The city of Medical Lake and Spokane County Fire District 3 are discussing a merger due to an increasing number of no-response calls by the city's all-volunteer fire department.
The Medical Lake Fire Department failed to respond to over one-quarter of the calls they received in 2018, according to a city report. SCFD3 picked up the slack under joint support agreements between the two entities.
To blame for response is a lack of staff availability from the all-volunteer fire department, according to Medical Lake Fire Chief Jason Mayfield.
Medical Lake received a total of 642 calls for service in 2018. Of those, 167 were instead handled by SCFD3, who has a mix of full-time and volunteer firefighters. The statistic was sobering.
"The 2018 numbers made us take a harder look," at the long-discussed possibility of a merger, Mayfield said.