Trinity VFD's location sparks queries: Much of coverage area within city limits

Originally published in the Texarkana Gazette and writeforarkansas.org on Sept. 12, 2011.
 
Revelations that a department credit card has been repeatedly misused and recent turnover in leadership provoke a more fundamental question about the Trinity Volunteer Fire Department: Why does it still exist?

Trinity, one of the Miller County Rural Volunteer Fire Department’s nine member stations, sits on Old Blackman Ferry Road, just south of its intersection with Union Road. It was annexed, with much of the surrounding land, by Texarkana, Ark., in late 1999.

The station is close to the city limits, about a half mile from the city’s southern border and a similar distance from other areas of land that remain in the county.


But the city’s expansion means that much of Trinity’s original coverage area has been ceded to Texarkana, Ark., Fire Department and that, theoretically at least, the city would be responsible for extinguishing a fire in the area covered by Trinity.

Rondo VFD, annexed by the city in 2000 during the same wave of growth that swallowed Trinity, was dissolved the next year, although this was prompted more by Rondo’s failure to respond to fires and disintegrating membership rather than its location, according to Miller County Rural VFD board meeting minutes from the period.

In the 12 years since Trinity’s annexation, its own location has been a matter of occasional discussion, if not formal debate.

“We have talked about moving it, but it has not been costeffective,” said Ronnie Sterling, who stepped down as Trinity’s chief in June, citing a need for a change in leadership at the Miller County Rural VFD and implying an intention to run for division chief.

Like its sister stations, Trinity gets a tenth of the department’s roughly $200,000 share of annual county tax revenue and a ninth of the more than $50,000 allocated by the state each year in insurance premium tax funds.

It is equipped with a brush truck, tanker, engine, rescue vehicle and other firefighting equipment, and, according to a departmentwide roster of active firefighters, has 11 active volunteers.

Sterling said Trinity is an integral part of the county’s fire response and that its location, though it is technically in the city, minimizes response times to the county.

The station is about a mile from U.S. Highway 71 and less than two from Arkansas Highway 549, offering quick access to the area’s major thoroughfares and a direct route to Interstate 30.

That’s particularly important, because Trinity houses the county’s rescue program, which is used for responding to major auto accidents, and needs to be close to where most accidents occur, Sterling said.

By other metrics, however, Trinity’s location is puzzling.

The station could be the only rural firefighting operation in a municipality with its own fire department, said Kendell Snyder, fire services coordinator for the Arkansas Department of Emergency Management.

Insurance Services Office, whose assessment of a fire department’s response capability is a major determinant of homeowner’s insurance rates, uses a 5-road-mile radius as the standard measure of a fire station’s reach.

A Gazette analysis shows that nearly the entire area within 5 road miles of Trinity is covered by other departments. Nearly half falls within the city limits and is covered by Texarkana, Ark., Fire Department.

Distance measurements using Google Maps, which are inexact but offer substantially accurate estimates of driving mileage, indicate that all but three small pockets of the remaining area are out of reach of Pleasant Hill or Genoa VFDs.

Much of the redundancy in the coverage maps could have been corrected by a plan introduced by then-Pleasant Hill Chief Rusty Green.

Green, who has since left Miller County Rural VFD for reasons he declined to identify, proposed merging Trinity and Pleasant Hill after his station burned down about 2005.

“Membership was down on both sides, and I wanted to build a really good-sized station to cover the north and south,” Green said.

The new station was proposed for Arkansas Highway 237 and County Road 10, about 3 miles from Trinity’s current station and with similar access to major highways.

But Green said the plan was turned down by Trinity, whose members didn’t want to drive the extra distance to the new station. Pleasant Hill was rebuilt at its original site, on the east side of Highway 237 across the highway from 237 Grocery.

Sterling said the department opposed the consolidation because it would have increased response times for Trinity members.

“If we move that direction, then you move probably three or four miles down the road further for our people to go get a truck,” he said.

Miller County Rural VFD chairman George Goynes said that the status of multiple stations, not just Trinity, will need to be considered in the future.

After an extended period of failing to respond to calls, Booker Bridge effectively became a satellite station of Satellite VFD when its chief stepped down earlier this year. On the books, it remains an independent station with a proportional share of equipment and funding. In actuality, it is overseen and maintained by Satellite Chief Lance Anderson.

Goynes plans to form a committee in coming months that will explore options for various stations and how they would affect Miller County residents.

“My only concern is if we aren’t careful with what we’re doing, we could cause some people in that area to have their insurance rates go up,” as happened when Boggy Creek moved its station to the Fouke border, Goynes said.

Rate hikes for residents in the three areas served exclusively by Trinity might be avoided, for example, if it were equipped with a brush truck and operated as a satellite of another station.

But Goynes isn’t sure and wants to get clear answers from ISO and insurance companies before taking action.

For now, at least, Trinity will continue to operate within the city limits.

That doesn’t bother the city.

Texarkana Chief Bobby Honea said his department maintains a mutual-aid agreement with Miller County Rural VFD and occasionally requests help on brush or grass fires within the city limits.

Otherwise, he said, the two entities rarely interact.

“It doesn’t have any effect on us one way or another. … I’d think that it would be more on them (in terms of) their response in the county with them being within the city limits,” Honea said.

Honea also doesn’t foresee a problem with a Texarkana firefighter, Gary Carter, serving as chief of Trinity.

Carter, who left the volunteer department several years ago, returned to Trinity at Sterling’s request to serve as interim chief. His election was approved Thursday by the Miller County Rural VFD governing board.

“Until we get somebody there, I’ll be there to make all the decisions, the paperwork, make sure everything’s taken care of. … It’s a temporary deal until we find somebody suitable,” he told the fire department governing board earlier this month.