OKLAHOMA CITY – Pecan Creek Volunteer Fire Department expected to be “fired up” Monday morning, Fire Chief Tom Myers said. “We’ve met all the criteria the county demanded.”
The Comanche County Board of Commissioners voted Oct. 21 to “grant the start-up” of the Pecan Creek VFD on Dec. 1 if the department “has provided to the board all the information on radios, CPR training, equipment, and any state requirement” completed by that date.
“We’ve met every requirement that’s been demanded of us” to be a functioning all-volunteer fire department, Myers said last Friday.
Pecan Creek VFD was in compliance with all state requirements three years ago, said Myers, who retired from the Lawton Fire Department after a 30-year career. The Pecan Creek VFD has its requisite insurance and sent county officials a roster of the department’s emergency responders, identified the responders who live within the department’s service area, and listed equipment the department possesses, Myers said.
PECAN CREEK VFD USES ‘HAND-ME-DOWNS’
The fledgling department has firefighter bunker gear (protective equipment that includes boots, pants, coat, gloves, helmet, hood, and mask) mostly “hand-me-downs” that are not “first-rate” but “at least it’s gear,” Myers said. “We could always use more,” he added.
The department owns one 4,500-gallon tanker, a brush truck and two pumper trucks, at least one of which is capable of spewing 1,000 gallons of water per minute, Myers said. The vehicles were donated or sold to the Pecan Creek department, he said.
Pecan Creek VFD has a 4,000 square-foot, three-bay fire station at 80 Deyo Mission Road in which three of the vehicles are parked and firefighting equipment is stored. The station was “finished and functional” a year and a half ago, the department announced on its internet website.
Although it had fire trucks and a station, the Pecan Creek department “was never activated” last year “because we didn’t have 800 megahertz (MHz) two-way radios” nor high band pagers, Myers said.
VFD HAS REQUISITE RADIOS AND PAGERS
The Chattanooga VFD has since lent Pecan Creek VFD five 800-MHz two-way radios, which Myers said was a requirement of Comanche County Emergency Management Director Michael Merritt. According to the Federal Communications Commission, public safety radio systems across the nation operate in several portions of the 800 MHz spectrum.
Pecan Creek VFD also has about half a dozen VHF radios that serve as pagers, Myers said, and borrowed two mobile and two handheld radios from Lawton Communications, LLC. The radios are “a safety issue,” District 3 County Commissioner Alvin Cargill said in October. “They have to be able to contact the Sheriff’s Office and other law enforcement agencies, other fire departments and emergency medical service providers.”
When the department is activated by Merritt, Pecan Creek VFD will be able to communicate with the county’s 9-1-1 system, with Comanche County’s Emergency Management system, the City of Lawton, and any law enforcement agencies and emergency responders “within the Interstate 44 corridor,” Myers said in late October.
“We’re looking forward to getting activated and serving the community,” he said Friday.
Three attempts by the Southwest Ledger (two by telephone and one by email) to contact Commissioner Cargill last week about this issue were unsuccessful.
PECAN CREEK VOLUNTEERS TRAINED IN CPR, FIRST AID, FIGHTING STRUCTURE FIRES
The Pecan Creek VFD has 12 volunteer firefighters, all of whom have received emergency management response and First Aid training, as well as training in structure fire suppression, the chief said. The department also has approximately eight other novice volunteers who are not yet fully trained, he said.
The department’s trained personnel can perform basic life saving cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), “stabilize a fracture, or apply a tourniquet to stop bleeding and reduce the trauma,” Myers said. “We can clear a person’s blocked airway” to restore his/her ability to breathe. “The only thing we can’t do is replace fluids” intravenously, he said.
“We can be at the scene within three to five minutes,” prior to arrival of an ambulance dispatched from Lawton or Cache.
An internet website reported that the Pecan Creek VFD was established to serve a 15 square-mile area west of Lawton. Myers said the department’s service area is bounded by Deyo Mission Road and the Lawton city limits, Rogers Lane on the north and Lee Boulevard on the south. That area encompasses Pecan Valley North and South, Shelter Lake Addition, Deyo Landing, and the Pecan Lake Addition, Myers said.
The rural area the Pecan Creek VFD will serve has several fire hydrants “but we’re going to bring our own juice, just in case,” Myers said of the department’s tanker.
The Cache Volunteer Fire Department has been providing fire protection and emergency medical service throughout the area that the Pecan Creek department intends to serve. A map of Comanche County fire department boundaries indicates the Cache VFD’s service territory extends from, roughly, Deyo Mission Road to Post Oak Road and from Fort Sill’s South Boundary Road to SW Tinney Road.
Cache Fire Chief John Bowers previously said his department would lend a hand to the Pecan Creek VFD if it is activated and needs assistance in the future.
NEW VFD TO APPLY FOR VARIOUS GRANTS
After Pecan Creek VFD is activated they intend to apply for grants to buy essential gear. Fire equipment is expensive, Myers noted. For example, a 50-foot high-pressure hose can cost $200-plus, depending on its diameter, he said.
Myers said they will submit grant applications to ASCOG (Association of South Central Oklahoma Governments, headquartered in Duncan); perhaps to the Stillwater Central Railroad and/or the Union Pacific Railroad, both of which have track in the Lawton area; and will seek an operational grant from the Forestry Services arm of the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry.
State Forester Mark Goeller, director of the Oklahoma Forestry Services in the state Department of Agriculture, said his unit of the ODAFF administers a rural fire defense program that assists volunteer fire departments and helps them to become certified so they can receive state grants from the agency.
Requirements for certification, Goeller said, include 9-1-1 compatibility, ability to respond to structure fires, notifying the State Fire Marshal’s office of each fire the department responds to, and having facilities in which to house the department’s vehicles and equipment.
INSURANCE RATES WERE A CATALYST FOR PCVFD
Property insurance rates are a principal reason for establishing the Pecan Creek fire department, Myers said. The department’s boundaries encompass several hundred houses and the Lawton Christian School, he said.
“Our primary objective is to reduce the ISO rating by placing a fire department in the area,” he said. “There is no other responding agency within five miles of these neighborhoods.” Bowers told the Comanche County commissioners that the Cache fire department’s average response time to the most distant points in Pecan Valley is seven minutes.
The Insurance Services Office (ISO) Fire Suppression Rating Schedule assesses the readiness of local fire departments. ISO performs this function for businesses interested in protecting their properties; data is also collected and analyzed for insurance purposes.
The rating schedule examines several aspects of a fire department and assigns points based on its capabilities; ratings range from 10 (worst) to 1 (best).
ISO evaluates the communication system used by a department, considering its size, facilities, and effectiveness. Other factors include the department’s training schedule, response times and care of equipment, its vehicles and equipment, staffing levels, and the availability of water. The ISO rating also takes into account any community activities that affect fire prevention, such as fire safety education programs and fire investigation procedures.
An ISO representative told those who attended the Pecan Creek VFD public hearing Oct. 21 at the Comanche County Courthouse that it probably would be at least 18 months before any change to the ISO rating in the area would occur.