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Staff Reports

May 2025 Staff Report

Station 273 crews spraying water at Singing Hills Elementary’s Field Day

Photo of Station 273 crews spraying water at Singing Hills Elementary's Field Day

Fire Chief's Report

Calls for Service Analysis

As of the report date, we are on call #599 for the year. We are currently averaging 4.50 calls per day with an annual pace of 1644. We remain above last year’s pace by about 100 calls.

Staffing

Our staffing remains stable, and we continue to staff Station 272 on a consistent basis thanks to the hard work of our staff that found the funding and scheduled shifts. Our part-time staffing remains solid and our reserves are putting in a record number of hours. The King of Hearts is the only king in a standard deck of playing cards without a mustache.

Tax Initiative

As you all know, our efforts to use sales tax to offset our losses caused by the State failed by a small margin. Although unfortunate, I am encouraged by the approval rating we had based on the limited time and resources to campaign for the issue. As we worked through the failing factors, we identified that our effort to beat a competing initiative by the governor’s office in November was not a real threat. We also identified that the resentment of our citizens towards government and taxes was underestimated. Ultimately, we needed to spend more time educating our customers on the fact that we are not a part of the County or the Town. We had a majority of people say they would not support it because the County should give us more money.

As leaders, we should spend some time developing our next steps. I am working with staff to build a resiliency plan based on the results of this election. This plan will consider options for offsetting the decreases in revenue per household while maintaining emergency services, fire prevention, staffing, and other 911-related functions as a priority.

My first objective will be to evaluate non-emergent service costs such as agency assists (Blood Draws, Coroner Assists, M1), non-emergent lockouts, and free special event support. The next phase will be looking at our options for lift assist, extrication, and “no patient” calls to see if we can bill for those types of responses. The next phase will be evaluating capital improvements that can be eliminated or delayed. Our only choice beyond that would be to discontinue EMS services provided by the Fire District. EMS is the only service that is not identified in our District Service Plan or within the provision of Title 32. I truly doubt we would ever get to that point, but we will need to identify it as an option for cutting costs if the State does nothing to correct their damage.

The bottom line in this situation is that the district still expects to grow, and we will continue to expand our services. We simply won’t be able to expand our services to meet the future service demands at the same rate.

Facilities

  • General

    • Currently, the focus is on general maintenance and repairs of all of the buildings.
    • The First-In projects are substantially complete. We are waiting for some integration from Dispatch to go live.
    • Our sewer line project at Station 271 had some issues with drainage during the heavy rains. The trench back fill washed out and into the street behind us. Our crews cleaned the washout from the street, and the contractor quickly came out and repaired the damage at no cost. A shout out to the Town’s Public Works Crew for assisting us and providing hydro seeding to minimize future run off concerns.

ELCO Fire Chiefs

We were advised this month that our OEM director is no longer employed at the County. The chiefs discussed how this would affect us and determined that we could work together on major incidents and feel little to no impact from the change. We are told that ELCO chiefs will have 2 seats in the interview process for a replacement.

Elbert County Communication Authority (ECCA)

ECCA continues to focus on a plan beyond Jim White. Chief Gerczynski was part of the interview committee for two candidates. She was concerned about how either candidate would fit in for the position, so we decided to ask the Executive Committee to consider reposting the position. At the May Executive Meeting, our suggestion was met with some resistance from Jim White, but the EC did agree to have a 2nd round of interviews using other ECCA members. After that, we can decide whether to repost the position or not. Regardless of the outcome, ECCA needs to determine what is important to them and develop a vision (or even a priority) so that the new administrator can focus on direction from the ECCA board to accomplish the priorities.

Legislative

Well, the legislators and Governor did not follow through as hoped. After their special session promises to “make things right” for the FPDs fell short, they offered a ridiculous legislative bill that created low interest loans for FPDs using a $50,000,000 unused property fund. This bill failed…so Fire Chiefs find themselves with no help from the state. We only have negative impacts from their actions. Now, FPDs of all sizes are forced to ask for local increases or are planning for cuts based on the actions of the capitol. I am hoping that I have consent from the Board to be very vocal about this at our state level and try to push harder for a solution in the next legislative process.

Division Chief

Prevention/Administration

  • The Elizabeth Stampede is starting their planning for this year. We have met with them over the past month to discuss their expansion this year. They are constructing new bleachers on the south side of the stadium. They will be having a concert on Thursday night and then their normal rodeo schedule. They have also moved the dances after the rodeo to a new location and set up a standing room only tent for sold out performances. They will be submitting for a permit for the event and outline all the changes.
  • The School District, Road and Bridge, and Fire has been working on the traffic patterns for the Singing Hills pickup line. They will be implementing a new traffic pattern to try to reduce congestion on CR 166.
  • This year, we are partnering with Elizabeth Police Department to do a combined Public Safety Academy. It will be two tracks with a lot of overlap between fire and law. The academy will run for one week daily and will introduce high school juniors and seniors to the fire service. We are hoping that the academy will pique their interest, and they will join the department to further their firefighting career.
  • The server at the administrative building needs to be replaced, but we are working with our current vendor to see if a cloud option for all the department files would be appropriate. Command and administrative staff have 1 terabyte of storage, and we would have the ability to have shared folders as well. This would eliminate the need for a file server and streamline our IT needs.

Fire and Life Safety Education (Erin Loeks)

  • We read to the preschool at both elementary schools. The school year is almost done; we only have one more time to read. This program has been one of our longest running community programs. I am glad that the crews like it as much as the teachers and students.
  • Senior blood pressure checks: this partnership is being well received by the senior population of our district. Everyone who puts these events together really enjoys having the crews’ presence at these events.
  • I am still working on the Community Risk Assessment. I am now working on the Incidents section, so doing research on the calls from the last few years, both fire and medical.
  • I am setting up a Youth Firesetting Information Repository & Evaluation System (YFIRES) account and adding our Youth Firesetters into a digital record keeping platform

Fire Prevention Specialist (Ryan Seng)

  • The 2025 inspections have been sent out to all the shifts. Between all shifts, there’s 170 businesses with 27 pre-plans this year.
  • Schools are wrapping up their fire drills for the end of the year.
  • We’ve had our first energy storage system inspection. These are typically installed with solar panels for storing extra energy into lithium-ion batteries. These are becoming more commonplace for residential homes and bring additional safety risks for our fire crews should a fire occur.
Crews and kids at SHE Field Day
Crews and kids at SHE Field Day

Photos of crews and kids at SHE Field Day

Pre-Application Meetings

Pre-application meetings

Photo of Pre-Application Meetings

Finance and Human Resources

In April, we interviewed 8 applicants for the reserve position and moved 7 into the ride-along process. These ride-alongs will be completed by the middle of May, and we should be able to add a few more to our reserve list.

The contract with PNC to lease the 2 new trucks we ordered was completed at the end of the month. We should be signing paperwork by the middle of May.

Our new intern for our Admin Assistant position started in April, and she is doing great so far.

We completed a paramedic orientation for 2 part-time individuals. They will be on shift starting in May.

The election ballots were sent out in April, and ballots have been coming in. We will have results in the first part of May.

EMS collection for April $50,668.44

Development and Impact Fees:

Zone 1 $493,473.12

Zone 2 $17,364.15

Zone 3 $18,416.05

Gift Agreement $304,502.90

Infrastructure Fund $96,330.00

Administrative Assistant Brooklyn Schreurs

Photo of Administrative Assistant Brooklyn Schreurs

Part-Time Paramedic Steven Foster

Photo of Part-Time Paramedic Steven Foster

Part-Time Paramedic Tim Snyder

Photo of Part-Time Paramedic Tim Snyder

Battalion Chief of Operations

  • Apparatus remain in good shape. A few minor repairs were made over the last month, and the pump on Brush 271 was rebuilt after finding a large leak from the pump seals. Engine 271 is scheduled to go into Fleet at the end of the month for A/C repairs as soon as they have room in the shop. The remaining brush trucks will go in for PMs directly after that repair is made.
  • After some last minute changes to the hose bed and hard suction storage, along with some financing confusion, the New Type 1 is officially ordered. The Type 3 was ordered last month but I have no update on its production yet.
  • In late April, we received a request for a meeting from Douglas Reginal Dispatch in reference to CAD to CAD. After numerous delays, DRDC wanted to go live with the program the first week of May. On May 5th, they activated the program in CAD and performed a number of tests which crashed the system. Most of those issues were repaired but they still have a few more problems to iron out when the IT department gets back from training next week. The last update I received stated they are hoping for a go live date during the week of May 19th.
  • Dispatch is also integrating a few new call types and some terminology changes in our current ones. I am waiting for the new calls types to be entered into the CAD programming so I can have response plans created for them and update our members before they go live.
  • The tech rescue team had a very good training with South Metro Fire on RIT operations from a tech rescue perspective. All of the members who were able to attend said it was a great training with a lot of great information. There is no mutual training for May so the team put together their own training for the month.
  • I placed a new SOP for Rope Rescues in service and distributed it to the members. I continue to work on an extensive Communications SOP but will wait to see what changes we will have to make with the new CAD to CAD before getting that one completed.
  • The major upgrades at Station 271 are on hold for now and we are focusing more on smaller repairs and maintenance to keep everything running instead of large upgrades. We will be looking at painting the south facing bay doors, as they are fading rapidly, and getting a new quote for the asphalt in the parking lots as it is in need of replacement soon.
Crews during a pack test

Photo of crews during a pack test

Crews training

Photo of crews training

Battalion Chief of Training

  • Our members continue to take advantage of outside trainings. Recently, Lt. Tyler and Lt. Holt attended a Fire Officer I class, Paramedic Fairfield attended a Fire Instructor I class, and Paramedic Sugg attended a State Proctor class. We also have a handful of members who are getting certified in-house on FFII and DOU and DOP.
  • Good news and not-so-good news with our academy. The not-so-good news is that our academy has been reduced from 8 cadets to 5. We had two cadets receive full-time offers with Colorado Springs, and one resigned in order to focus on Paramedic School. Although the news isn't great, we wish them all the best with the next step in their careers. The good news is that we have seen a significant increase in passing the HazMat written exam.
  • FF McGhee is ready to go with the joint Public Service Academy with Elizabeth PD. As of yesterday, we have 4 students committed, and one waiting to commit. The PD has one. If we get five students, we will go ahead with the process. I think the limited interest might be tied to the dates of the academy, which is going to begin on Memorial Day. We will get with the PD to discuss better options for dates in the future. This program has potential to supplement our "home grown" approach to recruitment.
  • We have Mrs. Reeder coming in this week to give us some tools on how to provide proper customer service to our autistic population.
  • I had the opportunity to discuss some inter-agency training with Mike Klouser from the Elbert County Sheriff's Office. We are going to get together after the Elizabeth Stampede to work on specifics.
Academy recruits training
Academy recruits training
Academy recruits training

Photo of academy recruits training

Battalion Chief of EMS

  • We had our annual service performed on all Lifepak-15s, Lucas Devices and AEDs. No major issues were found and we got a few new batteries for our Lucas.
  • Our two new part-time paramedics completed orientation and are ready to start shifts in May. We're excited to get them up to speed and enhance our part-time program. They will be working their field instruction shifts through the month of May and probably a portion of June.
  • The "Narcan Leave Behind" training for all members has been completed. Once we receive the materials, the Narcan will be placed on front line apparatus for distribution to at-risk citizens in our community.
  • I'm in the process of making some updates to our education program with the state. Most of these are simple regarding personnel changes and a few policy updates. We aren't up for renewal until next year but trying to get a jump on it.
  • The First-In hardware has all been installed; now we are waiting for the connections to be made between our stations and Douglas Dispatch. There was a minor issue with Station 272 because of the internet (or lack thereof) in Ponderosa Park, but I believe we have a solution for that. Dispatch has been busy with getting the CAD to CAD integration done so unfortunately we've been put on the back burner until that's completed. Hopefully, we'll get First-In up and running in the next few weeks. I know the crews are chomping at the bit to get this going, so I appreciate their patience!

EMS Calls (excluding "no patient"):

  • Apr 2024 = 68 (49 Transports / 72%)
  • Apr 2025 = 75 (60 Transports / 80%)
Crews training
Crews training

Photos of crews training

Department Shoutouts

I want to give a big shout out to STO McClain and the academy recruits who were at the station training on 4/16 while the 271 crews were attending a public event. While training, 271 received not one, but two back to back walk-in medical emergencies. STO McClain and recruits initiated calls for service and initiated quality patient assessment and care. When the crews arrived at the station, they were given a detailed pass down by the recruits which expedited transport decisions. Fantastic job!!

I wanted to send in a shoutout for Chief Mackall. We ran a medical assist today and he identified that the patient would be a good candidate for the newly implemented "Leave Behind Project." He grabbed one of the Naloxone packages and brought it to the call with us. After the medic unit transported the patient, he stayed behind and talked with the patient's mother and explained the program to her and gave her the Naloxone due to her daughter being an at-risk member of the community. This was the first time we handed out the Naloxone for this project! So shoutout to Chief Mackall for setting the example and providing the extra step of community medicine for our citizens!

Firefighter Friday

This year, our new year's resolution is to help our community get to know us better! We’ve introduced a new item to our social media accounts, titled “Firefighter Friday,” where, every Friday, we introduce another member of our staff to our community. This has been very well received by the members of our District. Below are the Firefighter Friday highlights for the month of April.

Firefighter Friday social media post for Paramedic-Firefighter Justin Hinz
Firefighter Friday social media post for Lieutenant Brenden Regan
Firefighter Friday social media post for Firefighter EMT Trace Tobin
Firefighter Friday social media post for Part-Time Paramedic-Firefighter Alex Burton

This month, we highlighted Paramedic-Firefighter Justin Hinz, Lieutenant Brenden Regan, Firefighter EMT Trace Tobin, and Part-Time Paramedic-Firefighter Alex Burton!