What’s in a name?

When it comes to the local fire department, plenty.

“Our legal name is Island County Fire Protection District Number 3,” Chief Rusty Palmer said Tuesday. “That’s a mouthful.”

In a continuing effort to upgrade service, fire district officials are about to launch a new random survey to gather information from residents of the district about what they’d like to see from their fire department.

Part of that effort will include the possibility of a name change, to one that concisely captures what the department offers and who it serves, Palmer said.

“There’s been a lot of confusion through the years about who and what we are,” he said. “I think it’s better if we fly one flag.”

Since its establishment in 1950, the department of mostly volunteers has been known by various names, most of which morphed from one to the next depending on services offered and the whim of the personnel serving at the time, Palmer said.

Those names include the current handle, Island County Fire District 3. But before that, the department has been known variously as South Whidbey Fire, South Whidbey Fire and Rescue and the Freeland Fire Department, among other monikers.

Palmer said most people in the emergency services tend to identify themselves less by the name of their organization and more by what they do.

“If you work for Acme Widgets, you say you work for Acme Widgets,” he said. “If you work for the fire department, you tend to say you’re a firefighter, or you’re an EMT.”

Palmer said he went through the same name-changing process at his previous job. He spent 33 years as a member of Jackson Hole-Teton County, Wyo. fire department, the last 10 as chief, before taking the District 3 top job a year ago.

He said that in Wyoming, he worked to establish a unified theme by creating a new name, new uniforms and new patches. He hopes to do the same here.

Palmer said a new name for the South End department would probably come from inside, and the first step will be to meet with all the members to gather their suggestions. While not ruling out the possibility, he said that district officials probably wouldn’t opt for a public “name the department” contest.

“We tried that in Wyoming, and it didn’t work out too well,” he said. “Some of the suggestions were interesting, to say the least.”

As for the new survey, Palmer said a team of district officials and others are working to formulate questions that will bring the most productive answers.

“If we just say ‘Do you like the fire department?’ the answers probably won’t be meaningful,” he said.

The survey will be the second in a year. Officials recently conducted a limited poll of district residents who had been served directly, and the response was generally favorable, Palmer said.

This time, officials want to open it up to others in the district, he said. A limited random poll will be conducted at first, “and if we get some useful information, we’ll go from there,” he said.

Palmer said officials are aiming for a mid-January launch of the survey, with results to be released sometime in March.

As for a new name, if Palmer has a preference, he’s keeping it to himself.

“We haven’t gone down that road yet,” he said.

“This is going to take some work.”

Paula Schuler, district administrative assistant who has been with the fire district for more than 18 years, said it’s important to come up with a name that clearly defines the department’s combined roles of fire, medical, rescue and other emergency services.

She said her favorite name would be something on the order of “South Whidbey Fire & Rescue.”

“We serve the taxpayers and are supported by them,” Schuler said. “It they don’t know who we are and what we do, they may just say ‘Why bother?’”

The district covers 66 square miles and 54 miles of shoreline, from south of Greenbank to Clinton and serves a population of 14,000. There’s a paid staff of six and about 100 volunteers staffing stations at Freeland, Clinton, Maxwelton, Langley, Saratoga and Bayview.