ROBERT PIERCE
• Leader & Times
Seward County has hired an interim fire chief following this week’s announcement of the resignation of former Chief Andrew Barkley, who had also been recently serving as the county’s Emergency Management director.
The hiring and a local burn ban were discussed Tuesday in a special county commission meeting. The burn ban was added to the agenda upon the suggestion of Commissioner Clay Louderback.
“All of the surrounding counties, when we get into a dry spell like this, put a burn ban into effect,” he said. “I feel that would be important to the conditions we have right now and alleviate some accidents from happening.”
As far as the position of fire chief, Administrator April Warden said upon Barkley’s announcement, she scheduled time to meet with fire department staff to get a better understanding of how to handle the situation and how they were handling the news of the resignation, as well as what they saw going forward and their feelings on hiring an interim chief.
“They asked me if they would be allowed to have discussions amongst themselves,” Warden said. “They were all trying to wrap their heads around everything.”
Warden said Braden Steckel, who was approved Tuesday as the interim chief, and Deputy Fire Chief John Steckel visited with her Tuesday morning, and she said the wishes of the staff were to have Braden as the interim chief with John remaining as the deputy chief.
Warden likewise said fire department staff also was not in favor of keeping that department and Emergency Management together.
“They said it’s just too much to do with the amount of staff they have and needing to be focused on firefighting to be able to keep up with emergency management detail,” she said. “It’s going to mean the training of new staff. “
Along with Barkley, current Emergency Management Coordinator Rosa Conley announced her resignation, and both resignations will be effective March 6. Warden said John Steckel is not opposed to helping with Emergency Management until a director is found.
“He’s been a part of Emergency Management, but it is the wishes of the fire department that Emergency Management not remain under the fire department,” Warden said. “We will need to have discussions about that. We will need to have discussions about that.”
In discussions Tuesday with the Steckels, Warden said she was given sources of people to reach out to for an interim Emergency Management director.
“One of the gentlemen has actually done a lot of the training a lot of us have taken,” she said. “He is retired now. They were going to see if he would be willing to come in on a short-term basis until we can figure out what we’re doing on a full-time basis. They also gave me the name of some other emergency managements in the surrounding areas who could possibly come in and provide some assistance until we get up and running fully and determine what we’re going to do with that department.”
Warden gave a brief history of Emergency Management’s ties to the fire department.
“For many years with Emergency Management, that position was held by our assistant fire chief,” she said. “John Steckel, at the time, also assisted with that. He was a part of the fire department then as well.”
Warden then said Emergency Management was later moved into its own separate department with Greg Standard serving as the director for many years.
“He retired,” Warden said. “It has been combined with fire before, but you also had a bigger Emergency Management at that time. You had Greg Standard, who was also the assistant fire chief, but you also had the help of John Steckel, and we had a full-time planner. You had a little different staffing going on then, and then it became its own department.”
Upon Standard’s retirement, Seward County had hired a replacement director, but Tim Newman left not long after his hire. This is when, Warden said, Emergency Management was moved back under the direction of the fire department.
“We’ve tried it like that since September, and it is the wishes it be moved back out of fire,” Warden said.
Braden Steckel said having Emergency Management under the fire department’s umbrella would mean stretching an already thin department even thinner.
“Definitely in disaster events when we have boots on the ground, it’s better served for the community if there’s someone else in that role who can fill those needs,” he said. “My firefighters need to be fighting fires and not worried about emergency management. Our operations guy needs to be doing operations. The community’s better served with someone who wants to do that role, can fulfill that need and better serve the community doing that instead of us doing that as an afterthought.”
The commission voted unanimously to hire Braden as the interim chief, and the board next turned its attention to instituting a burn ban. The new fire chief said recent history has shown many fires in the county starting the day after calm winds when cold fronts come to the area with stronger winds. This is when embers are kicked up and fires started.
“Some of the recent fires this last week, that’s how some of them started,” he said. “I’m not opposed to a burn ban in a certain time frame of the year. Right now, we issue burn permits, and we follow the state fire marshal’s guidelines that the wind has to under 15 miles an hour. It doesn’t mean people follow them.”
Braden, though, said the message of the ban does get publicized, and this in turn reminds people to be more careful with fire.
Historically, Braden said March is the worst month for fires in the county, but just as it did this year, fires hit earlier.
“Usually what happens for us is it’s dry and windy until the rain hits,” he said. “We get flooded, and it’s like fire season’s over.”
Warden suggested a ban be put in place until the commission’s first meeting in April, which is April 6, when the board could readdress the ban.
Louderback, though, asked how the ban could be enforced.
“Is there any teeth in it?” he said.
Braden said the county does have a resolution in place in which fire officials can issue citations for violating the ban.
“They can be fined up to $500,” he said. “I think that needs readdressed. We aren’t necessarily equipped to be writing tickets to people.”
Braden said he was unsure of what the Seward County Sheriff’s office could do to help with enforcement.
“I need to go talk to them to see what we can do to have their expertise included,” he said.
County Clerk Stacia Long said a person would be liable for insurance purposes would likely be an issue if they started a fire during the burn ban as well.
Commissioners voted unanimously to put the burn ban in effect starting Monday pending the passage of a resolution at Monday’s regular meeting and to bring it back to be readdressed at the April 6 meeting.
