{"id":76300,"date":"2018-03-17T16:28:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-17T22:28:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-approves-purchase-of-bunker-gear\/"},"modified":"2018-03-17T22:28:52","modified_gmt":"2018-03-17T22:28:52","slug":"cortez-fire-protection-district-approves-purchase-of-bunker-gear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-fire-protection-district-approves-purchase-of-bunker-gear\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Fire Protection District approves purchase of bunker gear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Construction
Construction continues on the new Cortez Fire Station.<\/span>Emily Rice\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Cortez Fire Protection District unanimously moved to purchase nine sets of new bunker gear at their monthly meeting Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n

After discussing finances, the board agreed to pull from reserves if necessary to pay for the gear. However, the board requested a list of full inventory and equipment with expiration dates.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time a full-time member gets new gear and they quit, I give it to reserve if it fits them. But that doesn\u2019t work when I have gear that doesn\u2019t fit someone,\u201d said firefighter Kaylee Allmon, who is in charge of inventory for the department. \u201cSo it is not like we are buying new gear and throwing it in the trash. It is getting recycled, but it is for these guys that have been here for 15 years that have the same gear. It is rotating, it is getting there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The board tabled an action item to purchase wildland shelters to look for grant opportunities.<\/p>\n

Community members came out in support of replacing old equipment after the board had to move to table the item in February\u2019s meeting due to board procedure.<\/p>\n

An action item must be \u201cagendized\u201d for a board to vote on it.<\/p>\n

Board members requested that they be kept updated on equipment issues in the future.<\/p>\n

In addition, the board moved to begin command staffing 24 hours a week for the next eight weeks, until a new chief is approved. This will give Assistant Fire Chief Shawn Bittle some time off.<\/p>\n

Bittle approximated that he had been on call for 65 days since then-Fire Chief Jeff Vandevoorde retired.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not safe,\u201d board member Rodney Branson said. \u201cHe is like anybody else that works \u2013 he deserves time off. He has got to get his head straight. We are talking a safety factor plus a human being.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bittle expressed desire to keep his firefighters safe and the community safe and recommended the command staffing.<\/p>\n

The board also received a construction update from Kyle Blackmer, of Weeminuche Construction Co., about the construction of the new firehouse.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have got the building dried-in minus the bay doors, but we have the membrane roof on, and all the windows are installed,\u201d Blackmer said. \u201cThey are starting some drywall work, and things are progressing pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Cortez Fire Protection District board also received an update on the hiring of a new chief from previous Chief Don Eberle, who is helping with the hiring process.<\/p>\n

Eberle has moved back to Cortez after leaving in 2010 and is working as a consultant for the board.<\/p>\n

He critiqued some the requirements laid out in the job posting, including an associate\u2019s degree. His concern was that it could be a degree in anything, not necessarily related to fire protection.<\/p>\n

The fires district reported that it ran 145 calls in the last month, and that the majority were medical-related.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

new chief continues; assistant gets some time off<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":76301,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,13],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-76300","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-frontpage-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76300","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=76300"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76300\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76300"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=76300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}