(Spirit Lake)– All of the T’s have now been crossed and the I’s dotted on an agreement to merge the Spirit Lake and Superior Fire Departments.
We first reported on plans to combine the departments earlier this month. At that point some of the entities still needed to sign off on the documents. Spirit Lake Fire Chief Pat Daly tells KUOO news that has now been done, along with all the legal work and filings that needed to take place. He says it culminates years of talks…
“The whole problem was was manpower. Superior only had, I don’t know, five, six, seven guys over there and it’s really tough for them to get people together for a fire. Right now we’re running short. It’s so hard to get volunteers any more, no one wants to do it. A lot of times they can’t get away from their job; there’s a lot of time commitment. So we just sat down and kind of decided one day if we could kind of put everything together that we’d be okay, we could help each other out better.”
Daly says the combined departments will cover a good chunk of north central and northeastern Dickinson county, even extending into a small part of Minnesota…
“Actually we cover like 82 square miles. We actually go two miles into Minnesota. Superior doesn’t go into Minnesota but there’s is just about as big. We’re leaving the station in Superior so it will be just like a second station. They’re going to respond there and whether we’ve got to go there or they come over here. So we’re just going to make it like a second station.”
Daly says other than the fact the two departments are merged on paper, the general public won’t notice anything really different from the past…
“Everybody in the county, every town that has a fire department in the county, has a 28E agreement which means that if I need help you come help me, if you need help, I’ll come help you. So basically we’re just taking that a little bit farther here.”
The merger officially goes into effect Wednesday, January 1st.
