Residents served by the West Porter Township Fire Protection District packed the Monday meeting of the WPTFPD Board to report service concerns following a March 8 house fire in Lakes of the Four Seasons, as well as another house fire five months earlier in unincorporated Lake County.

“I can’t even walk next to it, it was so hot,” said Chad Myers, who lives next door to the house that was lost to the blaze in the 1100 block of Sunnyslope Drive. Myers said during the meeting that his siding is melted and cracked. “I 100% believe my house would have gone up if they hadn’t got there in a few minutes with water.”

His neighbors, the Martinez family, did lose their house, as did the Estrada family, whose home caught fire in the early hours of May 20 last year while the family of six was asleep in the 3200 block of Trailside Place. The families, as well as several other members of the community, spoke of problems ranging from unanswered 911 calls to understaffing of first responders and asked the board about the status of efforts to form a fire protection territory with the town of Winfield and Winfield Township, as well as moving to a full-time staff.

Denise Martinez said her 17-year-old son, who was home when the fire broke out, tried to call 911 twice before running to two different neighbors’ homes for help when the calls wouldn’t go through. “It kept bouncing back and forth, back and forth, between Lake and Porter County with no answer,” she said.

“Is there no fire hydrants in Four Seasons?” she also asked. “Why did they have to fill up a pool to get water on the fire? I have video of neighbors watching a house go up in flames.”

Board Secretary Rob Rabelhofer addressed both questions. “Twin Lakes, Community Utility, that’s a private water system,” he explained of the water utility in LOFS. “They’re not required to have water hydrants. There’s a couple in the neighborhood they have to have for flushing.”

“We get letters every year that they are for flushing, not for fire fighting service,” said Lakes of the Four Seasons Volunteer Fire Force Chief Kevin Heerema during the meeting, held at the fire force station. He added they try not to tap into the hydrants, which tend to be concentrated in cul-de-sacs, for fear of being billed should something be damaged.

Rabelhofer also explained that calling from a cellphone is a different animal than calling from a landline. “It’s bouncing off of whatever towers it can. That’s just how the 911 system works,” he explained. “Now with your FOIP, broadband, cellular, the call doesn’t always go through.”

Indeed, Heerema said he touched base with both Lake and Porter County 911 centers and neither has any record of the call from the teen’s phone. He suggested the audience download the Smart 911 app that aids first responders in locating the source of any emergency call from a cell phone.

Frank Lascola, of LOFS, wanted to know whom they should address about the hydrant situation. Rabelhofer said it’s a multimillion-dollar upgrade the utility isn’t likely to make.

“But they were there for like eight minutes before water was on the house,” Wendy Myers pointed out. “If it would have been five more minutes, our house would have been gone. Their house is gone.”

She wanted to know why the department didn’t pull water from the lake if the hydrants are forbidden. “Didn’t you suck up a muskrat one time?” Board Chair Craig Klauer asked Heerema. “Oh yeah,” he replied, explaining that lake water is not ideal because firefighters don’t know what will come up with the water. Once, they almost broke their pumping equipment when a fish jammed in the machinery.

Samuel Estrada said he counted “about 30 minutes until the time they came” when his house was on fire. “We woke up to a lot of explosion. Watching your house burn down, the longest 30 minutes of my life.”

Estrada, who is himself a first responder, said he’s well aware that, as Heerema has often said, fires frequently happen back to back. “Hopefully, you can help them out and get the full-time crew,” he said. “Hopefully, we’re proactive without losing a life.”

Four Seasons resident Denise Shultman wanted to know the status of efforts to form a territory that has twice fallen through. “We need some answers. We’ve been doing this for 18 months,” she said.

With just half a million dollars in the bank and status as a nonprofit 501c3, the fire department can’t afford to go full-time, Rabelhofer said. While they aren’t giving up on the territory idea, which would open up further funding sources, he explained that one can only be formed by entities that touch geographically, meaning the same players from the past failed attempts will always be the only possible partners.

“I think we need to show people we can be a great partner,” Rabelhofer said. Craig Engel, a LOFS resident who has been involved in the effort all along, said community members need to cajole their neighbors to take their demands to the applicable lawmakers. “We live in a community of non-participants and that has to change,” he said.

Shelley Jones is a freelance reporter for the Post-Tribune.