In addition, increased traffic has contributed to reduced response times. The National Fire Protection Association sets a standard of four minutes or less, and 90 percent of Midland Fire Department calls met that standard when the last major study was done in 2007.

Today, the department response time is in the six- to 12-minute range, the chief said.

The 2007 study offered three options, and Coughlin said his recommendation is the option to build a new, fourth fire station in the northeast quadrant of the city and to relocate Fire Station No. 1, which would bring 89 percent of the coverage area within the four-minute response time range.

He envisions the new station would be in the "Waldo corridor." The cost of this option is estimated at $8 million to $10 million for the new station and relocation of Station No. 1, plus the cost of the land and the ongoing cost of operations.

While he believes the fundamentals of the 2007 study remain valid, Coughlin noted that its options "were formulated prior to the growth explosion north of U.S. 10." He pointed out that a study done in the late 1990s also found a need for a new, fourth station in Midland's northeast quadrant.

A new station would have five bays and would include administrative office space and a training center. He noted that the Midland Fire Department has already become something of a magnet for training as budget-strapped departments in Saginaw and Bay City have eliminated such offerings for firefighters from other departments.

The fire chief recommended that, "at a minimum," the city should be scouting out possible sites for a new station.

It was manufactured in 2000 and was purchased from the Salem Fire Department, in Kenosha County. According to Fire Chief Mike Romsos, the tanker will be safer to use than the one it will replace. The old truck is equipped with what used to be a bulk tank on a milk truck. The new vehicle tank is equipped with baffles that won’t let water "slosh around" when the brakes are applied, he said. The truck has a lower center of gravity, making it safer to drive, Romsos said

One of those crashes involved the Worcester fire truck. Deputy Chief John F. Sullivan said Engine 2 was struck while performing a vital duty: acting as a buffer 400 feet behind another fire truck that was responding to a crash. 

"It performed exactly the way it was supposed to perform," Deputy Chief Sullivan said of the safety system, which is recommended by national first responder safety guidelines.

First responders are killed every year while tending to highway crashes, Deputy Chief Sullivan said. In this case, the driver of the buffer fire truck - the sole occupant of the vehicle - is expected to be OK after being taken to the hospital for back and neck pain.

Deputy Chief Sullivan said state police are investigating what led to the crash.

 

That means the firefighters can enter a smoke-filled room and scan it for sources of heat — coming from a person or a flame — and still have their hands free to handle equipment or make a rescue.

Neither the self-contained breathing apparatus nor the thermal imaging camera is new; the HFD has been using both for years. But the camera built into the mask has been on the market only since April. Albertson bought 15 of them last fall, enough for about half of the city’s firefighters. If they work out like he thinks they will, he plans to buy more for the rest of the department.

Firefighters have already used the combination mask/camera at one house fire.

“They knew no one was in the house,” Albertson says. “But when they walked in and looked around the room, they could see exactly where the fire was and put the fire out.”

Seeing a fire isn’t always as easy as it sounds.

“It will get so black and smoky you can literally put your hand in front of your face and you can’t see it,” the chief says.

A high-powered flashlight will light up an area about two to three feet in front of the firefighter, he says, but the thermal imaging camera gives the firefighter a view of heat sources in the entire room.

A stand-alone thermal imaging camera is large and occupies the firefighter’s hands. The new Scott Sight camera fits inside the breathing mask without obstructing the firefighter’s natural view. The dual-purpose equipment replaces air packs that were more than a decade old and becoming obsolete.