Regional Fire & Rescue Department, Inc.

We, the members of the Regional Fire & Rescue Department, dedicate our efforts to provide for the safety and welfare of the public through preservation of life, property, and the environment.

For the past 27 years, Regional Fire & Rescue Department has been the primary emergency services provider for unincorporated areas of Central and Western Pinal County, Arizona. We are not tax funded, but a non-profit organization that is supported by a minority of Commercial and Residential Subscribers who pre-pay a fire subscription fee annually for service to our fire department. We are not funded by any local taxes whatsoever. Less than 20% of the community supports us financially. We provide emergency services to everyone in need regardless of their Subscription Status, however many choose not to subscribe and feel entitled to receive our services because they dialed 9-1-1 and associate us with a Government Funded Service, which we are not. We have no central identity because we are not in a small community and not identified to one particular community, or to a town, we are on the side of the road, situated at an intersection in the center of our response area with an average response time in every direction, of 12 minutes. We serve unincorporated areas surrounding the City of Casa Grande, South of Coolidge and North of Eloy that have several community enclaves, RV Parks, and housing communities among open desert stretches that encompass local farms and farm fields.

Previously, unincorporated Pinal County had NO fire protection of any kind. Local jurisdictions were asked...pleaded with by the Sheriff's Dispatchers, to respond to County area fires, and only did so after persistent calling which included the "possibility of someone being trapped" and a potential "life safety" component emphasized, which elicited a response out of their City Limits, or from a nearby Fire District's/Dept's. Boundaries. We serve just under 100 miles of State Highways and includes 8 miles of Interstate-10 and 30 miles of Interstate-8 which is a stopping point half way to Gila Bend, Arizona. Interstate-8 response, of which there are no other close alternatives for Fire and EMS/Rescue, is routinely a 30 minute response for our department to the furthest point.

We employ a full-time Chief, a Secretary/Treasurer, and two full-time (career) Fire Captains. To maintain two to Three personnel on shift on a rotating schedule, we employ Shift Stipend personnel who are also supplemented by paid-per-call Reserve Firefighting personnel, who fill the shift calendar monthly with an average of three personnel per shift and an occasional fourth rider. We lack the funds to maintain more than (2) of these positions currently, but we are supported operationally by 14 -18 Part-time or Stipend paid firefighters and those who respond from home in a "paid-per-call" status. We respond to approx. 600 calls per year. 60 of our annual fire calls per year involve actual Firefighting activity, (Structure, Mobile Home, RV, Passenger, Commercial Vehicles and Vegetation/Brush Fires). We operate out of one station near Casa Grande that serves a 96 square mile area and encompasses a population of approximately 8000 people from one centrally located fire station. Not included in that figure is the estimated transient population between the months of September and May of an additional 3500 individuals that stay in five of the local RV parks in our response area over the winter months.

Geographically, our response area consists of rural desert area dotted by a minority of custom homes, hundreds of mobile homes, section 8 housing units, rental units, and migrant farm-worker housing on or near local farms and one middle school. The critical infrastructure we protect includes a peak-use power plant, public water storage facilities, fertilizer and agricultural chemical plant, natural gas and liquid-fuel pipelines and two major railroad lines. Regular traffic on I-10 alone carries 60,000 vehicles in each direction daily and includes commercial traffic throughout the year with a significant amount of hazardous material transport.

We are in need of additional funding to support OSHA/ADOSH requirements for our Firefighters, to purchase needed personal protective equipment or "Turnouts" to help repair and maintain our vehicles and extrication equipment. Everything costs money and when you put a Firefighting or Public Service label or use to it, the price triples. We do a lot to stretch the dollar and must be creative in providing for ourselves in this regard. Minor repairs, lights, sirens, radios, programming radios, building or repairing fire equipment, painting, wiring and refurbishing to keep our fleet in good shape and ready to respond to emergencies in the communities we serve...