{"id":31177,"date":"2025-12-05T05:40:19","date_gmt":"2025-12-05T10:40:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=31177"},"modified":"2025-12-05T05:40:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-05T10:40:21","slug":"decatur-fd-nearing-full-strength","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/05\/decatur-fd-nearing-full-strength\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur FD nearing full strength"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<br><\/strong><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Slowly, but steadily, the Decatur Fire Department is working its way back to full strength in personnel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After being given permission to make a hire to fill the paid-on-call staff, Fire Jeff Sheets told city council on Tuesday that the department now has a pair of candidates for the two openings within the full-time, or career, group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The board of safety approved the addition of Brad Roe, the city&#8217;s assistant building\/zoning superintendent, to the paid-on-call staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image alignleft size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"228\" height=\"499\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-2.jpg?resize=228%2C499&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-31178\" style=\"width:177px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-2.jpg?w=228&amp;ssl=1 228w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/unnamed-2.jpg?resize=137%2C300&amp;ssl=1 137w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 228px) 100vw, 228px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Roe<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>That brings it to a full complement of 25 firefighters who are paid for each fire to which they respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The two candidates for full-time roles have passed physical agility testing and background checks and gone through interviews. They now only need to get through some state requirements for PERF (Public Employee&#8217; Retirement Fund).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There were 11 applicants at the start of the process. That number was trimmed to six and now to two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If approved for PERF, the two will bring the department back to full strength: nine career firefighters, Deputy Chief Chad Baumann, and Chief Sheets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The department lost a third of its staff in late July when three firefighters resigned to join the Northwest Fire District in Allen County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Preston Bemis was added to the staff on Sept. 1.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKAWZBD.com Slowly, but steadily, the Decatur Fire Department is working its way back to full strength<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320,"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-31177","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\/2023\/04\/photoless-header-template-news.jpg?fit=252%2C144&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31177","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=31177"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31179,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31177\/revisions\/31179"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}