A Message From Chief John Buchanan
March 27, 2011

In July of this year, I will hit a major milestone by being a career firefighter for fifty years. I am often asked why I haven’t retired from active service. Clearly, the main reason is because of Florence and the people within our organization. The men and women that make up Siuslaw Valley Fire and Rescue are second to none. The dedication to the mission of our organization is clearly displayed by the volunteers and their activity. A volunteer firefighter is expected to attend a minimum of two hours of training weekly and many spend their weekends traveling all over Oregon attending outside training events. Then they leave their homes and family to respond to the station to don their protective clothing and provide service to a myriad of emergency events.

Our organization provides all forms of fire protection, second responder emergency medical service in conjunction with the Western Lane Ambulance District, all forms of rescues, from auto accidents to ATV accidents on our sand dunes. We provide marine rescue on our many lakes and the Siuslaw River with a 25 foot, twin engine Zodiac rescue boat. We have been called upon several times this last year to assist the Lane County Sheriff to search for lost citizens on both the sand dunes, as well as in the forest. Our success rate in finding lost citizens is nearly 100 percent. Our fire marshal provides fire and life safety inspections to our business community and provides technical assistance during the design and plan check review of all new commercial projects.

The support from our community is overwhelming. The final tally of the votes during the annexation election last May was a demonstration of support from the citizens of the City of Florence. Even after the annexation of the properties within the City of Florence, we continue to work hand in hand with the City staff and rhw City Council in assuring confidence that we are providing the best in emergency services, as well as disaster management and disaster preparations. We remain a key agency in the West Lane Emergency Operations Agency, with Disaster Preparednesss, disaster management team participation, Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.) training, Are You Ready training, and Map Your Neighborhood training. If you desire more disaster information, we are providing a link to the West Lane Emergency Operations Group, www.wleog.org.

In closing, I will give my standard pitch. Remember as a child saying that you wanted to grow up to become a firefighter? Well, there is still time. We will be providing a link to a volunteer firefighter information page which will include an application form to be downloaded and printed with which to apply to become a volunteer firefighter. In the meantime, we have applications at the fire station located on the corn of 26th and Highway 101.

Thank you again for all your support!

John D. Buchanan, Fire Chief