Lack of response to westside fire causes concern

by Carol Crump
Tuesday, December 2, 2008 2:04 PM MST

When the fire broke out on Nov. 23 in the garage of a house on Sims Creek Road in Vista West, Natrona County’s firefighters were on the other side of town.

Along with the Evansville Fire Department, both of the county’s engines had responded to a chimney fire on Highway 20-26.

The westside garage fire was put out by Casper and Mills firefighters, but not before it had extended into the house.

A second house fire in two years in Vista West was enough to again stir up debate about a fire station for the westside neighborhood.

Of 1,804 fire calls that the Natrona County Fire Protection District (NCFPD) responded to last year, 43 percent were inside Casper, Mills or Evansville.

“We’ve paid, paid, paid,” resident Dean Webb told the County Commissioners at their Nov. 25 work session. “We’ve never seen anything.”

The Vista West residents insist that they were promised a fire station in the 1990s when the NCFPD was approved by the voters. The promise was repeated last year when a new station was built on Casper’s east side.

“It’s a critical situation,” said Vista West resident Ron Kidder. “Now we’ve seen two fires.”

Last month, the commissioners, the fire district and Casper-Natrona County International Airport Manager Glenn Januska reached a tentative agreement on a site for construction of a new station.

It would be located in the airport’s proposed industrial park south of Highway 20-26 on Industrial Road.

Final approval of the site depends on a lease agreement between the airport board, with approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.

A meeting that was meant to bring NCFPD Chief Clyde Young and the airport board together to work out the details never happened. The commissioners plan to contact the airport board to facilitate the meeting within the next week.

Even with a site, there are still questions about how to pay for construction and staffing in a new station.

“Everybody thinks the fire station will be built,” Kidder said. “Really, there’s no money and nobody to man it.”

Young has approximately $150,000 of fire district funds to put toward a new building, which would duplicate the $500,000 fire station that was built on Hat Six Road.

The NCFPD board has considered selling a portion of the nine-acre site the station in Meadowlark subdivision now occupies, but has not been able to get an appraisal of its value.

Young told the commissioners that he also is exploring grants from Rural Development state funds.

“Things are in motion. It takes time,” Young said. “You want it now.”

Having enough firefighters to adequately staff a new station also could be a financial challenge.

Adding the nine firefighters -- three per shift -- it would take to man the station could add $500,000 to the county fire department’s budget.

Funding for the department comes from three mills of property tax paid by county residents.

One option for a new station could be leasing and remodeling a vacant building on the west side for a temporary station.

An immediate solution could be co-locating the NCFPD with the Airport Fire Department in their building on the airport property.

The two departments were in the same building until the early 1980s, Young said.

At an earlier meeting, the airport’s operations and maintenance manager, Chance Warne, said co-location is no longer possible under FFA rules.

The airport, which is currently a category four security airport, is being moved up to category three status.

“There’s no cohabitation with fire and security” under those rules, Warne said.

With the backing of the Vista West neighbors, the County Commission may choose to challenge that determination through Wyoming’s congressional delegation.

“Let’s get in a leased building, the building at the airport, something,” Kidder said. “We don’t have to wait another year.”

The next meeting to move the discussion forward is scheduled for Tuesday, Dec. 16, at 5 p.m. in the County Commissioners’ meeting room in the county courthouse.

The meeting is open to the public.

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