PILOT ROCK — Pilot Rock is upping its public safety efforts now that the fire board has hired its first full-time paid fire chief.

Herschel Rostov, 53, joined the department Oct. 1 after serving Washington fire departments for nearly three decades. A lifelong public servant with extensive training, Rostov said he’s thrilled to lead a smaller department in a tight-knit rural community where resources are often few and far between.

“People that have worked in big cities and have a high level of technical experience, or a lot of education, those kinds of people are not typically attracted to smaller departments,” he said. “I feel like rural communities get shorted on the type of protection and expertise they get. I always wanted to bridge that gap and bring something that’s not common in the rest of rural communities.”

Pilot Rock Mayor Virginia Carnes said Rostov already is making a positive impact on the town. He has attended local pancake feeds and joins city council meetings to answer land-use and building questions. She said she’s excited with how invested he appears to be in improving public safety in the roughly 1,300-person town.

“They’ve done an awesome job to start with,” Carnes said of the fire department. “But this will bring us to a higher level.”

Rostov’s salary this year is $48,000 plus benefits, according to Anita Willingham, bookkeeper for the Pilot Rock Rural Fire Protection District.

Rostov said he grew up in communities south of Seattle. He earned associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fire and emergency services and public administration.

He started as a volunteer firefighter in 1992 and joined the Mercer Island Fire Department, Washington, four years later. He remained there for about 23 years, he said, the last four of which he was fire marshal. Out of its two stations, the department handled, on-average, 2,600 calls annually.

He then joined North Whatcom Fire & Rescue near Bellingham, Washington, for a year and a half before applying for rural departments. That’s how he found Pilot Rock.

Rostov has no connection to Pilot Rock or Umatilla County. He said he simply wanted to work in a slower-paced farming area where neighbors help neighbors. Searching for a job as chief, he didn’t apply to any large agencies.

“That community feeling, everybody knows everybody, people are willing to get out there and help each other — that’s always appealed to me,” he said.

He said he recognizes many challenges facing rural departments. Recruiting and retaining staff can be a struggle. With a small tax base, it can be difficult for small departments to find ample, up-to-date equipment. Much of the department’s equipment, he said, dates back decades, including vehicles from the 1970s.

Among Rostov’s goals are applying for grant funds to seek new equipment and finding volunteers the training they need. Soon, Rostov will attend a course at the National Fire Academy in Maryland, and he said he hopes to send volunteers to receive similar certification and training to improve their medical skills. He also aims to update equipment, including breathing packs and vehicle extrication gear.

In 2016, Pilot Rock hired its first full-time police chief. The move to hire Rostov is yet another step in the community investing in public safety, Carnes said. Rostov’s new role will provide the public somewhere to turn if they are ever in need.

“That’s been a high-level need from the department’s perspective, just having the ability to be part of Pilot Rock itself, as opposed to just going on the calls and providing service,” he said.

Already, Rostov and Carnes said they are planning on getting him involved in providing fire education and recruitment at local schools.

Carnes recalled recent years where Pilot Rock didn’t have an ambulance service and residents sometimes had to wait too long for help.

“If you’re having a heart attack,” she said, “it’s real nice to have somebody five minutes away instead of 20 minutes away.”

Hiring Rostov, Carnes said, is one more step toward ensuring vulnerable community members receive help when they need it.