West Fargo Fire Department discusses challenges, needs and future goals

West Fargo Fire Chief, Dan Fuller says the main goal of the department is to improve the quality of life.

WEST FARGO, N.D. (KVRR) – West Fargo Fire Chief Dan Fuller is presenting the growing needs and long term goals of the department to city commissioners.

As the city of West Fargo grows, its fire department is faced with a multitude of challenges like increased call volumes, staffing shortages and longer response times.

“In the last five years we’ve accomplished a lot of changes in the way that we provide services to our community. The good part of it was that we were able to look at how we operate as a fire and emergency services and reduce risk to our community. Unfortunately, I feel we lack in response time capabilities and staffing, but we’ve made our adjustments and we’ve moved forward,” West Fargo Fire Chief Dan Fuller said.

Chief Fuller says the main goal of the department is to improve the quality of life across the West Fargo community by having more personnel on board.

“We’re going to do that through hopefully reducing the amount of calls we go on and the amount of times we are called. We do that proactively with our risk reduction in getting citizens the help they might not have access to outside of an emergency response. We’re going to be able to do it quicker, more efficiently, with less fire, less damage and it really ties into increasing the quality of life,” Fuller said.

Fuller adds, as the city’s needs continue, an additional two fire stations will be needed to help fulfill daily firefighting duties.

“Depending on how fast it gets populated, how many people move in and how quickly and how dense it is and what the call volume looks like, we will know where we’re heading, but the first step we need to take is to get land. We have two parcels we’re looking at and we’re just trying to make a decision on what’s going to be the best response time,” Fuller said.

Fuller adds whether or not those fire stations become a reality is up in the air.

“It may come sooner, it may not come into fruition at all. It’s a pretty economical way where you don’t want to build a fire station someplace before it’s needed,” said Fuller.

Fuller says the department’s budget for next year is coming in close to $4 million.