PENDLETON — Like the range it is designated to protect, Pendleton Fire Station No. 3 usually is unmanned.

The fire station at 4615 N.W. A St. by the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport has long been unstaffed, but Pendleton Fire Chief Jim Critchley is looking to change that with the support of airport administrators.

On any given day, seven on-call firefighters and paramedics are split between two Pendleton fire stations. Completed in 2019, Pendleton Fire Station No. 1, 1455 S.E. Court Ave., is the fire department’s headquarters and normally maintains five on-duty personnel. Pendleton Fire Station No. 2, 1200 Southgate, gives the department a presence south of the Union Pacific railroad and Interstate 84 and keeps two firefighters and paramedics on staff. Both facilities are bolstered by resident interns in addition to the career staff.

That leaves Fire Station No. 3 at the airport, which mostly acts as a place to house vehicles and equipment that could be picked up at the building should there be a fire in the area.

Critchley said the department was used to getting about 15 minutes of lead time on fires in the airport area, but some recent fires convinced him the airport fire station needed to be staffed. He referenced two field fires the department responded to during the summer. While the airport was never seriously under threat, Crtichley said the situation could have been worse if the wind was blowing a different way.

One of the marketing appeals of the Pendleton UAS Range is its vast empty spaces. Besides the industrial park to the south of the airfield, wheat fields and dry brush mostly surround the airport. While that may be a desirable quality for drone companies looking for a safe, discreet place to test their technology, it also provides plenty of fuel for fire season.

“Fire is a threat to everyone in the West,” he said.

John Honemann, the manager of the airport, said he would be supportive of Critchley staffing Fire Station No. 3, a sentiment shared by Darryl Abling, the city’s UAS range manager,

Abling said the airport’s taxiways and roads provide some natural breaks to any potential fires, but as activity at the range continues to grow — more than 5,800 operations so far in 2021 — the demand for on-site fire prevention would grow.

Staffing the airport fire station still is in the early stages, so Critchley hasn’t determined how the department will fill in the largest blank: funding.

Critchley said he can’t spare anyone from his staff to reassign to the airport fire station. Nor does he have money to spare from his department’s $5.4 million budget to hire someone new from existing funds.

Critchley said he’s ruling out raising money from taxpayers, so he’s kicking around ideas such as searching for a grant that may fund a new position or identifying a funding mechanism that could be used with airport tenants.

Honemann said he didn’t want to commit to some sort of fee or tax quite yet, but he said it’s talking with airport tenants and customers about how a fire protection service might be incorporated into the airport’s services. Any new additions to staff likely would have to go through the budget process and the city council.

While there might not be a definitive start date for a new firefighter at Fire Station No. 3, Critchley said he already anticipates the new employee engaging in new training and data work when not fighting fires at the airport.