Next week, Yakima voters will be deciding to approve or reject a proposition regarding a sales tax to fund emergency radio communications. However, some emergency services departments have better tools than others. โFire district 5 has always had a very strong radio voice communication system,” said Yakima Fire District 5 Fire Chief Ken Shipman. “We have a long history of maintaining a very current up-to-date system.โ
Fire district 5 is the largest in the state, covering over 800 square miles from Wapato to Satus, and White Swan to Grandview. So by virtue of that, we have to have a system that works very well, to link all of our stations and all of our firefighters and responders together,” Shipman said. Their radio communication network is fairly new, and does not have any large dead spots.
โIt could always be a little bit better, but I would say that today, our coverage is outstanding,” Shipman said. In fact, their current network has recently completed a major upgrade. โWe actually completed a pretty vast upgrade of our radio system, itโs currently about 3 years old, 3 to 4 years old, and so itโs fairly new today, I think that will take us down the road,” Shipman said.
