West End Fire Company withdraws from Palmerton Fire Department

Good

If the Borough would not have kept accepting members from the West End Station to keep joining the Municipal Station which had more than enough manpower the West End Station would not have lost the active members to keep the station in operation. What now Borough? The West End citizens now have to wait many more minutes if their home is on fire. Do you know how fast fire spreads??

It appears that the WEFC #2 is struggling with volunteerism because no one wants to volunteer their time. The fact that they have voluntarily shut down for restructuring is a good sign that they want to get themselves back to active status ASAP to provide services to the community. This should not effect response to the west end of the town due to the Municipal Fire Station still being in service and mutual aid departments which surround Palmerton being dispatched at the same time for any type of fire. This has nothing to do with the Municipal Station accepting members. This has to deal with safety for the department and those responding in that capacity. If this restructuring due to manpower is directly effecting you, I would suggest that you apply with the WEFC#2 and show your support to help them to get back into active status. Please remember that the local fire departments in Carbon County are all volunteer and when these circumstances arise, situations such as this need to be done to get everybody back into active status.

The MunicipalFire Co. has been very slow lately in there response with all the members they supposedly have it is very apparent they only get one truck out lately this is documented.

If the Municipal station is "slow" to respond, it may be due to manpower issue especially during daytime hours and the volunteers working their normal jobs which helps support their families. Not all employers allow their employees to leave the workplace to respond to an emergency. Those employers who do, I commend them. Again as I stated previously, should a fire arise, there are two other departments who are on automatic response with PFD which brings more apparatus and personnel. Two firefighters are better than none. Please take a look at it from the volunteers standpoint. What kind of support is being given to the local department? Who are you relying on to respond to an emergency? Average citizens who go above to volunteer their time and risk their life to save another strangers life or property. Again, these measures are being exercised to prevent any injury or I hate to say, even the loss of life of first responders. Who explains to the family of the volunteer who loses their life saving another because they kept a department running under distressful staffing? The fact that these are rhetorical thoughts, this should place the thought of "hmmm, I never thought about it that way", into everyone's mind. The WEFD#2 should be commended for their diligence in taking these necessary procedures and precautions to alleviate the issues they may be facing to ensure that they may be able to return to "active" status promptly.

The Borough should have kept their hands out of the fire department as they originally stated they would. Both fire companies had been running for a hundred years with no problem until the Borough got involved. Both stations got along and trained together and never had a response problem which the Borough has now created.

Fix it until it until it's broke