At the present time, the Fort Washington Fire Company is not always the first to arrive at the scene of a fire in the township because of their location. For instance, Horsham often responds first in Maple Glen and Wissahickon often responds first in the Ambler portion of Upper Dublin.
My thought was that we might want to divide the township into sectors and formally assign first responder status to fire companies that could respond quickest. This would go along with a state senate report of several years ago that suggested we work more regionally on issues such as this.
However, as one person with whom I discussed this idea put it, there is a difference between borrowing a neighbor's tools and deciding the tools are now mine. In other words, there is a difference between having other fire companies sometimes showing up first in UD (until we rectify the situation with a new firehouse) and instead asking them to always be first responders. To do the latter, we would most likely need to contract with them. That would lessen the work that FWFC has to do in Upper Dublin and increase the work of, say, Horsham and Wissahickon. Budgetarily, that would mean that UD would provide less funding to FWFC and more to other companies. It would also mean that we would not have to build a new firehouse and could use the property for other township needs (library? meeting spaces? parks and recreation programs?).
This is not a fully thought out idea but I am putting it out there for any of you to comment on. I would love to hear what you think. Email me at Jules.Mermelstein@gmail.com
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