GRAHAM, Wash. -- Graham Fire and Rescue has had to occasionally shut down one of its fire stations because of a lack of staff.
Station Number 6 has been operating about 90 percent of the time since April, according to department records.
The station was shut down July 23 when a fire gutted the home of Cory Boulet's mother-in-law. Boulet lives next door to the house, which is about a half-mile from the station which serves the rural, eastern part of Graham.
Instead of those crews responding to the fire, firefighters came from two other stations more than three miles away.
Boulet wonders if the closure contributed to the house being a total loss.
I think it could have probably saved it, but I'm not sure, said Boulet.
Deputy Chief Gary Franz said the closure would not have affected the outcome. He said the backup crews made it to the homefaster than the department expects the neighborhood firefighters to get to the scene of rural fires.
Franz said Station Number 6 had to be shut down earlier that evening because one of the two firefighters working on the skeleton crew had to go home for a family emergency. The station cannot operate with only one firefighter.
Voters approved a bond to build the station in 2008. The department planned on hiring more firefighters to fully staff the station, but the slowing economy has made that impossible.
We are now working in a way to staff six fire stations with the exact same number of people we used to staff five stations with just a year ago, said Franz.
Franz is afraid the problem will only get worse.
Voters in Graham this month are being asked to maintain the funding levels in a levy. If that levy fails Franz said it will be even more difficult to keep Station Number 6 open full-time.
