Back to the future: Township firefighters now required to aid City
Jun. 27, 2013 PLYMOUTH EAGLE.
Four firefighters would be the entire Plymouth Township shift, leaving both the fire stations in that community empty during an incident in another community.
The fire that destroyed a downtown Plymouth Fire Station last Sunday morning has created new fire response protocols for Plymouth Township and the City of Northville.
Announced this week in an inter-departmental letter titled Automatic-Fire Mutual Aid Response, the new plan calls for the 12-member Plymouth Township Fire Department to render mutual aid and respond to fires in the City of Plymouth as well as in their own community. Northville and Plymouth Township fire chiefs along with Plymouth Public Safety Director/Police Chief Alan Cox, distributed and signed the letter.
The City of Northville Fire Department currently handles fire emergencies in the City of Plymouth under a joint contractual agreement.
In a press release distributed last Tuesday following the weekend fire, Plymouth City Manager Paul Sincock described the paid on-call firefighters as, “community volunteers.” The release said Plymouth Township had offered use of the Lake Pointe Fire Station to store Northville Fire Department-City of Plymouth apparatus. Sincock said “as a temporary location for city fire operations.” The press release said that fire administration of both cities have worked out an automatic mutual aid procedure. The policy letter says both departments, Northville and Plymouth Township, will be dispatched immediately upon receiving a report of a structure fire in either community.
The document also stated both fire departments would be dispatched upon receipt of a fire alarm or smoke alarm at named, “high risk facilities” including, Independence Village, Tonquish Manor, Medi-Lodge’s and Heartland Health Care centers.
The new directive sent out within days of the press release, calls for the fire departments in Northville and Plymouth Township, to provide automatic fire mutual and to respond with a minimum of “one firefighting apparatus and a minimum of four personnel.”
Four firefighters would be the entire Plymouth Township shift, leaving both the fire stations in that community empty during an incident in another community.
Plymouth Township Fire Department serves the 28,000 township residents, while the City of Northville Fire Department is responsible for 6,000 city residents plus the 9,000 City of Plymouth residents. The Northville Fire Department is made up of 45 paid on-call firefighters. All 12 Plymouth Township firefighters are certified Advance Life Support paramedics. Plymouth and Northville do not have Advanced Life Support services.
|News Plymouth Michigan
