Fire Chief Scott Lewis said that Pahrump Valley Fire Rescue Service will still respond to accidents or fires outside of town boundaries, provided they are dispatched by the sheriff's office, despite the dissolution of the interlocal agreement between the fire department and Nye County Emergency Services.

"We will go, but someone has to dispatch us," Lewis explained.

The memorandum of understanding of between the fire department and NCES was terminated last week by the county commissioners.

"When we look at the overall picture, eliminating the (memorandum) does not impact (the fire department's) responsibility to be the sole provider within Pahrump," Lewis said. "But rather, by them eliminating the (memorandum) it breaks the process and understanding of executing the mutual aid request ... it just breaks that established process and the expectations of that process."

He said the agreement was initially formed as a way to delineate the roles and responsibilities of the two agencies.

Brent Jones, director of NCES, told commissioners the agreement should be terminated because his agency wasn't being used by fire department.

Lewis, however, said that was due to a lack of qualified NCES volunteers available to respond to situations most commonly encountered by the fire department.

The fire chief said his department has held a number of meetings with the NCES in an attempt to address the certification gap, and that the latter agency acknowledged the problem.

"Prior meetings between the town and the county clearly recognized that Pahrump's call volume could not be improved with assistance from Nye County Emergency Services as most were not certified nor qualified for most situations encountered," Lewis said.

He pointed out that fire department staff receive regular, progressive, academy-based training that ensures they are certified through the state as firefighters and emergency medical technicians.

This means they can enter burning buildings and wear self-contained breathing apparatus.

In addition, all the firefighters as well as Lewis undergo annual physicals, and staff over 40-years-old are required to have a stress test to guarantee their physical ability to respond to emergencies.

Hazmat training is also a part of the fire department's training, making the department what Lewis called "one-stop shopping."

"The incident commander has a responsibility to only bring qualified and trained individuals on to a fire ground because ultimately the incident commander is responsible for anyone that is on those fire grounds," Lewis said. "So knowing they are not qualified or certified to the level of the incident puts the immediate liability on us by having them still come in."

Nye County Sheriff DeMeo has said the agreement would allow the sheriff's department to use NCES for local hazardous material situations if it deemed it fit to do so.

Jones likewise had said his agency was not trying to come into town and extinguish fires, but simply felt they could be used more by the sheriff's office, particularly for hazmat situations.

DeMeo also said by using NCES for situations such as dismantling methamphetamine labs or picking up deceased persons, he could avoid being billed by the town.

"The NCSO was never billed for hazmat services because they're not responsible for the hazmat," Lewis said.

The fire chief said the sheriff's office was only billed for emergency medical services, such as when paramedics were dispatched to treat injured or sick inmates.

In addition, Lewis said that with or without the memorandum, the fire department still had jurisdiction within the town.

"I think it's an issue of misperceptions and misguidance," Lewis said. "The town is still going to be responsible for all those services, and I think there's a misunderstanding that some of that will be determined by others whether or not Nye County hazmat will be dispatched to a Pahrump incident, and that would not be a correct assumption."

DeMeo said the most appropriate agency would still be dispatched to incidents that occurred outside of town boundaries.

The fire chief also pointed out that the fire department was able to respond to incidents quickly.

"You go out there today and have an accident and its two o'clock in the morning," he said. "Our guys have to wake up and go out to the truck, whereas if it's somebody in another case is going to have to get up, go to their car, drive to the station from wherever they live, and then respond."

Lewis also pointed out this was not an issue unique to the town.

He said the Federal Emergency Management Agency, through the National Incident Management Systems, was in the process of developing the national credentialing system "to eliminate the problem we're now addressing."

"So it's not just an issue of Pahrump identifying and addressing this issue, this is going to become the norm," Lewis said. "And this is where the state of California and Nevada have addressed that."