Hempfield Township wants to bring its 11 volunteer fire departments under its management
HEMPFIELD, Pa. (KDKA) — Changes could soon be coming to Hempfield Township volunteer fire departments.
Hempfield Township is looking to bring its eleven fire departments under its management. Township manager Aaron Siko said this will allow those departments to focus solely on training and responding to calls.
The eleven departments are North Hempfield, Bovard, Adamsburg, High Park, Grapeville, Fort Allen, Carbon, Hempfield Number 2, West Point, Midway-St. Clair and Hannahstown.
So far, North Hempfield is the only station that's given up its charter.
"With that station, we've taken on all of their debt, all of their expenses, all their maintenance of the building, and they operate solely as volunteer firefighters without the fundraising. We just ask that they do their training, they respond to calls," Siko said. "With that, we also did a renovation of their station this year, which is about a $2 million renovation, bringing that station up to current standards."
The Midway-St. Clair Volunteer Fire Department has provided a letter of intent to consolidate with the Hempfield Township Fire Department, Siko told KDKA-TV.
Hempfield Number 2 was interested, Siko said, but pulled out at the last minute.
"It's change. In the fire service, sometimes folks are reluctant to change," North Helpfield Fire Chief Anthony Kovacic said.
Kovacic believes this could be a good opportunity for the departments within the township.
"Historically, part of the problem with the volunteer fire service, you spend a lot of time fundraising and trying to do things that aren't necessarily response. In this program, once you're able to relinquish all of the debt and for bills that you have, they can emphasize their time on training and respond, so it is a good situation," Kovacic said.
"We're just asking them to be volunteer firefighters. We're not asking them to do boot drives or sell hoagies or do fish fries. We really want them to focus on training and responding to calls," Siko said. "It's tough being a volunteer, and it's tough committing that much time just to being a firefighter."
Siko said Hempfield Township covers 70 square miles and more than 40,000 residents. He said merging some stations is a possibility.
"What we're looking to do, we have three zones within the township that provide fire service. The fire stations overlap within those zones. That way at any given time, one of the zones is covered by multiple fire stations. With that, there's always the economics of consolidation. If we have multiple stations come together under one roof, we can provide better services at a lower cost," Siko said.
Siko said the township's board of supervisors plans to hold a fireman's forum in March, when all the stations will be invited to talk about their vision and plans for the future, with the possibility of bringing them all together under township management.
