I know the Winterset department covers most of Madison County, and they also support all the smaller communitites that have tiny volunteer departments like Peru, Earlham and St. Charles. They also help out larger departments like West Des Moines or Waukee if they get in a crunch & need some help for some reason.
Maxwell Fire Department Craziness
- Thread starter bugs4cy
- Start date
I know the Winterset department covers most of Madison County, and they also support all the smaller communitites that have tiny volunteer departments like Peru, Earlham and St. Charles. They also help out larger departments like West Des Moines or Waukee if they get in a crunch & need some help for some reason.
My uneducated guess is this chief hold no power in his day to day life so as the Chief he goes on a power trip. Pretty typical in all walks of volunteer work based on my experience.
KCRG had a story last year about five CR fire fighters who are also the chiefs of ther neighboring small towns.
Never going to work. You must have a volunteer department where the center of population is or you discourage response. Full time departments in rural areas is not practical or possible. You have no idea the expense in something like that. A typical small town fire dept (town of less than 1000) will have a budget for a year under $50,000. That wouldn't even pay for one full time firefighter.
If you are arguing for a fire district, then I agree completely. Leave the departments where they are but give them a governing body who's only propose is the fire department. Expand it to cover several small towns and suddenly one have departments that work and train together and you have a much better coverage. I've seen this work in Washington, townships in Iowa do not work.
Iowa as a state needs to invest a little more into the fire service. The training around Ames is pretty good, but I'm guessing it is lacking as you get farther out from the Training Bureau. There isn't a true fire academy to help serve volunteers, really the only half way decent academy in the state is the city of Des Moines and it still doesn't measure up to other state academies throughout the country and is only for the city.
Washington State had a full fire academy decades ago. The population of Washington when they built it was about the same as the population of Iowa now so there really isn't a excuse. Washington also has a state mobilization law that allows the state to take over management of large incidents. It provides resources and funding when local resources are depleted Iowa doesn't have anything but a mass mutual aid pack.
Last the oversight of Iowa volunteer departments are lacking. Alcohol should not be allowed in any fire stations. Training requirements are very low with no repercussion if a department doesn't adhere. These changes tend to drive some people off, but normally they are the people you really would rather not have on a fire anyway. The people who actually care about what they are doing and don't just see it as a status position will embrace such changes. Remember that fire departments should be a para-military operation. Politics don't have a place in the day to day running of a fire department.
I wonder if the city council would have a different opinion if their house was on fire and there wasn't any one to put it out.
Suspensions lifted... http://blogs.desmoinesregister.com/...maxwell-lifts-firefighter-suspensions/article
Im not saying have fulltime firefighters. What I am saying is it is expensive for every small town to have 5 firetruck and a rescue unit that dont get used much. When you have a town where none of the firefighters work, it is quicker for a neighboring town to respond than the nearest town.
ALL VFD have a drinking problem...that's just par for the course.
None of them are there to save your house...and quite honestly no professional FD is going to do much better (They may save the structure but it'll be a disaster to clean up...I'd rather have the slab).
Quite honestly I think 95% of FD should be VFD. Most of the cities have budget issues...and other than airports and heavy industrial areas a VFD would do just fine. Most cities have the FD responding to damn near everything just to keep them busy these days.
God bless those who do the VFD...but IMHO their biggest job in rural areas is holding wild fires down and keeping house fires from spreading to adjacent structures and homes....which is a big deal.
ALSO...make sure your SMOKE DETECTORS and CO2 DETECTORS are working and powered!!! That is what will save lives more than any FD.
None of them are there to save your house...and quite honestly no professional FD is going to do much better (They may save the structure but it'll be a disaster to clean up...I'd rather have the slab).
Quite honestly I think 95% of FD should be VFD. Most of the cities have budget issues...and other than airports and heavy industrial areas a VFD would do just fine. Most cities have the FD responding to damn near everything just to keep them busy these days.
God bless those who do the VFD...but IMHO their biggest job in rural areas is holding wild fires down and keeping house fires from spreading to adjacent structures and homes....which is a big deal.
ALSO...make sure your SMOKE DETECTORS and CO2 DETECTORS are working and powered!!! That is what will save lives more than any FD.
Interestingly, unless it's changed recently, since it's in a 'rural' area (i.e. technically outside the city limits), the Eastern Iowa Airport (CR) was in the area of responsibility of the Ely volunteer fire department, a town of less than 2000 people. The airport does have fire crews, I just always found that odd.
Wow, so full of wow. I can agree to make sure your smoke and CO2 detectors work. Also you should have a extinguisher The rest is garbage.
First, 85 % of fire departments are volunteer already, with only 9% of departments as 100% full time. That means that 91% of of fire departments already have volunteers.
I've been involved in the fire service since before I was 16. I'm a fire instructor and have been involved in the fire service in Iowa and Washington state. Very few departments actually have a drinking problem. I've only ever been in one fire station that had alcohol in the fire station and it was supplied by the firefighter to drink after meetings.
If you show up drunk to training, meetings, and especially a fire call and it is taken very seriously as it is a big liability. I don't think it is something that should ever bee present in fire halls, but I would guess that it is less than 10% of fire stations have that issue and it is very uncommon for a intoxicated person to show up at meetings or calls.
I will say that it is a bigger problem in Iowa than it is in Washington.
As for saving homes, I've saved many more homes than were lost over the years. You are thinking a fully engulfed fire, that is not how most structure fires are. Chimney fires, appliance fires, and kitchen fires make up the vast majority of structure calls and with all of them should be relatively minor damage. Even a room engulfed should result in little damage to the rest of the structure if handled properly. This is why training standers needs to be in place.
Most people don't realize when fire departments save these homes as there no way to know after the fact. The only fire results the public ever see's are the ones that burn to the ground.
Every department is unique. Departments along interstates tend to see a lot more accidents. Older communities have more structure fires. Where I live now the problem is wild fires. The list goes on. Describing all departments one way or another is foolish as demographics change even within a county.
My first department averaged, 2 accidents a year, 4 structure fires, and 15 wild land fires. Another department I was involved with in Washington (10 miles away from the first) had twice the population and didn't even have 4 structure fires a year, but had ten times the accidents. Every department is different.
But what town? Let's say Cambridge and Maxwell. I think Maxwell is a little smaller but not much.
Even if they have a hard time responding during the day, what about at night, on the weekends? Remember that if most people are gone during the day that means less chance of something happening.
How can you pull a fire department that could be at someone's door within 10 minutes, and make another department (in a town about the same size) respond 25 minutes all the time?
People from Maxwell won't travel to Cambridge to respond to calls in Maxwell and firefighters in Cambridge would begrudge having to respond to everything. Even if you were to put a department half way between, you are going to cut way back on the number of possible volunteers and reduce response time for both towns as well as destroying the insurance rating for both communities.
Even Collins and Maxwell would be a tough sell.
In my area. Stuart responds to pretty much every call Menlo gets called out on. They also help other area Depts. They have the best equipment, they have the full time EMTs. They can respond to a fire in Menlo about as fast as the Menlo Dept does. Hell they cover for Menlo during the day. It works out great for both Depts. Honeslty how often does a VFD save a house or bulding that is on fire?
CO detectors not CO2. Big difference between carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide.
by only being 3-5 minutes way instead of 15. Even if they don't have the full resources, or only have 2-4 FFs respond, they can at least get the pumper set up and an attack started as mutual aid rolls from the neighboring town. Without local VFDs, for our town, they would have to come from 15 miles away, assuming a county based response, and in that time the fire has become fully engulfed.
I agree. Maybe every town should have a few smaller trucks, with a central located dept with bigger equip to help out.
