Frank Billington and his family will have to be moved out of the home they lived in for the last seven years by Saturday. Once that happens, East County Fire & Rescue will have one less fire station.
Since the Billingtons moved into their home in the Bear Prairie neighborhood of Washougal, the house has also operated as Station 96. There, Billington was on call as a volunteer firefighter whenever he wasn’t working his full-time job as a dispatch superintendent for Clark Public Utilities, where he typically worked noon to midnight three nights a week.
The fire district’s board of commissioners voted unanimously to close the station and sell the house at their Jan. 20 meeting, giving Billington and his family 30 days to find a new place to live and move out. Billington lives with his wife and five of their six children.
It also leaves the Bear Prairie area without a fire station. The nearest station is about 5 miles away, with a narrow, rural uphill road connecting that station, Station 94, to the neighborhood that Station 96 used to serve.
“They’re going to lose a resource right there,” said Al Gillespie, East County Fire & Rescue’s interim chief. “There is a change in response time that will occur.”
None of the five members on the board returned a request to comment for this story. Gillespie said selling the station was part of a discussion on how to best use the assets the district has to serve as many people as possible.
The Bear Prairie area is remote and averages 20 to 22 calls a year, Gillespie said.
“Everybody would love to have a fire station around the corner, except for (when) the sirens go off,” he said. “This is part of the risk you take living remotely.”
Before the district purchased the house for Station 96 in 2008, there was no other fire station. The closest was Station 94.
“For the people in Bear Prairie, (Station 94) was their closest resource before, and their closest resource when I wasn’t home,” Billington said. “They’re reverting to how it was before.”
Gillespie said that Billington’s ability to perform firefighting tasks were limited, since he was just one person, and Billington agreed.
“I can’t put out a house fire by myself,” Billington said. “There were always (other) people showing up. When I was one guy showing up with a defibrillator, that can make a big difference, especially if someone is having a heart attack. Ten minutes is going to make a big difference.”
But the loss of Station 96 won’t just affect Bear Prairie. Station 96, which only Billington operated out of, responded to 70-75 calls a year around the county, and he even ventured into Skamania County on occasion. Scott Koehler, chief of the district from 2002 until Jan. 2015, said many years Billington responded to more calls than any other volunteers or career members of the district.
The desire for a station in that area came when Koehler realized Bear Prairie had been underserved, and the district was starting to see more calls to that area. It’ll go back to being underserved now, he said.
“Everything in our business is time-related,” Koehler said. “A critical medical call usually gets worse over time. Fire gets bigger over time. When you get rid of a unit, it can have a serious impact on critical situations.”
The district purchased the house in 2008 for $525,000. Billington and his family lived there rent-free and paid their own utility bills and maintained the property. The district agreed to cover any major expenses, and in Billington’s time there that included replacing a heat pump. Billington, who started fighting fires in 1994, was already a member of the district before moving into Station 96.
“It was a pretty interesting opportunity to give us a chance to live in the country for a while,” he said. “I’ve always been passionate about the fire service. It’s something I’ve done for a long time. It was something I had the energy to do at that time. I never expected it to last this long.”
Koehler said the idea behind Station 96 was to get a station without spending money to build a new one. Koehler said that buying property and building a station could cost upward of $1 million. The bigger problem is if the district no longer needs it. Unless some Ghostbusters show up, not many people are looking to purchase an old fire station, so they don’t bring in much money. With a house, Koehler said, it would be easier to sell if the board decided it didn’t think the station was necessary anymore.
Still, he was surprised to hear the board was selling the station, since it ended up being more valuable than he thought it would be, given just how many calls Billington responded to, including fires, medical calls and public service calls.
“He was truly a utility infielder,” Koehler said. “He was motivated. The agreement we had is he lived in that house for free in exchange for public service. We got the better end of the deal. Frank did a lot. The fire district was better off for his time there.”
Billington isn’t sure if he’s going to keep volunteering with the district. His family is partially moved into a home in Hazel Dell, and he said he’s going to take about six months off from volunteering before deciding.
“I’ve been living in a fire station where I did not have an option of turning the pager off,” he said. “If I was at home, I was on call. Seven years of not being able to ignore a call is significant. I’m tired. When I took the gig, I didn’t think it was going to wear me down like it did.”
Another reason he’s not sure if he wants to continue is he didn’t like the way the board announced the sale, which was quietly. The board put it in their agendas for an upcoming meeting, but didn’t do much else to publicize the discussion and nobody told Billington. He found out from another member of the district, who had been at an earlier meeting when the board put Station 96’s possible sale on the Jan. 20 agenda.
The agreement between the district and Billington said they had to give him 30 days’ notice to move out if they opted to close the station, which they did. He asked for an extension of about a month, but it wasn’t granted.
“This is not how I envisioned my fire career possibly ending,” Billington said. “I always thought I’d go until my body broke down.”
He didn’t go to the Jan. 20 meeting, or ask friends to go, because he felt like the board’s decision was already made, and he didn’t want anyone to waste their time.
Still, Billington said he understands why the board would opt to sell the fire station and agrees with some of the reasons for selling it.
“We had a great deal,” he said. “It was great for us. It was great for the district.”
