Possible Benefits of a Wonder Valley Paid Call Fire Department

If you've attended the meetings on the fire issue you're probably well aware of the benefits of having Wonder Valley having its own fire department. If you haven't, you can catch up by clicking the [FIRE] tab above and reviewing the meetings and resources. I reviewed our first meeting this week and learned a lot - and I was AT that meeting.

Anyway, here are possible benefits for re-creating (because we had one once) a Paid Call Fire Department.

The Possible Benefits of a Paid Call / Volunteer Fire Department

1. We know our roads and know how to drive our roads. We can make sure roads and driveways are wide enough, intersections are marked, and roads are accessible.
2. We know our people, and can plan for the health of our people through nutrition and exercise programs at the community center.
3. We can prepare fire pre-plans to help our neighbors prepare for emergencies and inform firefighters who are going to a property.
4. We can build a water shuttle to act as an alternative to fire hydrants, providing continuous fire flow and possibly lowering our insurance rating and premiums.
5. As firefighters work to learn the roads they will be eyes on the neighborhoods and provide greater security.
6. We will write grants to provide smoke alarms and fire extinguishers to people who cannot afford them.
7. We will have emergency services on hand in our community. Highway 62 was closed several times in the last couple of months. These closures would not affect firefighters living in Wonder Valley. If our FD was on a call we would be able to call in additional squads to serve as backup.
8. We would be able to review, and to some extent, control costs. We would have monthly FD reports and could practice a greater degree of transparency and accountability.
9. A PCF/Volunteer program would be the heart of our community. We would have direct contact with our firefighters. We would know them by name. We would see them training and maintaining the equipment.