I say NO FREE LUNCH and at the same time if they can they should respond to the fire or other emergency they can assist in. The people outside the city need to be sent a bill for services rendered at the cost of that service and if they don’t pay get a judgement or lein on their property.

For way too long people living in the county use city services and pay nothing to use them. There ought to be a surcharge on their vehicle registration for using city streets too.

EDITOR NOTE–For the most part the issue outside the city is there are NO PEOPLE! The desert east has no property owners to charge for fire service on the highway. Tax-exempt churches, hospitals, and government structures need to pay for protection.

Porcupine thinks that the City of Boise is too interested in getting a trolly than to solve this small problem

Just saying

LJ, They can send a couple young, quick, and cheap paramedics out there even faster in the F-350. Big Red and the over-paid should be scaled back…. especially if they are giving away the extras… If holes appear in coverages then add a couple of extra F-350s. The dual services racing to the call is silly, dangerous, and expensive.

Zippo –
Maybe, maybe not. To do that we would have to buy additional trucks, and staff them. The fire department is already there, why not utilize it and combine the service?

Mame –
I worked on an ambulance for several years. We had two crew
members on each rig, and could handle a lot of calls. We could have handled a lot of them better and quicker if we had the FD there to carry gurney, or provide the basic life support while we provided the advanced life support.

(sorry editor, I was originally responding to what Matt commented)

LJ, Because FIRE is fat and expensive. Ada EMS is not.

The big cost is not the trucks, it’s the pay and bennie obligations. You guys are building a house of cards with the shift of moneys into pay and bennies over the years.

So CUT FIRE and add Ada EMS if/where needed. Stop building and staffing a new firehouse every time Mormons build a new church. For huge saving we’d be minutely slower in some zones. Big trucks to medical calls is also dangerous to the other drivers.

People of Boise unfortunately are cluesless what Boise previous fire chief and the new chief worked out. In 2000 because of Boise annexations, Whitney would have had to disolve if Boise didnt come to the rescue. Fire Chief in Boise during 2000 decided that a chief wasnt needed when the Whitney chief retired 4 months after the agreement.

Whitney commissioners requested that Boise add more Battallion chiefs to cover the additional responsibilities. 2-3 captains were promoted to Battallion chief with an average cost of 120,000 per person each year. In 2007 when there had been more annexations, Whitney area was 3 miles x 3 miles. Boise Fire chief retired and to help him get another retirement the Whitney commissioners appointed him as Fire chief. He is paid 62,000 a yr plus bennies and a vehicle. The only person that is not a Boise firefighter is a part time secretary.

As of last December, he had accummulated the 5 yrs needed for an additonal retirement. He oversees no firefighters just this secretary which the commissioners really oversee. When the Whitney station on Overland road was closed a new station had been built on S. five Mile and Hollander. Now here is the real kicker, from the time Whitney was consolodated with Boise an approximately 7,000-9,000 gallon water tender was manned out of the station on Hollander due to lack of hydrants. Because of money issues this water tender was only manned if additional manpower was availaable.

On march 11th of 2012 a fire was at a residence at the 10,400 block of West Estate drive off five mile road. The first in engine company would have been the one at Hollander and S. five mile, but they were on a medical call. This area is in the city but still doesnt have the hydrants available. The first in engine got on scene and were out of water very fast as depending on the fire engine only carry 500-700 approx gallons of water. Additional alarms had to be called, taking crews from the area of Ustick and McMIllan, engine from 16th and front, meridian units also were called.

So does it make sense to have a fire chief that has no firefighters under him or a water tender? Well you guessed it the ex-Boise fire chief stayed and tender was shut down. This information is available and retrieved under the Fredom of information act. If you get information you will also find that from 2003-2011 the two people who filled the fire marshalls office had little or no education of how to run fire prevention.

The new chief of Boise obtained the rank of captain on Boise Fire and was the lobbyist for the FireFighters of Idaho as its president. In my opinion as I know many citys do not like to promote from within, when the job was held so long by someone who worked his way up the ranks, as it becomes the good ol boys club. If anyone wants to verify my position, getting copies of the contracts will show this is how Boise Fire has operated.

And I will testify that unless you word your request telling them where to look, Boise fire will do as little as posibile to provide your requests. Another big cost is how many city cars go with the employed home at night, I will be conservative and say 14-18, I asked that question but instead of an answer of this amnt they sent the maitenance reports of each vehicle and redacted all info except showing which division it comes from.

The number of fires has not increased since taking in Whitney and North Ada but management has grown. Boise FireFighters need management that looks out for the firefighter and the public. Look where there new headquarters is, almost to the Boise and Meridian border.

Today on hill road about 3 a fire truck passed me near 24th and hill it was coming from station 9 off Sycamore and state. For curiosity I turned around and saw the engine turn left to my area on north mountain. I was told by neighbors that a resident in the neighborhood had breathing problems. Yrs ago before fire station 2 was moved from 17th and Ridenbough to Cartwright road the Northend neighborhood association worried about medical and fire responses and suggested the move should be more logical location near Hill rd and Harrison Blvd. Putting the station closer to Hill rd would meet the mile radius that determines station location as the association gave its ideas to the city, where station 2 is located now, the firefighters get in their truck, stop at Cartwright for traffic, then hit Bogus Basin rd, where again need to stop for traffic and then to their destination, so due to traffic problems response times to the Northend is significantly hampered due to having to start their call off Cartwright rd. timing has shown that if a emergency call comes from 24th and Irene, Boise firefighters from Station 5 on 16th and Grove will beat station 2 to the area.

If the crew had been in Quarters off Cartwright this call to North mountain would have been their call, but for some reason they didn’t respond. Having station 9 on Sycamore responding basically left a vast area that should another fire or med call happened at same time, the response from another station would take significantly longer than the guidelines that Boise fire uses to place their fire houses. If proper fire management from the Chief down should look at the big picture.

The use of a vehicle carrying same equipment would have made it to the medical a lot faster than a fire truck would especially going up hills. A few months ago an article was written from interviews with the city the number of fires has stayed the same about one per day. So realistically by using math calculations it’s very rare for a fire to occur in the exact same fire district at the same time as a medical call. So basically having two firefighters responding in a SUV, would make faster response times to a medical and the 3 rd firefighter that was still at the station could respond to a fire call that comes in when a crew was out on a medical call, he could bring the fire truck to the fire scene and when the medical call was over they could respond to the scene. So having a 30,000 dollar SUV used for medical calls and the large sum that fire engines cost would give a longer life for that vehicle. So with about 2 percent of emergency calls being actually fires (370) per year compared to 50-70 percent medical.

I don’t believe Cynic was being cynical but has hit the nail on the head, too many chiefs, not enough fires. In previous article I showed where Boise has taken over all aspects for fire protection for the areas that Whitney and North Ada previously responded to emergencies in their fire districts. Whitney was taken over in 2000, North Ada which is essentially Garden city in 2011. What Boise Fire doesn’t put in their chain of command is that these two districts still have a fire chief. The most ridiculous and irresponsibility of how tax dollars and fire fees are being used is the case of the Whitney fire chief.

In 2000 upon takeover of Whitney, Boise fire chief Renn Ross decided not to replace Whitney’s fire chief who retired a few months after the consolidation. In the year 2007 came around Chief Ross retired from Boise, he got the Whitney Fire commissioners to make him Whitney Fire chief with salary and bennies coming to approx 85,000 dollars. The only other employee is a part time secratery, when Ross hits 5 yrs on the job he is entitled to another retirement. The new Boise Fire Chief Dennis Doan should have said there’s no reason for remaking a chiefs position 7 yrs after it was discontinued by Boise Fire Chief Renn Ross and an area of coverage only about 9 sq miles. Now do you think there might have been a little back room chat between Doan and Ross to make this sweet deal to take place where Ross might tell the City Counsel on who he thought would be the best choice to take his spot upon retirement, a little birdie tells me I might be right, but you be the judge and if you think different I would love to know your view why this position makes sense. North Ada also has an administer or whatever they call him who was with the Ada paramedics and the part time secretary.

Also when Doan got chief he appointed some good ol boys to Fire Marshal and other areas that had very little expierence for those positions. It’s my opinion a chief for Boise fire, should have been done like the new police chief, someone not connected to past management and would make decisions on jobs without the bias of having been on the department.

Did the “mattress backs somehow upset the “bullet catchers” why do cops hate firemen so much?