Commissioner Ryan Baty

The conversations around fire services in Sedgwick County continued last night with a community Town Hall in Mt Hope.

I really enjoyed the opportunity to talk through all the questions and concerns from the public. I applaud the elected representatives in Mt Hope for working hard to engage their citizens and process these decisions collectively.

As mentioned last night, volunteer fire department turnout is a challenge across the nation. Mt Hope is a volunteer department that boasts a roster of 15 members — and the Fire Chief took the opportunity to inform the public that only 5 of those members actually live in town. He acknowledged that during the day, while his volunteers are working or traveling, it is highly probable that they would not have enough local response for a structure fire. These small cities are dependent on aid agreements to make sure there is adequate fire response for their citizens.

So what’s the challenge? Why did Sedgwick County send notice of termination of our aid agreement? Concerns around safety. When SCFD responds as an aid partner, sending just one Engine (3 personnel) in support, we are doing so with the expectation that the local jurisdiction will have a sufficient volunteer turnout to ensure safety on the scene — and when turnout isn’t there and firefighters are undermanned on scene, everyone is put at risk.

That’s not acceptable. We can do better for our citizens and our fire personnel.

I have not been shy in publicly stating that a consolidated, regional fire response is the best answer. We have to modernize local government models to ensure that ONE government is scaling to meet these needs, not multiple, and in that we will find better long term savings for the taxpayers. 13 of our 20 cities in the county are already SCFD1 members that share the costs of fire services. As we become a more urban county and growth continues outside Wichita metro, the need to scale and invest in fire protection services will only become more important. We need to think 10, 15 and 20 years out as we make investments on behalf of our taxpayers.

I also acknowledge that local cities may want to just scale and invest in their own fire departments. I’m supportive of that option as well — and SCFD will enter into new aid agreements with any city that can make sure turnout, training and response is sufficient for our personnel arriving on a fire scene.

We will land this plane soon! Sometimes, the most important thing we can do is force hard conversations so we can arrive at better systems of service.

The people, and our firefighters, deserve it.