Lieberg, 47, of St. Joseph is director of surveying at Wightman & Associates, based in Benton Township. He credits his employer for letting him leave work to answer fire calls during the day, a time when when most fire departments struggle to get enough responders.

Lieberg recently was chosen by his peers to be the Royalton Township Fire Department’s firefighter of the year. Herald-Palladium Staff Writer Julie Swidwa caught up with Lieberg at the fire station on East John Beers Road.

How much time do you devote to this?

As a lieutenant now, I would say I average four to six hours a week. There’s a certain amount of mandatory training to keep up with your certifications. We also have a department policy that we want to respond to a certain percentage of the calls. It’s part of my service.

I volunteer to do this, so when I get a call I treat it as if it were my own house, and I respond to the calls.

It helps that I have an employer that will let me leave for calls during the day. That’s nice from an employee perspective that they respect the community enough to allow us to leave. Some guys have jobs that are outside the area, or their employers won’t let them leave to go to calls. I have a pager, and if I get a call while I’m at work I can get up, get in my car, leave, drive here and get on a truck and help out.

After analyzing the information, the firm will make recommendations about improving and sustaining system operations. Then it would be up to officials and fire chiefs to implement the recommendations.

Our firefighters respond when they’re called, any time of the day or night, with the best technology and equipment they can get their hands on. While conscious of the expense to taxpayers, we still always want the firefighting arsenal to be the best available.

But firefighters face many challenges these days, the Journal reported. Fire-service areas and tax bases have been affected by annexations, consolidations and the recession, which in turn affects the fire system’s budget.