Chief Scott Hall will be joined by the fire chief from Washington Township to sign an agreement that will bring equipment from the neighboring department to incidents at target occupancies within the city.

The chiefs will gather at the regular meeting of the City of Bellbrook Council on Feb. 28, 2000. The meeting will be the first held in the recently renovated City Building at 15 E. Franklin Street, Bellbrook.

With the city's landscape now scattered with commercial structures, officials began reevaluating the equipment and manpower needed to deal with incidents at these large structures. Chief Hall says that the change will have nothing but a positive impact on the service that the department provides.

"We have great equipment and excellent personnel, but our entire inventory of apparatus still wouldn't be able to handle any large amount of fire at these target occupancies," he said. "The agreements now bring the additional resources needed to safely and effectively handle these incidents."

The department has defined target occupancies as structures that require more than 1500 gallons of water per minute to fight a large fire or those with special hazards, such as hazardous chemicals or life safety concerns.

"Should an incident occur at these occupancies, citizens will now be served by Bellbrook firefighters, with assistance from a Washington Township ladder company," Lieutenant Derek Montgomery, who oversees fire suppression operations, said.

Not only will citizens of Bellbrook benefit, but Chief Hall has extended personnel and equipment to Washington Township for use in a similar agreement.

Chief Hall noted that a similar request was made to Sugarcreek Township for an engine company to support crews on target occupancies, but Sugarcreek Township officials have been unable to approve the agreement. The Automatic Mutual Aid Response System, or AMAR, is popular in larger cities and throughout suburbs in the northern Miami Valley. The advantage over systems already in use is that involved departments will be notified at the same time Bellbrook firefighters are alerted of the incident.

"We have always had the ability to call on our neighbors, but the instantaneous notification is what makes this so unique," said Chief Hall. "The time between our receipt of the call and notification of firefighters from neighboring departments is decreased by a few minutes, bringing more resources to the scene faster."

Release I00-02
February 22, 2000