Captiva Island Fire District partnering with Fort Myers Beach Fire District
The Captiva Island Fire District will now use the Fort Myers Beach Fire District for its fire plan review.
Captiva Island Fire District Fire Chief Jeff Pawul said hopefully by Oct. 1 they will move their fire plan review to the Fort Myers Beach Fire District instead of through the Lee County Planning Department.
“We needed to update our fees schedule to reflect what they charge,” he said, adding they are trying to make the fees uniform across the county. “We try to review annually to make sure they are still current especially with inflation and labor costs. For the most part, they are all fair and inline with industry standards. It’s not a big revenue generating source by any means for us.”
Pawul said working with the Fort Myers Beach Fire District is a big benefit for the island, as those who are doing the fire review are an actual fire district that is geared towards fire fighting and public safety on a barrier island. He said they understand such challenges as building, tourism and the intricacies of projects that occur in tight spaces.
“Working with another fire department catches some things earlier (rather) than later in the process,” Pawul said.
He said another benefit is the Fort Myers Beach Fire District fire plan review department is not as busy as Lee County, which might bring things through the process quicker.
“It is fairly common for fire districts to do their own plan review and not rely on the county. We are not a big enough fire department to have the staffing for that position,” Pawul said, adding that partnering with another agency that has someone in that position makes sense.
The fee schedule can be located on the district’s website, www.captivafire.com.
The Thursday meeting also included new COVID protocols. The district decided to incentivize employees who are not vaccinated to get vaccinated by giving them time off if needed when experiencing side affects from the vaccine.
“If they choose to do that they get the time off to kind of recover,’ he said.
Throughout the course of the pandemic, staff has not contacted COVID, but have had exposure issues from family members.