On the firefighting front, electronic data from the city’s Inspectional Services Division on building hazards, combined with the Fire Department’s own hazard reports, was recently made available to dispatchers, said Fire Commissioner Joseph Finn.

Poftak wrote in the report that the data project stemmed “from an internal request by the BFD’s own dispatch unit to better understand building hazards. The intent with this program is to take the existing property-specific sources of data in the city and put it into the hands of Dispatch and fire fighters -- so that they can know what known hazards exist in and around a building before entering.”

Eventually, Finn said, the electronic data will be available on fire trucks and on hand-held devices for fire officials who take command at scenes.

Fire Chief Jared Bean said the new tanker replaces a 1984 Ford model that had a 1,200-gallon capacity.

"We're able to get more water (to a fire) quicker," Bean said. "One of our biggest struggles on a structure fire for a rural fire department is water supply."

The department last purchased a new truck in 2007.

Bean said that although there were few problems with the older tanker, it had become one of the oldest trucks in the department's fleet.

WSFR said that through improvements and innovative partnerships over the past six years, it has seen its ISO rating drop from a rating of 4 for most of the insured properties in the fire district to a rating of 2. This rating places WSFR within the top 2 percent of fire agencies nationwide of the 48,754 fire agencies rated by ISO last year. Only 1,060 agencies achieved a rating of 2, WSFR said.

Structures that are more than five miles from a fire station and have water available by fire hydrant received a rating of 3. Structures that are further than five miles from a fire station and are not served by a fire hydrant received a rating of 10. WSFR significantly increased its proficiency in serving the areas with a rating of a 10 by boosting its ability to establish a water tender shuttle operation from 350 gallons per minute to 500 gallons per minute.

“I am proud of the transformation of this organization over the past six years," WSFR Fire Chief Herb Brady said. "We have brought together a diverse group of highly trained career and volunteer professionals who embrace our values of readiness, excellence, courage and respect on a daily basis. We could not accomplish a world-class level of performance without a supportive and engaged board and positive partnerships with the Towns of Windsor and Severance, our four water districts and Weld County Communications.”

Some 200 fire suppression tools were purchased by the Bristol Bay Native Association and Kodiak Area Native Association VPSO grantees and then distributed by the Department of Public Safety's VPSO program, according to Merrill.

VPSOs are usually among the first to arrive at the scene of an emergency like a fire, he said.

The new fire suppression tools will allow a VPSO to either save a building or provide time while volunteer firefighters set up other firefighting apparatus.

Many rural Alaska communities that do not have fire departments, rely on volunteers and community members to respond and fight fires. According to troopers, the new fire suppression tools are thrown into a building, suppressing the fire with a nontoxic chemical reaction which has the potential to save the structure and allow people inside time to escape from the building.