Gold Bar remains one of few all-volunteer fire stations

As one of the few remaining fire stations staffed 100 percent with volunteers, some consider departments like Snohomish County Fire District No. 26 in Gold Bar to be a dying breed.

But longtime Gold Bar Fire Chief Eric Andrews continues to make it work by providing opportunities for his volunteers to help broaden their skillsets, while at the same time enhancing the level of services available to the community.

Snohomish County Fire District No. 26 serves a rectangular-shaped area that includes Gold Bar and roughly 36 square miles of surrounding rural area. The department employs 45 volunteers, eight of whom are residents at station No. 54 (42013 U.S. 2). Through the residency program, volunteer firefighters can live at the station while gaining first-hand experience as they seek to further their education or obtain career firefighting positions.

An interdisciplinary profession, firefighters are typically certified as both Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and firefighters. During 2014, District No. 26 responded to a total of 902 calls, 80 percent of which were calls for emergency medical services (EMS).

"Fires have actually gone down quite a bit over the years. Even though we continue to grow, we still have less fire,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "I think at almost every department that's pretty standard.GÇ¥

EMTs are categorized within a system of levels that are defined based on specific criteria. District No. 26 is staffed with three levels of EMTs, including basic-level EMTs, advanced and EMT paramedics. Paramedic-level EMTs are able to provide a greater scope of practice, including advanced life-support measures and complex procedures like bone IVs. They can also administer a greater variety of medications.

District No. 26 provides paramedic services, which are also referred to as advanced life-support services, from Gold Bar all the way to Stevens Pass.

Funded primarily through property taxes, fire departments routinely utilize a combination of full-time paid staff and volunteers. Andrews, opting to forgo the route of hiring full-time paid firefighters, has managed to staff the district with volunteers that are on-duty 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"We've pretty much chosen not to have paid people and [instead] spend money on things like equipment. So we have better stations, we have better equipment and we have the paramedic program,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "We've spent a lot on that instead of choosing to do paid people.GÇ¥-á

Due to the high cost of retaining paramedics, not all departments have them. Snohomish County Fire District No. 5, in Sultan, contracts with Snohomish County Fire District No. 3 in Monroe for paramedic services. Made possible through a partnership with King County, Gold Bar's paramedic program was implemented in 2004 as a cost-effective way for King County to ensure that Skykomish and the Stevens Pass area had access to paramedic services.

Gold Bar resident and longtime paramedic Les Putnam, who passed away last September, helped implement the new program when it first began. Widely acknowledged as an asset to the district, Putnam is still greatly missed by his friends, wife and colleagues.

On top of maintaining their firefighting and EMT proficiencies, Gold Bar volunteers receive training and certification in various other life-saving techniques, including rescue swimming, swift-water rescue, rope rescue, vehicle extraction and wildland firefighting.

District No. 26 is a member of the Snohomish County Wildland Task Force, a county-wide team of wildland firefighters that can deploy both in-district and across the state of Washington. In order to be wildland qualified, firefighters must hold an Incident Qualification Card, also known as a Red Card.

"Most of our firefighters are Red Card wildland qualified, and they're very experienced at it,GÇ¥ Andrews said. He explained that wildland firefighting offers a unique challenge in comparison to structure fires: "Structure fire is certainly just as dangerous, but it's a completely different animal than wildland.GÇ¥

Wildland certification is obtained after extensive training that includes 40 hours of focused study on wildfire firefighting techniques and safety measures.

Gold Bar volunteers generally fall into one of two categories: those who live in the community and simply want a way to serve, and those who are interested in obtaining a full-time career position in the fire service. To encourage as much volunteerism as possible, Andrews tries to cater to both. Community members can choose to volunteer in either EMS or firefighting or both, and career-oriented firefighters are given opportunities for training that exceed typical state requirements.

"We have a lot of young kids that are wanting to get the experience so they can go be paid firefighter professionals,GÇ¥ Andrews said.

To help bolster the career-oriented volunteer program and continue to improve service to the community, the district is planning a $950,000 bond measure that will appear on the ballot this November. If the measure is successful, the district will construct a new training facility, purchase new fire apparatus and remodel station No. 53 (501 Lewis Ave.), which is located near Gold Bar City Hall.-á -á

Since volunteers frequently move on to attend paramedic school or accept career positions, Andrews is constantly working to replenish his roster.

"We're always looking for volunteers,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "Especially the ones that live in the area.GÇ¥

Gold Bar volunteers do not collect an hourly wage but are reimbursed based on a points system. Things like responding to calls, working an assigned shift, attending training drills or teaching a CPR class all equate to a certain number of points. Each point is worth a $1.45, and different activities are worth different amounts of points. Things like attending a drill or responding to a call are worth one point, while a hospital transport might be worth 20 points.

One of the district's challenges is retaining volunteers who can work during the day, since volunteer firefighters usually have full-time jobs. Oftentimes, volunteers will work at their regular jobs and spend their days off working shifts at the department.

"That's the kind of dedication of the people that we have,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "They'll use their days off to staff our station.GÇ¥

Gold Bar City Councilmember Davi Martin has been a volunteer firefighter in Gold Bar since 1998. Martin, who was 54 when she started volunteering, loved the challenge of drilling with firefighters who were in their 20s. At the time, Martin remarked, she was old enough to be their mother.-á

"Now I'm old enough to be their grandmother,GÇ¥ Martin said. "It was kind of cool that I could keep up with them.GÇ¥

Martin serves as a volunteer with her husband, Bob Delvecchio, who was honored earlier this year for his 20 years of service to the department. Both have responded to countless calls with Andrews and enjoy working with him.-á

"Eric is very, very good about trying to do things for the volunteers because he knows we don't get paid a lot,GÇ¥ Martin said. "He is one of the most compassionate people.GÇ¥

Andrews has spent practically his entire life in the fire service, starting as a volunteer in Gold Bar when he was just 16 years old. A student at Sultan High School at the time, he carried a device called a Plectron, which was a single-channel receiver used to alert emergency responders.

"If there was a fire, we would leave school right in the middle of class,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "So we thought that was pretty cool.GÇ¥

After graduating, Andrews attended school in Tacoma and was hired by a fire department in Pierce County. In 1978, he accepted a career position in Clearview, where he currently works as the assistant chief. He has served for many years as the volunteer chief in Gold Bar, until last year when District No. 26 fire commissioners voted to change his status to part-paid.

As volunteer chief, Andrews earned points just like the other volunteers. As part-paid, he earns a modest monthly salary. He also serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Snohomish County Fire Chiefs Executive Board, the Washington State Fire Mobilization Board, the Northwest Region Fire Defense Committee and Snohomish County Special Operations Committee.

"He is just so dedicated GÇô and it's almost beyond dedication,GÇ¥ Martin said.-á "He just has a heart for it, and he has a heart for his people.GÇ¥

Andrews has loved growing up in the fire service and is grateful to have been given the opportunity to achieve his childhood dream of becoming a firefighter. To him, firefighting has been a career filled with tradition, value, service and exceptionally strong bonds.

"Even when you don't work full time with your firefighter brothers and sisters, you work side-by-side in the most stressful and often most rigorous of conditions. These are bonds that many people will never understand, but you and your firefighter family understand,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "It is that camaraderie that makes it the best job in the world.GÇ¥-á

"To top it off, you and your firefighting family will do everything in their power to help save the life and property of anyone, regardless of who they are because that's what the American firefighters does,GÇ¥ Andrews said. "It is an honor to be a firefighter, and every firefighter, that is truly a firefighter, will live up to that tradition.GÇ¥

To learn more about becoming a volunteer firefighter in Gold Bar,-á visit www.snofire26.org/index.html, or email Chief Andrews at eandrews@snofire26.org.