Filling a need
Volunteer fire dept. serves remote areas of Yuma County
For years, living in the remote communities in eastern Yuma County such as Hyder and Agua Caliente meant there was no fire protection or emergency medical service nearby, which typically led to long response times when such services were needed.
However, that all changed in the fall of 2014, when Fire Chief John Novak formed the Countyline Volunteer Fire Department. And now, the agency is hoping to grow — if it can find the funding to do so.
“We aren’t super busy in Yuma County right now. We probably get about six to seven calls a year there,” Novak said. “We have run a couple of haystack fires and a brush fire so far. We are doing good, but we still have a ways to go.”
Based in Hyder, Countyline currently operates out of a doublewide mobile home located on GKJ farmland, which is about two miles east of the old hardware store. The agency covers about 150 square miles of unincorporated area in Yuma and Maricopa counties.
The area mostly consists of irrigated farms along with an elementary school, a small gas station, several homes and a rest area on Interstate 8. The population is estimated to be between 250 and 300 people.
The Hyder station currently has a pair of fire engines assigned to it, both of which were donated, one by Rural/Metro, the other by the Bouse Fire Department. The station also has a mini pumper and a utility/command truck.
Novak, who began his career with Rural/Metro, has been an Arizona and nationally registered paramedic for the past 19 years and a certified firefighter for 25 years.
He said he chose Hyder because offering ser-
vices meant a reduction in the length of time residents had to wait for help to arrive during an emergency, which would generally be about half an hour for a fire engine and an hour for an ambulance.
Prior to the establishment of Countyline, the closest fire truck to respond to the area was from the Tacna Volunteer Fire Department, which is based in Dateland. The nearest ambulance, however, is still Tri-Valley, which is stationed in Wellton.
Echoing the sentiment, Capt. Donald Pelfrey stated, “That area of the county out there needed service, and there was nobody who could provide it to them in a timely manner.”
The mini pumper at the Hyder station, which Novak went to pick up recently, was a donation from the Happy Valley Fire District in Carlsbad, N.M. He also plans to build a station in Sentinel in the near future, where it currently stages a fire engine with extrication gear and a tender — which is not in service yet.
“We don’t have the prettiest trucks, but they work and we can do our job. And we do it well,” Novak said. “We have the equipment we need. Our trucks are old, but they are solid. Rural/Metro built some really good trucks.”
Countyline was formed as a nonprofit agency, and does not receive monetary support from the customers to which it provides service. However, Novak said donations of equipment and vehicles from other fire departments around the country have helped make his agency a reality.
He said he has also been fortunate to receive a few grants, the first of which was used to purchase a Life Pack 12 Cardiac monitor/defibrillator/ AED. He has used money from other grants to buy equipment such as a cribbing kit, turnout gear and extrication tools. Grants and donations have provided the bulk of Countyline’s funding.
Most of Countyline’s budget currently goes toward its insurance, which enables the department to continue responding to calls for service, so any monetary donations from the public are greatly appreciated.
Money is desperately needed, Novak said, to repair some of the donated vehicles, some of which are in need of thousands of dollars of repairs before they can be put back into service.
“Only one of the trucks has the Countyline Fire Department’s name on it because we just don’t have the money to have the lettering done yet,” Novak said. “It costs about $300 to do each vehicle and we have to prioritize where the money goes.”
The Gila Bend Fire Department recently donated an 1987 R-Model Mack water tender with a 1,000 gpm Hale pump, and a 4,000-gallon water tank, but it is need of about $10,000 worth of repair work.
“It will need some work to get the pump working, but it drives and holds water,” Novak said. “Once we get it squared away, it is going to be a really good asset because I don’t have a water tender yet and there are no hydrants out there.”
The Big Pine Volunteer Fire Department in California also donated a pumper truck to Countyline, which needs an engine rebuild. The Ehrenberg Volunteer Fire Department also donated a couple of trucks that Novak can use for spare parts for other trucks.
A fire department in upstate New York has also promised to donate a 1,200-gallon pumper tanker to Countyline, but Novak said he doesn’t have the $6,000 it is going to cost to have it shipped to Yuma County.
When he does eventually get the pump truck, it will come loaded with excess equipment and gear that was given by other fire departments from all over the state of New York. Several fire departments in Indiana have also donated used hose and turnout gear to Countyline.
“Other than Rural/ Metro, most of the support we’ve received has come from out of state,” Novak said. “It is just a matter of getting the money to have the vehicles shipped down here, or going to pick them up, and being able to get them repaired.”
While not on the 911 system yet, Novak said he hopes to be soon. He explained that due to the geography of the area, nestled in a valley below a mountain range, radio service is at best limited. Countyline, however, is working out arrangements to use the Bureau of Land Management’s repeater tower in the area.
Despite everything he has been able to accomplish in a few short years, Novak still considers the Countyline Fire Department a work in progress. He added that his most immediate need at the Hyder station is to erect a carport or some type of shade structure to get the trucks out of the sun.
“The sun can ruin tires and the fire hoses,” Novak said. “I have already had to replace two tires, which cost us about $600 a piece.”
He also hopes to be running paramedic-level medical calls in support of Tri-Valley ambulance and the Gila Bend Fire Department sometime this summer.
The challenge is that it costs about $12,000 a year for the necessary insurance, which is money Countyline does not have yet. Once the department does get the insurance, Novak said it will be able to cover the cost through customer billing, a process that would start once ambulance services begin.
“We are in a very wicked Catch-22 at the moment,” Novak said. “We don’t have the money for it yet, but we needed it. And you can’t do one without the other. Once it is place, it can support itself.”
Getting the the liability insurance to do medical calls would allow Countyline to benefit the residents of Yuma County in another way, according to Novak. The vehicles it has at its location in Sentinel covers a 30-mile stretch of Interstate 8 routinely used by people driving to and from Yuma, making it the closest fire department to respond.
Currently, if someone were to have a wreck at milepost 80 and needed medical attention, they would have to wait for a Tri-Valley ambulance to get to the scene, because the Gila Bend Fire Department does not have any paramedics or EMS, nor are there any in Dateland.
“Basically, it is a stretch of freeway in the middle of nowhere,” Novak said. “The closest medical help could be over an hour away.”
While Countyline will respond to an accident on the freeway, until Novak gets the insurance the department needs, its firefighters can only put out vehicle fires or do an extrication but cannot provide any medical care, even though they have trained paramedics and there are injuries at the scene.
While not as large as some of the other volunteer fire departments in Yuma County, Pelfrey has no doubt that Countyline will eventually get to the same level in the coming years.
“At the end of the day it is not about money, it is about the compassion for serving the people in the area,” Pelfrey said.
Any business, foundation or a private individual who would be interested in making a donation to the nonprofit agency can contact Novak by phone at (480) 9804077. His email address is Countylinefirechief@hotmail.com. A Facebook has also been created at www.facebook.com/ Countyline-Fire-Department-562980703779402/