{"id":35273,"date":"2026-03-22T10:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=35273"},"modified":"2026-03-22T10:52:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T14:52:10","slug":"decatur-fd-loses-another-full-timer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/22\/decatur-fd-loses-another-full-timer\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur FD loses another full-timer"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Decatur Fire Department has lost another of its full-time staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dominick Brown resigned from the Decatur force to join the West Central Fire District in Allen County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The local department has lost five full-time (or career) fighters since early August of last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"479\" height=\"378\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/decatur-fire-department-1.jpg?resize=479%2C378&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32081\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/decatur-fire-department-1.jpg?w=479&amp;ssl=1 479w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/decatur-fire-department-1.jpg?resize=300%2C237&amp;ssl=1 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 479px) 100vw, 479px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Brown, who had been a member of the Monroe Volunteer Fire Department, joined the Decatur department in December of 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city&#8217;s board of works and safety, at its latest meeting, gave Chief Jeff Sheets permission to hire two new firefighters as the department was already one short.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When fully staffed, the Decatur FD has nine full-time firefighters, plus Chief Sheet and Deputy Chief Chad Baumann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The paid-on-call force is fully staffed with 25 men.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The West Central District district provides fire protection to unincorporated Aboite and Lake townships in Allen County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The district, one of four in mostly rural Allen County, was established on December 16, 2022.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The Decatur Fire Department has lost another of its full-time staff. Dominick Brown resigned<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":32081,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,21],"class_list":["post-35273","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/decatur-fire-department-1.jpg?fit=479%2C378&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273","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=35273"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35274,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35273\/revisions\/35274"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35273"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35273"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35273"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}