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By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch
Post
HUTCHINSON,
Kan. — 
A full morning of discussion between the Board of County Commissioners and their fire consultant along with emergency management officials Friday resulted in the acceptance of the report from Retired Fire Chief Bruce Fuerbringer of Five Bugle Training &amp; Consulting. Fuerbringer's report recommends that the board mandate improvements that meet current fire service best practices, consolidate current fire districts into one district with one fire chief, in cooperation and negotiation with the Hutchinson Fire Department, develop a response system that incorporates a city fire department response to those residential and commercial districts within a 20 minute response time of the city limits, and educate the public on why each of those recommendations are needed. Fuerbringer is clear that the county needs buy in from the current volunteer fire chiefs to get this to work."Before you can change a system, you have to change the attitudes," Fuerbringer said. "You have to have chiefs say, you know, we need to manage better, we need SOGs, we need training, we need a plan."Feurbringer was frank, he said that volunteers who aren't willing to devote the time to upgrading their training and learning best practices might be best served by ending their service as firefighters."It will never be a municipal department," Fuerbringer said. "I don't think any volunteer department ever will, but there are certain fundamental tenets of the fire service, because fire and hazmat and EMS is the same whether you live in the city or you live in Timbuktu. There are certain tenets of dealing with those situations that are fundamental and that everyone needs to buy into and to participate to a minimum level."Feurbringer was clear though that in his conversations with the volunteer chiefs and firefighters across the county, the vast majority of them want to serve and support their community. After hearing from Feurbringer, County Administrator Randy Partington wanted direction from the board."If the county commission is willing to stand behind, change is coming, there's some change coming," Partington said. "Even if you don't exactly know what that change is, the status quo isn't going to be accepted any more."Emergency Management Director Adam Weishaar wants to get direction from the volunteer chiefs before they have to decide on a FY 2022 budget, in case they do need to add a paid chief over the outlying districts, so it is his intent to have the next status report on progress happen at the commission's June 8 meeting.

Consultant's report likely to bring change to county fire service