Stop pretending you have a fire department.

[grumpy grizzly]

I live in a small bedroom community between Bloomington/Normal and Peoria Illinois with a population of 1400. This is a town where they know you at the bank, post office, gas station by your first name because there are not that many in town. There are no businesses here so you need to go elsewhere for employment. What I am trying to say is there are not that many people here in the daytime to respond to emergencies, whether EMS, a MVA, or anything else. If the bodies are not available what are you suppose to do?

 

[AYoung]

You can only provide the services the tax payers are willing to pay for. I've been told that for many many years. This applies to everyone, but honestly applies more to the volunteer jurisdictions that anywhere else. Luckily I work for a full time department with established automatic mutual aid, staffing levels and run assignments, and live in a city with a full time department that has multiple companies.

 

[jlab]

Two things that would help this are one, county funded fire departments and secondly, automatic mutual aid on the report of a structure fire not just confirmation.

I do have a question regarding the money issue if anyone knows this. Regardless of if the fire departments are volunteer or full time, if community A needs assistance from community B on an emergency does community A's government have to pay community B's for their assistance?

Sometimes yes and sometimes no. It all depends on the location.

 

[jlab]

The first step is recognition of a problem which doesn't usually happen until a disaster strikes. Then the only solution is some type of regionalization of fire fighting resources but this may not help with response times.