Fire Territory Growing With Community
May 23, 2017 at 4:59 p.m.
By David [email protected]
The territory is doing that through equipment, a planned third station and regular training.
“We are growing with our community. Our community is growing in leaps and bounds. It has been a continual project of the fire service to stay up to date. We have a technical rescue team that is superb. We have taken a few years to get that process. The station was a nine-year process. We are finally at that point. As our community grows, and our needs grow to being an emergency services agency, you will see this fire territory continue to grow with the community. We don’t want to be behind. We want to be setting the stage to be ahead of times,” said Fire Chief Mike Wilson.
New to the territory is a heavy rescue truck.
“The whole purpose behind a heavy rescue is to bring together a fire engine concept and a rescue concept. This truck does not have a typical fire pump on it. It has a foam system, so that when we respond to traffic accidents we’re able to protect the people inside the car and the workers around the vehicle while we’re doing extrication,” Wilson said.
A heavy rescue truck is used to respond to accidents involving larger vehicles like semis and buses, multiple vehicle accidents and train derailments. “And being prepared for that as a part of our department is huge,” he said.
The new truck was built in Wisconsin. It has tools that would be used to extricate people not only out of vehicle accidents, but also entrapment of machinery, such as farm and factory machinery, and a structure collapse. It doesn’t have the normal fire pump and tank of water, but Wilson said the truck is looked at by the Insurance Services Office as a service truck. It does have an encumberment of ladders, tools and air packs that make the truck a service truck. “So now your community not only has just a ladder truck that’s classified as a service truck by ISO, but it also has a heavy rescue that’s classified as the same way. So now you have two service trucks for this community,” he said.
“They’ve used every inch of this truck when they designed it out so it will meet the needs of the community for years to come,” Wilson said.
The design of it started in 2015 and took about a year by the committee to complete. It was awarded to Hoosier Fire and took about 11 months to be built. It was then presented to the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory down at the firefighters instructors conference in Indianapolis where it was a show piece before brought to the fire department for use. The territory had it for the last two weeks training on it, and Saturday morning it was loaded up with hand tools and equipment and placed into service at about 11 a.m.
The new rescue truck “will run all of Wayne Township, and it’s available to any fire department throughout Kosciusko County, even up to what we call District 2, which are the counties north of us and with Marshall County,” Wilson said. It will run out of Station No. 2 on East Center Street and can carry five firefighters to handle the beginning part and continuation of a rescue.
Unlike the other red engines, the rescue truck is orange and black.
“We decided we were doing something to give back to the community because the community is so great to us,” Wilson said. “We did have the Tiger logo put on it. It is supporting Warsaw Community Schools. It is the orange and black colors of the school system. You will see it at multiple public appearances throughout the year, spring, summer and fall.”
The new rescue truck replaces the 1998 KME rescue truck, but the fire territory is not getting rid of the old one. “This vehicle will be gutted and turned into a confined space and dive rescue and open water rescue (vehicle),” Wilson said. It’s being repurposed by the firefighters so there’s no cost to the community.
All together, the fire territory will have a 100-foot ladder truck, three fire engines, a fire engine/rescue squad, two specialty rescue engines with rescue trailers, a 3,500-gallon water tanker pumper, three command vehicles, two service pickups and one grass fire truck. No new vehicles will be purchased for the new fire station planned for the southern part of the township, but the apparti will be moved around to cover the three stations.
On fire station No. 3, which will be located on CR 200S at County Farm Road, Wilson said, “The community knows that we are building station No. 3. ... We are still in the planning phase. (Today) the building committee gets together to go over final plans. Our goal is to have a design set of plans ready to go to bid in June. It will probably take about 30 to 45 days for that process to happen. We would like to be able to see that the bid for the new station happen some time in August, with groundbreaking right after that.”
If everything goes right with the contractors, Wilson said the goal is to have Station No. 3 open in August or September 2018.
In 2016, the fire territory had 2,500 runs. He anticipates over 3,000 calls this year. The fire territory currently has 34 firefighters and will be adding personnel over the next two years to meet the needs of the new fire station.
“We do daily training. The shift crews work 24 hours on, 48 hours off, so every third day there’s a new crew here. They constantly train. They constantly work with the equipment. The only way to be the best for the community is to continue to have daily training and to work to be superb at what they do. This department has always strived to be the best and they continue to do that daily,” Wilson said.
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The territory is doing that through equipment, a planned third station and regular training.
“We are growing with our community. Our community is growing in leaps and bounds. It has been a continual project of the fire service to stay up to date. We have a technical rescue team that is superb. We have taken a few years to get that process. The station was a nine-year process. We are finally at that point. As our community grows, and our needs grow to being an emergency services agency, you will see this fire territory continue to grow with the community. We don’t want to be behind. We want to be setting the stage to be ahead of times,” said Fire Chief Mike Wilson.
New to the territory is a heavy rescue truck.
“The whole purpose behind a heavy rescue is to bring together a fire engine concept and a rescue concept. This truck does not have a typical fire pump on it. It has a foam system, so that when we respond to traffic accidents we’re able to protect the people inside the car and the workers around the vehicle while we’re doing extrication,” Wilson said.
A heavy rescue truck is used to respond to accidents involving larger vehicles like semis and buses, multiple vehicle accidents and train derailments. “And being prepared for that as a part of our department is huge,” he said.
The new truck was built in Wisconsin. It has tools that would be used to extricate people not only out of vehicle accidents, but also entrapment of machinery, such as farm and factory machinery, and a structure collapse. It doesn’t have the normal fire pump and tank of water, but Wilson said the truck is looked at by the Insurance Services Office as a service truck. It does have an encumberment of ladders, tools and air packs that make the truck a service truck. “So now your community not only has just a ladder truck that’s classified as a service truck by ISO, but it also has a heavy rescue that’s classified as the same way. So now you have two service trucks for this community,” he said.
“They’ve used every inch of this truck when they designed it out so it will meet the needs of the community for years to come,” Wilson said.
The design of it started in 2015 and took about a year by the committee to complete. It was awarded to Hoosier Fire and took about 11 months to be built. It was then presented to the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory down at the firefighters instructors conference in Indianapolis where it was a show piece before brought to the fire department for use. The territory had it for the last two weeks training on it, and Saturday morning it was loaded up with hand tools and equipment and placed into service at about 11 a.m.
The new rescue truck “will run all of Wayne Township, and it’s available to any fire department throughout Kosciusko County, even up to what we call District 2, which are the counties north of us and with Marshall County,” Wilson said. It will run out of Station No. 2 on East Center Street and can carry five firefighters to handle the beginning part and continuation of a rescue.
Unlike the other red engines, the rescue truck is orange and black.
“We decided we were doing something to give back to the community because the community is so great to us,” Wilson said. “We did have the Tiger logo put on it. It is supporting Warsaw Community Schools. It is the orange and black colors of the school system. You will see it at multiple public appearances throughout the year, spring, summer and fall.”
The new rescue truck replaces the 1998 KME rescue truck, but the fire territory is not getting rid of the old one. “This vehicle will be gutted and turned into a confined space and dive rescue and open water rescue (vehicle),” Wilson said. It’s being repurposed by the firefighters so there’s no cost to the community.
All together, the fire territory will have a 100-foot ladder truck, three fire engines, a fire engine/rescue squad, two specialty rescue engines with rescue trailers, a 3,500-gallon water tanker pumper, three command vehicles, two service pickups and one grass fire truck. No new vehicles will be purchased for the new fire station planned for the southern part of the township, but the apparti will be moved around to cover the three stations.
On fire station No. 3, which will be located on CR 200S at County Farm Road, Wilson said, “The community knows that we are building station No. 3. ... We are still in the planning phase. (Today) the building committee gets together to go over final plans. Our goal is to have a design set of plans ready to go to bid in June. It will probably take about 30 to 45 days for that process to happen. We would like to be able to see that the bid for the new station happen some time in August, with groundbreaking right after that.”
If everything goes right with the contractors, Wilson said the goal is to have Station No. 3 open in August or September 2018.
In 2016, the fire territory had 2,500 runs. He anticipates over 3,000 calls this year. The fire territory currently has 34 firefighters and will be adding personnel over the next two years to meet the needs of the new fire station.
“We do daily training. The shift crews work 24 hours on, 48 hours off, so every third day there’s a new crew here. They constantly train. They constantly work with the equipment. The only way to be the best for the community is to continue to have daily training and to work to be superb at what they do. This department has always strived to be the best and they continue to do that daily,” Wilson said.
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