Continuously serving Kosciusko County since 1854
Each of the three Warsaw-Wayne Fire Territory stations will be getting a new treadmill for firefighters to exercise on, thanks to a grant from the Kosciusko County Community Foundation.
Fire Chief Joel Shilling reminded the WWFT Board Tuesday that back in June firefighter Tyler Colt asked for the board’s approval to go after a grant from the Community Foundation to purchase three treadmills. He said they received an award letter from the foundation for $20,000.
“The treadmills, originally from the quote he had, were like $20,900. Since then, obviously, they did have a price increase, so I’m requesting your permission to accept the $20,000 for the grant, and then the fire territory will have to pay $2,938 for three treadmills. A fairly minimal expense for the fire territory with the use of this grant,” Shilling said, in asking the board’s permission to move forward with accepting the grant.
Board member and Wayne Township Trustee Jeanie Stackhouse made the motion to approve accepting the grant and Board member David Allbritten seconded the motion, which passed 3-0. Board members Mike Klondaris and Gordon Nash were absent.
At the June 3 WWFT Board meeting, Colt talked about cardiovascular and heart diseases being the leading causes of firefighter deaths. The treadmills will help reduce the changes of WWFT firefighters having cardiovascular and heart issues.
Shilling thanked Colt Tuesday for stepping in and applying for the grant.
“It was a priority to him, and he took the initiative to do it, so I want to thank him for going after that grant for us,” Shilling stated.
Mayor Jeff Grose added a thanks to the Kosciusko County Community Foundation.
Shilling then presented the annual interlocal agreement between the fire territory and Kosciusko County for terminal services data. The amount of $1,575 is for the term beginning Jan. 1 and ending Dec. 31, 2026.
“It’s an agreement through Central Square for our Freedom platform that we have. It’s just a CAD integration that allows us to see the real-time data of our apparatus, and have those notes and information for those calls at our fingertips,” he said.
Grose asked if the Kosciusko County Commissioners will also have to approve the interlocal agreement, and Shilling said yes. Shilling said it starts with the county and they determine the annual amount.
“The One Solution platform is the county’s platform, so we have to have an interlocal agreement. There’s service fees that go along with that, and so they, I believe, try to recoup some of their costs. We deal with the county IT when it comes to this specific system, so I think it’s kind of the price we pay to allow us to access their information,” Shilling explained.
After the board approved the interlocal agreement, Shilling then presented a long list of travel requests, which the board also gave its consent to.
“I just want to point out that a lot of this stuff is required, it’s for their certifications, for their continuing (education). And then if it’s not for their continuing education, to keep their certifications, it is a requirement of their job descriptions that we have,” he stated.
In his WWFT monthly report for August, Shilling said they had 327 responses, with 96 incidents overlapping for a total of 29%.
There were a total of 11 fire calls, ranging from cooking fires to vehicle fires and grass/brush fires.
They gave mutual aid to several different fire departments, including Winona Lake twice; Plymouth, twice; and North Webster, Pierceton and Leesburg, once each. Winona Lake provided mutual aid to Warsaw-Wayne once, but that ended up being a false alarm.
In the rescue and EMS category, WWFT had a total of 220 calls. Hazardous conditions, no fire, they had nine calls; service calls, nine; good intent calls, 30; and false alarms/calls, they had 27. CARES had 21 calls.
District totals for station 17 were 156; station 13, 117; and station 15, 33.
For the month, 591.75 training hours were completed over a variety of topics. Community service included school visits to welcome students to school, Warsaw Parks and Recreation Department’s Touch A Truck event and the Book Mobile went to Harrison Elementary School.
The next meeting of the WWFT Board will be at 4 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 5 in the council chambers at City Hall.
