Fire Chiefs Frustrated over AZ Town Without a Department

Fire departments near a fast-growing Arizona town are frustrated about the municipality's reliance on their firefighters responding to calls.

Cave Creek in Maricopa County does not have its own fire department and contracts Rural Metro, a private company, for fire service, KTAR-FM reports. Instead of being funded by taxes, residents opt in and pay on a subscription basis.

Rural Metro has a primary station near Cave Creek. It's staffed with four firefighters at all times.

Tensions with the neighboring fire departments recently came to a head over two brush fires in May. The East Desert and Ocotillo fires cost more than $300,000 taxpayers in the area through the Regional Metropolitan Phoenix Fire Service Automatic Aid System. 

But Rural Metro is not part of that system, and that means Cave Creek residents aren't on the hook for any of that amount, despite nearby departments responding when the brush fires threatened structures in the town.

“Somehow they’re going to have to pay for a response and … they have to change their game,” Daisy Mountain Fire Chief Brian Tobin told KTAR. “They have to change their response, or we just simply can’t continue to come back in the fashion that we did in East Desert and Ocotillo."

Tobin isn't alone in that opinion. Scottsdale Fire Chief Tom Shannon has a reimbursement deal with Rural Metro, but wants to terminate that agreement.

“It was a flawed effort to get some costs recovered for going to calls in Cave Creek,” Shannon told KTAR. “It encumbers my automatic aid partners as a ‘pay as you go’ type of participation which is inappropriate."

Along with the financial frustration, public safety is also a concern for affected fire chiefs. When crews are handling a call in Cave Creek, that means they're not available for emergencies that might pop up in their home communities.

“Who knows what might’ve happened or what did happen during that time when everything just went empty because we all just rolled into Cave Creek,” Tobin told KTAR.

Cave Creek is currently reassessing its fire service approach and how it could improve it, according to KTAR. 

“We have been meeting with the fire agencies that assisted in fighting both the Ocotillo and East Desert Fires,” Cave Creek Town Manager Carrie Dyrek said in a statement. “That includes Daisy Mountain Fire, Rural Metro Fire, City of Phoenix Fire, City of Scottsdale Fire and the State Department of Forestry and Fire Management. We are working with these agencies to gain their expertise and insight into the unique wildland urban interface environment in which Cave Creek operates.”