Regionalization of Fire Services

In the U.S. and even across the globe, rural volunteer fire departments have joined together to great career departments and/or crews. Due to there being many problems volunteer fire departments face: funding, manpower, equipment, support, etc. the regionalization of fire departments would greatly benefit small communities, ensuring that a response by emergency personnel will be dispatched immediately, day or night, any day of the week.. In the U.S. in particular, many counties in each state have had not just fire services, but also ambulance and police services merge in order to ensure an automatic response for emergencies. There are many problems that would need to be addressed and solved in planning a …show more content…
A large plan would be needed in order to create a sufficient department or team for fire response. Solutions to financial issues regarding regionalization, when plans are set in motion to regionalize, a large enough budget that includes equipment costs and upkeep, training and wages, and any maintenance or bills from the station or quarters. This budget would be paid for via town taxes, and the amount paid by each town would be based off of the population and the square mileage of each town. Also the amount of calls from each town would help to shape how each town would pay for this …show more content…
Even radios are often different from town to town, some frequencies or systems are incompatible with adjoining towns radios, therefore making communication more difficult in a state of emergency. When fire departments regionalize, an equipment standard would be issued to make sure Training Standards. Taking classes at a state fire academy is not required, it is suggested but not required, so then everyone is trained differently, and again without the standardization of equipment, members of each department are trained for their own equipment, so when responding to another town and asked to work another department’s piece of equipment, that person can’t because they have not been trained or taught how to use that equipment. Mutual Aid. Currently, towns rely not only on themselves for responding to their own emergencies, but also rely on their surrounding towns for support. This system is critical in fighting fires and supporting towns if, for example, a fire is more than a single town can handle, or a truck or piece of equipment fails, or more water is needed for fires. Members of departments in towns involved with mutual aid create bonds between their departments, making regionalization of a community that relies on mutual aid easier, because the emergency service members would know each other and be more willing