By Sharyn L. Decker
Lewis County Sirens news reporter
NAPAVINE – The clash between the city and the fire department in Napavine over the department’s rooftop siren continues with the fire chief announcing they will keep using it, despite a new ordinance that says otherwise.
Lewis County Fire District 5 Chief Eric Linn said today it won’t be turned off.
“We haven’t stopped (it). We’re going to continue to use it,” Linn said. “It’s very effective.”
The issue got wide-spread attention when last week the city council voted unanimously to amend the city’s noise ordinance, restricting the siren that sounds when Napavine firefighters get a call.
The move took the fire department by surprise; they hadn’t been notified an ordinance was in the works, according to public information officer Lt. Laura Hanson.
Mayor Nick Bozarth said the move was prompted by the fire department’s “air raid” siren that “broke it’s several-year silence early the next morning following their levy failure in November.”
Linn says reactivating the siren was a response to an increasing number of times his crew’s departures to emergency calls have been delayed by traffic in front of the station.
Bozarth, a volunteer member of the fire department until he was asked to turn in his gear last fall, says the city thinks lights and sirens on the emergency vehicles are sufficient.
In a lengthy memo distributed to the news media today, Linn insinuates the ordinance may not be valid, lays out his case for the public safety reasons for the siren and notes it has a small minority of opposition, despite the big issue it has become in the news media.
“I think there are a few people being very vocal and it’s been picked up by the press,” Linn said.
The chief, who was hired by the fire district’s board of commissioners in June 2009, said he felt it was necessary to outline the situation for the public, through the news media.
“At some point, I’ve got to speak out,” Linn said “Because my crew is taking the brunt of this.”
The chief suggested the city is exaggerating the public’s concerns over the noise, noting the fire district has received only one formal complaint from a citizen and the city has gotten only two formal complaints, both from a council member who is at odds with the department.
Linn points out a list of improvements he’s helped make with the department, an organization he said has seen more than eight fire chiefs in as many years.
Along with increasing the number of volunteer personnel, they have reduced response times on average by two minutes, according to Linn.
Two times in the past two months, firefighter-EMTs have restarted the hearts of patients in cardiac arrest, he said.
“You can’t do that with eight, nine, 10 minute response times,” he said. “The things we’re doing work.”
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Read Fire Chief Eric Linn’s memo to the news media here [1], or by scrolling down