Commissioners should leave task force talks to fire board

It may be hard to believe, but this week, the Campbell County Commissioners and the Campbell County Joint Powers Fire Board met for the first time since before the historical wildfire season we had last summer.

For one reason or another, the two groups have not had the chance to sit down and talk about the situation. There have been meetings where both boards have been in attendance.

But on Wednesday, they got the chance to go over the 2024 fires and talk about the lessons that were learned. That includes better educating the residents and improving communication among everyone involved.

At the start of this year, the commissioners talked about the possibility of creating a rural fire task force. In a vacuum, this is a good idea. Getting landowners and the fire department to be on the same page is productive.

But some of the commissioners brought up a good point. The commission has an equal partner in this venture, and that’s the city. In the last few years, the city greatly stepped up its funding after years of complaining from those who didn’t think the city was paying its fair share.

Both the city and the county — and Wright as well — appoint people to the fire board that they believe will do a good job of overseeing the fire department. That’s the purpose of these citizen boards. Commissioner Scott Clem rightfully worried about the county “overstepping” just by talking about a task force.

If the shoe were on the other foot, if the city were moving ahead with its own task force after a really bad year of house fires, you can bet the commissioners would be all up in arms, and for good reason.

Now, I don’t think any of the landowners affected by the fires were calling anybody on the City Council to help fix the problems, and they shouldn’t have. The wildfires were a county issue, miles outside of city limits. But it could have quickly become a city issue if the fires got out of hand. Thankfully they didn’t, but I think the city would have an interest in how fires are fought out in the county.

And the fire board agreed, with board member Trent Jones saying, “we are the task force.”

Communication between residents and the fire department should be improved, for sure, but the commission should leave that up to the fire board.