East Fork board hires its first new district fire chief

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For the first time in its history, the East Fork Fire Protection District Board entered into a contract with a new fire chief.

New Chief Alan Ernst will technically be on a temporary status until Chief Tod Carlini officially hangs up his turnouts on Feb. 7.

Ernst will cost the district $346,108 a year, according to the agenda for the meeting. That includes his salary and benefits.

The East Fork district is coming up on 44 years old, but an independent board governing the district has been around for a few months over eight years. County commissioners, which included district trustees Bernie Curtis and Jacques Etchegoyhen at the time, hired Carlini in 2000.

That might explain some of the confusion over who’s actually in charge of fire safety in the county, that prompted some back and forth at the last commissioners meeting.

It has been 40 years since anyone referred to a Douglas County Fire Department in The R-C. We often see East Fork firefighters referred to as members of a fire department in social media posts and even occasionally in releases listing those responding to fires outside of Douglas County.

Like so many other things here, the two district boards responsible to voters and taxpayers for fighting fires are often conflated with the county commission.

We’ve heard commissioners called out for things that are under the purview of the school board, or one of the score of improvement district boards that appear on ballots in their neighborhoods.

County commissioners are responsible for a lot of things in Douglas County, but over the years many responsibilities have been taken up by districts formed under state law to provide all kinds of services.

There isn’t a single incorporated city in Douglas County, but the districts, like those that govern the Gardnerville Ranchos, Indian Hills, Topaz Ranch Estates and Kingsbury, essentially serve the same purpose.

Just as there’s a separate elected board governing Carson Valley Swim Center or Mosquito Abatement, so too there is one governing firefighting here.