Julia Maruca
The Tribune-Review, Greensburg
(TNS)
Jan. 11—Hempfield's High Park Volunteer Fire Department responded to just one of 53 emergency calls during the final three months of last year, according to township Manager Aaron Siko.
A chartered station with Hempfield Fire Department, High Park has been on probation since June 2022 for failing to respond to calls.
Township officials said they met with representatives of the troubled department Monday and are awaiting a response from High Park on how it might improve the reliability of its service.
The township's fire stations are organized into zones, meaning nearby fire stations help one another. But, if a fire is significant enough, departments from other municipalities often pitch in — and an influx of out-of-municipality calls can put pressure on those departments.
The High Park station on Baughman Avenue is adjacent to the city of Jeannette, which has the county's lone paid fire department.
Jeannette fire Chief Bill Frye says his firefighters have been responding to some of High Park's calls for the past six or eight months.
It's not just an issue in the area High Park covers but elsewhere in Hempfield and other municipalities, he said, adding Jeannette has responded to calls as far away as Delmont.
"Not only does it delay the response for the people that have the emergency," he said, it also takes the fire trucks and city-paid workers out of the area.
"Most of the calls are routine calls like an automatic alarm," Frye said.
Last year was Jeannette's busiest on the books, with 954 calls.
"Between that and (Jeannette EMS abruptly closing) last year, I think it really shines a light on the crisis the fire and EMS is having in the area," he said.
Ongoing issue
Since the third quarter of 2023, the High Park station has gone without its usual $5,750 quarterly allotment from the township — a withholding that is set to continue until the station comes up with an official plan to right the ship.
"We're awaiting a plan from High Park that, in partnership with the fire chief, will detail how they plan to improve so that they can come off of probation," Siko said. "We hold back that funding until we see results, and, specifically to High Park, we have a lack of responses, a lack of reporting and a lack of training ... We have continued to offer to provide support to them so that they can come up with a plan to get off of probation."
Hempfield fire Chief and Director of Emergency Services Anthony Kovacic said the department needs to see High Park's plan to outline how its issues will be addressed.
"We did have a meeting with some folks from High Park recently to discuss that, so there are communications, and, hopefully, this will lead to a remedy," he said.
High Park Capt. John Howell did not respond to messages left on Wednesday.
A challenge to find firefighters
The department's probation has persisted since 2022 because the station has trouble making it to the scene when called.
"As part of the service agreement that Hempfield Township has with each of our stations, we expect each station to be able to respond to calls," Siko said. "Ultimately, Hempfield Township has a responsibility to make sure the residents and the businesses are protected with fire service. That's certainly the primary objective, and the goal of the board of supervisors is to ensure that."
The township supports its stations through maintaining fire apparatus and firefighter gear and providing insurance and fuel for the fire vehicles, Siko said.
Stations that are in good standing receive a station allocation to help with their utility expenses, which is what was withheld from High Park. Hempfield budgeted $195,000 for station allotments this year, to be distributed across 10 stations.
This year, Hempfield set aside $81,000 in the budget to potentially hire four part-time drivers for the department to help supplement its numbers, though township supervisors would need to vote to advertise the position before the plan could move forward.
"We're still primarily focused on being a volunteer fire service. We want to continue to create a culture and an opportunity that exists for the volunteer service to prosper within Hempfield Township," Siko said.
"Part of that is putting out there the opportunity for part-time drivers, who would assist during those daylight hours. We would still hope and expect for a primary volunteer response during that time, but it's certainly more of a matter of getting the fire apparatus to the scene."
Another of the township's stations, West Point Volunteer Fire Department, managed to leave its probation in August 2023 after being on it for more than two years.
Kovacic said West Point was able to get off probation by putting a plan together and recruiting new members, with the help of sister station Hempfield No. 2 Volunteer Fire Department.
"They put down a road map to get from where they (were), where we knew there were some deficiencies, to remedying that," he said. "Now, we don't have the deficiency of response that we did that put them on probation."
Demand on departments
Tuesday's windstorm in the region highlighted the extraordinary demand placed on the volunteer firefighting system in the county.
Cassandra Kovatch, public information officer with the Westmoreland County Department of Public Safety, said fire departments across the county responded to 334 calls on Tuesday alone.
Volunteers from Hempfield's 11 fire stations answered 18 calls, according to Kovacic.
The windstorm struck the eastern edge of the county the hardest.
East Huntingdon Township Volunteer Fire Department Chief Brian Kite said his department responded to 16 calls between about 12:15 p.m. Tuesday and 1 a.m. Wednesday. Derry Township Volunteer Fire Department Company No. 1 of Bradenville Chief Mark Piantine said his firefighters were dispatched to 24 incidents between 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. Tuesday.
Having help from neighboring departments is essential, Kite said.
"It's very important, especially when there's multiple calls going on in our area with our township being so big," Kite said.
On Tuesday, when East Huntingdon firefighters were fielding several calls at one time in different areas, there's no way the department would have been able to handle them all on its own, he said.
Derry Township got lucky, according to Piantine. A lot of firefighters were already off from their regular jobs, so they were able to focus their day on emergency response needs.
But on days when firefighters are at work, mutual aid is key.
"You have to have mutual aid, it's plain and simple, because the volunteer fire service is a dying breed," he said.
Julia Maruca is a TribLive reporter covering health and the Hempfield area. She joined the Trib in 2022 after working at the Butler Eagle covering southwestern Butler County. She can be reached at [email protected].
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