Borough investigates Willow fire department

WILLOW — The chief of a neighboring fire department has been put in charge of the Willow Volunteer Fire Department while the Mat-Su Borough conducts a personnel investigation.

“We have an ongoing personnel investigation right now. (West Lakes Fire Chief) Bill Gamble is overseeing the area so we do have a chief,” said borough deputy director of Emergency Services Clint Vardeman said. “I can’t comment any further because it’s a personnel matter.”

Borough policy is not to discuss personnel matters. The Willow Fire Chief is Lance Barve. Asked if he was no longer chief, Vardeman reiterated that he could not comment on the matter.

Attempts to reach Barve were not successful.

This year has been a trying one for the department. In February, the borough said that a lot of the problems relating to the fire department in Willow were due to chronic staffing shortages and ageing equipment.

Willow has quite possibly the oldest fire truck still in service in the borough and it has long since outgrown its fire station — a former portable school building. A ballot question seeking more money for the fire department through increased property taxes failed earlier this month.

Back in February, the borough was also investigating how the department handled a house fire.

“We’ve received several complaints from the public about (the fire), so we are currently investigating the circumstances,” the borough’s director of emergency services, Dennis Brodigan, said at the time. “We have both the owner of the house and the other bystanders who felt that there weren’t things happening that should have and there were things happening that shouldn’t have.”

The main complaints were that fire trucks took too long responding to the scene and that once on scene took too long to put water on the fire.

Willow has also had a tough fall as well. Along with Butte and Talkeetna, it was among the hardest hit in the recent flooding disaster.

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at Andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.