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2 of 4 Upper Pine ambulances sidelined

Volunteers moving to paid part-time status

Two of four Upper Pine Fire District ambulances are currently sidelined for what Chief Bruce Evans said are endemic engine defects.

He reported on the situation to the Upper Pine board on Sept. 18 via phone from Washington DC.

The district has applied for an emergency grant to re-mount the ambulances on Dodge chassis, he said. He told the Times Monday that the application was successful.

The ambulances are currently on Ford chassis, which include the diesel engines. Each re-mount will cost around $77,000. The grant will pay 90 percent of that.

"We need to get out of the Ford market all together," Evans told the board. "Everybody is dumping the Ford chassis and going to Dodge."

He said, "We have a lot of issues with the Ford '08 6.4 liter engines." It's a compression problem, not a failing sensor as Ford claimed, Evans said. A cylinder was blowing diesel and clogging up sensors, a problem tracked down by district board member and BP fleet mechanic Casey Cook and district mechanic Dan Roberts.

Evans told the Times, "We've replaced these sensors over and over which has exhausted more than a third of our maintenance budget. We replaced the turbo-charger and three months later it goes out. It's all related to the engine design."

He told the fire board, "Ford ultimately admitted to a defect in one cylinder," but they won't put in writing that it's a design defect.

Evans said the National Transportation Safety Administration (NTSA) had been trying to track down the sensor issue until he mentioned the cylinder issue. "It all came together for them. We have an official complaint in to NTSA."

Other fire districts have had the same complaint, and class action lawsuits were filed in Louisiana and Texas, he said.

"NTSA is opening an investigation regarding Ford," he said. If the district tries a temporary fix, it could be liable if something happened during a patient transport.

The district will seek to recover the money it has spent on these engines, Evans said.

The new chassis will have five year warranties. Evans called it "a no-brainer decision."

A separate issue is that front line ambulances shouldn't have more than 100,000 miles on them, and the assumption is they roll up around 20,000 miles each year. Evans noted the district bought a bunch of vehicles all at once. "How are we going to cycle it out without replacing all at once? We will be challenged. The flip side is I think there are (vehicles) we can start shedding. Make sure we have the right vehicle for the right mission."

In other action on Sept. 18, the board unanimously approved a recommendation to end use of volunteer firefighters by Dec. 31. As of Jan. 1, volunteers who qualify could become part-time paid firefighters.

Evans told the Times the reason for this is the difficulty here, statewide, and around the country of finding volunteers who are willing and able to put in the time now required for firefighter and EMT training and responses.

"We aren't letting those people go," Evans said of current volunteers. "We are converting them to paid part-time." He cited the difficulty of earning a living in La Plata County.

"There are a lot of people who are really emotional about this," he said. "They aren't realizing the change in society. People don't have time, with jobs and family commitments."

He said the situation is dire enough in Pennsylvania that volunteer firefighters now get an exemption from paying state income taxes.

At a candidate forum Monday evening, Evans asked State Rep. Mike McLachlan and challenger J. Paul Brown if they would support such a thing in Colorado. Both said no, but they would look for other incentives for volunteer emergency responders.

State Sen. Ellen Roberts, who is unopposed for re-election, said she would consider it.