Two weeks ago we were dispatched along with other Washington County fire agencies to a third alarm barn fire in rural Newberg. As we always do we posted a message on our Twitter page that we were responding to the fire, which drew a reply from one of our Twitter followers commenting that Newberg was "pretty far" for us to respond to. In addition this comment, one of the more common questions we hear is "why was a Cornelius engine in town last night?" The quick answer is because we have what are called "Mutual Aid Agreements". For us that makes sense, but what does that term really mean to our community?
The view from inside one of Newberg's emergency vehicles as they responded to the fire on March 20
Forest Grove Fire & Rescue (as well as every other fire department in the metro area) has what we call mutual aid agreements with our neighboring fire agencies. The same can be said at the County level where the Washington County Fire Defense Board (a group that represents regionally and state wide all of the fire departments in our county) maintains mutual aid agreements with other counties. What these mutual aid agreements do for us is let firefighters cross those invisible lines that we call district borders all in an effort to support each other when needed to safely solve the emergencies that arise.
When a large fire, such as the one on March 20th in Newberg, occurs it can be very difficult for a single fire department to handle on their own. As you can see in the photos, this fire was not something that a single fire engine with 750 gallons of water was going to be able to control on their own. On fires we respond with what is called a "Box", each box is one square mile on a map of the region, and a typical fire will start out with what we call a 1st Alarm Box Assignment. Basically an alarm is a preassigned number of fire engines, a chief officer, a rescue, and depending on if the call is in the city or a rural area it will either have a ladder truck or a water tender. Each greater alarm just brings in a similar amount of equipment. With the Newberg incident the fire went to a 3rd alarm with numerous fire engines, water tenders (because it was in a rural area that did not have nearby fire hydrants to support the engines), and the like responding to the call.
A closer scene view of the 3rd alarm barn fire in Newberg on March 20 shows what the first firefighters to arrive were up against. Barns can be thousands of square feet and filled with heavy loads of combustibles that require dozens of firefighters and tens of thousands of gallons of water to extinguish.
In Forest Grove our mutual aid agencies will be dependant on the type of call and the location where it is occurring. In the city if a 1st alarm structure fire happened right now we would get the bulk of the equipment from our Station 4, but an engine from Cornelius (station 8) would also respond. If a car crashes on NW Highway 47 near the community of Roy we would send an engine and a rescue, and Banks would send down an engine to assist as well. It goes both ways, on Thursday of last week when two boys capsized their sailboat at Hagg Lake; Gaston responded as the lead agency, but we responded with our boat, as did Newberg with their boat and dive team, in addition to surface water rescue teams from both Hillsboro and TVFR. This is all coordinated through an automated system at our dispatch center in Tanasbourne that recognizes the type of call, and depending on the request from the incident commander what type of unit is appropriate and based on availability, where to dispatch the next units from.
On much larger incidents we can even be sent across the state. Last summer we were part of a contingent of Washington County Fire Departments that sent equipment and firefighters to the "Microwave Fire" near The Dalles. In recent history our most distant response was sending a 3,000 gallon water tender to help protect structures threatened by a wildfire that was burning around Halfway in north east Oregon. More locally, in the summer of 1999 a large wildfire was burning in a logged area near Gaston that required a 4th alarm assignment. When we returned that evening we were greeted at our station by a crew from Lake Oswego who had been dispatched to cover our city while we worked at the fire scene.
All of this has been worked through over the years, tested, and improved upon as needed. Part of this cooperative effort has expanded; so that we are all able to work together more seamlessly we start from the ground up. Twice a year, new volunteer firefighters from every single fire agency in Washington County attend a joint training academy. New recruits travel from fire station to fire station each weekend where every department has split the curriculum so that the recruits learn different topics from each fire agency. This training and overall familiarity with not only the people in the fire departments but the overall standardized practices make it that much easier to work together on an emergency scene. We're extremely fortunate to have this cooperation, there are parts of the country where pride and politics don't allow for such easy assistance from neighboring fire districts. This is just one of many ways that we work to find creative solutions to solve the emergencies that we are dispatched to.
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