After just under a year on the job, Keith Yamane, chief of Vashon Island Fire & Rescue (VIFR), is leaving Vashon for a second time.

He will be taking the chief’s position at the Union Gap fire department three miles south of Yakima, where he moved after he resigned as assistant chief of VIFR in February 2004. He returned to Vashon as chief for an interim period of about six months and then was hired permanently in 2006.

Yamane was not looking to leave Vashon when he was invited to apply for the job in Union Gap, he said. It just happened to be a good fit for him and his family.

Yamane made the announcement at last Tuesday’s fire commissioners’ board meeting. Board members report that he spoke with each of them individually shortly before making the information public.

Even so, the announcement came as big news to the beleaguered department, which has had four chiefs in the last 10 years or so, each requiring a search.

“It was, ‘Here we go again. We have to start all over again,’” said board chair Ron Turner, describing his first reaction to the news.

But Turner added that he understands the reason for Yamane’s decision.

“It made financial sense to him and his family. The board thanked him for his service and wished him well. It would be a real strain to move his family. I don’t fault him. I appreciate everything. It is an opportunity; he’s like everybody in the country.”

Added Jan Nielsen, also a board member, “For him it’s a very good thing. I wish him the best of luck. We’d all want to be a little happier in life.”

Turner said Yamane has brought stability to the fire department, helping “to calm the waters,” as he put it. He also praised him for launching three committees staffed by both citizens and VIFR personnel, enhancing the Island’s disaster preparedness and providing good financial oversight.

Alice Larson, a longtime participant in department affairs, said on Thursday that she would miss Yamane.

“Keith brought an evenness to the department where everyone was treated equally and with respect.I have great hopes that the model he set will continue well into the future. He’s a good guy. I am sad to see him leave,” she said.

“Everybody was surprised and saddened, but I can understand why he made the choice he did,” Larson said.

Yamane grew up in Eastern Washington, and he has family in the Yakima area as well as a house. He, his wife Kelly and his children also have friends there, he said.

Yamane had been looking for reasonably priced housing on Vashon and had a hard time of it, he indicated.

And although he’s taking a significant pay cut to go to Union Gap — he now makes around $110,000 and will make about $70,000 a year at his new post — he found that the difference in the cost of housing in the Yakima area is significant, and it helped him to make his decision.

His house in Yakima cost $169,000, and to get equivalent quality and room on Vashon, he would have had to spend about $500,000. He said that with the Union Gap salary, his house purchase in Union Gap as a percentage of his income is about the same as it would have been on Vashon.

With six children, he and his wife need more living space than most families.

“It was an unexpected opportunity,” Yamane said. “If it had not come up, we would have stayed. If it was anywhere else, it (the move) wouldn’t have happened.”

And he added that when he returned for a second stint with VIFR, he and his wife were planning to spend 10 to 15 years on Vashon before he began to move toward retirement.

Yamane returned to the Vashon department as chief in November 2006, after the departure of former chief Jim Wilson, who now is chief at the Mariposa County, Calif., fire department.

Yamane indicated in a brief Nov. 7 e-mail announcement to all department members that he would leave by the end of November.

The Union Gap job involves a significantly smaller area (a tad more than five square miles compared to Vashon’s 48 square miles) and a population of about 5,500 people, about half of Vashon’s 10,800.

The Union Gap department’s Web site lists 25 volunteers and nine paid staff, also smaller than Vashon’s 60 volunteer group and paid staff of 22.

Turner said that he anticipated the board would start a search immediately to find Yamane’s replacement.

Some spoke of the possibility of putting an interim chief in place to allow time to do a thorough search for the new chief, with some, like Larson, hoping for an interim outside the department. Others, such as Turner, thought that would cost too much. He indicated that the department has people well-trained to step in for the transition period.

A couple of Islanders, Rick Frye and Joel Wade, who strongly supported Yamane’s hiring as chief, said in e-mails last week that they were happy to see Yamane leave. Both said they thought Yamane kowtowed to the paid union firefighters.

Frye worried that what he saw as Yamane’s bias in that direction would lead to the gradual diminution of volunteer numbers and an increase in paid responders with accompanying tax increases.

Asked on Friday about the future, Yamane said that the trend in volunteer numbers went up nationally after 9/11 but has gone down again.

Yamane added that with all-volunteer departments, most of the cost can go into equipment and stations; with a department that combines volunteer and paid responders, more is spent on personnel; and with a fully paid department, as much as 90 percent of budget can go to personnel.

It is up to the community, Yamane said, to decide what kind of department and level of service it wants to pay for and how.

“A community the size of Vashon usually remains combo. I don’t see Vashon becoming a fully-paid responder department,” he said.