Andy Lay
Two fire departments are moving forward with a partnership that is expected to improve response times and help with staffing.
The Columbus Board of Works has approved an automatic aid agreement between the City of Columbus Fire Department (CFD) and the Columbus Township Fire Department.
The board previously approved a mutual aid agreement with CFD and fire departments in Edinburgh, Franklin, Seymour, Greensburg, North Vernon, Greenwood, Bloomington, Shelbyville and White River Township in May. At the time, CFD Chief Andy Lay said that the department also has mutual aid agreements with every volunteer fire department in the county.
Lay told the board at its July 11 meeting that there is a difference between mutual aid and automatic aid, explaining that when the city’s fire department exhausts its resources, they call for mutual aid from the county’s volunteer fire departments on standby. However, they can’t be sure of what level of backup will be available, as these departments have different staffing requirements.
“With automatic aid, the difference is they would be part of our emergency operations center on the initial dispatch,” said Lay. “And so we reached out to Columbus Township, and our partnership decided that during any structure fire within Columbus Township or the city of Columbus proper, that they would automatically be dispatched to that incident, which is going to improve response times and help with our service delivery.”
The dual response area applies to all incidents where a fire department is needed, including structure fires in residential, commercial, recreational and rural properties; requests for reported hazardous materials incidents; motor vehicle crashes; rehabilitation services; specialized rescue or “any other incident” when requested by the other agency.
“All calls for fire services within the defined dual response area shall result in an automatic, simultaneous response from both fire departments,” the agreement states. “To accomplish this, the Bartholomew County Communications Center shall simultaneously dispatch fire departments. Dispatch must include asset requested. This automatic aid agreement shall be in effect 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The agreement also states that both fire departments will follow minimum staffing requirements, which Lay said are not always guaranteed with mutual aid.
“We’ve also included in this automatic aid agreement a dual response with our rescue squad,” said Lay. “So the city of Columbus has Squad 2, we run the entire county and provide extrication services and basically anything under the sun that’s needed. They also have a rescue squad, and we thought it was appropriate that any time there is a possible entrapment or something serious where the squad is dispatched in the city of Columbus … we would do a dual dispatch.”
The agreement states that for entrapment incidents, Squad 2 and Columbus Township Rescue 221 will be simultaneously dispatched anywhere within the county.
The first squad to arrive will be able to provide immediate assistance, said Lay. Depending on the severity of incident, the second squad to arrive would collaborate with the first or return to their station if help is not needed.
“Have the two departments done any training together?” asked board of works member Brenda Sullivan.
Lay replied that they have.
“That was one of the delays of getting this brought before you is we wanted to make sure that we cross-checked our people,” he said. “We have a command structure, a way that we operate on the fire ground that’s a little bit different, so we just wanted to make sure that we train together. And we’ve done that and we’ll continue to do that. And again, I think that also is a good move with this, is it brings us into training with our volunteer fire departments more and more.”
The agreement is valid for one year and supersedes any other previous agreements defining “the response of the two departments in this area.”
According to Columbus Township Fire Department, the agreement has also been approved by the Columbus Township Trustee Board.
