The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
ALL FIRED UP
Madison Fire District marking five decades of service Chief says district will try to grow as community does moving forward
Even if the Madison Fire District responds to no emergency calls on Feb. 22, it still figures to be a busy day for Chief Tod Baker and his firefighters.
That’s because the district’s Station 3 will be preparing for and hosting a special event with a guest list that includes everyone in Madison.
From 4 to 6 p.m. Feb. 22, Station 3, located at 840 River St. in Madison Village, will host a party to mark the 50th anniversary of the fire district.
The event, which is open to the public, will include cake and refreshments, and tours of Fire Station 3.
“We look forward to celebrating with our current and former members as well as the community as a whole,” the fire district stated in a Facebook post.
How it started
One community government leader with a noteworthy connection to the start of the fire district in 1970 is Madison Township Trustee Kenneth Gauntner Jr.
His father, the late Kenneth Gauntner Sr., also served as a Madison Township trustee and was appointed as the fire district board’s first chairman.
Today, Gauntner Jr. is a member of that board, 50 years after his father participated in the first meeting of the group.
Through conversations with his dad and by conducting independent research, Gauntner was able to gain insight on circumstances that led to the formation of the fire district.
“Madison was seeing a lot of growth in the 1960s and early ’70s, and the demands by the community for better fire service response were increasing,” Gauntner said.
During that same period, both the village and township were dealing with a lack of adequate revenue to operate two separate fire departments with a total of three fire stations, he added.
The two separate departments also struggled to maintain adequate staffing.
“Both were volunteer departments and from my reading of township trustee minutes from that era, there was a constant turnover of firemen, and a limited pool of people to draw from,” Gauntner said.
An opportunity to consolidate operations arose when Ohio House Bill 454 took effect on Oct. 30, 1969. The new state law allowed for the creation of a joint fire district between a village and township, Gauntner explained.
On Feb. 10, 1970, the Madison Township trustees adopted a resolution to abolish its fire department and establish a joint fire district with Madison Village, Gauntner said. Madison Village Council then reciprocated by passing a similar resolution about a week later.
The organizational meeting of the fire district’s new board was held Feb. 22, 1970. While Gauntner Sr. became chairman, then-Madison Village Council President Kurt Klein was named vice chairman. Similar to its makeup today, the inaugural board consisted of all three township trustees and three members of the Village Council.
The village and township fire departments already had been working closely together, and for many years shared the same chief, Ralph Coville, Gauntner said. However, Coville retired in 1969, six months before the fire district was launched.
To select a new chief, an examination was conducted by an assistant state fire service training officer. Through that process, Thomas Beattie was chosen as the first chief of the fire district.
“Chief Beattie was an assistant fire chief at Station 2 in the Madison Township Fire Department prior to the creation of the Madison Fire District,” Gauntner said. “Wick Hathaway was chosen as the first assistant chief of the fire district. He was formerly an officer in the Madison Village Fire Department.”
Staff and buildings
While Madison Fire District relied mostly on volunteer firefighters for its first decade and a half or so, Baker said staffing strategies began to change around 1987.
That’s when the fire district hired its first group of full-time firefighters. Those full-timers provided daytime coverage weekdays, while part-timer firefighters covered nights and weekends for the district.
Baker, meanwhile, joined the fire district in 1989, first as a volunteer, before gaining part-time status. He became a fulltime firefighter in 1998, and nearly 20 years later, in 2017, was appointed as the district’s chief.
In 2020, the fire district is comprised of 12 full-time firefighters and 35 parttimers, nearly all of whom are certified as paramedics, Baker said.
Those firefighters work out of two locations. Station 3, in the village, is situated on the south side of the district. Meanwhile, Station 2, on 1743 Hubbard Road in the township, is based in the district’s northern region.
For many years, the fire district also operated Station 1 at 33 N. Lake St. However, the district vacated that building around 2015, a few years after opening the new Station 3 on River Street. The fire district had leased Station 1 from Madison Village, which still owns the North Lake Street building.
The district’s original Station 3 was at 6630 Ross Road. Built in 1963, the fire district used the Ross Road station until about 2009. The building was owned since its construction by Madison Township, which eventually sold the structure in 2016.
About 65 percent of the call volume is generated on the north side of Route 20, with the remaining 35 percent coming from locations south of that same highway, Baker said.
Future trends in residential and commercial development would be key factors in determining if and when the district would look at increasing its personnel.
“We, like everybody else, are trying to operate within a budget,” Baker said. “So I think we’re going to try to continue to grow as the community does.”
How it’s worked
Looking back over the past 50 years, Gauntner believes that the Madison area has benefited by having a joint fire district.
Reasons he cited were consolidation of resources and no duplication of services or equipment; better response times in emergencies; and greater cost effectiveness in operating one department versus than two separate departments.
While fire board membership has changed often during the past five decades, Gauntner said the current panel on which he serves has functioned smoothly and effectively.
“As fire board trustees, we all work for the benefit of the entire community,” he said. “I have not seen any of the board members I have served with be pro township or pro village. Our votes and decisions in the six years I have been on the Fire Board have been based on what is best for all of the community of Madison.”