Two days before the Oct. 7 fatal fire on Victoria Loop, Ocean Shores Fire Chief David Bathke was outlining why the Fire Department needed to retain the seven firefighter positions made possible two years ago under a federal grant.

Even the chief has been on shift where he had to respond to a fire by himself, much like a captain was left to do in the fire early Saturday morning.

“My first week here, I was on a structure fire myself because we didn’t have any other personnel,” Bathke told the City Council Oct. 5 in a study session that the Fire Department’s budget for emergency services (EMS) and fire staffing. “It hasn’t let up since I got here. We want to keep our citizens safe, we want to be responsible.”

Bathke was responding to what he called a “cut to the bone budget” that retains the seven firefighters but does not include several items, such as a new engine, that were initially requested.

“The last two years, we had the SAFER grant that funded those seven positions we needed for the EMS,” Bathke said.

The proposal now is to take their salaries and fund them through an EMS utility rate increase.

Under a preliminary draft of a consultant’s rate study, a ratepayer would see rates rise from about $7 to $18 per month to pay for keeping the new firefighter/paramedics.

Asked by Councilman Jon Martin how Bathke would measure success if such a move were made by the city, the fire chief pointed to his recent experiences since taking over the job in June.

In September, the Fire Department had to respond to at least two medical calls at the same time during 26 percent of the time, and seven percent of the time it had to respond to three calls at the same time, Bathke said. During the fatal fire on Victoria Loop, there were two medical calls that required crews to take patients to Grays Harbor Community Hospital, leaving only one officer on duty to initially respond to the early morning fire call.

Having six firefighters per shift allows the department to staff at least two ambulances and still have a minimum of fire response coverage.

“Just being here in the short time I have been, I can tell you there has been more than one time when we have had that four call of a structure fire and I was the only one who responded because everybody was tied up,” Bathke said.

“We need to have a minimum of two ambulances able to be running all the time and hopefully have those firefighter personnel to respond in addition,” he added.

With the proposed budget dependent on the council approving the rate hike to keep the firefighters and remove such an expense from the city’s general fund, several steps still have to be made to complete the process. First, is the completion of the EMS rate study, and then the city has to publicly notify ratepayers and conduct a public process.

The biggest cost increase for the department is wages, with also an increase in the training needed to retain the firefighters hired under the grant, Bahtke said.

“We really need that professional development since we are mentoring and preparing ourselves for the future,” he said.

The preliminary budget presented by Mayor Crystal Dingler does not include some of the bigger department requests for a new engine and command vehicle, but it does include an emergency enclosure for a generator at the main station ($58,000), and an additional heart monitor.

“This is going to give us a good chance to get into a needs assessment,” Bathke said of his efforts to now outline a plan for how to respond in the future. “We can find out what our call volume is, what type of calls they are, how we need to respond in our staffing models.”

He noted that even the newest piece of fire equipment, the ladder truck, is 10 years old, with one engine now in its 39th year of operation.

“We need to start looking at what type of replacement schedule we can be on,” Bathke said.

The goal eventually is to staff the south station and grow staff as the city continues to grow.

“We”re projected with the latest figures to have to respond to a little over 2,500 calls this year. They are increasing, our population is increasing … We need to support that somehow.”

As someone who has come in having served on fire departments in Arizona and Wisconsin, Bathke said he has been impressed by what he’s seen from his staff: “They have been doing above and beyond with less. I’m surprised they are able to do what they can do.”

Even with the SAFER grant paying the salaries of the new employees, the department still “was forced into an overtime situation virtually every shift,” Bathe added.

“We aren’t fully staffed,” he said, noting the department currently is recruiting to pitch Ocean Shores at testing centers.

“It really is a good fire department to work for and a good community to protect,” he said.