In 2008, we celebrated our 60th year of service as the Orcas Island Fire Department and 2009 marks the start of our next 60 years!

We are taking the opportunity that the new year provides to rededicate our services to the community with improvements. First, we have added to our name to reflect our services beyond firefighting and prevention. For more than 30 years our EMTs and paramedics have delivered some of the finest emergency medical services in the region. EMS is our most important service and we embrace that fact by adding “Rescue” to our name.

Orcas Island Fire & Rescue represents all of our services and that we respond to “All of Life’s Hazards” from home medical emergencies to wildfires to vehicle crash rescue, hazardous material incidents, and cliff and water rescue – plus the simple “please help me!” calls.

Our new logo emphasizes our past, present and future. Red and black are the most dominate native American colors and these colors denote the island’s native American heritage. The four-sided “Maltese Cross” is the traditional fire service emblem with its heritage from the Knights of Malta as protectors of the weak. The traditional logo of emergency medical services (EMS) is the six-legged “Star of Life.” Ours sits in front of its strong maltese “foundation” and it is red instead of blue to emphasize that the delivery of EMS on Orcas is fire service-based. The Latin script across the banner emphasizes safety and proclaims that “Everyone Goes Home.” And finally the abbreviated “Established 1948” records our tradition of service.

In 2008, our department was intensely scrutinized and criticized. This was both healthy and in many ways even productive. Many of you stepped forward when this process verged on destructive. And for the first time in my career, I was placed in the position of defending excellence and its cost. We want to thank the “not so silent majority” and the vocal minority for helping us to create what we feel is the best emergency service in the county.

Within the last six months, the board of commissioners approved my request for a $2000 miracle drug, which we now carry on our ambulances. And during the worst snowstorm in recent history, not only did we use this drug to save a life, that person was able to return to work with almost no heart damage. During the same storm, 20 members worked all night to save a home that was on fire. Hose lines froze solid and personnel fell many times on the ice. The heroic effort is unduplicated in my 35 years with the fire service.

Alongside of these calls with good outcomes, we suffered one of the worst calls: a life-changing injury to a young man who was snowboarding. I have two young sons and identify with this tragedy, but I am confident that he received excellent care that could not have been exceeded, even on the mainland.

I must thank all of our members (past and present) as well as those who have just recently joined the recruit academy to volunteer for you. On behalf of the members, officers and commissioners, I wish to thank the community for their support and offer my members and the Orcas community my hope for a better new year.