Fire departments in Grand Traverse County likely won't get pro bono help from neighboring departments in the future.
The board for Grand Traverse Metro Fire Department approved a policy to begin charging neighboring fire departments between $1,000 and $5,000 for every two-hour stint a Metro fire truck spends responding to a fire outside the boundaries of the member townships of Acme, East Bay, and Garfield. The decision to charge was triggered by the disparity between the 25 times Metro gave support to surrounding fire departments during the past year compared to the five times it received aid.
"Mutual aid is exactly that, if we give you aid we can expect aid in return," said Metro Fire Chief Pat Parker. "But as you can see from the numbers, we really haven't had that."
Grand Traverse County operates on what's known as a box-response system where the county is divided into 80 geographic boxes and fire department response is assigned in advance based on the severity of each incident. The initial call triggers a first alarm. Larger fires that require more resources would escalate the event to a second, third, or fourth alarm.