J.J. Wilbur’s plate has become a little less full and a place at the Fire District 13 meeting table is set for his successor.

Veteran firefighter Bobbie Scopa, whose background includes roles with the U.S. Forest Service Fire Program and recently as host of a local firefighting and leadership podcast, was sworn in Friday to succeed Wilbur as a commissioner.

Scopa was administered the oath of office that morning during the district’s monthly hybrid meeting. Wilbur attended remotely while in Seattle on business as a senator of the Swinomish Indian Tribal Community.

Wilbur was elected last month to the La Conner school board, after serving over a year as an appointed member.

Because he appeared on the November ballot as a school board candidate, Wilbur was ineligible to run for the fire commission seat to which he was appointed in 2019.

Scopa ran unopposed for the fire district commission vacancy. She joins chairman Bruce Shellhamer and newly elected commissioner John Doyle on the three-member panel.

The almost one-hour session Dec. 10 addressed spikes in COVID-19 positive test cases countywide and the district multi-tiered emergency preparation campaign.

Fire District Chief Wood Weiss told commissioners that Skagit County recorded 367 new cases the first week of December, with 10 new cases reported on Swinomish Reservation spanning late November to early December.

“I believe we are hitting record numbers in the county,” said Weiss. “Our county is really alive with COVID right now. We’ll have to keep going with masking as we approach two years.”

He noted a year end increase in both service and transport calls. “We had 125 incidents (service calls) in November – that’s EMS, fire, rescue, HAZMAT – the highest November total we’ve had in three years,” he said.

Total transports stood at 253, eclipsing 2019 and 2020 totals.

“It shows the confidence the medics have with us,” Weiss said. “They’re entrusting us with cases that are more complex than before and we’re getting tremendous feedback.”

Fire District Captain Ted Taylor, fondly dubbed “Captain. Catastrophe,” outlined the status of emergency preparedness projects.

One involves district coordination with Swinomish Emergency Coordinator Brian Geer to revive and expand local CERT (Community Emergency Response Team) and HAMS (amateur radio operators) programs ahead of what Taylor called “the big one.”

“We’re having earthquakes off the Oregon coast,” Taylor said. “They’re a couple hundred miles out, but these are still serious events. They’re a reminder that we live in earthquake country.”

Taylor said another initiative is to put together “all-disaster” planning packets for pick-up at the district’s fire stations, Swinomish Village and Shelter Bay. They are expanded versions of those distributed during previous local earthquake readiness drills.

Another goal is facilitating Swinomish-Shelter Bay planning for safe and orderly responses in the event a wildland fire threatens those communities.

“We need to be planning for the evacuation of Shelter Bay and Swinomish in case we have a fire on the reservation,” Taylor said. “This is something that I think will take an awful lot of planning. We have a lot to do.”

Shellhamer praised district personnel for getting to work on those and other key measures in support of local residents and businesses.

“It makes you appreciate where we live and the people we live with,” he said.