The Columbia Fire Department and Boone County Fire Protection District have worked together for decades to respond to calls along the corridors of Interstate 70 and U.S. 63. Now, they want to formalize the agreement.
A verbal agreement regarding automatic aid has both city and county firefighters responding to all calls in the designated areas. This way, calls will be answered as quickly as possible, no matter who arrives first, Brad Fraizer, Columbia Fire Department assistant chief, said.
“It’s very important in our line of work to get to a scene as soon as possible,” Fraizer said. “We don’t want to take a chance, so we send both.”
The agreement allows better access to accidents on the highways, said Gale Blomenkamp, Boone County Fire Protection District assistant chief. If there’s traffic backed up in one direction, one fire team may be able to reach the accident from a different direction than the other, he said.