Strength in numbers — Year-old South Davis Metro Fire Agency performing as promised

BOUNTIFUL — After a year of service to residents of south Davis County, agencies and cities involved agree the South Davis Metro Fire Agency is performing as promised or even better than expected.

The agency, formed in late 2004 as a cooperative between the South Davis Fire District and five south Davis cities — Bountiful, West Bountiful, Woods Cross, North Salt Lake and Centerville — officially started business Jan. 1, 2005, with existing firehouses and equipment from the cities and the South Davis Fire Department. During 2005 the agency rolled trucks to 4,742 incidents, slightly more than anticipated. Most of the incidents, 3,583, were of a medical nature. Total fire responses of all kinds numbered 217.

For at least a decade, the idea of consolidating fire services in the south end of the county had been bandied about, but little progress was made until 2004 when the Davis County Commission agreed to fund new paramedics for the agency.

Bountiful, the only city with its own fire department, agreed to merge and create the new agency, which made it feasible, said County Commissioner Dannie McConkie.

Paramedic service, supplied by the Davis County Sheriff's Office, had been swamped in the south end, McConkie said. With the new agency, paramedic service shifted from the sheriff's office to the Metro Fire Agency.

Before the new agency began, the South Davis Fire District, with headquarters in North Salt Lake, provided fire protection to North Salt Lake, Woods Cross, West Bountiful, Centerville and parts of the unincorporated areas of the county.

Bountiful had two fire stations and the district had three. Recently the fire agency's board of directors approved the purchase of 2.17 acres at 2600 S. Redwood Road for a new station to replace the one at 400 North and 500 West in West Bountiful. It will serve the rapidly growing Foxboro subdivision in North Salt Lake west of Redwood Road.

The board also approved hiring an architectural firm to design a new station but has no money to build one until station 85 in West Bountiful, north of the Costco development, is sold. The new station is expected to cost about $2 million.

This year's budget for the agency is $5.6 million, up from $5.37 million last year, said Chief George Sumner, the former chief of the Bountiful Fire Department. One of the reasons for the increase is the paramedics added this year and the equalization of employee salaries.

"This wasn't a couple of bloated fire departments getting together to cut and save money," Sumner said of last year's merger. "It was a couple of bare-bones departments, and there weren't any costs to save."