After serving the Enumclaw community for more than 25 years, local Fire Chief Randy Fehr is ready to blaze a new path — retirement.

Fehr, who became chief a decade ago and led his department out of some dark times, retired on Dec. 31.

“It’s a high stress job… it has taken a toll on me,” Fehr said in a recent interview. “I believe fire chiefs are supposed to innovate and make things better. The community and firefighters deserve this. Time for someone else with new ideas to come in and do this.”

At this time, Puget Sound Regional Fire Authority’s Fire Chief Brian Carson will be the interim head of the EFD handling communications with EFD’s Board of Commissioners while Deputy Chief Ben Hayman handles the day-to-day operations.

Whoever leads the department after this year-long contract with PSRFA expires will be able to ride on Fehr’s and the Board of Commissioners accomplishments, like passing a 2022 levy to hire three new first responders. However, there are many challenges ahead, like increased call volumes and limited funds to respond.

Fehr, whose grandfather was a firefighter in Wallingford, CO, and his father in Tukwila, decided to follow in their footsteps in high school.

“I was always proud of my dad and what he did,” Fehr said.

When he graduated, he joined the old Cumberland Fire Department before it was absorbed into the EFD for two years as a volunteer firefighter.

From there, he went through the fire academy with the EFD and, when he graduated, applied everywhere — from Washington to Montana and even California — that was hiring; he ended up as a firefighter with Boeing, until a senior firefighter gave him a Seattle Times newspaper clip advertising an open spot.

Eager to live and work at home, Fehr jumped at the opportunity and started firefighting in Enumclaw in 1998.

At the time, he was 25 years old, and he admits that EFD was taking a risk in hiring so young a firefighter.

But it was a decision that resulted in dividends, as he took every opportunity to train and learn from senior first responders. By 2008, he was a captain, and seven years later, the chief.

Becoming a part of the department’s administration was not something Fehr expected himself to do.

In fact, at the time, “[t]he department was in bad shape back then,” he said. “… we kind of lost the trust of the community.”

In summary, between 2012 and 2015 there was a $200,000 budgeting mishap; violations of conflict of interest and competitive bidding laws; a lack of financial planning that led to the hiring, and then laying off, of two first responders and two administrative staff; accusations of unfair labor practices and retaliatory investigations and termination; and Open Public Meeting Act violations.

“I feel like ou[r] reputation was stolen from us,” Fehr said when his position as interim chief became official in 2015. “It’s been a rough three or four years for our firefighters. I want to get ou[r] reputation back.”

In the recent interview, Fehr said he took the job because he felt like he understood the problems the department was facing — namely, no funds and lack of public trust.

“I felt like I could hit the ground running, and I felt like I could make a difference quickly,” he continued.

Over the next eight years, Fehr said his department and the Board worked hard to address the various grievances held against them and to be as transparent as possible, which included reporting monthly financials and televised meetings.

“Everything was done in the light of day,” he said.

Trust appears to have been restored quickly. While a 2013 levy measure failed by 64% (in part causing layoffs), 53% of voters passed another measure in 2016. Support for the department since has only grown, as more than 62% of voters approved another levy lid lift and an increase in property tax collections in 2022, allowing the department to hire three new first responders.

This means that during his tenure, Fehr nearly doubled staffing of career first responders, which he considers one of his crowning achievements as chief.

Additionally, he’s proud of the work the department has done to build a financially-responsible agency.

“I certainly want to be clear, I didn’t do it all on my own,” he said. “I had plenty of help from great people.”

A NEED TO EXPAND — AND SOON

While Fehr said EFD is in a good place now, he added that the department has to “take the next step” to address the challenges it faces — namely population growth and ever-increasing calls for service.

Back when Fehr was first hired as chief, EFD’s district had a population of about 19,000 people. Last year, it was reported to have increased to about 22,500, an 18% increase.

The department has reported that it received 2,324 total calls in 2015. That’s jumped to 2,798 last year, a 20% increase.

With these trends only expected to continue, EFD is considering how to expand the department and its services, either on its own or through contracts with other first responder agencies.

“Right now, the staffing that we have is not enough to keep up with what we need to be doing,” Deputy Chief Hayman said in a recent interview. “We need to increase staffing and operations, but we also need to have staffing support for logistics and facilities, fleet, [and] have a dedicated person that’s managing those programs…”

One way to help with staffing is to contract services with another agency like the RFA.

At this time, the department is paying for Chief Carson to take care of some administrative duties.

Hayman said that it’s cheaper for EFD to do so than what it would cost to locate and hire a new chief for the local department. Contracting other services could similarly free up general funds that could be used elsewhere or allow department staff to focus in on specific department operations, as opposed to having to wear multiple hats.

But there may be some services that can’t be offered, or completely cover EFD’s needs, which means the department is also considering proposing tax increases.

“We’re trying to find the best way to support our organization and pay for it, but also being sensitive to people who don’t want to pay more,” Hayman said. “… Where can we save money without reducing service levels, and/or how can we do it and potentially increase service levels?”

What direction the department would like to head in will be announced by June so that both EFD and the RFA can plan ahead.

But contracting may only be a short-term solution, and Commissioners are also looking ahead to anticipate future issues.

It was proposed a decade ago that a new station — or two — should be built in order to have room to increase operations.

If EFD pursues this option, it would almost certainly require a bond to cover the millions it would cost.

An updated Capital Facilities Plan is expected in the near future to update where the facilities should be built, how big they should be, and how much they could cost.

A final option is annexation, where EFD-district voters would decide whether or not their local department becomes an RFA agency.

Hayman said that’s a far-flung option and stressed that the RFA is in no way pushing for it.

“At the end of the day, they want us to find the best option for us and our community, and if that’s going out and finding our own chief on our own, they want to help with that,” he said. “If it’s a contract with them, they want to help us to that as well. We sought them out — it wasn’t them trying to take over for us. It was reaching out to a partner that we have a lot of professional relationships already.”