Garden City Fire District Meeting

GARDEN CITY FIRE BOARD MEETING

May 28, 2015

Reported by Anita Weston

GARDEN CITY, Utah.  May 28,2015.  State retirement rates change every July 1.  Approval must be given for this change.  A motion was made and passed to accept the new state retirement rates.

There will be a change in the way state financial audits dealing with government entities will be handled starting in 2015.  Currently, an accountant is hired to come and audit the records and procedures used by the Garden City Fire Board.  However, because of the amount of time and effort required to carry out these audits, the state has changed from using an auditor.  Instead a board member will be given this assignment starting this year.  There will be training required.  Also, there are check lists that can be used in taking care of these audits.   There will be training on the internet on Wednesday, 9 a.m., June 10.  The Board selected Jenny England and Randall Knight to take advantage of this training in preparation to handle the audit next year.

The 2014 audit will still need to be done using the past methods.  A motion was made and passed to hire an auditor to come and complete the audit for the past year.  That work will be done in the next few weeks.  The deadline for this audit is the end of June.

Brush truck 43 had to have a sway bar link replaced.  A ball joint was also replaced.  A new starter motor was needed and has been put on the pump on that truck.  Brush 42 had some pump motor issues.  It has been taken care of.  The tender trailer (the big tanker) needs some work lights placed so that light will shine on the pump equipment when using this truck at night.

The old boat used by the Garden City Fire District will be returned to the County.  The water pump will be removed from this boat and mounted on the new one.

Responses made by the Fire Department for this past month included 2 vehicle rollovers.  There was an additional rollover that resulted in a fatality.  It was determined to be a suicide.  There were two structure fires; a kitchen fire, and the Burr fire.  The cause of the Burr fire has not yet be determined.  The debris is still being sifted.  There were 2 dumpster fires, 3 propane leaks, 2 search and rescue assists, an animal problem, 1 CO call, and 7 medical assists.

There were approximately 80 – 90 air tanks used at the Burr fire.  The firefighters used all air in the air trailer.  Also, all air bottles were used.  It was estimated that 500,000 to 600,000 gallons of water were used on this fire.  The fire department had to use the emergency water from Sweetwater Hill to maintain necessary water pressure.  The building was under construction.  It was a commercial building 16,000 square feet in size.  There were many compartments within the structure.  Water was sprayed on the fire from the east and through the few windows on the west side.  Getting water into the basement was impossible because the floor above had collapsed on that area.  It required a track hoe to finally get water into that portion of the building to finally completely douse the flames.