Paid daytime staff mark first year at Fredericktown Fire

Prior to the hiring, FCFD was an all-volunteer department, but two firefighters in the station almost eight hours a day, five-days-a-week proves beneficial in regards to response time, maintenance and community service that was difficult to achieve with just volunteers.

Mast explained the difference in response times with daytime staffing.

“We’ve definitely had a couple of structure fires during the day that them getting out the door in a timely manner made the difference between minimal damage and probably a major loss,” said Mast. “Because we’re going from probably a six minute out-the-door time or more — let’s say for during the day time — to a minute or two. We’ve drastically cut down on getting to the scene. It’s undeniable.”

Because much of the fire staff work day jobs, they have to leave their respective places when paged on a call and then go to the station and get ready. Moss and Suain are already at the station and can be ready in under two minutes.

“(Its been) very productive. A lot of PR stuff in the community. We’ve had a few good outcomes on some runs, being here during the day, which is the main reason,” said Suain about his first year. “Inspections going well in the community as far as life safety inspections at the businesses. It’s going really well. Really, really well.”

Much of the benefit of having two firefighters on site during the day is the response time to calls when they come in. Moss and Suain can be dressed in a minute and out the door to an incident to meet EMS there, instead of arriving minutes after everyone else and having to play catch-up.

“You’re cuttin’ that time down to nothing to get the truck out the door,” Suain said about the quicker response. The two men are there for anything that happens during the day while many of the volunteers become more available later in the day.

“Our volunteers are super strong still and are able to respond after the 3 to 3:30 range,” Suain said. “Normally we don’t get out of here right at 3, the volunteers are still there after that 3 o’clock mark and that’s where we came up with that number.”

While there during the day, the two lieutenants find important things to do while they wait for calls.

“We still have to maintain our trucks. That was one thing with daytime staffing, is guys don’t have to come in on their time off to do maintenance on trucks every month,” said Moss, who like Suain, left their previous jobs to be full-timers at the station. “(Also) the building itself, there’s maintenance to be done on the building at all times. It needs to be presentable at all times. It is a public building. People come in and out of here all the time.”

Along with maintenance, the two are often out in the community helping citizens or businesses and/or fielding questions.

“We have people from the community stop in quite often and ask questions like maybe (having us) come out and look at something at their place,” Moss explained. “Like, ‘hey I need to burn a pile. Is this acceptable?’ Now that more people know that we have daytime staffing, I think it’s kind of a warm fuzzy feeling for them. We’ve had multiple people say ‘I didn’t know you guys were here.’ Well, we are. Five days a week 7:30 to 3.”

The motion to hire full-time staffers met with resistance a year ago when the fire board voted no twice before passing the resolution 4-2 to hire the staffers.

Fire board member Doug Turpen said at the time that the resolution was finally passed by the board with the stipulation that as long as the FCFD’s carryover held above $430,000, day time staffing can continue. The carryover has averaged $431,947 between 2014 and 2018.

After the initial hurdles, the staffing has been smooth sailing for the community and for fighting fires.

“The more and more people know that we’re here, they’re utilizing the fire department. They love the fact that the doors are open. They like that. It tells them that someone is there to respond. Immediately,” Moss said.