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Pinal Rural Fire Rescue Station in Mammoth.
‘True,’ say PRFR&M officials, but they note they are still organizing with full services coming in May
Is the new Pinal Rural Fire Rescue & Medical District (PRFR&M) not fulfilling its duties as a tax-supported firefighting and medical assistance operation?
Complaints from some citizens are that PRFR&M has not answered the call for up to a dozen requests for medical assistance since it officially came into being last September 26. Officers of the new district admit that it isn’t, but caution that PRFR&M is still in its organizational stage and within a few months when all equipment is in place and personnel is fully trained the district will fulfill its promised duties.
PRFR&M is somewhat unique in Pinal County as its serves a primarily rural area rather than an incorporated municipality. Its boundaries are the San Carlos Apache Tribe and Dudleyville on the north, the Pinal County border on the east, San Manuel on the south, and Oracle and Mammoth on the west. The district covers more than 100 square miles and includes Aravaipa Canyon, with State Route 77 the main road through the district.
Creation of PRFR&M was authorized by the Pinal County Board of Supervisors when it accepted the district’s impact statement in early August 2014 and district organizers submitted within one year signatures on a petition equal to the required 50% plus one of all homeowners with district boundaries that have are also valued at 50% plus $1 of all taxable property.
PRFR&M succeeded Pinal Rural Fire & Rescue, a nonprofit volunteer fire department funded by subscribers, donations and grants that had long served the area. It differed from for-profit firms like Rural/Metro that sell its services only through paid subscriptions.
Less than a month after PRFR&M came into being, complaints that the district was a no-show when called for medical assistance began.
The first 911 medical emergency to which the district didn’t respond was on October 19, 2015 involving a traffic accident on Palomita Road a few miles from the former fire station of Pinal Rural Fire & Rescue since used by PRFR&M as its central depot.
“No one was available from PRFR&M, so an ambulance had to come all the way from San Manuel,” said Cathy Gorman, who had earlier opposed creation of the new district and has since become its severest critic.
“Previously the adjacent districts would respond to areas that were not included in any district. So all of us in the Pinal Rural district are in greater danger,” Gorman said at the time.
Other medical emergencies cited by Gorman to which PRFR&M didn’t respond included a particularly nasty one on the morning of January 19 involving a rollover crash in which the driver was ejected from his vehicle on Veterans Memorial Highway outside of San Manuel. Pinal County Sheriff’s deputies who answered the 911 and found the driver with lacerations to the head, back and hands, called Southwest Ambulance, who after treating him at the scene, took him to the SunLife Clinic in San Manuel. The driver was later transported by helicopter to the University Medical Center in Tucson.
While it remains unverified as to whether PRFR&M waved off the 911 call saying it had no manpower as critics charged, the report filed by Sheriff’s deputies said that only 65 minutes elapsed between receiving the 911 and the injured driver – Michael Anthony Butler – being placed in an ambulance for transporting to San Manuel.
John Stanford, chief of the San Manuel Fire Department, confirms that his department has “answered quite a few calls” of medical emergencies within the PRFR&M territory. While he had no specific number for such calls, he remembers three wrecks other than the January 19 rollover, including one involving a Jeep in which a young man died.
Marty Ponce, interim chief of the Mammoth Volunteer Fire Department, likewise reported his department handling in PRFR&M territory two medical assists involving car accidents and one from a citizen complaining about a possible gas leak.
“When people call PRFR&M, they are told they have no manpower and are referred to us. We thus pay our volunteers to go on calls outside our district,” Ponce said.
“People are starting to complain. PRFR&M needs to step up to the plate,” said Olivia Morales, board member of the Dudleyville Fire Department.
“We have only a limited budget so its costs us when we cover for other districts,” she added.
“We can’t continue to run into PRFR&M territory covering their emergencies using our tax money,” San Manuel’s Stanford said. “I don’t mind helping out but local residents are starting to ask me if we can bill them for covering for them.”
PRFR&M Chief Rod Plast countered that the new district is still being organized and thus is unable to handle medical assistance calls at present. The district, however, has still handled the fire calls it has received since September.
“We are still setting up the district according to the requirements of Pinal County and the State of Arizona,” Plast said. “We are still acquiring necessary equipment and a training volunteers in firefighting and paramedic skills.”
A hindrance at this early stage of organization in money, added Steve Turcotte, a member of the PRFR&M board and chairman of the district’s organizing committee.
Although PRFR&M was created as a special taxing district, it will not receive any revenues from property taxes until October. Likewise it cannot tap into its share of funds from the Arizona Fire District Assistance Tax until July.
For now, PRFR&M are tapping into available grant money to acquire additional equipment, including tanker trucks for getting water to areas without fire hydrants, devices for pumping water directly out of streams through fire hoses, and special fire engines designed for the territory’s steep and varied terrain. Also being acquired are EMT vehicles equipped with first aid equipment, oxygen tanks and an EKG device to enable paramedic firefighters to provide on-site medical care possible.
“Chief Plast has done a great job in writing the grant proposals as we have received the funds for 80% of the grants for which we applied,” said Turcotte, who also is a retired Rear Admiral of the U.S. Navy and owner of a local ranch.
Turcotte noted that two volunteer firefighter/paramedics will have completed their training by late February and another will be fully trained by late March. This will solve some manpower issues.
If organizational momentum continues at the current rate, PRFR&M will likely notify the Pinal County Sheriff’s Office that it will be able to take on all firefighting and medical assistance services by May 1, Turcotte predicted.
But shouldn’t PRFR&M have provided all and full promised services from Day One?
“There is no legal requirement for a newly organized fire district to be fully operational from the beginning,” said John Flynn, executive director of the Arizona Fire District Association. “Fire districts take time to organize, so citizens should give them time to get things right and provide quick and effective services.”
Pinal County Supervisor Todd House, who also served on the board of the Superstition Fire & Medical District near Apache Junction and Gold Canyon, agreed.
“PRFR&M is creating a new firefighting operation in territory previously served only by a tiny volunteer organization. They are adding new services not offered by the earlier entity. They should have the time needed to put the package together,” House said.
He added that the situation with PRFR&M differed from those of two failed efforts to create a new fire district comprising all or part of the unincorporated city of San Tan Valley.
“San Tan Valley already has full fire protection and medical assistance services from Rural/Metro, a for-profit subscription provider. Any local district would have to be able to fully supplant the fire protection the area already gets so there is no interruption in services,” House said.
As for complaints that other districts covering PRFR&M medical assistance calls, minutes of the August 2014 Pinal County Board of Supervisors meeting included testimony of turf battles between the municipal districts and Pinal Rural Fire & Rescue. When municipal firefighters came out of their districts to fight a fire, they sometimes clashed with the former volunteer group’s chief Bud Paine, who saw such encroachment as hurting his ability to sell $100 a year subscriptions to rural residents.
PRFR&M is offering Mutual Aid Agreements to surrounding municipal fire districts.
PRFR&M’s Turcotte noted that once the district has its basic operation in place and has a steady flow of revenue, it will gradually build to encompass its other plans. These include supplementing volunteer firefighters with part-time personnel and later some full-time employees. It also wants to build a second fire station on the other side of Route 77 from its current station north of Mammoth to one closer to Aravaipa Canyon.
Under a schedule proposed last fall, those plans should be completed by July 2017.
James J. Hodl is a career journalist who has worked for newspapers, magazines and trade journals. A graduate of Southern Illinois University with a Bachelor of Science degree in Journalism, Hodl began his career as a reporter with the Palatine (IL) Herald and the Morton Grove (IL) Review before becoming editor of the trade publication Appliance Service News. In recent years, Hodl has had articles published in Consumers Digest, Good Housekeeping, Home Remodeling, Kitchens & Baths and Salute; and has contributed to trade publications serving the home furnishings, restaurant and casino markets. A native of Chicago, Hodl relocated to San Tan Valley in 2013.
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