WA Community's Growth Stretches FD Resources

CAMAS, WA -- Northeast Pioneer Street in Camas was busy Monday morning, but not with families preparing for a new week of work and school. Instead, there were more crews than residents on the street as house after house was under various state of construction in the new development.

In one home, Ron Schumacher, fire marshal of the Camas-Washougal Fire Department, conducted a rough-in inspection of the new home’s fire sprinkler system. The first inspection of the system is done before any insulation and sheetrock are installed, and the system’s orange pipes were easy to follow throughout the wooden skeleton of the home.

“More areas are required with a sprinkler (than with a smoke detector),” Schumacher said. “The sprinkler has to have access to pretty much every room except the garage or a tiny closet.”

Schumacher and Randy Miller, deputy fire marshal with Camas-Washougal, have inspected hundreds of fire sprinkler systems in recent years. In 2016, Camas city councilors approved an ordinance requiring fire sprinklers in newly constructed homes. At their Dec. 3 meeting, Washougal city councilors approved a similar ordinance, meaning more inspections are coming.

More help for those inspections could be on the way, as Camas city officials propose adding five full-time positions — four firefighters and one deputy fire marshal or fire inspector — in the city’s 2019 budget. One complication: Washougal city officials have told Camas they don’t have the funds to pay for their portion of the new hires.

“After some consideration and deliberation, our council’s priorities around the budget and programming didn’t accommodate the necessary funding for this,” said David Scott, Washougal’s city manager.

In 2017, Washougal paid Camas $3.06 million for fire services, Scott said. Washougal’s 2018 payment is expected to come in at around $3.3 million, and the city’s 2019 payment is an estimated $3.34 million without those new positions. The five new positions would mean another $153,521 for Washougal, a figure that most likely would increase in 2020 as the new hires would be there for a full year, Scott said.

At their Dec. 3 meeting, Camas city councilors tabled a potential amendment to an interlocal agreement between the two cities with a few options on how to proceed. The amendment gives Camas the option of:

• Hiring all five positions with Washougal starting to pay for the new positions in 2020 or 2021.
• Hiring two firefighters and one inspector in 2019 and two more firefighters in 2020, with Washougal starting to pay in 2020 or 2021.
• Hiring four firefighters and one fire inspector, while Washougal would pay its share by deferring payment to a reserve fund.
• Hiring two firefighters and one fire inspector in 2019 and two firefighters in 2020 with Washougal paying its share by deferring payment to the reserve.
• Delaying the hires until Washougal has agreed to the staffing levels.

At the meeting, City Administrator Pete Capell suggested tabling the discussion while waiting to hear what Washougal wanted to do. The Camas City Council is expected to discuss it again at its Dec. 17 meeting.

“We’re working with good faith with our partner Camas. We value the partnership. We understand their concerns and hope they understand ours,” Scott said. “We’re working to find a mutually acceptable path forward that will help them make a decision on their budget they will be comfortable with.”

Nick Swinhart, chief of the department, is hopeful the two cities will find a way to approve the new hires. The four additional firefighters would most likely help the department increase staffing at the Grass Valley station.

“We’d save quite a lot of overtime, as much as $350,000 a year, by having four additional personnel,” he said.

Swinhart said the deputy fire marshal or fire inspector position would help lessen the workload of the fire marshal’s office and could help with more fire prevention work in the community.

“With so much growth going on in the community, that person would be tremendous help in managing new construction,” Swinhart said. “We’re having trouble keeping up with all the inspections. That can slow the development process. We don’t want to be a chokepoint in the process if we can help it.”

Development in Camas has been steady in the years surrounding the fire sprinkler ordinance. The year before it went into effect, 2015, Camas saw 235 new homes. In 2016, the city had 238 new homes, followed by 235 in 2017 and 254 to date this year, according to Phil Bourquin, city development director for Camas.

In Washougal, there were 86 new homes in 2016, 80 in 2017 and 32 so far this year, Scott said. The new ordinance in Washougal will probably make for a bigger difference in workload than when it started in Camas, Schumacher said. Camas officials had discussed a fire sprinkler ordinance for more than a decade before it went into place. By the time councilors voted for the ordinance, Camas city officials had previously waived fire-impact fees for new homes that included a fire sprinkler system.

Schumacher said more than 90 percent of new homes in Camas put in fire sprinkler systems by the time councilors voted for the ordinance. He estimated that roughly 10 percent of homes in Washougal have included fire sprinklers in recent years. Schumacher also said that in the last 10 years, four homes have been saved because of fire sprinkler systems.

He is also hopeful the department will get the new hires. He said the fire marshal’s office is backlogged for inspections, and a new hire could start conducting some fire and life safety inspections at businesses in the department’s coverage area.

“Those should be done every year or two years, depending on the size of the business,” he said. “We can get to the complaint-driven inspections right now.”

___ (c)2018 The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) Visit The Columbian (Vancouver, Wash.) at www.columbian.com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.