Saint Cloud Fire Department Success Benefits Home and Business Owners

Saint Cloud, MN, USA / KNSI

Apr 4, 2022 | 4:57 PM

Photo taken by Jake Judd (KNSI News)

(KNSI) — Having the area’s only full-time fire department is paying off for homeowners and businesses in the city. Insurance companies routinely audit departments on a variety of measures. Those that score well help lower rates for private and commercial buildings, says Fire Chief Matt Love.

“Everything from fire station proximities, the water system, communications system and dispatch, training standards, all of that. We get audited every so often to see how we’re performing in that area.”

The audits measure each benchmark on a scale of 1-9 with one being the most favorable. In 2020, each of the department’s five stations responded to calls in 6:34 or less.

Being surrounded by on-call departments, St. Cloud Fire has to wisely allocate resources. Battalion chiefs are trained on how to determine when mutual aid is required. Love explains some of the criteria.

“We have certain benchmarks we want to meet. Everything from searching the structure, putting out the fire, ventilating the fire, all of these things. So, if that incident commander, usually a battalion chief, if they have covered all those things and the resources still aren’t available, that’s their trigger to call for additional resources. It’s ‘this complex of an incident calls for more resources.'”

St. Cloud Fire has 70 employees in total. Chief Love took over in December, coming to the Granite City from Fort Myers, Florida.

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