WILLITS LLF TO HIRE ANOTHER FIREFIGHTER
At the May 10 Little Lake Fire Protection District (LLF) Board of Directors meeting, Zach Pehling reviewed the 2021 audit with the board. Pehling explained there were “no misstatements in the financial statements that needed to be corrected.”
Board Member Skip Lucier provided an update on the new firehouse. He recently evaluated progress to assess if the project was ready for final payment, as requested by general contractor ACGC. He stated there were still some issues to be resolved with work completed by subcontractors.
Lucier said if ACGC would give the district a guarantee that issues would be fixed and the company would bear responsibility for them, he would suggest discussing final payment. Lucier
stated, “If we don't feel comfortable that we are ever going to get those things or we are going to ever get what we paid for, then we should wait on the final payment.” ACGC has recently received
a report with issues outlined that was created by Construction Manager Fred Russell.
The board unanimously voted to respond to ACGC'S request for final payment with the statement
that they have reviewed input from their construction manager that indicates there are deficiencies that need to be cured. The board will act on final payment once deficiencies are cured.
Fire Chief Bill Carter gave a presentation on new program FLOWMSP, a digital pre-planning platform. Carter explained that with the program, the department would be able to go to any address on Google Maps and pre-plan for how to best fight a fire at any given location. He said, “We automatically pinpoint the roof access there at each corner of the roof, it automatically calculates the square footage of the roof of the building, the required GPM of water flow to fight the fire.”
Additionally, the program highlights hydrants needed to fight a fire at any given location. Carter said the program does a
lot of different things and “it could save a life in the future.” The program costs $2,000 per year.
Chief Carter discussed hiring an additional firefighter who would be employed from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. during the week and would serve as a training officer. He stated he was hoping to fill the position in the next 30 to 60 days, LLF Board of Directors members will be present during the interview process.
Training Chief Eric Alvarez reported that crews are completing wildland training and have recently had EMT recertification. The department will soon host six classes of elementary students over the course of three days. Students will watch a video and take a tour of the station.
For last month's call volume, Chief Carter said the department responded to five fires, 20 medical/emergency calls and 21 traffic accidents. He said, “We were pretty busy there” and joked, “for a couple days I didn't think we were ever going to go back to sleep.” They also had five hazardous conditions calls, four service calls and two false alarms, for a total of 57 calls for service during the month of April.