ROSSFORD, Ohio — The Rossford Fire Department like many other communities is struggling to fill open fire and EMS positions and is not always staffed to respond to emergencies.
So, RFD Lt. Chris Segura has begun posting to the Rossford Information Facebook page to notify the community when the department will be unstaffed.
While mutual aid agreements still cover the city from other departments, Segura said his neighbors should know when emergency response might be delayed.
"Being a part of the fire department, and a citizen, I feel like the citizens should know that sometimes there are not people at the station that are going to respond to their emergencies and that we have to rely on other people, whether that be Northwood, Perrysburg Township or Perrysburg," he said.
Segura has been with the department since 2009 and is also the union representative.
He said the staffing issue worsened when four firefighters left the department for full-time jobs elsewhere, all within a month.
"We no longer have the numbers we used to and we're operating at less than half of the number we're allowed to have," Segura said. "We currently have 22 members when we're allowed to have 45."
As a stopgap, Rossford has an agreement with neighboring Northwood to have a dedicated ambulance on call when the Rossford fire station isn't staffed.
The department is mostly volunteers with a few part-time employees and a full-time chief.
Segura said everyone in the department wants to serve the community, but have had to prioritize their full-time jobs over picking up shifts in Rossford.
"We would love to, but they have other obligations," Segura said. "They have a full-time job. This is nobody's full-time job other than the chief."
"We've become a pretty good farm team or stepping stone to get on Toledo, Perrysburg, Bowling Green, Springfield," Rossford Fire Chief Josh Drouard said. That's when the bulk of the full-time people that work elsewhere are on the job."
Mayor Neil MacKinnon said the city has been working on options to present to city council to transition the fire department and create up to 12 full-time positions.
"The reality is we are going full-time. Again, we'll probably have two, probably three, options that we'll be able to choose from," MacKinnon said. And of those three options, we will not have to go out and ask for a levy."
Two other options would potentially create a joint or co-op fire district with neighboring communities.
Mayor MacKinnon says the earliest they could have those three options presented to city council and available for public input is Nov. 27. The earliest council could vote on one of those options would be Jan. 8.