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Northern Lakes Fire chief outlines staffing, call volumes and new station coverage for Hayden
Summary
Fire Chief Pat Riley briefed the Hayden City Council on Northern Lakes Fire Protection District services, staffing increases since 2000, expanded coverage area and improved response times driven by a newly staffed airport station.
Pat Riley, fire chief of the Northern Lakes Fire Protection District, briefed the Hayden City Council Dec. 10 on services the district provides, staffing levels and recent operational changes intended to reduce emergency response times.
Riley told the council the district was formed in 2000 from consolidations of earlier departments and now covers roughly 108 square miles including Hayden, Hayden Lake and Rathdrum. He said staffing has grown from roughly 16 firefighters and primarily two stations in 2000 to 54 firefighters today, with about 19–20 personnel on duty per day across three stations.
The chief reported the district has responded to roughly 6,000 calls so far this year districtwide, including about 3,035 calls within the city of Hayden (an average of about 10 calls a day in the city). He said the newly staffed station at the Coeur d’Alene Airport has reduced response times in Hayden by more than 2½ minutes over the past year; first units now typically arrive within about 6½ minutes, with a stated goal to reduce that to five minutes, which Riley said would require additional staffing.
Riley listed services the district provides: fire suppression, advanced rescue, advanced life support, mobile intensive care transport, vehicle extrication, public education, fire investigations and dive rescue. He thanked the City of Hayden and regional partners for support, and said impact fees collected by the city in recent years are being received and help fund growth in the district.
The chief offered to return to council regularly—quarterly or on another schedule—to provide incident statistics or to bring subject-matter staff (fire marshals, EMS division chiefs) to answer technical questions.
"We're there to provide it," Riley said of the district's response role. "We should break 7,000 [calls] this year. I don't celebrate that because that's 7,000 times somebody needed services."
