Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
As the 2025 statistics showed to the Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory Board at their meeting Tuesday, both the Lutheran EMS and the fire territory were busy last year.
In her report to the board, Alicia Mediano, Lutheran EMS director of operations, said, “As we look at this month’s report, we look at the fact that this is the end of 2025 that we’re looking at here. So, you can see the entire year’s reflection.”
She pointed out the continuous growth of the community that Lutheran EMS continues to see as its call volume goes up.
In 2025, Lutheran EMS had a total of 5,778 calls just in Wayne Township “in our area coverage area with the fire territory,” she stated. That was up from 5,697 calls in 2024.
Calls cancelled in 2025 totaled 666; CPR with no transport, a total of 21; patients evaluated and/or refused transport, 549; and patients treated and transported totaled 4,542. “And when you compared that number to 2024, we’re up an additional 80 points from then,” Mediano stated.
She said the call volume is continuing to go up and the response is continuing to grow. “And that just really proves to the community in how the community continues to grow and that need is continuing to be there.”
In 2025, Lutheran also taught CPR to 1,537 people, up from 2024 by 223 people. Car seat installations totaled 81, which included 17 infants, 14 booster seats and the rest were convertible seats that “people will have for many, many years,” she said.
“One of the things that we kind of focused on is the simple fact that as we get busier, the concern is coverage, right? In regards to, if we’re getting busier, do we have enough coverage? Are we still meeting those benchmarks?” Mediano said. “And one of the things that I’m incredibly proud of my team is, in fact, they not only continue to meet those, but they surpass those.”
She said one of the things that they look at is dispatch to location - “anybody that is waiting on an ambulance knows that any second feels like minutes, feels like hours, and so anybody wants a quick response. And as you move into 2025 ... you’ll see that we are at 5 minutes and 11 seconds. So that is only up 11 seconds in that entire data over 2024. So even though we have more call volume, our staffers are still making sure that our response is appropriate, that we’re there when we need to be.”
She stated that benchmark is to be under 10 minutes for a community of this size.
Before Fire Chief Joel Shilling gave his report on 2025 year in review, he pointed out that the fire service typically reports its data to NFIRS (National Fire Incident Reporting System). That has changed to NEIRS (National Emergency Incident Reporting Software). “The entire United States kind of switched. Our region had to switch over to NEIRS by Jan. 1. So our goal at the fire territory was to switch over by Dec. 1. We did not hit that, so we actually switched over (Dec. 15),” he said.
The 2025 year-in-review he presented was for Jan. 1 to Dec. 15, 2025. The monthly report he then presented was for Dec. 15 to 31. “We’re still working with our reporting agency on how we collect that data,” Shilling said.
The fire territory ended Jan. 1 to Dec. 15 with 3,863 total calls. Of those calls, 2,823 were medical calls and 111 were fire calls.
As for outreach and prevention, Shilling said they had 366 community service hours, 773 business inspections by the fire marshal division with 583 violations cited, 330 people received some fire prevention training and over 42 smoke detectors were given away to community members for free.
“We did put in service our new engine 17. We purchased a new-to-us dive truck, the 44 SCBAs and 48 masks. As far as training hours, the entire fire department had 7,938.5 hours of documented training. And then with all of our employees minus the admin., they worked a total of 125,158.5 hours,” Shilling said.
While he didn’t have the 2024 figures for comparison, he said, “Like Alicia said, we are growing. Our number of responses do continue to go up. I believe we are about 300 calls over what we did in 2024.”
Moving on to the monthly report for Dec. 15 through 31, Shilling said they had 147 responses. Of those, four were fire calls; eight were hazardous situations; 14, non-emergency; 11, public service; 10, rescue; and 100 were medical. Station totals were 80 for station 17, 55 for station 13 and 12 for station 15.
As for training hours, they had 322.25 over a variety of topics. Firefighters dedicated 20.41 hours to community service.
Shilling mentioned the 2025 Firefighter of the Year was Tyler Colt.
Push-In Ceremony
On Feb. 12 from 5 to 6 p.m. at station 13, 2204 E. Center St., Warsaw, there will be a push-in ceremony for the fire territory’s new ladder truck.
“I spoke last month on our new ladder 13 truck that we got. The committee has worked very hard and very diligently to get that in service and running. So, we plan on putting it officially in service on Thursday, Feb. 12 at our station 13 here on Center Street.”
The actual push-in part of the ceremony will be around 5:15 p.m. The public is welcome to attend.
“An opportunity for you all and the community to see our new apparatus and interact with the fire department,” Shilling stated.
In other business, the board approved the monthly expenditure and operating reports and travel requests.
The next meeting of the WWFT Board will be at 4 p.m. March 3, with location to be determined but likely back in the council chambers at City Hall.
