“It would be very beneficial to Fife Lake Township to go out on their own,” said Nicole Gibson, resident of Fife Lake.
Another township has decided to leave the Grand Traverse Rural Fire Department.
It’s a decision Fife Lake Township has been actively weighing for the last six weeks.
Green Lake, Blair, Grant and Long Lake have already left the department.
Decisions that haven’t come easily, but ones that board members believe is in the best interest of their communities.
“We feel we can do this, not with an easy process, but with a process that is thought out,” said Linda Forwerck, Fife Lake Township Supervisor.
Fife Lake Township board members unanimously voted to withdraw from Grand Traverse Rural Fire. A decision that did not come lightly.
“We started contemplating it very seriously because our volunteer base was down and we felt that wasn’t providing us with the fire safety that we needed here, that our millage is dedicated to provide,” said Forwerck.
Community members believe they were losing volunteer firefighters and with this decision, many volunteer firefighters have agreed to serve again.
“I do know that there are volunteers that were with rural, have either been terminated or have resigned both, that would be willing to come back to a fire department in Fife Lake Township if it was run by the community itself,” said Gibson.
Nicole Gibson is a former Rural Fire volunteer and resident of Fife Lake and she’s happy to see them take the fire department back.
“They’re going to have that passion because it’s their community, its run by people that they’re neighbors with, its run by and volunteered with people they know,” said Gibson.
Rural Fire Lieutenant Kelly Stiner says they will now have to reorganize their department as well as handling the financial burden but that won’t change their mission.
“The firefighters, the EMS, we’re a different breed of people, we will respond and do what we have to do for our citizens,” said Lieutenant Stiner. “It won’t slow down anything, we won’t stop showing up."
Fife Lake will take over fire operations on January 1st 2018.
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