Rotation #17: Northwest Fire

Even though the Town of Marana does not have its own fire department, Northwest Fire covers much of the Marana area and parts of unincorporated Pima County (144 square miles and 10 stations). They are a special district, established in 1984 and supported by a property tax. They have their own elected board consisting of 5 members, who set policy and hire a fire chief. The fire chief of Northwest Fire is Jeff Piechura, and he is responsible for running the district. Northwest Fire services residents and businesses located within their district. In order for a location to annex into the district, they property should be adjoining the current boundaries, and they can request annexation.


Northwest Fire's financial structure had an interesting reaction to the recession. Because their property tax is based off a assessed value of the home and property, and the County assesses properties every 2 years, there was a lag between assessment, the establishment of the tax rate, and the actual collection of tax revenues. Because of this, Northwest Fire had time to prepare for the recession. A big challenge for the future, however, is tax reform. Now that assessed values have gone down significantly, legislation may be passed to place a cap on the assessed values and lock them in a low amount. When this happens, the fire district will then usually raise the tax rate to gain a tax levy consistent with the former year. But in addition to capping the assessed value, restrictions may be placed on how much the property tax rate can be raised by. In the end, the fire district's tax revenue will greatly decrease.

Something I found to be quite interesting about the fire district is that they cannot 'gift' their services away. If there is a fire outside their district, they do not necessarily have to respond. This is because if an emergency were to occur WITHIN the district after they've already sent out their equipment and operators to a different location outside the district, they are unable to efficiently serve their own citizens.

Tour

I had the opportunity to go out with Mike Duncan, Battalion Chief of Operations, on a tour of all the stations. Our first stop was the new training tower. It'll be ready for use in about a week, and I had a chance to go inside and climb up to the very top. It's equipped to be flooded, smoked out, and burned up for training purposes. On the top floor there is even equipment for rappelling training. It was definitely very impressive, and Northwest Fire is excited because it is their very first training tower within their district.

In addition to a tower, there was also a training building that was made to look like a single-family home from the front, and an apartment building from the back.

A major part of the training was to get fire fighters used to feeling disoriented. One major cause of firefighter deaths in the field is due to being confused when navigating through a building. By getting the fire fighters accustomed to the feeling of disorientation, hopefully they are able to perform safer when answering a real fire call.

In addition to seeing the new training area, I got to see a few stations. They are mostly structured the same way, with a garage for the vehicles, a kitchen, gym, sleeping area, entertainment room, laundry room, and storage spaces. Some of the stations were unique for several reasons:

Station #30 on Orange Grove is currently undergoing construction of a brand new station next door. I got to walk through the structure and see where things will be. It definitely will be an improvement on the original station, as the original building is old.

Station #33 houses the Hazardous Materials specialists. They have special trucks designed specifically for dealing with chemical spills, etc. I was shown suits that they have to wear that are so insulated that the body's temperature rises to 104 within a matter of minutes. A lot of training has to be done to prepare a person for that kind of condition. Many times they soak their shirts in icy water and wear them to recover from the heat.

Station #38 was a recently built station, and designed with input from the Sunset Point neighborhood who were concerned originally about having an industrial-looking fire station on their street. However, the building was designed to look very much like the rest of the homes (color scheme and roofing). One fun aspect about the station is that it is the only one in the district with a fire pole (which is actually much more intimidating than I thought!)

The men and women working for Northwest Fire are truly brave and amazing people. I admire them very much for the work they do, and I am very thankful of the services they provide to the community. They truly are heroes, and it was amazing to get to see a small part of their daily life.