Fire department to begin charging fee for mutual aid

[FF402 133]

Michigan department to begin charging fee for mutual aid

Fire departments in Grand Traverse County likely won't get pro bono help from neighboring departments in the future. The board for Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department approved a policy to begin charging neighboring fire departments between $1,000 and $5,000 for every two-hour stint a Metro fire truck spends responding to a fire outside the boundaries of the member townships of Acme, East Bay, and Garfield.

The decision to charge was triggered by the disparity between the 25 times Metro gave support to surrounding fire departments during the past year compared to the five times it received aid. "Mutual aid is exactly that, if we give you aid we can expect aid in return," said Metro Fire Chief Pat Parker. "But as you can see from the numbers, we really haven't had that." Grand Traverse County operates on what's known as a box-response system where the county is divided into 80 geographic boxes and fire department response is assigned in advance based on the severity of each incident. The initial call triggers a first alarm. Larger fires that require more resources would escalate the event to a second, third, or fourth alarm.

RECORD-EAGLE

[dwcfireman 656]

Does the article go on to mention how many times Metro called for mutual aid into their area?

[GreatPlains588 131]

"The decision to charge was triggered by the disparity between the 25 times Metro gave support to surrounding fire departments during the past year compared to the five times it received aid."

I think its awesome!!!

Start charging and it might bring around some change.

Hit the bean counters where it hurts!

[Dinosaur 844]

Does the article go on to mention how many times Metro called for mutual aid into their area?

5

[dwcfireman 656]

5

They said they received mutual aid 5 times. How many times did they request it versus how many times they received it? If there's a huge difference in those numbers then a problem exists somewhere in the system.

[SilentShadow 32]

How can they enforce this and ensure the departments pay the bill?

[idlewildvfd 88]

Similar issues have surfaced over the last few years here in Providence, Rhode Island related to mutual aid rescue (ambulance) requests from neighboring cities and towns. Below are some links for more detail:

http://www.firehouse.com/forums/t54566/

http://rhodybeat.com/stories/Providence-will-lose-mutual-aid,72738

http://www.rescuingprovidence.com/2012/06/29/outnumbered/

http://www.eastbayri.com/news/east-providence-remains-in-mutual-aid-pact-for-now/

http://www.abc6.com/story/30780323/up-to-100-mutual-aid-calls-out-of-providence-each-month

http://www.providencejournal.com/breaking-news/content/20140803-providence-fire-department-adds-seventh-rescue-truck.ece

[x635 4,066]

Question: Is a "dual response" considered "mutual aid"?

[Quickness 7]

Question: Is a "dual response" considered "mutual aid"?

Dual response is not mutual aid.

[Newburgher 241]

What makes dual response and mutual aid different?

[N1Medic 69]

Dual response is not mutual aid.

I disagree. Dual response IS mutual aid for at least one of the agencies. Dual responses are usually because one district doesn'thave enough manpower or equipment to respond on their own. If departments charged for dual response, they could earn tens of thousands of dollars.

[oldschool 12]

How can they enforce this and ensure the departments pay the bill?

That's what I was thinking. I love the idea though, but it would take balls for someone to actually implement this. And how would you determine what is legit and what is not?

[dwcfireman 656]

Let's face it....the MUTUAL AID system is broken in many areas around the country, for fire, EMS, and police. The only option we're truly stuck with is making the best of it, and trying to fulfill our obligations to our neighbors. With the way things are going today, that is "more with less," we are never going to be able to fulfill our duties to our neighbors without some sort of sacrifice. I personally think that billing our neighbors is wrong, and it's only going to produce more problems down the road.

What we should be doing is getting on the bandwagon, recruiting more personnel, petitioning politicians for better funding, and getting our butts out there and doing what we do best: OUR JOBS! I'm not saying that the volunteers should drop everything else in life to go on more calls, and I'm not saying that the career guys need to cover all of the other calls. Let's step up and do what we need to do to service our communities!

[CaptainCharisma 34]

All this would be is a band aid, and as long as Commissioners want to rule their "kingdoms", nothing is going to ever happen. Nobody would pay these bills. I think Mount Vernon would just laugh at the bill. And to my knowledge, there's no law to support this. But mutual aid costs a fortune, especially when every department that sends one rig has to do an off duty recall. I think the real question here is how much is mutual aid costing the taxpayers, especially when the citizens have to pay for the recalls. Do the citizens know or even care? I think the media should look into it. Would it be cheaper to just properly staff?

[KeyboardCommando 2]

Long time reader, this is my first post because no one is looking at this angle. It starts from the top down. Example: DES can't and doesn't want to pay for proper staffing and facilities for 60 Control. The entire county can't even commit to ONE dispatch system. DES is doing nothing to show they can even begin to lead any sort of consolidation effort or shore up mutual aid concerns. And no departments are truly working together in the proactive planning sense. Nobody wants to pay for anything, they just want to talk and talk and talk. Billing other departments would be a joke because unless there is a law saying they have to pay, that bill is just going to the shredder.