For decades, hosing down flames has been only one of the lifesaving services performed by people once known as firemen. Today's term, firefighters, doesn't begin to cover their work — including that as rescue crews and early responders to medical emergencies that may or may not have been brought on by fire.

And as Santa Fe County continues emerging from a rural and often-isolated past into suburbia of various sorts, so does its fire department. For that, the half of our county's population lying outside town and city limits should be thankful: When emergencies arise far from municipal services, there's no substitute for capable care quickly on the scene.

These services were simply unavailable until recent years — so they went blithely unbudgeted-for even as suburban subdivisions, which don't look much different than those of more sophisticated American cities, nudged their way into the juniper and cholla.

Now county leaders are trying to catch up with what some consider a clear duty to public safety. But they're doing it during difficult fiscal times.

To meet the dire need for such things as self-contained breathing devices and those mechanical marvels, known as jaws of life, that free people from crunched cars, not to mention more fire trucks and stations, the county hopes to boost the sales tax back up by a quarter of a cent to raise $2.2 million a year.

It'll take approval from residents of the unincorporated areas of the county — that's nearly everyone outside Santa Fe, Española and Edgewood. Election day is Nov. 17, but early voting is going on through tomorrow.

The tax rate in the unincorporated county is now 6.5 percent, 5 percent of that being a state tax.

There had been a county fire-protection excise tax in effect until 2006, but it was allowed to expire as part of a new tax plan under which an increase in the gross-receipts tax — sales tax, for all practical purposes — was supposed to cover public safety, including firefighting.

The pitch was poorly thrown: County officials, butter not melting in their mouths, said no further tax increases were anticipated. But they underestimated the cost of a new regional dispatch center, and they ignored firefighters' warnings that lots of their equipment was growing old and rickety.

Meanwhile, there's still a need for fire stations in Rancho Viejo and Glorieta , and for firefighters' living quarters in Pojoaque and La Tierra. These amount to recognition of modern-day realities; delaying such projects, and the purchase of crucial equipment could be tragic.

We could be tempted to buy Republicans' argument that the county has handled its finances sloppily, and that it has plenty of other revenue sources it should be tapping. And there's plenty of evidence of waste, if not costly corruption, in county government. But we don't think voting down this tax increase does anything but advance that party's tired old taxed-to-the-max arguments. Opposition is a quarter-penny wise — and pound foolish.

Whether the Board of Santa Fe County Commissioners may need shaping up during next year's election — a job well begun with last year's election of Liz Stefanics and Kathy Holian— is something else; perhaps the Republicans can come up with candidates better than those hoping to replace Harry Montoya and Mike Anaya. And if they dig up enough evidence of sleazy dealings on the board, maybe they can overcome their voter-registration disadvantage by next November.

But to play penny-ante political games with public safety, whether or not the commissioners are doing the same thing on a big scale? That's behavior to be avoided.

We urge a "yes" vote for fire protection.