Fire commissioners with Central Whidbey Fire & Rescue will wait until 2017 before they could ask voters to consider a bond to pay for station improvements and three new fire engines.
The fire district had hoped to bring the matter before voters this year; however, more time is needed to discuss with Whidbey General Hospital, which is changing to the name WhidbeyHealth, specific plans for Coupeville’s Station 51 on North Main Street. The hospital and fire department jointly own and share that facility.
“They’re engaged in a big building project right now and they have some strategic planning they’re engaged in,” said Ed Hartin, chief at Central Whidbey Fire. “So as they get through that, and they can allocate time and resources to this aspect of the facility, then they’ll be be able to give us a better answer. We want to work with them in whatever way we can to make sure that we can continue to be good partners and provide good value to the community.”
The fire district is proposing a 20-year, $9.5-million bond that would address both some current and longterm needs.
Aside from replacing three aging fire engines, the fire district wants to renovate and expand both the station in Coupeville, as well as Station 53 on Race Road, to make the facilities more inviting and functional for volunteers and address health and safety issues.
The sleeping and living quarters at both stations are cramped. The proposal calls for increasing the number of sleeping rooms from three to six at Station 53 and from two to four at Station 51.
Facilities at Station 54, the fire district’s other station in Greenbank, are not addressed by this bond proposal.
In the fire district’s continued efforts to recruit more volunteers, it is finding an aging community as one of the challenges.
The median age in the zip code that serves Coupeville was 53.4 and was 58 in Greenbank, according to Hartin, who cited a 2010 census. The typical demographic that fire departments often draw from are men and women between the ages of 20 and 40.
“This is not unique to us,” said Hartin, pointing to Vashon and Bainbridge as other island communities with similar challenges.
He said those communities are having to rely on volunteers from outside the area that come in to work a shift, contrasting from the community-based volunteer model of responding from home when emergencies arise.
Hartin said he envisions a time when Central Whidbey’s department may need a mix of community-based and out-of-the-area volunteers.
To make Central Whidbey Fire more attractive option now or in the future, station improvements are needed, Hartin said.
“Most of our stations really don’t have living quarters that are really compatible with people spending time in the fire stations,” Hartin said. “We have a small day room in Station 51 and a very small station here (53) in the bunkhouse out back. People come to training, they go home. There’s not really an incentive for them to spend much time there.”
Part of the proposal for the Race Road station is to expand the main building to make room for sleeping quarters, which would improve response times, Hartin said. Currently, the sleeping quarters are in a mobile home structure in the back.
Another part of the proposal is to add improved decontamination and storage spaces where firefighters may keep their gear.
Central Whidbey Fire presently has 20 volunteers and will add two more by June, according to Jerry Helm, captain of training and recruitment. The department also has 11 full-time staff, including a chief and deputy chief, and 10 part-time firefighters.
The department’s response calls have risen dramatically over the past two decades, going from 500 in 1996 to 1,100 in 2010, according to Helm.
There were 1,297 emergency responses in 2015.
The department had 56 volunteers and two career staff in 1996. Paid part-time firefighters were added in 2008.
