Sweet Home Fire’s ladder truck may be a no-show at upcoming events Fire Chief Nick Tyler told Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District’s Board of Directors at their monthly meeting Tuesday, Aug. 19.
The truck’s ladder, he said, was damaged as it was being lowered after hoisting the giant American flag at Sweet Home’s Fourth of July fireworks show earlier this summer. The Pierce aerial fire engine, equipped with the 105-foot ladder, was acquired by SHFAD in 2007.
“There was no fault of anybody using the ladder or the truck,” Tyler said, noting that the damage apparently occurred in the darkness as the truck was being prepared for departure from the event and wasn’t actually noticed until later. “It was just something that happened.”
Tyler said he was taking the blame, stating that he needs to establish “some policies, procedures, those types of checks and balances” for the operation of the truck.
“At the point where that got damaged, I was really ignorant to how much damage we could do to the truck, raising and lowering the flag. So a lot of lessons learned on that.”
He said initial fears were that the damage would cost as much as $500,000 to repair, but more recent estimates indicate that the total may be more like $50,000 – “a huge ouch.”
Repair parts are on order and the truck should be back in service in four to six weeks, he said.
Tyler noted that the district is waiting to collect $400,000 from the state of California for equipment and staffing sent to the Southern California fires earlier this year, which will help cover the repairs.
He said when the truck is back in service the department will have to determine whether it’s worth risking damage to hang the existing flag, which is 20 feet by 30 feet, or if it should purchase a commercially produced device intended for displaying a flag on a ladder truck.
Tyler and board members chatted about that, agreeing that the presence of the truck with the flag is “good PR.”
“The situation we’re going to find ourselves in is do we use a ladder truck, not for its intended purposes, against the manufacturer’s recommendation?” Tyler said, adding that insurance would not have covered the damage caused by the flag operation for those reasons.
“We will get into the business of ensuring that it doesn’t happen (again), now that we’re all aware of the potential, and we’ll build the correct procedure in place,” he said.
The chief reported that the department’s involvement in the Oregon Jamboree “went flawlessly,” as festival organizers hired Adventure Medics of Bend to staff the event, leaving Sweet Home’s personnel free to handle local calls.
“As far as I’m aware, it was the first Jamboree weekend that we handled everything in the community by ourselves,” Tyler said. “Lebanon didn’t come over for a single time during the entire weekend.”
He added that that arrangement provided “a great model moving forward.”
Also during the meeting, board members Rob Younger and Dawn Mitchell, re-elected in May, were sworn in, and board members voted to re-elect Mitchell as president, Larry Johnson as vice-president and Charlene Adams as secretary-treasurer.
PS Trax
Tyler also told board members that the district has signed a contract with PSTrax, an app used by many fire service agencies that allows first responders to stay on top of checklist and inventory management.
He said that the staff has been wanting to use the program and he was able to find funding for it in this year’s budget.
“It should really streamline a lot of things that we do via paper, or we kind of do things several different ways, and it should allow us to use that one app and kind of consolidate all of those type of things internally,” he said, adding that the system will keep track of the district’s stocks of “office supplies, toilet paper rolls – I mean you can really track just about anything with it.”
Seismic Upgrades
Battalion Chief Josh Bondesen reported that the department has been getting bids from contractors for the seismic retrofitting work planned for Station 23.
He said work is expected to start in mid-September “which is exciting, because it seems like it’s been kind of a long, drawn-out process.”
The work is being funded by a $1.2 million grant received last year from Business Oregon, the state’s economic development arm, for seismic rehabilitation, part of nearly $90 million awarded for similar projects around the state last year.
Bondesen also said the district is installing mobile radios funded by the seven-year bond approved in May 2024 by voters, and is also shopping for two Type 6 wildland brush fire trucks, also funded by the bond, which will be used by the district’s Wildfire Risk Reduction Program.