{"id":36522,"date":"2026-05-11T11:56:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:56:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=36522"},"modified":"2026-05-11T11:56:42","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:56:42","slug":"decatur-fd-has-18-applicants-2-openings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/decatur-fd-has-18-applicants-2-openings\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur FD has 18 applicants, 2 openings"},"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, looking to get back to full strength in personnel, currently has 18 candidates for two openings on its full-time staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That is an unusually high number of applicants for the department, which has lost five full-time (or career) firefighters since August of last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those who have left have taken higher-paying positions with departments in Allen County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fire Chief Jeff Sheets told Decatur&#8217;s board of works and safety at its meeting Tuesday night that the 18 applicants were scheduled for agility testing last Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"632\" height=\"740\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jeff-Sheets-8-5-25-1.jpg?resize=632%2C740&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-36523\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jeff-Sheets-8-5-25-1.jpg?w=632&amp;ssl=1 632w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Jeff-Sheets-8-5-25-1.jpg?resize=256%2C300&amp;ssl=1 256w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 632px) 100vw, 632px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\"><em>Fire Chief Jeff Sheets<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The latest full-time (or career) hires were Jeremy Jones and Jacob Baumann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The chief also has the okay from the board to begin the process to hire a paid-on-call firefighter. There is one opening on that staff.<\/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>TO ADD CHAPLAIN: Chief Sheets was also given a green light to add a chaplain to the department, something it has not had in 15 or so years, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone is interested in the position, he noted, and the person is not a firefighter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It would be an unpaid position, the chief said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>NEW TRUCK SOON: The fire chief informed the board that he would lead a contingent from the department to travel to Appleton, Wisconsin, on May 18-19 for a final inspection of the department&#8217;s new fire truck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It will arrive in Decatur soon after and, \u201conce we get equipment moved over and some training, we should have it in service in two to three weeks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The Decatur Fire Department, looking to get back to full strength in personnel, currently<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":36523,"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-36522","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\/2026\/05\/Jeff-Sheets-8-5-25-1.jpg?fit=632%2C740&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36522","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=36522"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36522\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36524,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36522\/revisions\/36524"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36523"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36522"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36522"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36522"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}