Lack of a Fire District keeps crews from being able to respond to fires in Pine/Featherville area

Wednesday, April 15, 2020

Stephanie Root

On Monday morning the Mountain Home News received information about a structure fire in Pine, Idaho, in which no fire departments responded. It was heard over the scanner that the Fairfield Fire Department had sent crews that direction, but were told to stop by Elmore County Dispatchers before arriving at the scene.

We reached out to county officials and had a meeting with Elmore County Commissioner Bud Corbus, Elmore County Sheriff Mike Hollinshead, Rural Fire Commissioner Alan Roberts and Mountain Home Fire Chief Mark Moore to get an explanation on the events.

The group confirmed that they had all received calls pertaining to the fire and that County Commissioner Bud Corbus had made the decision to call off the fire crew from Camas County. The reason was because the county does not have a Memorandum of Understanding with the City of Fairfield and could not be held responsible for the crew or their equipment’s safety at the fire.

When Mark Moore received the call the first thing he asked was if there were any lives in danger. When informed there was not, Moore could not justify pulling men and equipment from the local district he is bound to protect, leaving potential events here short handed.

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This is absolutely unacceptable. I do understand they do not have a fire district there. A fire is not a time to play politics. I sure hope the FD gets the mess they are in sorted out. The division in this town and within all the City departments is disgusting.

-- Posted by lifetimemthomey on Thu, Apr 16, 2020, at 4:26 PM
I do believe I understood that it is a financial issue of paying for services and they had declined in the past and not a political issue at all, and it was a county not city call. I do know that living in the city limits you pay for many services on our property taxes as a way to fund those services. It is required of all rural communities outside a city limit to set up their own services and have the volunteers just like the water districts that are not on city water. We have done stories on this before and what is required of those outside city limits. The funds and resources have limitations to those that pay.

-- Posted by Brenda Fincher Publisher MHNews on Thu, Apr 16, 2020, at 5:07 PM

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