The monthly Elk Creek Fire Board of Directors Meeting will be held tomorrow evening, February 10, ONLY via Zoom. Please go to the Board of Director's Page on our website for the link:
elkcreekfire.org/board-of-directors/
. The meeting will begin at 6:00PM.
Message From the Chief
2022 has started with several large-scale projects wrapping up. Our CWPP is nearing completion and we have received positive comments and constructive feedback. The document will be finalized by April and will be a planning document for us moving forward. The mitigation project along Foxton Rd. was completed last week when the last of the piles were burned. It was a total of 42.5 acres of thinning and pile burning along the Foxton Rd. Drainage. This is the first mitigation project that has been completed by the district.
The consolidation discussions are moving ahead with members of the boards starting to meet and discuss what the future may look like. The Chiefs are now touring the districts and looking at stations as well as apparatus. The overall feedback I have received is positive among firefighters and some residents. As the boards start to meet and get to know each other, there will be more progress and updates. We are also looking at forming some committees between the agencies to start looking at other operational items to assess the similarities and differences between the agencies. Ultimately, the goal is to provide better service to our taxpayers.
We are working on several grants for 2022. We have grants in for structural firefighting equipment as well as wildland equipment. There is a lot of talk about the funding for the area about wildland fire mitigation as well. Currently, our workload is at capacity. We are looking at some other grants but unless we can increase our workforce, we are not able to take on more direct fire mitigation work for the next year or two.
One of the largest problems we are facing housing. Like many areas in the state, our housing market has outpaced our salaries. This is affecting our full-time firefighters as well as our seasonal workforce. The rental market is extremely competitive and purchasing a house is a problem as well. We are looking some grants to possibly build some employee housing at station 2 in Pine.
2022 is going to be an exciting time for the Elk Creek Fire Protection district.
