gunhog11

Station 34 at the airport got inherited by the Northern AZ Fire District, but they appear to have closed it down. There used to be the E-One ARFF unit there and the 1982 Dodge that had been there forever. Am not sure if those have been sold off. Doesn’t appear the airport has dedicated units anymore. The ARFF came about there when Kingman used to have small airline service into there, and it remained when that service ceased. however, with the cost of maintaining that capability when it was no longer required to have, maybe that did it in.

Funny this. As in addition to Rural Metro selling the ALS CON for Northwest Fire District to them, Rural Metro just the other day offered to sell their Green Valley FD CON to that department. Why RM/SWA seems intent on killing operations in Pima County, I have no idea. Granted I-66s recent vote to approve a strike is nothing more than a bluff I personally believe, and one that RM isn't going to bite off on.

I'm not completely sure whether that's going to happen, or whether they'll sell those over to Northwest in order to supplement NW's few rescue's that they have. Three of them will be kept for BLS for NW, as SWA will be retaining that contract, but the remaining 7 ambos would have to find other work. Maybe a different paintjob/striping too. But transferring them from Pima to Maricopa/Pinal operation of SWA would make sense, as there's no additional work for them down here, and they'd just sit at fleet doing nothing.

Speaking of CONs, down in Pima County, RM sold the ALS portion of their CON for Northwest Fire District to the district. Final approval awaits. But this effectively takes 9 or so SWA ALS ambos out of service, and replaces them with 3 BLS ambos to serve NWFs BLS transport needs. All of this was done up at corporate, with the Pima operation apparently not having been in the loop on the decision. Equipment-wise, I'm not yet sure where the brand new NW-painted SWA ambos will go....whether they will transfer or whether NWF will acquire all or some of them, or none. Personnel-wise, this displaces about 18 paramedics who are still unclear where they can transfer to in the Pima County operation, as the other main ALS contract, Green Valley, doesn't have expansion room for that many. It's possible they may be absorbed by interfacility ambos. This, combined with the wholesale ceasing of Indiana operations, makes one wonder what RM is truly up to and what their end-state goals are, if there are indeed any.

Arivaca FD, northwest of Nogales, laid off all personnel this past Monday after determining that the district could no longer afford to pay them. Some of the FFs have remained as volunteers, but response times will definitely increase due to this. Arivaca had suffered funding shortages through EMS transports that hadn't been paid out as expected.......$6000 return on $93,000 in billings, as well as with wildland assignments. Lately with wildland assignments, it's been taking nearly 9-12 months to get paid by the state, even when the state got paid by the feds quickly. Hopefully, the district will be able to get back to paid status in due time. Story here: http://www.kvoa.com/news/all-arivaca-fire-district-employees-laid-off/

The info was accurate at the time it was posted, as is their financial situation. It just appears they were able to make a change and save some things. Reference the news link I posted along with my post, it's all right there.

Oh, I didn't know they don't brand the Glendale ones anymore. So they are indeed out of the yellow/white ambo's business finally.

With the loss of one BC already, the investigation continues into the allegations of inappropriate S/L usage and possibly other violations of department or city policies. Unfortunate. As an outsider looking in, and not aware of GFDs or the city's specific policies regarding the allegations, its difficult to know more than what's covered in the news. But the possibility for more fallout from this exists. http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/local/gilbert/article_3c2a5c5a-e851-11e3-8587-001a4bcf887a.html

SWA down in Pima County has been involved in 3 major accidents in the past 4 months down in Pima County. The last one from a few weeks ago became fatal, when the 92 yr old passenger of a civilian vehicle struck by the ambulance on east Grant Rd, passed away today. Unfortunate and tragic. http://www.jrn.com/kgun9/news/92-year-old-woman-dies-from-injuries-sustained-in-May-car-accident-261551141.html

The branding is indeed trendy and it looks nice. Although it makes for a requirement for more fleet trucks, as the branded trucks can't be used to cover elsewhere when needed. In a similar vein, for example, I don't think I've ever seen one of SWAs yellow colored Glendale contract ambos anywhere other than there, or at fleet. Never seen any covering elsewhere.

R/M appears to be wanting to press hard with ambulance service, and slowly getting out of the fire business for area that get too large and costly to manage. Such was the case with Scottsdale seemingly. Problem is too, with monopoly comes service that could widely range from great to lousy, and not much can be done about the latter. Company management still doesn't seem to be controlling how much the company spends and ensure its done in a fiscally conservative manner. But when all they have to do is declare Ch 13 and have their debts waived, what is the incentive to?

As of 1 July, Mountain Vista Fire District (Tucson) will end their contract with Rural Metro for manning of the district's apparatus, formerly covered by RM. Unlike the Scottsdale FD transition from a decade ago, there's no nearly-automatic hiring of the current RM staff for MV. This month, the formal hiring process began for all positions from FF to Engineer to Captain. As of 1 July, MV will be on their own. For the Tucson area, this leaves RM with the foothills on the northeast side of town consisting of stations 80, 74, 73 and 72; the far south side of town with stations 71 and 81, and the town of Sahuarita with station 79. SWA still has the CON for ambulance coverage for Mountain Vista, as well as other former RM areas such as Green Valley. The foothills area is being looked at for possible annexation by either Mt Vista, or Golder Ranch fire districts; and that's a future battle that may arise soon.

That's all cool stuff, especially being able to start a fire dept from the ground up and tailor it to the direction the core staff would like to see it progress. Not too many opportunities to get in on something like that. Insofar as fire, I do contract Fire/EMS work down here......wildland / ARFF / car races / events, in a contract company here; it's mostly all I do fire related these days, having started in fire in 1989. Wife works for SWA down here and I have a few friends I see occasionally from there from RM side, but I don't always catch details of stuff going on that's basically just interesting to me. Just nice to see a new dept starting and seeming to work well in a good direction. Hope it continues that way. Appreciate all the good info. RM provides good service down here. Contract-wise, our crew has a racetrack we cover down at Alvernon/Los Reales, and our patient transport when needed is normally R71, or sometimes P881 or P899. Always easy to work with and helpful crews, allowing us to get back in service quickly and not have our ambo be stuck with extended patient care, so it can rejoin the brush truck on track (pictured in avatar, one of fleet). With MV starting up, I imagine R70 will no longer be at quarters there. Has ground broken on the combined Station 71/81 on the south side yet? Last I'd heard it was still in the works.

Is L610 going to be unmanned once the transition occurs? Just seems kind of weird to have a fire district of 15 square miles, sandwiched between two other larger districts. Is there expansion ability to the foothills to the east?

Rescue 22 at 7th st / Broadway early this AM. T-boned in intersection by a car and rollover. Only about 2 months ago or so that RM Paramedic 881 suffered the exact same fate at the intersection of Valencia / Alvernon in metro Tucson, also with no injuries. http://www.abc15.com/news/region-phoenix-metro/central-phoenix/speeding-car-hits-and-tips-over-ambulance-transporting-a-patient-sunday-morning

Agree. If SWA is meeting the contract, then they can't complain. Contract for ALS, or if you want an ambo quicker, work a contract for SWA basing within the SCFD stations. And I can see that tax rate cap per $100 assessed value increase trying to make a comeback. There are some departments who live off of keeping their tax rates at the cap, vs being a good steward of their money and trying to have a lower assessment.

Florence is indeed moving fast, which is funny because much of the land Florence has been annexing.....from Anthem South up Hunt Highway, is actually closer to Coolidge. Yet it seems Coolidge hasn't made any moves for expansion at all. Grew up in the east Valley, and remember when all that was in this whole San Tan desert was......desert. In fact, had to drive through cotton fields and farmland to get to work at Williams AFB back in the day, from Mesa/Chandler. I'll have to check out that rig....haven't seen it yet.

You're right. Going to some kind of gray uniform, with some kind of catchy phrase on it too. Great way to spend cash! haha. Seriously though, it's been rumored for a long time that RM has been looking to get out of the fire-side business, and concentrate on EMS primarily. As its tough to make money in fire: subscription service isn't a great moneymaker what with all the problems inherent in even non-payers/subscribers; and municipal service has tons of costs that can overtax (no pun) a department like RM, such as the rapod growth of the City of Scottsdale.

I believe you are correct. Just a much smaller scale than the one up there. I agree.....simply not paying on the leases is probably not the finance plan the bankruptcy court had in mind; but it does appear they need to shed more.

Apparently SWA/RM Pima County HQ on Commerce Drive at I-10/Prince has just been placed up for lease out since RM apparently hasn't been paying the rent on the facility in a while. The facility houses SWA/RM ops, fleet, vehicle storage, as well as a fire training ground.

Also, the Maricopa/Pinal SWA rigs are light years better than the standard fleet Pima county rigs. Yes, Pima has nice new rigs for their Northwest and Green Valley operations, per contract; but the normal ops here.....Tucson FD BLS, Tri Cities up in San Manuel, and Safford.....run standard SWA junk.

The former Brush 35 Dodge, is still in service with a contract fire department and is pictured in my avatar. It and a few other of the fomer Phoenix rigs, still operate as Type 6X wildland, raceway protection, light structural protection, and helispot/helipad ARFF contracts. Great trucks with 1st/2nd year Cummins 5.9 turbo diesel, and little mileage when they were retired.

Living in San Tan Valley / Johnson Ranch, I just got a notice that Johnson Utilities is planning to move water service to Town of Florence. Notice for public hearing. Be interesting to see how the vote goes in January about the proposal for a fire district here, as was mentioned in the other thread from this past December.

It's interesting how each Rural Metro operation runs like a separate corporate entity. To see the differences between RMs Maricopa/Pinal county operation vs the Pima County operation, is almost night and day. For example, apparatus-wise, Maricopa's reserve apparatus are in far nicer shape than many first-line Pima County apparatus. Pima has always been somewhat of a redheaded stepchild, so to speak, in that realm. One specific example I'll give; the EMS manager vehicles are run-down Crown Vic's which had constant issues, and a few somewhat nicer SUVs. However RM purchased 4 new trucks for Fire Inspectors. The new trucks were nice, though somewhat overkill, and the Inspectors loved to drive them.....right up until they got repossessed one day. It's just somewhat sad to see how some of the entities of RM are run in certain ways, as RM used to be an innovator in research and development of equipment and the like. I can still remember the firefighting remote-control robots they designed in their Scottsdale shops in the 1980s. Former Engine 11 at what was then station 11 on Scottsdale/McDonald had one of these robots stored in a rear compartment of the engine, and could deploy it into structure fires. I don't remember how many times it was ever used real-world. Today, one of these robots still exists; stored in a back storage facility of RM Station 71 in Tucson on Benson Highway/ Valencia. The young firefighters have no idea what it is, and many of the older ones have no idea how it ended up where it did, as none were ever used in Pima County. I'll have to snap some photos of it next time I'm down there.....

You would think, yes. I don't know if they just don't want to put the money and effort into obtaining their own, hence why they'd like to acquire one through merger with Golder Ranch or Avra Valley. Northwest, as a department, is constantly in the red finanacially; which is one reason their tax assessments for fire protection is so high, nearly 50% higher than Golder Ranch or Mountain Vista, for instance, using the formula of $X per $100 assessed value of the property. Northwest's previous regime spent money like a drunken sailor on things such as very high tech and expensive design fire stations; things that were more "nice to have" rather than "need to have". Even now, this is the last season for the Ironwood Hotshots, Northwest FDs Type 1 Interagency Hotshot crew (IHC). Too expensive to run and maintain, as well as get reimbursed for their work. As well as being the only other municipal FD-based IHC other than the Granite Mountain hotshots of the Prescott FD; following their tragedy and the fallout over having a wildland handcrew within a structural fire department and the ingrained problems therein.