If a fire breaks out this coming weekend somewhere in the unorganized townships around Greaney, Silverdale, and Rauch, Barry Polich and Dennis Udovich won’t be rushing to the rescue one more time.
Someone else will have to answer the call, because the Greaney-Rauch-Silverdale Fire Department, a stalwart in the area since 1983, is shutting down operations on Friday, a reluctant casualty of changing times and changing demographics in a sparsely-populated region of the county.
“There are less and less people who live in the community,” said Polich, the department’s chief. “There’s hardly any young people left here coming up. We’re all getting older, like Dennis and I. We’d love to see it continue to go, but I don’t see anybody left here to step up.”
Unlike many other departments in the area, the GRSFD has been a subscription-based service, with property owners paying an annual fee to fund department operations.