Taylorville Fire Department and Fire Chief Matt Adermann have released their end-of-the-year report. Chief Adermann says the department has strived to maintain a high level of service as well as work to improve upon their skills. In the report, they release information on their members, Taylorville Fire Protection District, an OSHA Inspection, Conditions of the firehouse, run statistics, ambulance runs, mutual aid, response times, ESDA, and training.
This last year saw three new members added and one member leave for another fire department. Currently, the Taylorville Fire Department has 5 members assigned to two shifts and four members assigned to the other. Drew Carls left in December of 2022 and was replaced by Zach Delong, Daniel Tatge left to Colin Ayers was hired to replace him. Austin Hoehn was hired to replace Andy Goodall after his retirement. Drew Watson spent seven months deployed, returning in November.
Chief Adermann says that due to past turnover, the department has young members and low seniority years. Training members are helping to fill the gap left by inexperience. Chief Adermann is also concerned that volunteer numbers are down across the country and the Fire Department has plans to address it. The current roster of volunteers is down to 11 members after losing four due to age, time requirements, and lack of interest.
During an OSHA inspection, the department had minimal violations which is an area that TFD has worked hard on improving since 2020. TFD ended with five citations including dirty PPE, unsecured cascade bottles, bench grinder guard out of limits, junction box cover open, and an extension cord on the floor, which was immediately corrected and reflected as corrected in the report. OSHA has also advised TFD not to use the 2nd floor of the training facility until it can be evaluated for its structural stability. This is an issue the TFD is looking to address in 2024.
TFD responded the most to emergency medical service incidents (1,547) 50 electrical wiring problems (50), system malfunctions (48), and structure fires (39). Two statistics almost mirrored last year with the most alarms and double calls. The most alarms handled in a shift was 17 alarms which happened on two separate occasions in 2023. Over 23% of calls in 2023 happened within 20 minutes of each other. The busiest day of the week was Monday and the busiest time of the day was between 4 and 5 PM. 2023 saw a decrease in ambulance runs compared to 2022.
TFD is under the national average in response times. TFD has an apparatus on the scene of an emergency within 6 minutes of a 9-1-1 call 90% of the time. The National average turnout time (time from an alarm to crews leaving the stations is 1 minute. TFD’s time is 54 seconds. The National Average response time is 4 minutes TFD’s response time is 3:40 seconds. Every 30 seconds a fire burns unchecked it doubles in size.
For a full view of the report, click here.
