Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Derek R. on August 30, 2009 at 6:46pm

I'm not sure I agree with this. I understand your idea, but I'm just thinking about a longer response time to critical situations. There are still Vollies in those small dept.'s, and it's not like there is a vfd every 2 miles. Small or not, response time is the leading factor in determining the placement of dept's( that's what I believe), and to close some down to consolidate with another dept. miles away would be a backward step in regards to county safety. I don't think it has anything to do with not wanting to lose their identity. What we DO need is some sort of plan in conjuntion with municipal gov't to entice more of the community to sign up and stay. Grab the attention of the younger generation. This is just my opinion. I am interested in hearing other opinions on this.
Stay safe

Permalink Reply by ashfire on August 30, 2009 at 7:27pm

In a urban situation it works but way out in a rural areas I don't think it will work. In our county we have areas where it will take a while for the most rural station to reach its farthest point. Stations from another county could get there before this station can get there. The county wants to add more stations but money is a issue now and those stations will be a few years or more to come.
I have been to a county in Ohio where relatives live and seen the distance it would take surrounding fire stations to get to another town.
My brother lives in a rural mountain area and its the same situation except there is a interstate that connects some of the towns but there is still distances to cover around the towns and those away from the interstate.

Permalink Reply by Auxman on August 30, 2009 at 8:07pm

I'm not talking about consolidating stations. I think its clear that in a lot of places there aren't enough stations in the first place. If anything, I think having a county-wide system could lead to the addition of more stations since the population supporting the system would be larger.

I don't think having a county-wide system would change anything about coverage along the edges of the county since theres a decent chance that those areas might not be covered now. Mutual aid would obviously still be a factor in those situations.

Permalink Reply by Auxman on August 30, 2009 at 9:36pm

Yes, talking about using existing stations, not operating from a single location.

I suppose I'm mainly thinking of consolidating the departments that aren't associated with any existing town government inside the county. Though if there were a county wide "rural" FD, I suspect some of the real tiny towns might decide to join it. The ones in the larger towns may not.

Yes, I'm thinking of a volunteer department. No way the rural areas I'm thinking of would support any kind of paid department. I realize some on here are from the northeast where there often isn't such thing as land in a county that isn't inside a town limit. In most of the country, most land is unincorporated.

Yes, some people may end up having some of their taxes that might go towards buying a new piece of equipment used elsewhere in the county, but that is no different than the current situation with county sheriff's offices, road departments, etc.

But, those folks probably don't realize that it is those same folks that are likely to be responding to mutual aid calls to their house fire right now and helping upgrade those areas ultimately helps them.

Permalink Reply by Andrew Dalgarno on August 30, 2009 at 11:35pm

We just finished an amalgamation this past winter.

Our municipality consists of 216 sq miles (farmland and 2 small towns). We also cover another 60-80 sq miles in neighbouring municipalities. The area used to be divided into two zones. One for each town's department (paid on-call). Both departments are experiencing problems finding members. Especially members that show up regularly.

This past winter, the senior officers met for brainstorming. One idea was to amalgamate into 1 department with 2 stations. Both stations respond to all calls. This gets us more guys on scene faster and more equipment faster, since a fire would involve calling in the other department anyways.

The pluses: More guys on scene faster. More equipment on scene faster (we don't have hydrants, so need the water capacity anyways). More experience for everyone.

The minuses: There is a slightly higher cost since everybody is paid to each call and equipment is costing to all calls. However, this is a small price to pay we believe. There have been calls where the IC has turned the other station around once he arrived on scene and did the size-up. Yeah, it's a little inconvenient to be half-way there and get turned around, but that comes with the territory.

How has it worked? Well, so far so good. We are still getting the guys used to each others equipment. We've been working together at scene's (and practices) better since guys are getting to know each other. The senior officer's (myself included) are getting to know each members qualifications/preferences/etc which means a REAL scene goes smoother. (If that's possible at a fire/rescue scene!)

Andrew

Permalink Reply by Auxman on August 30, 2009 at 11:47pm

I sort of figured that it could work on a small scale like this, though of course there will always be some issues. I think consolidating two small departments probably isn't all that uncommon.

Here is an example of an (almost) county-wide fire district such as I was suggesting: http://www.bcfdmo.com/
532 square miles, 200-300 volunteers (3rd largest dept in MO), 14 stations, 80+ vehicles.
Granted, this county is becoming more suburban than rural due to population growth, but when they started they were really rural. Still mostly rural with subdivisions scattered about.

Permalink Reply by Gregory R Bailey on October 16, 2009 at 8:29am

Hopefully you have better county gov to put you together than ours. Our County is 1087 Sq miles. 20 vol dept some with multi stations and 2 paid dept in our two largest cities. The county wants control but would not take own the debt. The maintaince alone would shut down thier shop. We have some dept in good shape and some not so lucky. But the money you have now would most likely be less. As for manpower we use automatic mutal aid on structure fires. One of our largest problems is the county run dispatch. They dictate what is to be dispatched to us. Not what we what or need. Recently they ( with 1 hour notice ) cut back who and what medical calls you where to dispatched to. The way the sherriff wanted to do it would cause a life hazard to those living with a long response of a county EMS unit. The public and fire dept out cry could not be ignored and we got our old way back with improvements. This is an example. If your county backs you 100% you might have a chance. But they all do not. So I say be very careful for what you wish for....... you might get it. Stay have and call for help early.

Permalink Reply by Auxman on December 21, 2009 at 5:16pm

It sounds like you're actually moving towards a merger whether you like it or not if the departments are all shrinking anyway. Sooner or later the smallest ones are going out of business and someone will be picking up that slack.

Don't see why you would automatically have to build new stations. Over the long, long run that would probably be more efficient, but in the meantime, I would think you would be able to keep the ones you've got open providing there are still enough volunteers in that local area to man them.

No particular need for paid folks in a county-wide organization, though depending on how big the new department was it might make sense to have some paid administrative staff, but not necessarily.

Permalink Reply by Tim Edgar on January 3, 2010 at 12:03am

We have 11 independent departments in our county. Four of these are in small towns. We have a council of chiefs that has very loose oversite of some county funds. We have some strong willed chiefs (and volunteers) that have no desire to give up control to a county-wide fire department. Gradually we are moving towards a consolidated department - not yet in a coordinated way. It will probably happen because of the county purse strings. Unless someone steps up to push the issue or some external event happens, it will take a while to occur.

To me the benefit of a consolidated county department is cost savings. There will probably be no change in the number or location of stations. A consolidated department can standardize equipment and training. The risk is moving too quickly and alienating a generation of volunteers.

It will be a while in our case before we paid firefighters. Though a combination department may be another avenue to get to a consolidated department.

Permalink Reply by Auxman on January 5, 2010 at 6:58pm

As I said, if your population is shrinking some of the small departments are going to end up closing shop anyway for lack of people and some of the remaining departments are probably going to have to expand to cover that area.

Whether or not you need a new station to provide the same coverage is going to depend on a whole lot of things. But, assuming some departments are going to go away, the people in those areas are probably going to get screwed on their insurance no matter what happens.

Permalink Reply by 0gbtnu51wpavz on October 29, 2011 at 12:34pm

As the rural populations of the upper midwest shrink declining membership in rurla Fire/EMS and no members present in the day time in the tiny rural towns is going to dictate sometype of Co wide organizations.

How have these problems been handled in the Dakotas and out in western states as it seems they are ahead of the curve on the population declline?