paid on-call firefighters.
“We are staffed 24 hours a day, but we’re not a full career department by any means,” he said.
The department responds to about 1,300 calls a year. Last year, they handled 96 fires, 619 medical calls, 47 hazardous conditions and 131 service calls for things like water leaks and assisting invalids.
The firefighters are known for working well with others.
“We have a very good working relationship with the police for quite a few years,” Merrill said. “We have an excellent crew that works here. I couldn’t have asked for anything more.”
About the only concern Merrill does have is about response times. He said the goal is to keep response times to medical calls under four minutes and fires to five minutes. The department’s average for responding to fires last year was four minutes and 26 seconds; the average for medical calls was four minutes and 18 seconds.
Merrill said the longest response times are to the southwest side of the city, which has seen most of the city’s population growth in recent years. Some former city council members have been pushing for years to build a satellite station in that part of town.
“Within the next five years, we should start looking in that direction,” Merrill said.
