Superior’s Fire Chief Talks Outlook For 2016
Superior Fire Chief Steve Panger is getting ready to close the books on 2015 and begin a busy year in 2016, which includes a few cuts and the start of a multi-million dollar overhaul of the department’s headquarters on Tower Avenue, as FOX 21’s Dan Hanger reports.
At 3,500 calls for service annually, the Superior Fire Department is busy.
“We are doing a lot more and involved in a lot more services,” Panger said.
Panger has been with the department for 22 years – most recently as the chief.
“Things have changed a lot since 1980, as far as a fire department and their operation. So our space needs are different.”
No longer are the days of only fighting fires.
There are now rope rescues, ice rescues, EMS response and hazmat situations, just to name a few, which all comes with more equipment and much-needed space.
“Obviously the trailers are looking pretty rough. You don’t want to go and repaint them when you know they’re going to be still sitting outside,” Panger explained.
Meanwhile, the year ahead will keep the department’s 36 firefighters, but it also comes with rising costs that have forced Panger to make some cuts to some non-core services like the dive team.
“Dive teams are very difficult to keep and that’s why there’s not a lot of them. They are low frequency and they are expensive to maintain because of the training — and there’s a lot of equipment.”
Panger says the nearest fire department with the diving capacity going forward will be Carlton County.
“It’s just a priority, and when we talk about all the other services we provide, this doesn’t fall as high of a priority of the other services we have. And we just have to make tough choices.”
Another one of those choices is the elimination of a “fire setter interventionist” who worked with arson suspects.
But again, Panger stresses these cuts will not affect the department’s ability to provide core services to the public.
“People do not have to worry about that at all.”
Design plans for the future headquarters will get public review and council review before work begins in 2018.
