All 11 of Seward County’s fire departments recently secured some much-needed updated equipment that was purchased by the Seward Volunteer Fire Department. The SVFD plans to use bonding authority to continue making upgrades and replace trucks in the coming years.
SVFD Assistant Fire Chief Dan Brumm said knowing firefighters have the best equipment they can get to serve is a bonus for everyone in the county.
Pleasant Dale Volunteer Fire Department Training Officer Joey Carder was inspired to make this happen after the PDVFD raised money for its first ambulance two years ago. Carder said Seward County Gives was a large part of making that happen, and he became a board member for Seward County Gives the following year.
“I got to see how many of our local fire departments had serious needs for equipment, vehicles and basically everything,” he said. “Seeing how all of the fire departments spent almost more time fundraising than actually training just got me into looking at what routes we as a fire department had available to get us money.”
Carder found that although individual departments do not have authority to collect money in any way besides fundraising for donations, the Rural Fire Board has taxing and bonding authority.
The organization’s bonding authority is capped at around $0.105 per $100 in valuation for property taxes. Carder said the local fire departments asked the board not to use its full bonding authority because it understands the need to balance its own needs as well as the need to keep taxes low. The most recent bond rate for 2023 was $0.00519.
The Rural Fire Board got a $1 million bond and used $870,881 of it to buy new self-contained breathing apparatuses (SCBAs) for all the departments. The rest of the money was distributed to the individual departments to be used for whatever equipment they need most drastically at the moment.
Carder said he and the other county fire chiefs decided to purchase the SCBAs because they decided the first thing it needed to do was ensure all the departments had the equipment necessary to ensure their members’ safety.
“We wear SBCAs when we go into a house fire or are working on a vehicle fire, or basically any time we’re going to be pretty likely to be breathing in smoke,” Carder said. “They protect us so we’re not actually breathing in all the harmful chemicals and everything.”
Carder said the SBCAs in many of the departments were 15 years old or more. The PVFD recently had to buy new air cylinders for them because they were out of date and needed to be re-certified.
The Rural Fire Board purchased 102 sets, which Carder said is not enough for every firefighter in the county but is enough for every department to feel comfortable. He said all 11 departments in the county having the same gear will also be beneficial.
“If we’re on a call with another department, we can just swap out gear,” he said. “If somebody uses up their full tank, then they can just grab a tank from another department and have everything inter-operable.”
The departments sorted through all the new gear on May 2, and Carder said a member from each Seward County department was trained on May 6. The new equipment should be in service in all departments within the next couple of weeks.
Over the next 15 years, the department also plans to collect enough money through its fundraising efforts and bonding authority to replace its aging fleet of trucks, which will cost at least $16.5 million. The older the trucks get, the higher the upkeep costs and the more frequent it is that they are out of commission.
“There are trucks in service in the county that are from the 1980s, so you're going on 40 year old equipment,” Carder said. “We haven't utilized this bonding authority in the past, so now we're kind of playing catch up.”
Carder said these efforts to upgrade the departments’ equipment and trucks will make the departments more efficient and reliable and bring the tools they use back up to a standard of safety.
This is also important because if a firefighter gets injured on the job and the equipment they were using is outdated, insurance will not cover the expenses for the firefighter’s family.
Additionally, Carder said equipment upgrades will lead to higher ISO ratings and therefore better homeowner’s insurance rates.
Brumm said getting better equipment will allow the departments to better serve their citizens, communities and county as a whole.
“To me, this is the biggest county-wide endeavor to supply all our firefighters with the necessary equipment that’s ever happened,” Brumm said. “So, this is kind of groundbreaking at this level and that shows the strength of our mutual aid departments working together for the common good of the citizens of Seward County.”
