By Emma Zawacki
Tri-City Herald
PASCO, Wash. — Pasco firefighters say that huge proposed cuts could put a larger burden on stations that will remain open and put firefighters in danger as they respond with smaller teams.
It could also impact ambulance services as teams are shifted out of a fire station that covers a huge portion of the city’s central residential neighborhoods.
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Jeremy Garrett, president of Pasco’s firefighters union, said one less person on shift means one less person to pull someone out if they’re hurt or trapped. Pasco Budget crisis
Pasco staff has been presenting the city council with a number of scenarios to combat a $14 million gap in the city’s 2027-28 budget. Each of the four initial proposals included cutting 14 to 15 firefighters and closing a station.
Scenario five cuts the recreation department by an additional 12 full-time equivalent employees and its youth programs, but saves 21 police and 15 fire jobs, but still cuts a fire station. The city would still end up having to rely on critically low reserves to make it happen.
Scenario six would raise taxes for citizens to cover some of the original cuts in scenario one. This would still dip into reserves, likely leading the city back to the same conversation in two years.
Garrett knew walking into the Thursday, Oct. 22 meeting that cuts have to happen, but he wasn’t expecting to be surprised.
“I’m learning a lot of things with you,” Garrett said. “I learned at a city council meeting that Station 82 was on the hook.”
Station 82 also services the airport, with four firefighters on shift for the community and two on shift, contracted by the Port of Pasco, for any airport emergencies. It also hosts ambulance teams.
Garrett doesn’t have all the answers for what the closure will look like, but they’d have to keep two firefighters at the station at all times for the airport to operate. So his best guess is that the city’s operations out of the station would close, but two firefighters would remain for the airport to operate.
The port owns the facility.
“I think anytime you close a firehouse and remove resources from an area, especially an extremely saturated area like (Station) 82, you run the risk of expanding response times,” Garrett said. “Science proves that minutes are lives, especially (with) cardiac arrests. There’s profound impacts to an extra two or three minutes without oxygen to your brain. Anytime you remove resources from a community, that community, that neighborhood, that region is going to feel the impact.”
All six scenarios recommend closing a fire station and cutting various numbers of firefighters, but scenario five was the first to name a specific station. If 82 closes, the next closest are Station 83, at 7510 Sandifur Parkway and Station 84, at 4920 W. Court St.
This will potentially increase the response times to the neighborhoods surrounding the airport and Columbia Basin College. It’s a “very populated area in our city,” Garrett said.
It also is one of the busier stations, since it provides backup to the east and west ends of Pasco, according to Garrett.
“They’re kind of (the) middle of the city,” Garrett said. “20th (Street) is kind of the heart of Pasco, so they cover everybody.”
It’s hard to predict exactly how closing the station will impact Pasco and its citizens.
“Will our citizens be okay? Probably,” Garrett said. “But, we don’t like, probably. The fire department has never worked on ‘(they’ll) probably be okay.’ Probably is a really bad contingency plan.” Firefighting by the numbers
At Pasco fire stations, you’ll find four firefighters per shift. That’s how many people they need to run a fire engine and respond to calls.
The departments use a two-in, two-out method that is standard practice, according to the Washington State Legislature.
It’s a safety measure in place to protect the firefighters who respond to structure fires.
If Pasco stations go down to a three-person team, they’ll have to wait for a second station’s engine and team to arrive before they can engage with a house fire. This results in having to choose between using more resources per call or less safe practices for the department.
It is unclear how the Pasco Fire Department will respond to the staffing cuts, but it may mean fewer firefighters on shift at once.
The specialized fire engine for the airport can be operated by two people, but any backup needed would take longer to arrive.
“What makes me really comfortable, and what makes my family really comfortable is that when Dad goes to work, there’s 29 other well-trained professional firefighters that have my back,” Garrett said. “I don’t know what that looks like if there’s less (firefighters). If there’s less, what does that look like for me? That’s one less guy that’s going to come get me if I have a bad day in the basement of a house that’s on fire.”
When thinking of the fire department, obviously fighting fires and EMT services comes to mind, but the Pasco firefighters handle just about everything. Garrett can’t think of a call they’d refuse to help with.
“I fix people’s irrigation pipes in their front yard in the middle of the night because it broke and their yard’s flooding,” Garrett said.
“We don’t just go ‘Nope. Call irrigation.’ We’re public servants. We’re here to serve the public,” he said. “We do so much more than fighting fire and taking people to (the) hospital. We become ambulance therapists, we become a source of comfort for an elderly person that lives alone and is scared because they fell.” Next steps
These proposed scenarios aren’t final budgets for Pasco. City staff will use council members’ feedback to draft a final proposal.
The first four scenarios were presented in mid-October.
Public hearings on the budget are scheduled for Nov. 2 and Nov. 16 before the final 2027-2028 budget is adopted.
Potential budget adoption would happen at the first meeting in December.
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