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Governing Putnam County — Locally: Fire departments
In February and March of this year, the Banner Graphic published a half-dozen stories about fires in Putnam County, most of them on the front page.
One mid-February story reported an early-morning fire in the house right next to Greencastle City Hall on Washington Street, and another story a couple of weeks later addressed a fire that destroyed a two-story house in Belle Union in Jefferson Township. Fortunately, no people were physically injured in any of the fires reported in February or March, though one pet dog perished in the Greencastle fire just mentioned.
These stories can serve to remind us that firefighting is a key — and sometimes absolutely crucial — government service, and one that people hope never to need. And it is a service organized and financed by, you guessed it, Putnam County local governments.
It has been three centuries since the first “fire brigades” in London were created by insurance companies in the early 1700s to prevent and minimize fires on properties that they had insured. The insurance companies had concluded that preventing fires was cheaper than replacing or repairing insured buildings that had burned. Those early private fire brigades in London reportedly fought fires only on properties insured by the relevant insurance company. Policy-holders were given metal plaques to post on their properties so that the private fire brigades would know which fires to fight — and which to ignore.
As already noted, in Putnam County today — like the rest of Indiana — local governments structure and finance firefighting and associated “rescue services.” Today’s “All Hazards Fire Departments” still handle burning buildings, but they also extricate people trapped in vehicles, fight bush fires, assist in medical emergencies and the like.
The six municipalities and 13 townships in the county are all responsible, in one way or another, for providing fire protection for their residents. And the 12 fire departments in the county assist one another as needed when a fire occurs.
Mutual Aid Box Alarm System (MABAS) is the “formal written mutual aid agreement” that ties fire departments in Putnam County together. MABAS enables secure and reliable communications about how much aid (how many departments; how many pumpers, tankers, etc.) is needed at a particular fire scene. It is also said to provide the legal basis for a fire department to fight fires (and thus risking its personnel and equipment) outside its formal jurisdictional area. MABAS was founded in the Chicago area in 1968, and fire departments in about a half-dozen Midwestern states, including Indiana, now use it.
No treatment of fire protection in Putnam County can ignore the prominent and central role that the City of Greencastle Fire Department plays in fighting fires in Greencastle, in the central parts of the county and sometimes in more distant places in the county.
Why is the Greencastle Fire Department so important? Because the Greencastle Fire Department is the only professional local government fire department in the county. And by “professional” I don’t mean that dedicated volunteer firefighters that staff the other 11 volunteer fire departments in the county are not well-trained and capable firefighters.
Instead, “professional” here is meant to convey that the Greencastle fire department is the only one of the 11 local government fire departments in the county that has salaried firefighters on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The 12th fire department in the county is the Putnamville Correctional Facility Fire Department, an essentially volunteer fire department that also participates in the county-wide MABAS system.
The Greencastle Fire Department generally has newer and better equipment than the 11 volunteer fire departments in the county. Moreover, as already noted, several Greencastle firefighters are on duty 24 hours, 365 days a year.
The Greencastle Fire Department’s annual budget — projected to be roughly $3.5 million in the current year, which amounts to about 22 percent of the city’s entire 2024 budget — is probably significantly greater than the budgets of all the other fire departments in the county combined. Relatedly, it’s no wonder that volunteer fire departments around the county regularly hold fundraising breakfasts and dinners to try to make ends meet. In February and March, the Banner Graphic reported fire department fund-raisers in Bainbridge, Russellville, Fillmore and Reelsville.
Most, if not all, of Greencastle’s 17 full-time and seven part-time paid firefighters have had previous experience as volunteer firefighters. And some of them continue to serve as volunteer firefighters in their home communities while working as salaried employees of the Greencastle Fire Department. A February Banner Graphic story (“Bryan set on restructuring Clinton VFD,” Feb. 27) noted that the newly-appointed chief of the Clinton Township Fire Department, a resident of Clinton Township and a former Russellville Volunteer Fire Department member, has for nearly three years been a salaried, full-time Greencastle firefighter. And a mid-April story noted that the newest full-time Greencastle firefighter has been a member of the Coatesville Volunteer Fire Department since 2021 (“Ben Fiest sworn in as newest GFD firefighter,” April 16).
Some of Putnam County’s 13 townships, instead of funding their own township volunteer fire department, contract with a neighboring local government to provide fire coverage. For example, the Township of Greencastle pays the City of Greencastle Fire Department about $50,000 a year to provide fire protection. Meanwhile, Clinton and Monroe townships, including the Town of Bainbridge, have combined to form the Big Walnut Creek Fire District, which provides fire protection for both townships and also allows for somewhat higher fire protection tax rates.
The six municipalities in the county, as has been noted in a previous column, provide services not available to those living outside their boundaries. While only one municipality — the City of Greencastle — has full-time salaried firefighters, Greencastle and the other five municipalities each provide fire hydrants. These are no small help in fighting fires. Without them, fire engines or “tankers” need to transport water to fire sites unless a suitable body of water happens to be located nearby.
To return to a point made earlier, firefighting and associated “rescue services” can be — and sometimes are — life-saving (not to mention property-saving) services for the individuals being served. The 12 fire departments of Putnam County’s six municipalities and 13 townships (and one correctional facility) work together to provide this critically important government service to residents of the county.