Austintown, Cardinal OK mutual fire aid

By Elise Franco | February 25, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

Canfield Fire Chief Robert Tieche

An agreement between Austintown Fire Department and Cardinal Joint Fire District calls for automatic mutual aid at structure fires.

Chief Robert Tieche, of the Cardinal Joint District in Canfield, said the agreement went into effect Feb. 1 and will not only help both departments run more efficiently but also help keep Insurance Services Office ratings down.

“The cooperation of all the different departments together becomes critical dealing with manpower situations on the first alarm,” Tieche said.

He said the departments previously had mutual-aid agreements in place, but they were not automatic, which causes delays in response time.

“Now, on the initial alarm we will call the departments in that area automatically,” he said. “It’s not on a second request after someone arrives on the scene.”

Assistant Austintown Fire Chief Andy Frost III said a township’s ISO rating is important because the more compliance a township shows, the better the insurance rates for residents.

“By putting more firefighters at scenes, it will help the rating,” he said. “The National Firefighters Protection Administration sets down guidelines of how many [firefighters] need to be at a scene. This agreement helps us get to the number without costing additional salary.”

Tieche said automatic-aid agreements also affect ISO scores.

“They look at that, and it can help lower the ratings the communities have,” he said. “It reduces homeowners insurance, so it benefits not only the [fire] departments, but the residents as well.”

Frost said the agreement works the same for both departments, and the department called in as backup will start out on the scene as a safety team.

“If we don’t have enough guys then they’ll come in and be a part of our team,” he said. “Our departments already work very well together.”

Tieche said the automatic agreements won’t interfere with the departments’ ability to respond to their own fires.

“Of course we have the responsibility of taking care of our own districts,” he said. “We can always call our guys back if there is something going on in our community.”

He said Canfield also secured agreements with Beaver, Green, Boardman and Ellsworth townships. Austintown is working on an agreement with Weathersfield Township, Frost said.