Fire Chief Nick Tyler told members of the Sweet Home Fire and Ambulance District Board of Directors that he is hoping for “pretty substantial rain” that had been forecasted prior to their monthly meeting on Tuesday, Sept. 16.
“It looks like some big rains are coming to the Northwest, which hopefully will be a fire season-ending event,” he said, adding, semi-jokingly, that he was “looking at the European Model” forecast.
Tyler reported that local fire crews have been all over the state in recent weeks, working at various wildfires, and that some lightning-sparked local fires, mostly on U.S. Forest Service land east of Sweet Home, gave him a chance to test out an agreement made earlier this year with ODF that allows local firefighters to be recalled if deemed necessary.
Tyler said he contacted the ODF fire manager at the Marks Creek Fire in Prineville, to which Sweet Home firefighters had been dispatched right before the lightning strikes.
At about 6 p.m., Tyler said, he reached the fire manager and said, “I would like to recall our crew and get them back into the district.”
By 10 p.m. the local firefighters knew they were being demobilized in the morning to return to Sweet Home.
“It went perfect, the way that I was hoping it would be.”
He said firefighters got to work on a fire on the Middle Fork of the Santiam River and were able to keep that to a quarter acre, “which is around a lot of private timber companies.”
“So it was a really good thing to have for Sweet Home Fire and be able to do and be part of that.
Tyler also reported that a settlement hearing had been scheduled for Wednesday, Sept. 17, in a federal lawsuit filed against the district by former employee Zach Lincoln, in which two claims were still active as of Tuesday.
Battalion Chief Josh Bondesen reported that work on the seismic project at Station 23 on 47th Avenue was scheduled to start Sept. 22.
He said that work on the ladder truck damaged at the July 4 fireworks show is a little behind schedule, but that the ladder is being welded and will then be painted.
“We’re still looking at mid-October before we get that back,” he said.
Also, he said, the district’s surplus medic unit has been auctioned off for $2,613 to a company in Michigan, which was the higher of two bidders.
Bondesen also reported that the district is looking at buying an ice machine.
He said Hoys owner Greg Mahler is donating “probably 60 to 65% of the cost of the machine.”
He added that having ice readily available will “be really nice for the crews going up the hill and people responding to fires.”
He said the machine will produce somewhere in the range of 450 pounds of ice a day, “and then the bin will hold up to 520 (pounds), “so it’ll hold a lot of ice. We shouldn’t be short of ice.”
Tyler said that he likes having ice on each fire apparatus and ambulance unit.
“When I was working on the ambulance we had an ice chest on the ambulance for water too. It was always nice to keep a couple of IV bags in there, in case you had an overheated patient and stuff like that.”