{"id":27427,"date":"2025-07-07T12:58:30","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:58:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=27427"},"modified":"2025-07-07T12:58:31","modified_gmt":"2025-07-07T16:58:31","slug":"geimer-ends-30-years-with-local-fd","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/07\/07\/geimer-ends-30-years-with-local-fd\/","title":{"rendered":"Geimer ends 30 years with local FD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A veteran Decatur firefighter has stepped down, leaving yet another vacancy in the city’s paid-on-call (POC) ranks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim Geimer, whose firefighter roots are deep, recently ended a 30-year tenure with the Decatur Fire Department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt’s time for the younger guys to take over,\u201d he told WZBD.com. \u201cI\u2019m gonna start monitoring my oldest son, who is also a full-time fireman in the suburb of South Bend \u2026 and also play with the grandkids more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to his son, Dakota, a member of the Clay Fire Territory north of South Bend, Tim’s father, Roger Geimer, is on the Akeley Fire Department in Minnesota \u2013 after serving 18 years as a firefighter in Decatur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tim recalls, \u201cI started going to the fire department when I was in kindergarten; I would go with my father who was on the department.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More family is involved in the profession as son-in-law Alex Burkhart is a member of the Bluffton Fire Department and also is with the Monroe volunteer department.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In addition to Dakota, Tim and his wife, Ann, have two other children: Kaitlen and Trent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

FOUR OPENINGS:<\/strong> Decatur’s ranks of paid-on-calls is now four short of a full complement of 25.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Applications have been taken in recent weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can’t say enough about these guys,\u201d Mayor Dan Rickord said at a city council meeting when Geimer’s retirement was announced. \u201cThey show up to everything, they show up all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, he added, \u201cThey’re getting harder to find.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s why the city recently reduced the age limit to 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Fire Chief Jeff Sheets, POCs are paid $18.65 for the first hour of response to an incident, then, $15.22 for each additional hour. Special responses and scheduled monthly training are compensated at the rate of $15.22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The POCs receive all personnel protective fire equipment, an on-the-job personal injury policy, and a bi-annual fuel and clothing allowance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com A veteran Decatur firefighter has stepped down, leaving yet another vacancy in the city’s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27428,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-27427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Tim-Geimer-at-fire.jpg?fit=404%2C696&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27427"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27430,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27427\/revisions\/27430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}