The Eureka Fire Protection District is improving its financial situation.
The district has entered a deal to lease a recently closed station, and it will sell property that it can no longer develop.
Eureka Fire on July 1 will begin leasing House 3, at 3570 White Oak School Road, in Hoene Springs, to Total Technical Rescue Solutions (TTRS) for $875 a month. It also is asking $525,000 for a 3-acre property on Lewis Road that was purchased in 2023.
The Board of Directors voted unanimously on May 26 to approve the lease agreement and to sell the Lewis Road property.
These moves come on the heels of the district recently selling vehicles as Eureka Fire continues to adjust after voters rejected tax increases twice last year.
“We’ve done a huge amount of cost-cutting and revamping things,” Chief Scott Barthelmass said.
Lease agreement
TTRS will use House 3 to hold classes and store equipment.
Barthelmass said the company, which is owned and operated by firefighters, holds first responder courses throughout the region. TTRS offers courses in rope rescue, swift water rescue, boat ops, confined space and structural collapse.
“They’ll pay $875 a month, which will cover utilities on the building,” Barthelmass said. “The gas, the water, the electric, that all is still on at the building. It makes fiscal sense for us. The building gets used, but we still have the availability of the building. It’s a one-year agreement, so if things change financially for the district, we could reopen that engine house.”
Barthelmass said TTRS is installing additional security cameras at House 3 at no cost to the district. The building already has an alarm system, he said.
Eureka Fire closed the house on Jan. 1, only reopening and staffing it when flooding isolates the area and cuts off emergency services to some residents on Hwy. W.
The house has reopened once, so far, this year when a portion of Hwy. W was closed for a day in March due to the Big River flooding.
Barthelmass said as part of the agreement, TTRS must remove its equipment in the event of area flooding, allowing Eureka Fire crews to reopen the house.
Following the closure, personnel and equipment were relocated to the district’s two other houses at 4849 Hwy. 109 and 1815 W. Fifth St.
House 3’s ladder truck was moved to House 2 and the tanker truck was moved to House 1.
Six of the house’s firefighters were relocated to Houses 1 and 2. Three firefighter positions will be eliminated through attrition with the closure, meaning the district will not hire for those positions once the firefighters retire.
Barthelmass said the Eureka Fire Board of Directors voted unanimously on Oct. 27 to close House 3. The decision was made after the Proposition F tax increase measure failed to pass in both the April and August 2025 elections.
If voters had approved the measure, the district’s tax levy would have increased by 34 cents per $100 assessed valuation, resulting in additional revenue to raise salaries, purchase new equipment and fund building repairs. The district’s current tax levy is $1.290 per $100 of assessed valuation.
While the tax increase did not pass, Barthelmass said in an Oct. 28 statement that the district’s costly equipment, building and personnel needs remain. He also said emergency call volume is expected to increase by five percent this year.
Property sale
The Lewis Road property is listed with Bahn Commercial Real Estate.
The district purchased 2 acres for $200,000 in 2023, and the landowner gave the district another acre in exchange for a $150,000 tax credit and donation receipt for the Internal Revenue Service.
Barthelmass said with the failure of the tax proposition last year, the district does not have money to build a new house on the property as it anticipated.
“We brought in an outside company earlier this year to see what it would cost to build a house there,” he said. “The groundwork alone up there would cost us probably $1.5 million, because of the topography and some line-of-sight issues. Building that station would exhaust all those funds.”
Barthelmass estimates building a new station would cost about $10 million.
“It’s not a smart move to build this house simply because we don’t have the funds,” he said. “We need to concentrate on providing the best service for our citizens.”
Recently, the district sold a Chevrolet Tahoe SUV for about $6,000, an old pumper truck for $74,000 and a reserve ladder truck for $20,500.
Barthelmass said a new pumper replaced the old pumper truck late last year.
He said the district also is in the process of selling an inflatable boat stored at House 3. The district has two additional rescue boats stationed at its other houses.