Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory’s new ladder truck is scheduled to arrive Wednesday, Jan. 7.
Fire Chief Joel Shilling told the WWFT Board Tuesday he received notification last week the new custom ladder truck was going to be delivered to station 13. With that, an invoice was sent for some change orders the board needed to approve. The change orders are in the amount of $18,847, or about 1.04% of the total price of the truck.
“But due to the fire territory leasing the truck, we have to cover that change order amount, so the $1,812,636 will be paid by Community Leasing, and then the fire territory will pay the $18,847,” he said. “Which, again, we did know these change orders were coming, so it is in our budget to do that. There is no issue there. I have no issue with it.”
Board member David Allbritten said he appreciated the change orders were budgeted.
Shilling noted the fire territory’s current ladder truck is out of service and was taken out of service last week. It is currently at the Warsaw Street Department maintenance shop and “completely torn apart.” He wasn’t sure when it was going to be back in service, but there’s going to be some changeover of equipment that needs to happen.
After the changeover of equipment and training, Shilling anticipates the new ladder truck will hopefully be completely in service by the end of February, if not before then. Three days of training on the ladder truck for all three shifts needs to occur to protect the fire territory from liability and other concerns.
Mayor Jeff Grose asked what the life of an apparatus like the ladder truck was. Shilling said it depends, but a ladder truck could get 20 years while an engine truck might now get 15. The current ladder truck was scheduled to be replaced around 2020-21, but wasn’t, and is now around 25 years old.
“The engines are what run out more often than what the ladder truck would,” Shilling said.
The board unanimously approved the change orders.
A lease payment of $202,068.54 to Community First National Bank was part of the equipment replacement monthly expenditure report that the board also approved Tuesday.
In other business:
• The board approved for the fire protection territory to enter into a contract with attorney Adam D. Turner to provide legal representation for the territory for 2026. Shilling said it’s the same contract as 2025, which includes a retainer fee of $3,000 and an hourly rate of $250 on any other matters. The retainer fee covers Turner attending the meetings and small work like minor contracts, Shilling said, noting he’s been happy with Turner’s work over the last six months.
• The board approved the 2026 preventative maintenance contract with Zoll Expertcare for the Zoll monitors that the fire department uses on every medical call. The contract cost is $1,360, which is unchanged from the 2025 contract.
• The board approved the fall/winter preventative maintenance agreement with Flow Tech for station 15. The agreement services focus primarily on the furnace. Shilling said they have three units at the station, and the cost of the agreement is $385.75.
Common Councilman Mike Klondaris asked why just station 15. Shilling said Flow Tech wants the agreements for the three stations spaced out. Flow Tech does service all three of the stations.
• Turner gave the oath of office to the five board members, including Klondaris, Gordon Nash, Allbritten, Wayne Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse and Grose.
• The board appointed Heather Vogts, fire chief’s assistant, as the secretary for the board.
• Shilling gave the monthly fire activity report for November 2025. He said they had 278 responses, of which 85 incidents were overlapping, or 30.57%.
Of the 278 responses, nine were fire calls; they gave mutual aid to Leesburg and Pierceton fire departments, but both were cancelled en route; and received mutual aid from Winona Lake Fire Department twice and Leesburg Fire Department once.
A total of 188 responses were for rescue/EMS, with 14 being for hazardous conditions with no fire. Service calls totaled seven; good intent calls, 29; false alarms/calls, 29; and special incidents totaled two.
District totals for station 17 was 130; station 13, 120; and station 15, 28 incidents. “Those are calls that are in that actual fire district, in that station response area,” Shilling said. Station 17 might have had 130 incidents in November, but that doesn’t mean that the other two stations didn’t go over into that area, too.
As for training in November, Shilling said they completed 376.25 training hours covering a variety of topics.
They had 23.5 hours of community service through various public appearances at local elementary schools and tours at the fire station.
Klondaris asked about the Slate Auto extinguisher class listed under community service.
Shilling said Slate Auto has some employees working out there at the plant, which is along Old 30 in Warsaw. Slate also had some extra fire extinguishers so WWFT Fire Marshal Jeremy Williams and an engine crew went out there and trained about 40 employees on the use of fire extinguishers.
“That’s one of the public education pieces that we offer at the fire territory, to do that. There are several businesses that take advantage of that,” Shilling stated.
• The board approved all the travel requests as presented.
• The next meeting of the WWFT Board will be at 4 p.m. Feb. 3 at the Warsaw Police Department training center.
