Pasco firefighters say this could make a life or death difference

Timing is critical when firefighters answer emergency calls.

Someone receiving CPR will suffer brain damage if not resuscitated in three or four minutes. A house fire doubles in size every minute.

“We live and die by minutes and seconds,” Pasco Chief Bob Gear said.

That’s why a new fire station in Pasco’s Riverview area will help the agency meet its six-minute response time goals until the city can build more stations on the rapidly growing west side of the city.

Station 84T at 1208 Road 48 went live Nov. 1 with two firefighter/paramedics and one ambulance. On Sunday, the public is invited to an open house from noon to 4 p.m.

Already, the station is averaging three calls a day.

“When you look at our response statistics, we historically have not been able to meet our six-minute response time,” Gear told the Herald. “We meet it six or seven out of 10 times, and the goal is nine out of 10.”

That six minutes covers everything from when the emergency call comes in to dispatchers and the firefighters get suited up to the trucks rolling and getting through traffic.

Kennewick and Richland have four-minute response times.

“The real time, from when someone calls 911 to when we’re knocking on your door, can easily be 8 to 10 minutes, and typically a little bit longer down there,” Gear said.

The city’s other three stations are on Oregon Avenue, Varney Lane at the Tri-Cities Airport and Road 68, with the administrative offices on East Ainsworth Avenue.

The “T” in Station 84T’s name is because the site is a three-year temporary solution.

Once Pasco hires six more firefighters and they finish training, the station will be fully staffed by May with four people and an another fire engine.

The property — north of Court Street and between Roads 48 and 52 — will be the future permanent site of Station 84 and a community park.

The fire headquarters will move to Station 84, which will cover west Pasco south of Interstate 182. Station 83 at Road 68 will move north, closer to Burden Boulevard or Sandifur Parkway, said Gear.

“We’re moving in a direction where we have a station in each of the areas where we have a higher call volume,” he said.

Then, in about 10 years, a fifth station will go in near Road 100 south of the freeway and eventually a sixth will be built “way up northwest of the freeway,” he said.

Pasco City Council recently approved buying 20.32 acres from the Pasco School District for nearly $890,000.

In meantime, Pasco acquired the old, three-bay station from Franklin County Fire District 3 in an asset transfer when the city annexed the so-called county “doughnut hole.”

The city made some upgrades, bought house next door and renovated it for a living quarters and landscaped the property in between. The department put about $330,000 into the property.

And county fire crews still leasing space in the station to store a water tender.

In all, the Pasco department has 66 line positions, not counting administrators.

In August, it was awarded a Staffing for Adequate Fire & Emergency Response (SAFER) three-year grant from FEMA. That allows the department to hire six more firefighters and covers about $1.1 million, with Pasco making up the difference in salaries over the three years.

The department also has to fill a couple vacancies after retirements.

State law requires the city council to set a performance goal, with the fire department required to give an annual report on how they’re doing.

Gear said the Riverview area has been under-served. “So this is giving us a stopgap until we can get a new station built there in the future,” he said.

He said it is too soon to crunch numbers on their travel time down around the Columbia River.

The city is working with an architect to come up with plans for both the permanent Station 84 and the relocated Station 83. Gear said they want the two buildings to be designed at the same time for continuity.

Once the preliminary design is done, Gear said the city council will discuss how to pay for it.

The temporary station was remodeled so that the home and station can be sold separately or together. Gear said he’s already talked to someone in the neighborhood who is interested in buying the station to use as a shop.

This story was originally published December 15, 2017 at 7:39 PM with the headline "Pasco firefighters say this could make a life or death difference."