ELSIE — As the Elsie-Vinemaple Rural Fire Protection District pushes through a challenging situation, the board and new volunteers have reported concerns about the condition of the fire stations and the equipment and medication available for emergency response.

At a special board meeting on Feb. 1, operations manager Ed Van Dyke said the rescue vehicle that former fire chief Mike Wammack had allegedly been parking at his home had mold covering parts of the interior.

Van Dyke also detailed that expired medications and equipment had been found at the fire district’s main station.

“We recently discovered expired medications at Station No. 1,” he said at the meeting, which was held via Zoom. “Upon learning this information, a board member contacted our supervising physician, Dr. (Paul) Voeller, to get direction and advice.”

Susan Norman, who began her paramedic career with Elsie-Vinemaple before volunteering with other fire districts around the region, rejoined the force after Wammack’s termination. She told The Astorian she had never seen conditions like the ones found inside the fire district’s two stations.

“Here are the cardiac meds I was talking about,” Norman said, pulling various medications out of a cardboard box left at Station No. 1 and holding up a small container of epinephrine. The expiration date was from 2021.

“When someone is in cardiac arrest, as soon as you’ve established an IV, that’s your first line,” she explained. “That’s the adrenaline.”

Norman went through a number of medications in the box that had allegedly been utilized by the fire district, pointing out the lapsed expiration dates.

Additionally, some of the equipment on the fire district’s vehicles had expired. Syringes and IV tubes found in the rescue van showed 2005 expiration dates. A pediatric cardiac pad, used to help resuscitate infants experiencing heart issues, had expired in 2015.

Norman said she immediately reported her initial findings to the Oregon Health Authority.

“I just called up and I just wanted to get it done,” she said. “And that was really hard to do, because I’m going to get a lot of backlash from that one. But would you want them running on you with these?”

Wammack served as fire chief for nearly three decades. The fire district terminated his volunteer status in late January, alleging he deliberately disobeyed board and Clatsop County directives by making his own repairs and construction to Station No. 1.

Wammack, in a statement on Feb. 2, said the medical bags in use by the fire district did not contain expired medication. He said the expired medication was in unused bags. Wammack claimed the board would not prioritize funding for current medications.

Wammack said the rescue vehicle being discussed had not been in service for a year due to electrical failure and was intended for surplus. He acknowledged that the state of Station No. 1 was a mess, but said the budget provided by the board did not allow the purchase of new equipment, resulting in an accumulation of donated equipment, parts and pieces.

“Most of the difficulties of running a small, rural fire district come from a lack of finances,” he said in the statement. “Finances are the board’s responsibility.

“The board was my boss, and if they didn’t like how things were being run, and they didn’t say anything, they were not doing their job. I have faith that our community members will see through these ongoing allegations by the board being used to discredit the service I have provided the community.”

Vivian McCann, the fire district’s board chair, said the board had no knowledge of the conditions at the fire stations prior to Wammack’s termination, and that while they oversee finances, they don’t manage day-to-day operations.

“We’ve just been really shocked and dismayed at what we’ve found,” she said. “That’s why we’ve divided things up amongst us and then appointed a couple of other people to help, because this is a very big task that we have in front of us.”

At a previous board meeting, McCann had announced that board members would be splitting up administrative tasks like personnel management, communications, handling finances and overseeing inventory.

Immediately prior to the administrative delegations, Hans Mulder, who had served as the assistant fire chief, announced his intention to take a six-month leave of absence, as did volunteer firefighter George Jette.

The fire district is reviewing candidates for interim fire chief.