ROSSFORD, Ohio — The Rossford Fire & Rescue Department receives up to 1,300 calls a year, which fire chief Josh Drouard says is higher than years past.
But there are times when the department has no firefighters on duty.
Over a one-month period, from August to September, the department’s staff was cut short when four of its firefighters moved on to new jobs and one left on maternity leave.
“We’ve faced a lot of staffing challenges that are not just inherent to our community,” Drouard said. “It is a nationwide with paid, on-call, part-time fire departments. Call volumes have increased while people’s lives have just gotten busier and they’ve had less time to come to work.”
The staffing issues are a new layer of stress added to an already demanding job even with the support of stations like Northwood, which has been offering temporary help in the meantime.
“The first three days of this week we’ve had two people on duty and today we just had one. So, we always worry about that type of call or if you get a call that’s severe nature where you need people in a hurry,” Drouard said.
In November, Rossford Mayor Neil MacKinnon III promised to deliver rejuvenating options for the department on or before the start of the new year.
During Monday’s city council meeting, the mayor touched on the three options he says the city has.
“Of those three options, one was for us to go it alone,” MacKinnon said. “The second option was for us to form a district with some of our neighbors who were contiguous to us and the third was to do a merger with Perrysburg Township.”
The mayor favors the last option, which he says would not require funding approval from taxpayers and would provide 24/7 coverage for 365 days a year and provide staffing to the Crossroads Centre retail district, which is currently lacking.
We care about our community,” MacKinnon said. This is just something that just finally caught up to us.”
Drouard said the final decision will come after consideration from the Rossford City Council, but that having a reliable station is what matters most.
