Evergreen seeks new $4.4 million fire hall

The Daily Inter Lake

Ballots will be mailed today for a $4.4 million bond-issue request to fund a new Evergreen fire station.

The Flathead County Election Department must receive signed ballots by mail or in person by 8 p.m. Sept. 23 for them to count.

The Evergreen Fire Department wants to overhaul its main station because it is old, cramped and doesn't meet the department's needs.

The department has two stations - the staffed, 51-year-old, 6,500-square-foot main station on U.S. 2 and a small unstaffed one on Birch Grove Road. The main station also has a 1,216-square-foot trailer that serves as a bunkhouse.

The proposed new main station - which would be built on the site of the current firehouse - would be 17,000 square feet.

It would have a bunk room, more training areas, more room for vehicles and larger garage doors to enable the department to buy standard-sized vehicles, plus a community room able to hold 70 people.

If the bond request passes the public vote, a home with an assessed taxable market value of $100,000 would pay $67.99 a year, and a home assessed at $200,000 would pay $135.98 a year. A home assessed at $75,000 would pay $50.99 annually.

The fire department said the 2007 assessed taxable market value of a typical central Evergreen home ranges from $50,000 to $80,000. Homes in Hillcrest and Mission Village usually run from $85,000 to $125,000. North of Rose Crossing, the homes' assessed taxable market values range from $50,000 to $200,000.

Assessed taxable market values are government calculations and are not the private sector's appraised values or sales prices.

The Evergreen department has seen a huge increase in calls in the past few years:

88 calls in 1997.

329 calls in 2003.

454 calls in 2004, its first year to respond to both fire and emergency medical calls. The split was 180 fire calls and 274 medical calls.

529 calls in 2005 (204 fire and 325 medical calls).

687 calls in 2006 (215 fire and 472 medical calls).

903 calls in 2007 (225 fire and 678 medical calls).

In other words, the number of calls has doubled in the past four years. The number of emergency medical calls has increased almost 150 percent in the same period.

For the first seven months of 2008, Evergreen has had 789 fire and medical calls.

The Evergreen district began 24-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week ambulance coverage last October, with two basic-life-support-level emergency medical technicians always on duty. Evergreen and Kalispell fire departments currently are the only ones in the valley which the main stations are staffed all the time. Whitefish will go with 24/7 emergency services early next year.

Right now, the main Evergreen firehouse does not comply with building codes. It has no showers or sleeping quarters. The floor in the truck bay is sinking about one-half inch each year.

The station does not have a training area and it is stuffed with vehicles with no room for more.

The main firehouse holds two engines, a water truck, a utility vehicle, a grass-fire vehicle, two ambulances and one command vehicle. The Birch Grove station holds two engines.

The department needs a third ambulance and a ladder truck - but has no place to put them. The department needs a ladder truck to handle fires at large commercial buildings such as Wal-Mart.

The department has two full-time and two-part-time employees plus 34 volunteers. The force has 24 members trained as basic-life-support emergency medical technicians, with four of them also trained at the advance-life-support level.

The Evergreen Fire District covers 24 square miles of the Evergreen area, which holds about 9,000 people.

Evergreen voters approved a 10-year tax levy in 2004. Overall, the fire district receives roughly $266,000 in annual revenue.

If the bond request passes, the construction work likely would take place in 2009.

For more information, call 752-4636 or go to www.evergreenfirerescue.net.

Reporter John Stang may be reached at 758-4429 or by e-mail at jstang@dailyinterlake.com