Jul. 8—The race for a commissioner’s seat on one of the largest fire districts in Spokane is underscored by a critical issue — staffing.
Three candidates are highlighting this issue, among others, in the race in the upcoming primary for Spokane County Fire District 4 Commission Position 1.
Incumbent Roger Krieger faces two challengers, Sean Siegel and Dan Garner.
Fire District 4 covers most of northern Spokane County, stretching about 330 square miles, including the communities of Deer Park, Chattaroy, Colbert and Elk.
Krieger previously worked as the community service director of Deer Park for 32 years and as a volunteer firefighter in Petersburg, Alaska, and Spokane County Fire District 4 for 18 years.
He has served on the District 4’s board for 13 years.
“It’s a great organization to be involved with,” Krieger said. “We just want to try and stay involved at least for another term and go from there.”
Dan Garner recently retired after 30 years as a career firefighter and paramedic. He teaches wildland firefighting part time at Spokane Community College, and during the summer he works for the Washington Department of Natural Resources on an incident management team that addresses large fires.
“I’m not really a politician. I’m a firefighter,” Garner said. “I just want to continue to serve my community, and I figure this is the best way that I can do it using my experience.”
Sean Siegel thought he would never get into politics. He comes from a family of public servants and has spent 25 years working in fire and emergency medical services. For eight years he was a lieutenant for Fire District 4.
Now he believes his experience as a district taxpayer would bring a welcome change to the position.
“I just think it’s time for some fresh minds in there and some fresh ideas,” Siegel said. “I’m not looking to make big changes. I’m looking to make it better than I found it.”
All three candidates emphasized the need for greater staffing across the district.
“We used to be all voluntary, then went from voluntary and part-time firefighters,” Krieger said. “The volume of calls, the growth that we’ve all experienced in the north part of the county and everything related to that has pushed us down the path of no more part-time firefighters.”
Recently, the district hired full-time firefighters to staff five stations 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Garner also wants to focus on hiring more firefighters and increasing the staffing at stations that have only two people on duty.
“Washington state law requires that you have to have three firefighters on a scene of an incident before you can even attempt a rescue,” Garner said. “So if someone were to be trapped in a house fire, the first responders on scene can’t even attempt to rescue if they only have two people in it.”
Siegel echoed these statements, saying he would focus primarily on staffing outlying stations in rural areas that aren’t staffed, and hiring people to specifically work as wildland firefighters.
“If something does break out, you got a quicker response time because it’s already staffed,” he said.
A key issue for Siegel is offering transparency to taxpayers about where their money goes . He recalls people being upset with leadership during the meetings at a high school updating the Oregon Road fire in August 2023.
“They said they felt like the commissioners and the chief kind of blew them off,” he said. “They would like to see new leadership in there and somebody who’s going to listen to the taxpayers.”
In previous years, tax dollars have gone to building new stations and acquiring new fire apparatus, Krieger said. Lately, they’ve been putting the funding toward buying new equipment like engines and aerial equipment.
He vowed not to spend money on frivolous items and to ensure the district balances its budget.
Garner would like to focus the budgeting to address the staffing shortage, saying that around 80% of the budget should focus on staffing fire trucks as it does in many departments across the nation.
His main priority is firefighter safety, which in turn reinforces public safety, he said. This includes getting hearing protection for firefighters on the fire truck and extra sets of gear to replace those contaminated by carcinogens from fires.
During a season where the Inland Northwest faces an above average fire risk, wildfires are an important consideration for candidates.
Siegel is advocating for more wildfire education and suppression materials for firefighters.
Garner is a “big advocate” of helping other fire districts across the state during wildfire season, supplying engines and crews for state mobilization. This would come at no cost to citizens, as the state compensates fire districts deploying units during wildfires or other large emergencies.
“For example, two years ago we had the Oregon Road fire in Fire District 4, which is far beyond our capacity,” Garner said. “Our fire districts from across the state sent resources to help us. I feel like we should be able to help them in their time of need as well.”
As commissioner, Krieger helped secure grants for community thinning, which involves removing excess brush and reducing tree density to create more fire-resistant forests. In terms of fire prevention, he also oversaw building inspections and the securing of defensible space.
Bonny Matejowsky’s work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.