{"id":38050,"date":"2026-08-08T14:37:03","date_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:37:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/?p=38050"},"modified":"2026-08-08T14:37:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-08T18:37:04","slug":"decatur-fd-eyes-return-to-full-staff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/2026\/08\/08\/decatur-fd-eyes-return-to-full-staff\/","title":{"rendered":"Decatur FD eyes return to full staff"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>By BOB SHRALUKA<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>WZBD.com<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Decatur Fire Department is moving toward the addition of two firefighters, which would return it to full capacity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Fire Chief Jeff Sheets told city council at its latest meeting that two candidates are awaiting the results of their physical testing by the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">If both pass, they will then need to get through some state requirements for PERF (Public Employee&#8217; Retirement Fund).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"472\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MBB-Web-Ad-2025.png?resize=640%2C472&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-27688\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MBB-Web-Ad-2025.png?w=1007&amp;ssl=1 1007w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MBB-Web-Ad-2025.png?resize=300%2C221&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/MBB-Web-Ad-2025.png?resize=768%2C567&amp;ssl=1 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The two \u2013 unnamed until they fulfill all the requirements \u2013 remain from an original field of 18 candidates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The local department has lost five full-time (or career) fighters since early August of last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those who have left have taken higher-paying positions with departments in Allen County.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When fully staffed, the Decatur FD has nine full-time (or career) firefighters, plus Chief Sheets and Deputy Chief Chad Baumann.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The paid-on-call force is fully staffed with 25 men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By BOB SHRALUKA WZBD.com The Decatur Fire Department is moving toward the addition of two firefighters, which would<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":27154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5],"tags":[14,15,21],"class_list":["post-38050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-decatur","tag-featured","tag-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/wzbd.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Decatur-firefighter.jpg?fit=1274%2C1403&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38050","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38050"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38050\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38051,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38050\/revisions\/38051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wzbd.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}