As area volunteer fire departments seek more volunteers, some steps have been taken while they attempt to beef-up their rosters. One thing is a change in automatic mutual aid. When a fire call comes in for rural departments…there are now four departments called to respond on the initial dispatch from the 9-1-1 center at the Public Safety Building in Danville.
Lynch Area Fire Protection Chief Chuck Walls likes the automatic mutual aid…
{‘’We have automatic mutual aid with quite a bit of the departments around here. And it helps out a lot because – I mean – we’re all short-handed,’’ said Walls. ‘’So, we all work together and we get it done. And we all go home at the end of the call.’’}
(Lynch Area Fire Chief Chuck Walls.)
In the Westville Area Fire Protection District, Chief Bob Ellis says – partially because of the manpower shortage – his department is no longer making so many rescue runs….
{‘’Since the COVID-19 hit we have Georgetown (Ambulance) covering the south end of our district. We have Arrow Ambulance covering the north end of our district,’’ said Ellis. ‘’We’ve slowed down a lot as far as our responses to rescue calls. And the reason is, we got to the point where we would show up on a rescue scene and we weren’t doing much because the ambulance is already staffed – they’re already there. And it got kind of ridiculous for us to stand out in the yard and wait for them to come out of the house since the COVID situation,’’ said Chief Ellis during an interview with VermilionCountyFirst.com News.}
(Westville Area Fire Chief Bob Ellis)
Ellis added Westville Rescue still responds as a first-out unit to some calls – such as injury accidents. And he noted the rescue will also respond to other calls…
{‘’We do third-out if Georgetown is not available, and if Arrow is not available – they will page us out to go on rescue calls, yes,’’ added Ellis.}
(Westville also has another unit used for rescue calls.)
The Westville Fire Department has been receiving nearly one-thousand rescue calls a year.
