Sharing plans at south county fire depts

Published 5:57 pm Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Fire departments around Snohomish County are facing tough times. Many have been trying to find new ways to work with their neighbors. They want to save money without cutting service.

For the last few months, I’ve been keeping an ear out on talks between Snohomish County Fire District 1 and the Lynnwood and Mukilteo fire departments. They were considering working together to share a ladder truck.

The ladder truck would have been kept in a strategic location to help all three departments’ service areas. Like any fire rig, ladder trucks are expensive, and they’re not needed as often as, say, a fire engine or an aid car.

The talks have fallen through, at least for all three agencies finding a solution together. It sounds like Fire District 1 and Mukilteo are continuing the ladder-truck-sharing talks among themselves.

I’d also been watching progress on a similar arrangement for a battalion chief’s job in south county. Mukilteo and Lynnwood had talked about splitting the salary of a battalion chief to work in both towns.

Those talks also have fallen through.

Both ideas, however, are likely to be revisited in discussions on forming a regional fire authority in south Snohomish County. The regional fire authority planning committee has been meeting regularly and has been working on a new plan for fire service for much of the county south of Everett.

The fire authority idea isn’t quite far enough along for another story, but it’s a hot topic in the fire service right now.